To the couple choosing each other again...

As the New Year begins, I want to honor something that most people around you might never see:

You have both survived a heartbreak that shatters most marriages… and you are still here, choosing each other– determined to have a marriage that is better than ever…

And that is 100% possible!

The affair may be part of your story, but it does not have to be the story of this new year.

This year can be different

This year doesn’t need to be about “getting back to normal.” It can be about creating something new:

• More honesty than you had before

• Deeper conversations than you used to have

• Clearer boundaries and shared agreements

• A relationship where hard things are faced, not hidden or avoided

  
  

Healing after betrayal is not about perfection.

It’s about showing up again and again in small ways:

• Answering questions with patience instead of defense, while working to release the questions altogether.

• Listening to pain without rushing to fix it, while releasing the pain permanently.

• Naming your own feelings instead of numbing or withdrawing.

• Reassuring, checking in, staying accountable.

• And finally, being SAFE, VULNERABLE, and PRESENT for one another.

Every time you do this, you’re laying one more brick in the foundation of trust.

A New Year check-in for the two of you

If it feels safe, use this week to sit together and share:

• One thing that still hurts or feels fragile for each of you, but that you are determined to heal

• One way you each feel more connected than you did before the affair

• One commitment you’re each willing to make for this year, and your plan for how you will keep it

Keep it simple. This isn’t about fixing everything in one talk—just taking one honest step forward.

From my heart: I see your effort, your courage, and your exhaustion.

You are not expected to “have it all together” yet, just keep putting in the effort to heal and connect.

You are allowed to move slowly.

You are allowed to have setbacks.

And you are absolutely allowed to build a relationship that feels more truthful, kinder, and more real than what you had before.

Here’s to a year of steady repair, softening nervous systems, and a deeper, truer love between you.

With so much love,

Shawn 🤍

About Dr. Shawn Haywood

Dr. Shawn Haywood is the founder of Reimagine Love. She is a classically trained therapist, as well as a life and marriage coach, who loves to work with women and couples to help them heal fully after an affair. Over the past 25 years, she has helped thousands of women move from the cycle of disconnect to one of unbreakable love and connection, while healing fully after infidelity, in a fraction of the time of traditional marriage counseling.

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