My Husband’s Mistress Lives With Us. How Can I Put A Stop To The Affair?
By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear about somewhat strange situations that involve infidelity. Occasionally, I hear of a situation in which the “other woman” is actually living with the husband and his wife. As you might expect, the wife often wants to end this situation as soon as is possible.
One of these wives might say: “when my husband asked me to take in a long time family friend, I really didn’t hesitate. The truth is that over the course of our marriage, many of my family members have lived with us until they could get back on their feet. My husband grew up right down the street with the woman in question and they have known one another since they were children. So I didn’t think it was any big deal for her to live with us until she could find a job. Well, after she had been living with us for about eight months, she came and told me that for the last two months, my husband had been coming home for lunch and sleeping with her. He didn’t deny any of it when I confronted him. He said that she had always been special to him but now their relationship had changed. He believes that she knows him better than anyone, including me. I was so angry and I told him that the affair must end. He told me that he would stop sleeping with her, but I don’t think he has. I can tell by the way that they are looking at one another. I am pretty sure they picked up right where they left off. How can I put a stop to the affair?”
What a difficult situation this was. The wife was only trying to do a good deed by helping out someone in need and now she felt as if she would look like the bad guy if she forced the other woman out. However, I thought the bad guy in this scenario had already been well established and I felt that her guilt was definitely misplaced. I’ll discuss this more below.
Your First Goal Should Be To Get Her Out Of The House As Soon As Possible: Quite frankly, eight months seems to be enough time for someone to find a job. Sure, the job that she is able to obtain may not be her first choice, but the whole idea was for her to get onto her feet not to get used to living in someone else’s house while sleeping with someone’s husband.
This wife seemed like a very kind-hearted person who wanted to help someone in need. But sometimes, enough has to be enough. When someone uses your own kindness to betray or hurt you, then your kindness should immediately cease. You should not allow them to continue to take advantage of you. The first course of action should be to get the other woman to leave the house as soon as possible. Ideally, the husband would agree to this. But if not, then the wife would need to state her case very plainly.
Recovering from an affair is very difficult even when the other woman is out of the picture. But having her living under the same roof is almost cruel. I can not imagine saving your marriage and healing while having to share a home with her. If this husband’s marriage were important to him, he would agree with his wife and tell the woman that she must find other living arrangements in a reasonable amount of time.
It will be much easier for the affair to truly be over once and for all if the husband is not seeing her every day and knowing that all he has to do is come home for lunch to receive more of a welcome than is appropriate.
Once You Get Her Out Of The House, The Husband Must Truly Want To End The Affair: Once you remove the temptation of her, you still have to be vigilant. It would be totally possible for the husband to continue to see this woman. He would merely have to go to where she was now living. And he might have some guilt about kicking her out, which she may decide to exploit. That’s why it’s important that your husband actually want to end the affair as well as understand why he must close off all contact. His focus should become his marriage and his wife and nothing else.
Ending The Affair Is Only The First Step: I can’t tell you how many wives assume that all they have to do is end the affair or remove the other woman from their lives and then, as a result, their lives and their marriages can just resume normally. If only it were that easy. Once she is out of the picture, there is still much work to do. You will need to establish why he had the need or impulse to cheat in the first place. You will need to restore the trust. And you will need to rebuild your marriage from the ground up so that one day you can truly put this behind you and move on with your life and with your marriage. Because if you don’t, you will always worry about him cheating again or you will have resentment that negatively affects your marriage.
This isn’t an easy process, but it is a necessary one. Right now, the most important thing was the wife’s healing. She couldn’t fully heal unless she removed the things that were causing her pain. Taking care of your own needs is extremely important right now. Because often, if you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will. I learned this the hard way after my own husband’s infidelity. If it helps, you can read my story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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