173. When Your Partner Still Has Feelings for Their Affair Partner

What do you do when your partner says they want to rebuild the marriage, but they're still having feelings for the affair partner? When you're trying to move forward, but you're constantly reminded that you're not the centre of their emotional world?

In this episode, I respond to a deeply vulnerable message from a listener navigating this exact scenario. Her husband is in therapy, doing the work, and says he wants to stay, yet he still carries feelings for the woman he had an affair with. This is a brutal and often misunderstood stage of betrayal recovery.

Together, we unpack the emotional reality, the psychological complexity, and how to protect yourself from ongoing harm while deciding what’s right for you.

Key Takeaways:

• Why your emotional pain is valid, even when your partner is "just processing"

• The dangerous myth that growth justifies the affair partner’s importance

• How internal processing can become a shared emotional burden

• Practical language for setting boundaries around emotional detachment

• Why self-preservation isn’t selfish, but necessary for reconciliation

💬 Reflection Question:

Have you ever felt like you're competing with a ghost?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 173.

Today's episode comes from a listener message that I received recently and it speaks to a very specific, very painful stage of recovery that often doesn't get talked about. So let's begin. I'm going to paraphrase rather than read the entire message but I want you to hear at least the essence of it.

So a woman, one year after discovery, almost two decades married. Her partner has had multiple affairs over a number of years. She and her husband are both in individual therapy and they want to stay together.

She believes that he wants to change and that he's capable of it. She can see him doing the work but there's one part she doesn't quite know how to cope with. Her husband is still emotionally detaching from his most significant affair partner.

He's had no contact for a number of months but they work together and they still see each other occasionally on work trips. After one of these specific trips she discovered a letter that he had written to the affair partner. He says it was never meant to be sent, it was just a way of him processing his thoughts.

The letter talks about missing her, thinking about her daily, grieving the loss, describing the relationship as special and saying that she was the catalyst for his growth. And now the betrayed partner is left holding a brutal reality, trying to heal a marriage while knowing her husband is still grieving another woman. And her words were simple and devastating.

It feels awful. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Firstly, if this is you, I want to say something very clearly, very early.

There is nothing wrong with you for finding this unbearable. This isn't jealousy, this isn't insecurity, this isn't you being behind in healing. This is a deep nervous system injury being repeatedly reopened.

Because while your partner may be processing internally, you are being asked to coexist with evidence that you are not the emotional centre of their world. And that hurts in a way that frankly is quite hard to put into words. We need to talk honestly here, without cruelty, without minimising.

Affairs that involve emotional attachment do not shut off cleanly, especially when the affair lasted a long time or it provided emotional regulation. Perhaps it offered validation or escape. And naturally it existed alongside secrecy and fantasy.

From the unfaithful partner's perspective, there is often a withdrawal process. But the crucial distinction is that something being psychologically understandable does not make it relationally harmless. And this is where many betrayed partners get gaslit, even if it's sometimes unintentionally.

Writing letters, replaying memories, grieving the good parts, attributing growth to the affair partner, all of this can be framed as, I'm just working through old emotions so I can let go. And internally that may be true, but relationally it creates a second injury. Because what the betrayed partner hears is, she mattered.

You're sharing space with a ghost. I'm asking you to tolerate my grief for someone else. This is not neutral, it is not benign, and it is not something you should have to swallow quietly in the name of reconciliation.

The betrayed partner is often told, implicitly or explicitly, that this is part of the process. Healing takes time. Feelings don't just switch off.

You need to be patient. And again, none of that is technically incorrect, but it misses something quite important. You're not just witnessing a process, you're inside it.

And that means that your nervous system, your dignity, and your emotional safety matter as well. Reconciliation is not, I heal while you detach. It is, we move forward without me being repeatedly re-traumatised.

A crucial distinction here that I'd like you to hold on to is that there is internal processing and there is shared emotional burden. Not everything your partner processes internally is something that you should be asked to carry. Writing letters to the affair partner, even unsent ones, can sit in very grey areas.

For some couples it may be part of therapy, carefully contained, time-limited, and not shared. For others, it crosses a line because it keeps the affair emotionally alive. If you're listening and thinking, I don't know how I'm supposed to be okay with this, then that's not a failure of compassion, it's information.

This is one of the most painful lines for betrayed partners to hear, so let's unpack it slowly and carefully. People often attribute growth to the most emotionally intense experience in their recent memory. But intensity is not causation.

The affair partner didn't create the growth, the crisis did. Confrontation with consequences did. The collapse of an old identity did.

The fear of loss did. And it's worth saying it quite plainly, if the affair had never been discovered, this growth likely wouldn't be happening. So when an unfaithful partner frames the affair partner as the catalyst, it may feel meaningful to them.

But it lands as erasure to the betrayed spouse, and that matters. If you are in this position, you are allowed to say things like, I understand your processing, but I can't be the container for your grief over her. Knowing that you're still emotionally attached is destabilising for me.

I'm willing to support your growth, but not at the cost of my emotional safety. I need clearer boundaries about how this is to be handled. This is not controlling, it's not punitive, it's self-preservation.

A boundary is not, you're not allowed to feel this. A boundary is, I can't move forward while being exposed to this level of emotional attachment. That may mean clearer no-contact parameters, therapy-guided containment for processing, transparency without graphic detail, or revisiting whether reconciliation is possible right now.

And yes, sometimes, it means recognising that the timing is wrong. That doesn't mean you failed, it just means that you listened to yourself. I want to name this bind clearly, because many people feel ashamed for being in it.

On one side, you want to honour your partner's growth, you don't want to police their feelings, you don't want to be that person. But on the other side, you're being asked to coexist with pain that directly undermines your sense of safety. There's no perfect way through this, but there is a way that doesn't require self-abandonment.

You are not unreasonable for wanting to be the emotional priority in a marriage that is supposedly being rebuilt. You are not weak for finding this excruciating, and you are not obligated to be endlessly understanding while your own wounds remain open. Reconciliation is not measured by how much pain you can tolerate, it's measured by whether both people are becoming safer to be with.

If this episode resonates, I want you to hear this. You are allowed to take your time, you are allowed to ask for more, and you are allowed to decide that something is too much, even if it makes sense on paper. Healing doesn't require you to carry somebody else's unfinished grief, and wanting to feel chosen fully, clearly, and presently is not too much to ask.

If you're navigating reconciliation and feeling stuck in this exact space where your partner's process is colliding with your pain, support can help you sort what's yours to hold and what isn't. You can learn more about working with me at LifeCoachLuke.com or reach out directly to Luke at LifeCoachLuke.com. You don't have to figure this out alone. I'll talk to you soon.