Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: When you’re trying to rebuild your marriage after an affair, nobody really warns you about how much space the past can still take up. Even after the tears have been shed, the apologies have been made, and the promises have been spoken — the ghost of what happened can still linger.

You might be folding laundry or laughing at a dumb TV show together, and out of nowhere, it hits you:
“Remember what he did.” “Remember how he betrayed you.”

Or maybe you’re having a perfectly fine day, and a random song, place, or even smell knocks the wind right out of you.

If you’re living with this — and still trying to save your marriage — please know this: You’re not crazy. And you’re not doing it wrong. This is what imperfect healing can really look like. It’s messy, it’s unpredictable, and sometimes it’s downright exhausting.

But it’s also possible for you to come out on the other side. And often, it’s not about doing one big thing perfectly.
It’s about rebuilding your marriage day by day, even when the ghost of the affair tries to haunt you.

Know That the Ghost Is Normal And Haunting (And Doesn’t Mean You’re Not Healing:) One thing I wish someone had told me early on is this: You can be healing and still hurt at the same time. They’re not opposites. They actually go hand-in-hand. You can forgive your spouse one day and be furious the next. You can have moments where you feel hopeful and connected — and then, out of nowhere, feel crushed all over again.

That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean you can’t do this. It just means you’re human. Healing isn’t a straight line. It’s more like a tangled ball of emotions that you’re slowly, painfully, but somewhat steadily, untangling one day at a time. The ghost shows up because the affair affected a marriage that mattered. Because you loved deeply.

And actually? Your shattered feelings are a sign that you’re still in the fight — still caring enough to heal, not numbing out or giving up completely. If you weren’t hurt, you wouldn’t be invested. And your investment is necessary to get you out of this.

Don’t Let the Ghost Rewrite Your Future: Here’s something I learned the hard way: The past only controls the future if you let it. It’s really easy to slip into fear-thinking after an affair. You may have thoughts like:

• He betrayed me once, so he’ll probably do it again.

• I was blindsided before. So I’ll probably be again.

• We’ll never get back the marriage that we lost.

I’m not here to sugarcoat anything. Affairs change things. Trust takes a huge hit. You are knocked off your axis. But living under constant fear and suspicion isn’t really living. And it’s not fair — to you or to your marriage — to stay stuck in a place that’s always looking backward. You deserve much better. You don’t have to pretend nothing happened. But you also don’t have to hand your entire future over to the ghost of one terrible chapter. What happened was real. You can’t take it back. But the good news is that 
what happens next is still being written. And YOU get to write it.

Rebuilding Happens in Small Moments — Not In Grand Gestures:After an affair, it’s tempting to look for some huge, magical moment that will make everything “right” again. A big apology. A grand promise. Some proof that the pain was worth it.But real rebuilding doesn’t usually look like that. It’s way quieter than people think It looks like your spouse answering your texts without delay, you both staying in the hard conversation instead of walking away, one of you reaching for the other’s hand — even after a tense moment and laughter that sneaks back in when you weren’t expecting it.

These little things? They matter more than any dramatic speech or over-the-top gesture.Trust isn’t rebuilt overnight with one big event.It’s rebuilt moment by moment, choice by choice, day by day.

Some Days Will Feel Like You’re Going Backward — That’s Normal: There will be days when you feel like, “We’ve made no progress at all.” Days when you feel tired, resentful, triggered, or just plain over it.Please know: That doesn’t mean you’re doomed. Healing is like walking up a mountain. Sometimes you’ll trip. Sometimes you’ll sit down and cry. Sometimes you’ll even slide backward a little. But as long as you get back up and keep climbing — even slowly — you’re still moving forward.

One bad day doesn’t erase a hundred good ones. One hard conversation doesn’t cancel all the progress you’ve made. And when you’re ready, take one small step forward again.

Give Yourself (and Your Marriage) Permission to Grow Into Something New: A lot of people get stuck because they keep trying to get “back to normal.” But after an affair, there’s no real going back. There’s only building something new – there’s going to be a “new normal.” And honestly? Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Maybe the marriage you had before the affair wasn’t everything either of you needed — even if you didn’t realize it at the time. Maybe this painful, messy, unwanted process can eventually grow into a marriage that’s more honest, more intentional, more connected, and more real.

