Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Let’s face it. Discovering an affair is almost always a huge shock and disappointment. Very few people go into their marriage knowing or accepting that their spouse will cheat on them one day. Most people assume that their relationship is going to be different.

People who perceive their spouses as very honest sometimes have even more difficulty processing that the affair has actually happened because this is behavior that they would never expect from their normally brutally honest and forthcoming spouse.

They might say, for example, “To say my husband’s affair completely caught me off guard is an understatement. I didn’t expect it at all. My husband has never given me any reason whatsoever to distrust him. He’s a loving, attentive husband. But, more than that, he is just honest to his core. He is like George Washington in that he can never tell a lie. I don’t think that he has ever lied to me in his entire life before this. He is the kind of person who will go back to the grocery store if he comes all the way home and figures out that he forgot to pay for something. He won’t even tell little white lies. If an outfit doesn’t flatter me, he’ll tell me. If he doesn’t want to do something, he’ll say that too, even if it hurts someone’s feelings. He’ll also out himself when he makes mistakes. His honestly extends to himself as well as to everyone else. That’s why I couldn’t believe it when I came home early from an event (due to illness) and found him with someone else. He was caught red-handed. There was no denying it. And, of course, this was awful. But do you know what was even worse? The realization that he’s been lying to me and deceiving me for months. This is a man who has told me for our entire married life that he would never lie to me. I believed him because quite frankly, I don’t think that he has ever lied before this. Does the fact that he lied mean that this affair or this woman is particularly special? Does it mean that our marriage is so problematic that he finally saw fit to lie to and deceive me when he never has before? This honesty issue is making things much more tricky.”

Why Wives In This Situation Assume The Other Woman Is Special: I know where this wife is coming from. Because even though there’s a popular stereotype which tells us that men will take sex anywhere with anyone, most of us do not believe such behavior is true from our husbands. Not our marriage. Not our relationship. So when he does this, we figure there must be something notable about the other woman. But that often isn’t the case. If it were, affair relationships would last longer than they typically do – which often isn’t very long.

Look For What Your Husband Thinks He Lacks Instead Of What The Other Woman Has: I have dialogued with many couples in this situation. I’ve also been through infidelity myself. An affair often has more to do with the place the husband is in his life rather than what the other woman brings to the table. No matter who she is or what qualities she possesses or does not possess, he will often choose her merely because she is available at a time when he thinks he needs or wants something different in his life.

A man who lacks self-esteem will look for someone who builds it up. A man who feels non-powerful will respond to someone who gives him the perception of power – whether this perception is true or not. A husband who doesn’t feel heard by someone (his boss, his family, etc.) will gravitate to someone who listens.

Hopefully, you can see by the above examples that a vulnerable man will be ripe for an affair if a woman who seems to display the desired quality comes by at the right time.

However, I want to stress that although she may appear to the man to have the quality, that doesn’t mean that she actually has it in reality. Honestly, he is going to see exactly what he wants to see.

He’ll Lie To Get The Thing He Believes That He Needs: I hope that I’ve shown you that men who have affairs – especially when this is their first – are often caught at a particularly vulnerable time. So the thing they are seeking can seem like catnip to them. A man who wants to feel powerful can, under the right circumstances, lie and cheat to feel powerful again. And on and on it goes.

It’s All About The Perception Of Need, Not About The Woman: We’ve all seen it over and over again. They’ll risk the thing that they love the most or act in a way that they wouldn’t normally act. And we wrongly assume that it is for the other woman.

But it’s usually not. It’s for the NEED that the man is trying to meet within HIMSELF. I know that this might not make it much better. But there is some solace in knowing that very often, the woman is nothing special. And eventually, most men do realize this. In fact, most of them eventually come to realize that feeling better isn’t going to happen by having an affair. It must happen at the source. And the source is within themselves.

A man will rarely admit this. Because it shows his vulnerability and showcases a need that doesn’t paint him in the most flattering light. So don’t expect him to talk about this openly.

But normally honest men lie when having an affair because they believe that they have to. And they’re sometimes trying to spare their wives pain and/or are trying to avoid any difficult conversations about the need.

None of this means that your marriage is doomed if you are still invested. Although the woman’s “specialness” needn’t always be an issue that you have to worry about, you may have to address his perception of the same.  You can read about how I navigated the difficult period after my husband’s affair at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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