Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I get a decent amount of correspondence from folks asking what questions are important to ask and have answered concerning the affair. Occasionally though, I’ll have someone ask me the atypical question, but the one that is equally as important – what questions should you not ask.

An example is the person who says: “I will admit that lately, much of my days have been spent wondering about my spouse’s affair. And I have asked him many questions. But even though he has been patiently trying to answer everything, there are always more questions that pop up. I want the answers, but I honestly feel like most every conversation that we have lately centered on my wanting to understand the affair. And yet, the more he tries to explain it, the less I feel I understand it. And so I feel like we are going round in circles with no real resolution. And I feel like I’m almost harming the process with my endless list of questions. So I’ve started thinking that maybe I am approaching this in the wrong way. Are there any questions that I should not be asking? Are any questions off limits or harmful?”

I am not sure that there’s any one question that is off limits.  I think it really depends upon the couple and your own healing process that works for you. I recently read that Tori Spelling refused to ask Dean McDermont if this affair had been the only one because she felt that she could endure it if the answer to the question was yes. I understand the fear and the hesitation. But, for me,  the answer would be an important one.  But it is not my marriage that we are talking about and it is not for me to say. Everyone is different. And considering they appear to have a good therapist, I assume that she is guiding them on which questions to focus upon. (And it could be that she is just not ready yet, which I’ll mention again a little later.)

I’m not a therapist, but my opinion on this is that there are certain lines of questioning that are somewhat pointless or harmful. I’ll explain my reasoning behind this below. Again, this is just one person’s opinion and I am not an expert on this topic.

Questions That Have Repeatedly Been Asked And Answered: I think that getting in a rut as far as your conversations go is very common, but very harmful. Like you explained, often he will answer you as best as he can. He will think that he’s trying to be honest. But his explanation doesn’t give you the clarity that you hoped for. You still don’t quite understand. And so you will keep asking the same question – but in different ways. You will come at it differently, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know he’s heard this all before. Eventually, you may assume he isn’t being honest and he will assume that you don’t care what he answers because you just want to interrogate him.

The point is, because you might never fully understand his thought process (which is very hard, since you weren’t the one with the thoughts,) there is no sense in continuing to pick at the scab, so to speak. Don’t keep revisiting the same old questions, when you are already know how he is going to answer. If you think you aren’t getting the truth, then I’d suggest having your counselor broach it. But there’s no point in going round and round when you both know how this is going to go.

The Questions That Are Personal Attacks In Disguise: Be careful that your line of questioning isn’t really asking anything at all. An example are things like: “so for how long did you keep your filthy lies going?” Or “so when did you take the plunge to become an adulterer?” Or “when did you decide that your children didn’t matter to you?”

These aren’t really questions. They are insults in disguise. I understand why these are so tempting because I uttered them myself. But they serve no real purpose and they only fuel the fire and make both of you angry.

Questions To Which You Are Not Ready To Hear The Answer: I know the feeling of having a million questions and feeling the dire need to have them answered. This need feels immediate – like you’re just going to burst if you don’t know. But, often we blurt these things out and then we are deeply hurt when they are answered. We deeply struggle and we can’t un ring the bell.

That’s why I’d suggest making a list of questions that pop into your head. As more come, write them down. And then ask yourself which ones are really constructive and which ones truly do not matter. For example, of course you need to know the basic Ws and the H (who, what, when where and why.)  But before you ask, think about whether you really want to go there just yet.  You want to take the time to process each answer.  Make sure that you’re ready before you ask.   Sometimes, it is better to stagger the information so that you are not overwhelmed.

And maybe you don’t need to know the silly, arbitrary facts that are going to drive you crazy, like the fact that her favorite color was red or the insight jokes that they shared. These small details are the ones that you are going to revisit and the ones that are going to be the most difficult to banish.

I honestly found it helpful to pace myself as far as the questions went. Because you can only successfully and productively process so much at one time. And it gets tiring – going through the questions every day. So I would make the list and we would save the questions until one agreed upon time. This meant he had more patience because he knew that my questions weren’t going to be a daily occurrence. And it also meant that I put a lot of thought into which questions were most important to me.

I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t ask something that you really want to know. But I am suggesting that often, we ask the same things over and over. And other times, we aren’t asking questions at all. We are just trying to punish or insult him with our questions. And this really does nothing to help the situation.

What worked well for me was to be deliberate about what I asked and when I asked it. Of course this only came after we had a couple of disastrous question and answer sessions.  It took a while for me to learn that if I was more deliberate, I’d get more complete, and honest, responses. You can read more at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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