I Want To Move On From My Husband’s Affair, But He Won’t Confess
I sometimes hear from wives who are quite positive that their husband has cheated. Both their intuition and their heart is telling them this. And they want to proceed as though he has cheated so that they begin the process of picking up the pieces of their lives and of their marriage. They moved past the initial stages of shock and want to deal with things in terms of the future. However, they run into a problem when their husband won’t even acknowledge the affair so that healing can begin. How can you solve the problem when he won’t even admit that there is one?
Someone might say, “I know that my husband had an affair. I have seen texts and emails from a coworker. And although none of these communications comes right and says ‘we are having an affair,’ it seems pretty obvious. The messages are very flirty and they talk about meeting, going out, etc. It is very clear that my husband was meeting up with this woman on a regular basis. It is also very clear that they were communicating multiple times per day. My husband will admit that the relationship was not a good idea and he has agreed to end it. He will and has apologized that he became too involved with this person. But he will not admit that he cheated with her. He says that they never crossed the line and he is not going to lie and say that he cheated when in fact he didn’t. I have tried to insist to him that in my mind he cheated whether it was emotional or physical, but he says that there is distinction that I am missing. He seems to expect me to move on, but I don’t feel that I can do that until he actually apologizes for cheating. I don’t want to give up on him or my marriage. I have kids to think about. But I feel that he is not doing his part because I know that he is lying. I have actually tried to call the other woman to get a confession out of her, but she just hangs up on me. How do I get him to confess so that we can move on? Or how can I move on without a confession?”
I completely understand your wanting a confession. I am not sure how I could or would have proceeded if the affair had not been out in the open. It would have been very frustrating. I know people who have been through this and some of them DID eventually get a confession. Sometimes, when a spouse becomes more comfortable with the idea that you won’t leave or jump ship once he makes that confession, he is more likely to tell you the truth. Alternatively, sometimes when you begin to make progress on your marriage and you begin to get the intimacy back, then he is more confident that you can withstand or tolerate the truth.
In my experience and opinion, men who continue to deny and lie about the affair do so because they are afraid of losing their wives, their children, or their marriage. If they didn’t care about any of these things then they absolutely would not have anything to lose by saying, “Yep. I had an affair.” If he was not still invested in you, there would be absolutely no downside to hurting you with the news of an affair and risking the fall out to that.
No, the men who insist they didn’t cheat (even when they possibly did) are those who are afraid of the consequences when they tell the truth. As I see it, you have a couple of options. You could continue to do what you are doing – attempting to move ahead as you continue to tell him that a confession is going to be absolutely necessary. The hope is that as you make progress, he will feel more comfortable with opening up as he becomes less concerned about the dire consequences. Or, you could tell him that you want to seek counseling in order to move on. As part of that counseling, your counselor is going to need details about the affair. When your husband downplays physical intimacy and contact, the counselor is likely to press. And often, the truth is going to come out. You could also try good self help books that have questions about affair details. Those details can emerge eventually with self help, but at least with a face-to-face counselor, the counselor could help you to process things right away after the truth comes out.
I know how frustrating this must be, but I do find that the truth has a way of emerging eventually. It may not be in the timeline that we want, but it’s very hard to keep something like this under wraps forever. Sometimes, he will willingness confess. Other times, you (or your counselor) will have to keep working on him. Occasionally, he will slip up. But it’s rare for the truth to remain a secret for eternity. My husband kept some details secret early on. I knew most of what I needed to know, but not all of it. As we moved forth with healing, additional details came out. This was frustrating at the time, but looking back, I’m kind of grateful because it would have been overwhelming and painful to have every thing come out at once, not that any of this is easy. You can read more about my experiences on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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