Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives who fear that it is too late to save the marriage wracked more than once by infidelity. Often, this is a difficult situation because their husband is begging the wife to take him back and making all sorts of promises.

A wife might explain: “the first time my husband cheated on me, I truly wanted to believe that it was an isolated incident. He had cheated while traveling and he was drinking. I thought that as long as he changed jobs so that he didn’t travel anymore, we would continue on with our marriage which was otherwise happy. I never expected for him to cheat on me again. But he did. With a woman from his new job. That’s when it dawned on me that the first time was not an isolated incident. And I could not be married to someone like that. So I left. Honestly, I’ve missed my husband. I have wished that things were not as they are. But I can’t deny reality. Last week, I was getting coffee and my husband and I ran into each other. We didn’t say much at the time. But later, he called me and told me how much he missed me and he promised that if I would take him back, he would change. He kept saying that he would prove it to me. I’m kind of ashamed, because just for a while, I started to fantasize about taking him back. But I know that this is crazy. Because I don’t think that I could (or would) ever trust him. But I do miss him. And, in a perfect world, I would want my marriage. Can repeat cheaters ever be rehabilitated if they want to make their marriages work?”

The Common Attributes Which Mean He May Be Able To Be Rehabilitated: This is only my opinion and I’m certainly not a professional counselor, but I believe that in some cases, they can. However, I think that what sets one person about from another is their willingness to get help. I believe that with serial cheaters, it is really not about the other person or the cheating at all. It isn’t about the sex. It isn’t about the secrecy. It’s about trying to fill some void or some emptiness within themselves. That’s why it’s so hard for them to change without help. It’s very difficult to see this truth about yourself, much less to change it without a skilled person helping you and helping you to constantly take your emotional temperature and identify your vulnerabilities.

If your husband is not only willing to go to counseling, but also willing to take the counselor’s advice, even if it is going to be very uncomfortable, then there could certainly be change. But I have to be honest and tell you that it does take some time. And that can be OK because quite frankly, it is likely going to take you a while to be comfortable trusting him.

Know That This Is Your Choice: Of course, nothing says that you have to take him back simply because he wants you to.  You have a choice about this.  You don’t have to say yes.  You might decide that your life is preferable as it is right now.  Or, you might decide that you won’t rule out taking him back if you can prove to you that it is safe to do so.

Slow And Steady Just To Make Sure: I would suggest taking this extremely slowly. In fact, I would suggest taking a very leisurely pace in even making a decision about whether you are open to this. Perhaps you might talk to your husband on the phone for a while just to evaluate how you are feeling and what behaviors you see in him. Watch and evaluate. Are his actions those of a man who is serious about making life changes? If this the answer is yes, watch a little more to make sure that you can trust in what you are seeing.

Only when you are comfortable that the answer is yes should you approach your husband with a willingness to go to counseling. And the understanding should always be that you can change your mind at any time if you see something that makes you doubt his claims.

The counselor will likely help you with this and aid you in seeing where he’s made progress and where he still needs work. I can not stress enough how important it is to continue to move slowly during this entire process. Because you are going to need the time to know that you can trust that true change has taken place and that you might be approaching the time where it’s safe to think about having a real marriage again in which fidelity is a given.  Again, this takes time.  And not every one is willing to wait.

Keep in mind that you always get to decide what you want and what works best for your life. You get to decide if you are happier with him or without him. If the trust just isn’t there for you, then you get decide if you want to keep working at it or whether you declare the cheating a deal breaker from which you can not recover.

So my answer is that yes, repeat cheaters can sometimes change. But it takes a vast amount of work and time. So both spouses need to understand that and be willing to put in both the effort and the time. And the cheating spouse should understand that it is his responsibility to initiate this process and be accountable during it while the faithful spouse can always change her mind if she isn’t comfortable at any point.

I made it very clear during our healing and rehabilitation that I could retreat at any time.  It was always clear that I might change my mind.  My husband was well aware of this.  But he was also willing to do the work.  You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I get an awful lot of emails from wives who are considering confronting the woman with whom their husband had (or is having) an affair. There are many motivations for this. Sometimes, the wife is reacting most to anger. Sometimes, the most persuasive emotion is curiosity. Other times, she wants for the other woman to know that she’s no longer in the dark. Or, she wants to tell the other woman to stay away. Some wives actually want information from the other woman. And sometimes, the wife wants to threaten the other woman to leave her husband and her family alone.

Whatever the reason is for the wife wanting a confrontation, I admit that I rarely encourage or condone this. Instead, I encourage the wife to not go there. I believe from experience and from other wives who I hear from that this confrontation rarely goes well and it almost never provides you with what you are hoping for. Quite honestly, much of the time, it only makes you feel worse, feel more insecure, and question things even more. Nonetheless, I know that not every wife is going to be able to let it go and that some are going to have the confrontation anyway. Sometimes, this backfires horribly and you have to clean up the mess. And there’s nothing to do at that point but just to accept that things haven’t went well and to vow that now is the time to turn that around.

