Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who spend a lot of time thinking about how their husband is going to feel about the other woman in the days to come. They also worry about how much (or if) he is still going to be thinking of her. Sometimes, the husband is telling the wife that, in time, he is going to forget all about this other woman. But understandably, the wife has a very hard time buying this.

A common comment in this scenario is: “I have read countless texts, letters, and emails between my husband and his affair partner. These documents are extremely hard for me to read but I force myself to do so because I truly want to know what I am up against. I truly want to know how my husband felt about this woman. My husband is begging me to take him back. He has ended the affair. He even got a new job so that I don’t have to worry about him seeing her. This is significant. Because he worked for many years to obtain the skills for his old job. I know how much it meant to him. And I know what it must have cost my husband to give this up. And these things do matter to me. But one thing that I absolutely can not move past is how my husband obviously feels about this woman and just how much effort and feeling he obviously poured into this relationship. I have been honest with my husband about this concern. And his response to me is that in time, he will forget all about her. He says that as we improve our marriage, he won’t think about her any more. I don’t buy this. Is it even possible for a man to forget about his affair partner?”

I will answer this question from who I am – which is a wife who has gone through infidelity. I can tell you that I sure wish it was possible for a cheating husband to forget all about the other woman. And yet, I don’t. And here is why. I realize that this is merely my own experience and my own perceptions. But frankly, I can remember the names of most people in my second grade class. I remember the apartment manager at my college apartment. I remember the office supervisor at my first job. I remember all of my coworkers also.

The point is, it is human nature to remember most of the people with whom you come in contact over your life time. And, the more intimate the relationship was that you had with the person, the more that you are likely to remember it. I am no longer in love with my junior high boyfriend, but I can still remember many aspects of his personality and appearance. And I don’t think that I could forget these things even if I wanted to. And this probably doesn’t even matter. But I am trying to make a point. Generally, you don’t just forget another human being who meant even a tiny bit to you. That’s not to say that your memories are meaningful, which leads me to my next point.

His Memories Of Her Do Not Mean That He Still Wants Her: I personally believe that it’s highly unlikely for any husband to “forget all about” the other woman as though he has amnesia. But, I do understand why he may want for you to believe this. What he’s really trying to say to you is that memories don’t matter. Actions do. I find it highly likely that, for time to time, he may think of her. But if your marriage has been rehabilitated, then he’s likely to think about it in terms of how big of a mistake it was and to wonder what he saw in her.

It’s probably a mistake to assume that every memory that he has of her is going to be favorable or full of longing. He may remember her and feel quite uncomfortable and full or remorse. And frankly, if your marriage has returned to a happy and healthy place, then memories of her don’t necessarily need to threaten you. The key is to be healed so that you no longer need to worry so much about it.

Sure, no wife wants for her husband to remember any other woman. But in truth, your husband likely remembers his 6th grade next door neighbor. And his first love. And a woman who may have impacted his professional career. That is just human nature.

So to answer the question posed, I believe that he probably will remember her from time to time. But I don’t think that memories need to threaten your marriage. It is behaviors and actions in real time that do that.

As you can probably tell, I firmly believe that healing counters most worries that follow the affair.  If it helps, you can read more about my own healing process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  I sometimes hear from wives who actually know the “other woman” or have to interact with her.  This is a very hard situation.  But it is even worse when the other woman “reveals” the affair to a circle of other people in order to enhance your pain.   As a result, not only are you dealing with the affair, your husband, and her, but you are also having to deal with outsiders who really have nothing to do with the affair.  This should be no one else’s business. And yet, the other woman has made it so that outsiders know.

A wife might say: “my husband told me about the affair before the other woman blurted it out to everyone.  So I can’t say that I was completely thrown off guard.  But no one else knew until she made her huge announcement.  And I would not have told anyone.  The other woman is on the same board that I am on at my child’s school.  We were having a meeting and she made a ridiculous suggestion, which I shot down.  I was talking only about things that pertained to the meeting, but she blurted out ‘oh, she’s just mad because I’ve been sleeping with her husband for two months.’  No one said anything.  The room was dead silent.  I was so mortified that I left.  And I have been unable to show my face since.  I drop my son off and do not walk in to school anymore.  I am so embarrassed.  I can’t stand the thought that everyone knows and is talking about me, my marriage, and my family.  I told my husband, but since he’s already broken it off, he says there isn’t much that he can do because he does not want to talk to the other woman anyway.  I have no idea what I want to do about my marriage.  My husband has offered to move if I find living here to be too difficult.  But I can’t do anything until the school year is over.  I don’t want to disrupt my son.  So that means I’m stuck with all of my acquaintances knowing what happened.  I am going to quit the committee that the other woman is on.  But I still will have to see her at school sometimes, as well as the other moms.  I don’t know how I’m going to show my face.”

