Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many wives have to deal with a lot of frustration and waiting in order to get their husband to finally admit to an affair. Some wives even have indisputable proof – and still the husband will dig in his heels, look at his wife with the straightest of faces, and insist that he is not cheating when both people know that he is.

So when the husband FINALLY admits to the cheating or confesses, the wife is left to wonder what dramatic turn of events lead to this. She might explain a situation like: “for the past four months, I have known that my husband has been cheating on me. I did not know who he was cheating with. But I could tell that something was seriously wrong by the change in his behavior. Not only that, but a mutual friend actually saw him at a restaurant all over another woman. So I knew that he was having an affair. But no matter how hard I pressed him, he would not admit to it. He basically told me that I was paranoid and crazy. Even worse, he didn’t stop his weird behavior and he didn’t come home any more than he used to. Basically he just kept up the affair, but he continued to insult my intelligence by denying it. Well, last weekend, he came home and announced that there was something that he had to tell me. He finally admitted that he’d been ‘seeing someone else’ (He refused to actually use the word ‘affair.’) But he insisted that it was over. He also said that he wanted to save our marriage and that he wanted to move on. I asked him why he admitted to this all of a sudden. He said that he had decided that it was the right thing to do. I don’t buy this at all. By the dejected look on his face last weekend and by the way that he has been moping around, I would say that she dumped him. But when I brought this up, he denied it. He said that they mutually decided to end it. I very much doubt this. My husband gets angry when I harp on this. And he does not understand why it matters to me. It matters to me because I would honestly feel better if he dumped her. But if she dumped him, then he’s only coming to me with his tail between his legs because he had no other choice. I am the consolation prize. I am not his first choice. And this makes me angry and makes me not as enthusiastic about saving my marriage. How can I find this out? Should I make it my business to find out who the other woman is and ask her?”

I know that some will disagree with me, but I never advocate contacting the other woman. It simply almost never goes well and it almost always makes the wife feel worse instead of better. Plus the other woman is always going to follow her own agenda – not yours.

You can certainly ask your husband to provide you with more information. But you may have more success with going to counseling and allowing the counselor to extract the information. Right now, things are fresh and he isn’t as likely to be as forthcoming. But give it a little time. You DO deserve more answers than he has been giving you, but you also need to understand that his perceptions are going to be somewhat skewed. Just like the other woman has her own agenda, he has his. And it’s just human nature to see things through the lens that is going to hurt the least.

If she did dump him, he probably doesn’t want to dwell on this realization because it is painful and embarrassing. Also, it’s likely to be more painful because it is new. Men often see the affair much more clearly in time. In fact, give him a few weeks or months and he may realize that the affair ending – no matter who broke it off – was the best thing that ever happened to him. And at that time, he may be more forthcoming.

Also, it’s natural for him to hold the information about the affair close to the vest – especially at first – because he may understandably be afraid of how you are going to react. He may not want to hurt you and he may be trying to slant the information in a way that is going to make saving your marriage more likely. He may loosen his grip on this in time.

In terms of an immediate response, I would try something like: “I am going to need much more information than that in the future. I understand that things are very fresh and explosive right now. But you can’t just give me vague answers and expect for me to be satisfied with them, especially if you want to save our marriage. I deserve and want more information than this. I can’t make sound decisions if I don’t have all of the pertinent information.

He may give you more information after this conversation or he may delay for a while longer as he tries to ascertain both of your feelings and wishes. But the truth has a way of coming out in these situations. The only question is when. And, in my opinion and experience, you usually don’t need to invite in more trouble by allowing the other woman into your life.  There’s more about how I handled an affair in my own life on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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