Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from wives who tell me that they would give anything for their husband to feel the pain that his cheating has forced upon them. They often feel as if he really has no idea of the pain that they are in, nor does he have any clue as to how they really feel.

I recently heard from a wife who said: “in the first couple of weeks after my husband’s affair, he seemed genuinely sorry and empathetic to me. But after a couple of weeks, he seemed to lose his patience. It was almost as if he were trying to hint to me that my time to grieve was up. He said he couldn’t understand why I insisted on continuing to dwell on my pain. He wondered aloud why I didn’t seem to want to move forward. What he doesn’t seem to get is that I do want to move forward but I can’t seem to. He has no idea what it’s like to wonder if your spouse still desires you or why he has to go to someone else to get what he should be getting and wanting from his wife. He has no idea what it’s like to feel insecure about something that is not your fault. He doesn’t know what it’s like to both love and hate your spouse at the same time. I want him to feel that same insecurity, pain and desperation. Because I feel like if he knew how this feels, he might empathize with me more, be more sincerely sorry, and have more patience and sympathy. But the only way to do that is to cheat on him myself and then to tell him about it. I could never ever do that. I don’t have it in me to cheat and I find that idea repulsive. So how can I make him understand how this feels and encourage him to feel my pain?”

These are valid but difficult questions. For obvious reasons, I would never advise someone to cheat to get back at their spouse or yo show their spouse how the cheating feels. I have never seen this work out well, although I’ve seen plenty of people try this strategy. This often just creates many more problems than it solves. I believe that there are better ways to get your husband to feel empathy and remorse. I will discuss them below.

Although Your Husband Should Know That You Would Never Cheat On Him, There Is Nothing Wrong With Creating A Little Mystery: At the end of the day, what you really want (at least in part) is for your husband to understand how lucky he is to have you. You’d like for him to know that although he was stupid enough to not see your value, there are countless other men who might see you differently, if given the chance. You want him to know that you are attractive to other people and that if he is not faithful to you, then you are more than capable of finding someone who will be.

There are ways to accomplish this instead of cheating. Make any necessary changes to your appearance that will make you feel as confident as you possibly can be. Hang out with people who make you feel good about yourself. Go out with your friends. Get yourself out there. You don’t want to paint yourself as a woman who can only stay at home and suffer. As unfair as it is, this can make you appear less attractive to him. But you are likely to appear more attractive (without cheating) when you pick yourself up and carry on to the best of your ability. And if you don’t actually feel it, make sure that it looks convincing, at least for his benefit.

In a sense, this keeps him guessing a little bit and keeps him on his toes. If you aren’t sure what tomorrow holds for you, then you don’t have to pretend for his benefit. Let him know what you’re going to need from him in order to begin to regain the trust. It doesn’t always need to be so easy for him and so hard for you.

I’m not saying that you want to constantly play games. I believe it should be clear that two wrongs don’t make a right and that you do not intend to cheat. But there’s nothing wrong with making him wonder from time to time. Because sometimes if you can, he will be more invested in making things up to you and regaining your trust.

Knowing That He Won’t Cheat On You Again: To be quite honest, one of the most persuasive reasons that wives want their husbands to know how being cheated on feels is because they hope that he will feel so guilty that he will never cheat again. The real hope is that all of this will make him forever faithful because he will see that the price of your pain is just too high.

But by taking this strategy, you are only covering one facet of cheating. And in order to have the greatest chance that he won’t cheat again, you need to cover all of this basis. You need to understand what characteristic in him contributed to the cheating. You need to understand what made your marriage vulnerable. And you need to learn how to recognize the signs so that you can place needed safeguards in place.

It’s not so easy as just making him feel insecure and sorry so that he resists the next time. You want him to understand every aspect of the process so that he will not only resist, he will understand why the temptation exists. And you want for your marriage to feel so safe and fulfilling that he can come to you with small issues before they become large issues. Just making him understand how you feel or forcing him to feel your pain is often not going to be enough as men and women experience things (especially feelings) quite differently.

I completely understand why you want to make your husband feel the pain that you feel. But often the better and more long term strategy is attempting to make both of you feel better whether than worse. The key is to build yourself up rather than tearing yourself down. Once I understood this, it was much easier to save my marriage after his affair. If you’d like to read about how accomplished this, feel free to visit my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from wives who don’t know where they stand with their husband after he has had an affair. Sometimes he comes home and makes a half hearted attempt to save the marriage when it’s obvious that something is missing. The wife can’t help but notice that he just doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic about her or the marriage. Sometimes, she has the courage to ask her husband if he still loves her and she gets the answer that she isn’t hoping for when he tells her that he still loves her but is no longer “in love” with her.

I recently heard from a wife who said: “my husband had a four month affair. He finally confessed to me and said he would “try” to save our marriage. But he doesn’t appear to be trying all that hard. I don’t think he’s still seeing the other woman. But he’s not putting much effort into the marriage and he doesn’t seem that into or attracted to me. I finally broke down and asked him if he still loved me. The answer he gave me was ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you.’ What does that even mean? Then I asked him if he was “in love” with the other woman and he finally admitted that yes, he was but he knew that they couldn’t be together and he knew their relationship was wrong so he was going to make our marriage work. Well, that’s all very nice and it sounds very good. But what does that mean for me? And what good is hanging onto the threads of your marriage when your husband isn’t even in love with you anymore? To me, that sounds like a marriage in name only. And that doesn’t seem like much a victory to me.”

