Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Many wives know exactly how they feel after the discovery of their husband’s affair. They know that they are in severe pain. They know that they are lost. They know that they now question everything. They know that they are angry and insecure. But they don’t know whether or not it is OK to show these feelings. They wonder if they should be upfront about their feelings or if they should be projecting something else. Is it OK to show him how angry you are? Or should you act more humbling so that he has compassion for you?

A wife might describe it this way: “my feelings are truly all over the place after my husband’s affair. Sometimes, I can’t even stand to have him near me. And other times, the thought of us not being together just destroys me. Sometimes, I want him just because I have doubts about myself and our marriage and I desperately want that reassurance. But when he tries to give it to me, I feel compelled to reject him because if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be a display of self respect. If I was to show him what I was feeling at all time, he might think I was unstable. That is how much my feelings swing back and forth. I don’t have any idea how I should be acting around him. Because it seems that when I act angry, he goes out of his way to be more kind and accommodating to me, which I feel is just. But when I act needy, then I feel his pity, which I don’t want. So I have no idea how I am supposed to be acting around him.”

This is very common. After the discovery of the affair, you know that you are wounded and, to make matters worse, you feel as if you have been put on display. So you can sometimes feel as if you have to be guarded about what you allow to be seen. You don’t want to come off as weak or as too insecure. But you don’t want to be seen as one of those bitter, rejected wives without any feelings either.

The thing is, I don’t think that it is ever healthy to push down your feelings. If you don’t willingly let them out, then they are doing to demand to come out in all sorts of unhealthy ways. I always found it helpful to release my feelings in a journal so that I had a little more control over my behavior in front of others.

But having said this, I don’t want for you to feel that you have to hide what you have a genuine right to feel. It is perfectly normal to have feelings that change from one minute to the next. It is normal to feel different things toward your husband at different times. And it is perfectly normal to feel as if you are regressing when you feel very differently today than you felt yesterday. Quite honestly, you did nothing wrong. So I don’t want for you to feel as if you need to hide anything from anyone.

At the same time, if you have the feeling of being vulnerable and on display, you can always remove yourself from the situation and take a little time for yourself. I never felt the need to sugar coat my feelings for my husband. I was angry, disappointed, and confused and he absolutely knew it. I wasn’t going to pretend that I wasn’t any of these things. I had no idea what was going to happen with our marriage. Much of the outcome depended on his own behaviors moving forward. And he knew that too.

Now, there were times when we were interacting and things got so heated that they were destructive. There were times when I was lashing out at my husband and, if I am being honest, I was saying things that I really didn’t mean. I think that it is in these times that you may want to take a time out and release the feelings in your journal or to a friend before you say things that can’t be taken back.

But I don’t think that you want to regularly pretend to feel something that you don’t. There is no reason to completely hide your feelings. You can’t be expected not to have strong feelings and he likely knows that you have them anyway.

I always tried to act as if I were coping as best as I could and I was trying not to lose control of myself. But, I was absolutely struggling and there was no hiding that. Attempting to do so would have meant being dishonest to everyone. So, to answer the question, I think that it’s best to act as if you are a wife who has been dealt a difficult hand but who is trying her best to process this and who is trying to deal with it in the most healthy way as is possible for her own well being.  Because this is just the truth.

I don’t think it’s realistic to think that you will always have complete control over your feelings and your behavior after the affair.  There is nothing wrong with being honest as long as you aren’t deliberately trying to hurt someone.   The goal is always to move forward and to focus on your own well being.  But no one expects you to handle everything perfectly.  None of this is your fault.  You can read more about how I chose to act after my husband’s affair on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Even if you are a very secure person and even if, as woman, you are fully aware of your value and your worth, it is hard not to have your self esteem and your self image negatively affected if your spouse cheats on you.

Even if you completely see every single one of your own positive attributes, most of the time, his cheating will bring out a little bit of doubt and insecurity in you. This can be true even if you are otherwise a very secure person. You can start to wonder if there is anything wrong with you. And you may ask yourself where you went wrong.

I might hear it described this way: “ever since I found out about my husband’s affair, I feel stupid, ugly, overweight, and depressed. This whole thing surprises me because quite honestly, I am very confident in myself. Yes, people would call me curvy, but my husband has always liked my curves and I consider myself pretty attractive to most men. I am successful in my career and have a lot of friends and a large social network with lots of support. That is why I am so mad at myself for feeling so insecure. I am furious with myself for spending so much time wondering if my husband is going to cheat again.  I know that I am worthwhile, but I still suspect my husband of continuing to cheat. He insists that in time, he will show me that he is faithful and that he will do anything to stay with me. Because of this, I find myself always trying to test him. I will say awful things just to see if he will try to make things right regardless of my awful attitude. He comes right home and spends a lot of time with me, but I still find myself wondering if he’s continuing to cheat.  I hope that in time, this process and cycle will end. If enough time goes by and I come to realize that he is no longer cheating, will my insecurity go away?”