I might hear from a wife who says: “I honestly thought that confronting the other woman was going to make things better. I intended to go and tell her to leave my husband alone and that I didn’t want her in our lives anymore. I’m a very quiet, introverted person by nature and this confrontation was very hard for me. But I was so mad that I was more than motivated to do it. I really wanted to tell her to stay away from my husband. So I did it. I very calmly told her that I didn’t want to hear any more about her. I told her that I did not want her to come near my family again. I told her that she should not tell my husband about our conversation. Instead, she was supposed to break it off and go on with her own life. Well, no later than an hour after our meeting, my husband called me and he was furious. She had obviously ran straight to him and tattled on everything we talked about. My husband instructed me that I was not to ‘harass’ her any longer. He told me to stay away from her and then he actually sounded like he was defending her. I was so angry about this. And now it seems that he is more interested in her than ever. He is now taking the attitude that it is them against me. I regret having the confrontation so much. It backfired as horribly as it possibly could have. What can I do now?”

Unfortunately, there is no way to take this back. You can’t erase it. You can only deal with the aftermath of what has happened. I’d suspect that it’s tempting to react in a very dramatic way and either defend yourself, become angry and indignant, or to go to the other extreme and actually apologize. I would not encourage any of these reactions.

Instead, I would simply state that you felt it was your right to see who you are dealing with, stress that you were not the one who brought this person into your lives and into your marriage, and then let it go at that. Sure, they may think that they are even closer now that they have a common enemy, but I will tell you what I tell wives in this situation before a confrontation even takes place.

Honestly, much of the time, you don’t need to do anything in order for the relationship to end. When you fight against it, you sometimes strengthen it. But when you focus on yourself and you back away, knowing that you have control on no one but yourself, the affair will often burn itself out.

It’s simply not as exciting when it is no longer a secret and relationships based on dishonesty have a very low success rate anyway. Frankly, you often don’t need to confront her in order for this to happen. And you paint yourself as the negative aggressor when you do.

You can’t take this back, but you don’t have to make it worse. You can still focus on yourself and let them worry about themselves. It’s my opinion and experience that the best thing that you can do is to conduct yourself with respect and act with the same integrity that you always have.

Do not allow them to change who you are and what you stand for. Sure, the situation has momentarily backfired. But that doesn’t change that they are the ones who put this very difficult thing into motion. You merely reacted to it. You don’t have to keep reacting to it.  From now on, make sure that your actions are above reproach.

I know that it is hard to feel as if you are doing nothing. But often, when you do something it makes things worse and it makes it appear as if you are the one with the negative behavior. And you don’t want or need either of these things.

I never did have a confrontation with the other woman.  I didn’t want to give her that power over me.  Instead, I willed her out of my life and I made it about me and what I wanted.  This worked well.  I understand the curiosity about her.  But I didn’t want to give her another second of my time. You can’t take back what has happened, but you can vow not to give her one more moment of your time.  If it helps, you can read about my own process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: When you are a wife who is dealing with infidelity in your marriage, the lack of morals exhibited in your husband and the other woman can trouble you deeply. It’s normal to wonder just how one woman could do this to another.  We often find the other woman’s lack of concern that the husband is married appalling and we wonder how she can look in the mirror or hold her head high.

Many wives want to tell her what they think about this. And many wives are hoping or expecting to get an apology – or at least an explanation. But not all of these confronted other women respond in the way that you would hope or expect. Some of them become defensive, defiant, and rude.

You may have a situation like this one. A wife might explain: “honestly, I am so sick of seeing these smug, adulterous celebrities steal a man away from a wife and act all smug about it. We have Tori Spelling, LeAnn Rhymes, Megan Fox and even Angelina Jolie who act like they’ve loving wives when truly, they are nothing but home wreckers. They knowingly and willingly got involved with a married man and then, rather than being ashamed of their behavior and living quietly, they act as if they’ve done something wonderful and that we are all supposed to ignore their terrible behavior. They act as if they are proud of themselves when they should be very ashamed. The woman who cheated with my husband knows my family. She knows my children. And I have read texts and emails where she is clearly the aggressor. My husband and I are trying to work things out, but will she leave us alone? No, she won’t. My husband had to change his number and she will still leave notes on his car. I tried to let this pass and stay quiet, but she continues to try to contact him. It got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore, so I called her. When she answered, everything just poured out of me. I told her that she should be ashamed of herself. I asked her why she couldn’t find a single man who is her own age to target. I asked her whether she got some cheap thrill out of potentially breaking up a family and I told her that bad karma was going to follow her around. She told me that she wasn’t ashamed in the least and that if I had kept my husband happy, then she would not have been successful in getting him to cheat. She basically told me that all was fair in love and war. And she said that my lashing out at her only motivated her more. How can I get her to be ashamed of her deplorable behavior?”

Understand Why You Might Be Feeding Right Into Her Plan: I understand why you want to make her see your point of view. But in my experience, you are probably wasting your time. People like her live in their own worlds. They do not operate within the same moral code as most people. They do not have the same levels of conscience and guilt. And frankly, when they know that they are reeking havoc and creating misery, this is when they are the most happy.

