My Husband Is Very Angry With Himself For Having An Affair, But His Anger Affects Everyone.
By: Katie Lersch: Many husbands who are caught having an affair will exhibit some anger. Many actually turn their anger on their wives. They are embarrassed and humiliated by being caught and so they will act and indignant and lash out. However, some husbands will go to the other extreme – they will be angry, alright. But at themselves. At first glance, you would think that their anger at themselves would be a good thing. And it can be – at least initially. But many husbands take this too far. Their anger at themselves can sort of paralyze them and leave them unreceptive to doing anything that might help to get them out of the mess.
Here’s an example of how a wife might explain it: “when I caught my husband cheating, he literally started banging his head against the wall. I had to stop him to keep him from hurting himself. Then he starting hitting himself on the top of his head with his hands. I stopped him on that day, but every day since, he is on edge. He tells me that he hates himself. He says that he is deplorable person. He told my mother that I would be better off if I divorced him because I deserve better than him and then he started sobbing. As weird as it might sound, I do want to save my marriage. But my husband turns around everything that I say. No matter what the topic of conversation is, he will bring it back to how he is a ‘no good s.o.b.’ and then I’m left not knowing what to say. The only thing really to say is ‘no, you’re not a bad person.’ At the same time, though, I am still angry. And I don’t want to be in a position where I’m trying to get him to come around. Because I almost feel as if the roles should be reversed. Last night, he was sitting in the dark and crying. I asked him what was wrong and his answer was ‘I hate myself.’ He’s always angry. He snaps at the kids and he has never done this before. He gets short with me, but then he backs down. But his anger at himself bleeds into the rest of our lives and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
You’re already touched on one of the biggest challenges with this. You’re mad at him and you want him to be sorry and to deeply feel his mistake. But when he postures with this self-hatred, he puts you in a position where you’re almost building him up when he doesn’t necessarily deserve that, at least right now.
Potential Depression Is Never Something That You Should Ignore: Some of the behaviors you are seeing could be symptoms of depression. And a man who is depressed or has low self esteem is more likely to cheat, could be suffering greatly, and is not a joy to live with. So depression could well have been a risk factor all along. That’s why, as mad as you are at him, it would help every one if he would work on himself and try to raise his self-worth. And as much as you might like to help, it really is self-work. Frankly, a therapist or some very targeted self help are probably going to be the most effective and necessary. Mental health and depression are things that require very targeted attention. Most of us are not objective or qualified enough to help our spouse. And the added benefit of having a third party helping him his with his anger and his self esteem is that you are not having to walk the tight rope of being the one who is having to build him up while also being the one who is angry.
Him Becoming Stronger Only Benefits You And Your Marriage: If you do want to save your marriage, his working on his self-worth will only benefit you. Honestly, your marriage will be stronger when you are dealing with two mentally healthy people who aren’t going through life feeling flawed and like they do not deserve happiness.
Hopefully, self work can make your husband understand that the best way to make himself less hate-worthy is to become the man he wants to be and to become the husband that you deserve. That is the only way to make this right. If he doesn’t try to do that, then he remains the flawed individual who is full of self-loathing and who remains angry.
Neither of you can change the affair. But what you can change is what happens moving forward. It’s going to be quite a challenge if he continues on angry and full of self-wrath. And, depression is nothing to play around with. It is better to be safe than sorry in this regard. I can not stress how important it is to get him some help – regardless of what happens with your marriage. Because you are BOTH suffering as a result of what he is going through. And you will BOTH benefit if he gets some help and starts to see things a little differently. Once he does, he will likely be more effective with rehabilitation, which is an added bonus.
My husband was miserable all of the way around after his affair. Counseling did help us both and we also did some self-work, which provided benefits even outside of our marriage. I can’t over stress the importance of this. There’s more about our recovery on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com
Filed under: Uncategorized by admin
