I am pulling this from your other thread so everyone can have a true picture.
Wife and I went through a year separation after a short affair by me. Our marriage wasn't very healthy before. The affair really crushed my wife, and she's having trouble getting past it. I'm not pressuring her to do so, I want her to heal but at her own pace. Any women out there who've been through this - how much time went by after initial reconciliation before you felt better? It's hard on both of us, but I very much want for her to be happy and self-confident again.
In your mind, what was unhealthy about the marriage before? What does she say about that?
Just so you are well aware, you shouldn't pressure her. She needs to heal at her own pace and in some cases the betrayed spouse never heals, at least not fully. The time varies with the person but I have heard around here 2 to 5 years. I am currently at year 12. My W still triggers on occasion and we work through them.
We love each other, but she mostly just wants reassurance that I'm not that guy anymore and that I won't hurt her in that way again.
As far as what did we do to get closer? We spent a lot of time together, time with our children, time travelling and enjoying each other's company.
You want to know what if anything there is that you can do to make her the happy, self-confident woman she was before. The answer to that is pretty much nothing except work to build up trust. The burden of becoming happy and self-confident is unfortunately primarily on her.
We did the IC/MC, date nights, late night talks, hysterical bonding...etc. and those maybe helped a little. But I think what did the most for her was probably going back to school and finishing up her degree, getting a 2nd degree, volunteering at our kid's school; mostly things she accomplished on her own and felt good about.
I helped her where I could, showed her I cared, worked on the trust issues and tried not to mess up too bad hurting her feelings.
We spent time together doing things together, but time apart too doing things that were healthy for us individually.
I am not so sure that going out drinking alone on Saturday nights would qualify as healthy though. Not for you and not for the marriage.