I completely understand why you are so upset.  And I find the other woman’s behavior absolutely appalling.  But I think it is SHE who should be mortified, not you.  I do understand why you feel embarrassed.  Many of us feel embarrassed, although we are innocent.  You are not the one who did anything wrong.  You understandably did not stick around to see how the other women at the meeting reacted, but if I had been in that room, it is the other woman who I would have judged harshly, not you.  She is the one who was in such desperate need of attention that she had to bring up something which had nothing to do with the meeting and was only intended to hurt someone else.  I know that it’s very easy to assume the worst and to fear that the women in the meeting are gossiping about you.  But I would suspect that maybe they are gossiping about HER instead.  It should not be you that can’t go out in public.  You should have every right to be comfortable at your son’s school.

If it were me, I would contact the chair of the meeting or one of the women to whom you are closest.  I would tell her that you are considering how best to handle the committee since obviously both you and the other woman being on it together is going to cause awkwardness and tension for all involved.  I honestly think that there is a chance that they would ask the other woman to leave, since her comments were completely inappropriate.  If you enjoy the committee, why should you have to leave when you didn’t do anything wrong?

I very much understand the tendency to want to hide out right now.  I had this inclination also.  But when you do that, you only make it harder to put two feet in front of the other, hold your head high, and continue to live your life.  You are not the guilty party here.  You should be able to live your normal life if you want to.  Granted, some families are more comfortable moving and starting over after an affair.  But if you don’t want to move, you should not have to.  And if you want to stay on the committee, you should be able to.  You are not the one who made the comment.  You are not the one who cheated on your spouse and announced it in public.  So there is no reason for you to act like the guilty party.  I know it’s difficult, but I’d suggest holding your head high and continuing on with the activities that gives you back your comfortable routine.  The other woman has disrupted your life enough.  There is no reason to give her the power to make you feel uncomfortable at your son’s school.

I understand the humiliation associated with this.  I felt it too. But I also came to realize that some of it was in my own head.  I assumed that people were talking about and pitying me, but I learned that people really do have their own problems.  They really don’t worry about (or even think of) us as much as we assume.  I did eventually recover from my husband’s affair and I no longer feel embarrassed because I did not do anything wrong.  You can read more about that on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from people who are grappling with overwhelming guilt from cheating on their spouse. Many of them would give anything to turn back time before they could damage their marriage. Many of them are fully aware that their spouse deserves better. So not only are they mortified by their behavior, but they don’t understand it, especially when they admittedly have a good spouse who did nothing to justify the cheating.

I might hear from a husband who says: “my best friend says that this is my guilt talking. But I don’t think that he is right. I don’t deserve my wife. When I look back on our marriage, she has been nothing but loyal, loving, and supportive. That’s why I have no idea why I had an affair. Once I came to my senses, I broke it off, but now I know that I have no choice but to confess what I have done. She deserves a husband who doesn’t lie and who doesn’t cheat. I am so angry at myself. And I don’t understand what would make me do this to someone who has only supported and loved me. She is beautiful and sweet. She is the best wife that anyone could ask for and yet I’ve been cheating on her with a very low quality person who isn’t even fit to wipe her boots. Why am I such a jerk? I am considering telling her that I won’t fight her in a divorce because I am well aware that she deserves better.”

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due: I think that, in the end, it’s going to be up to her to decide what she wants and deserves. I also think that you have to give yourself some credit for standing up and taking responsibility and for not trying to justify your cheating. Many people take the easy way out and try to blame their spouse for choices which were ultimately their own. You may have realized too late that the cheating was a mistake, but you DID realize it and you are willing to own up to it. This may mean something to your spouse.

Consider Self-Sabotage: As far as to why you cheated on someone who was by all accounts a very good spouse, I am not a therapist, but I’ve witnessed that it’s quite common to self-sabotage when you don’t feel deserving of your spouse or you think that your spouse is too good for you. Rather than working on yourself, trying to improve, or just seeing if your spouse shares your perceptions (because many do not,) you will subconsciously participate in behaviors that put the thing that you value most (your wife and your marriage) at risk. I know that this sounds crazy, but it is by no means rare.

