What If My Husband Was Happier With The Other Woman Than He Is With Me?
By: Katie Lersch: Many wives doubt how their husbands really feel about them after an affair. They often doubt that their husbands really want to be with them or that they were really their husband’s first choice.
Such with the case with a wife who said: “After his affair, my husband took some time and decided that he wanted to commit to me and our children. He has kept up that end of the bargain. He is trying his best to work with me to save the marriage. But, deep in my heart I believe that he thinks he was happier with the woman he cheated on me with. Sometimes, he gets a far away look in his eye that is sort of like longing. When he gets like this, I think that maybe he’s feeling nostalgic for or missing her. He doesn’t know this, but I saw some photos of his phone of him and her before he deleted them. They actually looked quite happy together and, frankly, he doesn’t seem all that happy right now. I just can’t get over the idea that he was much happier with her and, although he’s committed to me, he doesn’t really believe we’ll ever be happy. Is there any way for me to move past this?”
It Sometimes Takes A While Until A Husband Can Truly Understand And Process His Feelings For The Other Woman: This is going to sound awful, but I truly believe that men sometimes grieve the loss of the affair even when they are totally committed to and still love their wives.
Usually, an affair ends quite abruptly without a lot of closure or time to say the things that need to be said. And this sort of quick end can leave a husband wondering. This doesn’t mean that this woman was the great love of his life or that he will spend the rest of his life longing for her.
But it can mean that he hasn’t yet had time to process this or reflect on it. There is every reason to believe that once he does, he will understand his feelings a little better and they will therefore start to wane. It’s often when a man has some distance that he begins to realize that nothing about the affair (much less the feelings he had wrapped up in it) were real.
Sure, he may not realize this now, but it’s likely that he will. And frankly, if you bring this up all of the time or dwell on it, you are only continuing to bring attention to her which runs the risk that this will cause him to continue to think of her as something forbidden and therefore worthwhile.
It’s Not Advisable To Draw A Lot Of Attention To His Feeling About The Other Woman (Or Compare Them To His Feelings For You – Especially In The Beginning:) I know that it might be tempting to grill your husband about exactly how he still feels about (or how often he thinks about or longs for) the other woman. But again, this just draws attention to things and might give the feelings strength.
Quite frankly, right now, your focus should be on the two of you and on your marriage. I know it’s easy to believe that your marriage hinges on how he feels about her, but if you leave it alone and focus on strengthening your bond with him, these feelings will often fade once he has some perspective.
It’s Not In Your Best Interests To Make Assumptions About His Feelings and Perceptions About (And Happiness With) The Other Woman: Here’s one one point that I would like to make. It’s just not advisable to make assumptions. Both of you likely have feelings and perceptions that change by the day. It’s doing you a disservice to make assumptions that, not only might not be true, but might also affect your ability to move on and to try to save this marriage in a healthy way.
Your best bet is to take it day by day focusing on those things which you directly control. You can control your actions. You can control how you react to his behaviors and to your own perceptions. You can control how you conduct yourself. And you can control how much concentrated effort you put into yourself and in your marriage right now.
Honestly, the less time you think about her, the better off you will be in my experience. As difficult as it might be, the best course of action is to place your attention and your focus on your husband and yourself, especially if your goal is to save your marriage.
If you do these things and do the work necessary to repair your marriage, there’s a pretty decent chance that at least some recovery might take place. By worrying about his happiness with someone else, you potentially compromise his happiness with you.
I promise that recovery is sometimes possible no matter what he thinks he feels in the beginning. If I did it, anyone can. You can read about our recovery at https://surviving-the-affair.com/
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