Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch:  It would be ideal if the other woman in the affair would just fade into the wood work and allow you to move on with your life.  It would be wonderful if she would be gracious enough to leave you and your husband alone so that you can try to clean up the mess that she contributed to.  However, this isn’t always what happens. Sometimes, she seems to love to rub your nose in it.  Or she can’t seem to leave your husband alone, even when he makes it very clear that this is exactly what he wants.

Understandably, this can lead to some very harsh feelings on the part of the wife.  Wives who have never hated another human being can feel very strong hatred for the other woman.  You might hear a comment like: “I am a pretty laid back person.  My job requires for me to be very diplomatic and to get along with many different types of people. In my day to day life, I roll with the punches and am very personable and accepting.  However, when it comes to the other woman, I just can’t use my regular people skills.  I feel deep-seated hatred toward her.  And it’s totally eating me alive.  Even before I found out about the affair, she was posting photos of my husband and herself on her Facebook page.  That is how I found out.   My husband asked her to take down the pictures so that our kids will not see them.  In response, she put up tons more.  She puts up new photos everyday.  In fact, this made my husband angry with her – so much so that I doubt that he will ever want to have anything to do with her again.  But despite his fury at her, she keeps right on texting and calling him.  When he doesn’t respond to her, she will text me and say that I need to tell my husband to answer his phone.  She is so unbelievably forward and aggressive.  I can’t imagine what my husband saw in her and it makes me think less of him, that he would be attracted to someone like this.  I have to deal with her on a daily basis.  She seems to refuse to go away.  I have blocked looking at her on Facebook and I have changed our numbers and contact information.  This seems to have helped.  But I am still seething.  I feel like my anger is taking over.  I have never hated anyone.  But I swear my hatred toward her is so strong.  And I don’t know how to tackle it.”

I understand what you are feeling.  I had similar feelings.  And those feelings really bothered me and were a struggle. But when someone wants to come and take something that is valuable to you and then refuses to give up, even when it’s clearly over, that is frustrating. Then when she acts in a way that can be hurtful to your children – who are truly innocent in this – well, that’s just a whole different level of mean.  I completely support you in doing whatever you need to do in order to block her access to you.  This is often the best thing that you can do because she is searching for a pay off and a reaction.  When things go silent and when she can’t get a reaction, she’s more likely to stop.

Sometimes, she stops – but then you are still churning with hatred and ruminating.  This cycle is only hurting you, the innocent party.  I know that you probably know this intellectually, but it’s hard to stop thinking about someone who has turned your world upside down.  Still, its important that you start trying.  Because every time you allow thoughts of her to bring you down or to make you angry, you allow her to injure you once again.  You don’t deserve this.

I have come to believe that the best revenge that you can get on her is to have a happy life.  When someone is this mean and spiteful, then you know that nothing would make her happier than to know that she’s gotten under your skin and made you unhappy.  So refuse to allow her to do this any longer.  You’ve already started this by blocking her access, but now you have to take it a step further and work on rebuilding your life.  It sounds as if you want to save your marriage, so know that there is likely nothing that would make her more miserable than to know that in five, ten, or twenty years down the road, your husband and you will have moved on.  She obviously doesn’t want to be forgotten or ignored, which is why that should be precisely your goal. The best revenge (and the best way to move past the hate) is to carry on with your life as though she were just a blip on the screen.  So, start to move past her.  She never belonged in your life.  Don’t allow her to take up residence there now.

I don’t think about the other woman much anymore.  But I guess that if I did, I’ve have to say that I’ve mostly gotten my revenge because for the most part, I am happy and my life is normal again.  I have my family.  My kids have their father.  And I have the life and the marriage that I want.   This feels much better than dealing with the hate. There’s more at http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch:  It’s normal to analyze your marriage after your spouse has an affair.  We scrutinize it to determine what went wrong. And we go over it with a fine tooth comb to figure out if recovery is possible.  To that end, we often end up comparing our marriage to the marriages of our parents, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances.  Most of us know at least a few couples who have dealt with infidelity.  So it’s natural to look to those marriages and to make comparisons. Unfortunately though, as an outsider looking in, it can sometimes appear that those marriages are recovering more efficiently than our own, which can lead us to wonder why some marriages are able to move on more quickly after infidelity.

Someone might say: “I actually have a handful of friends who have had marriages nearly ruined by a husband’s affair.  A few of those friends got an immediate divorce because they did not want to deal with a cheating husband and they just could not imagine ever getting over it.  One more eventually divorced, but actually hung on for a year and a half trying to make it work.  Another couple had a few rough months, but eventually had an ever better marriage than before.  I am very close to this couple and to me, they actually seem blissfully happy now.  The wife believes that life is too short to hold onto anger and she seems able to just let it go.  The husband is remorseful and could not be more devoted to her.  They seemed to have been able to move on with very few bumps in the road.  Meanwhile, my husband and I struggle horribly.  We have a few good days every now and then.  But I just can’t seem to get control over my anger and my paranoia.  I am constantly worried that my husband will cheat again.  Meanwhile, my husband resents my constant looking over his shoulder.  It seems like we are angry and anxious a lot of the time.  That said, I do believe that we are both trying and that we both genuinely want for things to work out.  But we just don’t seem to be one of those couples who are going to recover quickly.  What differentiates the couples who are able to move on in a timely fashion and those who are not?”

