Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who are hearing conflicting stories from their husband when it comes to his feelings about the other woman in the affair. Sometimes, when the affair is first discovered, the husband will express real feelings for the other woman. Often, he thinks that having legitimate feelings will make the cheating at least somewhat justified. But as some time passes and he is able to reflect upon the situation and see the pain that all of this is causing his wife, he may change his tune sometimes. Or, he may have legitimate feelings for both women and may therefore flip flop on his claims. Often, his loyalty understandably lies with his wife, with whom he has a commitment and history. Unfortunately, usually once he has admitted feelings for the other woman, this is hard for the wife to forget, even if she believes that her husband also loves her.

I heard from a wife who said: “when I first caught my husband cheating, he refused to discuss the other woman at all. Eventually though, he realized that he owed me some answers and he agreed to go to counseling. During one of those sessions, the counselor started probing his feelings for the other woman. He answered that he had real feelings. The counselor asked him what he meant by ‘real feelings’ and he stated that he loved her. Needless to say, this is the last thing that I wanted to hear. After thinking about this and struggling with it for quite some time, I decided that our marriage didn’t stand a chance because I just can’t be married to someone who is admittedly in love with someone else. However, when I told my husband this, he said that upon further reflection he didn’t really love the other woman. He claims that just thought that he did. He says that now that he has had more time to be away from her and to think about it more objectively, he realizes that what they had wasn’t really love. To take it even further, he said that he realizes that what we have is love. In short, now he is doing a complete about face and saying that it is me who he loves. I want to believe this quite badly. I would fight hard for my marriage if I believed that my husband loved me. But how can I believe him when not too long ago, he was telling me that he was in love with someone else. How am I supposed to believe him?”

Deciding If You Want To Wait And See How This Turns Out: I know that this is a difficult situation. I know that he is asking you to take a huge leap of faith. I know that sometimes, you question yourself as to how you could be so foolish as to even consider believing his changing claims. Of course you want to believe that he loves you. But how are you ever going to know for sure? I’ll tell you my answer, but I have to warn you that I doubt you’ll find it to be the perfect answer. I’m not sure that there is any such thing as the perfect answer in this situation. I think that you just have to make a conscious decision as to whether you want to give this some more time to resolve.

Here’s why. You can’t possibly know if your husband is telling you the truth. Because he may not even know if he is telling you the truth. It’s quite possible that he has many conflicting feelings happening simultaneously. He may well love you very deeply. Men who love their wives can and do cheat. The real question is where he is going to go from here. Because quite frankly, love isn’t enough. It’s hard work to recover from an affair. And love is a wonderful first step. Because love can inspire you to work tirelessly to fight for your marriage right now – even when it’s future isn’t certain. Without love, this process is much more difficult.

Why Time Will Often Give You More Information: As I said, love will only get you started. You’ll also need a commitment, a willingness to figure out why this happened, and then to a plan to heal your marriage and then prevent this from happening again. These are the things that will make up the commitment that will pull your marriage through. So no, you may not be sure if he really loves you right now. And that is a scary place to be. But frankly, in the weeks after the affair, very few things are clear. There aren’t any guarantees. You often just have to decide what you want to happen tomorrow and then you make a conscious decision to give it more time to wait and see. Because if he truthfully does love you, then he will be there tomorrow and next week. And next month. And next year.

It is over time that he is going to prove his love for you. He can say any number of things. But only his actions coupled with time is going to tell you whether or not those things are true. Frankly, men can both lie and tell the truth in this situation. And if you watch closely and wait, then the time and the circumstances will help you to sort it out. I know that’s not a perfect answer, but it’s an accurate one, at least in my experience.

Of course I doubted my husband’s love for me after the affair.  And, I wasn’t prepared to just blindly believe his words.  That would have been very naive of me.  Instead, I made it clear that he would need to prove this over time.  And he has.  If it helps, you can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from cheating spouses who want to make things right in their marriage. And a big obstacle to making this happen is that their spouse has lost respect for them. Their spouse may have viewed them in one way before the discovery of the affair, but they view them in a new way after it. Some people will try to tell themselves that perhaps they are just imagining the perceived new lack of respect. But, I can tell you that often, this may not be paranoia or complete imagination on your part. Because I hear from many faithful spouses on my blog who tell me very directly that they have lost respect for their cheating spouse.

From the faithful spouse you may hear something like: “my husband isn’t who I thought he was. Honestly, I was always proud to be this man’s wife because he is active in the community and he is known as a kind and caring man. People in our community admire him. People trust their children with him. He is known in business as a person of integrity. Well, if they only knew. While my husband was doing business with one of these associates, he was also cheating with that same man’s wife. He was going behind that same man’s back. And he was lying to his wife and children. He was getting in his car and telling me that he was doing things for our church when in reality he was going to be with her. So I am looking at this whole situation and thinking that I didn’t know my husband at all. And I’m also thinking that he is not as respectable as he wants all of us to believe.”

