Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: This may surprise you, but often one main concern after learning of a husband’s affair is not the wife’s own feelings but that of her husband.  If you were to ask very honest wives about their most immediate concern during the early days after the affair has been found out, many will tell you that they are most concerned not necessarily about sex, but about their husband’s emotional feelings.  They are concerned about how their husband still feels about them and what type of emotions he feels toward the other woman.

If you have never been the wife in this situation, this may seem quite odd to you.  But you have been there like I have, you likely know exactly what I mean.  You can be absolutely furious at your husband and unsure about the future of your marriage while at the same time worrying if this same man who betrayed you still loves you, as strange as that may sound.

And even though this process may sound odd, it actually makes complete sense to me.  That’s because love doesn’t turn off like a faucet or run dry like a fountain.  Disappointment or even pain doesn’t make it immediately stop.  Even if you think your husband doesn’t deserve your love, you may well still be feeling it.  And so it’s logical that you want him to feel this for you as well.

A wife might say: “part of me loathes my husband for having an affair.  There are days when I want absolutely nothing to do with him.  And then there are days when I don’t want to throw my marriage away.  This other woman isn’t worth that.  One mistake isn’t worth that.  The major problem that we are having now is that I have trouble believing him when he says he loves me now and that he never stopped loving me.   I will immediately have awful thoughts like he wasn’t thinking of his love for me when he was with another woman.  It’s so hard for me to understand how you can love someone at the same instance as you are betraying them.  And so a part of me is always wondering if my husband is lying.  And when I question this, he becomes angry at me and gets discouraged.  He says if I’m always going to doubt him, then we may as well just go ahead and get a divorce.  But I just can’t help it.  What can you do when you doubt your husband’s claims to still love you even though he had an affair?”

My answer to this question may sound very simplistic, but I hope that doesn’t keep you from continuing to read it.  The first thing I would say is that no one expects you to just blindly believe what he says right now.  After all, he hasn’t been telling you the entire truth all along.  So, it is completely natural (and even in your best interest sometimes) to have a healthy dose of doubt and to not just accept his claims as truth.  With that said, you do have the ability to test his claims.  After all, if he is being truthful and truly does love you, then it’s likely that he will remain committed to you, your marriage, and to working things out.  Nothing says you can’t hang in there and see if his claims end up being true.

Another point that I’d like to make is that it is up to you as to whether you give your husband a chance to prove this to you.  I mean, he can claim whatever he wants.  But it is his actions and his behaviors that are truly indicative of how he feels about you.  If he does his very best to help you heal and to become the husband that you want and need, if he does his best to improve and rehabilitate himself, and if he stays true to his commitments to you, then these things would be a pretty good indication that he indeed does love you.

Hear me out when I say that often, we doubt his love for us because our own doubts about ourselves are bothering us as well.  This certainly isn’t your fault, but being cheated on can truly challenge any confidence that you may have.  And as you struggle with your self-esteem and self-worth, it becomes much easier to doubt someone’s love for you.  It becomes much easier to see your flaws rather than to embrace your strengths.  You must always remind yourself that you are the same person you always were and if he can’t see this, then that is his loss.  The trouble is, often he DOES see this.  It is us who has the doubts.

So take a look at your own insecurities and doubts and ask yourself if strengthening your self-esteem might help you with this.   Finally, for wives who have trouble believing in their husband’s love after an affair, I would suggest that you decide if you’re going to give him the opportunity to prove his love for you.  And, if you chose that you are going to give him that chance, then do everything in your power to make it count.  If you need to do some self-help to boost your self-esteem, this is worth it because not only will it make you feel much better, it will give your marriage a fighting chance.  It may seem very simplistic but if you make a very dedicated effort to love yourself and to see where you are lovable, you will have a much easier time believing that he sees the same thing.

To be quite honest, I thought my husband was a liar when he claimed he loved me after his affair. But once I educated myself on why affairs happen and how to heal from them, I realized that I might be selling myself short.  I vowed to do whatever it took to raise my self-esteem and this made a huge difference in both my marriage and in my life.  If it helps, you can read that whole story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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