Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Occasionally, people will admit to others (and to themselves) that in some ways, having an affair improved at least some aspects of their lives. With this realization, they aren’t exactly defending the affair, but they can’t deny or denounce these improvements, either.

Someone might explain, “this time last year, I was seriously depressed. I felt absolutely worthless. My marriage was awful. My health was deteriorating. My work suffered. Some days, I struggled to get out of bed. I tried antidepressants but they did not work for me. My husband would ask out loud where was the woman he married. He wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. Things were pretty bad in our home. In fact, I think that if nothing had changed, we may have been headed for divorce. But we struggled along for several months. And then a new co-worker arrived. We were assigned to work closely together and became very close friends. This man supported me through thick and thin and I regained my confidence. In a few months’ time, I was a new person. Yes, we eventually had a very short affair, but he got transferred. I know that it would have ended anyway. I did not want to leave my marriage, but this new relationship lit a new life in me and I’m frankly so grateful. Unfortunately, my husband found out about the affair. And now he associates the ‘new me’ with the other man. So he doesn’t like the new me any more. This is hurtful. I am not going to turn the page on the improvements that I have made. They gave me my life back and frankly, they gave me the possibility of getting my marriage back. Without the changes in me, I would have just languished in my life and would have been no wife to my husband. We would have ended up divorced. Now I am jovial and back to myself. I would be loving if my husband would let me. How do I get him to accept the improved me and make him believe that this is not solely due to the other man?”

Disconnect The Improvements And The Affair: Honestly, this is going to be a hard sell. But I do not think that it is impossible with a little finesse. I think you have to completely abandon associating your improvements with the other man and with the affair. As a wife who has dealt with a husband’s infidelity, there is no way that I would accept anything that the other woman or the affair offered my husband – even if these gifts were wonderful ones. I would reject them outright simply because they were fruit from the poisoned tree, so to speak.

Reframe: With the above said, perhaps if you could reframe the improvements, he might embrace them. If you could associate the changes to additional responsibilities at work that elevated your confidence, this might help. If you did anything else at the time to improve yourself – exercise, pampering, improvements in appearance, etc. then THIS is what you want to focus on.

In short, you want to focus on the fact that you made yourself a priority and this, in turn, elevated your confidence in your ability to handle yourself in the workplace and at home. You can also keep up the self-improvement now so he can see that you were and are serious about this.

Don’t Make It All About You: Please don’t take this the wrong way. I am giving you my best input as someone who has gone through what your husband is going through. Try to make sure he knows that you are thinking about the two of you as a couple right now. If you are coming at him only talking about the changes to you, then he might not be as receptive as if you talked about “us.” Right now, your marriage needs to be a huge priority. And your marriage consists of two people, not just one. So it’s very important that your husband understand that improvements to you equal improvements to the marriage (and in turn benefit him.) It can be hard for him to see this if you are mostly talking about yourself. Make sure he hears you also talking about him and about your marriage.

Use Caution When Necessary: You want to be very careful that you don’t look like you’re trying to use your improvements as justification for the affair. In his eyes, there is no justification and he will resist any implication that there is.

Instead, approach him as someone who is grateful for personal improvements because they will make your a better wife with a stronger marriage who is happier in general. Then, keep showing him that you prioritize self – improvement on your own so that it’s actually feasible that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps without the affair. In fact, do not bring the affair into it. One thing does not need to be tied in with another.

Actually, my husband’s affair did bring about some beneficial changes in our marriage and I am actually grateful for those. But I greatly resist associating these things with the affair, so I will often reframe it in my own mind. This is what you’ll have to help your husband accomplish, but I know that it is possible.  You can read all about our recovery here: http://surviving-the-affair.com

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