The wife in this situation was absolutely right. It’s not acceptable to most people to have a marriage in name only when your husband is no longer in love with you. With that said though, I have seen marriages where the husband thinks he is no longer in love with his wife turn around to the point where he loves his wife very passionately once again. I’m not saying that this is always the case, but it isn’t all that rare either.

How A Man Who Thinks He Is No Longer Be “In Love” With His Wife After The Affair Might Change His Mind: I believe that it’s fair to say that a man who has an affair is not living in reality. He often thinks that the other woman is someone other than who she really is. He will often build up the relationship in his mind so that this justifies his cheating. So he may magnify his feelings because he wants to believe that it’s real. And of course, when things are new, they sometimes feel exciting. So, he may compare this fantasy with what he has with you and mistakenly think this means he’s no longer “in love” with you.

But what will sometimes happen is that somewhere along the line, he’s ready or forced to learn the truth about the affair, the other woman, and the relationship. He eventually sees it for the fantasy that it is. He faces the fact that it just isn’t reality. I can’t tell you how often men in this situation tell me on my blog that one day they just “wake up” to realize that their wife, their marriage, and their family is what is truly “real” and important. And when he is faced with potentially losing these things, often the love or the feeling of being “in love” with come rushing back.

Another thing to consider is that often when this couple is rebuilding their marriage, they rediscover one another. They stop taking each other for granted and as a result, they begin to see their spouse in a new light or remember what they loved about them in the first place.

If you’re not yet at this place yet or don’t think that it can happen, consider giving it a bit more time if you still love him. And whether you still love him is really is a question that I think many women do not consider. They worry an awful lot about whether their husband is still “in love with” or still loves them, but they sometimes do not stop to consider how they feel about him. His feelings are not the only feelings that need to be considered.

However, sometimes the wife finds that her feelings evolve and change also as the relationship begins to heal or is threatened to end. As difficult as the recovery process is after an affair, it can often go one of two ways. It can completely and eventually destroy the relationship or it can shine a light on where it can be improved. And, when the couple rises to the occasion, the results can actually sometimes be a marriage that is better than it ever was with feelings that feel more intense and new.

I think that it’s probably fair to say that both my husband and I questioned our love for one another after his affair.  For a few months, I had no idea if my marriage as going to survive, or even if I wanted it to survive.  But once we healed our marriage, our feelings for and love toward one another came rushing back.  If it helps, you can read more about the process of saving our marriage after the affair on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By: Katie Lersch: Believe it or not, I get this question quite a bit. Sometimes, the “other woman” who has been cheating with the husband asks the question. And sometimes, I hear this question from the wife who is hearing from someone else that her husband has been claiming to hate her at the same time he was cheating on her.

When The Husband Tells The Other Woman He Hates His Wife: An example would be the other woman who says something like: “I just don’t get it. While we were seeing each other, he told me repeatedly that he hated his wife with a passion. He said that she was self centered and hateful. He said that she was cold and never paid any attention to him. He admitted that he was miserable and had only stayed for the last several years because of their children. He talked about her as if she were someone who he literally could not stand. But then out of nowhere he announces that he’s going back to her and saving his marriage. How in the world is this possible?”

Well, there are several possibilities that you might want to consider. First (and usually the most likely,) he could have been misrepresenting his feelings for his wife or the state of his marriage to you. After all, if he had been truthful and told you that he and his wife had hit a rough patch in their marriage, but were trying to work it out because she is ultimately a loving person and a good wife and mother, would you have been as willing to have a relationship with him? Probably not.

Another possibility is that a man who is considering cheating or having an affair will often posture to himself. See, he has to convince himself that things are so bad with his marriage or with his wife that he is justified in his cheating. So he may play little mind games with himself so that it’s a little easier for him to look in the mirror at the end of the day. So he will build things up in his mind that just aren’t accurate. And sometimes, later he will realize what he has done and will very much regret it. And sometimes it’s not until he acts in ways he regrets and risks loosing his wife that he sees her in a whole new light.

Another option that you sometimes see is that the couple decides to try to work out their marriage and so he’s going to back off on what he’s been telling you because it is in his best interest to do so. Finally, sometimes when your relationship with him starts to sour, he realizes that his wife is not so bad after all.

When A Wife Hears That Her Husband Has Been Claiming To Hate Her While Cheating: An example of what I might hear from a wife in this situation is something like: “the other woman found out my husband was married and reached out to me. She told me that my husband claimed that he hated me and that I was fat, ugly, and lazy. He portrayed me as an evil person and he painted our marriage as a living hell for him. Well, if all of this is true, why is he claiming that he still loves me and asking me to save our marriage? Why is he still at home with me, then?”