All couples and circumstances are different.  And it’s really never a good idea to compare yourself to someone else.  Appearances can be deceiving and you can’t ever really walk in someone else’s shoes. That said, I do see some attributes that seem to be common to couples who tend to move on quickly.  I will list them below.  But I also want to stress that just because you think that you aren’t one of these couples, that doesn’t mean that you can not turn things around.  You absolutely can.  The fact that you are able to analyze the situation tells me that you have plenty of motivation to make necessary changes.  But you should never rush yourself.  This is a process. It’s not instantaneous.  And sometimes, if you rush, you leave yourself vulnerable later.  Issues that were never resolved have a way of coming back to bite you later.

There Is Some External Motivation To Work Things Out Quickly And Completely:  I am very open about the fact that if I had not been motivated by my kids early on, I might not have given my husband another chance.  I am a child of divorce and I was very motivated that my children would never have to go through what I went through.  At the same time, I also lived in a home with parents who fought all of the time (before the divorce,) so I knew that living in a volatile home wasn’t what I wanted either.  Because of this, I was very motivated to have not just a marriage that was barely hanging on, but a healthy marriage that would set a good example for my kids. This inspired me to work harder and to open myself up more than I might otherwise have.  Even if you don’t have kids, try to find some motivation. Even if it’s just that you believe that marriage should be forever or if you don’t want to just hand over the marriage you’ve worked so hard for, find something to motivate you to keep moving forward.

Both Spouse’s Have An Attitude Of Openness And Vulnerability: In my experience, one of the hardest things to eventually do after an affair is to trust and to allow yourself to be vulnerable again.  It’s very hard to not always have suspicions and doubts.  But when you experience constant doubt, especially over the long term, you potentially damage your marriage.  I’ve observed that couples who make it and who make it quickly really make a conscious effort to allow their spouse to regain the trust once he or she has earned it back.  I’m not saying that you have to have blind faith in your spouse the next day after an affair. That’s very unrealistic.  But if over time your husband gives you no reason to doubt him and he does what he’s promised, then I think you want to give him the benefit of the doubt for the sake of your marriage.  Believe me, I know that it’s easy to give in to doubt.  But if you become overly paranoid, you see problems where none actually exist and this damages your marriage as much as an affair.

A Willingness To Get Help If Needed:  Recovery from an affair is not easy.  And very few of us are infidelity experts.  Most of us try very hard, but we don’t always have the tools that we need to get over every hump. There is no shame in seeking help.  In fact, many couples who recover efficiently get very good help.  I know that some don’t like the idea of going to counseling, but know that there are very good self help options.  This is much better than just suffering when you are just sort of faltering or have hit a road block.

I learned some of these lessons the hard way.  But I eventually gave myself permission to do whatever was necessary to get my life back.  This included getting help, restoring my confidence, and learning new ways to do things.  There’s more about this at http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch:  It’s amazing how one event in your life can knock everything else out of kilter.  Something that has nothing whatsoever to do with your work or your friends can affect both.  Few things knock your world off its axis quite like your spouse having an affair.  Few things can make you doubt yourself, and your own place in the world, quite as much.  I hear from a lot of wives who express a great deal of uncertainty and doubt after their husband has been unfaithful.  This can feel like a double blow because you’re being punished for a mistake that YOU didn’t even make – but one that your husband did.

A wife might say: “although you wouldn’t know it to look at me today, I actually am usually quite self confident.  I’m usually very successful at my job and I feel at home in front of all sorts of people when I represent my business.  I’m a very prepared person and I typically always feel and appear confident.  I am the type of person who has always made pretty firm, quick, and clear decisions because I know who I am, what I stand for, and what I want.  I approach parenting and my children in the same way.  I rarely have questioned my parenting because frankly, I have good kids who listen and who thrive. They are kind, smart, and doing well in all areas.  On the outside, it would look like I have everything together.  But this just is not the case anymore, since my husband’s affair.  I am so unsure of myself and of my place in this world.   I am constantly in doubt about everything.  I saw myself as a woman who was somewhat in control of her life due to working hard and paying attention.  But now I realize that this notion is laughable.  I can do what I am supposed to do, but it is not just my decisions that impact my life.  This is very upsetting to me.  The other day, I got flustered during a work presentation and I even teared up a little.  When my boss asked me about it, I teared up again.  It was so embarrassing.  Now I’m starting to worry that all of my accomplishments were just a farce and were built on a house of cards.  I am filled with self doubt, and not just about my marriage.  My husband is spouting off all of these promises, but I do not believe any of them, really.  I doubt everything that he tells me, even though he seems sincere.  I worry about the impact that this will have on my children and then that makes me doubt my parenting, which I’ve never done before.  I doubt that my life was ever real and I hate that more than anything.  I hate that everything feels as if it has been turned upside down.  Will these doubts ever go away?”