I know that you feel the need to “make” her see your point of view, but you can’t make her do anything. And by trying, you’re probably only making her happy and giving her what she wants. Your showing her that she’s gotten to you and is continuing to do so.

How You Can Try To Flip This To Your Advantage: Now, what I am going to say right now is going to sound impossible and wrong. But, if you truly want to annoy and anger her, the most effective way to do it is ignore her and to rebuild a happy life that does not include her. And it is also the best way to make her ashamed of her behavior. Why? Because she will see that she created all of this pain for absolutely nothing.

She didn’t end up with the relationship with your husband and all of her efforts fell flat. In fact, it was all a waste. I know that it is very hard to ignore her while she is actively trying to remain in you or your husband’s life. But ignoring her is the fastest way to make her stop. Once she sees that there is not any pay off, it is harder to continue on. It starts to become a waste of time and energy.

Of course, if she is truly trespassing or taking things too far, then you can ask the authorities about your rights and responsibilities. But most of the time, people will stop when they see that they are just wasting their time. When she gets a reaction out of you, she doesn’t think that she’s wasting her time because she’s still getting the pay off. She’s still getting that reaction.

I know that this is hard. But the best revenge is to not let her continue to hurt and affect you. Take your life back. Even if you are not sure about your marriage, you can be sure about yourself. You can vow that she does not have the right to derail your day to day life. You can tell yourself that you will no longer be thrown off course by her behavior.

A person can only feel shame if they have the psychological capability to do so and if enough time has passed for them to see things clearly. It may be that not enough time has passed yet. But, frankly, her thoughts and realizations should not be your concern.

You have enough to worry about and it is best to start with yourself. Because, try as you might, you can not control the thoughts and behaviors of other people. But you have the ability to do this with yourself. But trying to change things through her is often a waste of time and it will only make you more frustrated while giving her more power.

It took me a while to come to this realization, but somewhere along the line, I decided that I wasn’t going to let the other woman have one more second of my thoughts and my emotional energy.  Once I made this shift, things dramatically changed. You can read more about that process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  If you were to ask me to identify the two biggest aspects of your marriage that are damaged by a partner’s affair, they would be the trust and the sex.  People ask about the sex more often, I think, because it is more intimately tied in with the affair.  It’s very hard to have sex with your spouse without getting a mental picture of them having sex with someone else and without worrying that they actually feel desire for you when not long ago they were betraying you.

So understandably, people have a tendency to feel that they should take their time in resuming their sex life after an affair.  I agree with this because having bad or awkward sex will just give you one more thing to worry about at a time when you already have plenty of worries to focus on.

Still, a marriage without sex can be an awkward marriage.  And people often want to know when the time is right to start having sex again.  They wonderhow they will know when that time has arrived. Someone might ask: “how do I know when I’m ready for sex again after my husband’s affair?  He has told me that he will wait until I am ‘ready.’  And I do appreciate him having patience.  But I don’t know what ‘ready’ means in this context.  Right now, I am very angry at him and have no desire to have sex with him.  But occasionally, I remember back to how we used to be and then I think that I might like to have sex when I feel that way.  But the feeling is always fleeting.  Because every time I have nice thoughts about my husband, they are quickly interrupted with the memory that he cheated on me. So I don’t know that I’m ever truly going to be ‘ready.’  How will I know when the time is right.  What signs should I be looking for?”

You are right to be concerned about getting the timing right.  I do hear from a lot of people who rushed sex after an affair and who now regret it because the sex turned out to be an awful, awkward experience that just made the couple more angry and lost.  In my opinion and experience, it is so much better to wait and have a good experience. Below are some of the signs that I believe might indicate that you are ready.

You Have The Desire:  Frankly, very few people truly legitimately and authentically want to have sex with their spouse shortly after the affair because good sex combines emotional and physical longing.  When you are not emotionally in sync with your spouse, you are not as likely to crave sex or to have meaningful sex when it happens.  When you start to want sex, it usually means that you’re seeing progress and you’re starting to feel an emotional connection with your spouse once again.  It’s very hard to have the sex drive come back in any meaningful way until the emotional connection is reestablished.  Some people rush this because they want to please their spouse, but that does more harm than good.  It’s better to wait until the desire is authentic rather than just trying to please someone.

You Trust That The Affair Is Over And That He Isn’t Having Sex With Someone Else:  Nothing is as troubling and unsavory as having sex with someone who you know is having sex with someone else.  Your mind can’t rest and just enjoy the moment because you worry that he’s thinking about the other woman and comparing the two of you.  Plus, you will likely feel resentful, knowing that he will be enjoying the same activity with someone who isn’t you.  In short, you will likely feel that he doesn’t deserve to be having sex with you and he may feel the same way.  These types of thoughts and worries do not lead to a good sexual experience.

