Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

Wives whose cheating husbands are non-committal or wishy-washy face additional challenges on top of the affair. Not only are these wives dealing with the aftermath of the cheating, but many of them also must deal with an uncertain future, since their husband doesn’t want to move out, but also won’t fully commit to saving the marriage either.

A wife in this situation might explain, ” I caught my husband cheating on me two weeks ago. I told him to get out of the house. He said that doing so would be a rash decision and that the house is his as much as it is mine. He said that because he hopes that we can ultimately save our marriage, he is staying put. But when I press him or how committed he is to doing whatever it takes to make me trust him again, he defers and says that we will have ‘to wait and see’ what happens. This is infuriating. If he can’t promise to be a better husband and make this right, then I don’t want him here. He argues that he is going to do his best, but also insists that my reaction and my attitude is not making that easy for him. This doesn’t hold water with me. If he can’t commit, I don’t get why he wants to stay here. He says the affair is over and I admit that he is staying home. Honestly, he is under my feet so much that I don’t know when he would have time to be with the other woman. So I am reasonably confident that it has ended. But until I see more enthusiasm from him, I’m not sure that I want him here.”

This is admittedly a very tricky situation. Obviously, if your husband is in any way abusive or if living together is dangerous or harmful, you’d want to contact law enforcement or legal counsel on how to safely move forward. Thankfully, that is not the case here and was not the case for me.

Advantages And Disadvantages of Living Under One Roof While Keeping An Emotional And Physical Distance Initially: I also wanted my husband out after his affair. Although we did spend time apart, we did not live apart long-term, mostly because my husband wanted to maintain access to the family. This created additional challenges. Honestly, he did commit to making things right, but his attempts at doing so didn’t always hit the mark. Because it was clear that he wasn’t going to willingly move out and because I truly didn’t want to blow up my family, I allowed him to access to our home. But, I also kept him at arm’s length sometimes.

For example, we did not sleep in the same bed. He did not have emotional or physical access to me. That didn’t come until much, much later – after he had proven to me that I could trust him and that he would do whatever rehabilitation was needed to make our marriage affair-proof. I made it very clear that I was not going to go through this process ever again and that if I had to, it would mean the end of our marriage without any questions asked. (That story is at http:surviving-the-affair.com)

Do I think that continuing to live together was an advantage or a disadvantage? Honestly, it was a bit of both. It was advantageous to my kids. They continued to have access to their dad and they continued to enjoy life as a family, although they could sense that things were different. It was beneficial that we could talk about issues from counseling or could have heart-to-heard talks at a moment’s notice. It was also helpful to have some of our most difficult conversations face-to-face since intent could have been easily misunderstood if we had tried to have these conversations via text or phone.

That said, sometimes my anger meant that things got volatile and it wasn’t always easy to take a break from one another in those circumstances. I took more walks during that period than I ever have in my entire life. I am sure that my husband often felt like he was mistreated and had nowhere to escape from that. But he claimed he wanted to be there and therefore was willing to hang in during those times.

They were not easy times. But I am not sure they would have been a piece of cake living apart, either. The recovery process is going to be painful if you live together or apart. One key benefit of living together was that it was easy for me to see that he was very unlikely to be cheating again. He was either home or at work. He no longer traveled or even went out with friends while we were in recovery. That did offer me some reassurance.

But make no mistake. My husband definitely had to prove many things to me before I gradually began giving him emotional and physical access to me again. That is how I kept control of the situation, even as we continued to live together.

Gradually Moving Forward: So how did we get from living under the same roof as roommates and in some cases strangers to living like a married couple again? Very gradually. Honestly, we often took a few steps forward and several steps back. I do not think there is an immediate fix here. There is work and rehabilitation that needs to be done, and both take some time and patience. Would I live under the same roof if I had to make this decision again? Probably. But I believe it was right to limit his access to me initially. Otherwise, what would have been his incentive to rehabilitate and offer me what I needed? If a man can continue to enjoy all of the benefits of your marriage, how likely is he to really work or change?

I know that this is a difficult situation. But in my experience, it can work, so long as both people respect boundaries and approach it as a team effort. He might not be giving you a firm commitment, but he hasn’t moved out, either. To me, that says he has not abandoned the relationship and wants to explore salvaging it. Assuming you are still somewhat invested in the marriage, this has to be preferable than him quickly abandoning the ship. You can keep him at a distance until you are seeing the effort that you are looking for from him. If it helps, my story is here.

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