In my experience, having the confidence that you are able to absolutely know (and not just hope) that your husband is no longer cheating can help with your insecurity. Time can also help with this too, as can your improving marriage.

With this said though, I very much want for you to understand that although the external factors of your husband not cheating and your improving marriage are all good things that you should hope for, you don’t always need external things to feel secure.

In fact, self confidence and security is an inside job. What I mean by this is that until you believe that you are worthy and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, then regardless of what happens with your husband or with your marriage, you might always struggle with feeling secure.

That’s not to say that you don’t want to do everything in your power to make sure that he is telling you the truth so that you can have certainty that he is not cheating. But, you also have to believe that you can be secure and OK regardless of what he is doing.

I know that this might sound hard to believe, but it is possible. It doesn’t come easily. You have to work for it. You have to list those things that cause you insecurity and then address them one by one. You have to give yourself permission to take care of yourself and allow yourself to do whatever might make you feel better or give you more confidence.

At the end of the day, you have to make a conscious choice. You have to decide that no one else can decide your worth for you. And you have to accept that no one else’s decision or mistake can take feelings of security from you. Your value comes because you are a unique person who gives your own contributions to the world. There is no one else like you with the unique gifts that you alone possess. This does not change, regardless of your husband’s behavior or actions. His actions are completely separate from who you are and what you offer.

So sure, you may feel better once you feel more confident in his fidelity. But healing and recovery from an affair can be a process. It’s usually not one thing that gets you over the hump. It is a series of things and it is your own attitude. My best advice is to work hard to ensure that you have what you need in terms of your marriage. But you should also know that your work doesn’t stop there. You must also work very hard to get what you need in terms of yourself.

I honestly believe that focusing on rebuilding myself and my own confidence after my own husbands affair was the most important thing that I did.  It was the thing that helped my healing the most. You can read more on on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I believe it is understandable that many wives are extremely curious about the other woman in the affair. Actually, curious may be too light of a word. For many of us, obsessed is more accurate. Many of us want to know everything that we can about this other woman. But if I am being honest about it, I can tell you that no question is more immediate to us than “why?” And by “why” I mean that we are often left wondering what would drive any decent woman to start up a relationship with a man who has already committed his life to someone else and who may have a family? What kind of woman would willingly insert herself into this situation? What could she possibly be thinking?

A wife may ask about it this way: “my husband really won’t tell me very much about the other woman with whom he had an affair. I have had to do my own research, but I am limited to what I have been able to find online and through asking around. The other woman is younger than my husband. Big surprise, right? He met her at work. Dating co workers is not allowed at my husband’s job. I don’t know how their bosses found out, but they did and they both lost their job. My husband had much more at risk than the other woman. But still, she wasn’t long out of college. This job was a good opportunity for her and she blew it. Now, she isn’t going to be able to get a good reference and she will likely have a hard time finding another job. My husband said she knew that he was married and with a family, but I have no way of confirming whether or not this is true. Assuming that it is true, I have no idea why she would take this sort of risk and act in this way for a much older man. Can’t she find someone her own age? What is the other woman usually thinking when she takes up with a married man? What is in it for her? It’s obvious what is in it for the older, married man. Sex with a younger woman. But what is in it for her?”

The answer to these questions vary greatly. Just like every one has a different personality and a different background, so too does every one have their own reasons. However, after having written on this topic for quite a long time and after hearing from many of these women, I tend to see patterns. So in the following article, I’ll discuss some common scenarios that I often see in the hopes that it might give you some insight into the thought process of the other woman.

She’s Looking To Advance Herself In Some Way: I hate to use the word “gold digger.” It seems like such a nasty word. But the connotations for that word are almost universal and every one knows what this means. However, I do have to stress that this isn’t always about money, although many people have this assumption. Of course, there are always going to be those women who see a vulnerable older man who is wealthy or at who at least has more money than they do and see an opportunity. But there are also those who meet the other man at work and think that he might enhance their career in some way. Or, she may also think that even if it doesn’t advance her career, it is going to make the time spent at the office a lot more tolerable and interesting. In short, she is in the relationship because she perceives that, in least in some way, it is going to enhance something that is important to her – like her finances, her life style, her work, etc.