It might not be completely the same. But it can still be a solid, beautiful, and lasting marriage. I know this because I have that type of marriage now. And my healing was messy and non-linear at times. But we both ultimately hung in there and we are still solidly marriage today. We can read about exactly how I facilitated this on my blog at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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By Katie Lersch: If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve been through one of the worst emotional earthquakes a marriage can face: an affair.

And let me just say right off the bat — if your marriage has survived the initial blow, that’s already something to acknowledge. I know it might not feel like “surviving” on some days. Some days might still feel like barely hanging on. Some days, it might feel like pretending. Some days, it might feel like a battle between wanting to believe and wanting to run.

That’s totally and perfectly normal. And it’s part of the healing.

One thing I wish someone had told me early on is that healing doesn’t always feel like what you think it will. It’s not a straight, clean, triumphant path where each day gets a little brighter. Sometimes, it seems to get worse and some days it will feel far easier.

A lot of the time, healing is messy. It’s filled with doubts. It’s full of moments where you wonder, “Am I crazy for trying to stay?” or “Will we ever actually be okay again?” It’s filled with times when you wonder what family and friends would think of you if they knew.

But here’s the hopeful part: even when it doesn’t feel like it, there are often small, quiet signs that you’re healing – that your marriage is finding its way back, little by little. You just have to know what to look for. Here are some that I have learned to recognize.

You’re Having More ‘Normal’ Moments Than You Realize: In the beginning after the affair, every moment feels tinged with pain. You can’t look at your spouse without thinking about the affair. You see awful visuals in your mind’s eye. You dream about it. You can’t make small talk without feeling the giant elephant in the room.

But slowly — often without you even noticing — you start having a few “normal” moments again. You laugh at a joke. You watch a show together without thinking about the affair. You talk about dinner or bills or the kids without that sick to your stomach feeling.

At first, these moments might feel wrong or even make you feel guilty — like, “How can I be laughing when we’re still broken?”

But that’s actually what healing often looks like. It’s just everyday, ordinary stuff. And it can feel good after what you’ve been through. It’s the heart remembering how to beat normally again, even if just for a few minutes at a time.

2. You’re Not Obsessively Replaying Every Detail (At Least Not As Much): If you’re anything like me, you probably went through a phase where you replayed everything — every lie, every excuse, every gross assumption — in your mind on a loop. You wanted to understand every little thing. You needed answers.

And I get it. Affairs shatter trust, and your brain works overtime trying to piece the world back together.

But one quiet sign of healing is that the urge to dissect every second of the affair starts to lessen – just a teeny, tiny bit. You don’t have to struggle and strain make it lessen — it just naturally, slowly, doesn’t take up quite as much space in your mind. It’s no longer living there entirely rent-free.

You start finding yourself thinking about your own life, your own needs, and yes, even your future — instead of just living inside the hurt.

3. You’re Actually Genuinely Talking (Even When It’s Awkward or Hard:) Another huge, often overlooked sign of healing is real communication. I’m not talking about fake, surface-level conversation where you both pretend everything’s fine.
I mean the gritty, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes emotional talks where you tell the truth.
Where you say things like:

• “I still don’t know how to trust you, but I want to try in my own time.”

• “I’m scared we’ll never get back to what we had before.”

• “Some days, I still hate you — and some days, I genuinely miss you.”

Real communication after an affair isn’t pretty or silver-tongued. It’s not always sweet or kind. But if you’re still talking honestly — even if it’s messy — you’re giving yourselves a chance.

Couples that stay silent or avoid the hard conversations tend to drift. Couples who are willing to sit in the discomfort together? They have a shot at real healing – if they want it.

4. You’re Starting to Feel Moments of Genuine Empathy (Even If It’s Tiny:) This one can be complicated — and you might not even like hearing it. But when you start to see even a flicker of empathy for your spouse — when you can recognize that maybe they hate what happened too, maybe they regret hurting you deeply — that’s actually a huge sign. You don’t have to excuse what they did. You don’t have to forget it. You don’t even have to fully forgive yet. (A lightbulb moment for me was seeing my husband as someone who was actually vulnerable and the affair was the result of his desire for validation.)

But being able to acknowledge that your husband is human — flawed, broken, remorseful — shows that your heart is softening. Not for them, but for yourself. Because staying locked in anger forever keeps you stuck.

5. You’re Eventually Thinking About a Future (Even If It’s a Tentative One:) Early after the affair, it’s common to feel like your future together was stolen. Like your marriage as you knew it died. And honestly? In some ways, it did.