From the husband in this scenario, you may hear something like: “I am deeply ashamed of my behavior. And I deserve my wife’s disdain. My behavior has no justification and no defense. But my wife acts as if I am the most deplorable creature in the world. She acts as if every word out of my mouth is a lie. I am still the nice guy she married. I still step up to help people in our community. My word is still good in business. People can most certainly trust their children to me. I understand that I lied to her and I deserve her anger. But I almost can’t stand that she has lost respect for me. My good name is something that I fought very hard for. Will I ever get it back?”

I believe from my own experience that you can get that respect back – at least eventually. But you have to understand that this may be a gradual and very hard fought battle. You have to earn that respect back. And it is going to take a good deal of time, probably. Because your spouse is understandably doubtful of you. And she is going to be watching you very closely. Any time she catches you doing something contrary to your claims, she is going to lose a little more respect for you and trust you a little less.

I don’t say this to be negative. I say this to allow you to see what you are up against. The good news is that there is a way out of this. But it’s not easy. And it’s not a magical answer that doesn’t require work and patience from you. Here is the key as I see it from a spouse who has been cheated on and who today respects her husband once again.

You have to show genuine remorse. You have to make good on your promises to your spouse. You have to continue to do the honorable things that you never stopped doing to reassure your spouse that you are the same good person that you have always been. At the same time, you must show your spouse that you are deeply aware of the mistake that you have made, and that you have been profoundly changed by it. So changed in fact that you would never repeat it.

Then, you must show your spouse the type of husband that she deserves. You must be loving, patient, affectionate, and accountable. You must do everything in your power to earn and deserve her trust. After some time, when she sees that you are sincere and that you have made good on every promise that you have made to her, then she will likely restore her respect in you because you would have earned that back.

But what you have to understand right now is that you haven’t earned it at this time. You have lost it. Also understand that your wife often has the same wish as you – that the affair never would have happened and that she could go on respecting, trusting, and loving you. But your actions have made it so that this isn’t possible right now. So, you have to deal with the reality that you are facing at this time. And if you face that reality with courage, dignity, and grace, and you show your spouse the man who she has always known has returned and has learned from his mistakes, then she likely has it in her heart to forgive.

Because here is something that you may not have counted on. You’ve worked very hard to lay the foundation to earn her respect in the past. That matters. She hasn’t forgotten that (although her pain as made her momentarily turn away from it.) And as you begin to heal, she will likely turn to it again as long as she can see your sincerity and your willingness to make this right.

My husband’s prior behavior before his affair did matter to me.  I was able to weight the fact that he had always been a good husband and one of my firmest supporters.  Once I began to heal and my anger began to wane, I was able to see that my husband was the same person as always.  He was just a person who made a huge mistake.  And he needed to prove that he had learned from that mistake and would not repeat it.  If it helps, you can read more about my situation on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Often, the most painful thing in dealing with an affair is also dealing with the other woman. This is especially true if the husband seems reluctant to give her up or to stay away from her. When this is the case, the wife will often try to determine ways that she can keep them apart. Often, this strategy doesn’t work quite as well as she had hoped.

An example of the type of comment that you might hear in this situation is something like: “my husband cheated on me with one of my friends. This woman’s child is friends with my child. She literally lives less than five minutes away from our home. She is the one who told me about the affair. And she told me about it because she wanted to let me know that she intended to take my husband away from me. She was very aggressive and possessive when she broke the news. I actually think that she enjoyed it. Needless to say, I have demanded that my husband have nothing whatsoever to do with her. I have told him to stay away from her. Our kids can play together at school, but that is really all of the contact that I want. When we discuss this, my husband will seem to agree with me, but then I will get a call or a text from the other woman where she gloats and tells me that he has just seen my husband or that my husband has just called her. This infuriates me more than I can say. He will promise me to stay away from her and then within a couple day’s time, he is right back pursuing her. How can I keep him away from her? What do I have to do in order to make him understand that he has to cut off all contact with her?”

This is an extremely common question. And it is a bit of a difficult one to answer. Because it’s not realistic to think that you can lock your husband in a room so that it is psychically impossible for him to be able to get to her. And, I’m not sure that you would want to do this anyway.  Because often, when something is defined as off limits, then this makes it all that much more desirable. I believe that it is your best interest to make it that your husband decides on his own that he needs to cut off all contact with her. Your forcing this on him increases it’s power over both of you. It’s so much more meaningful if he comes to this decision on his own. With that said, you can certainly encourage it. And you can certainly make it clear that his life is going to be much easier if he does the right thing. You can allow him to see that saving your marriage is only going to be possible if the affair has actually ended.

