Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

I sometimes hear from wives who are afraid that, now that the affair is over, the other woman is going to try to contact the wife or the husband. Of course, the wife usually hopes that the other woman will just gracefully go away. But unfortunately, this is not always the case. Many wives want nothing whatsoever to do with any unwanted communication from her. But that doesn’t stop her from trying to reach out.

A wife might say, “How common is it for the mistress or other woman to want to communicate after the affair? Yesterday, an unrecognized number called our home phone. The person who called had a blocked caller ID. I did not pick it up, but now I’m paranoid that it was the other woman trying to call us. My husband said that he was very clear that there was to be no contact when he broke it off. But will she listen? I have nothing to say to her, even though some of my friends say that I should hear her out. And I certainly don’t want her speaking to my husband. How likely was this call to be from her? Am I just being paranoid?”

Her Reaction Depends On Whether She Was Prepared For The Affair To End: I don’t think that you are being paranoid. You may have tried to google statistics on this, only to see that there really aren’t too many out there. But in my own experience and observation, it really does depend on the situation and on how the affair ended. It also tends to depend upon how invested the other woman was in the relationship. In general, the more warning of the affair’s end that comes beforehand, the more time both people have to get used to the idea and the less likely she is to try to call or contact either spouse. Additionally, the more invested she was in the relationship, the more likely she is to have a hard time letting go and walking away.

Sometimes, though, the other woman herself is married and she herself has a family. In these cases, she usually has no interest in the wife or the other family. The reason is because she never intended to leave her own family. She didn’t want anything permanent with the husband and now that the affair is found out, the last thing that she wants to do is to open the door to her own family being further jeopardized. So she’s more than happy to move on as quickly as possible. And this is the best case scenario, but not every wife is so lucky.

Consider Just Waiting For Now: If you are not sure which category your situation might fall into, I honestly would do nothing for right now.  I would not invite any drama. If the phone calls persist, then I would try to look up the number online, if possible. I honestly never pick up unidentified or strange calls because anyone who truly knows me or has business with me has my cell phone number or email. If it’s truly important enough that they need to get in touch with me, they would know how to do it.  And they would also leave a message.  I’d suspect that the same is true of you, so I would not worry about the call too much.

As far as your friends saying that you might want to talk to her, I disagree with that, but this is only one person’s opinion. Remember above when I said that the mistresses or “other women” who are most likely to try to call are those who don’t want to let the affair go? Well, those are also the women who are going to try to manipulate you when they talk to you. They aren’t going to be honest with you because they have their own agenda. Many wives agree to talk to them in order to gain information or insights, but you’d better believe that any information that they give you is going to be slanted to their benefit. They have no reason to want to be honest with you. Because their motivation for calling you in the first place is probably to push forward their own wishes.

As long as your husband was clear that it’s truly over and he wants no contact, I’d hope that if she does try to call him, he would immediately shut her down. If the call was indeed her, the fact that she called the home phone (rather than the husband’s cell phone) may indicate that she was looking to talk to you, the wife. If it were me, I would not play into her hand. If more calls come, I’d continue to ignore them. If they become excessive, then you can always block them. I rarely see anything positive come out of these communications. They just increase the deception, manipulation, anger and pain. The wife generally gets nothing but more aggravation out of these calls. There is nothing to be gained by anyone but the woman attempting to call. I know that there are always exceptions, but why not focus on yourself and what you need right now? You have other things to worry about, which is why I’d just ignore the calls and not overthink this issue too much. She can’t talk to you unless you pick up, which is why I wouldn’t.

I know that this is a difficult time, but it does get easier.  I do remember thinking that every stray phone call had to do with the affair.  I was always wrong and it made me paranoid.  To the extent that you can, try to focus on more important, more immediate things.  Fearing the worst before it happens is just allowing pain that isn’t yours yet.  There’s no gain in that. If it helps, you can read about how I overcome some of these challenges on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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