She May Think That She Truly Loves Him: It would be unfair of me not to mention this because I hear it all of the time. Many “other women” in the affair would truly give almost anything if the other man wasn’t married. This is because she believes that she has strong feelings for him and she only wants to be with him. She’s sorry that her feelings are going to hurt someone, but she can’t turn away. She can’t help how she feels and she often thinks that she won’t ever find someone else who she could love as much. This sometimes happens when the woman is younger and when she is looking for her first serious relationship when the men in her age group are still very immature. Frankly, I would not be telling you the truth if I didn’t also mention that this type of “other woman” often gets hurt. The other man doesn’t always share her deep feelings, or, if he does, he isn’t willing to break up his family over those same feelings.

She May Be Looking For An Escape: You often see this scenario in a situation where both spouses are married. The other woman will tell you that she is has become invisible to her husband and that he no longer sees or listens to her. She feels invisible in her own home. So when someone else’s husband listens and pays attention, the relationship is valuable to her because she is finally getting her needs met. This type of other woman can get emotionally hurt also. Because the truth is, not every husband who cheats is looking to fulfill someone else’s emotional needs since he has a woman for whom he already does this – his wife.

She Wants To Take Something From Someone Else: I saved this for last because I think that this type of other woman is the most rare. But we’ve all known someone like her. Some women go into the affair knowing full well that someone is going to get hurt and not caring one bit. There are some women who just thrive on taking something that belongs to someone else. This is usually the type of woman who will call the wife and take great pleasure in breaking the news of the affair. Often, these women have participated in multiple affairs, even if the husband has no idea about this. These affairs usually don’t last because the husband can figure this dynamic out pretty quickly. She’s not interested in him as much as she is interested in creating drama and turmoil. It’s never about him or someone else. It is always about her.

I understand wanting to know who you are dealing with.  I felt the same way after my own husband’s affair.  But be careful that you don’t become so obsessed with her that you are not concentrating on yourself and on your own healing.  You can read more on on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: It’s not uncommon for me to hear from spouses who have been cheated on in all sorts of unique situations. Make no mistake about it, being cheated on at any time is painful and unfair. But there are some circumstances that seem particularly cruel.  Being cheated on while pregnant or ill are two good examples. Another example is being cheated on when you are making some sacrifice for the good of your husband, your marriage, or your family and he cheats on you anyway.

For example, I might hear from a wife who says: “for most of our marriage, I have made more money than my husband. And honestly, we have both always been OK with that, although some of our friends and family have made a big deal about it. Honestly, it never bothered me. I am fortunate enough to have lucked into a wonderful career that provided lots of room for advancement. My husband wasn’t so lucky, but he has always been a hard worker, and, until recently he always worked a full time job to help out. Recently though, my husband confided in me that he had started to feel like a bit of failure when he realized that he was approaching middle aged and had little to show for it financially. He told me that he would like to go back to school. I have always been very supportive of my husband and I did not bat an eye before I agreed to this. My husband promised me that he would support me once his career got going should I want to return to school myself, but honestly I never intended to take him up on this. I am happy in my job and I was happy to support him. To be clear, I have been paying for his schooling as well as the household bills for the last eight months while he has been in school. Plus, I have shouldered many of the household chores so he could study. I never complained when he had to go on campus during times that he would normally spend with me. Well, come to find out, he has been having an affair with a woman who he has classes with. He accidentally left a chat up with her on his computer and I saw their conversation, which made it obvious that they have a romantic relationship. My husband broke it off immediately and is begging me not to leave him. Some of my friends are sarcastically saying that of course he doesn’t want me to leave him because if I did, who would support him financially then? This girl he is cheating with is only a student and is broke. I want to save my marriage, but part of me worries that he is only with me because of the financial support I give him. Do we even stand a chance?”

I believe that any time that you have two individuals ready and willing to put in the time and effort, you always have a chance. And, I do understand why you feel doubly betrayed. It’s bad enough that he has cheated on you. But it was made worse that he was taking advantage of your generosity, your loyalty ,and your support and then he decided to cheat on you anyway. This can make you feel extremely used and taken advantage of. And of course it can make you doubt your husband when he says that it is you that he wants. It makes you wonder whether if the other woman was wealthy or able to support him, would he chose her over you?

Here is the thing though. You can’t know this. You can’t turn back time or move it forward to test out either scenario. So you have to get quiet, search your feelings, gather as much information as you can, and then watch your husband’s actions very closely in an attempt to get as an accurate picture of reality as is possible.

