Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who freely admit that they have become somewhat obsessed with the woman with whom their husband cheated or had an affair. Of course, it is just human nature to want to learn everything that you can about her. You want to know what your husband saw in her, her current status, and what makes her so special. It’s also common to want to try to gauge her current state of mind to see if you can obtain any clues as to what she wants moving forward. Because you want to know that odds of her leaving your husband alone.

Common comments are things like: “I can not seem to leave the other woman alone. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I confront her face to face because I don’t. I am her facebook friend. Well, I’m not technically her friend, but one of our mutual friends is. My friend gave me her log in information so that I can use her account to keep tabs on this other woman. I’m not very proud about this. And I always feel a little weird about it. But I log on several times per day to see if she mentions any men in her life or to see if she posts any photos. This woman is quite the attention seeker. She posts flirtatious photos of herself several times per day. I know that I shouldn’t even give her the time of day, but I can not look away. If my husband knew that I was doing this, he would be so angry with me. We agreed that we are going to leave this behind us and try to move on with our lives. I want to do this. And I believe that my husband is no longer in contact with her. So I know that I have an obligation to leave her alone like I’ve promised. But, for whatever reason, I just can’t seem to stop. What can I do to make myself quit this?”

This Is Normal But Hurtful Behavior.  It Doesn’t Benefit You: I know that this is a pretty embarrassing situation, but it’s also quite a common one. It’s human nature to have questions about the other woman and also to want to keep tabs on her. Facebook is an easy way to be able to do this. Usually, you can remain in the shadows collecting your information without any one being the wiser.  But this is also a dangerous game to play and it really does you no good whatsoever.  You’re right that you need to stop.

While she may not catch you, it’s not healthy for you to continue on in this way. It just isn’t. Every  time this wife logged on and viewed yet another one of these flirtatious photos, she was going to hurt. And this was probably going to impede her ability to begin to heal and to move on. That’s not in her best interest. I know how hard it is to turn away from this. I know how easy it is to fall into this trap. But I also know how important it is that you break this habit.

A Relatively Easy And Effective Fix: To me, there is actually a pretty obvious fix. Ask the mutual friend to change her password and to not give you the new one. If you aren’t physically able to log on and look, then this is a quick and easy way to break this habit. If the other woman has all of her settings to public or the allows access to “friends of friends,” then consider blocking facebook on your computer and on your phone, just until you are able to heal a little bit so that this is no longer a threat.

In short, you are going to have to stay off of facebook so that it breaks it’s strong hold over you. And if you have access to it, then it is very hard to have the willpower to know that you could look if you wanted to. The easiest and most effective strategy is to deny yourself access to this. Eventually, you will probably be able to use will power alone simply because with time you won’t care as much. But in the beginning, it’s my experience that it’s best to make sure that you no longer have the ability to log on.

Here’s another good tip. Train yourself to do something else when the urge to peek strikes you. Promise yourself that every time you have the urge to just check in and do something that you already know that you don’t want to do,  you will instead do something constructive for yourself. This might be journaling or taking a walk or even going shopping or getting a facial. Whatever thing you can stick to in lieu of spying on her should be your replacement. Because you will often have an easier time of breaking a habit if you can replace that habit with something else that you enjoy or that benefits you.

Know That What You See Isn’t Always Reality: Here is one more thing that you might want to consider. Facebook is not reality. Most every one tweaks their posts and their photos to be as flattering as possible. People try to craft the image that they want others to see. This is different from reality. So if you are telling yourself that you are checking her out to see what is going on in her life, know that you may well be looking at what are lies anyway. And the only reality that the only life that you need to worry about right now is your own. It’s my experience that when you begin to prioritize yourself and your own healing, you begin to realize that no one is more important than yourself.

I know first hand that this is difficult.  In the beginning of my recovery, I spent a lot of time thinking about the other woman, but this eventually became so exhausting and I decided to transfer my attention on her to attention on myself.  This helped tremendously.  If you like, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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