These are all good and valid questions. I can tell you my opinion from my own experience and from the stories I hear on my surviving the affair blog. One thing you may want to ask yourself is why you might want to believe what the other woman is telling you. Because sometimes, she has a vested interest in getting you so furious with your husband that you will kick him out or turn him away, leaving him available for her. There’s also the possibility that although she may no longer want him, she feels badly about her part in the affair and she is trying to justify it to herself and you and so she’ll try to frame things in the way that is most favorable to her.

Finally, he may well have told her all of these things for the various reasons I mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs and I realize that this is painful to hear. The question that you have to ask yourself is did he ever really mean these things and does he mean them now. You can often tell by gauging his sincerity and his actions over time. Often, it’s very hard to fake genuine desire and love for someone over a long period of time. The truth has a way of coming out. Sure, things may be strained or awkward as you try to repair your marriage, especially at first. But eventually, you should be able to feel the difference between a man who is sincere in his love and desire for you and one that is not.

In short, there are many reasons that a man might very willingly go back to the wife he claimed that he hated while he was cheating or having an affair. And, by definition, when a man is being unfaithful to his wife, he’s already proven that he’s entered a period of his life where he is struggling enough to be deceitful. So, you kind of have to take everything he says with a grain of salt until his actions prove that he’s trustworthy and believable.

Whichever side of this story you are on, I know that you might be going through a rough time right now. It often gets better with a little time and determination. After my husband’s affair, I could never envision myself staying with him, but that’s what eventually happened and our marriage is actually very solid now. If it helps, you can read about how we salvaged our marriage at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from men who are looking for ways to get back in their wives’ good graces after infidelity, cheating, or having an affair. Some feel as though they’ve tried everything in their power to prove how sincere and sorry they are to their wife, but nothing works. I recently heard from a husband who said: “I’ve done everything that I know how to do to prove my love and commitment to my wife after my affair. But she is still so furious with and disappointed in me. She said she doesn’t know what she wants to do about our marriage and she isn’t making any commitment to me because she just has to wait and see how she feels. I have brought her expensive gifts, said I’m sorry a million times, and constantly tell her how much I love her but she still looks at me with suspicion. I am starting to wonder if I am going to spend the rest of my life like this. How can a man prove himself after infidelity once and for all? Because I feel like I’m not making any progress.”

Understand What Your Wife Really Wants: Hopefully, I can save you a lot of time right now by explaining what your wife probably really wants. It often isn’t expensive presents or guilt gifts. She doesn’t want you to endlessly fill her ears with empty words. What she wants most of all is for the affair never to have happened. Since this isn’t possible, the next best thing would be to believe that she can trust you once again and that you’ll never again cheat on her. Third, she wants to know that you still love her and find her desirable. She wants to be able to have faith in you again because the doubts that she has right now about your love for and commitment to her are likely extremely painful for her.

She wants to understand why you acted the way that you did so that she feels as if she has some control over fixing this in the right way. She wants you to take the lead in fixing this mess. And yes, I know that you have told her how sorry you are and how much you love her. But words are only more of the same. You also told her that you would always love her and be faithful to her. So, words have a way of failing you and ending up being untrue. It’s normal for her to have some doubt about your words, no matter how many times you repeat them or how passionately you express them.

So what matters to her more than words? Your actions. Over time, she wants to come to know that she can trust you again. She wants to see that you’re home when you say that are going to be. She wants to see that you are listening to what she is saying and responding appropriately. She wants for your actions to affirm the words you are saying because she does not want to be deceived again. And she wants to see genuine love and desire rather than pity in your eyes.

As you might gather, these things often happen over time. She knows full well that you can and will say anything. But she’s probably going to wait you out regardless. It’s probably going to take a while of your showing yourself to be completely truthful and trustworthy before she starts to have faith again. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t really want to believe you. It just means that she’s normal and that she has a healthy dose of doubt because of what happened to her.

One Of The First Things You Should Prove To Your Wife Is That You Are Finished With The Other Woman: Probably one of the first concerns that your wife will have is if the other woman is out of the picture for good. (Many wives think that the husband has the other woman waiting in the wings in case things don’t work out with the marriage.) The other woman’s exit from your life is absolutely non negotiable. If you claim that it’s over and you proclaim your love for your wife and then go right back behind her back and move toward the other woman once again, then you’ve just set the process back greatly, if not completely destroyed your wife’s trust. You must not have any inappropriate contact with the opposite sex from this moment forward and believe me when I say that your wife is going to be watching very closely.

Remain Calmly Determined In Your Commitment To See This Through: Your wife is probably going to throw a lot of anger and blame your way and you really cannot fault her for that. She’s right to be outraged and to doubt you. So, there are going to be days when she might not be very receptive to you and may even be downright mean. She may ask you for some time on her own to sort things out. Honor her requests. Tell her that you will give her whatever she needs as long as she communicates what it is.

One thing that really finally helped me see that my husband was serious about me and our marriage after his affair was that, no matter what I threw at him, he took it and he kept quietly coming back. Sure, sometimes he lost his patience. Sometimes he got discouraged. But it was mostly clear that his concern was for me and that he didn’t plan on going anywhere because he was committed to our marriage.

