Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: It’s completely normal to wonder about the woman with whom your husband had an affair. You wonder what type of person she is. You wonder what thoughts she had about your husband. You wonder what she thought about you. Often, people just do not understand this curiosity. They wonder why it matters to you. Admittedly, it doesn’t literally matter, especially as you move on. But many wives want this knowledge to quell their curiosity. Many of us feel that we could never ever cheat with someone who we knew was married to a loving spouse. How, then, could she? What does she think about us that allows her to do this?

A wife might ask something like: “do most ‘other women’ think that the wife is a horrible person who is not deserving of her husband? Because that is the only reason that I can come up with that would allow a woman to betray another woman in this way. Is this what most of them think? That the wife is an awful person? I’m not a bad person.  I’ve never been anything but a good wife to my husband.  But she must not be aware of this.”

I can’t speak for every one. Obviously, I don’t personally know every “other woman” in question. However, I’ve gotten correspondence from some of them. And I do have theories about their thought processes, which vary.

She Often Tries To Avoid Thoughts Of The Wife Because It Makes Life Easier: Many “other women” avoid thinking about the wife too much. They are in sort of a denial that this man is married. They look at the wife as an inconvenience of the relationship and they hope that this will eventually work itself out. Many don’t probe too much about the marriage or ask too many questions – especially at first. They sense that this is a touchy topic and they figure that they can address it in time. But many of them do report feeling guilt when they think of the wife. Which is why many of them try not to dwell on the thought of her. They try to think of their relationship as completely separate from your marriage.

Some feel so guilty that once the affair is over, they will reach out to the wife and try to apologize. Some will tell you that this is the first time they have ever dated someone who is married and that they never intended for it to happen. In fact, they’ll claim that they never would have believed that it could happen. They will sometimes want the wife to know that they are not a bad person and that they never meant to hurt anyone. And I believe that many are sincere in this.

Some Want To Believe That The Wife Is Very Flawed: Of course, the above isn’t true of every one. There are some women who will try to vilify the wife. They will see her as the person who is getting in the way of their own happiness and you will hear them say things like: “I don’t get why that witch won’t let him go. He wants to be with me. He doesn’t want the marriage anymore. I don’t get why she tries to hang on to a man who wants to be with someone else.”

Many of these women have their beliefs because of what the husband has told them. Some husbands of course will claim that their wife doesn’t understand them or is cruel in some way, which helps every one to justify the affair. In these cases, the other woman has thoughts about the wife which directly reflect what she has been told.

Other times, she vilifies the wife simply because the wife has what she herself wants.

Sometimes She Is Careful To Mind Her Own Business Because She Is Married Also: Wives often assume that the other woman is determined to take her husband away so that she can marry him. This is sometimes true, but not always. Sometimes the other woman is married herself and has no intention of leaving her own husband. She may actually love her husband and assume that your husband loves you.  But she may have the theory that sometimes, marriages are complicated and you have to go outside of them to be fulfilled.  I don’t believe this to be true, obviously, but some people genuinely believe this.

I find that most of these women don’t think about the wife nearly as much as she assumes. Many of them are focused on their own relationship and their own lives. Sure, some of them do want the husband for themselves. And those in this category are more likely to think badly of the wife. But even those will often try to think about her as little as possible because it just makes her frustrated to remember that he is married.

I understand why you are wondering about this, but I am probably not telling you anything new when I say that her opinion of you doesn’t matter. She doesn’t know you. And the information that she has been given about you probably isn’t all that accurate. And, even if it was, her opinion of you is clouded by her own agenda. She will often slant the information for her own gain.  It’s easier for her to not think of you at all or if she does, to think that there’s a reason why your husband is having a relationship with her.

Most of the time, it makes it easier for every one if the people who are cheating try very hard not to think of the spouses involved at all. If they can chase this out of their mind, it makes it easier to feel less guilt and to worry less about the future of a relationship that has the odds greatly stacked against it and probably isn’t all that healthy.

I understand why you are curious.  But really, who cares what she thinks?  You know who you are.  And that is all that matters. If it helps, you can read more about my own journey with this on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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