Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch:  Many wives describe the anger that they feel when finding out their husband cheated as being unlike any they have ever known.  They are so mad that they don’t even trust themselves to be in their husband’s presence.  They are quite sure that they are going to do or say something that every one is going to regret.  And often, they feel quite justified in this – until their husband or their friends or family tell them that they can’t continue on in this way.

Someone might say: “it makes me sick to see my husband scrambling like he is now that I have caught him having an affair.  It’s like he’s panicked. Of course, he wasn’t panicking when he was carrying out his cheating.  I told him I wanted him out of the house.  He begged me to stay.  He told me that we would both regret this.  I didn’t care and I honestly still do not.  I am not even remotely ready to sit down and look him in the eye.  I do not want to see him face to face.  He keeps asking me out for coffee. I do not want to have coffee with him.  I do not enjoy talking to or texting with him, but that is preferable to a face to face meeting at this point.  He says that I can’t refuse to be in his presence forever.  I know that, but I have no immediate plans to see him.  I don’t trust myself to not say something very hurtful and I don’t see any benefit to a face to face meeting.  Some of my friends say that I am taking this too far.  They say that I am being silly.  Are they right? Should I force myself to face him?  I don’t see any reason to do so, at least right now.  He can say whatever he needs to say to me on the phone.”

I honestly do understand your thought process.  I felt the same way.  Obviously, since I am still married, I got over my feelings on this.  But for a while there, my husband stayed somewhere else and we did not see each other.  We did talk.  He did spend time with our kids.  I would have never have kept him from them.  Not seeing me did not include not seeing his children.  I was very committed to making sure that his relationship with them did not change and was not in any way affected by the affair.  I was very clear that my marriage and his parenthood were completely different.  So if there are kids involved here, please consider all factors.

It probably isn’t realistic to think that you will never sit down in person and talk about this.  That would not be healthy.  It would ultimately be running away. Even if you aren’t going to save your marriage, you want to finish this out in a healthy way so that you don’t carry it with you moving forward. But there is nothing wrong with waiting until you are ready.

It is not as if you are not communicating with him.  When time passes and things have calmed down and you have started to consider seeing him, it may be easier to do it initially in counseling.  I know that you are worried about things getting out of hand or losing control when you are in his presence.  That’s why having a third party there, especially one who knows how to deal with this effectively, can be a really good idea.

Counselors have dealt with this countless times.  They know how to keep things calm and they know how to ease both of you into communicating in a positive way.  But to address the initial issue, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking some time away to allow the situation to calm down.  You have the right to say how you want the communication to go and what form you want it in.

I think it’s better to know and set your boundaries than to force yourself into a situation where you know that things could go badly and might only get worse.  Sure, people will certainly give you their opinions and tell you that you’re being silly.  But their opinion doesn’t make it true.  The people giving the opinions are not in the marriage.  You are.  And it really is not for them to say.

I had to limit what I told people after my husband’s affair.  Because having to listen to people tell me what I should do or what they would do in similar circumstances became upsetting and it really did nothing to help me.  Plus it made me constantly second guess myself.  I decided that I would take input from therapists and myself and no one else.   This worked out pretty well.  You can read more at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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