In my experience, they will.  Here is one realization that might help — at least it helped me.  Ask yourself what really and truly changed on the day that you found out about the affair.  Likely, a few things have changed.  You learned that your husband had been cheating.  You learned that your marriage was going to undergo a serious challenge.  And you may have learned that your view of your husband and your marriage might be altered, at least for a while.

But notice that I didn’t mention your job, yourself, or your life outside of your marriage.  And the reason that I did not mention any of that was because none of that has changed.  You did not suddenly become incompetent at your job over night, although I know that it can feel that way.  You did not suddenly become an ineffective parent or socially awkward in the world outside of your home.  You have worked long and hard for your competence.  Do not relinquish it because of someone else’s actions.  It is yours.  Don’t allow any one to take it from you.

It is completely normal to feel somewhat shaky for a while after you find out that things aren’t what you thought in your marriage.  But place the focus where it should be – on your husband and on your marriage.  The rest of your life doesn’t need to be altered or diminished.  In fact, after my own husband’s affair, I did lean on other areas of my life for a while – so much so that the other areas became stronger and a source of solace for me.

It does take a while to regain your footing, so don’t be so hard on yourself.  But know that your husband’s actions should not mean that you lose your power or your strength.  You are exactly the same strong, competent, and successful person that you were before he decided to have an affair.  You did not make that decision.  You are not at fault.  So your strengths should still be your own and should still be in tact.  Make no apologies for focusing on your own self confidence and worth.  You have worked for it and you deserve to maintain it.

I also struggled in my self confidence and self esteem after my husband’s affair.  And one day it dawned on me that really, no one was going to fix this but me.  So I made it a goal to build myself up each and every day.  Believe it or not, this actually helped my marriage.  Because as my confidence grew, my doubts about all aspects of my life lessened.  This allowed my marriage the space to heal.  There’s more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch:  Husbands who are caught in an affair will often make many promises in order to entice their wives not to leave them or to end the marriage.  To that end, many husbands will promise that if the wife gives him a chance, she will not be sorry.  Many wives think about this promise for a while before they make any important decisions. After all, an affair is so painful.  And recovery is no picnic, either.  So, staying the course and fighting for your marriage is a decision not to be taken lightly.  Still, many wives decide to try to make it work because it’s hard to just walk away from a marriage.  They make the decision with the hope that the husband will fulfill all of his promises.

Many husbands make every attempt to follow up, but some do a better job than others.  I hear from quite a few wives who feel that their husband is falling well short of what he promised.  In fact, many need to look no further than the lack of time he’s putting toward recovery.  If this isn’t bad enough, the wife feels that she shouldn’t have to beg for more of his time, but that’s exactly the position in which she finds herself in.  She might say: “after I caught my husband cheating, he cried that very night. He told me that he’d never been more sorry about anything and that he had no idea what he would do if he lost me.  He told me that if I gave him a chance, I would see a different man.  I wanted to believe this.  But I’ve also seen a huge change in my husband since he got a promotion. He’s at work much more.  He’s more ambitious.  I truly think that these changes lead to his affair.  However, he seemed so remorseful and sweet when he promised to change, so I wanted to believe him. Unfortunately, not much has changed. He still works just as much.  He never seems to have additional time for me.  I’m not claiming that he has less time for me.  It’s just about the same.  And I expected for him to try to clear his schedule some so that we could do special things to recover.  My friends say that I should say something about this, but I don’t feel as if I should have to.  I’m very depressed.  I feel like he sold me a big fat lie.  I am not sure why he made such a big stink for me not to leave him if he wasn’t going to try to make things better.  Now I’m having regrets and I’m not sure what to do.”

Being Very Specific About Your Expectations: If there’s one thing that I learned in my own recovery from my spouse’s affair, it’s that sometimes, in order to get what you want, you have to ask for, and in some cases, demand it.  Sometimes, you have to ask more than once.  Often, our spouse thinks that they are doing okay while we know that they aren’t.  But we can’t always expect for them to change unless we speak up.

Believe me, I completely get your frustration.  But I think that before you just give up and walk away from your marriage, you should really define for you husband EXACTLY what you expect from him in terms of time.  After that, it’s going to be up to him to rise to the occasion or not.  If he doesn’t, then you’d have to decide how you want to proceed.  But if he does, you’ve gotten what you want and you didn’t need to end your marriage.  It’s certainly worth a try to spell it out for him.

You might try: “we need to talk about something that’s weighing heavily on me.  After your affair, you promised that you would make this right.  In my mind, that meant making more time for me and for our marriage.  So far, I haven’t seen that. I know that your job requires that you put in the time.  However, what we are going through makes this time in our marriage a special circumstance.  I am not sure that we are going to make it if we don’t put in the time.  Can we sit down and talk about your schedule and figure out exactly where and when we can schedule some time for us?”  It also helps if you can tell him exactly what kind of time you are talking about.  Do you want him home by 6:30 as often as possible?  Do you want him to clear his calendar on Friday nights for dinners out?  Do you want him to accompany you to church on Sundays?  Ask yourself what is most important to you and then speak up.  You can’t get your needs met if you don’t make them crystal clear to him.  Listen to his response.  There is always room for negotiation, but he should certainly come to the table with some accommodations.

