My Husband Ended His Affair. Now What?
Understandably, many wives take a hard line once they find out their husband has been having an affair: end it or there is no chance to work on the marriage. Some husbands delay ending things. Others do so immediately. But most who want to save their marriages eventually do it. However, once this obstacle is finally out of the way, it’s often not entirely clear what is supposed to happen next.
Here’s what I mean. A wife could explain, “when I found out about my husband’s affair, I was enraged. I would not even talk to him for days. I would not accept his calls or texts. However, once I finally did, I assumed that the affair was already over. Why would he be reaching out to me if it wasn’t? However, once I talked to him, he conceded that he hadn’t ended the affair. I told him that until he did, we had nothing to talk about. He showed up a week later announcing that the affair was over. He acted as though this was the main hurdle we needed to cross. The implication was that now that he’d closed this chapter, we could just go back to our regular life. This is laughable to me. His ending the affair was his ticket to a seat at the table, nothing more. It meant that I was willing to listen to him. But he acts if ending it was all he needed to do. So, my question is: he ended the affair, what now?”
Honestly, in my opinion, this is up to you. Because you are the one who is going to have to decide what scenario will make you comfortable and willing to open yourself up to your marriage again. No one can answer these questions but you, but I am willing to share what was important to me in a similar scenario.
My husband ended his affair without any prompting, but how was this supposed to be enough? Sure, that removed a very important issue, but very larger issues remained: What lead up to this? How did I know he wasn’t lying? How could I trust him again? What was the extent of his remorse and how did he work around it? Would he be able to identify his vulnerabilities and change them so that this never happened to me again? Yes, this is a lot to address, but he needed to address every single issue for me to know that he was serious about saving our marriage.
Sometimes, people will say, “that’s too many hoops to jump through. My husband won’t do all these things.” My response is that he will if he loves you and wants your marriage. And you don’t need to do everything at once.” I’m not even sure that you could do everything at once. Instead, ask yourself which issues are most important to you and systematically present them as your marriage can withstand it. Make it clear upfront that this is going to be a process. And it is going to take time. I was clear that I wasn’t committing to anything – other than to wait and see what happened as we tried extensive rehabilitation.
That said, you don’t want to make this situation seem impossible. When my husband did as I asked, I acknowledged his efforts and opened myself up a little more with every stride we made. But I went into this process very guarded at first. And I only dropped my guard as my husband’s behaviors and actions proved to me that I could. I am sure that he became frustrated at times. It was a long process. But it was of his own making. And I simply was not going to put my faith back into him or my marriage until it felt safe.
My strategy may not be the right strategy for anyone else. Every wife has to decide what she wants and needs for herself. But, I don’t believe that ending the affair is all that is required to move on. I have seen too many couples end rehabilitation far too early. It’s usually not pretty. The faithful spouse can remain resentful, distrustful, and angry while the cheating spouse wonders when this will ever end.
So while my rehabilitation criteria may have been lengthy, when my husband did it, I then let it go. It was then mostly over. I can’t claim that it never comes up. But, for the most part, we have moved on. If I had just allowed the ending of the affair to be the end of what was required, I am certain our marriage would look very different now – for the worse – if we had any marriage at all.
It is natural for any faithful wife to have questions about the affair and demands after it. Ending the affair does not answer these questions and is often only the beginning of the concessions, at least in my opinion and observation. Frankly, it is easier to ask for too much and to then re-evaluate and to ask for nothing and regret it later. You can read more about our recovery at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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