I think that it could possibly be a mistake to assume that your husband has been someone who has always taken advantage. The wife herself said that he had always worked and done his fair share of labor. He didn’t get equal pay. But he put in an equal amount of hours. It wasn’t as if he had taken advantage of her generosity during the entire course of her marriage. And frankly, if she felt like he was taking advantage of her generosity right now, she could always tell her husband that she is no longer comfortable with supporting him financially, considering the turn of events.

If he really cares the most about his marriage and not about the financial support, then he will accept this. Plenty of people go to college part time while also working part time. It’s not ideal, but countless people do it every day because it is reality.

Here is one more think that you may want to consider. You can’t possibly know if the changes in your marital roles contributed to the affair. You can examine this and try to determine a causal relationship, but you have no way to know if your husband would have cheated if he had stayed at his past job and never gone to school. If you go to therapy to recover from the affair, that is something that I would suggest the therapist help you explore.

Only you can decide if you want to try to save your marriage. But many marriages do survive this. And this does give you a unique opportunity to decide which parts of your marriage work and which does not. If the financial arrangement makes you uncomfortable, you are well within your rights to change, end, or to tweak it.

I didn’t support my own husband financially, but there were certainly areas in our marriage where I felt taken advantage of after his affair.  So, I examined these areas and I made the appropriate changes so that I would feel more comfortable and confident.  If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I navigated my life and my marriage after his affair on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: I find that, depending on who you are talking to, you will get a different take on who was the pursuer in the affair. Sometimes, the other woman’s family and friends assume that the husband was the aggressor in the affair. Sometimes, the other man’s wife will assume that it was the other woman who initiated the inappropriate contact.

Let’s say you were to hear from the other woman’s husband. You might hear a comment like: “I am pretty sure that the other man would have had to trick my wife into cheating. We have a wonderful family life. My wife is very conservative and is the kind of woman who rarely does anything wrong or dishonest. She is the type of person who would head up the lost and found if she found a dollar bill on the floor, even if she was already in a hurry. So I believe that the other man must have given her some outlandish song and dance in order to entice her to cheat. What must he  have said to her in order to get her to cheat?”

I even hear variations on this from the faithful wife sometimes. An example is: “I know the other woman from church. I was so shocked when I found out that she was the one my husband has cheated with. I can’t imagine how my husband would have gotten her to cheat with him. He must have told her something awful about his life or about me. What kind of claims must a husband make in order to get a perfectly nice woman to cheat with him?”

It’s Not Always The Husband Who Is The Instigator, Although It Sometimes Is: I will answer both of these concerns in just a moment. But, before I do, I have to tell you that it’s a mistake to always assume that it is the man who is the aggressor. This is sometimes the case, but it is most definitely not always the case. There are times when it is the other woman who pursues the husband. And there are times when neither is doing the pursuing. They just find themselves thrown into an unplanned situation where they are together.

I am certainly not trying to defend anyone here.  I was the faithful spouse so it’s not my inclination to defend people who cheat.  I know that it sounds so lame to hear a cheating spouse say “no one planned it. But it just happened.” Sometimes though, they really are telling you the truth as they see it when they make this claim.

When Cheating Husband Lie To Get The Other Woman To Cheat With Them: With all of this said, sometimes, the cheating husband does paint an untrue picture when starting an affair. I hear from many husbands in this situation and I also sometimes hear from the “other woman.” It’s often clear that the husband will paint the picture of a cold relationship that is a marriage in name only. Some married men will actually claim to be separated when they are anything but separated.

He will also tell her that his marriage is troubled when the wife could certainly tell you a different story. He might tell you that he is considering a separation or a divorce when the wife hasn’t heard anything about this. And he may tell you that he is no longer sleeping with his wife when he most definitely is. Finally, I’ve had many women who are the “other woman” tell me that the man didn’t even tell her that he was married. He presented himself as a single man.

Why People Sometimes Would Prefer To Stay In The Dark: This is pretty common knowledge. Most people know that men and women can and do say what they need to say in order to get what they want. And yet, women fall for this all of the time. They believe what the husband is telling them because they want to believe it. And quite honestly, they have reasons that they want to stay in the dark. Actually both the husband and the other woman have very strong reasons to operate outside of reality.

If both parties know that this man is betraying a loyal and loving wife and that he has a family with whom he is still very much a part of, then it is much harder to justify and carry out the cheating. But if you believe that he is single or separated, or that he is married but living in a troubled marriage that may soon end, then it is easier to go ahead and begin a relationship.

Again, having said all of this, I believe that it can be a mistake to assume that it is always the man or the husband who is the aggressor. It must definitely is isn’t. The other woman is sometimes the pursuer. And sometimes, neither party is actively pursuing the other. But the affair happens anyway.

