Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear with wives who feel that, no matter what their husband is claiming at the time, they are dealing with very serious infidelity within their marriage and, as a result, they are not sure that their marriage is going to survive.  Often, their husband is assuring them that, despite his conflicting feelings for someone else, he is going to do everything in his power to save the marriage.

I heard from a wife who said: “for the past several months, I’ve noticed my husband becoming more and more involved with a female coworker.  Granted, they are required to work closely together because of their jobs. But they started going to lunch together, going to the gym together, and then talking a lot outside of work.  This bothered me from the very beginning, but at first it didn’t seem to impact our marriage so I just tried not to worry all that much about it. However, over the past several weeks, our marriage has definitely changed.  I finally told my husband that I didn’t want him spending any time with this woman outside of work.  He immediately resisted this and started making excuses.  So I realized that there was more to this and I asked my husband if he had feelings for this woman.  He admitted that he had strong romantic feeling and, with a little prodding from me, he finally admitted that he thought he was in love with her. But as soon as this admission came out of his mouth, he told me that our marriage was much more important to him. He says that what he wants most is to work on and save our marriage.  He promised that he would not have outside contact with her.  I’m happy that he was so quick to give her up, but another part of me is wondering how it’s going to possible to work on or save my marriage when my husband is in love with another woman.”  I’ll try to address these concerns in the following article.

This is a very delicate situation which was undoubtedly very painful to the wife. However, there were a few positives here.  Not only was the husband honest about what was truly happening, but he immediately agreed to prioritize the marriage.  This doesn’t always happen.  Often, the husband will claim that he needs some time or he will hesitate to make any commitments.  The fact that he immediately put his wife first was a good sign.  With that said, this situation was going to be difficult to overcome.  However, nothing is impossible.  But in order for this couple to be successful, I felt that a couple of things needed to happen.  I will discuss them below.

The Other Woman Truly Needs To Be Out Of The Picture: I understand that we live in a very difficult economy.  I know that most people can’t leave a job and immediately get another one.  And it probably wasn’t fair to expect this of the husband, especially since financial stress wasn’t something that this marriage needed.  However, I really can’t stress how hard it is to save a marriage when the other person is still in the picture.  I understand that the husband was still insisting that nothing physical had happened.  But he had also admitted that he was in love with this woman.  Intense feelings coupled with opportunity will often equal infidelity, even if no one intends for anything to happen.

Even if neither party plans or wants to cheat, who needs that kind of temptation or doubt?  It’s just not worth it if your priority is your marriage. So, at least in my opinion and experience, the other relationship must be completely ended and all contact has to cease.  This husband could ask for a transfer or he could start looking for another job while setting very firm boundaries with his current one.

Often, As You Rebuild Your Marriage, The Perceived Feelings For The Other Person Will Disappear Or Fade:  Many people ask me if its possible to save your marriage when your spouse is in love with someone else.  I do believe that it is for a couple of reasons.  First, I believe that often your spouse perceives that they are in love with the other person, when in fact what they really love is the aspect of escape that the other person offers.  It is actually what the person represents rather than the person themselves.

Also, often as a spouse turns away from  his marriage, he starts to get his needs met from the other person.  This means that, in a sense, he transfers his feelings from one person to another.  But, when you begin to restore your marriage and both of you put in the effort and attention, you will both start getting a pay off from your marriage.  As a result, there is a very good chance that the feelings which were projected onto the other person will return to where they belong – with your marriage and with your spouse.

In short, the feelings of love for the other person are often misplaced or misdirected.  And once that other person is out of the picture and you restore your marriage, this will often be obvious and your husband will realize that although he thought that he was in love at the time, this really wasn’t the case at all.

So to answer the question posed, I think that it is possible to save your marriage in this situation.  But both people have to be willing to do the work and the other person needs to be out of the picture.

I know that this might seem like an impossible situation, but just take things one day at a time.  Regardless of what happens with your marriage, you need to also prioritize yourself and your own healing.  Not only will this make you feel better, but it will often help your marriage as well.  If it helps, you can read more about my own recovery on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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