Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: There honestly isn’t an ideal time for a spouse to cheat. Even if you are flying high in life, having a spouse cheat on you can knock you down very low. However, it’s fair to say that some people endure an affair at the worst possible time. And that can make the recovery from said affair just that much more difficult. Here’s an example:

Someone might say, “I will admit that menopause was not my finest hour. I developed some physical and emotional problems. I fell into a deep depression. My appearance changed – for the worse. And this just made me feel doubly bad about myself. And it is at this time that my husband decided that he wanted to leave me. I admit that I wasn’t the world’s greatest wife at this time. But there have been plenty of times when he wasn’t the world’s greatest husband and I’ve always stuck by him, no matter what. The idea of leaving or abandoning my spouse when things get hard would never cross my mind. If anything, it would make me more loving because I’d want to help him when he needed me the most. Not so of my husband. About four weeks after he left, I found out that I had a life-threatening illness. I admit that he constantly checked in and offered to go to doctor’s appointments with me. But he did not come home. My health became dire. I had to take an indefinite leave of absence from my job. During one hospital stay, one of my kids called my husband and must have guilted him pretty badly, because shortly after this, he asked if he could come home and care for me. I was not in any position to refuse help, so I agreed. Very slowly, we reconciled. And I was grateful. Until one day my husband admitted to me that he was having an affair the first time he left and even during my diagnosis and illness. In fact, he had broken it off only right before he came back home. He says he realized that he was being an idiot, but he needed to come clean now because he didn’t want anything between us. Part of me thinks I have too much going on to dwell on this now. But the other part of me – the loudest part – thinks that there’s no way that I will ultimately be able to trust this man. And regardless of where I am, I cannot brush this under the rug. How will I ever be able to trust him? But how am I in a position to send him packing?”

I’m not sure that you need to do either immediately. His behavior in the past does not dictate that you need to rush yourself into a difficult decision right now.

Worry About Yourself First: I suggest that you place your focus on YOURSELF. You need to take care of you right now. What do you need? What do you want? Your husband has indicated that you are now his priority. Yes, he’s a little late. And yes, he made a horrible mistake. But he is there right now. So that means you have the luxury of time and perspective before you need to make any major life decisions.

You’ve been through enough turmoil to last you a very long while. And it doesn’t seem as if he is going anywhere. Give yourself the time to recover your health and then to steady yourself with your new work and home situation. You’ve been blown off-kilter on all fronts. This is a huge amount of information to process. Let your husband know that you’re going to need lots of time and probably even more healing and restoration, although you understand that this is a process.

You Don’t Have To Hand Him The Trust On A Silver Platter. He Must Earn It: “How can I ever trust him again?” is probably one of the most common questions that I get. However, it’s fair to say that you have special circumstances for asking it – since you were betrayed when quite vulnerable. Still, all women feel vulnerable when betrayed by an affair. Trust is always extremely hard to come by after infidelity. And the answer is basically the same. You are under no obligation to give him your trust. You are well within your rights to make him earn it.

And that’s often not a fast process. He must show you – time and time again – that he is truthful, transparent, sincere, and well-intentioned. There is no room for deception or hesitancy of any kind. You have a right to place him under scrutiny. You will be suspicious as he tries to prove his sincerity. But as he proves it – over and over and over again – eventually, you become confident that you can trust in it. This takes time. I am not sure there is any shortcut to this. Sure, you could have blind faith. But then you’d also have doubts. To have confidence, you also need time and consistency.

See This As YOUR Second Chance: Your recovery in your health and the open-ended nature of some aspects of your life means that you can define your own path forward. You can navigate this as you like. Menopause and health issues are huge challenges. But you still have much living to do. And you get to decide how you want to do that and who you want to include in your life.

If you aren’t sure if you want him in it, you can honestly discuss your reservations with trust and layout exactly what you need from him to make some progress. He can either do what you’ve asked or not. But at least he understands what is required. And by being very clear about what you need, you can analyze his reactions and behaviors to better gauge how motivated he is to make this right once again. This will give you much more information than you have right now.

In summary, though, the answer to the question of how you’ll ever trust him again is that you watch and you wait – assuming that you want to give him a chance. You don’t make any decisions until you’ve defined for him what it will take to regain your trust. And then you see if he rises to the occasion – over and over again – until one day you are comfortable that he earned your trust.

I know that this all might seem easy for me to say. But it isn’t.  I’ve been through a similar situation.  Restoring the trust didn’t come easily.  But it did come.  You can read about that at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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