Going Forward: Once you tell your wife, your options are really going to depend on what she wants moving forward, as you will want to respect her wishes, since she truly is innocent in all of this. If she is open to saving the marriage, then in my opinion you’ll want to have two goals in this regard. You want to figure out exactly why someone in a happy marriage with a supportive spouse would need to cheat. If it is indeed self-sabotage, low self esteem, or the like, then you’ll need to work very hard to overcome whatever issue is driving the risky behaviors. You will need to eradicate these behaviors so that your spouse doesn’t have to go through this again. This really can become a vicious cycle – with your participating in the undesirable behaviors and then becoming angry at yourself so that the behaviors just keep cycling. This cycle isn’t an excuse for your behavior, but it is most definitely a good idea to be aware of it so that you don’t repeat it.

The second goal should be to become the person who your spouse deserves moving forward. It won’t be beneficial to anyone if you walk around with low self esteem, just waiting for your wife to realize that she could do better. Instead of waiting for the shoe to fall, why not actually become better so that you no longer think in those terms. Since this person is your wife, you likely know that is most important to her. You know which traits she most values. Your job is to encompass those values so that in time, she knows that she can count on you to be her safe place to fall. Make no mistake about it. Getting to this safe place after infidelity takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, and a lot of time. But it’s worth the effort because it minimizes your risk of more infidelity in the future and we have already established that your spouse deserves better than this. You deserve better, too, which is why it’s important that you evaluate and move forward rather than just allowing the guilt to keep you stuck, which doesn’t benefit anyone.

Recovery from an affair is definitely possible, but I would never tell you that it’s easy or fast.  Neither is true.  However, most people that I know who have been through it believe that it was worth it, myself included. You can read more of my own story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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I sometimes hear from faithful wives who want to know how the other woman in the affair is feeling after different scenarios have played out – usually some sort of rejection by the husband.  A common scenario is when the husband is very clear that the affair was a mistake, which he now regrets.  This leaves the wife wondering if the other woman is hurt by this revelation or if she just shrugs her shoulders and moves on.

The wife might ask: “I wonder how the other woman feels when she realizes that the husband regrets every single encounter with her.  My husband broke off the affair pretty quickly, but she did not want to accept it.  He gave me access to his phone and she kept trying to contact him.  In one text, she wrote something like, ‘I don’t have any regrets at all. Do you?’  My husband responded that he regretted everything and that he wished he had never met her because the affair caused so much destruction that could have been avoided.  She did not respond back to that text, which was yesterday.  I am wondering what she is thinking about all of this.  I know that it sounds mean, but I hope that she is crushed.  I hope that she realizes that she potentially ruined a family over a man who now regrets her very existence.  How do you think that she is feeling?”

That’s very hard to answer.  There is no “typical” other woman, so there is no “typical” response.  Some of the women aren’t all that invested in the relationship and can take it or leave it.  Many make a habit out of dating married men because they don’t want to be tied down.  Others are VERY invested in the relationship and were hoping that the husband would leave his wife and make the affair a lasting relationship.  Women in this category are more likely to be hurt by the realization that a husband regrets the affair.

Understanding How People Sometimes Frame An Affair: The truth is, everyone wants to feel special.  That is often one of the things that drives the affair.  The people in it feel like the relationship is special or necessary enough in order to justify the risk.  So they built the relationship up in their own minds.  And when they figure out that it’s not so special after all, it can be disappointing to say the least.  Most people in the middle of an affair ignore the statistics that indicate that so few affairs ever become lasting relationships.  Some hope that their relationship will be the exception, but so few are.  Because of this, most people DO eventually regret their affair, simply because it almost never works out.

When you risk a substantial thing like your family for a relationship that is destined to fail, how can you not regret it at some point?  Common sense would tell you that, and most people in an affair do come to realize this once they are able to get some distance when things aren’t so fresh.  In fact, many times the “other woman” also comes to regret the affair.  After all, the chances are good that in the end, she will have nothing to show for it and many people will be hurt, maybe even herself.

I guess the potential for hurt feelings really does depend upon how invested she was in the relationship.  Since she doesn’t want to accept it coming to an end, it appears that she was invested, which means she may well be feeling disappointment right now.

Placing Your Focus On What Is Truly Important: While the possibility that she’s disappointed may make you feel a little better, I’d suggest that this might not be where you want to place your focus.  If you’re still invested in your marriage, it’s always best to focus on yourself, your husband, your kids (if you have any,) and your marriage.  The sooner you can chase away thoughts of the other woman, the better off you will be.  It’s normal to wonder about her, of course.  But since the affair is over, she really should not have any place in your life.  Let her go.  Move on.  And know that, like you, she will have to pick up the pieces and carry on.  Perhaps this will teach her an important lesson.  Perhaps not.  But your concern should be your own family.