And when he does show you more time, acknowledge it so that he will want to keep repeating it. You have every right to ask of his time right now.  I agree that recovery is going to be difficult if additional time isn’t allocated to your marriage. We had our own struggles and we did put in the physical time.  But we still made it. You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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by: katie lersch:  I recently heard from a wife who was trying to get her husband to leave his mistress.  On the one hand, the husband was insisting that he still loved his wife and wanted to save the marriage.   But on the other hand,  he refused to leave the other woman.  He just wasn’t willing to let her go.  This infuriated the wife.  She didn’t understand what the mistress could possibly offer the husband that she couldn’t.  She continued to press him and finally the husband admitted that he felt a “passion” for the other woman that he didn’t feel for his wife.

Needless to say, the wife was stunned and furious to hear this.  She said in part: “how are you supposed to respond or feel when your husband tells you that he feels passion for another woman that he doesn’t feel for you?  This floors me on so many levels because my first priority was my marriage.  I can’t picture myself divorced and I don’t want my children to grow up not living with their father.  But I don’t know how I can possibly overcome or compete with this passion thing.  Part of me thinks I should try to heat things up between us, but the other part of me thinks that I want nothing to do with him while he’s having a passionate relationship with someone else.”

Although I marveled at the husband’s candor, this situation isn’t all that uncommon.  Men often use words like passion, chemistry, or intensity when they describe what they feel or hope that they have with the other woman.  After all, they’re trying to justify their actions.  So they’re going to try to build up this relationship and present it as something that is just too strong or too special to resist.  The thing that many do not understand is that, with time and reality, they will eventually realize that their “passion” was all a facade that is going to fade with time anyway.  I’ll tell you why in the following article.

Although Your Husband May Be Taking About Or Feeling Passion With The Mistress Now, Chances Are That The Intensity Is Not Going To Last: It’s very common for men to say that the other woman makes them feel “alive” or “invigorated” in the early stages of the relationship.  This is when everything is new and they are still hiding the affair.  This sort of clandestine relationship enhances the excitement which they often see or mistake  as passion.  But at this point, the wife knew all about the affair.  They weren’t sneaking around any longer so some of the excitement associated with that was going to end.

Also, as the relationship between the people who are cheating ages, those intense feelings will often wane in the same way that it has between the two spouses.  People often really want to believe that they’ve met their soul mate or their one true love when they cheat (since this is how they justify their behavior) but this is rarely the case.  Statistics about the longevity of relationships that begin in deception are not good or promising.   They show that chances are very good that the relationship will not last.

So, What Do You Do When You Want To Save Your Marriage But Your Husband Is Claiming To Have This Passionate Love Affair With Someone Else? That’s not a decision that I can make for you.  I can tell you that although it may be tempting to try to compete with the other woman while the cheating is still happening, it’s rarely a healthy thing for you in the end.   Trying to generate passion with your husband when you know that he’s doing the same with someone else is probably going to be a painful experience and it doesn’t usually help your marriage either (because awkwardness and resentment usually cloud the whole process.)

It’s my opinion that you will have a better chance of success (assuming that you want to save your marriage) if you make it clear that while you are open to the idea of salvaging your marriage at a later time, you’re not going to even start the process until he has completely ended the relationship with the mistress.  Sometimes, he will chose you.  Other times, you may have to wait until their relationship fizzles out or ends.  But when it does, you have put yourself in a much better situation than if you’re trying to compete with the other woman.

Many wives understand this in theory but they aren’t sure how to respond to a husband who is swearing that he loves them but has conflicted feelings.  A suggestion might be something like: “I hear   your words, but I can’t respond to them until I know that I am only dealing with only the two of us.  I can’t continue to be intimate with you when I know that you are being intimate with someone else.  If and when you end the relationship, then I might be willing to listen and to eventually try to salvage our marriage.  Until then, I’m going to be working on myself because it’s not healthy or right for me to have a physical relationship with you when you are not being faithful.”

And the “working on yourself” part should not be empty words.  It’s likely that your self esteem has been hugely affected by this.  Never underestimate your own needs right now.  It’s perfectly fine (and advisable) to turn your attention away from them and to focus in on yourself. That way, when or if your husband does end the relationship, you will be stronger and more in tune with what you want and need.

If My Husband Ends The Affair, Will We Ever Get The Passion Back In Our Marriage?: Many wives feel a great deal of anxiety about this question.  They worry that their husband will never feel for them the same way that he feels about the mistress.  They feel stress because they think that the mistress has some sort of hold over their husband or some sort of sexual prowess with which they can’t compete.  And unfortunately, these doubts can really hurt your confidence level which in turn can hurt your chemistry which affect the quality of the sex that you might be having in the future.

I believe that it is possible to regain the passion after an affair, but it does take time and healing.  Most people do not appreciate the connection between the health of your marriage and your own self esteem with the sex that comes out of this. It’s usually not until your marriage, your trust, and your confidence is back on solid ground that you begin to get the sexual chemistry and passion back.  This was a major issue for me.  If you’d like to read more about how I healed, you can check out my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

There’s also a resource for restoring sexual confidence (her secrets) on the side of this blog.

