Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many people understand why a faithful spouse might have a huge amount of anger toward a cheating spouse. It’s also understandable that this anger might contribute to some harsh behavior. However, when the harsh behavior crosses the line or is unrelenting, the cheating spouse may think it’s become unfair.

A cheating spouse might explain, “I am fully aware that my behavior was wrong. I know that this is all my fault and that my spouse is the innocent party. I know that I deserve some chilly treatment. I don’t expect her to be affectionate to me right now. I don’t expect her to treat me well or to be on her best behavior. I don’t expect her to trust me blindly. But it has been more than a few months now, and she still acts as if I’m a criminal. She acts like I am the most horrible person on earth who is worthy of constant contempt. She makes fun of my appearance. She ridicules my clothing and my mannerisms. She mocks the things I say. It is as if her main goal every day is to hurt my feelings as much as possible. It’s very spiteful. Again, I understand why she’d want to treat me this way, but it seems excessive. And it feels like she’ll never stop. She’s being as mean as possible on purpose.”

I am somewhat ashamed to admit this, but some of the things I said and did to my husband after his affair was somewhat horrible. They were most definitely spiteful and mean. I wanted them to hit him with maximum pain. However, I’d never do that today. I’ll share why I was hateful and what changed below.

She May Be Trying to Make You Feel the Pain She Felt:  I believe that the main reason I was hateful to my husband is that I wanted him to feel the uncertainty and self-doubt that I felt when I found out he has cheating. When you are a faithful spouse, it takes a huge toll on your self-esteem. You don’t feel desirable anymore. You wonder why you were so stupid that you missed the clues. You wonder if the best part of life and your marriage has passed you by. Your insecurity has reached new levels.

Not surprisingly, these things don’t feel good, so you want the cause of those feelings – your spouse – to have to feel them too. You do this by trying to hurt him every chance you get. You may not have ever been a spiteful person before, and yet you feel the need to lash out constantly. But what you learn over time is that spreading negative feelings doesn’t make you feel better. It actually makes you feel worse. Sometimes, this realization takes a while, unfortunately.

What You Can Do: How to best react to this depends on many factors, including how long this has been going on, whether it is intensifying, your tolerance of it, and how effective your response is. If the affair is fresh and your wife hasn’t had much time to process this, it’s fair to expect some fallout which looks like mean behavior. This is just to be expected because the pain caused by an affair is going to elicit all of those negative emotions that must go somewhere. It’s frankly understandable as to why she’d want to lash out.

However, if the behavior is over the top or has gone on for longer than is appropriate, you can always try to tell her that it is hurtful. You might try something like, “I know that you’re treating me this way because you are hurt, but please know that the things you say and do hurt me too. I’m not sure that we are accomplishing anything but hurting each other. Do you think we could try to be a little more gentle with each other?”

Don’t be surprised if she tells you that her comments are hurtful because you hurt her in the worst possible way, but at least you may have put the thought in her mind.

Work on Healing and the Hurt Should Wane:  One of the biggest reasons that I no longer lash out at my husband is because I feel comfortable and confident in my marriage again. This didn’t happen by chance. It took time and very hard work.  

But as we put in the effort and I began to trust again and felt I could let my guard down, I no longer had the need to try to hurt my husband because I wasn’t hurting quite as badly.  

Whatever you can do to make your wife feel valued enough that you’re willing to put in the effort to make this right, do it. Because it will often benefit you as well as she begins to feel some relief and then backs off on her intentional cruelty. 

Take a Break Before You Engage: Finally, I know that hearing your spouse saying these kinds of things are trying. You may want to respond in kind. It may be tempting to say something like, “Listen to you. No wonder I cheated on you.” 

Don’t make that mistake. You’ll just propel yourself about five steps backward. Sometimes, you may need to remove yourself from the situation until things calm down. Spend some time in another room of the house. Go for a walk. Do anything you need to do to diffuse the tension so that you don’t need to engage. When you understand why she’s doing this, then you can see that engaging with it is just going to keep the cycle of hurt going.

What you need to do is to start to diminish the hurt, and then she will feel less of a need to hurt you in return.  Hang in there.  In some cases, it does get better as you begin to make some progress.  If it helps, you can read about my journey and how I finally made some progress at https://surviving-the-affair.com

 

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