Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: It would be nice if a cheating spouse would sit you down and tell you everything you need to know about the affair from the get-go. This would mean that you wouldn’t have to pull the information out of him and you’d know the important details early on. This quick timeline could, in theory, save some pain and frustration. 

Unfortunately, many husbands don’t want to stick to a quick timeline with disclosure. Instead, they’d rather go silent and refuse to communicate, in the hopes that you’ll give up your quest for information and they can move on without many consequences. Needless to say, this is often frustrating and unacceptable to the wives on the other end of the silence. 

One of the wives might say, “I don’t know how my husband would ever expect me to get over his affair when he refuses to even talk about it on the most basic level. If I dare mention anything about it, he gets snippy and clams up. Sometimes, he acts outraged as though he can’t imagine why I would dare to ask him such a thing. It’s almost as though I am the one who has done something wrong. I believe he is hoping that if he closes off communication about this, I’ll eventually get so frustrated that I will give up. The thing is, I cannot give up. Because I know that I cannot move on if I don’t know what actually happened. I need accurate information if I’m going to make a sound decision. The ironic thing is, I think it’s possible that one day, I COULD move on if he were just honest with me and genuinely remorseful. But instead, he seems to want to play games and act as if I don’t deserve answers.”

Why He May Be Withholding Information: I understand how frustrating this is. Getting the necessary information from a cheating spouse is one of the most common complaints that I hear. And on the one hand, it’s not impossible to understand. It’s human nature to want to spare oneself pain and contempt, even if you admittedly deserve it. It’s also human nature to want to move on, especially if you know that staying stagnant is just going to prolong the pain.

How To Approach Him About This: Your husband may honestly think that trying to rush you forward may minimize your pain, even if you don’t agree. That’s why you may have to make it clear that you’re not willing to move forward with this unresolved. At some point, your husband may try to go forth as though nothing has changed and insinuate that you have the same marriage you’ve always had. He’ll want or ask something of you, and that’s when you can say something like, “I wish I could, but I really can’t go forward as if nothing has happened in our marriage when we both know that it has. I know you get frustrated when I bring it up, but I have a right to the information about the affair that I need so that I’m fully aware of what we’re dealing with. It’s unfair to keep me in the dark in this way. How would you feel if the roles were reversed? You’d want the information. I want it just like anyone would.”

Then, give him some time to think about it. Sometimes, when he realizes that you’re not going to give in, he will begin to open up some. He may do it little by little, but he will often start talking once he feels he doesn’t have a choice.  

Another tactic you can try is to ask him to go to counseling. Any good counselor is going to ask for the relevant information to help you work through this. Sometimes, it is easier for the cheating spouse to hear questions from someone other than the faithful spouse. But he’ll typically have to offer up a good deal of information in counseling. 

Pick Your Battles:  I wouldn’t be doing right by you if I didn’t mention this. As your husband begins to give you information, take care that you maximize what you learn by not hyper-dwelling on nonessential things. Don’t keep asking the same questions differently. For example, my husband told me bluntly about what led to the affair. I didn’t like his explanation at all, so I continued to ask about this same topic in all sorts of different ways and we just continued to go round and round without any progress. In essence, he told me what I asked, but I still didn’t understand or I didn’t like what he said, so I just continued to ask, and he continued to answer, but he felt I wasn’t even trying to listen.

Once he tells you what you’ve asked, sometimes, that has to be enough unless you think he isn’t being truthful. Another thing that I feel I must say is that you want to very carefully consider what you want to ask. I’ve had people tell me that they asked sexual questions that they later deeply regretted because they couldn’t get certain mental pictures out of their minds. Make sure that you really want to know the answers to the questions that you ask.

Some answers can only hurt you and probably won’t help you. My rule of thumb was that my husband absolutely needed to answer the basic five w’s (who, what, when, where, why) and an h (how?). For other types of questions, I followed the advice of people who told me to think long and hard about what I wanted to know. If something is going to make you ruminate, you can’t change it, and it’s only going to cause you pain, perhaps that is something that isn’t necessary to know.

You’re going to not only have to live with this knowledge, but you’re also going to have to process it enough to eventually move on. Some types of knowledge are necessary for moving on. But other bits of knowledge actually impede your progress, so it makes sense to choose carefully. You definitely deserve answers and shouldn’t give in until you have them.  

But it helps to know when you have enough information to move forward with the least amount of pain.  And you do deserve to move forward.  None of this was your fault.  If it helps you to learn about how I was finally able to move forward, that story is at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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