But if you find yourself thinking about things (perhaps in the distant future) like planning a trip together or making joint goals, this is a sign that you envision a new marriage.

Because that’s what affair recovery really is: not going back to the old marriage, but carefully, deliberately, building something new. Something honest. Something real.

If You’re Not Seeing These Signs Yet, Please Don’t Panic: Healing after an affair is not a race. It’s not something you can force on a timeline. Some couples see these signs within months. Some take years.You are not failing if it still hurts. You don’t get a report card.  The important thing is to stay open to the possibility that healing can happen — even if you can’t feel it today.

Some days, surviving is enough. Some days, getting out of bed and saying, “I’m still here” is a victory. And sometimes the healing is happening in the background, even when all you can see is the mess.

You are stronger than you think. Your marriage, if both people are willing, can be stronger than you think.
Healing is rarely loud or flashy. It’s quiet, slow and fragile. One step at a time. One day at a time. Baby steps.

This perspective is hard won from someone who has been there. I had to settle for a gradual recovery, but I’m glad I did because it has been lasting. We recovered fully. I share how we did that on my blog at https://suviving-the-affair.

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By: Katie Lersch: You don’t always need a fully detailed confession to know your husband is having an affair. Sometimes, you have evidence, Sometimes, you have a confession from the other woman. And other times, you just know in your gut and no one can convince you otherwise.

The emotional distance doesn’t lie. Nor does all the signs that so clearly point to an affair. But sometimes, no matter how you ask, demand, or plead, he remains mum. And that denial was almost as devastating as the betrayal itself. And it speaks volumes.

Why You Feel Like You Have To Have The Truth: When your husband betrays your trust by cheating, you need to understand exactly why the affair happened. For this type of deep understanding, you need and want clarity. You need something to help you make sense of the confusion and pain swirling inside you.

But when your spouse won’t admit to the affair, you’re left in a kind of emotional limbo. There are big holes in the story. There’s no closure. No acknowledgment. Just silence. Denial. Or worse — the implication that it’s you who’s imagining things. Or the nudge that you are imagining this all in your head and accusing him of something he didn’t do. This is gaslighting, and it can hurt your sanity and self-worth if you let it. Don’t let it.

Why Waiting For A Confession Is A Painful Kind Of Trap: I learned this the hard way – waiting for a confession keeps you stuck and feeling like you are in quicksand. You can’t process. You can’t move forward. You are simply churning water. And then you are stuck thinking about how to handle this on your own  or wondering if you can you come at it in another way.

Is there more evidence you can produce? Or, if you show him how hurt you are, will it change things?

But guess what? Despite all of these attempts on your part, sometimes, the answer to these questions never comes. And the longer you wait and go without an answer, the more powerless you feel.

What You Need To Ask Instead: Sometimes, you have to change the question from: “What are the details of the affair?” to: “What do I need to heal with or without him?”

You Don’t Need Him (Or His Admission) To Focus On Your Own Healing: Don’t let me fool you. An admission helps. It is the gold standard. It allows you to know what you are dealing with and allows you to get accountability, dialogue, and the ability to eventually repair your marriage. But healing is still possible FOR YOU even if you never get the words you’re waiting for FROM HIM.

Forgiveness doesn’t have to start with his honesty (although you would hope that he would eventually offer it.) It can start with your clarity (which you can get from yourself.)

How To Move Forward Without His Cooperation: Despite his refusal to cooperate, you can validate yourself. You know what you’ve gathered. You know what evidence you have. You don’t need anyone else to give you permission to know what you already know.

Don’t focus on him and his silence anymore. Focus on taking back your own control and giving yourself what you need to heal. You may want to seek counseling on your own or give yourself permission to do the things that bring you peace and joy – even if they do not include him.

When he sees you moving forward and acting “as if” he has confessed, the attraction to deny may begin to wane. But if he doesn’t, you don’t need his permission or cooperation.

You Don’t Need Him For Closure: One of the biggest misconceptions about infidelity is that the faithful spouse needs cooperation from the cheating spouse for closure. You don’t. You can create or claim closure for yourself.

You can say to yourself: “I may not know everything, but I deserve and will get healing, peace, and happiness nonetheless on my own.”