I suspect that most of us would be hurt to know that anyone who we once cared about regretted knowing us, but like many things in life, in order to carry on, you can’t continuously dwell on things that make no difference now.  Once she realizes that the affair is truly over and that your husband is moving on, hopefully she will want to do the same and will be more than willing to exit your life – regardless of how she feels about it.

I know that it can be hard to move on.  I know that it’s natural to wonder about her.  But I promise that you will feel so much better when you start to heal, so that is where you may want to turn your attention.  If it helps, you can read more about how I finally accomplished this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  I will admit that my target audience is faithful wives.  This makes sense.  This is the position that I myself was in, so I write from that perspective.  It’s easy for me to speak from the heart because I so easily identify with many of the people who read my articles.  I suppose that is why sometimes spouses who have had an affair occasionally also reach out to me.  They want to hear from someone who might share the same perspective as their spouse.  They want insight on what their spouse might be feeling (or on what their spouse might want or need moving forward.)

One very common question that I get from the unfaithful spouse is why does the faithful spouse need to know everything?  Why does she ask so many questions?  And why does she keep asking the same questions over again when an answer has already been given?  Here is what a husband might say: “I like to think that I have tried to be honest with my wife about the affair.  I confessed it.  I told her as much as I could.  I honestly don’t really know why I acted this way.  I am ashamed of it, but I have owned up to it.  I figured that if I came clean and answered her questions, we could just move on.  But she doesn’t seem to want to move on.  Because she can’t stop asking questions.  Every day, there are more questions.  Some of the questions I’ve answered several times.  I try to be patient, but I admit that I’m certainly not as patient as I used to be because this just wears me down.  There seems to be no end.  Why do women ask so many questions about the affair?”

There are multiple reasons, but it really comes down to this:  They are trying desperately to understand.  And they are trying to determine what happens now.  I know that it is frustrating for you to be asked the same thing in various ways.  But frankly, we keep asking because the answer that we’ve gotten before is not making sense or we’re still trying to piece this all together so we know EXACTLY what we are dealing with.  We’re well aware of the fact that our husbands don’t have their motivations figured out – which is why WE’RE trying to figure it out for him (and for us.)  We want to know what lead to this.  We want to know if it’s preventable in the future (assuming that we want to save our marriage.)  We want to understand your thought process because we want to know if you can be rehabilitated.  We don’t want to EVER go through this again, so we want to have every scrap of information available so that we can thoroughly evaluate the best way to move forward.

We know that you’re tired of the questions.  It’s just that our need for information seems more important right now than your fatigue.  I’m not trying to be funny or disrespectful, but I can’t overstate how badly wives want enough information to truly understand what they are dealing with.  They don’t want to make the decision to stay or leave and have it be the wrong decision.  At the same time, they are hurting very badly, so they doubt their ability to process all of this information at one time – which is why they ask again and again.

So what does all of this mean for you?  In order to get some relief, you’re going to have to help her process all of this information in a meaningful way so that you don’t keep going in circles.  You can do that via counseling or good self help resources that allow you to check off what you’ve covered.  You can also agree that at a set time, she can ask you whatever she wants for a specific period o time.  For example, maybe on Sunday afternoons, you discuss it for a five minutes.  This allows her the knowledge that you’ll hear her out, so she won’t feel as much of a need to just bombard you with questions at random times.

Honestly, she probably doesn’t like all of the questions, either.  I know I didn’t.  I hated having to ask the questions.  I hated the insecure feeling of having to sit there and brace myself for the answers.  But being ignorant of what truly happened is a horrible feeling also.  So please try to put yourself in her position and help her to understand what she really wants to know.  It’s truly more simple than you think.  She wants to know why this happened.  And she wants to know what is her best strategy moving forward.  She wants the information to help her to decide these two things.  Try to remember that this isn’t her fault.  She only needs the information because of something that she didn’t put into motion.  She’s the innocent party, here.  So as repetitive and tiresome as it is to answer the questions, you are better off being patient and trying to be very clear and not elusive.  The sooner you make things as clear as you can by being as honest as you can, the sooner the questions will start to taper off.  If you believe that you’ve already done this, then keep at it.  Patience is one of the most important attributes that you can have right now.

I’m sure my husband became frustrated with all of my questions.  But he also knew that I wouldn’t need to ask them if he hadn’t cheated.  So he did take responsibility for being up front and being patient.  I did appreciate this and it is probably one of the reasons that we were able to recover.  You can read more about the recovery on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who feel a good deal of anger and hatred toward their husband after they catch him cheating or having an affair. Sometimes, the intensity of these feelings take these wives by surprise. They are stunned. Most will tell you that they are not the type of person who feels negative emotions like hatred. Most are able to look the other way when someone angers them. And most will tell you that they never would have believed that they could feel hatred toward the man who they loved more than anyone else. However, that is what they are feeling now – white hot hatred that takes over everything else.