I completely understand wanting to get all of the information that you can about how and why the affair happened.  Just be careful that you don’t get so stuck on this topic that you can’t move on. If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I navigated many challenges after his affair on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: It’s pretty common knowledge that spouses who have been caught cheating will sometimes do everything in their power in order to minimize the impact of their cheating. They will claim that the other person meant nothing. They will claim that they now see undesirable things about the other person that they didn’t see before. They might even go so far as to claim that now the other person turns them off or makes them sick.

For example, I might hear from a wife who says: “my husband had a three month long affair. Over the past week, I’ve been pouring over his emails and texts and what I have been reading has literally made me sick. He and this woman talk about what they want to do to one another and how much they want to do it. One thing that is very obvious in reading all of this is that the other woman is very sexually aggressive and adventurous. These are both things that I am not. And although my husband is now swearing to me that he wants our marriage and wants nothing to do with her, I have a hard time believing this. Because it is clear that at some point in the very short term past, he couldn’t get enough of her. But when I tell him this, he claims that when he looks back at her now, he feels repulsed. He says that he just sees her aggressiveness as a turn off now and an attempt to control him. He says that everything about her is just ‘too much.’ I find this very hard to believe even though I’d like to believe it. Is it even possible for a man to find the other woman repulsive after the affair is over?”

I completely understand why you have your doubts about this. You think that he is only making this claim in order to convince you that he would never cheat with this woman again because he’s not only not attracted to her anymore, but he finds her a bit disgusting. And you think that this is complete hogwash, meant only to alleviate your worries with untruths.

I can’t know if your husband is telling the truth or not, (although I’d be willing to bet that you can watch his actions very closely and find that this tells you more than his words ever could.) And I can not tell you that men caught cheating never lie in order to make things better for themselves. They do this all of the time. And sometimes, they think that they are doing you a favor when they do this. They are hoping to spare you some pain. They are hoping to alleviate your worry, even if what they are saying is not exactly true. They might not actually find the other woman repulsive, but they are vowing to stay away from her just the same.  So they figure that exaggerating just a touch won’t hurt anyone.

At the same time though, it is also not uncommon for men to see the other woman quite differently once the affair is over. I have had many men confess to me that they didn’t really see the other woman for who she really was until the affair had been over for a while. And, without the veil of the excitement and secrecy of the affair, she doesn’t look nearly as good to them once they have come back down to reality. This is different from finding her repulsive, to be sure, but this is what many of them say.

And I do think that it’s possible that he could certainly be repulsed by what his cheating relationship has done to his life. He may now be hit with the harsh realization that he has damaged his marriage, devastated his wife, and shown himself to be very weak natured. And of course these realizations are going to be upsetting and repulsive to him. And he maybe projecting these very negative feelings onto the other woman because it’s a little easier to blame her than himself. Either way, he may believe that he’s completely being sincere and truthful when he says that he finds her repulsive.  And it is also quite possible that since his feelings are gone, he can look at her now and not see her in the way that we did before.  How many of us look at our exes and wonder what we ever saw in them?  I look back at the boy I lusted over in high school and I can see that I was, in a word, stupid.

I know that the accuracy of what he is saying is important to you. And I understand why. But quite frankly, it often takes a little time before you get a real handle on what is real. He can and will say any number of things. But his actions and his behavior doesn’t lie. If he really finds her repulsive, he will stay away from her and he will do everything in his power to heal his marriage. If time goes by and he is doing what you have asked him to do with enthusiasm and without complaint, then you will likely feel much more comfortable believing his claims.

I know that you want to believe that he finds her repulsive. And frankly, he might.  But it is much more important to place your focus on yourself, your marriage, and your own healing. If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I attempted to handle this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: Many people assume that as soon as someone is caught having an affair, they are going to suddenly want to start blabbing. After all, if they care anything about their spouse or about their marriage, they are going to want to explain this. And, in order to do this, it’s going to require a good deal of communication. So that’s why it can be surprising when a normally talkative spouse suddenly clams up after you find out about the affair.

You might hear a wife complain: “before I found out about my husband’s affair, he was a real chatterbox. My husband is very charming and talkative. He’s a sales professional so being able to effectively communicate is part of his job. This has never been a problem because my husband is just a natural talker. So, when I caught him cheating on me, I expected for us to have a lot of long talks in our immediate future. This isn’t what has happened at all. Instead, my husband has clammed up and gone absolutely quiet. Not only is he not talking about the affair, he doesn’t talk about anything else either. He doesn’t seem particularly angry at me so I’m not sure why he is shutting me out. Why would he go quiet like this?”