He’s Earned His Way Back Into Your Good Graces:  Along the same lines of him deserving your love, it is hard to have good sex with someone who hasn’t earned your trust.  When you know that your spouse is working hard to make things right and you know that he’s done everything you asked, then it’s much easier to think positively about him and to want to share physical affection.

You Have The Sexual Confidence To Pull It Off: It’s very difficult to have good sex with someone when you do not feel good about yourself.  You’re always wondering what they’re thinking of you and you can’t act with confidence because you don’t feel it.  It’s normal for a wife who has been cheated on to struggle with feeling sexually attractive.  I think it’s best to know that you’ve gotten your confidence back before you have sex.  Because nothing is more sexy than confidence.  And nothing is less sexy than self doubt.  If you are feeling those doubts, it’s important to do some self work to regain it.

You Want To Do It So Badly That You Don’t Focus On Your Doubts:  I honestly think that the easiest way to know if the time is right is that you find yourself in a position where you REALLY want to have sex with your husband and your thoughts are only on that.  Your not thinking about the affair.  You’re not questioning what it all means.  You’re not trying to quiet your doubts.  You don’t feel trepidation.  All you feel is that you want to have sex with him.  Right now.

I know that it may sound a little weird when you think about it.  But if you are able to get to the place where your mind is able to shut down every thing else but a desire to have sex, then it’s likely that you’ve made the progress to make that possible.  It’s not likely that you would get to this point unless your husband has started the process of showing remorse and making this right and you’ve started to trust him again.

After a few initial mistakes, my husband and I waited until it was very obvious that the time was right.  I did work on my sexual confidence and I think that it was one of the best things I did during my recovery.  You can read more about my progress on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  One common theme that I see over and over again in the correspondence that I get comes from faithful spouses who are desperately trying to understand the cheating spouse’s thought process while being unfaithful.

Many faithful spouses have never cheated on someone.  So they just can not understand what types of feelings would lead someone to do this.  People often want to know exactly what their spouse was thinking and feeling while carrying out the betrayal.

Their concern might sound something like this: “I desperately want to understand what my husband was thinking and feeling while he was cheating on me.  We had a good marriage.  We have small children.  Our life is enviable by many people’s standards. And my stupid husband risked everything for some low class woman who isn’t even pretty.  I just do not understand.  I have repeatedly asked him what he was thinking and feeling, but he can not give me any answer that even remotely makes sense.  He doesn’t seem to understand it either.  He insists that the other woman meant nothing to him and he did not have any feelings for her.  He insists that he wasn’t angry or disconnected with me.  He also insists that he still wanted and valued his family.  So I am a loss to understand all of this. What are people feeling when they are having affairs?  Because the euphoria must be a real high to risk everything.”

Actually, many people who describe affairs to me don’t describe it in terms of euphoria, although there can be a good bit of excitement thrown into the mix – at least at first  Now, know that I am not a husband who has cheated, so this is not first hand knowledge.  I do not personally know what it feels like to cheat on someone, but I do hear from many people who describe the feeling, and below I’m listing the feelings and emotions that are most often described to me.

Desperation:  I don’t mean this in terms of: “I am desperate to have sex with someone other than my spouse.”  It’s not that type of desperation.  It is the desperation that comes when you are struggling in another area (or areas) of your life.  If you look at statistics of affairs, you will find that they usually come at a crisis point in someone’s life.  The person having the affair is trying to feel better.  And often, the person doesn’t really know why they are feeling so badly and so they also feel helpless to fix it.  So they are walking around in a vulnerable state that makes them more likely to cheat when, in regular times, they would not dream of it.

Confusion Mixed With Frustration:  This sort of ties into what I mentioned before.  People who cheat are not usually very self aware at the time.  If there were, then they might not cheat in the first place.  They may connect the dots and realize that they are depressed because they just lost their job.  Instead, they are sort of walking around in a fog and they aren’t sure why.  They are looking for something to fix this, but they do not realize it.  That’s why sometimes, one of the first things a faithful spouse might notice with a cheating spouse is agitation and a short fuse.  They are sometimes angry and frustrated, but they aren’t sure why.

Excitement:  Do you remember when you were a kid and you were forbidden to do something but did it anyway?  You knew that you might be caught and punished, which is why it was so exhilarating when you did it and got away with it.  This is the feeling that sometimes drives people when they are cheating.  They know what they are doing is wrong.  They may even know that this has the potential to end badly.  But they get a rush during it which helps to quiet whatever crisis that are having at the time.  And sometimes, for just a short period of time, they feel exhilaration because of this.  Many report feeling “alive.” Yes, it will all crash down around them eventually and they will realize that this tiny bit of exhilaration wasn’t worth it.  But they feel it just the same.

Guilt:  I believe that most people underestimate the guilt that people feel while cheating.  Yes, they try very hard to push the guilt down and to not feel anything.  Some even become quite good at it.  They will often try very hard to create some justification for what they are doing: “no one will find out.”  Or “I will end this tomorrow.”  But deep down, they know that what they are doing is very wrong.  This is another place where the faithful spouse will often notice a change in personality.  It’s hard to function normally and to concentrate on day to day life when the guilt is eating you up.  Many people end the affair because they can no longer handle the guilt.  It is also why many people confess even when their spouse doesn’t suspect that anything is wrong. They want an escape for the guilt.

