Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: One of the biggest struggles that many wives have when trying to recover from a husband’s affair is believing that their husband really and truly wants them and their marriage. Sure, he may swear that he now realizes what a mistake he made and wants nothing more than to have his family back. And he may be doing his absolute best to make you feel desirable. But, even so, many of us still have those nagging doubts. We wonder if his life with her was more exciting and enticing simply because it was new and fresh. We wonder if our lives and our marriage looks very dull and flat by comparison.

You might hear a wife say: “my husband cheated on me with a younger woman. Even so, he has a lot in common with her because he was her mentor at work. So, they got to travel to another country together and take in all sorts of new experiences. He got to teach her things and they shared a common goal that I am sure bonded them. The other woman actually told me about the affair. She was all triumphant about it and I believe that she thought that once she told me, I was going to force my husband to make a choice and he was going to chose her. This is almost what happened, but not quite. I think that, much to everyone’s surprise, my husband chose me. He actually didn’t chose me immediately. He went away by himself and later, he told me that he saw a family out to dinner and he just wept. He said that right then and there he realized what an idiot he had been. He decided that his family was more important than this other woman. So he transferred to another office so that he won’t have to see the other woman. We are in counseling. Things have been getting better all of the time. We still struggle. I still worry. I am unsure of myself a lot of the time. He tries his best to make me feel desired and loved and I do realize that part of our success depends on me believing what he tells me. But part of me just can not move past worrying about the excitement that I know he had with her. When he was with her, he actually seemed happy to me. Of course, I didn’t know about the affair at the time, but I did notice that he seemed excited about life again. I worry that he doesn’t have that with me. We are the same age so there’s not much for him to teach me. We don’t travel to foreign countries together. There isn’t the newness in our sex life that they had. How can a housewife and mother compete with that? And how could he find that exciting after experiencing what he had with her?”

I understand these concerns because I had them. I’m not going to tell you that you are being silly or that you are seeing problems where none exist. It’s only natural to wonder how your comfortable, enduring marriage would compare to something that was obviously, new, exciting, and forbidden. Not having this concern would be turning away from reality. However, that is precisely what I am going to recommend that you do.

Why? Because your husband has made an obvious choice. He has put his intentions behind this choice by transferring jobs. In today’s economy, this likely came with a career or financial cost to him. But he did it any way. And he said that he was motivated by his understanding that family was what really mattered to him. That is something that the young woman can not offer.

In other words, he has decided that the trips and the mentoring and the novelty of something new isn’t what he wants. What he wants is his family. Does this mean that you shouldn’t keep a close eye on him and on your marriage? No, it absolutely doesn’t. Of course, you should keep your eyes out and be realistic.

At the same time, always having doubt and refusing to believe that you are enough can put strain on a marriage that has already been affected by the affair. If you project that your life is boring and not good enough, and if you present it as if you have something to apologize for, then you may change the way he views you or the marriage.

At this point, I would take him at his word. I would make every attempt to believe that you are providing the family life that he says he wants. And I would work tirelessly on my own self esteem and self worth. Nothing is exciting or as sexy as confidence.

Here’s another thing to consider. I know that you feel a little insecure about the travel and the excitement. Who is to say that you can’t travel with your husband – not for business, but for pleasure? Who is to say that you can not seek out marital excitement? Nothing says that you can’t combine the stability of married life with the excitement of dating your spouse and making it a point to experience new things together.

I totally understand what you are feeling.  But I’d strongly encourage you to give yourself permission to elevate yourself.  Do whatever you need to do to love yourself and to know that you are enough.  Once I understand this, my recovery process completely changed. You can read more about how I navigated life after my husband’s affair on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

Filed under: Uncategorized by admin