I threw a lot of negativity and resentment his way and I’m sure this wasn’t very fun for him. But he knew that he created the situation and was committed to salvaging our marriage. So he hung around. Sometimes he laid low and sometimes he pushed a little harder, but no matter what, he always reassured me that he’d keep right on doing what I asked and that over time, I would see that he meant what he said, which is ultimately what happened.

In the end, I came to trust that he was telling me the truth because this was confirmed by his actions and his determination to stay put and to place my best interests before his own. Ultimately, this was the beginning of our saving our marriage. If you think it might help you, you’re more than welcome to read the whole emotional story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from wives who have no idea what has come over their husband and what contributed most to him having an affair. Many wives tell me that they are not sure if they ever really knew their husbands at all because the man they knew would not lie, cheat, or betray them in this way. When you picture a stereotypical cheating man, you likely picture a shifty eyed, deplorable type of person that can’t look at you with a straight face and never says anything that is truly sincere. And yet, this is not the image that many wives have of their husbands – especially before he has an affair.

I recently heard from a wife who said, in part: “I am so shocked at and disappointed in my husband. He has always been a person of integrity and honor. He’s never shown himself to be a liar or someone who would turn his back on his wedding vows and yet now I am finding out that he has been having an affair for the last four weeks. He went behind my back. He lied to me. And he lied to her. He says he’s sorry now, but he’s probably sorry that he’s been caught. What kind of man has an affair? Because I feel like the one beside me is now a stranger and that I’ve been wrong about him all along.”

These types of comments are so very common. Many wives are so at odds from the loyal, sweet, honest and loving man they knew with the man they now know has been cheating or having an affair. This is so shocking and upsetting to them and they wonder if they are such a poor judge of character that they didn’t know that they’ve been wrong all along.

The thing is, you weren’t necessarily wrong about your husband. It’s possible for him to still be the sweet and honest person you thought he was but still to have committed this deplorable act. I will explain how this is possible in the following article.

A Man Who Has An Affair Is Often A Confused Man: As I said, the stereotypical view we have of a man who has an affair is often of a sneaky, diabolical liar. But often, a man who has an affair is a man who is very confused and often is feeling very badly about himself and his life. He’s often at odds with what he knows is right and what is happening right now. We often assume that a man who is having an affair is having the time of his life. This is certainly not always true and sometimes it’s downright no where near reality. I can’t tell you how many men tell me they sit in their car and literally cry or yell or obsessively run their fingers through their hair on their way home their wife. They often are quite conflicted and confused.

A Man Who Has An Affair Is Often A Man In Personal Crisis: I realize that this might be the first time that you are dealing with an affair and you may think that your husband’s situation is unique and outside of the norm. I can tell you that it probably is not. I hear from a lot of men in this situation on my surviving the affair blog and I can tell you that they often have a lot of things in common. Many are under some sort of stress or are going through some sort of personal crisis. They may have lost their job. They may have just buried a parent. Their child might be sick. Or perhaps they had a health scare or are struggling with this phase or their life and where they are right now.

Whatever the reason, a man will often have an affair to forget his problems, to reaffirm something about himself, or to sabotage himself in some way. I do sometimes hear from men who insist that everything was fine and wonderful in their life, but for some reason, they went and ruined it. This is a form of self sabotage and this too is a personal crisis.

A Man Who Has An Affair Is Sometimes A Redeemable Man: I sometimes hear from people who tell me that even though they’d really like to save their marriage, they just don’t think that this is going to be possible because they doubt that they will ever see their husband in the same light again. This is understandable and I felt the same way. But I can also tell you that many of the same men whose wives almost give up on end up being stellar husbands later after they are rehabilitated because they don’t want to take anything for granted again. Nearly losing their marriage has been them appreciate it more and they will often show you a commitment and a willingness to bend that might not have been there before.

That’s not to say that every man who has an affair can be rehabilitated or wants to be. Some are just serial cheaters who never learn. But others are sincere people who made a mistake and can be redeemed. The way to tell the difference is their behaviors and actions moving forward. I am not defending men who have affairs. I was on the receiving end of an affair and it hurt bitterly. But had I just went with the stereotypical “all men who have an affairs are pigs” mentality I wouldn’t still be married and actually quite happy now. There is no doubt that going through an affair can be devastating, but assumptions about anyone involved can sometimes be a mistake.

I was shocked and disappointed by my husband’s affair. It truly devastated me, but I later realized that I hated the man’s actions rather than hated the man. As we recovered and rebuilt, I came to realize that my husband was the same person who had made a grave mistake. That didn’t mean that I gave him a pass or forgot his behavior, but it did help me in moving forward. If it helps, you’re welcome to read the whole story of how I moved forward on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By Katie Lersch: This is a question that spouses rarely agree upon.  It’s very common for one spouse to have one view of the marriage while the other has a very different view.  Sometimes, the spouses keep their opinions to themselves until infidelity rears it’s ugly head and the marriage is literally pulled apart and examined from every angle.  And, it’s usually at this point that it becomes fairly obvious that, while two people are living within the same marriage, those same two people can experience it very differently.

