her husband has left her

Dear Suzie,
im looking for advice on a book i want to get for my sister in law. she has been as she thought happily married for 35 years and has reared 3 wonderful children, now all in their 30’s and she discovered that her husband has been having an affair for the past 5 years,.
he has now moved out and she is left alone and insecure, blaming herself and having a problem letting go of the past and moving on. im wondering if you could recommend a good book i could send her
thankyou

Poor you and poor her – what an awful thing to discover. And of course it will have been such a blow to her self confidence and esteem, leaving her feeling at fault and finding it so hard to move on. How lucky she is, however, in having a loving and supportive sister in law, and children who while still needing to love their Dad – because whatever he has done to her he is still their Dad – will stand by and boost her.

If she is your sister in law, btw, does that mean she is married to your brother or is the sister of your husband? Either way, it makes it hard that you or your husband might rightly still feel a tie to the offending man. It is important in such situations to recognise you can abhor the behaviour while still loving the person! You and those kids need to go on loving and seeing their dad, and the granddad of their own kids, whatever silly and hurtful behaviour he might have committed. Remind her that even if he has betrayed her over the last 5 years and now moved out, that does not negate the previous 30 years nor take away the happy times they had.

I do indeed have a book to suggest and it’s one I wrote myself. “Moving On – how to break up without breaking down” is available from amazon – follow the link on the Books page and do give it to her with my very best wishes. It’s a tough situation to be in, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, tell her.

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