Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch:  It’s absolutely normal to feel furious and spiteful after you find out that your spouse has had an affair. It’s normal to want to hurt them as much as they have hurt you.  But, when you get into the habit of constantly insulting your spouse, then you may open up a door that you might later regret – depending on what you want moving forward.

A wife might describe this type of situation: “I honestly still do not understand how my husband attracted the other woman.  I am just being completely honest when I say that my husband is overweight and not all that attractive.  He used to be when he was younger, but he is not now.  He can be rude and self-centered.  He’s not consistently sweet or considerate. We are by no means rich, but we are somewhat financially secure.  However, ever since my husband found this other woman, he thinks that he is all that.  He struts around like he is Brad Pitt or something.  It makes me sick.  He is always bragging about himself.  He recently agreed to ‘take a break’ from the other woman to see if we could revive our marriage for the sake of our kids.  I may want that in the future. I concede that this is probably the best thing.  But I can not get a handle on my anger. I find myself saying all sorts of nasty things to him.  I think that my goal is to almost knock him down off his pedestal.  I will tell him that he’s fat.  Or that his table manners are disgusting.  And that he is so awkward that he looks like Frankenstein when he tries to hug me.  Of course he gets angry at this, which only makes me hurl more insults his way.  I know that this is probably not the right thing to do, but I can not seem to help myself.  I want to take him down a notch.  His ego is sickening and unjustified.  He is not all that.  He’s a middle aged man who is average looking at best.  I know that some men who aren’t that attractive get women because they are sweet.  But my husband is not really all that sweet.  So for whatever reason, he lucked out by attracting this woman. I am not sure what she wants from him. But I don’t want him thinking that he’s totally great because of it.”

I understand where you are coming from. It’s maddening and difficult to watch this process.  He is in the wrong, but he can’t necessarily see it because he seems to be riding high and is full of himself.

What I am about to say may not seem to help at first.  But if you can really think about it, I think that it puts things in perspective.  Men often have affairs to feel better.  They may want to feel younger.  They may want to feel relevant again.  They may want to feel more attractive or more powerful.

Why? Because deep down, they know that they are on the decline.  They know that they are aging and that their looks are changing.  This is painful.  And hard to deal with.  So one way to avoid dealing with it is to have an affair and pump up your ego. Now, as he is doing this, does he really think that he’s all that?  Not deep down, but he’s probably constantly trying to pump himself up and make it appear so.

The point that I am trying to make is this. Your husband may well be acting out of insecurity. Sure, he is probably desperately trying to appear confident.  But the whole affair was an attempt to address his own doubts. So, your insulting him is not telling him anything that he does not already know.

But it can make your reconciliation much more difficult.  And it is modeling troubling behavior for your children, who ideally should be spared from as much of the fall out of the affair as you can possibly manage.

Of course you are mad at him.  How could you not be?  But trying to make him feel insecure and badly about himself is just feeding into the process of him having an affair in the first place.  It just reinforces the behavior that you do not want.  Releasing these feelings with a counselor (instead of with him) can help to keep you on track and can bring your attention to places where you’re going off track and not accomplishing anything.   Plus, it gives you a place to redirect all of that anger.

Because having your husband be a target of that anger is understandable, but it really only makes things worse – not better.  And the real goal is to make things better – regardless of what happens in your marriage.  Sharing the negativity that you feel doesn’t hurt your husband as much as you might think.  It only spreads the misery around.  And it potentially allows him to justify his behavior: “my wife is so mean and insulting. No wonder I cheated on her.”

I found out the hard way that you actually make more progress (and heal faster) if you direct your anger at the act (the affair) rather than personally attacking the person (your husband.)  Because the person will get defensive and may try to hurt you back. That doesn’t accomplish anything. Deep down, you want him to be sorry and to not cheat again.  But insulting him only makes his sorrow less likely and his cheating again more likely.

I am not telling  you not to be angry.  It is understandable that you are.  But it greatly helps to learn how to direct that anger so that it is a release that is not adding to your issues.  It was difficult for me to direct my anger at first.  Journaling was extremely helpful. I was ruthless and cruel in my journal, but no one knew it but me.   The more anger I released, the less I felt it in real time.  You can read more at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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