A Sense Of Dread:  Even when people are obsessively careful to cover their cheating, many have a slight sense of dread.  Many are fully aware that they have no intention of ending their marriages.  And sometimes, the “other woman” starts to make demands or to talk about the future.  This is when the realization hits that there may be no way to exit this situation without anyone being hurt or without any one finding out.  There can be a sense that it is inevitable that there may be a bad outcome.

I hope this article has shown you that very few people go through an affair with feelings of euphoria or excitement.  Many people will admit that, other than very short periods of novelty and relief, most of the affair had them feeling guilty, confused, frustrated and resigned to an eventual bad outcome.  It’s not fun juggling all these feelings and trying to cover your tracks all of the time.  It’s not fun to look at your spouse and to know that you’re doing something which you know is wrong.

Many people describe the time they were having an affair as sort of a train wreck in their lives.  I think that many people assume that the cheating spouse was having the time of his life, but that’s not often the case.  Often, they are struggling greatly.  I believe that this was true in my cases and in many cases. You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Much of the time, when people mention affair sex, they assume that it is so good that it is almost mind blowing. They assume that it has to be this good in order to make it worth the risk. Many spouses who have someone cheat on them also make this assumption, even if their spouse does everything in his power to insist that this isn’t true.

For example, you might hear a conversation like this: “my husband is trying to claim that his affair wasn’t about sex. In fact, he’s insisting that the sex wasn’t even good. He says that sex is better with me and that the other woman didn’t really know what he likes. But he says that the point of the affair was never about the sex. He was supposedly attracted to her because she listened to and supported him, or so he claims. I think that he is just saying this because he doesn’t want for me to have hang ups about sex if we stay together. Every one knows that affair sex is good, don’t they?”

Well, everyone assumes this. But I’ve had people comment that their affair was most definitely not about sex, just like this husband. Many of them say that the affair was more about excitement, emotional attachment and support, and having someone who seems to appreciate them without expectations.

For example, a husband might say: “when people see the other woman, they always assume that I was only in it for the sex. I wasn’t. I won’t say that we didn’t have sex because we did. But that was never the draw for me. I have been friends with the other woman for a long time. I made some bad investments that meant that I had to cut back on my spending. This made me wife treat me differently. She was always mad and she was always making sarcastic comments about me. The other woman isn’t like that. She’s happy to just go and have a picnic lunch and talk. She doesn’t expect me to buy her things and she doesn’t want to be taken care of. She’s content with just me. This is such a huge relief when contrasted with the expectations of my wife.”

I hear these sorts of comments a lot. And I hear them from people who have no reason to lie to me. I don’t know their spouses so I can’t possibly put in a good word for them. They just want to unload their feelings onto someone, which is often why they had an affair in the first place.

And I am not saying that this excuses them. There are no excuses.  But, I think affairs based on emotions are just as dangerous, if not more so, than affairs that are based on sex. Anytime your spouse gets their marital needs met by someone else, that’s a problem.

But many therapists and professions will tell you that an affair is so much more than just sex. I’m not a professional, but I certainly do believe this. Sex is only one aspect of the relationship, but it is certainly not the only aspect.

Many people can’t possibly believe that a man would risk his marriage or his family for bad sex. The thing is, sex is not his payoff. His payoff is getting his emotional needs met. His payoff is the fact that the other woman doesn’t make him feel pressured.  She makes him feel relevant again.

Now, is this reality? Most definitely not. If the affair continued on, it’s very likely that the other woman would develop expectations over time. People love to think that their affair partner doesn’t want anything from them or doesn’t have expectations or demands. But it isn’t realistic to expect that things are always going to be this way. The more serious and long term the relationship, the more expectations there are going to be.

And then this happens, the husband will often lose interest because he can get the expectations at home without much trouble at all.

Of course, the original question was about sex so let’s go back to that. Many people will tell you that affair sex is wonderful and some of them truly believe that. But most people will tell you that sex with the same person over time (like your spouse) is also good sex because that person knows you. They know what you like and what you don’t like. You’ve likely fine tuned your physical connection over the long term.

The person in the affair can’t say this. The relationship is often just beginning. Sure, there’s a bit of novelty but even that wears off quickly. Sometimes the sex starts off being perceived as good or even great, but once it’s no longer new, it’s nothing special.

I can’t possibly tell you or guess at what the sex was like with your husband and the other woman. But I can tell you that not everyone says that the affair sex was always good. Many will tell you that it was nothing special, but that was fine with them because the intercourse wasn’t the draw. The way the other person managed to make them feel was the draw. Or the relief they felt from some stressor or short coming was the draw.

Regardless of whether the affair was based on sex or something else, the healing is the same.  Recovery is necessary for both sexual and emotional betrayals. You can read more about my own process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Sometimes, when a person is first confronted about an affair, their immediate reaction is to swear that they never wanted to end their marriage. They will swear that their first commitment is to their spouse, no matter what they might have done or said concerning the other person.