I recently heard from a wife who said: “my husband confessed to cheating on me for three weeks. He insists that it wasn’t an affair because it was all about sex only. He says he didn’t mean for it to happen and now it’s over.  He’s very reluctant to talk about the details behind it.  I want to know what was so wrong in our marriage to make him risk everything.  He insists that there was nothing wrong with me or our marriage.  In fact, he insists that our marriage was a good one.  I have to admit that I thought the same thing.  But I don’t think it’s possible to have a good marriage if someone cheats.  I think that, by definition alone, once infidelity occurs, you have a bad marriage automatically.  My husband says this is ridiculous.  Who is right?”

How Infidelity Can And Does Happen Within Good Marriages: Quite frankly, both people have valid points and both can be right within their own point of reference.  On an almost daily basis, I have someone contact me on my blog and insist that they have no idea why they cheated or had an affair when they had a very good life, marriage, and spouse.   I believe most of them to be sincere.  And I believe that in some cases, your marriage doesn’t have as much to do with the infidelity as you might think.  Many people cheat as a reaction to personal struggles that are outside of their marriage.  They are reacting to a lack of confidence, a personal crisis, or a way to find some relief from a struggle that doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else but them.

With that said, it’s also possible to be in denial.  Sometimes, when you dig a little deeper, you’ll find a little undeserved resentment toward their spouse not being able to help them in their crisis.  The reaction to that resentment can be passive aggressive behavior which leads to an affair and quite often, this happens without the unfaithful person realizing that it is happening.

A Marriage Can Be Good To One Spouse But Not The Other: Sometimes, I have cheating spouses insist that their marriage is still a good one and they believe that they can prove to their spouse if just given a chance.  My reaction is often something like “how good would your marriage be to you if you knew your spouse had been unfaithful?”  Because, just using myself as an example, I thought my marriage was good until I found out about the affair.  But once I did, everything changed.  Everything seemed as if it were a lie.  And so, while my husband would insist that nothing really had changed for him since he had loved me all along, things had definitely changed for me and I could no longer look at my marriage as “good” since it had been damaged by infidelity.  This didn’t mean that I could never see it as good again, because I eventually did.

But it is so important to understand that there are two people and two perceptions within a marriage.  What you consider to be good and fulfilling might be seen and experienced in a completely different way by your spouse (especially after you have cheated.)

Some people disagree with me on this, though. I sometimes hear from couples who have been married for a very long, but freely admit that the marriage is an “open” one, meaning one or both of the spouses see other people on the side.  Often, everyone knows about everyone else.  (This is often a man with a long term mistress, but it can also be the wife who is unfaithful.)  And they will usually insist that everyone is happy.  The man might tell me that he has been happily married for 25 years and that his wife is absolutely fine with the mistress.  He will ask me what the problem is when every one is content and no one is getting hurt?

And it can be hard to argue with this point.  But I often suspect that the wife probably isn’t as happy as he believes.  And to me, a marriage can only be defined as “good” if it is indeed good for both people.  How good can it be for you if you know that your spouse isn’t faithful?  This is only my opinion and I admit that my opinion is partially formed by being a wife who was cheated on.

The bottom line to me is that infidelity isn’t always a definite sign that your marriage was completely awful or fatally flawed.  People can and do cheat when they are happily married, but they are reacting to their own personal struggles. However, with that said, you must understand that once the cheating happens, the marriage is damaged and must be repaired.  There is usually no going back to the way things were, even if the marriage truly was a good one. It is so important to identify what possibly went wrong and then to fix it, especially if you want your marriage to be good once again.

I do believe that our marriage was a reasonably good one before my husband’s affair.  However, once he crossed the line, it was no longer good for me. We had to work very hard at repairing our marriage and we were eventually successful and are still together today.  If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By Katie Lersch:I often hear from wives who are desperately trying to understand the reason that their husband cheated or had an affair. But sometimes, despite their husband’s attempts to explain, they still just don’t get it. And sometimes, a husband can be reluctant to discuss the real reasons for the affair (because he may not even understand them himself or he’s trying to spare you pain) and there are times when he will insinuate that you should “just let it go.” It’s understandable that, rather than continuing to struggle to understand something that might be impossible to ever understand, you can begin to wonder if you shouldn’t just try to let it go and move on.

I recently heard from wife who said, in part: “my husband has tried to explain to me that he isn’t entirely sure why he had an affair. He says that it might have been because he was trying to make himself feel better or to make his life seem more exciting. He keeps hinting that he was at a bad place in his life at the time. He says he can’t just make me a list of reasons why he cheated because he doesn’t entirely understand it himself. And he says that my continuing to harp on knowing the exact reasons make him very frustrated and discouraged. He bluntly tells me he wishes that I would just ‘let it go’ instead of dwelling on ‘why answers’ that we might never have. So should I let it go? Is it that important to completely understand why he had an affair?”

These are tricky questions to answer. I will discuss the reasoning behind my opinion on this in the following article.

