Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: It’s natural and understandable for someone whose spouse who cheated or had an affair to want to know all of the details of that same affair. It’s perfectly natural to want to know what began the affair, how long it lasted, who knew about it, what type of feelings were involved, whether the affair is over, and what types of activities betrayals and acts occurred while the affair was going on. But,while these questions are understandable, giving completely truthful and complete answers can be a challenge. Because you often know that the details that you disclose details that are going to hurt or anger your spouse.

I recently heard from a wife who said in part: “I cheated on my husband with our son’s sports coach. Of course, my husband has a lot of questions. He says he wants to know every detail about the affair and says that if I’m not willing to give him this information, he’s not sure if he even wants to try to save our marriage. He says that I have to prove that I am willing to be honest with him and disclose everything. I do want to save my marriage. I do love my husband. But I am very scared to tell him all of the details of my affair. In truth, I was the one who came on to the other guy. I was the one who started it. I don’t want to tell my husband how I met the other guy at hotels and did things with him that I rarely do with my husband. My husband is going to be so mad and hurt by this. Plus, I have a feeling that he will be so angry he may come after the other guy. I just want to put this behind us, but my husband has made it clear that, in order to put this behind us, I have to tell him everything. Is there any way around this? Because if I do tell him everything I feel like this information is going to put my marriage in further jeopardy and just make things worse.”

I understand the viewpoints of both people in this scenario. I can most certainly identify with the husband because I too was the spouse who was cheated on. I understand feeling as if you want your cheating spouse to start talking and telling the complete truth immediately because you are tired of the betrayal and the lies.

At the same time, I understand the wife’s or the cheating spouse’s point of view also. I’ve seen these types of explosive details ruin or end marriages more than the affair ever could. Once you give your spouse details that are going to put troubling and hurtful images in their head, they can have a very difficult time ever getting these images out. And this can be devastating to your marriage. Because of this, I would suggest a sort of compromise which I will discuss now.

Telling Your Spouse As Much As Possible While Allowing Them To Keep Their Own Dignity And Self Respect: On the one hand, you do want to be as honest with your spouse as you possibly can. You don’t want to do anything to make your spouse feel as though you are continuing to lie to or to deceive them. It is vitally important that they feel as if they can trust you to begin telling them the truth right now, at this very second.

At the same time, if there are details that you know are going to make your spouse feel severe pain, make them feel badly about themselves, or shatter their self confidence, then perhaps you should keep those details to yourself.

For example, it’s probably unavoidable to tell your spouse that you had intimate physical activity with the other man, but you don’t necessarily have to spell out every sexual act or outline how much you enjoyed it. Or you may want to omit that at one time, you felt strong emotional feelings for the other person. It goes without saying that you should omit telling your spouse that you considered leaving them for the other person, if this is true.

These details are going to make your spouse feel unsure about themselves and about your commitment to or love for them. And these details aren’t really necessary in the recovery of your marriage. With that said, I absolutely needed to feel as if my husband were being completely truthful to me when I was asking him to tell me all of the details of the affair. I needed to feel as if he were making a very sincere effort to give me the information that I needed even if that meant that I was going to be even more angry at him and less likely to be receptive or kind to him any time soon.

But what happens if you try your best to be both truthful and tactful and your spouse continues to push you and isn’t satisfied with the details that you are giving him? Try your best to delay your response and insist that you are being as truthful as you possibly can. Always give your spouse as many details as you can while avoiding those things that are going to be truly devastating or will do no good to disclose.

If your spouse sees that you are giving them as many details as you can in order to comply with their need for the truth, hopefully they will be satisfied with this and won’t continue to push for those things that you know may well be a deal breaker.

My husband tried to be honest with me about his affair, but quite honestly, nothing he said was going to make me happy. Still, his attempts to tell me what I needed to know made me feel that at least he was trying. Eventually, we did move past most of our issues and we saved our marriage. If it helps, you can read the story of how we moved on at my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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