You’d like to pretend the affair never happened, but I don’t think you can.

Sometimes I hear from wives whose husband would like nothing more than to erase his infidelity from his mind and never speak of it again. Of course, this is sometimes almost impossible for the wife, but the husband often cannot or does not want to understand this.

I heard it from a wife who said, “Early in our marriage, I caught my husband chatting with other women online. It was right after I had our first child. And even though I was repulsed and so angry, I could almost see his motivation. because I didn’t have time for him in a sexual way and he didn’t physically relate to these people. Now, it’s been seven years. I can’t fault him as a husband. He’s a good man. And he’s a wonderful father. But the Last month, he went to his high school reunion and when he was unpacking his bags, there was a pair of panties with his clothes in. I was beside myself and I immediately confronted him. Immediately, he admitted that he had gotten drunk and had an affair with an old man. classmate. We live on the other side of the country from her hometown, so it’s not like I’m seeing this woman again. Even though I know it intellectually, my heart tells me that my husband cheated on me and the little voice in the part of The back of my head tells me that we have to go to counseling and work hard on our marriage or we’ll never make it. But when I tell this to my husband, he says I’m overreacting. He says that he would never cheat on her again and he only did it because he was drunk. I reminded him of the online chat and told him that it was completely different. He wants to forget the whole thing. But I just can’t. I’m wrong?”

Why forgetting about cheats is often not only not advisable, but almost impossible:

I certainly didn’t think this woman was wrong in any way. Although her description made it sound like this man was an otherwise good husband (and probably fully capable of being rehabilitated), he had exhibited a pattern of risk-taking behavior and poor impulse control. Of course, I’m certainly not an expert and some may disagree with me. But I understood where this wife came from. She was asking him to just forget about something that was troubling her deeply. And I can tell you from experience that it’s going to be very difficult for her to trust him again until they have resolved all her problems and restored her trust.

Because no matter how much you love a man, or know that he is a good and honorable person, once that man has cheated on you, you are always full of very painful and troublesome doubts until you can heal. You always wonder when he’ll cheat again and you’re always suspicious.

As a result, he becomes increasingly impatient with you, and on top of the infidelity, you have all kinds of additional conflicts in your marriage. I understand why husbands want to forget about cheating. It’s hard for them to know that their mistake has hurt you in this way. And many of them promise themselves that they will never cheat again and fully believe it.

But they don’t realize that when they find themselves in another tempting situation, they may again struggle with that poor impulse control (and potentially cheat) until they learn to deal with it effectively. Many times they do not understand that needing help does not imply weakness or make them bad people. It just means that they love their wife and value their marriage enough to do this for you.

How to handle it if it is urging you to forget:

I think you need to make it very clear to him that no matter what he does or says, you are not capable of forgetting him even if you wanted to. You could say something like, “I’m not denying that cheating isn’t out of place in a man who has proven to be a loving father and stable husband. What I’m saying, though, is that cheating has hurt me so much.” that I am not able to forget or to pretend that it did not happen. I’m willing to try to get through that, but we’re going to need help to get it done. I know that you feel that this was a unique thing that you will never repeat. You may even be right about that. But I need this peace of mind. I need you to do this even if you disagree with me because you love me enough to take responsibility and be responsible enough to walk with me. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, but you did. And now we both have to pick up the pieces. Will you work with me to do that?

Note that in the speech above, you didn’t go out of your way to make him feel like a bad person, but you were very clear on what he needed and that you weren’t willing to settle for less. Hopefully this will make him realize that if he loves you, he will rise to the occasion and do whatever you need him to do to restore the trust he needs to get back.