Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many wives will agree that little is worse than finding out that your husband is having an affair. However, unfortunately some wives know that there is something worse – having that same cheating husband announce that not only is he having an affair – but he plans to leave his wife in order to be with the other woman. This leaves the wife with two horrible events to process and to deal with.

I might hear a wife describe it this way. “I honestly don’t think that I would have ever caught my husband in his affair.  I never suspected a thing. He met this woman volunteering. Here I was thinking that he was doing something good for the community and I was encouraging him to get out there and get involved. And the whole time, I was encouraging him to see her. Last week, he announced the affair and he told me that he was in love with her. He said that he was very sorry, but that he was leaving me to be with her. He said he felt such remorse for hurting me, but that if he stayed with me, he wouldn’t be happy and that he would make us both miserable. He said that part of him still loves me, but he knows that I deserve more. Well, what if I don’t want him to leave? I don’t want to end my marriage. Despite the affair, I still love my husband. Oh, I’m very furious with him, all right. But, I don’t want him to leave. I want him to stay so that we can work things out. I’m afraid that if he leaves, he’ll never come back and we will end up divorced. How can I keep him from leaving me?”

Be Careful That He Doesn’t Believe He Needs To Escape From You In Order To Be Happy: I know that it is tempting to just block the door or to try to manipulate or restrain him in any number of ways. But deep in your heart, you have to know that this isn’t the best option. When a man believes that he is in love with someone else, he is always going to see the person who attempts to keep him away from her as the person who he must escape.

And frankly, the more you try to keep him from her, the more that he is going to want her. This is just simple psychology. The thing that is forbidden is just that much more attractive. Think about when you were a teenager and your parents told you that you couldn’t see a boy that they thought was a bad influence or beneath you. How much did you want to be with him then? Probably so much that you were willing to sneak out to see him, right? And didn’t the sneaking make it more delicious?

Well, the same logic applies here. If you stress that she is off limits and you try to stop him from seeing her, then he is suddenly so much more attracted to her and your job is even more difficult.

I know that the last thing that you want to do is to just watch him ride off into the sunset with her, but that’s not what I am implying. Of course you want to tell him that you don’t want for him to go. But you have to be careful about how you say it. You don’t want to come off as the person who is trying to stop his chance for happiness.

So you might say: “I know that there is nothing that I can do to stop you from leaving, but I’d like for you to reconsider. I think that before you pursue a relationship with any one else, you need to evaluate the state of your marriage. And I’m not sure how you are going to be able to do that when you aren’t living here. Of course, I can’t control what you do. Nor am I going to try. But I’d hope that you would consider the many years we’ve had together before you just decide to discard a relationship that has been built over a life time together. Of course, it is ultimately up to you. I have plenty to do in regards to my own healing and well being. And that is what I’ll be doing in the meantime.”

I can’t promise you that this is going to keep him from leaving, but it might give him pause. And when the affair ends, which most do, he will remember your actions right now. And that will likely matter.  Sometimes, it’s better to let him see that the grass isn’t greener than to let him think that you’re scared that he will find out that it is.

Compare this option with what will happen if you lose your cool and you absolutely forbid him to leave and he leaves anyway? Now, he’s left and he’s in a position where he must cling to the other woman because of how he left things with you. This scenario actually pushes them together and makes it more likely that he needs to make every attempt to make things work with her.

But if you make it clear that although you feel that this is all a huge mistake, but that, regardless of his choices, you will be working on yourself, then the scenario is very different once the affair ends.

Of course, at that time, you get to decide how you want to proceed. It’s important to remember that you have choices too and you are not just dependent on his whims when it comes to his affair.

I totally get that you want for the affair to end immediately.  But, you can not force this.  Otherwise, he will want her more.  You have to back away, focus on yourself, and ultimately allow that to be his decision.  Statistically, relationships that start as affairs have a very low chance of success.  So when it fails, you will be in a much better position than you are now.  You will be in a position of strength at that time.  So don’t jeopardize that with your actions now. You can read more about how I navigated life after my husband’s affair on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

Filed under: Uncategorized by admin