Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch:  I sometimes hear from wives who are reeling from their conversation with “the other woman,” the mistress, or the woman with whom their husband has been cheating or having an affair. These types of conversations almost never go well. Not only are they awkward, but they are often quite hurtful and do not provide the closure that many wives intended when they agreed to them in the first place. But often, the wives who are the most affected by these types of meetings are the ones who have been told that the other woman is in love with their husband, or worse, that the husband is in love with her.

I heard from a wife who said: “I found out three weeks ago that my husband had an affair. This woman is one of our neighbors. My husband begged me to not leave him and to try to save our marriage. I committed to doing that because of my children and I have been avoiding this woman. However, the other day, she actually had the nerve to knock on my door. I did not let her in my home but I walked outside. And she proceeded to tell me that she was “madly in love” with my husband and that he felt the same way about her but he didn’t want my kids not to have their father. It became clear to me that what she really wanted was to plead her case so that I would back off and let her have my husband. That is not going to happen. But now I can’t stop thinking about this. My husband said not to listen to her, but I can’t help wondering if she was telling partial truths. What if not only is she in love with him, but he is in love with her?”

“What if” type of questions can drive you crazy right now. And you have to be careful about who and what you chose to believe. Everyone has your own version of the truth and you alone get to decide what your own version is going to be.

Frankly, What Does It Matter If She Thinks She Is In Love With Your Husband?: It’s common and understandable to place some of your focus on the other woman. After all, she is partly to blame for all of this. But now that the affair is over, it is time for both you and your husband to let her go.

She may well think that she is in love with your husband. But, she really doesn’t have any say in what happens in your life or within your marriage. You and your husband decide what happens in your marriage. And in this scenario, the wife and her husband wanted to save their marriage. So as harsh as it sounds, the other woman’s feelings may well have mattered to her, but they should not matter to the wife or to the husband. Since she was out of their lives, her feelings were hers alone to deal with and to overcome. They should have no bearing whatsoever on the wife, her husband, or their marriage.

What If Her Claims Make You Worry That Your Husband Was (Or Is) In Love With Her Too?: To be honest, the biggest problem in this scenario is that often, the other woman’s claims of being “in love” will usually make the wife worry that the husband was or is also “in love” with her.

The only person who can provide the accurate answer to this question is the husband himself. And he was in his own home, with his own wife, begging to save the marriage, which spoke volumes about how he felt. However, since the other woman had done such a brilliant job of painting the husband as a man who only wanted the marriage because of the fear of losing his children, then the wife continued to doubt her husband’s feelings.

And while her husband was continuing to tell her that what he had with the other woman wasn’t love, the wife was still worried. I do understand this. When my own husband had an affair, I worried about the other woman for way too long. But here is what I didn’t understand and perhaps what you don’t understand either. With time, the truth has a way of coming out. But even more than this, everyone’s feelings change and evolve with time. What feels so real and so intense is shown to be the fallacy it is once the affair has been over for some time.

Once these two are away from one another day after day and the husband places his full attention and commitment onto his family, then any residual feelings for the other woman (if they even exist) are going to fade. Many times, the same is true for the other woman. If she is married, she will often turn her attention to her own marriage. Or, if she is not married, hopefully, she will move on to a single man who is more appropriate and available to her.

The bottom line is this. The other woman will often say all sorts of things to create doubt in your mind. Who cares if she’s in love with your husband? You and he have decided that she will not be with him. So the best thing for everyone is to continue to move forward as if she never spoke. Because you should not give credence to what she says anyway – as her motive is certainly not to save your marriage or to make things better for you. Her goal instead is often to make things better for her.

I know that even thinking about the other woman is painful, but don’t allow her any more room in your life.  The relationship between her and your husband is only in her own mind at this point.  Focus on yourself and your marriage and I suspect that with time, her place in your life will fade until she is just a memory.  I admit that I worried about the other woman for far too long, but once I took my focus off of her, I was able to save my marriage after the affair.  You can read the whole story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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