Why You Should Have A Reasonably Good Handle On The Factors That Contributed Most To The Affair: I actually do believe that it’s possible that a man could be telling you his version of the truth when he says that he isn’t entirely sure why he had the affair. One of the contributing factors to an affair can be that a man is trying to run away from this problems. So the very fact that he’s avoiding them so aggressively can be a contributing factor to him not being able to give you a list of those same problems right now.

Is this a valid reason for you to just drop it? I don’t think so. While he may not understand why he had the affair (or hesitates to fully explain it,) this doesn’t mean that you don’t need to do your best to understand it. And I can get you started with at least some common reasons that men give me when they comment on my blog for cheating or having an affair. Many will tell you that although they didn’t intend to cheat or have an affair, they found themselves engaging with someone else because they got caught up in feeling appreciated, exploring something new, or enhancing the excitement in their life. This doesn’t mean that you were lacking in any of these areas. It can mean that, for whatever reason, they weren’t reaching out to you at the time and someone else was in the right place at precisely the right time.

Men will often have an affair after a period of self evaluation where they feel as if they’re coming up short somewhere. So, when someone shows them some attention, this feels very appealing to them and they begin to follow the payoff. Other times, men who have affairs are reacting to personal loss. They may have lost a family member or close friend or perhaps they have recently been through a serious illness. This can sometimes make them feel as if “life’s too short” so they take risks or act in ways that aren’t typical of them.

These reasons may or may not apply to your situation. I’m just trying to get you started in brainstorming areas that you might address or explore in the future. It’s vital to uncover, understand, and then address any issues that may have led up to the affair. Because doubt while trying to recover the affair will sabotage your marriage and bring it to it’s knees faster than anything else. Recovery from an affair is tricky enough and it’s extremely important that you’re not walking on eggshells because you’re worrying that you’re going to repeat the same mistakes or that your husband is going to react to the same set of circumstances.

While It’s Important To Understand Why The Affair Happened, You May Never 100% Understand Your Husband’s Thought Process And Motivations: I can’t stress enough how important it is to affair proof your marriage after understanding what left you vulnerable in the first place. With that said though, it’s sometimes unrealistic if not downright impossible to believe that you can completely put yourself in your husband’s shoes in order to totally understand why he had an affair. One reason for this is that you have been hurt and directly affected by his actions. Therefore, it is usually next to impossible for you to feel any objectivity. Not only that, but sometimes we are coming from a place where we’re thinking things like: “I don’t care how bad my marriage was or how unappreciated I felt, I would never cheat.” It’s just human nature and there is nothing wrong with this. Finally, there are two versions to every story. While your husband may see your marriage or even his life in one way, it’s probably a pretty fair bet that you see it in another.

So while I cannot over stress the importance of digging deep to determine and then fix whatever contributed to the affair, I also know that it’s virtually impossible to understand every single angle of someone else’s thought process or actions. And, once you’ve done your best to understand and then fix the issues and you’re moving forward toward recovery and making real progress, then you’re sometimes at a point where continuing to look backward does you no good and may in fact end up holding you back rather than helping you to move on.

I really struggled with questions of “why” after my husband’s affair. I wanted to know the exact reasons that he would cheat on me. And although I did eventually get many of the answers I wanted, I also know that I’ve never 100% get it. But that didn’t mean that we couldn’t save our marriage, which is actually pretty strong today. It was a difficult process at times but it was worth it. If it helps you can read our story of recovery after infidelity on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By: Katie Lersch:  I often hear with women who are trying to break the spell that the “other woman” or mistress has over their husband.  I recently heard from a wife who said, “three weeks ago, my husband admitted to having an affair with a woman from his gym.  He said he was telling me about it because he wanted to save our marriage and he cancelled his gym membership and swore he would cut off all ties with her.  He seemed very sincere. But he’s been sullen and withdrawn.  After my asking him what was wrong with him for several days, he finally admitted that he has ‘deep feelings’ for this other woman and he’s confused and conflicted between his loyalty to and love for me and his feelings for her.  She came by his office last week and he asked her to please leave him alone while he was sorting out his feelings.  I am so hurt by this.  I feel like I really don’t stand a chance because of his perceived feelings for her.  He hasn’t even known her for very long, but now supposedly she’s his soul mate.   What can I do about this? How can I make him see that these feelings probably aren’t even real?  He doesn’t even know who this woman really is.  I had a friend of mine do a background check on her and she has a bankruptcy and some foreclosures, neither of which my husband knows anything about it.  How can I make him see her for who she really is?”

These are all tough questions.  Because although you are often quite sure that these “feelings” are born out of lies and deception, they can feel quite real to husbands, at least at the time.  And often, when you try to expose the other woman as the fraud that she is, this makes you look like the desperate bad guy which can only reinforce those phantom feelings.  In the following article, I’ll discuss what I think is the best strategy to use in this situation.

Know That It’s Not Likely That You Are Going To Be Able To Change Your Husband’s Feelings For The Other Woman By Force: Many wives in this situation feel that they need to “out” the other woman or make the husband see her for who she truly is.  The hope is that once he sees that everything about her is false, he will realize that his feelings are also false. Unfortunately, this often is not the way that it works.  Your husband knows that you are deeply invested in changing his feelings for the other woman.  So, he’s likely to doubt what you are telling him, even if it deep down rings true.