Sometimes, that will mean leaving your marriage behind. And sometimes it won’t. You get to choose.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling him you are moving forward as if he confessed and then proceed to do exactly that.st

I know this hurts. I know you deserve his honesty. But we don’t always get what we deserve from those we love, so we must give it to ourselves. In my own situation, my husband was reluctant to come totally clean at first, but I figured out how to deal with him – over time to get the entire truth. You can read about my own healing and how I did it on my blog at https://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch: There are countless wives who are genuinely trying to move past their husbands’ affair. Many of them have been working hard to forgive, hoping that forgiveness will finally bring some peace or clarity. But sometimes, they hit a wall. They just can’t do it — at least not yet — and then they feel like they’ve somehow failed.

They’ll say things like, “I know I should forgive him, but I just can’t seem to.”

And underneath that confession is a lot of guilt, like they’re doing something wrong. It’s maddening, quite honestly. Because somewhere along the line, they’ve picked up the belief that if they’re not ready to forgive, they’re either not strong enough, not kind enough, or not healing “the right way.” And that’s just nonsense.

Here’s what I want you to hear loud and clear: You’re not failing just because you’re struggling to forgive. You’re normal. And it’s understandable.

Infidelity isn’t just a little bump in the road. It shakes your foundation. It cuts deep. And expecting yourself to offer full and unconditional forgiveness right out of the gate — or even months down the road — isn’t fair to you. It’s pressuring you. It’s shortchanging you.  And if you are not ready, you must protect yourself. Because sometimes, no one else will.

You Don’t Owe Forgiveness On Anyone’s Timeline But Your Own: One of the things I see often is wives putting immense pressure on themselves to forgive — sometimes even more pressure than the outside world is putting on them. That pressure might come from their husband, from family, or even from well-meaning friends who just want to see things “go back to normal.” And sometimes, it’s coming from within — from that little voice that says, “If I were stronger or better, I would’ve forgiven him by now.” Or “I should just get on with this? How long am I going to drag it out? Don’t I want my life back?”

But healing doesn’t work on a schedule. It can’t be forced, and it shouldn’t be rushed. Forgiveness, if and when it comes, needs to be something you give freely — not because you feel obligated, and not because someone else is tired of waiting. You’re allowed to take your time. You’re allowed to need more. And you’re allowed to say, “I don’t know yet, I’ll let you know when it comes. But I am taking more time.”

It’s Okay To Take A “Wait And See” Approach: Sometimes when I talk to wives who haven’t forgiven yet, they’ll say, “I guess that means our marriage can’t be saved.” And I always ask, “Why do you think that?” Almost always, they respond with something like, “Because I haven’t forgiven him — doesn’t that mean I’ve already given up?”

And my answer is almost always no. It doesn’t mean that at all.

You can still be invested in rebuilding. You can still show up. You can still listen to what he has to say. You can still watch him closely and wait. You can still see how you feel from day to day. Forgiveness isn’t a prerequisite to healing or reconciling. It isn’t always either/or.  Sometimes, it comes later — once you’ve had time to observe your husband’s actions, once the shock has settled, and once trust starts to slowly rebuild.  Sometimes, it just takes you seeing – over and over again – that he has done what he said he would, that’s he’d made good on his promises, and he has become your rock once again. It’s fine to want and wait for these things.

It’s completely valid to say, “Let’s see how this plays out.” You’re not closing the door. You’re just choosing to be cautious, which, frankly, is more than reasonable after what you’ve been through.

Your husband might want immediate forgiveness. Most do. Honestly, I would too in his shoes. I’d try to push him, too if I were the cheater.But your job isn’t to make him comfortable — it’s to protect your peace and your heart as you work through this.

If It’s Been A Really Long Time, He’s Shown Himself To Be Steady And Trustworthy, And You Still Can’t Forgive, Ask Yourself Why: Now, sometimes I hear from women who say, “It’s been years (or more) and I still can’t forgive. I want to, but I just can’t get there.”

When that happens, I usually suggest they do a little inner inventory. Ask yourself: What’s missing? What haven’t you received that you still need? Because often, forgiveness is blocked not by unwillingness, but by unmet needs. Your husband may not even know that he’s falling short.

Sometimes, he hasn’t really taken accountability. Or maybe he hasn’t shown lasting change. Maybe he hasn’t made you feel truly safe again. And sometimes — maybe the hardest one — your self-esteem is still in pieces, and you’re trying to forgive while still struggling internally.

If any of that rings true, then forgiveness might require you to speak up, ask for more, or simply wait until you can do the work to feel whole again. Because true forgiveness can’t happen if your needs are still sitting in the background, unmet and unnoticed.