There are several possibilities, the most likely of which I will discuss in this article. But before I do that, I want to reassure you that this is a common situation. And you’re seeing it doesn’t necessarily have many implications on how things are going to turn out.

He May Not Know What To Say: Many men go quiet after the discovery of an affair because, frankly, what is there to say? They may figure that what has happened is pretty obvious, and, anything that they say isn’t really going to help matters. In fact, many think that their communication or conversation might just make you more angry or hurt. Often, they don’t want to insult you by offering up lame excuses that you are just going to reject anyway. They figure that if they start talking, you might misinterpret what they are saying. So, they figure it is best to keep their mouth shut until things calm down a little.

He May Not Have Any Words That Are Going To Make This Better: You know the old saying “sorry just doesn’t cut it?” Well, your husband may know this phrase very well and he may suspect that this is going to be your response to him as soon as anything comes out of his mouth. Men who go silent are often well aware that you have already told them that cheating is going to be a deal breaker or is going to illicit a very negative response in you. There is no mystery as to how you are going to react to anything that they are going to say, at least right now. So, as much as he might want to attempt to try to explain or to tell you that he is sorry, he knows that his words are going to be wholly insufficient.

How To Get Him To Start Talking: If you notice, much of what I discussed above is based on fear. Your husband isn’t talking because he’s afraid that you will reject or become angry by his words. So, getting him to speak up may require a bit of reassurance that this is what you want and need from him.

Often, when I tell wives this, they are resistant because they don’t think that they should have to beg him to start talking. They feel that it should be his responsibility to start talking, since he is the one who made the mistake. How is it fair that you have to drag the words out of him? I agree with this. I honestly do. But sometimes, if you stick with the self righteous approach, then you don’t get what you want or need and, what is the point of that?

I’d suggest having a short conversation like: “it really frustrates me that you’ve become awfully quiet. We both know that this isn’t like you. We both know that it’s your inclination to try and talk yourself out of anything. Why is this any different? I don’t understand why you’ve suddenly gone silent. It makes me think that you don’t care enough about me to put two sentences together and it makes me think the worst. I need for you to start talking even if you think that I am not going to like what you have to say.”

Now, once he does start talking, then you have to hold up your end of the bargain. You don’t have to agree with what he says or even like his words. And you are well within your rights if you want to debate with him over his claims. But, it’s important that you don’t shut him down or tell him that he is wasting his time because you are never going to believe, or want to hear, what he has to say. There is a difference between questioning his message and not being completely receptive to it and shutting it down all together. Once you do this, then it’s difficult to complain about him being too quiet.

After my own husband’s affair, communication between us was sparse and difficult.  Things did slowly improve once we slowly healed our marriage.  If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I attempted to handle this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: It is not unusual for one or both spouses to lose sexual desire in general or for one another after the discovery of an affair. Most of the time, people are more focused on the betrayal and the dishonesty to think about sex all that much. However, if the couple attempt to reconcile, then it becomes obvious that this issue is one that is going to have to be fixed sooner or later. No one wants a sexless marriage and a marriage where sex is awkward, forced, or not good is a marriage that is vulnerable to another infidelity.

I might hear from a wife who says: “for the last several months, I have been telling myself that my husband was a complete turn off. I have been telling myself that I am somewhat repulsed by his appearance and that he’s a dud as far as his personality goes. In short, I have been finding everything that is wrong with him and this is what contributed to my having an affair. I honestly felt much more attraction to, and connection with, the other man. Unfortunately, I would often compare the two of them, and my husband would come up way on the short end of the stick. So, I have been emotionally and sexually distancing myself from my husband for some time. But, after my husband found out about the affair, I agreed to stop seeing the other man and to go to counseling. I am completely clear on the fact that this is the right decision because my husband is a better person than the other man. My husband is the better life long partner. And, I have children. I do not want to break up their family. So I am determined to make my marriage work. The problem is that I don’t really have any sexual attraction left for my husband. And it’s very hard to fake this. I guess I’ve spent so long determining what is wrong with him that I no longer see what is right with him. How do I get the sexual attraction back?”

This is very common problem and quite frankly, the wife was well on her way to solving it. Because she already realized that part of her lack of sexual attraction had to do with the fact that she was focused on what was wrong with her husband instead of on what is right with him. Getting the sexual attraction back is often one of the last things that are recovered after the affair because there is so much anxiety and distrust tied into sex – since the cheating spouse was having it with someone else.

