When your husband cheats, it can feel like the end of the world. The relationship that you have given so much to is crumbling all around you, your trust is violated and your self-esteem in tatters. Above all, you feel more anger and grief than you know how to deal with. Images keep flashing in your head of the 2 of them together and you doubt that normality can ever be restored. It is a traumatic period and you want comfort. You want answers. But he doesn't want to talk about it. Perhaps you have not had so much as an apology. If you are feeling broken by a relationship that has been devastated by an affair, then how do you cope? Where do you go from here? How can you even start to rebuild a shattered relationship when the communication lines are closed?

If your spouse is showing no remorse then you are going to wonder how on earth you can ever work things out. He obviously has so little regard for your feelings and emotions. It's bad enough that he cheated but this is adding insult to injury. Well there may be different reasons why he is not prepared to open up to you. He may feel ashamed of what he has done or he may feel justified. However, it would be rare that he genuinely doesn't care. It is probably hard for him to deal with the guilt that he feels and to admit this openly and honestly. Men often feel helpless when confronted with a woman's pain and emotions. Your displays of hurt and grief, and his anticipation of your negative reactions may render him paralysed in the area of communication.

Whilst you deserve a full apology and demonstration of remorse for the betrayal of your trust and violation of your relationship, this may not happen until things have moved further along. Your forgiveness of the situation may be crucial to getting through it to a place where you can start to communicate again. The best thing that you can do initially is to put yourself first. Look after yourself, allow yourself some time to grieve and heal. This involves feeling, acknowledging and accepting your pain, but also acknowledging your own inner strength and your choice of how to feel and how to respond. When you are feeling stronger is the time to start talking. While you have the urge to cry, scream or shout every time you look at or talk to him, he will find it difficult to open up to you in any way. However justified you feel, blaming him outright will make him defensive and closed off. It will not open the communication gates and you will find it difficult to progress further.

Holding on to the blame and judgement that you feel will not help you to repair your relationship and can make you ill. Although it is difficult to let it go, you need to hear and try to understand his point of view. When you are open to hearing this calmly, he will probably be able to start communicating and you may receive your apology. However, although you think that hearing "I'm sorry" would be an enormous step forward, in reality, it is not going to be enough and your husband is probably well aware of this fact. An apology will not come anywhere near to making amends, although you may think that it would be a start.

What you are really looking for is acknowledgment of the hurt caused and trust broken; to hear that he regrets the situation, feels guilt, and acknowledges your pain. You want to hear that you are the most important thing in his life and he will do anything to put your relationship back together again. Perhaps you want him to take responsibility for your bad feelings and the devastation of your marriage. Without talking to him and listening to him you won't be able to understand. He may be holding resentment towards you for the way the relationship has gone. If you want to get your marriage back on track you are going too have to suspend your judgement at least long enough to listen to his side of the story.

If you don't get your apology and he still fails to show remorse, then perhaps it won't be possible to repair your relationship. If your husband does not feel remorse, then he will have no problem committing the same again and it would probably be unwise to continue under the circumstances. What you need to realise is that you cannot control someone else's actions. The only things you are in control of are your interpretation of his actions, and your own reactions. Only you can decide whether his remorse is genuine. Only you can decide whether your relationship is worth saving, and whether you will ever be able to forgive him or trust him again.