And often, this is what everyone wants to hear. But as time passes, this claim can be questioned, especially if the cheating spouse is not acting in a way that the faithful spouse had hoped.

A faithful wife might say: “after I caught my husband cheating, he promised that he was going to make this up to me. But I immediately noticed that he looked nervous and shifty. I intuitively knew that he wasn’t giving me the whole story. In the beginning, he said that he would see the other woman only one more time in order to break off their relationship. After that, it was always that she was calling and making threats, so he had to see her again and again. I never believed this rouse and I told him so. After I confronted him repeatedly, I finally got him to admit that he still had unresolved feelings for her and was having a hard time letting her go. Still, no sooner was that admission out of his mouth that he was swearing that he was committed to me and our children and that he was going to resolve this very quickly. So I asked him to go to counseling and he said that he would. However, each time an appointment would come up, he would stall or have some excuse. He was working late. He had researched the counselor that I had suggested and he wanted to find his own. There were various excuses, but there was always an excuse. Finally, I got fed up with this and I told my husband that it was very obvious that he wasn’t fully committed to me. Because if he was, he’d be at counseling no matter what. And he would drop the other woman no matter what. At first, he denied this and he just asked me over and over again to please be patient with him. Eventually though, he finally blurted out that I was right and that his commitment to me is questionable. He says that he can not deny his feelings for the other woman. He says that if he had been fully committed to our marriage, he probably wouldn’t have cheated in the first place. He keeps saying that he is very sorry and that he doesn’t know where to go from here. Where does that leave me? I want my marriage, despite my anger. But how can I have a marriage with a man who might not be committed to me?”

Before I try to address these questions, I want to tell you that I understand your disappointment, having been there myself. What you are feeling is absolutely normal. And you are not wrong to expect and want your spouse’s full commitment. I can’t speak for anyone else. And I fully support every one’s right to decide their own course of action for their own marriage. But, speaking for myself, my husband’s complete commitment was non negotiable.

I think that it would be extremely challenging to save a marriage where one spouse wasn’t sure that he was in it for the long haul and who wasn’t very sincere when he claimed that there was no one else.  Also, I think it’s important that there is no other woman to resort back to should the marriage not work. After all, if he knows that he has the other woman waiting, how can he be one hundred percent committed to making it work.

With this said, just because he questions his commitment now, this doesn’t mean that he will not ultimately decide that he wants the marriage.  This happens all of the time.  Once the newness of the other relationship wears off and they get to know the real people involved and not just the fantasy of the other person, it’s typical for the cheating spouse to see very clearly that he was extremely stupid to risk his marriage.  But, you often can not force this realization or his commitment. I know that it is very tempting to shame him, to threaten him, or to offer up ultimatums. But ultimately, these things may bump up the pressure on him, but you will both know that any decision he came to was not his own decision. Therefore, you might both doubt that he really meant it. And sometimes, when you try to force a husband to give up the other woman, she becomes just that much more attractive to him and he holds onto her even more tightly.  It’s so much more effective to allow him to see this for himself.

I know that this might make you feel as if you are left out in the cold, but I don’t think that it has to be this way. I think that if you work on healing yourself and defining what you want while he continues on with his struggles, you will be in a better position to handle whatever conclusion he comes to. And when he comes to that decision, you will have the confidence that it is all his. Plus, either way, you will be in a position of strength.

I will tell you something that I’ve noticed over and over again. When a wife turns her attention to herself, her husband often wonders why. This in turn sometimes diverts his interest from the other woman to his wife. I certainly can not tell you that this always happens. But it is certainly not unusual when it does.

I also think that when you make it clear that you are going to continue to live your best life regardless of where his head and his heart is, you show him that you have self respect and this will often contribute him to respecting you more, which means he’s less likely to keep playing games.

Of course, I can’t predict the future.  But I can tell you that today’s reality is certainly not always tomorrow’s reality.  The husband may change his mind tomorrow or the next day.  Sometimes, you just have to focus on yourself and wait and see.  To me, self care is never wrong, at least in my experience. You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: It would be wonderful if you could recover from your spouse’s affair without real life cutting into the mix. What I mean by this is that it’s hard enough to know what to feel or how to proceed when you’re able to clear your calendar and to avoid obligations that make things so confusing and difficult.

That would be the ideal. But it isn’t reality. Recovery after an affair takes the passage of time. Of course, during this time there will be birthdays and anniversaries and special occasions that you are not sure how you should handle. Probably the holiday that I get the most questions about are anniversaries. People aren’t sure how to acknowledge this occasion because this is the time where you are supposed to honor your commitment to each other. It is the time where many couples want to celebrate and reaffirm their love for one another. But if the affair has placed that love and that commitment in jeopardy, how do you acknowledge or celebrate the occasion?

