There’s no question that discussing cheating is an emotionally charged conversation, here's what to expect.
Part 3 of 3
There’s nothing more painful than finding out your spouse has cheated on you. The betrayal and hurt can feel unbearable and seem impossible to overcome. And trying to figure out what’s next if you caught your wife cheating can make your head spin. Do you confront her, confront him, leave, ask for a divorce? The list goes on.
Trying to determine the best next steps if your wife is caught cheating isn’t easy by any stretch and shouldn’t be a decision made in haste. So, before you make the wrong move, continue reading.
So what should you do when your wife is caught cheating? Read the story of Sharon and Robert. Marriage therapist Gail Saltz tells the story of this wife caught cheating in the article, Could You Be Having an Emotional Affair?, published in The Oprah Magazine.
Find out how innocently the affair started when Sharon started working with Todd in part one of this series, A Cheating Spouse - How an Emotional Affair Starts. Then find out some signs of a cheating wife in part two, Cheating Spouse Exposed - Warning Signs of an Emotional Affair.
Now here's what to do when your wife is caught cheating:
Increasingly, I find people are already enmeshed in an affair of the heart by the time they contact me, and they are terribly torn. They have a very hurt spouse but can't bear to lose their "friend." Marital implosion is close at hand. My approach seems like tough love, but I'm convinced it saves a lot of grief. The first and most important task, from which all the other things these clients must do will follow, is to take responsibility for the affair - same as if they'd had a sexual liaison. Denying it or blaming their partner's inattentiveness prevents the couple from reengaging. The only cases where it might not be best to fess up are the rare ones where the partner has no suspicions: Revealing hidden feelings just to absolve guilt is not a great idea.
Second, the affair must end. Yes, it hurts. And no, it's not possible to disengage partway and still be pals. Things get trickier if the infidelity began in the workplace, but all future interaction must be purely professional and kept to an absolute minimum.
Third, I try to help clients unearth the reasons they got over involved. Was their marriage failing? Did they need to build their self-esteem? Were they repeating the pattern of a parent who cheated? To prevent an encore, they must be brutally honest with themselves.
Finally, they have to build back the trust, which is the biggest obstacle to saving the marriage. I'm constantly telling people that it requires a lot of time, openness, and accountability (for example, being clear about whereabouts and coming home right after work).
What I find to be remarkably consistent is that most people don't appreciate the relationship they do have until they're about to lose it. This is what happened with Sharon. When Robert found her e-mails to Todd ("I miss you so much…I can't wait to see you," along with complaints about her home life), he was shattered and wanted a divorce. As soon as Sharon realized her husband might leave her, Todd didn't seem quite as thrilling. But saying goodbye to him, which she ultimately decided to do, was wrenching, and Robert isn't sure whether he can forgive her. The three of us are still working on understanding why the affair happened and whether they can agree to rebuild their relationship.
It's much more difficult to make your way back from a betrayal of intimate feelings than to try to refresh a marriage that may have become flat and distant. When you ignore anxiety-inducing thoughts like "I feel stuck - I wish I could run off and have fun or I feel old and dumpy - if only someone would make me feel young and sexy again," you cannot examine or deal with them in a productive manner. Instead, you unwittingly act them out, with potentially devastating results. Any good relationship takes an investment of time, effort, and emotional energy. What few people want to accept is that we can all become Sharon and Robert, and that marriage, while potentially tremendously gratifying, is always a work in progress.
The short answer is, yes. Many relationships survive cheating, but it takes a lot of work to rebuild the trust that’s been destroyed. And it takes a commitment from the both of you to do so. Yet it can be done.
The big mistake many couples make when they’re trying to make things work again is feeling like they need to try to get back to normal and “get past” the problem as quickly as possible. Cheating leaves scars and they won’t go away by just ignoring them. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen and just put on a happy face, you have to work out the issues that got you here and the fallout that results from the infidelity. It’s not an overnight process and trying to force things to be “normal” will result in resentment, anger, and larger problems down the road.
Dealing with a wife caught cheating is very difficult and complicated. Don’t make the mistake of responding without the expert guidance of a marriage counselor. Also, be careful that your emotions don’t cause you to react in a way that just makes things worse. It’s understandable to feel hurt and angry when you have a cheating wife, but allowing those emotions to affect how you respond is a big, big mistake.
Read how it all started in Part 1: A Cheating Spouse - How an Emotional Affair Starts; what the signs of a wife cheating look like in Part 2: Cheating Spouse Exposed - Warning Signs of an Emotional Affair.
* This is the third of three posts examining a wife caught cheating. Sign-up for our Blog at the bottom of this page and be sure not to miss the other posts about an affair and a cheating spouse (you can get notified by email when the next article is published).
Editor’s note: This post was originally published July 11, 2010 and has been updated with new information for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
There’s no question that discussing cheating is an emotionally charged conversation, here's what to expect.