You Set The Pace — Accept Nothing Less: At the end of the day, this is your life. Your marriage. Your healing. You don’t have to meet anyone else’s timeline or expectations. You’re allowed to say, “I’m not there yet, but I’m still here, and that has to be good enough for right now.” That’s powerful. That’s brave. And it’s as honest as you can be.

I say this as someone who’s been through it. Forgiveness didn’t come easy for me, either. In fact, I thought it might never come. But over time, with a lot of self-reflection and effort — both mine and his — I got there. And believe it or not, our marriage is pretty darn solid and I never thought I’d get there, but I sure did.

If you’d like to read the full story, I share it on my blog here: http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch: I once knew a heartbroken wife who opened her email and found something no one ever wants to see: a flood of photos from her husband’s affair. Her husband had been involved with a woman he met at the gym—a relationship that lasted around four months. The truth came out when a mutual friend (and fellow gym goer) spotted her husband flirting with the other woman. When the wife confronted him, he didn’t deny it. He came clean and promised to end it right then and there.

At first, she wasn’t sure if she even could stay in the marriage. The betrayal cut deep. She didn’t know if she could ever trust him again—not when he went to the gym, ran errands, or worked late. But after taking some time, really reflecting, and watching how open and remorseful he seemed, she decided to give it another shot. The couple was trying to move forward and find their way—slowly, carefully.

And for a while, things were… sort of okay. The wife even overheard him on the phone breaking it off with the other woman—firm, clear, no wiggle room. He was coming straight home after work, spending all his time with his wife. He hadn’t set foot in the gym since. Because of this, she felt, cautiously, that maybe they were on the path to healing.

But then she opened her inbox. And just like that, everything unraveled again.

Attached were about fifteen photos of her husband and the other woman. Hugging. Kissing. Goofing off. Posing like a happy couple.

And what shattered her wasn’t just what they were doing—it was how he looked. She noted, “He looked so happy. There was this light in his eyes, this genuine smile I haven’t seen in years. Honestly, it tore me apart. It made me wonder if maybe he was actually happier with her than he is with me. And if that’s true… what am I even doing here?”

My heart truly broke for her. What that other woman did? It was cruel. Maybe it was a desperate, last-ditch attempt to break them up. Maybe she wanted to hurt the wife, make her doubt everything, and open a door back into the husband’s life. Or maybe she just wanted to stir up pain for the sake of it because she could. Whatever the motive, it was a gut punch to a woman already trying to rebuild trust from the ground up.

So, what now? What do you even do when something like this lands in your lap out of nowhere?

Here are the things a wife in this situation might think about:

1. Try to Find Out When the Pictures Were Taken

This was the wife’s first move—confronting her husband. He said the pictures were taken weeks before the affair ended, and once she calmed down and thought it through, she realized that made sense. He hadn’t been to the gym since, and he wasn’t in contact with the woman anymore. The timelines matched. The photos weren’t recent.

That helped a little—but only a little. Because even if the pictures weren’t new, the pain they caused was very real and very fresh.

2. Acknowledge the Feelings These Photos Stirred Up

Here’s the thing—just because the affair is over doesn’t mean the healing is done. These photos opened up a whole new wound. The wife found herself wondering if she could ever measure up to the way her husband seemed to look at the other woman. That carefree happiness, that spark—it made her question everything.

These are real fears, and they deserve to be talked about. He deserves the chance to hear her pain and respond to it. And she deserves to be heard.

3. Protect Yourself From Further Contact

The next step was figuring out how to stop this woman from getting through again. The wife didn’t know how the woman had found her email, but that didn’t matter as much as how to block her now.

Most email services let you block senders. If you’re not sure how to do that, reach out to your provider or look up the steps. And if she starts calling? Block those numbers, too. Set a clear boundary: you’re not open to communication, and you won’t let her cause any more damage.

Also? Don’t respond. No matter how tempted you are. She wants a reaction. Don’t you dare give her one.

4. Ask Yourself: Has Anything Really Changed?

I know how hard it is to be hit with something like this when you’re trying to move forward. It feels like a setback, like all your progress has crumbled. But really ask yourself: Has anything actually changed?

Yes, the photos are painful. But they’re from the past—before her husband made the decision to stay and do the work. Since then, he’s been consistent. Honest. Present. He’s doing what he said he would. So while the pain is real, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not committed to the marriage now.

The question is: will she let this sabotage the progress they’ve made? Or can she view it as what it likely is—a cruel attempt to shake her faith and stir up drama?

