Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: A husband’s motivations after cheating can be hard to gauge. Some husbands seem most concerned with their marriage. Some are most concerned about their kids. And others seem concerned about things that have nothing to do with relationships. Money is one example.

A wife might say, “When I caught my husband cheating, the biggest thing he seemed concerned about was whether I was going to divorce him and take all of his assets. We have worked hard over our long marriage and we do have some assets. I’m certainly not going to give them up. That’s not my concern right now, though. My concern is our family, our marriage, and our lives.”

 “This has altered and changed everything. I question the life I thought I knew. I doubt my own perceptions because I didn’t see any warning signs. I have so many concerns going forward. But money isn’t one of them. Because I know that I am not at fault. However, in his heart, my husband must know he is at fault because he’s obsessed with money now.”

“It’s disappointing. He’s made half-hearted attempts to talk about our marriage, and he’s asked after our family. But those concerns seem secondary. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to divorce, but it seems it is all about the money, not the love. How do I ever process this?”

Nothing is easy after an affair, is it? It seems that there are just countless things that you have to worry about. And, if the world were fair, HE would have to deal with all of them too. It’s particularly annoying when it appears that he’s only cherry-picking the concerns that he wants to prioritize. However, as daunting as it may seem, there are considerations that you may not have had on your radar, as follows.

He May Be Mentioning Money Because He’s Not Prepared to Discuss Feelings and Emotions:  Just because your husband isn’t bringing up marriage and family, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he isn’t thinking about it. 

Sometimes, the cheating spouse doesn’t mention it because he is afraid of rejection or of getting his hands slapped away. He’s afraid that you’re going to tell him something that he doesn’t want to hear. After all, money is intimately tied to your marriage. A loss of money would mean a divorce, which means he IS thinking about your marriage, he’s just not necessarily confident enough to ask you about it.

Many people don’t ask a question to which they do not know the answer, especially when they are in a vulnerable situation like this one. So it’s not always a correct assumption to think he cares nothing about the marriage.

Money May Be a Concrete Place to Place His Focus: Along the same lines as above, it is often easier to talk about concrete issues that you can see and touch like money. Abstract things like feelings, wishes, sorrow, shame, and guilt, are much harder to verbalize and discuss.  

So he may be tap dancing around it or using the money issue to brush up against the things he’s not able to verbalize in the early stages of recovery. This doesn’t excuse him, but it might give you a different perspective. 

How to Address His Focus on Money:  It is obvious that this bothers you, and no one can blame you for that. If you want it to stop, you can attempt to address it. The next time he says something about money, try something like: “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do moving forward. But your constant focus on money instead of me, my well-being, our family, and our marriage is incredibly disappointing. The money should be secondary to more important things. The money will come after we shift through what happens with everything else. I’m not necessarily motivated to worry about money when you don’t seem to care about me and my well-being.”

He might respond by telling you that money isn’t his primary concern. You might then get the reassurance and the emotion that you’ve wanted to see all along.

Know That You Don’t Always Get What You Need at First Unless You Ask For It:  Every faithful wife wants a husband who immediately shows love, remorse, concern, guilt, and shame. But this doesn’t always happen. Many people aren’t sure how to react and so they pull back, or they posture, or they are waiting to see what happens.

Things may go slowly at first as you feel each other out, but as time goes by, he may change his stance, and you may see his behavior change and improve. 

Again, I’m not trying to defend him, but I’m trying to reassure you that what you are seeing right now may not be what you are stuck with for the duration.

You may have to eventually tell your husband what you need, want, and expect moving forward. I know that it feels weird and unfair that you have to define it. But I had to, and so did many other wives I know.  

Sometimes, telling him what you need and want is the only way to ensure he’ll understand what you expect so that you can actually get what you need, so that you can begin to move forward and heal. 

I definitely had to spell it out for my husband. And yes, my husband was concerned about the nitty gritty of every day finances as a defense mechanism, but as time passed, he became more comfortable talking about feelings, and it became clear to him that I required it. Eventually, we talked very openly, and this is one of the things that allowed us to eventually heal. You can read more about that at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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