Infidelity was like a bolt of lightning

Li, a woman from Shanghai who preferred not to give her full name, has been married for 16 years. Last year, she discovered that her husband was having an affair.

We were a model couple in our friends' eyes: we have a smart son, we have good relations with our parents on both sides, and we are well-off. When I got a phone call from a young woman one day last year, claiming she had been with my husband for three years, it was like being struck by a lightning bolt.

My husband and I both own companies, and we spent too little time together. Sometimes we couldn't even get to see each other once a month.

I spoke with my husband immediately after the phone call. Neither of us had any idea how to handle the matter. I was furious, but looking back on the nearly 20 years since we began our relationship and having worked so hard jointly to establish a family, I didn't want to lose everything, so we turned to marriage counseling.

Without the counseling, I believe I would have fallen into a long period of despair and self-abandonment, raising hell with my husband and fighting the third woman, even though I know impulsive behavior is not the best way of handling things.

However, through constant care and meetings, both face to face and via WeChat (a popular instant-messaging platform), the counselors kept me emotionally stable and helped me face the incident with a calm mind.

They also talked with my husband and learned about his determination to spend the rest of his life with me. He said the other woman suffered money pressures living alone in Shanghai and regarded him as her financial support. With the help of the counselors, my husband ended his relationship with her and she left Shanghai.

I have seen big changes in my husband. One of his suggestions was that we should spend quality time together at a fixed time once a week, no matter how busy we are. That's something we have already started to do.

Li Spoke With Zhou Wenting