So how do you do this? You need to have a frank, clear, but calm conversation. I would suggest that the next time the other woman calls you to report your husband’s whereabouts, you might confront him with a conversation like this: “well, once again I heard from the other woman that the two of you had an encounter. At this point, it should be clear to you that she is going to report back each and every time this happens. It is unrealistic for you to think that this is not going to get back to me. I am starting to wonder if you don’t care that it’s going to get back to me. You have said that you will break it off. I am wondering if you and I have different definitions of what this truly means. Because to me, breaking it off means that you do not call, you do not text, and you do not go by in person. It means that she is completely out of our lives. And, until this happens, we are not going to be able to save our marriage because there is someone else in it. This situation is not fair to me. And it’s not conducive to us moving on. I need for you to do what you have said that you are going to do. I need for you to really let her go and not see and talk to her anymore. Until you are willing to do this, then I think that our marriage has to be at a standstill. I can’t participate in it when there is someone else. So please let me know when you have really and truly broken it off. Please let me know when you truly mean what you say.”

I know that this might seem harsh, but it’s true that saving your marriage is almost impossible when the affair is still active. If he isn’t even willing to end the affair, then it’s very doubtful that he is going to be willing to do the work necessary on your marriage. Sometimes, when he knows that he’s not going to enjoy a relationship with both women, then he will have more of an incentive to do what is right.

People sometimes ask me about negotiating with the other woman or trying to convince her to be the one to break it off.  I understand considering this, but I’ve rarely seen it work.  And I don’t advocate negotiating with someone who has been so obvious about wanting to purposefully hurt you.

If he still won’t do what is right, then it’s my belief that it’s in your best interest to just focus on yourself until he acts with more responsibility.  Your healing will always be in your own best interest.  If it helps, you can read more about my situation on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who desperately want the other woman out of their lives. The affair is supposedly over. The husband supposedly wants to save his marriage and to move on. So, when he maintains friendly contact with the other woman, the wife can be left with a very difficult situation. Because often, she too wants to save her marriage. She too wants to move on. But she just can’t ignore the fact that her husband is maintaining a relationship with this woman. Sure, he says that they are just friends. But the wife wants no contact whatsoever. She just isn’t sure how to go about enforcing this.

An example of a comment that the wife might make is something like: “my husband cheated on me with a woman who he met in a support group. His father has a devastating disease and this support group is for caregivers of ill family members. They apparently bonded because of their similar situations. This really hurts me because I have tried very hard to support my husband through his father’s illness. When I found out about the affair, my husband asked for a little time to break it off. He said that he felt that he was an emotional support system for the other woman and he didn’t want to just take that support away all of a sudden. I wasn’t happy about this, but I tried to understand it. Eventually he agreed to end the relationship and he said that we would save our marriage. We have been to counseling a couple of times, but I’m not a big fan of our counselor. The other day at counseling, my husband let it slip that he and the other woman were still friends. I blurted out that he told me he was ending it. He said that he had ended it, but he doesn’t feel that he can stop being her friend because she needs his support. I was so angry. I told him that this was not the deal that we made. He insists that he can be friends with her without anything inappropriate happening. He says that it’s not fair to pull his friendship away from her. How do I handle this? I want to save my marriage. I want to hold onto what we have. But I am always going to be worrying about him being friends with her. I am always going to be worrying about what they are talking about or doing. I just feel like this is going to impede our progress, but my husband says that I am overreacting.”

I didn’t think that this wife was overreacting at all. Granted, I see this from the point of the wife, since I too was a wife who was cheated on. With that said, I know from experience how challenging it is to move on after the affair. The other woman was out of the picture immediately in my case and yet there were still plenty of challenges. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would have been if my husband had insisted on being friends with her. I probably would have questioned his motives and I am not sure if I would have been willing to navigate this unless he changed his stance and broke up the friendship. With this said, I don’t think that you have to just accept this. You can renegotiate this and attempt to show him why this is so very important to you.

Frankly, I’m surprised that the counselor hadn’t already done this. I would think that many counselors wouldn’t endorse the husband maintaining contact with the other woman. If this wasn’t happening, I might bring this up in the next session. I would also try to address it on my own, at home.

A suggested script might be something like: “we need to talk about your friendship with the other woman. I know that you want to be supportive. But I need for you to be supportive of me and of our marriage. She is in a support group. There is a whole bunch of people there who can support her. She doesn’t need to be dependent on you. And frankly, if there is no future for you and her, then she should find a man to support her who can actually offer her more than friendship. I want to heal our marriage. I want to move on. But I am going to have a very hard time doing this if I am always worried about her. I need her out of our lives. This isn’t too much to ask. Just for a second, put yourself in my position. If there were another man, would you want for me to continue to have him in my life as a supportive friend? I’m sorry, but you have to make a choice here. Ending the affair and prioritizing our marriage and making me your focus means that you have to end your relationship with her. We both know that this wouldn’t be your typical friendship. You’re asking me to accept something that is just never going to be acceptable. I need for you to do better. Will you?”

