HOW TO REBUILD BROKEN TRUST

When someone you love betrays you, it can easily shatter the relationship. Here's how to decide if you want to mend it, and tips on how to go about it

- KESHIA AFRICA

SHE was paying the monthly bills when it happened.

“ I was searching for something relating to our finances that had been sent to his cellphone when I discovered text messages from another woman,” Tershia Cloete* says.

The shock she felt in that moment is something she’ll never forget.

“I scrolled through the messages and realised it had been going on for the past two years,” Tershia (35) says. “I was in complete disbelief.”

She confronted her husband who, despite the proof, initially denied it – but eventually admitted he’d been having an affair.

“It felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I was heartbroken. I started questioning his love for me.”

Tershia and her husband had known each other for four years before tying the knot, and had been married for seven years at that point. They’d navigated their fair share of relationship speedbumps, but nothing shook it as much as the affair.

In the year that followed, Tershia says their home was a warzone with one argument after another. They tried to weather the storm but eventually decided they needed to go to therapy to save their marriage.

It’s been two years since the infidelity and the couple are still together and in a much better place. “I took my time and didn’t rush the healing,” Tershia says. Leaving the relationship wasn’t an option for Tershia, but the betrayal forced her to reassess many things.

“I chose to stay because I still cared about him. We’d built so much together and I didn’t want to lose everything because he’d cheated on me.”