Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I think it’s safe to say that most wives dealing with infidelity fantasize about a husband who immediately admits to his infidelity, quickly understands the gravity of his actions, and swiftly and willingly begins the work of rehabilitation and recovery.

However, for many wives, that scenario is truly a fantasy. It is human nature to try to downplay behavior that is going to cause pain or is damaging. Most people will want to protect themselves and their loved ones from destructive forces – even if those same forces are all your fault. 

So it’s not at all uncommon for an unfaithful spouse to downplay the affair or even to downright lie about it in an attempt to lessen the fallout. Needless to say, the faithful spouse doesn’t often take kindly to this type of denial. She feels not only betrayed but lied to. She also wonders if he underestimates her intelligence and common sense.

She might say, “My husband absolutely refuses to admit to a physical or emotional affair, even though there is tons of evidence to the contrary. I’ve seen the stuff he leaves on on the other woman’s social media. I’ve seen pictures that they have exchanged with one another. And I know that they’ve been pretending to get together about work-related issues that they don’t have. Some of the texts they exchange are flirty and racy. Some of them talk about how they can’t wait to be together and how they hope they can get away soon. Although my husband will admit that he spent more time with her than was necessary and that the content of their exchanges were ‘inappropriate,’ he won’t admit to an affair. He says he was never going to leave me or do ‘anything crazy.’ His words are ridiculous. He spent an inordinate amount of time courting this woman. There is nothing he can do or say to convince me that they didn’t have a full-on relationship, affair, infidelity, or whatever you want to call it. The irony of all of this is that if he would act like a rational person, I might consider trying to work through this. But I find it very disrespectful that he looks me right in the face and lies about the severity of this inappropriate relationship. And I don’t see how we can move forward until he does.”

I agree with you. Every faithful spouse deserves healing and rehabilitation. Not allowing you all of the information that you need is shortchanging you of that. It’s very hard to heal when you don’t know what you are dealing with.

Sometimes, if you Wait, He will Want Something and You Will Have Leverage:  Many cheating spouses in this situation will try to just resume their marriage as if nothing has happened. However, if you’re not ready to pretend, then you are well within your right to say so.

There will often come a time when he’ll want something marital from you – to resume a healthy sex life, to restore intimacy, to present a united front as a family, to attend an event with him, etc. When that happens, there is nothing wrong with saying that you can’t do those things until you have healed as a couple. And in order to do that, you need to name the elephant in the room.

You can say something like, “You’re asking me to pretend that nothing has happened when we both know it has. I can’t move forward in the way you are asking me to until you disclose what happened so we can try to heal. Then maybe we can resume with a healthy marriage.”

Healing Often Requires Disclosure: Once he sees that there is no choice in telling the truth if he wants to resume the marriage in the way it was, he may be more willing to tell the truth and accept that he will have to participate in healing. 

How you attempt to heal is individual. Some chose counseling. Others use self-help. But do you know what all of the healing methods have in common? You have to talk about and admit to the issue that you are trying to get over. 

I can’t imagine any counselor who would allow a client to continue to deny the issue for which he’s seeking counseling. If you do self-help, the details about the betrayal will come up over and over again. Denying them doesn’t allow you to go forward. To go through the steps and make progress, he must give truthful information. Sooner or later, he will hopefully realize this. 

Acting as if:  Many wives in this situation will fight back by telling their husbands that they’re going to act “as if.” It works something like this. The next time he refuses to admit his infidelity, you reply with something like, “Every scrap of evidence I see right in front of me contradicts what you just said. I cannot turn away from my critical thinking. I can’t pretend that you aren’t asking me to act as if I have no rational thought. It’s insulting that you won’t admit what is so obvious. You are giving me no choice but to simply act as if this is true, despite what you say. For me to be able to begin my healing process, I need to deal with reality. So you can say what you wish, but I’ll be seeking healing from infidelity because I believe that is what happened. I’d like it if you’d take that journey with me, but perhaps you aren’t ready yet. Let me know when you are.”

Sometimes, when it becomes clear to him that you’re going to proceed “as if” anyway, he’ll have no choice but to give you truthful information. I wish his about-face always happened right away, but many people will try to deny it until it is clear that this strategy won’t work anymore.

That doesn’t mean that you have to accept it or pretend that you believe him when you don’t.  Over and over again, I made it clear to my husband that I wouldn’t accept less than what I felt I deserved.  And I eventually got it.  You can read about that at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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