Then, just wait and see what he has to say. Hopefully, he will do the right thing. If he does not, you can try again or you can tell him that you can not begin the process of saving your marriage until he makes that choice. If he won’t, then you will have a choice to make. However, hopefully once you make it clear that having his marriage and being friends with this woman is just not going to be possible. It needs to be one or the other. And your counselor can probably help you to get this message across.

As I alluded to, healing can be a challenge when your husband does what you have asked.  But I believe it’s much more difficult when she’s still in the picture.  If it helps, you can read about my own recovery on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who are so frustrated that their husband will not address the topic of the other woman in the affair. Often, the wife wants all of the details about her and about what it was that brought the two of them together. The husband, however, will often resist giving the wife this type of information with the insistence that these details aren’t important.

An example of a comment that you might hear in this situation is something like: “honesty, I am a little obsessed with finding out everything that I possibly can about the other woman. I want to know what my husband saw in this woman. I want to know how she was devious and skilled enough to get a man who is very meticulous and careful to risk everything for a stupid sexual relationship. I want to know where she is now and how she feels now. I want assurance that she is going to stay away. I want to know if she told my husband that she loved him. But when I try to ask my husband for any details about her at all, he says that she’s not important. He says that our marriage and our child is important, but she is not. Why would he say this? She is of the utmost importance.. She is the reason that we are in this mess and how can he refuse to give me details about her? To be honest, I am thinking about getting the details myself if he will not provide them. What is his motivation by trying to discourage me to dig down the details about her?”

There are many reasons that a man might try to discourage you from asking too many questions about the other woman. I will go over some of them below.

He May Mean That There Was Nothing Special About Her. He Means That She Could Be Anybody: It may make him sound like a jerk to admit it, but sometimes she truly doesn’t mean all that much to him, even if he told her exactly the opposite. Some men have affairs to escape a vulnerable or painful part of their lives at that time. The woman herself doesn’t have much to do with it. In fact, with hindsight, many men will admit that it could have been any woman who was in the right place at the right time.

He May Not Want To Feed Into Your Preoccupation With The Other Woman: Many men in this situation comment about this on my blog. And they will tell you that they start out trying to be cooperative and to provide the details that they think you need. But, those details will generally lead to more questions. For example, you may ask your husband how the two of them met.  And, he may answer you. The answer then inspires the wife to ask how many encounters there were. When the husband answers this, she will want to know even more details about each meeting and why the deception wasn’t detected. This will eventually force the husband to tell his wife that one of her friends knew about the affair.  And this is going to be very painful for her. The hole that the husband is digging gets deeper and deeper while his wife becomes more and more hurt and more angry.

Once this cycle starts, the wife will often not be satisfied with the husband merely answering the question asked.  The husband fears that she will want to rapid fire question after question after question until she is asking for the most minute details that couldn’t possibly matter. It’s often not that your husband doesn’t want to give you the basic information. It is that he doesn’t want this to lead to a hunger for any and all information that can be painful.

How To Handle This Situation: It’s important to make him understand that by not providing you with information, he’s inviting you to fill in the blanks or to obtain the information yourself. At the same time, you have to respect (and perhaps work around) the reasons that he may be hesitant.

So you may want to say something like: “I need for you to understand that I absolutely need this information in order to start to process this and in order to truly know what we are dealing with. I am not going to give up on wanting this information just because you are hesitant to give it to me. It is better for me to hear it from you. I need to know the details that are going to help me evaluate what I need to heal. I understand that you don’t want to have to answer endless questions. And I will try to be conscious of that. But put yourself in my position. If there was another man, wouldn’t you want to know about him? Wouldn’t he matter to you? Because she matters to me. I need the details so that I can begin to put her behind us. I need to know that she is no longer a threat and that she is out of our lives. At the same time, I need to understand why and how this happened so that I’m sensitive to any vulnerabilities in the future. So I need for you to start answering my questions. I have a right to that. And I can’t begin to heal without these answers.”

At the same time, be very mindful of how you follow up. You have every right to know how and why he did this. You don’t necessarily need to know her jeans size and her favorite ice cream flavor. Hopefully, you see the distinction. Your husband is probably trying to avoid your asking endless questions while trying to make it clear that she wasn’t as important to him then as she now is to you.

I understand wanting details about the other woman.  But take care that she doesn’t become an obsession.  You want to move on as quickly as you can.  And sometimes, a preoccupation with her will keep you from doing that.  If it helps, you can read more about my own recovery on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from people who are still waiting for the day when their lives (and their marriages) will feel “normal” or “right” again after their spouse’s affair. Often, they feel as if they are patiently waiting for a day that might never come because, despite their best efforts, they just aren’t seeing the progress that they have been hoping for. The anger is still there. The awkwardness is still there. And that sense of desperation is still there. Many admit that they go to bed at night and pray that they will wake up and feel better or at least have some form of their life back. They want to wake up in the morning and have their coffee unaware of this awful thing that has happened. They want to look forward to fun weekends where they can actually create new memories with their spouse. But they start to doubt if this is ever going to happen.

