Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from spouses who are dealing with the harsh, unkind reality that their spouse is angrier than they could have possibly imagined after their affair has been found out. Many imagined that this day might one day come while they were carrying out their affair. But sometimes, the reality of their spouse’s anger is even worse than they feared. Needless to say, many want to know how long this is going to last. They often understand that they deserve this anger, but they don’t want to deal with it any longer than they have to.

I heard from a husband who said: “as soon as my wife found out about my affair, she kicked me out of the house and changed the locks. For weeks, she wouldn’t take my calls or see me when I would come over. Last week, she allowed me to come over to see my children. But she barely spoke to me and gave me nasty looks the whole time. As I was leaving, I asked her for how long she planned to be angry with me. And she said she couldn’t give me a time frame, but that I deserved any anger that she wanted to send my way. I know that she’s right, but it’s so hard living this way. I want her to love me again and I’m so sorry for the affair. The thought that she might always hate and be angry with me is almost more than I can bear. For how long is she going to be angry with me after my affair and is there anything I can do to help her get over this more quickly?” I will try to answer these questions in the following article.

Understand That Your Spouse Is Entitled To Their Anger. Rushing Or Questioning Your Spouse Is Not In Your Best Interest: Many people start out understanding that their spouse’s anger is absolutely justified. But over time, they get kind of tired of being on the receiving end of this same anger. I often hear comments like: “I know that my wife has the right to be mad at me, but it just gets so old sometimes. If I have to spend the rest of my life with her treating me like a horrible person, I don’t think I can stand it. Even criminals get a second chance. And I’m just a husband who made a mistake. I can understand her anger, but is she going to keep this up forever?”

You may not believe this, but even though I was the wife who was cheated on, I do understand this frustration. But, what you need to understand is that your wife likely feels the same thing. Believe me when I say that your wife probably wishes that she wasn’t held hostage by your affair or by her own anger, but she cannot change her circumstances. She would likely be glad to trade her anger for happiness if she could. But she can’t forget what has happened and you should not expect her to.

In fact, if you start pressuring her or asking her for how much longer she is going to keep this up, you might find that you’ve only made her angrier and ensured that she is going to hold onto her emotions for even longer than she may have if you had just been supportive and patient.

It’s usually not going to do you much good to constantly draw your wife’s attention to her anger and to point out how it affects you. You are much better off being loving and patient and making it clear that you know that it was you who put this whole thing in motion so you know that you must be supportive now.

The Things That Will Help To Shorten Your Spouse’s Anger About Your Affair: Before I offer some suggestions of things you can do to help with your spouses’ anger level, I want to stress that you should want to do these things because they are helpful to your spouse. If I could identify the one thing that I wanted for you to remember from this article, it would be this. Anything that you can do to genuinely help your spouse (rather than yourself) will usually benefit you also.

People often place their focus on what is going to help them. They try to make their spouse feel guilty or rushed because they just can’t stand being portrayed as the bad guy all the time. But what they don’t see is if they had just been the good guy and stepped up the plate to support their spouse (without worrying about what this means for them) they would probably have gotten the results they want.

Place the focus on things you can do to show your spouse that you have their best interest at heart. Go to counseling with them if this is what they want. Or, if they don’t want to go with you, encourage them to go alone. Show them that you do not intend to hurt them again and always tell them the truth. Show yourself to be trustworthy and patient. Be where you say you will be and do exactly what you have promised.

Stepping up to the plate for your spouse and showing her how much her healing and well-being means to you will usually allow some of her anger to wane. However, dealing with or erasing her anger should not be your goal. Frankly, your goal should be to help her heal. Now, one of the side effects of her healing is usually less anger, which is a good thing for both of you, but you will generally find that, as you put her needs ahead of your own, this is going to help you begin to focus on her healing rather than her anger.

Anger is the result of shock, frustration, and pain.  As you help her heal and as time passes, she will no longer feel these things as deeply which means that her anger should begin to fade.  But I can not stress enough how much your focus should be on helping her rather than on sparing you her anger.

Words cannot express how angry and furious I was with my husband after his affair.  However, over time, I saw how willing her was to give me whatever I needed to heal.  As I began to feel better about him, myself, and my marriage, my anger dissipated and we began to turn the corner.  If it helps, you read about our healing process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

 

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