Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who have had the unfortunate experience of being told of their husband’s infidelity by the woman with whom he has been cheating. Finding out that your husband has been unfaithful is horrible enough. But hearing these words come out of the woman who has also betrayed you is even worse.

I heard from a wife who said: “I knew that my marriage was changing because my husband was not around nearly as much. He had been distant and standoffish toward me. It seemed that everything that I did annoyed him. So the idea of him cheating wasn’t a surprising one. In fact, I asked him if he was cheating on me six months ago and he got so mad that I would even suggest it. He went out of his way to shame me for even asking him such a question. So I dropped the subject and I figured that he was under stress because of his job. I admit that I was shocked when a woman that I have never met called me and said that she had something alarming to tell me. At first, I thought she may have been the mother of one of my kid’s friends who was going to tell me that one of my kids had done something wrong. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, she had to tell me that she had been having an affair with my husband for the past four months. Furthermore, she informed me that she was coming forward and telling me because my husband wouldn’t. She said she has been asking him to come clean so they could start their future together but my husband stalled on this. So she figured she could jump start their future by spilling the beans. I am just dumbfounded and in pain. I have two children who are sitting at the dining room table and who have no idea that their lives are about to change. I don’t want to do this to my children. But how do I even approach my husband when he didn’t even have the decency to tell me himself? What does this say about him and my marriage?”

I was so sorry that this wife had to deal with this. I often wonder just what these women are thinking when they pick up the phone and cause this kind of pain and shock. But it is possible that these women aren’t thinking of anything or anyone but themselves. I know firsthand that this is a horrible thing to deal with and I know that it is very hard to remain calm. But in the following article, I’ll try my best to give you a little perspective and some much needed encouragement.

Don’t Assume That She’s Telling You The Complete Truth: I have to tell you that it’s not uncommon for the other woman to call the wife in order to beat the husband to it. Because she has a very definite interest in how the wife finds out and also what side of the story the wife hears. Also, sometimes she is trying to force the husband to make a decision. Or, she is trying to hurt your marriage so that your husband will have an easier time committing to their relationship. In fact, sometimes, the husband has even tried to end the relationship or expressed doubt about it and this little phone call is her way to cause problems and pain in retaliation.

I didn’t know if any of these possibilities was actually reality in this case, but I do know that the other woman will often have her own agenda and she is rarely completely honest.

Get Your Husband’s Side Of The Story And See If There’s Any Proof As To Either Version: I am going to go out on a limb and tell you that it’s my theory that the other woman  will often make this call because she wants to plant her own version of the events into your mind so that when your husband tells you his version, it will sound like a lie. I know that you may not even want to face your husband right now. But in the days and weeks ahead, knowing the absolute truth is going to become very important to you. So get his version of events and then consider checking credit card receipts, phone records, or anything that gives you an objective picture of the actual truth. Because you can’t successfully heal something if you don’t really know what you are dealing with.

Her Beating Your Husband To The Truth May Or May Not Have Implications On The Outcome: Many wives are enraged by this situation because they believe that if the other woman had never come forward, they might never have learned the truth. They assume that their husband might have never come clean. The problem with this thinking is that you will never know if it is accurate. You don’t know why she was motivated to beat the husband to what might have been just around the corner. You also don’t know if he may have told her that he was going to tell you the truth which prompted her to make that phone call. There is no way to know, unfortunately.

What matters the most right now is what you do with this information going forward. You can not change how you obtained the information, but you can control what you do with it now. You are in control as to how you react. The other woman has no control over your strategy moving forward as she can not control your thoughts and feelings (although she might like to.) What happens with your marriage going forward should be decided by the two people within that marriage. No third party should have the power to influence that. And if you allow her to fill your head with what might be lies before you sort out the truth, then you are giving her more power than she deserves.

I know that you feel shocked and hurt right now.  But please don’t take everything she says as the absolute truth.  Have diligence to find out for yourself.  Your inserting herself into your life doesn’t mean that she can end your marriage just because this is her goal right now.  Couples recover from infidelity every day if they decide that they want to.  If it helps, you can read about my own recovery after the affair on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

Filed under: Uncategorized by admin