Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many wives are fully aware that they are spending far too much time thinking about the other woman with whom their husband cheated or had an affair. And often, these thoughts are fueled by negativity. At first, this might offer some temporary feelings of relief. But after a while, you realize that this negativity is just bringing you down and needs to stop. The problem is, it can seem as if you have no control over these invasive thoughts.

One of these wives might explain: “my husband’s affair has been over for six months. I am pretty sure that he has stopped all contact with the other woman. We are slowly making progress on our marriage. It still hurts, but it’s slowly improving. My main problem is the raw and intense hatred that I feel for her. I know this person. She is the mother of one of my child’s classmates. So I have to see her fairly regularly. And when I do, my whole body shakes. I start to sweat. I’d really like to go and have a physical confrontation with her but I know that I’m not going to do that. I want to stop having negative feelings toward her. I don’t want to stop feeling anything at all. How do I get rid of my intense hatred toward this woman? Because I feel like as long as I continue to feel this way, she continues to win.”

This wife was extremely perceptive. Because some wives just can not see the harm of focusing your negative emotions onto the other woman. While this can be normal, it’s my experience that it’s harmful to the healing process. Because it keeps you dwelling and focusing and the last place where your attention should be. Frankly, one of your goals should be to put this woman far behind you. So the more you feel hatred toward her, the less likely it is that you are going to be able to do this. Luckily, there are some ways to begin to move on and to move away from thoughts of her. I will discuss them below.

Start By Knowing That The Universe Is Eventually Just:

I’ve had wives tell me that their goal was to eventually feel compassion for this woman. And I think that is a very ambitious goal. If you can turn your hatred into compassion, then you have truly won because she no longer has any control over you. The idea behind this is that you can see that pursuing or carrying on with someone else’s husband indicates something lacking within her. She is exhibiting desperate and questionable behaviors, which means she needs your compassion rather than your hate.

As I said, I completely respect and admire people who can take on this viewpoint. I just think that not everyone can accomplish this because it’s asking a lot from a wife who has been deeply hurt by this person. I think that it might be more realistic and obtainable if you just commit to believing that the universe will take care of her.

It helps to just tell yourself that in the end, things are going to turn out exactly as they are supposed to. You have to believe that if you conduct yourself with dignity and respect, Kharma is going to make sure that you get exactly what you deserve and vice versa. If you can’t feel compassion or something neutral for her, at least vow to just let her go. Know that there is truly no need for you to obsessively think of her because the universe is going to take care of everything.  You don’t need to do anything where she is concerned.

Fight Hatred With Love:

Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to feel loving feelings toward her. I think that this would be impossible for most people (myself included.) But I am going to suggest that when you feel hatred toward her, you immediately try to replace this with feelings of love for someone else. That person can be you, your spouse, your children, or anyone who deserves it.

Here’s how it would work in real life. When you begin to feel little bits of hate taking over, don’t give into them. Stop what you are doing and redirect. The antidote for hate is love. So stop what you are doing and resolve to feel love instead. This might mean that you make yourself a priority and you do something nice for yourself to momentarily break the cycle. It might mean that you spend time doing something fun with your kids when thoughts of her invade your head. It might mean that you go for a jog.  Or journal all of the gifts that still remain in your life.

In short, anything that you can do to redirect and turn your attention to something positive is going to help tremendously. So to answer the question posed, you can’t expect to erase the hate overnight. But if you can accept that you have better things to do than to worry and obsess over her and that the universe will handle things justly, this becomes easier. And if you fight hatred with love, then you are ahead of the game.

I won’t begin to tell you that I didn’t experience very negative feelings toward the other woman because I absolutely did.  But eventually, I figured out that the more time I spent thinking about her, the less time I was spending on my own healing and recovery.  One day I decided that it was going to be all about me and less about her.  I realized that I had been just handing over entirely too much of my time and energy on someone who most definitely did not deserve it.  So I began to focus on myself and on my family when thoughts of her invaded.  And now she rarely ever crosses my mind.  When I do think about her, I really don’t have strong reactions anymore.  I try not to have any reaction at all.  So I very much advocate replacing your focus on her with focus on yourself.  If it helps, you can read about how I did this myself on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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