Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Sometimes, when a wife catches her husband having an affair, she very understandably kicks him out of the house. This is often an intuitive response that the wife does not consider very deeply or for very long. She only knows that she wants him out of her site immediately. Because of her understandable shock and anger, she does not consider where her husband is going to end up. Much of the time, she does not care. However, unfortunately, some of these same husbands end up at the other woman’s place – at least for the short term. Some of them will claim they weren’t sure where else to go. Others do it out of revenge or anger. Still others do it because they can. It usually does not last, but of course, it matters deeply to the wife, especially when the husband eventually decides that he wants to come back home.

She might explain, “my husband initially claimed that the other woman meant nothing to him. But once I kicked him out, he eventually ended up at her house. When I became infuriated by this, he sprung for a hotel room. He swears that he is no longer seeing her. He says that he only stayed there for a short time to figure out what he wanted to do (since I made it clear that I (and our marriage) were not an option for him.) However, now he is begging me to at least consider letting him come back home. He says he will sleep on the couch and that the hotel is getting expensive. Well, he should have thought of all of this before he cheated. Honestly, the thing keeping me from considering his return is the fact that he went to the other woman. To me, that is very disrespectful and isn’t the behavior of a man who cares about his marriage. He says his going there was just a matter of convenience. One of my friends says that I should at least be keeping an eye on him. I’m not sure what to do.”

Considering The Consequences: I am unsure if anyone can make this decision for you, but I can certainly understand your reservations. If you let your husband just come back home with very little consequences, is he actually going to think twice if he considers cheating again? Also, if you just quickly let him back into your home, what is his incentive to go to counseling, get himself together, and do the work to make sure that your decision to let him back in is the correct decision?

I will admit, I did not divorce my own husband, but he did stay with family members for a while. I just could not have him under the same roof when things were fresh. Did I worry he would cheat again or continue to cheat? I suppose so, but I had bigger worries at the time, like my children and my own well being. I figured if he did either of those things, then I would then have a very firm answer as to whether I should give him another chance. Obviously, if he couldn’t stay faithful when times were difficult, how would he stay faithful when things were easier if we reconciled?

Requirements For Admission: After a while, because of my kids, I did allow him to stay at the house. However, many things had to happen before I allowed this. He had to attend counseling with me, answer all my questions, participate in self-help (of my choosing) become accountable, make himself an open book, etc. I know that these requirements were not fun for him, but I needed to see his willingness to do these things in order to begin repairing our marriage. Even when he was staying at our home, he was not sleeping in my bed and we were not functioning as a married couple. He was there to give our children continuity. I will admit that it was much easier to keep an eye on him when he was under the same roof as I was, but babysitting was not the purpose of this decision. However, everyone is different.

Again, I cannot make this call, but I would suggest that if you are considering allowing him to reside under your roof, that you consider requirements for the same. One would be that he has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the other woman. The other would be that he enthusiastically participates in the rehabilitation events of your choosing. You’re not trying to be a traffic cop here or a parent who is putting him in time out, but you need to see that he is willing to make a very strong effort to begin to make this right.

My thinking was always that my husband needed to earn his way back into my life and into my marriage. I am not sorry for this because these requirements allowed me to see that he was actually very sincere. Waiting allowed me to see that he wasn’t just going to act a certain way in the short term and then change his behavior once he got his way. Many of the activities that we participated in were painful and very unpleasant, but these things were necessary to begin to rebuild the trust. On the plus side, many activities WERE very pleasant and eventually allowed us to reconnect and to have fun together again.

I have no regrets about taking my husband back gradually. This was the right decision for my family and for myself. But I would not have felt comfortable allowing him to come back immediately. I needed to see his sincerity and I had to believe that he was done with the other woman. (The whole story is here: http://surviving-the-affair.com)

I do not think that there is any harm in giving this a little time to make sure that you are comfortable that your husband is actually over the affair. And then, perhaps as I did, you could allow him back into your life gradually, as you gain some comfort. That way, both people see compromise and effort.

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