And sometimes, even if he eventually finds out the truth, he may still discount it because he might think that the circumstances surrounding his feelings have nothing to do with the feelings themselves. It’s very common for people who are in the middle of infidelity to become very good at justifying their actions and their emotions.  Sure, they may know that what they are doing is wrong, but they’re able to put those doubts on the back burner.  The same holds true when anything might get in the way of their feelings.  They want their feelings to be strong enough to justify their actions, so it only makes sense that they are going to discount or downplay anything that is going to question those feelings.  After all, once they admit the feelings aren’t there anymore, then they have to also admit that they caused all of this pain and turmoil for nothing at all.

Time, Patience, And Integrity Will Often Lessen These False Feelings Better Than Anything Else: Beware that when you try to “force” or “make” your husband change his feelings for this other person, he’s likely to see you as the manipulative one.  You want for the opposite to be true.  You want for him to eventually see her as the bad guy and you as the good guy.  So as strange as it may feel, often the best thing that you can do is to take the high road and bide your time.  Conduct yourself with respect and dignity and know that he will eventually see things more clearly.

The impact of the husband’s discovery of this woman’s past was going to be so much greater if the husband found these things out for himself.  And, time has a way of making the truth come out.  When things are shiny, new, and forbidden, the feelings are so much more intense.  But once things are out in the open and become routine, the feelings begin to lose a little of their power.  Often, the best thing that you can do is to understand this and to just wait until the inevitable happens.

Once she’s no longer a forbidden person that he can only see during stolen clandestine moments, she starts to look more like an average, ordinary, middle aged woman.  Once this happens, the feelings can turn average and ordinary as well.  I know it’s tough to wait for this to happen.  And at the same time, it’s very tempting to try to turn his head back to you.  Nothing says you can’t continue to work on your marriage and on reestablishing your bond.  But my best advice is to focus on reestablishing his feelings for you and having confidence that his true and “real” feelings for her will reveal themselves over time.

Don’t give her more power over you by continuing to focus on their relationship.  Once you move on and turn your attention toward yourself and your husband, the rest will often eventually sort itself out.  I know that it can be hard to keep the faith when you’re trying to move past an affair.  I remember feeling pretty hopeless when I was in this situation.  But once I placed the focus on myself rather than on my doubts, things changed dramatically for me and my marriage recovered.  If it helps, you can read more of that story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By: Katie Lerch: I often hear from wives who are struggling to put their lives back together after their husband cheats or has an affair. One issue that comes up quite often is a feeling that you have no control over what is happening in your life. I recently heard from a wife who said, in part: “I feel like I don’t have any control over my life since my husband’s affair.  I feel like I have to wait for him to decide who he wants.  I feel like I have to wait to see if this other woman is going to leave him alone.  Plus I have to wait to see if I’m marriage will survive.  And meanwhile, my wishes or my actions do not matter because I am at the mercy of everyone else.  I hate feeling this way.  I guess that maybe I am a control freak, but it feels unfair that my life is dependent on the decisions of others.”

Feeling In Control Again After The Affair: I know that it can feel as if you have no control over how things end up in your marriage.  But it is important to do everything in your power to shift some of the power back to yourself.  While it’s true that your husband has some decisions to make (and how things turn out may hinge on some of those decisions,) your feelings and wishes can and should come into play as well.

When I discuss this with wives many will have responses like: “well it’s no mystery how I feel.  My husband knows that divorce is not an option for me so he knows that he holds all of the cards.  He knows that I won’t walk away from this marriage so it’s clear that he’s the one who gets to make the decisions while I just have to wait and see what he decides.”  I understand why it can feel this way, but the perception that you have no decisions to make isn’t entirely accurate.

Although you may well be very clear on wanting to save your marriage, nothing says you have to save the same marriage.  Obviously, because of what has happened, adjustments will need to be made and rebuilding will have to take place.  Now is the time to decide how you want your important relationships to look and feel like.   Decide what you truly want and vow that you will ultimately accept nothing less.

Admittedly, you may already know that you’ve made a decision about saving your marriage, but this doesn’t mean that you won’t be making any important and lasting changes and there are plenty of decisions to be made about that process.   You also have plenty of control about how you live your life from this day forward.  I know that it is extremely easy to be discouraged about what is happening in your life right now.  But understand that what is happening is external.  In other words, you’re having to respond to someone else’s decisions, and this is painful.  But these external things do not change who you are.

You get to decide every single day how you want to proceed.  Every day, you will make tons of decisions as to whether to dwell on the uncertainty, pain, and lack of control or whether to stand up, dust yourself off, and take this opportunity to define what you want out of your life, your relationships, and your marriage from today forward.  I know that it’s a stretch to say that healing from an affair is ever a good or positive thing, but it does bring about certain opportunities which I think are often overlooked.