An example of the type of comment that I might hear is something like: “it has now been five months since I found out about my husband’s affair. In some ways, I feel as if we have made a little leeway. But, in many ways, it seems as if the affair may as well have happened yesterday because I am still so angry, so hurt, and so confused. I never feel truly relaxed and content around my husband anymore. It is as if the affair tainted everything. We can’t go out to dinner or to a movie or anywhere without it feeling incredibly forced. Before the affair happened, my husband and I would wake up every weekend and we would go to out to breakfast at the same restaurant where we have gone for years. We would sit at the same booth, with the same waitress and we would just enjoy one another’s company. Likewise, we would greet the same vendors at the farmer’s market and we were always so relaxed and would savor that time. I used to look forward to Saturdays all week and now they are ruined for me. There is silence at the restaurant and awkward encounters at the farmer’s market. Sometimes I feel as if every one knows what my husband has done. He swears that he never took the other woman to our special places but I can’t help but worry about this. Nothing feels right. Everything feels off. I feel like I’m walking around in a nightmare and I am never going to wake up. My husband says that I just need to be patient but it’s very difficult to have faith when I had faith in him before and he betrayed me. I’m wondering if I’m ever going to have my normal life back or my normal marriage back. Or, do I have to say goodbye to those things forever?”

I know how difficult this situation is. I often try to tell people that an affair can almost make you feel as if an abrupt and unexpected death has taken place. I know that this probably sounds quite melodramatic, but it is true. Because often, you wake up one morning thinking that you know what makes up your life and then, after the affair is discovered, you go to bed that same night with the very harsh realization that every single thing you thought you knew and based your happiness on is just a facade. It’s not real, or at least parts of it aren’t. And so you begin to question everything, even those things in your life that are comforting and are “normal” and you wonder if you will ever be able to relax enough in order to see your life in the same way ever again.

I can’t see into your future. But I can share what it was like for me, and I do get similar stories on my blog. So I do not think that my experience is that unique or different. I can tell you that my life today looks very similar to my life before the affair. I live in the same house. I have the same husband. And the same kids. I have the same friends and I shop and play in the same establishments that I always have. And today, I do not feel uncomfortable in any of these places.

Do I have the same naivety that I had before the affair? No, I do not. Do I just blindly believe in the good of all people? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is no. I suppose that I am a little more guarded now, but the affair is no longer something that consumes my every waking moment. I can go out to dinner with my family today and I have a wonderful time without giving it a second thought. I can create new memories with my husband without it feeling flat or false or awkward. We have romantic evenings and we laugh and the affair isn’t in the back of my mind and I doubt that it is in his.

There were plenty of days when I didn’t think that any of this would be possible. But we have worked very hard. And a good deal of time has gone by. Now, granted, I probably couldn’t go by places where events happened related to the affair and not think about the memories associated with them. But thankfully, this happens extremely rarely. Most of the time, I go about my business thinking of every day things that feel extremely normal and natural to me. I don’t go around with the affair in my head anymore.

Are things totally normal like the affair never happened? I can’t claim that they are because infidelity changes a marriage. It may bring about some positive or good changes. And, it may bring about some bad changes. But I don’t think it’s possible for infidelity not to have any affect whatsoever on the people or on the marriage. So I think that while you are in the middle of these struggles, then you need to create a “new normal” for yourself. You may take very small steps and just focus on a couple of things each day. It really helps to acknowledge and notice the small efforts and triumphs. Because in the beginning, that may be all you get until healing takes place.

But to answer the question posed, yes, I believe that things will feel normal again eventually once you begin healing. Do you ever forget the affair? No, you don’t. But you pick up the pieces and move on. And you get tired of hurting all of the time. So, when you are ready, you reclaim the life again that you were put on this earth to enjoy and embrace.

I do feel that I have a normal life today after the affair.  But it wasn’t easy.  It took time.  And it took work.  If it helps, you can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from people who feel fairly certain that their spouse’s depression played a huge role in his or her cheating. Very often, treating (or at least effectively addressing) the depression is a big part of recovery. So when the depression returns, there are real concerns that the cheating is also going to return.