Many are scared by these feelings. Some have children and know that feeling this way toward their children’s father is not going to do anyone any good. Many wish that they could stop the feelings in their tracks, but find that they can not just turn it off and on. They might say: “if you had told me five years ago that I would one day feel this type of hatred toward my husband, I would have called you a liar. I adore my husband. I truly do. That is, until I caught him cheating on me. Now I feel so angry and betrayed that I literally think that I hate him. And that is very hard for me because just last week, I thought about how lucky I was and how much I loved him. But I can’t get over what he has done to me and what he risked and may just throw away. However, I have children and a business with him so I know that I can not go the rest of my life hating him. I know that I need to eventually let down these feelings, but I can’t even fathom how it would be possible because I feel this choking anger every waking hour. I look at him and my blood boils. How do women not just absolutely hate their husbands after infidelity?”

I can not speak for anyone else, but I am willing to share some of my feelings with you in the hopes that it will help. Make no mistake. I was absolutely furious with my husband for cheating and at times thought about doing him bodily harm (although I know that I never would have actually gone through with this. I did, however, destroy plenty of household items and mementos.) I really can not overstate how angry I was. And I stayed that way for quite a while. Right now, you can not see beyond the anger, which is understandable. It can take a while for you to be able to set that aside and to think rationally. Do not be so hard on yourself for that. It is normal.

In my own case, I came to learn that while I could not turn off my feelings, I could redirect them. Like you, I did not want for my children to be exposed to any aspect of the affair, so if I were really angry when we were all together, I would busy or excuse myself. If I was so angry that I might say or do something that I would regret, I would try to avoid or escape the situation. I would wait to interact until another time. Or I’d simply tell my husband that I needed a break for a while and he would give that to me.

I do have to admit that one thing that likely contributed to the fact that I no longer harbor any hatred is that my husband did the right thing pretty quickly. He was remorseful, ended the affair, and agreed to do whatever I wanted or needed. If he had dragged his feet with this, the outcome may have been different. He pretty much did what I asked of him, although we both had resentments and hurt feelings along the way.

At the end of the day, I didn’t carry that hate with me because I decided to hate the ACTION and the BEHAVIOR rather than person. I hated the DECISION. I did not hate him. I can not deny that good people sometimes do bad things and make mistakes. I had to look at the totality of our marriage and decide for myself if the good that my husband had done had outweighed the bad. The truth is, it was not even close. My husband has been a rock for my entire family for years and years. He has taken care of myself and my children while thinking very little of himself. Did he do that when he cheated? Absolutely not. But I could not negate years of good behavior by days of bad behavior. A very close family member of mine (who has now passed away) was an alcoholic. Because of this, part of my childhood was very painful and at times, I have felt resentment and anger. But now that the family member is gone, I realize that I can HATE the disease and still love the person. This family member was otherwise loving and kind. You can’t erase those qualities over one negative thing.

So that is how I don’t hate my husband. I hate what he did and always will. But I do not hate the man that he is. Because he is otherwise a very good man. And I was not going to throw away what I had built with a good man over one mistake, for which he showed remorse and the willingness to make it right.  You can read more about this on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  Your spouse’s stance and feelings can be very confusing after you’ve discovered that he’s been having an affair.  His words and his actions may say two very different things.  For example, a husband may claim that he’s going to break off the affair and that he wants to save his marriage, but at the same time, he may be distant and cold with his wife.  He may go so far as to suggest that the two of them take a break or pause – which of course reinforces the wife’s issues with trust.

She might say: “my head is honestly spinning.  It was only last week that I found out that my husband has been cheating on me.  He is sort of saying the right things.  He has said that he regrets the affair and is very sorry for it.  He has claimed that he wants to save the marriage.  But no sooner are those things out of his mouth than he will start talking about how he has been depressed lately and really struggling with himself.  He claims that this soul searching lead to the affair somewhat and that he’s still struggling.  So he says that because of this, he wants to take a break from ‘everything’ for a while.  And ‘everything’ includes living with me.  He says that he will stay with a coworker who is a good friend of mine and he swears that the affair is over and that he will not interact with her.  He says that he just needs this time for himself because if he had taken the time before, perhaps the affair never would have happened. I don’t like this at all.  I feel like he’s doing this because either he isn’t sure about our marriage after all or he still plans to cheat and he wants to make it easier by living apart.  However, when I object to this, he almost presents it to me as if I have no choice.  He makes it sound like it’s a desperate situation for him and that he must do something.  I think it’s a mistake.  I think that if we have any chance at all, we don’t want me sitting here assuming that he is continuing to cheat.  Am I right?  Is he just asking for too much?”

