Other than restoring the trust, one of the biggest concerns that I hear from people who are trying to recover from their spouse's affair is their inability to feel desirable in their spouse's eyes.  They often see the affair or the cheating as a huge rejection and they can not help but personalize this.  In other words, they feel if they would desirable enough to keep their spouse interested, then the affair would not have happened.  Or, they wonder how their husband could see the hurried mom who's wearing jogging shorts and tennis shoes because she has to take the kids to soccer as even a close to comparison to the young, exciting thing dressed to the nines in the office.

I feel these concerns very deeply because I experienced them myself.  But, when I did, there was a lot that I did not understand about affairs, why they happen, and how to heal from them.  This knowledge eventually helped me to restore my self esteem over time – so much so that today, I'm more confident than I was when I first got married.  I'm not saying it was an easy journey.  But I am saying that it can be done.  And, I'm telling you that the effort is worth it.  No one deserves to life their life filled with self doubt and suspecting or fearing that they are second best.  So, in the following article, I will discuss feeling desirable after the affair in further detail.

Know That Your Self Confidence And Desirability Comes As Much From You As It Does From Your Spouse:  Here's something that you may not have considered.  Confidence is a huge turn on.  So, if you lack it, your spouse's lack of desire could be coming from you as much as it is coming from them.  Yes, this is sort of a catch 22.  Because, how on earth can be confident when your spouse has found someone else that he finds a bit more desirable (or so you think)?

Well, here's something else that you might not have considered.  Often, the affair has less to do with the other person's ability to have what you don't.  Often, it has more to do with the fact that this person is there and available at the precise time that your spouse is at their most vulnerable.  That's not to say that everything was perfect in your marriage.  Maybe it wasn't.  But, even the most beautiful woman in the world can suffer infidelity when their spouse struggles with aging, losing parents, feeling "less than" at home or at work, or is vulnerable because of other factors.  This doesn't mean that the husband does not find that beautiful woman every bit as desirable as he always did. 

What it does mean, though, is that at the time, he (or she) wasn't basing his decisions solely on his attraction to you.  I have countless men who write to me and tell me that their wives were drop dead gorgeous and still are.  And that, in fact, the person that they cheated with was downright plain or even ugly when compared with the wife.  There are other reasons that people cheat.  And it often has to do with how they perceive their own looks or attributes to be rather than how they evaluate yours.  You can't allow for something as arbitrary as this to cause you to waiver on what you think about yourself.

It is my experience that what we fear the most becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If we constantly ask our spouse if he thinks we're fat, eventually, even if we are no where close to being fat, he's going to think that our body could use some improvement.  If you look in the mirror and constantly draw his attention to your sagging skin, how can you blame him when he starts to notice it (even if he ultimately does not care?)

You are much better off removing his opinion from the equation right now.  What's most important is how YOU perceive yourself.  Because as I alluded to before, our partners so often follow our lead.  If we believe that we are the greatest thing since sliced bread, they probably will too.  But, here's the rub.  First, you have to REALLY believe this for yourself.

Believing That You Are Good Enough And That You Are Valuable And Unique:  Hopefully, you've begun to warm up the fact that your perceptions can cloud your partner's.  So, it's very important that you become clear on what is a true problem for you so that you can break the habit of being so hard on yourself.  If something truly bothers you and is holding you back, then by all means address or fix it.  You too deserve to be happy and to life without hesitation.  So, if you really do think that you have thunder thighs that gross him out or keep him from focusing on you and you can not change your thinking on this, then get a second, objective opinion and work on this if you need to.

For me, there were some issues that I was able to admit were just silly.  But some remained and those were the ones that I addressed.  These were things like my crooked teeth and my dry, peeling skin. These were doable fixes that helped to boost my confidence and I make no apologies for getting rid of these doubts.

Here's something else to consider.  You can not rush this.  If you do, you run the risk of the whole thing just feeling faked, forced, and awkward.  I have women who tell me that they feel like fraud who is just doing a really bad acting job.  You have to really and truly believe what you are projecting.  If you need help with this, get it.  You are worth it and you will learn and appreciate things from an entirely new perspective.  And, there is no one else on earth who is exactly like you or who brings exactly what you bring to the table.  If your husband can not see this, that's his problem.

However, it's much more likely that he was his own self worth issues that he was struggling with. He needed something to make him feel better about himself or to distract him from his fears and insecurities.  Knowing this, you really can't allow for someone else's own struggles to wrongly contribute to your own.

I know that restoring your self worth may feel a long way off, but don't give up. Although I never would've believed this two years ago, my marriage is stronger than ever after my husband's affair. It took a lot of work, and I had to play the game to win, but it was worth it. Because of all the work I did on myself, my self esteem is at an all time high. I no longer worry my husband will cheat again. You can read a very personal story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/