Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who are under the impression that their husband doesn’t care about their opinion after he has cheated or had an affair. In fact, they think that he could care less as to whether or not they have a very negative opinion about him and his actions.

You might hear a wife explain it this way: “when I caught my husband cheating on me, he was frankly indignant. He acted as if I was the one who did something wrong by snooping on him. He acted like he was the one who was being wronged, which only made me more furious at him. So, I started telling him how wretched I thought his actions were and how I thought only losers would lie to their spouses and cheat in the dark behind someone’s back like a coward. After these conversations, my husband always mutters something like: ‘I could care less what you think of me. Your opinion of me means absolutely nothing. I only care about my own feelings and my own happiness.’ Is he serious about this? Do men who cheat really not care what their wife thinks of them after an affair?”

Well, many husbands do attempt to make this claim. But, I believe that in many cases they do this because they are defensive. They often claim that they feel that they are being attacked so they are trying to defend themselves. I believe that some of them are trying to posture and have some influence over their position in their marriage. And I believe that some of them pretend to have this reaction because they are trying to bluff you out of continuing to verbally attack them or to question their character, no matter who justified this may feel at the time.

Admittedly, I am not a husband who has cheated. But I do hear from a lot of them on my blog. And many do express regret over their actions. Many do very much care what their wives think, especially once a little time has gone by. And I find this to be true even if the marriage ends. I’ve even had men tell me that although a lot of time has passed and both spouses have moved on with other people, they will always regret how they treated their spouse. They do have regret. Because I don’t know many people who can be proud of that type of betrayal and lies.

And let’s think of it another way. Think for a second about all of your long term relationships. Your family. Your closest friends. People who you grew up with. Your classmates since grade school. Do you care what these people think of you deep in your heart? Of course you do. Because they are long term fixtures in your life. You have likely been through both good times and bad times together. And they know you to your core. Sometimes, they know what you are thinking or feeling before you even share it. And this is why you care what they think. They know you. They know which behaviors are true to you and which are not.

Your marriage is likely the same way. Even if you and your spouse disagree about something or are having marital problems, you likely still care what he thinks of you in the same way that you would of any other long term relationship in your life. This is just human nature.

It is likely that your husband wishes that he didn’t care what you thought of him. But this likely isn’t reality. Probably, it is painful for him to realize how much he has hurt and disappointed you so he would rather pretend that he doesn’t care at all.

At the end of the day though, what matters more than what you think of his actions is to where you go from here. Because at some point, you have to go beyond both of your perceptions and feelings and you have to decide where you progress. I agree that you have every right to your opinion. And I had a strong opinion about my own husband’s behavior after his affair. I didn’t care if he agreed with my opinion. Frankly I didn’t care if he thought of my opinion at all. It wasn’t going to change either way.

Frankly, each spouse’s thoughts and feelings will always be up for debate. Emotions are high. You will likely disagree on many things right now. He may well think that you are wrong in your opinion of him and what he has done. But I doubt that he doesn’t care. And I also suspect that deep down, he shares some of your opinions.  That’s just my opinion though and obviously everyone has their own.

As I said, my opinion of my husband after his affair was at an all time low.  And I didn’t care if he agreed with me.  Eventually, as we rehabilitated our marriage, my opinion did change.  But I didn’t hold back in the beginning. If it helps, you’re welcome to read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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