Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many wives understand why they might have trust issues with their husbands after the affair. He violated her trust. He lied to her face.  

But what many wives don’t anticipate is how the affair might mean that she loses trust in herself. She might begin to doubt her own judgments and her ability to read people or see what is right in front of her. In severe cases, she may begin to doubt her own abilities and intelligence. 

She might say, “You would have thought that I would have had a good cheating radar. My first husband cheated on me, and I was caught blindsided. So I know the signs – at least after the fact. And I had learned a hard lesson – things aren’t always as they appear, and people you love can lie and betray when everything seems fine. And yet, with my second husband, I didn’t see it coming, and I was once again shocked, surprised, and brought to my knees. I wonder if I am just oblivious and an idiot. My second husband sure fooled me. But he fooled everyone else too. Everyone thinks he’s such a good man. So solid and honest. But it was all a lie. I now look at everyone I interact with and I wonder what I am missing. I think that everyone is hiding something. Even good people who are good to me. I look for flaws. I look for little white lies. I think that every human on the planet is trying to pull one over on me. Because I think I’m too stupid to figure things out. I’m too dumb to see the writing on the wall. I know that this is silly. I have a challenging job that I’m good at. I’ve excelled at things where I have to use my mind. But if I am so smart, why have I been fooled like this twice now? Am I just too stupid to know when someone is cheating on me?”

You’re certainly not stupid. Like all of us, you want to think the best of the people you love. And you don’t look for deception when they give you no reason to. I’ve always believed that honest people don’t look for deception in others because deception is a foreign concept to them. You’re likely an honest person who doesn’t expect others to be dishonest. That’s to be commended. 

You Are Not the One Who is Flawed:  Do not blame yourself in any way. While it may be true that you didn’t see this coming either time, you’re not the one who did the betraying. You are not the one who did anything wrong. Your husbands are. 

Do not take any of the blame onto your shoulders. You didn’t see it because you wanted to believe in your spouse. It’s as simple as that. There is no reason to be angry or disappointed in yourself. You aren’t the one who made the mistake.

When You Lose Trust in Those Who Haven’t Betrayed You, Then Your World Gets Smaller:  I understand what you are saying when you say that you began to suspect everyone of wrongdoing. I did that too. I started to think that all men cheat. I started to suspect that all wives were being duped. I was wrong, of course. I let my perceptions get skewed, and I allowed relationships with good men and good friends to become negatively affected because of my perceptions.

All this did was make my support system even smaller. Now, I didn’t tell many people about the affair. But friends and family were still my support system – whether they knew they were supporting me or not. Honestly, they were supporting me by just being there like always.  

But if you allow yourself to become so jaded that you start to suspect your support system of wrongdoing, you’re hurting yourself in more ways than one. You need them and you don’t deserve to go through the world not trusting in the goodness of people. Many people are good. Most people make mistakes. But at the end of the day, the good far outweighs the bad for most people.

When You Doubt Your Intelligence You Undermine Vital Confidence:  I suspect that you know somewhere in your heart that you’re incredibly intelligent. But it’s unfortunately normal for doubt to seep in. When that happens, it can undermine your confidence, which is unfortunate because your confidence is something you’ll need to either maintain or recover to move on. This is true regardless of whether you’re going to stay with your husband or not. 

There can be so many hits to your self-esteem after your husband cheats. Sometimes, you have to fight to keep it intact or you have to actively rebuild it. But don’t willingly give it away by thinking yourself less intelligent than you are. Don’t sell yourself short because you weren’t willing to suspect the man you love.

Don’t allow yourself to willingly label yourself as less than anyone else. You aren’t. You are just as intelligent today as you were before you learned about the affair. Your perception has changed because of what you’ve learned about your husband. If your judgment of anyone should change, it should be him – not you. You did nothing wrong. You didn’t change your behavior. But he did.

Place the lack of judgment where it belongs – with him. Not with you. If anything, it wasn’t intelligent to cheat on a woman whose previous husband cheated on her. That woman is going to already have a vulnerable place. He can now pick up the pieces of that mistake.

But you didn’t make a mistake. You were doing what you were supposed to do – trust your husband and have faith in him. That’s not unintelligent. That’s simply what most spouses do.  That’s what I did.  I didn’t see it coming, either.  But in the end, I’m not sure it matters.  However it comes, you still have to deal with it.  You still have to heal.  And that is a process.  You can read about how I did it at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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