Who Usually Ends The Affair?
By: Katie Lersch: When wives find out that their husband is having an affair, the first question they usually have is how they can make it end. This is true even if they don’t want their marriages any more. Many will try to force their husband to end it immediately, but not all husbands will agree. Many will drag their feet, or tell their wives they need time, or just refuse to talk much about it.
Naturally, these wives wonder how they can make him do what is right. To that end, they often wonder how these things usually play out. So, a wife might ask: “who is the most likely person to end an affair? I am trying to get my husband to break it off immediately. Although he keeps telling me that he wants our marriage eventually, he keeps muttering that he just needs ‘a little longer’ to make a clean break. Which person ends the affair most of the time? Is it the other woman? Or the husband? Because if it’s the other woman who most often ends it, perhaps I should take my case to her?”
It Could Be The Person With The Most To Lose: Frankly, either party can end it. I’ve seen both happen. I don’t have any scientific evidence to back up what I am about to say. It is just based on my own observations, which are no means scientifically or statistically sound. But in my observation, the person who is most likely to break it off is the one who has the most to lose.
And most often, that is the husband. He typically has a family of at least a wife – and often, children. He is usually the one who is going to be the most hurt financially if a divorce should come out of this affair. He is the one who may not see his children as often as he likes.
Now, this assumes that the other woman is single (which is not always the case.) Sometimes, you have a situation where both cheating people are married with families. In that case, they both have tons to lose. And when you have a case like this, it is typically the one who is “caught” or “found out” who will break it off. But again, that’s just my observation. It can always go either way.
It Could Be The Person With The Strongest Conscience: Another thing that I notice is that the person who has the strongest conscience and who feels the most guilty is sometimes the one who will break it off. Although that person may be getting some pay off from the affair, eventually the pain they feel from their conscience outweighs the pay off of the affair. You’ll often see this person confess because they just couldn’t take the guilt of leading a double life anymore.
That’s not to say that a woman who is cheating with a married man and who has no family of her own won’t or can’t break it off. She sometimes does. There are times when the guilt gets to her or when she looks around and realizes that this guy is never going to leave his wife for her and she is just wasting her time. She might decide that she isn’t getting any younger and if she is going to invest that kind of time in a relationship, she wants it to be a relationship that is going to lead to a family of her own.
Why Appealing To The Other Woman Usually Isn’t Desirable: By saying the above, that doesn’t mean that I am encouraging you to approach the other woman in an attempt to urge her to end it. I understand the thought process, but I hardly EVER see it going well. It almost always backfires and causes every one pain. It often makes things worse. And it makes you think about the other woman more, since you now have a nice mental picture of her. Plus, you have a memory that you can ruminate over again and again that will be very hard to erase.
In my mind, there is no need to create that. When you let the other woman further into your life, this just gives you one more thing to overcome. I believe that it is better for all involved if you approach your husband about ending it. You can not force this on him, of course. But you can tell him how you feel and what his refusal to act now means.
Here’s a suggestion. You might say: “I hear you saying that you need time, but I am not sure that there will ever be a perfect time. And the longer you drag this out, the harder it is for every one. I can’t force you to break it off, but I can tell you that until you do, our marriage is on shaky ground. I can’t be intimate with you. I can’t trust you. I can’t participate in our regular marital activities because there are three people in our marriage instead of the two that there should be. It’s your decision, of course. But I urge you to make the right one for every one’s sake. It’s not fair for anyone to continue to drag it out with no resolution. I am willing to work with you, but not until I know that we are once again a marriage of only two so that we can start recovery.”
Hopefully, this will be the push that he needs. Men often panic when the affair is first found out and they are almost paralyzed to act initially. They know that both women are going to be mad at them in the end. They know that they are going to cause a lot of pain. And so their first inclination is to just delay. They think that delaying will also delay the pain, but this is very rarely the case.
I know that you want to go to whatever source is going to end the affair in the fastest manner possible. But I firmly believe that you should keep the other woman out of your life. Recovery is tough enough without that additional aggravation. You can read more about my recovery at http://surviving-the-affair.com
Filed under: Uncategorized by admin