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By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who are trying very hard to save their marriage or move on after their husband’s affair. One thing that stands in the way of true healing is the worry that he will cheat again. So many wives are searching high and low for signs that offer some reassurance that he won’t cheat again.

To that end, many wives ask me if sorrow or guilt are positive signs that might mean he won’t cheat again. I heard from a wife who said: “my husband admitted to his affair. I didn’t even suspect that anything was wrong. So he didn’t have to tell me, but he did, partly because he felt so guilty and awful for his actions. He has told me how sorry he is a million times. He literally cries and pleads on a repeated basis. I still love my husband. Words can not express how badly I hurt. But I still love him and want to save my marriage. However, the main thing that I know is going to keep me from doing this is the worry that he will cheat again. He swears he won’t. But I have a lot of fear because I don’t intend to ever go through this again. My question is whether his being so sorry and remorseful is a good indication that he will not cheat again?” I will address this in the following article.

Guilt And Sorrow Can Be A Good Sign, But It Can Also Be Deceiving: Let’s be clear. You want to see guilt and sorrow from your husband after his affair or his cheating. There is simply no question about this. Men who feel justified in their cheating are more likely to cheat again.

Another important point is that men know you want to see their sorrow. It can be faked. I’m certainly not saying that was the case here. But men know that it is in their best interest to appear as sorry and as remorseful as possible. And plenty of men who were genuinely sorry for cheating end up cheating again.

With all of this said, none of it negates the sorrow that this wife was seeing. The sorrow seemed to be genuine and you would certainly rather see it than not. But it is only one good sign. And a good sign without any action or rehabilitation might leave you falling short of true rehabilitation.

Understand That Sorrow Is Not The Same As Rehabilitation: As important as guilt and sorrow is, if this is all that is present, you are still vulnerable. I have to tell you that in my experience and observation, many men are genuinely and completely sorry that they cheated. They vow to never do it again and, at the time, they are probably being completely truthful and sincere.

But, because they haven’t done any rehabilitation or uncovered what issues lead up to their cheating in the first place, they are still vulnerable to cheat again.  For example, let’s say a man had poor impulse control and low self esteem. He may well be 100% sorry that he cheated on his wife and he may have no intention whatsoever to cheat again. And, many years might pass while he remains happily and faithfully married. But, there is every chance that at some point in the future, his lack of self esteem and poor impulse control are going to come into play again and he will find himself cheating when he never intended to do so.

I am not telling you this to upset or scare you. I am telling you this because I want you to take one more step and go beyond the sorrow. Yes, him being sorry about the cheating is a very positive sign.  You absolutely want to see it and should ask for it if you don’t.  But don’t allow him to stop there. Be committed enough to follow through. Support him as he explores what might have left him vulnerable or lead up to the cheating. Because it is not until you find out what was wrong and then fix it that you will truly have the peace of mind that the chances are as good as they can possibly be that he will not cheat again.

Hoping for the best just isn’t good enough in this case. Because healing from an affair and restoring the trust are both very challenging. And when you are trying so hard to save your marriage but that little voice in the back of your mind is telling you he could well cheat again, your heart is broken and recovery is more difficult. One way to avoid this is to know that you have done every single thing in your power to remove any vulnerabilities that exist. Anything less is stopping short, in my opinion and experience.

My husband was full of apologies immediately after his cheating.  But this didn’t mean a whole lot to me.  I wanted to see action in addition to words.  Once my husband realized this and took real action, then I felt much more comfortable in believing his claims of sorrow.  We worked very hard to rebuild the trust after his affair and we haven’t dealt with infidelity again.  I am confident that he won’t cheat again.  If it helps, you’re welcome to read the whole story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  If you are a wife who is open to saving her marriage after an affair, there’s no question that having your husband end the affair, stay home, and commit to working on your marriage is, at least technically, a “win.”  Sure, it may not feel like a great victory at the time.  But I can tell you that there are many women in this situation who are dealing with husbands who are asking for “more time” in breaking it off or who are dragging their feet when it comes to deciding between the wife and the other woman.

So having a husband who took quick and decisive action and who remained at home and in the marriage is a good sign.  But even so, there’s always the fall out of the affair to deal with.  There are always the doubts, especially at first.  Even if the wife believes that the other woman is physically and literally gone, she can wonder if the other woman is emotionally absent or banished from the husband’s heart.  Sure, the husband may not SEE her anymore, but does he THINK of her?  And if he does, what does this mean?