I might hear a comment like: “when my husband cheated on me, many aspects of our lives seemed to be falling apart. He had to take a pay cut at his job. Our child developed an illness and we didn’t have health insurance. His mother was having to be put in an assisted living facility. In short, many things that he loved and counted on were now in question. He used to escape at the gym and that is where he met the other woman. Before I knew about her, I actually encouraged him to go the gym because I knew that it helped him reduce stress and it gave him something productive to do. We have been working very hard on our marriage since that time. I think that we have made some progress, although I don’t feel that my marriage is where I want it to be. Last week, my husband went from having to take a pay cut to being laid off. We are both extremely upset about this. Needless to say, this had lead to a recurrence of his previous depression. Now, he’s moping around the house. I don’t dare encourage him to go to the gym again, considering what happened the last time. I was recently honest with my husband and I told him that I had real concerns about his depression causing him to cheat again. He actually said that he understood that because he was worried about it also. He told me that he felt very vulnerable to all sorts of things, including cheating. How am I supposed to deal with this? I can’t help it that he lost his job. I can’t save him from any stress in his life. The bills are starting to add up from my child’s illness and it just seems that every day brings about more cause for him to be depressed and therefore more likely to cheat. What can I do?”

Why This Can Be A Damaging Cycle: This was a difficult situation on many levels. It wasn’t the husband’s fault that he lost his job and was dealing with issues with his family. Sometimes, life hands you unfortunate things that you can not control. With that said, you always have control over how you react to something. It’s normal and understandable to react with pain and fear. However, to react with something (like cheating) that is going to hurt someone else (especially the spouse that you love) is behavior that must be changed. Because quite frankly, cheating again was only going to add even more stress to this husband’s life, and as a result, probably more depression too.

Suggested Courses Of Action:  This is only my opinion.  I’m not a therapist, but I felt very strongly that dealing with and treating the depression must be a priority. I know that money was tight here, but there is often low cost or even free counseling available through social or religious organizations. Sometimes, you may have to get online or call around looking for these services, but in my experience, they are out there if you’re willing to take some time and look for them. I know first hand that depression can cause you to do things that you never meant to do and later regret. This is not a stressor that you want to add to your life, especially when this condition is treatable.

I believe that it said a lot about this husband that he was very open with his wife about his vulnerabilities. He could have denied that there was any problem and then headed right back to the gym to pick up his cheating where he left off, but he had not done that. Instead, he was honest with his wife about feeling vulnerable. He wasn’t being secretive or trying to hide anything. He was worried as much as the wife was.

Recognizing your vulnerabilities is the first step in addressing them. As I alluded to, my first course of action would be to attempt to treat the depression. My second course of action would be to diminish any temptations. Obviously, the husband shouldn’t drink, go out without his wife, head back to the gym, or any other thing that was going to make carrying out cheating possible or tempting for him.

My final course of action would be to work tirelessly on the marriage. This is very important. Because in times of stress, your spouse can and should be your biggest source of support and strength. There is a real comfort knowing that your spouse has your back and that your marriage is your safe place to fall. If you can make it so that your marriage is a shelter from the storm, then your spouse is going to be much less likely to cheat, especially if you set it up so that he isn’t in any risky situations and he wants to spend his spare time on you and your marriage, because that is the best stress reliever of all.

I do strongly believe that stress and depression contributes to infidelity.  And I strongly believe that both most be firmly addressed in order to heal completely.  If it helps, you can read more about my situation on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from people who are very unhappy in their marriage but who stay in the same because of their children. Many times, they are children of divorce who has vowed that they will never put their own children through the same single parent childhood that they themselves had. As a result, they have resigned themselves to staying in their unhappy marriage no matter what. As this is understandably a lonely place to be, they often wonder what they can do to make life more bearable. And that is typically when they begin to contemplate perhaps cheating or having an affair. They figure that they are justified in this. Their spouse is getting their commitment and long term security. But at the same time, the thinking goes, they have needs too. So what is the harm of just getting their needs met and then coming home to their spouse, especially if that same spouse never finds out and no one has to get hurt? That way, the children will have both parents in a secure home but then the cheating will make it more bearable.

An example of a comment that you might hear in this situation is something like: “I will fully admit that I am no longer in love with my wife. I don’t find her all that attractive sexually anymore. She has let herself go in a big way. I love her because she is a good woman. My religion is very strict about divorce and I wouldn’t want to get a divorce because of my kids anyway. I think my wife knows all of this deep in her heart but we never discuss it. She seems to prefer to look the other way. There is a woman at work who has made it clear that she would like to have a relationship with me. She knows that I am married and this doesn’t seem to bother her. I’ve made it clear that I will never leave my wife. Is this acceptable when I’m very clear on the fact that I’m only staying in my marriage because of my kids and my religious beliefs? I don’t think that my wife is cheating or would cheat but that’s only because she’s not interested in sex.” I will tell you my very strong opinion on this in the following article.

