Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: It’s a safe bet that faithful spouses are never going to forget about the affair. Sure, with time, the pain isn’t as fresh and the sting is not as sharp. But it’s impossible to forget that type of pivotal event.

However, things can be different for the cheating spouse. The affair is sometimes one of the biggest mistakes and shameful periods of their lives. So it’s something that they’d give anything to forget. 

And at times, they can seem like they HAVE actually forgotten, which can make faithful wives extremely frustrated.

One of them might say, “It has been over 10 years since my husband’s affair. It almost destroyed us. We separated for a while because of it. I became very depressed, but I was eventually able to recover and pull out of it. With tons of work and patience, we eventually recovered. I’ve never regretted not leaving. Not really. For the most part, we have a good marriage now and I love the family that we have built. I feel like we’re pretty much recovered. In fact, perhaps we’ve recovered so much that my husband never acknowledges the affair anymore. If we watch a movie with infidelity, he’ll be very judgemental toward the cheater, as though he didn’t do the exact same thing. One of our mutual friend’s husband cheated on her, and my husband said some very nasty things about the husband – as if they don’t have cheating in common. It’s almost like my husband has completely forgotten that he himself cheated. Is this even possible? Why is he acting like this?”

He Likely Hasn’t Forgotten. He’d Only Like To: I can only speculate, but this behavior isn’t that uncommon. It’s possible that your husband would just really like to forget about the affair. That was likely a shameful, painful time. It can be hard for a cheating spouse to know how much they hurt the other person and how, for a while at least, they couldn’t do much to fix it. They feel helpless watching your confusion, pain, resentment, and doubt while knowing that all of it is due to their mistake. 

Here’s another example to put things in perspective. When I was a child, I did something very stupid and immature and I hurt a female relative – who I loved then and still love today. I didn’t consciously intend to cause harm, but I didn’t think about my actions before I acted. I couldn’t take my actions back, and they really hurt my relative. It was very hard for me to watch her in pain and know that I caused it, but there was nothing that I could do to take it back and reverse it. I could only apologize and try to help – which I did – but that can only go so far. She was the one who was hurting and I couldn’t take her pain away.

Do you think that I bring that incident up when we are together? You’d better believe I don’t. I do everything in my power not to think about it – and I pray that she isn’t thinking about it either. Frankly, it happened a long time ago, and our relationship is a good one today. In my daily life, I don’t think about it very much. But if I am faced with a similar situation or something that will jog my memory, then yes, it comes to mind. And once it does, I push it out again. It’s painful. I don’t want to linger on it. I push it out even when I’m with my relative. I suppose it’s possible she might think I’ve forgotten about it or I’m too cowardly to talk about it, but only the second one is true. 

My point is that when people are ashamed and regretful of their actions, they don’t want to bring them up. So they may pretend like it isn’t on their mind because they’re hoping – with everything they have – that it isn’t on your mind. 

I’m not sure that this type of pretending really accomplishes anything for the remorseful person. But it’s often not malicious. It’s honestly an attempt to spare pain on both sides.

Should You Confront Him About His “Forgetting?”  Whether to confront him about his seemingly faulty memory depends on how much it bothers you and how often it is happening. If you’re generally content with his rehabilitation and believe you’ve healed, then I’m not sure what the purpose of picking the scab would be. 

If it truly bothers you, then you could try something like, “Well perhaps we shouldn’t be so judgemental because we were in that same situation not too long ago. We can’t pretend that we weren’t.”

This isn’t unkind and it allows him to know that if he thinks you aren’t thinking about the affair at that moment, he is wrong. It could also help to clear the air – assuming it needs clearing. It addresses the elephant in the room, at least.

But to answer the original question, I highly doubt your husband has forgotten. He would just rather not remember – and he would rather you not remember – because it was a painful time that he wishes you could both forget.   

Of course, none of us forget.  But we can move on in a healthy way.  I believe that I’ve been able to do that, but it wasn’t always easy.  You can read more about that process at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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