A wife might say: “I know that I am kind of lucky.  When I caught my husband cheating and demanded that he commit to ending it NOW, he did just that.  He did not even blink an eye.  I have a friend whose husband actually moved out of their house because he did not want to break it off.  The couple eventually got back together, but only after the affair ran its course and the other woman dumped the husband.  I am grateful that this is not the case for me.  My husband didn’t waiver on his commitment to stay home and work on our marriage.  I tend to believe him when he says that he isn’t in contact, because he literally spends all of the time that he isn’t at work with me.  But he seems sad sometimes.  He is trying.  I know that.  But at times there feels to be so much distance between us.  The other day at dinner, I said something to my husband and he didn’t respond.  I looked up to see what was the matter and my husband had such a faraway look in his eye.  I don’t think he even heard me.  At that moment, I’m almost positive that he was thinking about the other woman.  I just stopped talking and got up from the table.  I don’t want to think about him fantasizing about her, but I guess how could I expect him to totally erase her from his mind?  Part of me wants to ask him how often he thinks of her and part of me doesn’t want to know.  How often do men think of the other woman?”

He’s Likely Thinking About Her Sometimes, But It May Not Be In The Way That You Think: I would say that the amount of thinking depends on the man in question.  I agree with you that it is unrealistic to think that he just erases her from his mind the minute that he breaks it off.  But I also think that it can be a mistake to just assume that he’s thinking about her in a longing way.  Sometimes, he thinks about what a mistake he has made.  Or what a mess he has made.  Or he feels like a fool for being taken in.  Or he may feel resentment toward her for contributing to him risking his family.  Frankly, there can be a lot of conflicting emotions.  But not all of them are good emotions.

Looking At What Is Important: In the event that he is thinking about her, you have to put this into perspective.  Things are still fresh.  And you’re still thinking about it, too.   He’s in YOUR home trying to work on YOUR marriage.  He can’t control his thoughts (assuming that they are longing thoughts.  You don’t know that they are.)  But he can control his actions. And by breaking things off and committing to your marriage, he has done that.

As someone who has gone through healing in the aftermath of an affair, I can tell you that you’ll have many such thoughts and worries like this one.  But if you let these thoughts run away and get out of control, then they can become an obsession. It can get to the point where you can think of nothing else.  Try not to guess.  Try not to assume the worst.  Go by what is happening right in front of you.  Go by what you can actually see and not on just guessing.

Try To Watch Your Assumptions: There’s a real tendency to always expect the worst, which is completely understandable because you’ve been burned.  But sometimes, if we expect the worst, that is exactly what we bring about. And we hurt our chances of recovery because of paranoia.  If he gives you a concrete reason to worry that his thoughts are becoming a problem, then take action.  But if he’s doing what he’s said and trying to make things right, give him that chance.

The truth is, he may very well think of her sometimes.  But those thoughts might not be good ones.  And the longer that time passes, the less the thoughts occur.

I know that these worries and doubts are very hurtful.  But honestly, you can’t control everything.  You can only take it one day at a time and watch for any potential issues that will have real consequences.  Thoughts don’t necessarily have consequences unless they become actions.  As your marriage heals, you should both gradually have far less thoughts about the affair.   You’re welcome to read more about how I handled (or sometimes struggled with) issues like this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch: A lot of the adjectives that you hear to describe life after an affair are catastrophic ones like: “ruined,” “destroyed,” and “devastated.”  Many people confess that they feel that infidelity has ended life (and their marriage) as they know it.  And none of this is for the better.  I understand this, because my thinking was exactly the same way.  I felt like I had a perfectly normal and satisfying life before I found out about the affair, and I felt that everything was gone in an instant after it.

And I know that I am not alone.  I often hear from folks who say things like: “You can call me delusional if you want, but I really do not care.  My husband and I were very happy before his affair.  It is not just me thinking this. People always told me that they were envious of my marriage.  My husband and I loved AND liked each other.  We loved spending time together.  We were very considerate of one another.  We’d even been through hard times together and we came out much stronger and it made our marriage better.  But I do not see that happening this time.  I do not think that I will ever get over this infidelity.  And our happy marriage, that was always so full of love and laughter, is now barren.  I can’t even stand to look at my husband anymore, much less to laugh with him.  The affair lasted for less than two weeks and my husband was eaten up with guilt and he told me about it himself.  He acts as if he does not understand why he did this, but he insists that we can recover from it.  He says that he knows that he can make me happy again if I will just give him that chance.  I don’t believe this.  The only way that I could ever be happy again if we could erase the past and the affair and then just go on as though it never happened.  Obviously, that isn’t possible.  So I believe that my happiness is over.  And because of this, I just don’t see the point in staying married anymore.”

I understand.  My thinking was along the same lines as yours.  But there was one difference.  I have children.  And I was open to the idea of seeing whether or not we could work things out for them – and for them only.  Frankly, I didn’t think that it was going to be possible.  But I wanted to know that for their sake, I had done everything that I possibly could not to break up their family.  And in my own mind, I thought that even if we made our marriage work, it would only be a shadow of its former self.  Because we were happy pre-affair too.  (And no, I don’t think wives who say that are delusional.  It’s not always martial unhappiness or discontent that causes affairs.  The majority of men who reach out to me insist that they love their wives.)

I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.  I can’t tell you that every bit of my recovery was wonderful.  It was not.  We had to take breaks at times because things got so bad.  There were very rough days where I thought that I would be better off giving up and walking away.  But I can tell you that I am happy today.  My marriage is happy.  My family is happy. I don’t live in denial or pretend that the affair didn’t happen.  I see it as a stressor in our marriage that we got over, just like financial or health stressors or other things in life that challenge your marriage.  I’m not diminishing the infidelity.  I would give anything if it had never happened.  But since it did, the choice became whether to deal with it or to walk away.