I want to be straight about this right from the beginning. I’m a woman. And a wife. I have dealt with infidelity in my own life so it’s not likely that I’m going to offer my go ahead here. With that said, I have to tell you that this situation is very common. I’m not going to pretend that this husband is an exception to the rule or a rare example because he most definitely is not. Many people just go ahead and act in this situation without even stopping to consider if it is OK. Many others go right ahead and leave their family after having an affair even when there are children involved. This husband at least paused and deeply considered both his children, his marriage, and his religion before he acted. And this actually said a lot about him. It’s not my intention to insinuate anything about his character or imply that he was a bad person, because frankly, I don’t think that this was true and this isn’t the point anyway. Many people have the urge to cheat. But in my view, it’s best to do whatever is necessary to address this urge with your spouse.

It’s my belief that people will generally give up on their spouse and their marriage far too early. Frankly, some people tell me that it’s easier to invest in someone who is almost a stranger instead of being honest and risking hurting your spouse. But here is the thing. If this marriage is forever like he was saying, then doesn’t it make sense to put everything you have into it? Yes, you may have to go to counseling. Or, get some help with intimacy or have an open and direct conversation with your spouse. You may have to take up working out and ask your spouse to go along so that you can spice up both of your appearances. You may have to work very hard to address those things that bother you about your spouse or about your marriage. And this isn’t always easy, but the reward is go great. Why not have the spark, the intimacy, and the bond with the person whom you are already committed to spending your life with?

I know that in your mind, you are probably thinking that you will keep the cheating completely separate from your marriage. You think that it will be a physical relationship only and that keeping the boundaries clear won’t be all that difficult. I can assure you that it is often more difficult than you think. What happens if the other woman develops real feelings for you and starts to pressure you to leave your wife? What if she threatens that she will tell your wife if you don’t? What happens if your wife finds out? What if your children find out? What if the affair relationship offers just as many complications and disappointments as your marriage? What if the sex isn’t as good as you thought while the guilt is worse than you thought? Frankly, these are all things that you need to consider.

Obviously, the answer to my question would be that although you could cheat, I do not think that you should. I think that the best case scenario is to fix your marriage and have an affair with your own spouse. And I actually really commend you for your commitment to your marriage and your children.

I believe that recovering your marriage before cheating is actually similar to the process that you use after cheating.  You have to rebuild the relationship, work on yourself, and address your marriage’s vulnerabilities so that you aren’t tempted to cheat again.  If it helps, you can read more about my own recovery on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who are confused and frustrated that their husband seems to be concerned about what the other woman thinks of him – even after the affair is supposedly over. This concern makes the wife wonder why he even cares and if this is yet one other thing that she needs to worry about in a time where she is already having to deal with multiple things that cause a great deal of pain and stress.

I might hear a comment like: “when I found out that my husband was cheating on me with a woman from our school car pool, I told him that he had to break off all contact immediately. This meant that we dropped out of the car pool at once. I sat in our kitchen while my husband was on the phone with her. He kept the conversation very short. He told her that he now realized that the affair was wrong and that it had to end. He said that he had decided to work on his marriage and therefore, they couldn’t see each other anymore and this included in the car pool. My husband told her that we would find a way to get our kids to school on our own. I could hear her trying to talk to him on the other end of the phone, but every time she tried to say something, he repeated that he had to end things. I thought that this was the end of it until I saw an email that he sent her. It basically said that it hoped that she didn’t think too badly of him but that he felt that he had to do what was right. He said that he knew that us dropping out of the car pool was going to be a huge inconvenience for everyone and he stressed that he was sorry about this. He then said that he hoped she didn’t think that he was too much of a creep and he hoped that her life would be a good one. He never asked her to contact him back, but now I’m worried that this is exactly what is going to happen. Why does he feel the need to make this OK with her? Why feel the need to make amends? Since she was driving our son to school and dropping him off at the home we shared, then she very obviously knew that he was married and that she was putting a family in jeopardy. So why does my husband care what she thinks? Is he just trying to get her to correspond back to him?”

This May Mean That He Has A Conscience Rather Than An Ulterior Motive: I had no way to know what the husband’s intentions were. (And I’d certainly suggest that you continue to monitor the situation closely.) But, this is not an uncommon situation. Often, the husband is understandably forced to break things off quite suddenly. And although us faithful wives wish that he could just turn his back without a second thought, he often has a hard time doing that because he feels as if he has been somewhat cruel and uncaring by just breaking things off with no negotiation and no real warning. He can feel that this is a little harsh. And he probably feels like he is dealing with two women who think that he is a jerk. But, he figures that he has a lifetime in which to prove to you that this isn’t true. However, he may also know that he doesn’t have this same luxury with the other woman. So, he just wants to quickly touch base with her and explain or apologize a little further.