This situation is hard. No sugarcoating that. But it doesn’t have to undo everything. In the end, the wife gets to decide whether the past will define her future—or if she’ll keep moving forward, on her terms.

Because healing after betrayal isn’t a straight line. It’s messy, it’s emotional, and sometimes it throws you curveballs like this. But if the foundation is strong—and both people are willing to do the work—it can survive.

And in this case? I hoped that it would.  And it did.

I know exactly how this wife felt because I, too, have been the faithful wife. But I ended up the victor, and other woman ended up the loser. And I share exactly how I did that on my blog at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I don’t envy where you are right now. You’ve recently discovered that your partner has cheated on you. And I know, from experience, that you feel like your world has cracked wide open. I’ve been there. I’ve felt that initial shock, that gut punch of betrayal, and the barrage of questions. But which do you ask? Which questions will get you to what you NEED to know, and which questions will just make this mess worse? Here’s what I discovered after my own spouse’s affair.

There’s no perfect script. But there are some phrases that give you a little more power, and there are also words that help to take it away. Let’s have a look.

Don’t Edit (Or Rush)Your Feelings: Before you really let your words flow, give yourself a minute – or several. You need time to process this before the words come. No, you won’t be able to totally calm yourself, but you can take a bit of time to feel whatever comes. You are allowed to be angry, confused, hurt, numb, knowing, or even hateful. Whatever your emotions are, they are valid. They are yours. Do not be ashamed of them. And do not feel forced to share them before you are good and ready.

Your husband might panic and try to engage you right away, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with sending him away and telling him you are not ready to talk yet, and you will let him know when you are.

The Phrases That I Found Offered Me Some Relief And Defined Where He Had To Meet Me:  These are things that I said at various times. If these don’t work for you, don’t use them. Use what resonates or feels true to you.

“I’m devastated, and I need you to understand the depth of that.”

You don’t need to sugarcoat this for him. His actions are devastating and potentially marriage-altering, and he needs to own this. Yes, this may hurt him. But his actions have hurt you. Let him know.

2. “I need to know the truth. Absolutely no excuses or justifications.”

People who have affairs will often try to minimize it. They’ll say, “Oh, it was just a one-night stand.” Or, “I’ll never see her again.” That’s not good enough. You want to know how, why, and when this happened. You need ample information to know exactly what left you vulnerable. Don’t take this too far. You don’t need to know every sexual position used (because you will ruminate on it and constantly visualize it, which does you no good.) But you do need to know the honest truth so you can gauge what you are dealing with.

3. “This isn’t just about the cheating. It’s about your lies and the fact that I feel I can’t trust you.”

Yes, it is awful that he was physical with someone else, but for many wives, it is the lies that are the worst. Your spouse is supposed to be the person you can trust most in the world. He has breached that. You will doubt yourself when you go to trust him again. He needs to understand the damage he has caused so that he knows it is his responsibility to right it.

4. “I’m not making any rash decisions.”

Often, the cheating spouse will want to be forgiven as soon as possible. They’ll want you to move toward them because it feels like a relief. But you can refuse to be hurried and can be very blunt about the fact that you are going to take your time and then some.

5. “I won’t listen to silly defenses or you trying to blame me.”

Many spouses will try to convince you that you forced them into the affair, or they’ll offer up dumb excuses that make no sense. Unless you want to hear this endlessly, you need to put your foot down early. Now, no marriage is perfect. And we all have areas where we could improve. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that. But he was the one who chose to cheat. He shouldn’t attempt to blame you for this decision.

“I’m not here to comfort you:” Many cheating spouses will lay themselves at your feet. They’ll seemingly fall apart, tell you they can’t live without you, etc., etc. Don’t allow yourself to feel responsible for their feelings. You must take care of yourself before anyone else.

Use Caution: There are some things that you may be tempted to say. However, if you ever want to eventually reconcile with your spouse, you may regret them, they are:

• “I never want to see you again.”
• “I hate you.”
• “You’ve ruined everything.”

You may mean this in the heat of the moment, but in a year, you may regret these words. Cheating husbands CAN and DO become rehabilitated husbands, so you don’t necessarily want this to come back to bite you.

When You’re Considering Rehabilitation: There may be a time when you are open to reconciling. This isn’t a linear process. And if you need to back up, then say so. Simply say, “I am not ready to talk right now and need some time.”

