My Husband Doesn’t Want To Leave After His Affair
By: Katie Lersch: Quite understandably, many people have extremely strong and quick reactions after they discover that their husband has been having an affair. In fact, many wives are tempted to kick their husband out immediately, even if they are not sure if they want a divorce. Often, you can’t even think that far ahead. All you know is that you don’t want to lay eyes on him right now. However, many husbands don’t want to leave. They will do nearly everything in their power to avoid leaving and to buy themselves some time.
A wife might explain, “My husband did try very hard to cover his tracks during his affair. I had to work very hard and very long to catch him, but eventually, I did. I assumed that when the gig was up, he would bow out gracefully and move out. However, although he is very panicked, he is begging me not to kick him out of the house. He says that he is afraid that if he is forced to leave our home, I will never allow him to come back. He says that he is petrified at the thought of losing me and the life that we have built. This is almost laughable. If he had wanted to stay in our home and in our marriage so bad, why cheat then? Don’t men who cheat actually want a divorce and want to leave? I am stunned that he is fighting so hard to stay. I honestly don’t know what I want right now. I just don’t want to be near him. And I can’t imagine that we would not fight relentlessly if he were to stay here. Why would he even want to stay? And should I force him to leave?”
Why Your Husband Is Not Unique In His Desire To Stay: I can’t decide this type of weighty decision for anyone, but I can certainly give you some ideas to consider. I know that it may be hard to believe, but this situation is not uncommon. In my observation and experience, the majority of men who cheat don’t want to leave their marriages. You can look up the statistics on this – they are readily available – and they’ll tell you that while there are certainly some unfaithful husbands looking to exit their marriage, most are not. Most caught husbands will tell you that they love their wife and are still invested in their marriages.
Understanding His Fears: The husband is this scenario is saying what you’d hear from most men in this situation. Many of them lived in dread of their wife learning about the affair. Think about it. If he wanted to leave his house or pursue a divorce, he certainly doesn’t need the stimulus of an affair to do this. In fact, his life would have been easier if he’d ended his marriage first and then tried to find someone else. The fact that he didn’t do this (and tried to cover his tracks) tells you that he was still invested in his married life. When you ask him to leave the house, he fears that you are really asking him to leave your life together. So, naturally, he will try to get you to change your mind. He doesn’t want to give up his married life. And he’s likely incredibly guilty, embarrassed, and ashamed. Living alone is only going to make those feelings more intense.
Evaluating Your Choices: His fears do not mean that you have to ignore what you want. In fact, your top consideration should be your wishes since you are the innocent party and you did nothing wrong. As I see it, you have a couple of choices. You can kick him out with no questions asked and no one would blame you for it. However, I can tell you that this is what I did. I did not even give my husband time to argue with me. He stayed with family for a while. However, this option was not ideal as I would have thought. Often, I would have questions that I would want to be answered but he wouldn’t be there so I’d just have to ruminate. I would also assume the worst – since I couldn’t see him, I’d worry that he was continuing to communicate with the other woman. These questions made me realize that I wasn’t ready to just abruptly walk away from my marriage. Plus, I worried about just abruptly pulling my kids’ father away.
So eventually, I settled on a compromise, which may be the second option for you: He lived at our home, but he did not live in our bedroom for quite a while. This way, we were in close proximity to one another and he was there when I had questions. We could talk to one another at will. But if things went south, got awkward, or we just needed a break, we’d go to separate areas of the house. If things got really bad, I’d ask him to give me some space for a while and he would respect this. We got creative in how we explained this to our kids, but I honestly think that this was better than to have their father continue to stay away.
This was my choice and what worked for me. It is not going to be the right decision for everyone. All couples are going to have different situations and scenarios. Some couples feel that they need or want a break from one another and that’s very valid. You can always come together again if you change your mind. And a break, whether temporary or long-term, can sometimes be the right call. I am not sure if the first few days after the affair would have gone well if we were constantly under the same roof. I was so angry that I would have just made things worse. But after some time, it became clear that I wasn’t just ready to throw everything away, either. I think that sometimes it is best to take things day by day and not to make any lasting decisions that can’t be undone because your perceptions and feelings can change. For me, it was best to leave things open-ended, so that I had the ability to change my mind later. You can read more about how we eventually recovered at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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