Often, the trust and the emotional intimacy comes back before the sexual intimacy does. And I feel that this is beneficial anyway. Because it’s my opinion and experience that the worst thing that you can attempt to do is to rush bad sex after an affair. Why? Because generally both people will read a lot into your sexual encounters. If the sex is bad, awkward or forced, then one or both people might think that the chemistry is gone never to come back. Or it might be such an uncomfortable experience that neither person wants to repeat it any time soon.

Honestly, there are so many issues to overcome after infidelity, why add sex to the list? My inclination has always been to take things very slowly. Because as the emotional connection returns, the sexual attraction should start to stir without your needing to try too hard. When you feel deeply connected to someone, the natural progression of that is to want to also feel close to them physically. Unfortunately, this can’t be rushed or faked, which is why you will need to just go at whatever pace presents itself without trying to force it.

As for the lack of sexual attraction because she had been focusing on her husband’s flaws, well, now is the time to start focusing on his attributes. And you may have to start small at first while you are just being honest with yourself. It may not be six pack abs or huge biceps that you’re focusing on. Instead, it might be his intense eyes or his gentle hands. Whatever is unique to your husband that you can feel positively about is fair game. So too, is his character. The wife herself said that her husband was a good man and a great father. Frankly, I found both of these attributes very sexy. Give me a man with high integrity and average looks before a very handsome man lacking in integrity any day.

It really is all in your attitude. As you focus on what is right with him rather than what is wrong, I suspect that you will begin to feel stirrings of physical attraction. But allow this to develop slowly and naturally. If you think that this is going to feel like a rejection to your husband, then you may want to just be honest with something like: “please understand that I want to get things right between us this time. I so want our marriage to work. And this is why I want to take every aspect of this very slowly so that none of it feels weird so that we get discouraged.”

This will let him know that you aren’t rejecting him, you are just working at a pace that is more likely to ensure real success. I honestly was very deliberate about taking sex very slowly after my husband’s affair.  This worked well for us.  If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I attempted to handle this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch: It’s not unusual for people to make the affair out to be a grand love affair when they are right in the middle of it. After all, who is going to do something so destructive that it risks their family life and their marriage for feelings that are only lukewarm or mediocre? So, it is important to understand that there is a huge incentive for the person having an affair to believe that they are having intense feelings for someone with whom they are meant to be with.

Of course, if you are the faithful spouse in this scenario, you know that this is all a whole lot of nonsense. You can generally see the situation a little more clearly and it looks pretty plain to you that your spouse is just using the affair in an attempt to escape the stressors in his life. There are countless common stressors but some common ones are aging, financial problems, illness of a loved one, and feelings of inadequacy. Of course, the cheating spouse will often passionately disagree with this assessment because the whole point of having an affair is trying to escape these painful issues in the first place.

So you might hear from a wife who says: “my husband has had a very difficult couple of years. I will be the first to admit this. And I believe that his struggles are the reason that he sought out an affair to escape the stress going on around him. For the last ten years, my husband has greatly enjoyed marathon running. It has been a great source of stress relief for him and a hobby on which he spent a great deal of time. Because of a serious health issue, he has had to give it up. This health issue has made him slow down at his job also. My husband is an intense person who likes a lot of fast paced mental and physical activity. He has had to let this go, to a certain extent because he is supposed to avoid even good stress. This has been very hard for him. He always took a lot of risks in his work and with his physical activity. And, he can not do this anymore. And I believe that having an affair was his way to replace that risk taking with something else and also a way to replace the running. When I tell my husband this theory of mine, he gets offended and he thinks I’m crazy. But I know that I am not crazy. He is carrying on with a woman who was part of his running club before he quit it. Being with her is one way to stay connected to running. She’s not attractive or even intelligent and they have nothing in common other than the running. My husband is not typically attracted in the least to women like her. It is very easy for me to see this, but it seems impossible for him to see it. How do I make him see that the affair was just an escape and an attempt to replace what was lost?”

This is a tough one because every single thing that this wife was saying was making absolute sense and, quite frankly, was probably true. Her arguments were not at all off base and were in fact probably dead on. But here is the problem. The closer to home you are able to hit with your husband, the more it hurts him. And as a result, the more he might cling to the idea of the other woman and of the affair. So in this instance, speaking the truth, although completely justified, might not be the most effective route to take.

Instead, I might try more general phrases like: “I suspect that at some point in time, you are going to realize that through the affair, you are seeking something that you think you lost. This is only my opinion and I realize that yours is likely different. Until that I time, I plan to just work on my own life and think about what I want moving forward. I trust that you will do the same. If you come to any new conclusions, I trust that you will let me know.”