I’d never tell anyone they have to remain unhappy for the sake of their marriage or kids.  We all deserve happiness.  And I believe that it is attainable, even after an affair.  But it’s also my observation that it doesn’t usually happen on its own.  You have to really dig deep, put in the effort, and take the time to try to rebuild your marriage — with the help or professionals or self help if that is what it takes.

It is not a quick or easy process, which means that there may be days where you are sure that perhaps you’ve made a bad decision or a mistake.  But in my experience, very gradually, things go from excruciating, to improving, to tolerable, to contented, and then to genuinely happy.

We’ve all had tragedies occur in our lives which made us sure that we would never feel the same again.  And yet, we live another day.  One day we laugh and love and endure again. Things that were destroyed are rebuilt each and every day.  That is what makes the human spirit so resilient.  I am not diminishing an affair or its impact.  I’m just sharing my experience that it is possible to be happy again.  In fact, life is too short not to.  And even if you ultimately try really hard and decide that you can’t be happy in your marriage.  Please try to be happy in your life regardless.  There is no reason for the affair to be a life sentence for you since you were not the one who committed the crime.  You weren’t put on this earth to be miserable or unhappy.  And you deserve better.  So give yourself permission to seek happiness in whatever way that you decide is fitting.

I truly believe that if we don’t do our best to seek happiness, we aren’t fulfilling our responsibility to ourselves and to our families.  Admittedly, the days following an affair won’t be blissful.  It does take time to rebuild and to process.  Make no apologies about taking that time.  But also believe that you absolutely deserve to be happy again and that you CAN be happy again in time.  This happiness may come with or without your marriage, but it is not only possible, it is your right.  If you’d like to read about how I regained my own happiness, there’s more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch:  It’s probably one of the biggest concerns that I hear about after the affair (and it’s a concern that I had myself:) Can the spouse who cheated remain faithful if you give him (or her) one more chance?  Many people would ideally like to save their marriage after infidelity, but they know that they don’t want to ever repeat this process again.  The fear of having the cheating happen more than once can sometimes be equal to your wish that your marriage can be saved.  Because let’s face it.  Who wants to live a life where you are always worried that your spouse is eventually going to cheat on you again?  Which leads us to the question: Can people be faithful after an affair?

Well, I know many people who have.  And I know some people who haven’t.  But you don’t have to take my unscientific opinion about it as even close to fact.  We can look at statistics to tell us a little more.

Recent Statistics On Repeat Cheating: A 2014 study conducted from students at Denver University found that participants in the study who admitted to being unfaithful while in a serious relationship in the past were more likely to cheat again in the future. Specifically, 45 percent of people who cheated at least once went on to cheat again. Now, I do have one concern about this study.  The participants were not all married. The only criteria was that the respondent felt that they were in a serious relationship.  I wonder if the numbers would not have been a little lower if all of the recipients were married and the people involved knew they might end up divorced if they cheated again.

In any event, although a concerning amount of respondents did cheat again, the majority (around 55 percent) did not.  So what is the difference between the two groups?  The study did not look at the specific reasons for cheating and therefore could not predict who (or who might not) cheat again in the future.

But my theory on this would be the repeat offender has never rehabilitated the risk factors that caused cheating in the first place.  Identifying that risk is very important.  Some people cheat for sexual reasons.  Some cheat for emotional reasons.  Some cheat to boost self esteem.  Some are depressed or feel undeserving. Some cheat because they don’t know how to get excitement in their lives other than to participate in risky behaviors.  Others cheat because they have grown up in a culture or environment that condones or expects it.

Minimizing The Odds: In order for you to be secure that your spouse won’t cheat again, you both need to identity EVERY risk factor and address it.  Why did he cheat? And what safeguards will be put in place to keep him faithful in the future?  Admittedly, none of us can watch over our spouses 24 / 7 and we shouldn’t want to, but if someone is repeatedly cheating on business trips, or when going out with certain friends, or in other identifiable scenarios, then those scenarios have to be removed or changed.

Also, I think that in some situations, you have to figure out if you are working with a person who is really serious about having a healthy marriage and who understands the risk that cheating again will incur.  Some people just pay lip service during recovery.  It’s vital that you watch carefully and make sure that this isn’t the case.  I would never advocate threatening your spouse or giving ultimatums.  But your spouse should very clearly understand that cheating again might mean that he doesn’t get a second chance.

Finally, I can not stress enough how important it is to build up your marriage.  One thing that we can’t control is the stressors that are going to inevitably come our way.  You can count on your marriage one day being tested.  That’s just the way that life works.  You can’t control what will test you.  But what you can control is the way that you work together (while getting help if you need it) to rebuild.  If you don’t fix any outstanding issues, or you don’t restore the trust, or you’re living in a house where resentment remains, then you are going to be more vulnerable when those stressors arise.