Because you can use this as an opportunity to reexamine your life, how you are living it, and what you truly want out of it.  My own husband’s infidelity allowed me to see some places where I had been selling myself short and relying upon him too much for my own personal happiness and finances.  So, I became more independent, went back to school, and focused on building a career for myself for my own peace of mind.  This gave me a greater sense of control and it ended up paying huge dividends in terms of my own personal happiness and my marriage.  I feel as though I am more of an equal partner now and that feels very good.

Of course, you don’t need to make huge adjustments or take large risks in your life in order to regain a sense of control.  A change in attitude and outlook can work wonders as well.  Please don’t think I’m trying to minimize what you are going through or asking you to put on a happy face in a very difficult situation.  I’m truly not. But, what I am saying is that you often have more control than you think.  But you have to prioritize and demand it. And once you place your focus on your own wants and needs, you will likely realize that even more is available for the taking.

I often think that wives don’t realize how much a lack of control can contribute to feeling helpless.  Dealing with an affair is bad enough without feeling helpless too.  It took me way too long to learn this in my own life, but once I did and took some of my power back, things began to change for the better.  If it helps, you can read more of my story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from people who have just admitted that they’ve been cheating or having an affair and they don’t know what to do next. Sometimes, their spouse is having a very negative reaction or is peppering them with questions that they don’t know how to answer. They want to do and to say all the right things, but they aren’t sure if honesty is the best policy or if they should try to minimize the damage. Sometimes, they want to physically reassure their spouse but they are worried that their touch is going to be repulsive.

I recently heard from a wife who had just confessed having an affair with a coworker.  She confessed because she wanted to.  Her husband wasn’t suspicious and truly had no idea that she was being unfaithful.  She said, in part: “I just told my husband about my affair.  I have ended things with the other guy because I realized that my marriage was too important to me to risk it.  I struggled with whether to admit things to my husband but I decided that complete honesty was the only way to go.  At this point, my husband appears to be just shocked and numb so I have no idea how to proceed.  Should I just take my cues from him? Should I leave him alone for a while? What happens now?”

I was the cheated on rather than the person who cheated in my own marriage, but I have a definite opinion about the best way for the unfaithful spouse to proceed, which I will outline below.

Allow Your Spouse To Take The Lead But Know That They Might Be Expecting The Same From You: A very common problem that I see happen time and time again in this situation is that both people are waiting for the other one to set the pace.  Often the faithful spouse isn’t sure what the cheating spouse really wants.  Yes, they have confessed and they are saying that they want to save the marriage.  But often, you can’t help but wonder if that is their guilt talking or if there is something else that is motivating them.

So, it’s very common for the faithful spouse to watch the other like a hawk and analyze every comment, every gesture, and even every facial expression.  At the same time, the cheating spouse is sometimes dealing with their own fears and concerns.  While they often want to hold and comfort their spouse, they will often hesitate because they worry that their touch will seem repulsive.  They fear rejection so they will often wait for their spouse to tell them what to do. The problem is, the faithful spouse is often waiting for exactly the same thing. And this is how misunderstandings take hold.

It’s better to try to be very open and honest about your confusion and hesitation.  If you are the cheating spouse, you might just say something like: “I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing.  I want to support you, but I also want to give you some space if that is what you need.  Are you able to share with me what would help you or support you the most right now? I’m willing to do whatever it takes, but I don’t want to push too hard or make you uncomfortable.   My first concern is you and your feelings.  So, to the extent that you can, it would help me if you could share what you I could do to help you the most.”

Be prepared for your spouse to answer with a request that you leave them alone for a while.  Sometimes, that is the best call for the time being.  With that said, some spouses do want physical confirmation that you still love them and that’s fine too.  There are no “wrong” requests.  What’s most important is doing your best to find out what your spouse wants and needs and trying to fulfill it as best as you can.

Get The Most Appropriate Help Available For Both of You: It is human nature to want to minimize the impact of the affair.  Because if you look the fallout and the damage right in the eye, you have to fully admit what a grave mistake that you have made.  So, it’s natural to want to tell yourself that things are not so bad and that, with a little patience and time, you will be able to move past this.

I have to tell you that it isn’t always as easy as you might hope right now.  There are often multiple issues, some of which you may not even be aware.  You’ll usually need to address both martial and individual issues at a time when you’re both hurting.  It can be very difficult to have the perspective that you need and it can be even more difficult to act appropriately when you are in such pain.  I realize that not everyone is comfortable with counseling, but you should at least educate yourself about the recovery process after an affair.  It’s very common to hope that things will work themselves out, but in reality, few couples are able to truly and completely heal without a little help, at least in my experience.

I understand the wish to keep this private and to deal with it in your own way, but few people are equipped to handle this very multi faceted issue alone.  In my opinion, it says a lot about the unfaithful spouse when they are willing to not only admit and take responsibility for their mistakes, but to also step outside of their comfort zone and procure the help, counseling, or resources that both spouses might need.  Because this indicates that you care more about your spouse and your marriage’s healing and less about your own discomfort.

My husband’s willingness to do whatever I needed after his affair said a lot about him as a person and was central in helping us heal our marriage.  This process wasn’t always easy, but it was clear from the beginning that he was willing to take the lead.  If it helps, you can read about our recovery process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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