Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who feel that they need to change in order for their husband to remain faithful.  This always concerns me because often the reasons that men cheat have nothing to do with their attraction to their wife.  Instead of it being about what is wrong with their wives, it is about what is wrong with them.

I heard from a wife who said: “I just found out that my husband has had another affair. This is the third time that he has cheated on me. The other women are always young, flashy, thin, and heavily made up. In other words, they are everything that I am not.  I am a pretty simple person and I dress in basic clothes and keep my make up natural because this is how I feel the most comfortable.  I am not as thin as I used to be but I am certainly not fat.  Still, one of the reasons my husband gives for cheating is that he is no longer attracted to me as much as he once was.  So I suppose that it is obvious that I need to make a change. How can I make him attracted to me so that he stops cheating with these other women?”

I felt deeply for this women, and her words brought about many concerns.  Because it seemed that she felt that she needed to change who she was already comfortable being for someone who had already betrayed her multiple times.  I firmly believe that you should not have to change the core of who you are for someone else and expect for that to turn out well.

Sure, you can make some positive changes to your appearance, to your marriage, or to how you relate to your husband, but changing yourself implies that there is something wrong with you when you aren’t the one who has done anything wrong.  I will discuss this more below.

His Infidelity May Not Change Until He Fixes Himself:  Many wives believe that if they fix themselves, they can fix their husband’s infidelity.  Unfortunately, it just often doesn’t work that way.  And the reason is that the infidelity isn’t happening because of what is wrong with the wife.  If it happening because of what is wrong with the husband.  It may be that he has low self esteem, poor impulse control, or little respect for his wife or his marriage.  He may need someone else in order to feel better about himself or about his place in the world.

Whatever the reason that he continues to cheat, he isn’t guaranteed to stop until he works on himself or rehabilitates himself in some way.  That’s the great irony of situations like this.  The wife is willing to make a change.  But it is often not her that requires it.

Making Changes That Would Raise Your Self Esteem Or Inspire You To Approach Him About Rehabilitation Are Worthwhile: This wife actually seemed relatively comfortable with herself.  But all of us usually have little issues that bother us and chip away at our self esteem.  Perhaps it is our clothing, something that has always bugged us about the way that we look, or how we present ourselves to the world.  You should feel free to change whatever it is that bothers you, but you should not feel compelled to change what you perceive bothers him.

Changing things that bother you will often raise your self esteem and will therefore give you the confidence to demand improvement in other areas of your life.  For example, it always bothered me that my husband earned all of the money.  I was proud to be able to stay home with the kids but it bothered me that I didn’t have an equal say.  So I eventually addressed this and I am no longer dependent on my husband in this way.  This small change gave me the insights to realize that I had every right to tell my husband what I wanted and needed from him.  I only have one life and one marriage and it just doesn’t make sense to settle for less than I want. This change made him respect me more and it has changed the dynamics of our marriage in a good way.

So I would encourage you to address whatever bothers you because chances are, these changes might bring about other positive changes in your life. But to answer the question posed, I believe it makes sense to do what you need to do so that you believe that you are making the most of what you have.  But I also believe it’s a mistake to think that you have to change who you are.  Because frankly, he’s not cheating because of what is wrong with you.  He’s cheating because of what is lacking within him.  If making some changes gives you the courage to seek out this type of rehabilitation and change, then it is worth it.

I had the same sorts of thoughts after my husband’s affair.  But after a lot of self work, I decided that I was just going to focus on what made me happy and let my husband worry about the rest.  Doing what made me feel attractive was worthwhile, but I’m glad I didn’t change the things that I did like for him.  If it helps, you can read about my recovery on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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