Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Often, the most painful thing in dealing with an affair is also dealing with the other woman. This is especially true if the husband seems reluctant to give her up or to stay away from her. When this is the case, the wife will often try to determine ways that she can keep them apart. Often, this strategy doesn’t work quite as well as she had hoped.

An example of the type of comment that you might hear in this situation is something like: “my husband cheated on me with one of my friends. This woman’s child is friends with my child. She literally lives less than five minutes away from our home. She is the one who told me about the affair. And she told me about it because she wanted to let me know that she intended to take my husband away from me. She was very aggressive and possessive when she broke the news. I actually think that she enjoyed it. Needless to say, I have demanded that my husband have nothing whatsoever to do with her. I have told him to stay away from her. Our kids can play together at school, but that is really all of the contact that I want. When we discuss this, my husband will seem to agree with me, but then I will get a call or a text from the other woman where she gloats and tells me that he has just seen my husband or that my husband has just called her. This infuriates me more than I can say. He will promise me to stay away from her and then within a couple day’s time, he is right back pursuing her. How can I keep him away from her? What do I have to do in order to make him understand that he has to cut off all contact with her?”

This is an extremely common question. And it is a bit of a difficult one to answer. Because it’s not realistic to think that you can lock your husband in a room so that it is psychically impossible for him to be able to get to her. And, I’m not sure that you would want to do this anyway.  Because often, when something is defined as off limits, then this makes it all that much more desirable. I believe that it is your best interest to make it that your husband decides on his own that he needs to cut off all contact with her. Your forcing this on him increases it’s power over both of you. It’s so much more meaningful if he comes to this decision on his own. With that said, you can certainly encourage it. And you can certainly make it clear that his life is going to be much easier if he does the right thing. You can allow him to see that saving your marriage is only going to be possible if the affair has actually ended.

So how do you do this? You need to have a frank, clear, but calm conversation. I would suggest that the next time the other woman calls you to report your husband’s whereabouts, you might confront him with a conversation like this: “well, once again I heard from the other woman that the two of you had an encounter. At this point, it should be clear to you that she is going to report back each and every time this happens. It is unrealistic for you to think that this is not going to get back to me. I am starting to wonder if you don’t care that it’s going to get back to me. You have said that you will break it off. I am wondering if you and I have different definitions of what this truly means. Because to me, breaking it off means that you do not call, you do not text, and you do not go by in person. It means that she is completely out of our lives. And, until this happens, we are not going to be able to save our marriage because there is someone else in it. This situation is not fair to me. And it’s not conducive to us moving on. I need for you to do what you have said that you are going to do. I need for you to really let her go and not see and talk to her anymore. Until you are willing to do this, then I think that our marriage has to be at a standstill. I can’t participate in it when there is someone else. So please let me know when you have really and truly broken it off. Please let me know when you truly mean what you say.”

I know that this might seem harsh, but it’s true that saving your marriage is almost impossible when the affair is still active. If he isn’t even willing to end the affair, then it’s very doubtful that he is going to be willing to do the work necessary on your marriage. Sometimes, when he knows that he’s not going to enjoy a relationship with both women, then he will have more of an incentive to do what is right.

People sometimes ask me about negotiating with the other woman or trying to convince her to be the one to break it off.  I understand considering this, but I’ve rarely seen it work.  And I don’t advocate negotiating with someone who has been so obvious about wanting to purposefully hurt you.

If he still won’t do what is right, then it’s my belief that it’s in your best interest to just focus on yourself until he acts with more responsibility.  Your healing will always be in your own best interest.  If it helps, you can read more about my situation on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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