From experience, I know that this likely doesn’t sound very appealing to him. You want to do something to shake him to his senses.  And right now. The thing that you have to understand though, is that he is likely in deep denial. And, because of this, it is unlikely that you are going to get through to him with your words. Instead, you will likely have more success if you bide your time, conduct yourself in a way that makes you above reproach, and wait for these realizations to hit him. Because eventually, they likely will. And when they do, you will be in a better position than you would have been had you alienated him by pointing out his escape, even if you would have been absolutely right.

Unfortunately, I know this from experience.  Husbands do not generally understand reality about the affair until it has been over for a while. If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I attempted to handle this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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By: Katie Lersch:  Many people have no idea if they even want their marriage to survive after their spouse has an affair.  It can be hard enough to decide how you feel only today.  It’s very difficult to determine how you might feel in the future.  And yet, at some point that’s what many people decide to do – mostly because of their families.  They want their kids (and themselves) to have some stability and so they  decide to stay with their marriage and hope for the best, even if they aren’t sure that this will all turn out OK.

Sometimes, this strategy works.  The marriage is able to recover and the couple is happy.  Other times though, no matter how much time passes, the marriage continues to struggle.  As an example, a wife might describe something like this: “my husband had an affair a couple of years ago.  I lived with my mom for about six weeks after that.  I had no idea what I wanted to do with my marriage.  I just knew that I didn’t want to see my husband for a while because I was so angry.  He left me alone for a while but then he started sending flowers and coming over.  He begged me to think of our children.  And despite my anger at him, I knew that he was right about this.  It would seriously hurt our children if we were to break up.  I did not tell him this right away.  I made him wonder what I would decide.  I made him sweat a bit.  I have to admit that he was very sweet throughout that process.  He could not do enough for me.  So I finally agreed to recommit to our marriage.  And I foolishly thought that once this decision was made, we could move on.  Well, we tried to move on.  But I’m afraid that we were not even remotely successful.  Sure, we are still married.  But it’s a bad marriage.  It is a dead marriage.  Sometimes, I look at him and I realize that I feel nothing.  I guess I am still angry.  And I am not sure what would take my anger away.  He has most been a good husband since the affair.  He does what I ask him to do. But there’s really not any connection anymore.  There’s no intimacy.  We don’t fight.  I don’t bring up the affair.  But I guess I still have a problem with it because I rarely feel loving toward him.  At the same time, I feel trapped.  Because I know that I am not going to leave this marriage.  I know that I’ve committed to stay for my kids.  But I feel like I’ll have a dead marriage for the rest of my life and that is very depressing.”

You’re right.  It is depressing.  But I think it may not be as depressing as you might believe right this second.  Because I believe that you might be premature in thinking that nothing can be done for your marriage.  Yes, you sometimes need help to rebuild it.  And yes, it requires for you to be proactive.  But people revive marriages all of the time.

It doesn’t happen on its own, though.  I believe that this is the biggest mistake that people make.  They think that once they’ve made the decision to stay with their spouse after an affair, then it’s just time to move on.  It’s not that easy.  The initial decision is really only the beginning.  You have to rebuild at that point.  You have to understand that your marriage has been very damaged.  It’s not going to rebound unless you put a lot of time and attention back into it.

Very few of us have the skills and knowledge to facilitate this process all by ourselves.  We don’t know how gauge where our marriage is, what it needs to heal, and how to get it from one level to the next.  And that is why you sometimes need professional help.  I know that many people are resistant to counseling.  But isn’t it worth it to try counseling when you’re living in a marriage that is clearly not fulfilling you?  How much worse could the counseling be than day to day life knowing that it might never change?

I always felt that if that was what was required to get my life back, so be it.  The counselor can sort of lead the way for you.  But, you and your spouse have to put in the time and do the work.  It’s not always fun or easy. It feels unfair sometimes.  But the pay off is there.  Because at the end of it, you will usually see a marriage that is quite different, and a good bit better, than what you started with.

If you absolutely hate the idea of counseling, then at least look at marital resources and educate yourself about healing and rebuilding.  Unfortunately, you usually can’t just expect your marriage to repair on its own.  That would be nice, but that rarely happens.  You have to fight for it.  And if you do, you may just find that your marriage isn’t dead after all.

My marriage had a lot of struggles after the affair.  I realized that we weren’t going to be able to move past our issues with hopes and good thoughts alone.  We did a combination of counseling and self help.  And I forced myself to constantly evaluate where we were.  Plus, both of us worked on ourselves as individuals.  Neither of us depend on the other for our own happiness.  You can read more on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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