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For the last 5 years my wife has been talking to another man in another state. She would always tell me he's just a friend, but she would speak to him after hours. Yes, I look really dude for allowing this to go on for 5 years, but I really trusted her because I thought she didn't have it in her since she is a really genuine person. She would travel a lot and I would get some BS response on where she was going. Since her family lived in another state, I bought off on that too. "Man do I feel dumb typing this because I had all the warning signs!" So last week, she came home from a bachelorette party and was a little typsy. She came home and talked to me at 3 am and I kind of brushed her off since I had to work the next morning. She fell asleep on the couch. I came to check up on her and saw the Facebook phone call on and this guy's face on it. Looks like she fell asleep talking to him and never hung up. I then dug into the phone and found hidden app that had hidden pictures. She ended up seeing this guy each month for the past 5 years. Sometimes making a day trip and coming home before I even came home from work. I seemed to have funded all of this too since she is a teacher and relies on my income. I asked her every question I can think of including ones that I knew the answers to from the pictures I saw. Every answer was a complete lie and denial. I learned that women have an easy way of lying and they are very confident. So you tend to believe them. I couldn't believe her this time since I had proof. Every day this week, I asked her questions and she would lie, but I would eventually get the facts from her. Finally, this morning, I comfronted the big one about having sex with him. Once again denial. I had no proof she did, but I was fishing and using every approach I could. Finally, when I was extremely calm and spoke in a genuine voice, I asked her again, but I added that I was going to take her to a lie detector test. That one seemed to do the trick. She was sleeping with him for over a year. If I can provide any advice, get hard facts and approach calmly. When aggressive and mad, they shut down and don't tell the truth.
Let me start out by saying I love my wife more than one could ever know, we have been married for 37 years and been together for 40, since she was 15. We had a great marriage, always got along with her family and her with mine. As most couples we have had bedroom talk about others, guys and women to spice things up. Always exciting and fun, even to the point where we considered another to join us, but never acted on it. This past May I found revealing text messages on her phone and when I regained my composure and calmed down I confronted her, she admitted everything and told me it was a mistake. Well a mistake in my eyes is if you do something once and learn from it and don't do it again, this very sexual affair went on for 2 yrs. I am having a very hard time getting over it, she has had no contact with him since and I had a face to face conversation with him explaining to him how lucky he is to still be standing, he is also married and to this point I have not told anyone but feel his wife should know of their actions but don't want a good women hurt as badly as I am. What are you thoughts to our problem and do you think I will ever get over the sick feeling I have in my stomach. She has been a wonderful wife to this point and is a very caring person, I do hate to loose her but I need to feel good about her at the same time. Thank you in advance for the advice.
Shane, I have seen many couples recover from an affair. I never give up hope. It takes a lot of work from both partners and usually the help of a professional because it can be such a tough road to navigate. Read the other articles in this section, including "Is Confronting the Other Woman Good or Bad?" - the information in it applies to your situation, too. -Kurt
Hey Kurt, thanks for getting back to me so quickly, I read the articles but don't see anything really that apply to my issue. They all seem to be in regards to a man cheating and his wife confronting the one he cheated with. I would like to know what your thoughts are in the other guys wife being informed about what her husband and my wife has been up to. I really don't care about their marriage but do feel bad about hurting her as much as I would love to see his balls hanging from the highest tree in his yard. I have no intention in making this a public spectacle but think she should know what a dirt bag he is as my wife was. I have very good reason to believe he has not stopped his cheating ways as he has access to peoples homes where the women is home alone, he is a smooth worker, his job allows him to gain access while no one would expect him to be screwing the lady of the house
Shane, The same principles that apply to confronting the other woman would apply to confronting "his spouse". Your issues are with your wife, not him or his wife. -Kurt
Thank You Kurt,
That was exactly what I was wondering, I was torn between the true issue here and what my gut was telling me. I was feeling like less of a man knowing that they/he got away with something with no consequences. I thank you for you words of wisdom as you have truly helped with our situation, 37 years is just to long to throw away when there is a fighting chance things can someday be normal again. The love for her has always been there but the hurt was never and that is what is in repair mode now. The saying is Time Heals All Wounds, I hope that is true, Thanks Again
I feel your pain I'm going through it after 23 years and its a kick in the ---- but I would like to chat and see what's best sorry for your loss and pain
ERN, nice to hear from someone going through the same type of problem as I. Would love to chat more on a one on one basis but not sure how to go about that and follow the rules of this BLOG any ideas please let me know
My wife of almost 11 years and together almost 20 is having an affair. I know it but she does not know I'm aware of it. Our relationship was never great but we got on most of the time. I can and have been a bit of a pain in the past and our sex life was never that great. I enjoyed it but I don't think she ever did. We have 2 kids under 10. For the last 2 years we have drifted apart and I have thought about getting a prostitute or having a one night stand. We no longer share a bed. She is never home. Always out and about. Her mood and her look has changed. I've heard rumours about her infidelity and I've confronted her but she denies it all. I want her out of my home and I'm afraid she can take half everything if I do this. Am I better to just live as we are in a toxic house as I don't want to give her a nickel. I don't love her and to be honest I never did
Peter, Only you can truly answer that question as you're the one who has to live with your choice. Sadly, the choice is almost always picking the lesser of two negatives. -Dr. Kurt
I don't know what to do my wife of 5years has been very ill the past 3 years spending most of her time in the hospital over 100 miles away. She began getting very moody and would not talk to me and wanting to go out and never ask if I wanted to join. I looked at her phone that she has been trying to keep secret from me and found out she had an affair I confronted her and she said they only had sex once but when I want sex she is in to much pain or sick for anything. She was out and about when I found out and I called and told her to get home now as it was important. When we finally did talk about it we both blew up and I left for a few hours to clear my head. I am the bread winner in the family as she has not worked the better part of three years and the medical bills keep piling up. She had the affair in our bed while I was at work I really do not know what to do anymore. Do I just end it and end up with all the debt and everything that comes with it?
Aaron, That's a big, big decision. To help you make a smart decision I'd find a professional counselor to talk to who you could give more background info so they could best advise you. -Dr. Kurt