Does this mean that he’s trying to remain in touch with her? Not necessarily. But it can’t hurt to continue to monitor this situation and to initiate a conversation about it. You might consider something like: “I wasn’t sure whether to bring this up or not, but I decided to go ahead and bring it out in the open. And the reason for this decision is that while we are recovering from the affair, we both need to be completely honest with one another. And I am committed to that. I wasn’t attempting to spy on you. But I did inadvertently see that you sent the other women an email. While it wasn’t inappropriate in terms of what you said, the fact that you said anything at all concerns me greatly. I want to be clear that, now that you have said your peace, I don’t want there to be anymore contact with her. And this is true even if she should write you back. This may well be painful and awkward for everyone but, in order to give us the best chance to heal, this is the way that it needs to be. Can I count on you to live up to your promises? I can respect that you didn’t want to be cruel and you wanted for her to understand where you were coming from, but it has to end here. Because it really shouldn’t matter what she thinks of you. It should matter what I think of you. And right now, I am struggling with understanding your motivations. Can you clarify why you sent that email and where we go from here?”

The husband may well respond by being defensive. This is relatively normal. What is most important is that he understands that you aren’t trying to attack or engage with him. You are clarifying that the contact needs to stop. Now that he’s had the final word and attempted to make amends, then it is time for you both to move on.  This means that both of you place your focus on moving toward your own marriage and fully away from the past.  If it helps, you can read about how I attempted to handle a similar situation on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from folks who really do want to save their marriages but who are also struggling with moving on from the affair. Often, they really do love their spouse and they want to stay with their spouse. But, they can not deny that they are experiencing some residual feelings for the other person. They often want these feelings to leave or to end. And they want to know how long they can expect for this to go on. They wish that they could just stop their feelings or turn them off. But, so far, they haven’t been able to make this happen. And so they are waiting.

I might hear a comment like: “I regret cheating on my husband more than any mistake that I have ever made in my entire life. I love my husband. He is a wonderful man and a great father. I don’t want for him to leave me. I want him in my life. I was an idiot to jeopardize my marriage with this man. I had an affair that started at my job. And I know that the other man isn’t a high quality person. He’s not an upstanding guy the way that my husband is. The only thing that I had with the other man was great sex. We had wonderful chemistry that I have never had with any one else. And I can not stop thinking about this. The thing is, I know that there is no future with the other man. He wouldn’t treat me right over the long haul. He is not dependable or particularly kind in the way that my husband is. I wouldn’t even trust him if I were in a real relationship with him. But the problem is that I just can’t stop thinking about him. And honestly, most of my thoughts are remembering the physical interactions between us. I’m wondering how much longer these memories will go on. How long will it take for the feelings for the other man to fade?”

This is not an uncommon question. Not every one has the courage to ask it. Many people who are trying to save their marriages will deny that they still have memories or feelings for the other person,  because they know that these memories are wrong. But, here is the thing. You can’t control what you feel. Even though I was the faithful spouse in my own bout with infidelity, I do understand that the cheating spouse doesn’t necessarily have control over their feelings, at least as far as the other person is concerned. What really matters, though, is how you react to those feelings. You can’t react to them by reaching out to, contacting, or seeing the other person, especially if you are interested in saving your marriage. But, wanting to know how long these feelings or memories will remain are a fair question. Although I can’t answer it for you personally, I can tell you what many people disclose on my blog.

Why It’s Important To Take Control And To Not Give Into Your Feelings: Many people tell me that the feelings eventually do fade. However, you aren’t likely to completely forget, especially since the relationship often didn’t meet its natural end. Thoughts, feelings, or memories may pop into your head very frequently, especially in the beginning. But you can learn to distract yourself and do something else. It’s a great idea to do something to prioritize your marriage. This allows you to get into the habit of turning to your marriage every time the other relationship tries to invade your thoughts.

Most people will tell you that as your marriage improves and as the healing begins, then you will start to remember your feelings for the affair less and less. After all, if you begin to rebuild your marriage, you will begin to reestablish intimacy and memories with your spouse. As a result, your thoughts are going to naturally return to thoughts of your spouse. This gives less room for thoughts of the other man. I can’t tell you exactly how long this will take, but I can say with a great degree of confidence that the sooner your marriage improves, the sooner you will get some relief.

Know That You Don’t Have To Act: Many people share that this can take weeks or months. As I alluded to, I know that this is difficult and uncomfortable. But they are only feelings. You do not have to act on them. You can distract yourself and do something else without needing to give into the feelings. You can offer yourself reassurance that things will get better as your marriage gets better.

I am sure that my husband probably thought of the other woman from time to time in the beginning of this process. But, I no longer think that is true. Our marriage is our focus and I believe that this is where most of our thoughts and memories lie, since we’ve worked very hard to create a new history for ourselves. And I think that is truly the key. Set it up so that your have a reason to think of your spouse and of your marriage and you will just naturally think of the other person less. Obviously the sooner this happens, the better for all concerned.

As I alluded to, truly healing yourself and your marriage will contribute greatly to the problems you’re still trying to overcome. If it helps, you can read more of my story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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