I believe that he likely is asking for too much.  It would be completely natural for you to assume the worst once he’s away. And it would be normal for you to question how he could claim to want the marriage, but then leave it almost immediately.  At the same time, his claim isn’t unique.  Many men DO struggle with themselves just before or after an affair.  He could very well be telling the truth about that.

However, struggles do not mean that leaving your home at a time when your marriage is very fragile is going to be the best thing to do.  In fact, this may just make his struggles worse because he’s adding additional problems onto what he is already dealing with.  I would strongly suggest that you try very hard to get him into counseling.  You don’t necessarily have to make this sound as if the counseling is just for him.  Tell him that it’s joint marriage counseling meant for both of you.  Or tell him that it’s for you but that you want him to come along for support.

The reason for this is that he’s been trying to handle his struggles on his own – and look where that has gotten him.  If he truly wants to get a handle on his struggles, “space” is not going to help nearly as much as time with a professional.  He can then present his plan for “space” to the counselor and get his or her take on it.  If the counselor thinks that this is a good idea (which I would doubt,) then he or she can walk him through an option to do it in a healthy way that doesn’t harm your marriage.  I’d suspect however, that the counselor would instead suggest that you allow him some alone time perhaps through individual counseling or time with mutual friends so that he doesn’t need to take the drastic step of moving out if you both want to save your marriage.

The potential for trouble is just too great.  You will understandably worry and question him.  Plus it’s doubtful if just being on his own is going to offer him any huge insights.  He’s already tried handling this on his own and destructive behavior was the result.  I would ask him to go with you to counseling to get an unbiased opinion about his plans.  He’s more likely to listen to someone who isn’t you because he knows that you have your own agenda and your own feelings about this.

If he resists counseling, you can always try to find self help that addresses this issue.  While his claims of struggling and his desire for time to work on himself are not unique after an affair, they can be problematic if he isolates himself.  In truth, it’s best for both people to work on themselves, but that is generally done without anyone needing to separate or move out of the home.  You could understandably read this “space” in the wrong way and then worry about things that are avoidable and unnecessary.  I agree with you that it isn’t a good idea, although I’m biased as I was also the faithful wife.

If my husband had insisted on space, I probably would have made the same assumptions that you are.  There were times when we definitely took breaks from one another, but there was never any thought of living apart for any extended length of time.  It would have intensified the distrust and the fear. That’s not to say that living together was not without its challenges.  There are countless challenges when you are trying to recover after an affair, but you can only tackle them one by one and just keep moving forward.  Eventually, one day you look around and are relieved to find that most of it is behind you.  You can read more about our step by step process on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Sometimes, when you begin an affair, you purposely try very hard not to think about your spouse. You do this because the guilt would be overwhelming if you did not. However, this can become difficult when the other person in the affair always wants information about your spouse and about your marriage. You might find yourself becoming quite protective of your spouse when you aren’t sure why. This can be confusing and you may wish that you’d never started the affair in the first place.

Someone might explain: “I am not proud of myself for cheating. I don’t have a huge excuse for it either, except that I didn’t intend for it to be any lasting thing. I just wanted to take a bit of a break from my life and then go back to it later. I was not going to lie about who I was. The other person knows that I am married. To my credit, I did not hide this. But increasingly, she wants to know details about my wife. She asks about how my wife and I met, what my wife does for a living, what my wife looks like, what my wife’s hobbies are, and the list goes on and on. She asked me when was the last time I slept with my wife. I honestly don’t know how to answer these questions and now I regret having the affair. How am I supposed to answer this? She almost seems obsessed with my wife.”

I would not give any direct answers because she could be fishing in this way because she wants to know about her competition. She wants to know about the state of your marriage because she wonders about the future of your relationship with HER. As such, she may one day try to contact your wife or to initiate a relationship or to dialogue with her. Put yourself in your wife’s shoes. Would you want a strange woman inserting herself into your life because your husband had an affair? If this was another man, would you want him finding out information about you?

I admit right up front that I am very biased here. I went through an affair and it was a horrible time in my life, which is why my best suggestion would be to tell the other woman nothing about your wife. Instead, tell her that you made a mistake by being unfaithful and that you are very sorry you involved her. You want to be very direct and you want for it to be clear that you will not change your mind in ending the affair.

After that, you want to do whatever is necessary to protect your wife. You’ll need to decide if you want to tell your wife about the affair yourself (if you think the other woman might try to contact her.) Do whatever is necessary to put your wife and her wellbeing first.

