Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: It can be common for someone having an affair to make the suspicious spouse feel paranoid to suspect an affair. The cheating spouse will often insinuate that the faithful spouse is just seeing things, is overreacting, and is too quick to judge. They do this to get the suspicious spouse off their trail.

However, some would assume that once the affair was found out and admitted to, the faithful spouse would be vindicated, and all this insinuation of being paranoid and overly suspicious would cease.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, the cheating spouse will keep up this facade even after the affair is discovered. 

As an example, a faithful spouse might say, “When I first started to suspect my husband of cheating and I confronted him, he acted like it was offensive of me to even hint of any wrongdoing. He acted like I’d said the worst possible thing to him, and he was very mad at me for a long time and withdrew all affection. This made things in our house feel very awkward. Eventually, I was able to catch him where he could no longer deny it. He finally had to admit it. Now – and it’s a long story, I can’t fully explain it – we’re still living together. As of now, we’re not ending our marriage and are trying to make it work, but it isn’t easy. Things aren’t great. I certainly don’t completely trust my husband for obvious reasons. And of course, I try to keep an eye on him and ask him to keep me posted as to what he’s doing. And once again, he acts as if I’m paranoid and overly watchful. He’ll ask me whether I’m going to watch him like a hawk for the rest of our lives. And to be honest, maybe I will. But doesn’t he deserve that? Can you blame me? I find it very disrespectful for him to try to make me feel paranoid when my suspicions literally came true. I don’t want to deal with cheating again. So you’d better believe I’m going to be watching closely. I don’t see a problem with that. But he makes me feel like a crazy person.”

Both Spouses’ Behaviors Are Common: I completely get why this feels awful, and it certainly isn’t fair. When your worst-case scenario comes to fruition, of course, you’re going to be hyper-vigilant. My husband didn’t necessarily make me feel crazy, but I too couldn’t watch out enough, especially at first. This reaction is absolutely normal and understandable, so don’t let anyone make you feel faulty for this understandable behavior.

At the same time, the husband’s behavior can be expected. It is human nature to try to downplay your punishment. You also want to minimize the pain you’ve caused, so you’re going to try to lessen any fallout. If you have to do that by posturing, so be it.   

And his behavior IS likely posturing. Your husband likely knows that you are justified in watching him. But he’s going to try to get you to accept less because, again, it is human nature to not want to live with dire consequences if you can help it. 

He may also think that you don’t need to be as vigilant because he has no intention of cheating again and he would hope you’d give him the benefit of the doubt. He may think that you should believe him when he honestly says that you can trust him. Still, if you’re not comfortable with that yet, it’s understandable.

Balancing the Fine Line:  Vigilance can be tricky after an affair because it’s very easy to get to a point where watching and suspecting your husband is all that you’re spending your time doing. And when you get into this cycle, it can be harder (and slower) to heal.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be watchful. You should. But you have to balance it with prioritizing your healing. At the same time you’re watching, you’re also often trying to create a new normal and rebuild trust. It’s a balance. So while you’re being hyper-vigilant, you ideally will be working regularly on strengthening yourself so that eventually, you’re not as worried about expecting the worst.

I’d be lying if I told you that I don’t keep an occasional eye on my husband. I do. But I no longer expect him to disappoint me. I am comfortable that he won’t. But that type of transformation took work and time. And if I had short changed my healing, I might not have ever gotten there. Don’t let your watching take over everything else. Make sure you are spending just as much time (or more) on your healing.

How to Tell Him You Aren’t Backing Off Just Yet:  If your husband’s posturing is getting to be too much, you can try to address this directly by saying something like, “I know you’re trying to make me feel paranoid again, but no matter what you do or say, I’m justified in watching your behaviors. I don’t want to get burned again, and until we’ve restored the trust, this is what I need to do to feel secure. If we make significant progress, heal, and restore the trust, then perhaps I won’t feel the need to be quite as watchful. But for now, that’s what I need. Shaming me or making me feel unstable isn’t going to change anything and is just going to frustrate us both.”

You may have to repeat this until he knows that you mean it. But know that you’re behavior is normal and you don’t need to feel unstable for wanting to be careful. Just make sure that it doesn’t become all you think about or the center of your world because you also need to prioritize yourself. 

I completely understand your feeling that watching prevents disappointment and surprises. But I learned the hard way that it can also be a large source of stress. As I healed, I learned to balance the hypervigilance much better. And I believe that eventually allowed me to move on. You can read about my recovery at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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