But to answer the original question, yes, people absolutely can remain faithful.  Plenty do. And plenty do not.  If this is a concern (and let’s face it, this is a concern for all of us,) then you should not hesitate to do the work to do everything in your power to ensure that your spouse is in the majority – which is the percentage that does remain faithful.  Because no one wants to go through the pain of infidelity all over again.

Trusting that my husband wouldn’t cheat again was a concern of mine initially.  Believing that I could one day drop my paranoia was also a concern (because I developed an almost-constant paranoia initially.)  But I decided to move forward and see what happened, mainly because of my children.  My husband demonstrated that he was very serious about making things right.  He did everything that he promised and we did recover.  And we have never repeated the process.  It truly was a one-time thing, just as he promised.  That is why I do think that some people can remain faithful.  But I do believe that it takes rebuilding, determination, and self awareness.   There’s more about the process of rebuilding on my blog at  http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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By: Katie Lersch: What to do after your spouse cheats on you can be a very big decision. It can be a life altering decision. And like any decision where the outcome can’t possibly be known, we can go back and forth on the decision and fret about whether or not we will make the right one. We worry whether we will regret our decision and therefore will live the rest of our lives wishing that we had gone down the different path.

Someone might explain: “I am seriously considering doing something that I swore that I would never do. I am thinking about staying with my husband who cheated – even though I have spent most of my married life warning him that he ever was unfaithful, I would leave him so fast that his head would spin. However, now that all of this has become a reality, I pause when I think of living on my own. I don’t want to start my life over. He does seem to be genuinely remorseful and he has agreed to counseling. But, I worry that I am going to deeply regret my decision. One reason that I feel so strongly about this is that I lived in a home with a mother who stayed with her cheating husband and who was miserable and sour every day of her life. Of course, this means that my home life was also miserable. Honestly, my mother should have left my father far behind the first time he cheated. I am pretty sure that he never stopped and I’m also pretty sure that they grew to hate one another. I don’t want to live my life like this. I don’t want to sentence myself to that kind of life. I am wondering how many wives regret staying with their cheating husbands?”

Get What You Need To Make A Sound Decision And To Follow Up: I would suspect that it boils down to this: The wives who end up with a rehabilitated, successful and fulfilling marriage don’t regret staying. And the wives whose marriage is unfulfilling do have regret. It is like any other decision – when it doesn’t work out, you tend to regret it. When it does, you don’t. Unfortunately, there aren’t any guarantees, but you can certainly do everything in your power to make sure that you have covered all bases and have the information that you need to make a sound decision.

Take Your Time: Also, I don’t really see the need to make a binding decision quickly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying: “Right now, I am leaning toward staying and trying to save our marriage, but we can’t possibly predict how things will go once we begin counseling. As long as we make progress and I am feeling positive about things, I will stay. But if I see any behaviors or indicators that makes me second guess my decision, then I might change my mind. This is just too big of a decision with too many variables for me to make any promises. I can tell you that I really want it to work, but I also don’t know what our progress will be like. I don’t want to live like my mother, but I am hoping that with counseling and some hard work, I won’t have to.”

Your husband has committed to counseling and that is wonderful, but making the commitment and actually going and participating are two different things. Give yourself permission to wait and see how this goes.

One Perspective: I can tell you my own experience. I do not regret staying with my husband because the whole healing process ultimately turned out well. But I can also tell you that there were plenty of times where I second guessed myself and felt like a fool because I had vowed that I would never allow infidelity and yet I stayed. I am very honest about the fact that I stayed for my children initially. But today, I’m also honest about the fact that I continue to stay because of me.  I do not regret it.

The marriage that I have today keeps me here. Yes, I am glad that I didn’t have to uproot my kids and that they have two engaged parents who love them. I firmly believe that this is best if you can swing it. But, if our home life had never recovered and my children were living in a house without love and full of anger and resentment, common sense would have told me that this wasn’t the ideal, either. I like to think that I would not have allowed this. I likely would have continued trying to make things work. But ultimately, if my efforts just weren’t enough, I probably would have ended the unhealthy situation.

I think you have to go into saving your marriage with your whole heart and every bit of effort that you can muster. If you try with everything you have and it turns out to be enough, then that’s wonderful and you likely won’t regret your decision to stay and then to see what happens.

But if it doesn’t work out, and you still gave your whole heart and tried everything in your power to make it work, I don’t think you have any reason to feel regret in that situation because you did everything that you could. I think that the best that we can do sometimes is to give our strongest effort and then just wait and see what happens. If we do this and we are disappointed, well, at least we know that we tried and that our intentions were honorable. I don’t think that there needs to be regret in that.

You are not at fault here. If you feel that you want to stay and give it a try, I don’t think that you need to make any apologies because marriage is supposed to be forever, ideally. But I honestly don’t think that the regret needs to be yours, as you have done nothing wrong. I think that everyone should be free to constantly evaluate what is the healthiest and best situation for themselves and for their families.

As I said, I’ve really never regretted staying with my husband.  He made good on his promises and our marriage recovered.  I never wanted to break up my family and I’m glad we were able to move forward.  There’s more about that process on my blog at  http://surviving-the-affair.com.

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