Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Most people realize that it’s very normal to feel outright rage after you find out that your spouse has cheated and had an affair. But what some do not realize is that you can feel anger not only toward your spouse but also toward yourself. Even the wives who are feeling this may not fully understand why it happens.

A wife experiencing this phenomenon might say: “I must hate myself deep down or something. My husband cheated on me. We’d been doing just fine marriage-wise. Or so I thought. I was just cruising along in my life thinking that everything was perfectly fine. What a fool I was. While he was presenting to me that we had a nice life, he was deceiving me. He was betraying me. And I hate myself for my idiocy. I am a complete fool. And I was complacent. My anger is directed more at myself than it is at him. And when I tell this to my friends, they say that I am crazy. How do I explain this, even to myself?”

I know that how you feel may not make sense to others, but I completely understand it – although I believe you are NEVER at fault for someone else’s cheating in any way whatsoever. You are in no way at fault. 

However, I do understand the thought process, as anger at myself was one of the wide range of emotions that I too felt. Here is why I believe that we might be angry at ourselves – no matter how misplaced this may be. 

It’s Easier to Aim That Anger at the Easiest Target – You: Many of us aren’t quite ready to have a true heart-to-heart with our husbands until some time has passed. We need time to process. And we need time to see how he’s going to behave going forward. If it’s not to our satisfaction, then we can just wait and watch. 

Since we may not be engaging with him honestly from the jump – we also aren’t healing immediately. And so our anger festers. It percolates. Eventually, it has to go somewhere. And he’s not immediately available.

So where does it go? Ourselves. After all, we’re right there. We’re the person we know best. And frankly, we had higher standards and expectations for ourselves. How could we miss it? How could we be so dense? Are we so unlovable that we invited him to do this?

All these thoughts are absolutely ridiculous, by the way. You’re not at fault. You’re not to blame. But it’s so easy to play mind games on ourselves and to be our own worst enemies. 

Why You Didn’t See It: For me, a big part of my anger was that I was caught unaware. It made me feel very stupid and out of touch. I should have been more observant. I should have felt a shift. Did I not pay enough attention?

Here’s the thing. We don’t see it because we assume that our spouses will treat us like we treat them. We aren’t cheating. We wouldn’t even think of it – and so we assume the same of them. 

Dishonest people see dishonesty. People who betray see betrayal. Since we aren’t doling out that type of behavior, we don’t see it in others. Most loving, trusting people just aren’t looking for this type of behavior because living your life that way just wouldn’t be much fun. 

Don’t beat yourself up for this. It honestly means that you’re a good, trusting person, which sort of leads me to my next point. 

Try to Place Your Anger at the Action and the Situation, Not at the People: I remember once when my husband and I were going around in circles after his affair. We were raising our voices because we were both very frustrated. My husband asked me if I hated him as much as I appeared to. I surprised myself by blurting out that I didn’t hate my husband – I just hated what he did.

After I paused and thought about that for a second, I realized that it was true. I couldn’t hate my husband. Until that time, he had been a wonderful partner to me. He’d been there for me during my darkest times. He’d been my rock for most of my adult life. So no, I most certainly couldn’t hate him.  

But I most certainly hated the mess that were in. And I hated that he had put us there. I loathed what he did.

However, realizing that I didn’t hate him allowed a shift. It returned respect to our interactions, and it helped soothe some of the drama. I’d love to say that everything was rosy from that point, but it wasn’t. Still, it was the start of a long trajectory toward improvement – and eventual healing. After some time had passed, we learned to work together instead of tearing one another down. 

It’s easy to understand why you are angry. You have every right to be angry and to express that anger, but please don’t turn that on yourself. You don’t deserve any more pain. You deserve self-love and self-care right now, not self-hate.  

You did absolutely nothing wrong, and you likely couldn’t have prevented it and would have only seen it coming if you’d lived your life being suspicious and distrustful. 

I know that you are in pain, but don’t turn that inward. Instead, give yourself what you need to heal – and don’t be shy about asking the same from your spouse. Even if you don’t want to remain married, you can still get what you need to heal. I chose to remain married, but I would have prioritized healing regardless. It would not have been fair for my life to be compromised when I did nothing to deserve it.

You can read more at https://surviving-the-affair.com

 

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