I’m Afraid To Ask My Husband If He Still Loves Me After His Affair
by: Katie Lersch: For whatever reason, one of the biggest concerns that many wives have after their husband has an affair is how he feels about them afterward. Even when wives are seething and furious at him (and devastated by his betrayal,) many worry (at least somewhere deep inside) if his infidelity means that he has stopped loving them. This is true even when we aren’t sure if we still love him after he has betrayed us in this way.
I recently heard from a wife who had this very concern. She said, in part: “about two weeks ago, I found out that my husband had an affair that lasted nearly a year with a woman who is somewhat younger than me. I’ve been digging around and I’ve found letters and texts to her that seem to indicate that he was deeply involved and almost committed to her. As much as I hate to admit this, it appears that he had developed some real feelings for this other woman (or at least he thinks he did.) But, he’s still begging me not to leave him and saying he wants to save our marriage. Despite this, things are still very volatile between us. He rarely shows me any affection. And he doesn’t seem all that sorry or remorseful, despite his words. Still, I want to save my marriage. I still love him, as foolish as that sounds. But I’m very concerned that he no longer loves me. If he still felt love for me, then I’d have hope that we could work this out. But after reading the things that he wrote to her, I’m afraid to ask him if he still loves me because I’m afraid of what the answer is going to be. Should I ask anyway? What are my options?”
I’ll try to address these concerns in the following article.
It May Be Too Soon After The Affair For Either Of You To Know How You Really Feel: It’s very common for people to want and need important answers very soon after an affair. Learning of infidelity is a very severe blow and it’s absolutely normal to want to evaluate just how this is going to affect your marriage and your life. To that end, it can feel as if you need an immediate answer and / or resolution to all of those painful questions that are floating around in your head and causing you a great deal of pain.
But what we often don’t realize is that the answers to these questions may not be possible or accurate so soon after the affair. Emotions are still running high and not everything is going to be clear or even accurate at this time. People often feel very differently several weeks or months down the road. So while either partner may not be feeling particularly loving or even remorseful because of the anger or indignance they feel today, this may change dramatically in days, weeks, or months from now. While a husband’s embarrassment, shame, or resentment might make him claim he doesn’t love you or doesn’t feel the same way, these assertions may prove to be inaccurate later. And the same can be true for your feelings as well.
Although It May Feel As Though You Need To Know Immediately If Your Husband Still Loves You After His Affair, His Actions Over Time Should Tell You What You Need To Know Without Your Ever Needing To Ask The Question: The wife was understandably afraid to ask the question because she feared the answer. I didn’t see anything wrong with not pressing the issue, at least for now. It can feel as though your life and your marriage are so uncertain and hangs in the balance in the days following learning of the affair, but it often takes some time before the resolution is clear.
Sometimes pressing an issue or demanding answers forces information that later proves to be inaccurate and ends up making things worse. I actually suspected that the husband probably would have told the wife that he still loved her if she decided to ask the question because he repeatedly asserted that he wanted to save the marriage. But if the wife was uneasy about this, there was no need to press the issue since the answer would become clear soon enough.
Words are just that. They can be manipulated, falsified, and manufactured. To me, it truly is a person’s actions that tell the true story. And in the days, months, and weeks to come, this husband’s actions were likely to tell the wife more about his feelings, his intentions, and his character than any words that he could ever say. So if she was concerned about his answer, she could always just watch his actions over time. It’s usually pretty safe to assume that a husband who hangs in there even when he’s shamed, guilty, and faced with a furious wife isn’t hanging around because he doesn’t love his wife. He’s hanging in there because he does.
What If My Husband Insists That He Still Loves Me After His Infidelity, But He’s Not Acting Like It?: Sometimes, curiosity gets the best of the wives in this situation and they go ahead and ask their husband if he still loves them. Most of the time, the husband will insist that he does. However, the wives sometimes have their doubts because of the way that he is acting. I often hear comments like: “he claims he still loves me after his affair, but he is so distant and unaffectionate. He certainly doesn’t act like he loves me. It’s almost like my very existence makes him angry. I can’t help but doubt what he’s saying when he isn’t acting loving at all.”
These concerns are certainly understandable. But again, the time period that happens immediately following an affair is one that is filled with confusion, doubt, and anxiety. Usually you are dealing with two people who are deeply shocked, wounded, and struggling. The anger and the resentment that you are seeing might just be directed at himself, but is being projected onto you. Men often do distance themselves somewhat after an affair because they are embarrassed, ashamed, and not completely prepared to deal with the aftermath of their actions.
Many don’t know how to reach out emotionally and resist feeling vulnerable, so they close themselves off instead. As the result, many wives will take this to mean that he doesn’t love them, which isn’t always the case. I certainly had my doubts about my husband’s love for me after his affair, but we eventually worked through this over time. Although I never would’ve believed this in the beginning, our marriage did fully recover and we are solid today. If it helps, you’re welcome to read about this recovery and healing on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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