Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: One of the biggest concerns that many faithful wives dealing with an affair have is that of remorse and guilt. They WANT their husband to feel shame, guilt, and remorse. Because they figure if he experiences these painful emotions, he will think twice about cheating again.

Unfortunately, many of these wives don’t get the desired remorse. And many aren’t sure how to inspire it. 

The thought process goes something like this: “My husband’s response to being caught cheating is maddening. If I were in his shoes, I would fall at his feet, admit that I am a weak human being who doesn’t deserve this marriage, and apologize profusely. But my husband hasn’t done any of these things. He told me he would end the affair, and then acted like I should just keep on keeping on. When I ask questions, he says that he will answer whatever I want to know once I calm down some. Fair enough, I guess. But I see no signs whatsoever of guilt. If it were me, I would feel so guilty I couldn’t make eye contact with him. I would feel awful if I betrayed his trust in that way. I’d feel terrible for bringing someone else in our bedroom. And yet, he seems to have no such reaction. I find myself trying to make him ashamed and embarrassed. I am not proud of this. But I don’t know what else to do because I’m absolutely going to need to see that guilt. Will shaming my husband get me some remorse?”

Actually, in my experience, it might get you a short-term reaction, but it’s more likely to do some long-term harm. I’ll explain. 

The 411 on Shaming: When you try to shame your husband to feel guilty about his affair, you might try to humiliate him or make derogatory comments at his expense. And frankly, many people would feel that you are justified in this. I mean, you may think that you need to do whatever is necessary to get the desired result if he gives you no other choice.

But here’s the problem with that. If you go a bit overboard with the shaming, he will feel degraded and will eventually get defensive and less motivated to want to please you because now he is retreating. 

He may also feel very resentful at the shaming – which will deteriorate your relationship even more.  

Understanding Genuine Guilt: What you want is for your husband to feel genuine guilt that wasn’t coerced. And this is only going to come when he realizes that he has violated his own moral code. He’ll need to understand that he knew his behavior was wrong but chose to do it anyway – disappointing himself and you. He needs to understand the deep consequences of his actions, and the fact that he cannot undo what he has done. 

Genuine guilt comes from self-reflection, which is vitally important because when a person feels genuine guilt, this can actually be a spark for growth and repair. This is very different from shaming guilt – which is reluctant and resentful.

The Harm You Can Bring About With Shaming: The danger of shaming your husband is that you will get the exact opposite consequences than you were seeking. 

 Instead of a remorseful husband, you may get one who is resentful of your shaming and who, as a result, now feels justified in his actions and is, therefore, more – not less – likely to cheat again. 

He may be indignant and avoidant in trying to diffuse your attempt at negative emotions. Of course, this would further deteriorate your marriage and make him feel less motivated to make this up to you. 

Finally, if you make your husband feel worthless (and as if he can do nothing right,) he may retreat. And when he retreats, you’ll just have a shadow of a real marriage. Instead of him being invested like you want, he’ll only be there in body but not in mind or heart. 

And now he’s doing nothing to examine what might have led to the affair and which of his behaviors left him vulnerable.

What to Try Instead: I know that this is asking a lot, but the better play is to try to have somewhat positive interactions and open communication. Yes, you want him to feel remorse, but you don’t want him to feel like he’s the worst person in the world who will never get your forgiveness.  

Instead, you need him to WANT to make it up to you and to make you proud to be his wife again. You want to motivate him to be the husband that you deserve. And he’s not going to do that if he feels like he can never win.

Ask him to be honest about what happened, and try very hard not to create an atmosphere where he can’t speak freely. (If this is impossible on your own, counseling or self-help can be useful.) 

At the end of the day, he needs to feel empathy and closeness with you to feel guilt and remorse. He isn’t likely to do that if you are disparaging him at every turn – even if you have a good reason to do so.  

I hope this has helped. I completely understand your inclination to shame him. I felt it too. But when I tried it, the result was a huge backfire for the reasons I just laid out. I regretted it and then had to backtrack. 

Keep the end goal in mind. You want him to genuinely feel that you deserved better – and then for him to strive to give you what you need. He’s only going to get there with genuine remorse. And genuine remorse doesn’t happen with shaming. 

I eventually got the remorse I wanted to see from my husband, but it took much groundwork first.  You can read more at https://surviving-the-affair.com

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