Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: One of the biggest things wives want to know about after an affair is the details of regret. Many wives consider remorse and regret to be the two biggest factors when deciding whether to try to remain married.

And many wives don’t just wonder IF he felt regret, they want to know WHEN he felt it. For them, the timing of the remorse can be indicative of its sincerity.

Someone might say: “My husband doesn’t want to talk too much about his affair. I have to pull all of the details out of him. Over time, I have come to believe that he regrets the affair. But I am worried about when he regrets it. Because he carried on with this woman for several weeks until I caught him. So although he says he felt guilty and broken up about it, I honestly never saw any signs of that. If I hadn’t stumbled onto his cheating, I might never have known. He didn’t act particularly different. So all his claims of being conflicted seem doubtful to me. Rather, I worry that he’s now remorseful simply because I caught him. I worry that if I’d never find out, he’d still be blissfully cheating on me today. How do I know when he felt remorse?”

I understand why this is important to you. I’ve been through infidelity, and I suspect that you perceive if he felt remorse right away, that would indicate that he still had feelings and empathy toward you, which would make things slightly better right now.

I’m definitely going to tell you my take on this. But before I do, keep in mind that everyone is different. I’m going to be speaking in generalizations and about what I’ve experienced and observed. But that doesn’t mean everything I say will be true for you.

I Believe Most Men Feel Remorse Quickly:

I’ve talked to quite a few people who have actively cheated. Because of what happened to me and the fact that I write about this, I am always looking for insights and data. I can only speak from my own observations here, but I do find that most men will tell you that they regretted it nearly the second (or shortly after) they crossed a line.

If you have trouble believing that, think about how you would feel if you cheated on your spouse. Even if the situation was exciting or novel. How would you feel as you were driving home to your spouse? How would you feel if you had to deceive your spouse afterward? No matter how alluring you might find the other person, would you not be overcome with guilt?

I know that I would. I know that some people are thinking, “Yes, but men are different than women.” Sure, some men may be different than some women.

But I have a hard time believing that if you put years of effort into a relationship, you can completely turn off the feelings and promises of commitment within that relationship. You might try because feeling guilty feels awful. But it would still nag at you. That said, I have another point to make.

People Who are Carrying Out Affairs Often Actively Quiet the Guilty Voices in Their Heads:

Put yourself back into the scenario of cheating with the cheating. Let’s say you feel guilty, but somehow or another, you continue on. There are only a few ways that this is possible without being overcome by guilt. You must find a way to justify it to yourself.

So you’ll tell yourself that no one will know, so therefore, no one will get hurt. You’ll tell yourself that you’ll break this off soon. You’ll pretend that there are issues in your relationship that justify what you’ve done.

In short, you’ll play all sorts of mind games with yourself until you can start to believe these lies you’re telling yourself so you can carry on.

I believe this is why some spouses can come off as a bit indignant when confronted about the affair. They are so well-practiced at justification, the lies begin to flow, even to themselves.

I do not tell you this to defend your spouse. I am just trying to offer some perspective.

The More Important Question:

I do understand why you want to know how soon he felt remorse, but unless you can look back into time and into his mind, this exact knowledge won’t be possible – unless you trust that he is telling you the truth.

My point is, you might not ever know the exact moment he felt remorse. Since he was likely trying to push it down, he may not even know the precise timing himself.

I believe what is most important is whether he is remorseful now. And I mean deeply, and genuinely remorseful where he understands exactly what he has done and how deeply he may have damaged your marriage.

Spouses who feel this type of deep remorse are eventually much more proactive in doing their part to help you recover. I have heard people say that they didn’t know the mess they made until they saw their spouse’s reaction, and then they were broken.

I would argue that this response is every bit as legitimate and even as desirable as the spouse who felt immediate remorse. What matters is how deeply he feels it now and how motivated he is to try to fix the damage he has done.

He needs to understand the depth of the damage so that he is never, ever tempted to do this again. I believe that this is just as effective no matter when it happens. But it needs to be real – and not lip service or just saying the words he thinks you want to heal until this blows over.

A husband who feels deep remorse can become a very good husband in the future because he becomes very conscious of how close he came to losing everything due to his foolishness. So that often makes him even more motivated to give you the marriage he knows you deserve in the future.

Again, I can only tell you about what I’ve experienced, but I believe I have benefitted from this type of remorse.  Without it, I don’t know if I’d still be married.  You can read more about that at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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