It’s not clear how you feel about your marriage or whether you want to attempt to save it, but these thoughts are less immediate than the safety and wellbeing of your wife. You may be confused as to why you feel so protective of her and so reluctant to give out information. I’d suggest that, deep in your heart, you know that your wife is the innocent party. Even if your marriage wasn’t perfect, your wife is totally unaware that someone else is taking an interest in her because of very unsavory reasons (that are not her fault.)

That’s why you are having second thoughts about sharing any information. You suspect that this isn’t fair to your wife and it most certainly is not in her best interest. You feel like breaking off the affair because you know that it’s reaching dangerous territory and that the other woman’s interest in your life outside of your relationship with her means that she may not be as content as you are to have this be a short term relationship that means nothing. She may be planning a long term relationship that means a great deal to her. You’re already having doubts, so it seems logical to end this before things get worse for all involved. Yes, people may get emotionally hurt. But it’s better to limit the hurt because I’d suspect the pain would be worse the longer the affair goes on.

I’d apologize for getting her involved in my mistake, but I would make it very clear that it was a mistake that must end immediately and that will not be repeated. Then, I’d do everything in my power to make sure that my wife is spared as much pain as is possible, since none of this was her doing. And I’d try to make sure that, regardless of what happens in my marriage, I do the right thing by my wife and have this never happen again in my future relationships.

You can’t reverse the past, but you can protect your wife moving forward by minimizing the access that the other woman has to her.  Right now, your first priority should be the well being of your family.   My husband took that stance and, as angry as I was at him at the time, I did appreciate that later.  You can read more about our recovery on my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  Many wives at least have the fleeting idea to reach out to the other woman in the affair.  This is usually because they want information from her.  They want to know what happened and why.  They want to know what information the husband provided about the marriage and the wife.  They want to know the state of the relationship now.  And they want for the other woman to know the truth.  They want for her to know that yes, the husband had a wife and a family and that now, because of the other woman’s selfishness, this is all in jeopardy.

These thoughts are understandable.  It’s completely natural to have curiosity about and anger toward her.  It’s completely natural to want to confront her with these feelings. But not all wives put this into action.  Many are afraid of what they might find out.  Others are afraid of what they might do if they actually came face to face with this person.  That’s why some are intrigued by the social media or email forms of communication. That way, there’s an easier out when things go wrong and at least you don’t have to look at her.

Someone might ask: “I actually found the other woman (who my husband has been cheating with) on Facebook.  From there, I was able to get her work email.  Of course, my husband does not want me to contact her.  But I think part of that is that he is afraid of the information that I might obtain.  He claims that he’s afraid that she will try to hurt me emotionally because he says that she can be mean and vindictive.  He also says that she’s not happy about him breaking it off.  I’m a big girl and I can handle it if she’s less than kind to me.  But I’m not sure if she’s going to give me the information that I want.  Still, does it really hurt to try?  Should I email her?”

I will be upfront and admit that I never encourage a wife to contact or to  confront the other woman.  The reason for this is that I actually never see it doing any good.   These two women often want very different things from this transaction.  The other woman can feel defensive.  The wife can feel indignant.  Most of the time, neither woman has heard good things about the other.  Under these circumstances, it can be very hard to have a productive conversation.  And frankly, some of the time, when the other woman senses that you want information, that’s when she figures out what your currency is and that is when she becomes determined to hold that information close to the vest.

A lot of the time, she is determined not to give you what you want.  And that can leave you more frustrated than when you started.  I’ve even had wives tell me that she flat out lied or actively tried to hurt the wife or to cause more conflict.  Who needs that in their life?  Who wants to invite more pain into an already painful situation?

That said, I understand why this option is tempting.  You feel that you need information.  However, in my experience, there is a better way to get accurate information without needing to let this person into your life.  Often, a skilled counselor can get you the information that you need from your husband simply because the counselor needs the same information that you do in order to help you begin to heal your marriage.

This way, you don’t have to stoop to asking someone who has hurt you so much for something that she may not give.  When you do that, you put her in a position of power.  That’s why I’d never advocate emailing her, (although I know that some people truly can not resist.)  I understand that emailing does allow more distance than a face to face meeting.  So I do understand the draw.  But it also requires a lot of discipline.  Because if she gets started with hurtful or destructive texts or emails, you’re going to need the discipline to not only delete them, but to ignore her if she continues to try to contact you.  What if she starts emailing you every single day with nasty comments? (Because when you reach out to her, she now has access to your contact information.  It is a 2 way street.)  I’m sure that there are some wives out there who have the kind of discipline to tune her out, but I don’t think I would have.  My emotions were just so raw at that time.  Which is why, although I was tempted, I’m very glad that I never allowed this other person into my own personal space.  It was just one additional problem that I did not need.  (You can read the rest at http://surviving-the-affair.com) I do understand the temptation, but I’ve just never seen it work out well.  It’s better to get the information from your husband and then to allow your counselor to confirm what he’s said or to call him on anything that doesn’t quite make sense.

