Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: When you find out that your husband is having an affair, the last thing that you want to think about is him continuing to see her – even if this is only one last time. No, you want for him to cut off any and all contact. And many wives have very little patience for any additional request.

A wife might say: “when I found out about my husband’s affair, I told him that he was not to see or talk to her ever again. This was nonnegotiable. I told him if I found out that he did, I would divorce him immediately. He calmly told me that he was going to be very honest with me throughout this whole process. Because of this, he said that could not lie to me and he felt that he needed to let me think that he was not going to continue to have a relationship with her. But, he said that he only needed to see her one last time because he wanted to have enough integrity to look her in the eye and explain things to her when he broke it off. I do not agree with this. What if she makes a big scene and begs him not to break it off? What if the spark is there and they end up having sex? What if he has no intention of breaking it off and he only wants to see her with my blessing? But when I tell my husband these things, he says that I need to trust him and that he really is going to break it off completely. What am I supposed to think about this?”

I can only tell you my opinion and it is based on the perspective of the faithful spouse. This is just my own opinion, but I couldn’t send my husband off for one last visit to the other woman either. And I suppose this husband doesn’t understand that saying “you need to trust me” when you have already caught him lying to and deceiving you is a very tall order.

With this said, this is a very common request. This husband isn’t alone with it. I hear this very often. Many men feel like they “owe it” to the other woman to tell this bad news to her face. Of course, I can’t tell you that there aren’t any men in this scenario who are lying and who only want to see her again, with no real intentions of cutting it off. But I also think that many men sincerely do intend to cut it off but feel that they need to do it in person.

You can certainly try to talk him out of this, because I agree with you that no good can come of it. I’d try something like: “since it’s ending anyway, I really do not understand why a letter, email or phone call won’t suffice. I don’t understand wanting to do this in the most honorable way possible when nothing about this was honorable. She knew that you were married, so she had to know that this might one day happen. This is very important to me. And if you want to save our marriage as much as you say, then I need to be your priority. Me being your priority means that my wishes are more important to you than hers. It’s important to me that you not see her anymore. And this is not an unreasonable request. Imagine that you were in my shoes. Imagine that I was asking you to see the other man again at least once more. Would you want me to? How would you feel when I walked out the door if you knew that I was going to see him.”

Hopefully, this will be enough to make him listen to reason. In my opinion, wanting to see her once more is truly a selfish request. And if his priority is you, then he should see that. To be fair, people aren’t always thinking clearly when they are having an affair and they aren’t usually themselves. That’s why it can be helpful to try to delay this process and ask him to wait awhile before making a decision. Because if you can delay it, then he may come to his senses and realize how silly this request truly is.

We had a lot of misunderstandings and struggles after my husband’s affair, but I was always clear that I didn’t want the other woman in our lives for one more minute.  Of course, we can’t always have what we want.  But we can try to be very clear about it anyway. You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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