Do Men Have Genuine Affection for the Women they Cheat on their Wives With?

By: Katie Lersch: Quite understandably, two of the biggest questions that wives have when evaluating whether their marriage stands a chance after infidelity is:

1. How did my husband feel about the other woman while cheating, and
2. How does he still feel about her today?

After all, if he is still carrying a torch, it is going to be very difficult to restore the marriage with any confidence. 

Of course, men don’t usually come right out and tell you how they really feel.

In fact, they usually deny they feel anything. But no one wants to accept this for an answer.

So wives wait. And they watch. And they come up with their own theories.

The Wife who Thinks her Husband Felt Genuine Affection for the Other Woman: One very common scenario looks at the husband’s actions and behaviors and assumes that he has genuine affection or love for the other woman.

She might say, “My husband refuses to disclose how he feels about the woman he cheated on me with. It is like pulling teeth to get him to talk about her at all. But I make it very clear that if he has any hope of saving this marriage, then he’d better talk to me. And he’d better be honest. Still, he doesn’t say much. He’ll only give vague answers. But sometimes I think his wistful expressions and the longing in his eyes give him away. On the rare occasions that I get him to talk about her, the tone in his voice or the look on his voice is one of admiration and affection. I don’t think this is my imagination. When I ask him about this, he says the relationship only lasted for weeks, so how can he feel anything? That’s not exactly true. It was a few months. But still. Is it possible that my husband has genuine affection for this woman?”

I definitely have an opinion about this, although some are going to disagree with me. And I hope to make this crystal clear below.

Men Manufacture all Sorts of Feelings To Justify their Behavior: At our most basic level, nearly all of us can play mind games with ourselves to talk ourselves into doing what we know we shouldn’t do, but suspect that we want to do.

In my own case, I know I am trying to eat healthier, but if I’m sitting with a group of friends with a delicious pizza to share, you can bet I’m going to tell myself that, since this is a special occasion, I’ll eat some salad and enjoy just one slice of pizza.

I know that on Sundays I like to tidy up and start the week with a clean house, but if the Super Bowl is on, that doesn’t happen very often, so my house can stay a mess.

Do you see my point? We’ll all tell ourselves that our actions aren’t so bad if there is something “special” on the other side of that. 

It is the exact same deal for infidelity.

Men will tell themselves that there is something special either about the period of time or about the woman to justify the affair.

They often do not do this consciously.

So if you call him on it, he is going to deny it.

But he will often tell himself that:

• there is no time like the present because he’s not getting any younger.
• there is just something about the other woman, or
• there is just something about the relationship.

That doesn’t mean that these things are true, or that he will believe this in two weeks from now.

It just means that he may have told himself this AT THE TIME.

Consider the Length of the Relationship: I’m going to be honest and tell you that, since I have dealt with this myself, I usually see things from the perspective of the faithful spouse.

Still, I will try to be objective here. 

 I have seen affairs that last for decades, and I suppose that I would have to admit that in these cases, the couple may well feel something like the love that you have after you’ve been in a long-term relationship.

Generally speaking, if there were no positive, lasting aspects of the relationship, it would have survived for that long.

But in this case, we are talking about a very short period of time.

Your husband could have told himself that the sky was purple, but that doesn’t make it so.

And, in my mind, it was very unlikely that one is going to develop real, long-standing feelings in that short of a period of time.

These two people just cannot know one another in the deep way that comes from being in a romantic relationship – through good times and through bad – for a long period of time. 

She can’t have what you have in this case – there just wasn’t enough time.

Consider the Context: Along those same lines, people in affairs are not worried about the car line, the laundry, and the bills.

So if your husband walked out the door tomorrow to go and be with this other woman, statistics tell us that the chances are very good that this relationship would burn itself out the closer to act real-life that it gets.

In other words, as time passes, the fantasy ends and reality comes to light.

I understand why you are worried about it. But think about this way:

He ended it. Yes, he may have facial expressions and behaviors that you can’t quite figure out.  

But he is there with you. If things had been so wonderful, and there’d been so much affection, would he be willing to sit there with you?

If she were so great, wouldn’t he move heaven and earth to be there with her instead?

I know that sometimes your thoughts become pessimistic and full of doubt, but hang in there and remember all that YOU have to offer. If it helps, you can read about how I navigated this myself at https://surviving-the-affair.com