A wife might ask this type of question: “honestly, I am unsure about how I feel about my husband right now. I found out about eight months ago that he had a two month affair. He admitted it and he was willing to break it off and go to counseling. We have made strides. Things sometimes feel as if they are getting a little better. But as a result of him breaching my trust, I am still angry sometimes and I am insecure a lot of the time. I feel like we both want to stay married, but I am not sure if we will be able to have the good and loving marriage that we both want. I need to make it clear that I do not believe that my husband is still cheating on me. I do believe that it is over. But I can’t honestly say that I believe he will never cheat again. I can’t honestly say that I believe that in ten years from now, we will still be married and still be happy. I guess deep down, I worry about what this infidelity is going to mean for our long term future. In two weeks, we have our wedding anniversary. It is a big one because we have been married for a long time. If the affair had not happened, we probably would have had a big party and perhaps taken a trip, but I don’t feel like that now. We agree that we want to celebrate. I bought a gift I know my husband will like, but I am trying to write in his card and I am stuck. I have thought about just signing the card, but I have always written a very detailed note with the card throughout our marriage. And I feel it would be weird not to do that now. But I honestly do not know what to say. I would normally tell him how much I love him and that I know we have a wonderful future. But it feels weird to say that now. I don’t want to mention the affair in my anniversary card, but just ignoring it doesn’t feel right either. What do people say or do on their anniversaries when trying to recover from an affair?”

I’m not an expert by any means, but it’s my experience that people’s celebrations vary. Some will just agree that for one day only, they are going to put the affair aside. Others try to be very authentic and to look on the bright side during that day, while also continuing to be realistic.

I do remember that this issue came up for me during my own recovery. I can share with you how I handled it, but I want to stress that what was right for me may not be right for you. Every one is different. And I believe that we all have to do what feels right for our individual situation.

I chose my own anniversary card very carefully. I do remember that the theme of it was something to the affect of – we’ve had our ups and downs, but I would not want to go through life’s challenges and triumphs with anyone but you. When I signed the card, I told my husband that I loved him and I deeply valued our marriage. But I did not pretend that there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong. I didn’t mention the affair in the card, but I did acknowledge that I knew we had challenges ahead but that I hoped we would continue to meet them head on as we had in the past.  All of this was absolutely truthful.

In short, I told what was my truth at the time. I did not use the occasion of my anniversary to rehash the issues with the affair. I wanted my focus to be on my marriage and not on the affair. At the same time, I was not going to pretend that it did not exist. This is what felt authentic and appropriate to me at the time. I was not going to be pressured into pretending that the issues were not there. But I wasn’t going to dwell on the issues so that our history was negated. You may have different feelings about this.  But I could not just erase all of the years that we were loving, good partners.

Interestingly, my husband took the same approach. He acknowledged the challenges and told me that he intended to spend the rest of his life being the husband that I deserved. And so far, he has.

I think that it’s important to try to honor your marriage because that is what anniversaries are for. And if you are still celebrating one, that means you still have a marriage and that is cause for celebration even if that same marriage is struggling. No one wants to lie or deny reality, but frankly for most people, reality means that you will face struggles over the course of your marriage. We all do. But if we endure, we will have more anniversaries to come. And hopefully, those will be a little better.

Yes, that first anniversary was hard, but every anniversary since has been better and better.  Hang in there.  If you do, you will continue to rewrite your history and you may find that next year’s anniversary isn’t as confusing. You can read more about my own challenges on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Understandably, it is a common desire to want to share the hurt that you feel when your spouse cheats or has an affair. After all, how is it fair that you are the one going through all of the pain? Of course you want for the person who caused all of this in the first place to feel a fraction of the pain that you are feeling. And this is where the idea of trying to emotionally hurt your spouse can come in.

A wife might say: “it is bad enough that my husband had an affair. But he had it with a woman who was my friend. I loved both of them. And I feel like they are both laughing at me. I want him to feel my pain. I have said all sorts of mean and nasty things to him and none of them have seemed to hit their mark. I have told him that he is fat and bald and not a great lover. I have told him that he is not that bright. He just blinks at me, seemingly unfeeling about the whole thing. What can I say or do to really make him feel emotional pain? I wouldn’t physically hurt him of course, but I want to hurt his feelings badly. I want for him to feel unsure about himself. I want for him to be very sorry for what he has done. So what should I do or say?”

I understand this feeling and I’m not going to tell you that you are wrong to feel it. I felt it too and I suspect most wives have felt this. But here is what I know to be true. The more you fling about the bad feelings and try to hurt, the more the hurt just comes back to you. And the more you experience the painful feelings that you are trying to make go away.

Am I trying to tell you that your husband doesn’t deserve every bad and remorseful feeling that comes his way? Nope, I’d never attempt to do that because I generally do not have much sympathy for cheating husbands, considering my own experience with that.

But, much of the time, when you say or do things meant to “pay him back” or wound him, he is only going to build up his defenses against you so that your efforts affect him less and less. The result is that you feel a ton of frustration in addition to your pain. It’s just an entire loss with no upside.