He may push you to rebuild if you are open to that. There’s nothing wrong with saying you are open to it, but you might ask him if he is willing to put in the considerable work to make it right. As you are working through things, you can always use phrases like, “We’re not yet okay, but we haven’t totally closed the door.”

Take good care of yourself during this process. You always come first. Your well-being is always the priority. He will want to know what you are thinking or feeling. But if you don’t always know, you don’t always have to share.

I hope this has been helpful. I didn’t always say and do the perfect things after my husband’s affair. And I did say things I regretted. But we eventually righted ourselves, mostly due to my steering the ship. You can read about how I did that here.

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By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from women who tell me that somehow, they think their husband’s affair was their fault.  They tell me that they think they probably didn’t pay enough attention to him.  Sometimes, they buy their husband’s arguments that they neglected him or let themselves go.  Or, they figure they should have taken care of business better in the bedroom.  They beat themselves up and figure that this was all their fault.

I very much understand these self-defeating thoughts.  There was a several-month period when I had them myself.  It’s easy to blame yourself because it gives you an easy target.  But I vigorously maintain that it is most definitely not your fault if your husband has had an affair.  I don’t care how the state of your marriage was.  And I don’t know what your husband is telling you. To me, in no circumstances is someone else’s actions ever another person’s responsibility or fault.  I will discuss this more in the following article.

By No Means Is Your Husband Cheating Or Having An Affair Ever Your Fault: I honestly can not tell you how often the wife will automatically and immediately place at least some of the blame onto herself.  They’ll say things like “I was paying so much attention to our kids.”  Or “I wasn’t giving him enough sex.” Or “I was spending so much time at work or school that he felt neglected.”

Believe me when I say that I’ve heard all sorts of comments like this.  And while I understand that any of these things can put a strain on your marriage, none of them, in my mind, are justifications for cheating or having an affair.  I’ve even had men tell me that their wives didn’t have sex with them on any sort of a regular basis and had pretty much shut them out. 

Frankly, because of my research for my blog and because of my own situation, I do a lot of research on the mindset of men who cheat. I dialog with many of them.  But none of the justifications that they give me convince me that they were justified in their cheating or that their wife was to blame. 

Every One Has Choices In Life.  A Man Who Chooses To Cheat Or Have An Affair Has Made A Choice.  In No Way Is This Choice His Wife’s Fault: I do understand that there are plenty of things that would tax a marriage and make it very tempting for a husband to cheat.   Looking back, many wives know that the marriage was vulnerable, and they are quick to blame themselves for this or at least take responsibility for it.

I do understand that this can make things difficult for both parties in the marriage and that it’s sometimes very easy to act on these frustrations even when you are not looking to have an affair or to cheat.  With that said, there is always a choice.   You can typically look back and always see other options that were available.

For example, the husband certainly could have told the wife he was seriously struggling and that something needed to change swiftly and dramatically.  He could have suggested counseling.  There are a number of other options that were not taken.  I’m not trying to point an accusatory finger at husbands who cheat.  I know that they sometimes feel justified.  But I would like to point out that there is always a choice and, worse than this, it’s not showing much integrity to blame someone else for your own choices.  Not only this, but this is usually quite a bad choice when you are asking your wife to forgive you or to help you save your marriage.

Why The Blame Game After The Affair Is A Game Where Both Spouses Will Lose: Here’s the thing that I wish people would understand.  It honestly doesn’t matter who is at fault when an affair happens.  Pointing the finger or shifting the blame doesn’t do anyone any good at all.  It only creates more anger and more defensiveness.  The truth is, once the affair is out in the open, the questions should focus less on who is to blame and more on “How can we fix this in a healthy way where we can both still maintain our dignity?”

I understand that the anger surrounding an affair will often make it tempting to figure out who is at fault.  But this only keeps the anger going, and it really doesn’t get you anywhere.  What usually works better is when both people are willing to take responsibility for their role in the health of their marriage. There is usually plenty of blame and fault to go around. 

But if both people take responsibility for fixing it rather than placing blame, you will often see a much better result, much more quickly.  Finding the person who is most at fault really only pushes the two of you further away from one another.  If you can find a way to get on the same page (even if you don’t end up staying together), this will often facilitate faster and more lasting healing.

For a long time, I blamed myself for my husband’s affair, but eventually,  I figured out that this wasn’t helping me, and I changed course. My marriage survived. My self-esteem is back. You can read more about that process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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