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By: Katie Lersch:  I sometimes hear from wives who have just learned some of the details about their husband’s affair. Understandably, they are hurt by both the act of him cheating and by the betrayal and the lies that he used to carry out the behavior.  Many wives are surprised and furious to learn that they themselves were the subject of many of these lies.  Some find out that the husband denied their existence or painted them out to be someone who they definitely are not.

She might say: “I only know this because the other woman posted to me on Facebook.  I hate that she did that.  I want nothing to do with her.  But she did tell me some interesting information.  She actually apologized and said that she honestly didn’t know about me in the beginning.  My husband told her that he was recently divorced.  Later, she found out about me through her own digging because my husband acted secretive.  At that time, she found out that I existed so she confronted him and he admitted that he was married, but then told her that he wanted to divorce me.  He said that he had to move slowly because he knew that I would try to take him from everything, including the kids.  She actually then looked at my facebook and saw the RECENT pictures of us looking happy and she knew that he was lying, so she broke it off.  She’s right that these are all lies.  Until I found out about the affair, my husband and I were actually trying to have another baby.  We’d just closed on a house. As best as I could tell, he was planning on continuing to be married to me as we were making plans for the future.  When the other woman confronted him, he basically told her that he lied because he knew that if she discovered he was married, she wouldn’t have given him a chance. Well, he was right about that.  I have to hand that to her.   When I question my husband about lying and whether he really planned to leave me and try to get custody of the kids, he insists that he had no plans to break up our family.  He claims that he doesn’t know why he had the affair and admits that it was very stupid.  But he says in his defense that he only planned for it to be a temporary thing that would really change nothing for us. Well, it’s changed everything for me.  And the weird thing is, my husband is not normally a liar. He’s been honest to me about everything else.  So why would he suddenly turn into this huge, blatant liar?  I’m just stunned by this.”

I understand why you are so upset.  Sometimes, the betrayal actually feels worse than the act itself.  I know that this may not matter to you right now, but it’s so very common for men to lie during the affair.  They will tell the other woman that their wife is abusive or ill.  They will tell her there’s been some delay in the divorce or separation process.  They’ll tell her that if she’ll just wait, he will sort all of this out.  Does he mean any of it? Not usually.  He’s saying these things because he wants to make it easier for her to cheat with him.  And he wants to justify it in his own mind.   He knows that any decent person is going to hesitate to start a relationship with a man who is not only married, but who plans to stay married.  So, to get around that, he has to paint a picture that isn’t reality.  People will sometimes go to great extremes to make the cheating and the guilt a little easier to take.

I can’t tell you what to do with this information.  I know that it is very hurtful.  It doesn’t always matter when he claims that he didn’t mean what he said.  He still said it.  He minimized your marriage and out and out told untruths about you.  That’s a big betrayal and it can hurt deeply.  You may see this as a deal breaker or you may ultimately want to give him a chance to make this right for the sake of your family.  If you go that route, I’d highly suggest counseling or self help because this is going to create a very deep wound.  Telling untruths may be a very common tactic by a married man.  But it’s still a very hurtful tactic and it’s still extremely damaging.  He will need to do a lot of work to convince you that he didn’t mean what he said and doesn’t believe his own lies.  He’ll also have to work very hard to restore the trust because if he doesn’t, you will always wonder what additional tales he’s spinning.

I think that right now, you have to focus on what you know for sure.  You KNOW that you aren’t a terrible wife and mother or a vengeful person who was trying to take his kids.  You know that you are a good person who doesn’t deserve what happened.  You know that you love your children and will do your best to make this as easy on them as is possible.  And you know that you deserve a loving and faithful spouse who will treat you like you deserve to be treated.  (That’s not to say that some spouses can’t be rehabilitated to be loving and faithful.)  This is possible, should you want to do the work. But you deserve no less – whether it is with your current spouse or someone else.

Ultimately, I did save my marriage after infidelity.  But I always believed that I deserved fidelity and loyalty.  And I demanded the same.  We had a lot of work to do and we slogged through it.  This wasn’t always easy, but I have never regretted not breaking up my family.  My husband stepped up to the plate and I was willing to give him that chance for the sake of my family.   You can read more on my blog at at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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