So what do I suggest you do? Well quite frankly, your husband likely already feels pretty badly, even if he isn’t showing it to you. Deep down, people who cheat know that they are letting every one down. They know that they aren’t acting with integrity.  They know that they are stooping to deplorable levels.

When you continue to drive the obvious point home, they actually become defensive. And this actually makes them feel somewhat justified, which means that they can feel less badly than they originally did. Honestly, your husband is more likely to feel hurt and remorse when he can feel empathy for you. And he is much more likely to feel empathy for you when you aren’t actively trying to hurt him.

I know that this all seems very counter to what your first inclinations are telling you. But a man is much more likely to regret cheating on a woman who has done nothing to deserve it and who is conducting herself with respect than a woman who is trying to hurt him. He’s likely going to eventually feel that the hurtful woman actually deserves it.

You have to remember what you really want. Ultimately, you want to feel better as soon as you can. And you want for him to be sorry for what he did to you. Taking the high road is the fastest, safest, and best way to get both objectives while not allowing him the luxury of thinking that your behavior now means that you deserved his actions.
This probably isn’t what you want to hear. But to answer the original question, the best words to say to get a reaction out of him are no words at all. Once you’ve said your peace, stop. He already knows how you feel. He knows what he has done. Don’t allow him to justify his actions. Don’t feed into the negative process.

I am not going to tell you that I never said hurtful things to my husband.  I most definitely did. But I eventually realized that I was only keeping the hurt churning.  So I stopped and this helped me turn the corner. You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: There’s no denying that the time period after learning about a spouse’s affair can be extremely volatile. People say things that they later regret. They mutter things that are only meant to hurt. They spew things that they would never say during moments of calm.

And once things calm down, both parties will typically try and dissect the argument or conversation in the hopes of figuring out what their spouse might have meant by his venomous words.

A wife might say: “when I found out about my husband’s affair, I called him home. I didn’t tell him why. And I may have lead him to believe that there was an issue with one of the kids just to get him home so I could confront him. But I feel that this was justified. Because I wanted to be able to read his expressions. When I finally got to confront him, he was furious. In fact, things got so heated that he told me to get out. He told me that I should just leave. This is particularly interesting because we both own the house. It was his house when we married but he added me to the deed. So he can’t force me to leave. But I’m not so interested in the legalities of things. I’m interested in why he wanted me to leave. Does he care so little about me and our marriage that he wants me out of his sight? Does he think our marriage is a lost cause? Has he developed real feelings for the other woman and he wants to be with her?”

I’m sorry that I can’t possibly accurately answer these questions. All of us can speculate. And I can and will offer some reassurance about typical behavior after an affair confrontation. But, you usually aren’t able to get to the truth so quickly after the affair is discovered. It usually takes a while for things to calm down before the truth is revealed.

People Often Exhibit Extreme Emotions After The Affair Is Discovered: Many people posture when they’ve had an affair. They act outraged. They try to blame their spouse. They can play the victim. Do they really believe all of the things that they are trying to sell to their spouse? I doubt it.

I think that it is more likely that they are shocked and ashamed and embarrassed and are trying to dig themselves out of a hole or at the very least they are trying to come up with air. We’ve all that horrible feeling when something unexpected and awful happens and we become flustered and act in ways that we are anything but proud of. If we’re lucky, we can put it behind us before anyone notices or finds out.

But that can’t be the case when your spouse is right in front of you, trying to get a reaction and not willing to back down until you they get one. When that happens and there is no escape what do you think your spouse is going to do to make it stop?

They are going to make a stink. They are going to show anger or outrage. They are going to try to turn the attention away from themselves. And one way to do this is to ask you to leave.

Did he mean that he actually and truly wanted you to leave. I have no way of knowing that. But I’d suspect that he was trying to back you up a little bit just so he could have a moment to think and plan some sort of strategy. The whole: “you should leave thing” could have been a quick ploy to get you to say that you didn’t want to leave and were hoping to save the marriage. Sometimes, anger or nastiness is a way to try and call your bluff.

Again, you often can’t possibly know in the beginning. But you can try to diffuse the situation if you think that he’s just posturing by saying something like: “I have no intention of leaving because this is my home too in every way that matters. If I was going to leave, I would have done it before you ever got home and avoided this entire confrontation.”

With that said, I never advocate escalating the situation or getting into something where either person might lose control of themselves. If you see or feel it escalating to that level, the best thing to do at the point is to remove yourself from that situation, even if it means just talking a walk or doing something else.

You can always revisit things later when both people calm down. If it doesn’t appear that calm is going to return, then sometimes the best route to start is to use a counselor to facilitate working through it in a more calm and meaningful way. Because often, just exchanging insults doesn’t solve anything. And it makes a situation that is already very painful just that much worse.

My husband and I said all sorts of nasty things to one another after his affair.   We didn’t sleep under the same roof for a bit.  But we eventually realized that the nastiness wasn’t helping anyone.  So we changed the way we interacted with an eye toward relating in a healthier way.  And this lead to us eventually saving our marriage. You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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