My husband had an affair, but he’s mad and impatient with me because I can’t get over it.
I recently heard from a very upset and conflicted wife. She told me, in part, “My husband had an affair about eight months ago. I promised to put off the divorce because we have kids and I want to keep my family intact. But I’m having a really hard time getting over this and moving on. My husband hopes that I left him behind like nothing happened. I’m having a really hard time doing that, but if I tell him I’m struggling, my husband becomes very impatient and angry. He often asks me things like ‘how long are you going to hang on to this and punish me? ‘ I don’t want to go on like this, but it still hurts and I don’t think it’s fair for me to have to pretend that everything is okay. What can I do? I want to move on, but I can’t seem to. And his pressure just makes me angrier and angrier. “.
In my opinion, the wife was completely justified in her frustrations. It was the husband’s actions (and her affair) that set this whole unfortunate set of circumstances in motion. The wife had made a concession not to immediately divorce her husband and she was doing her best to move on. However, these things were apparently not enough for him.
This situation is not so uncommon. I hear similar situations all the time. Often the husband in this scenario is very uncomfortable with the consequences of his actions, so he hopes he can arm his wife so that she doesn’t bring up the subject or react further (since these reactions are uncomfortable). for him). understand is that this strategy is going to backfire big time. Many times, if the wife can make him understand that her behavior is going to do more harm than good, this will encourage him to back off a bit. I will discuss more about this matter in the next article.
Making the husband understand that healing and the wife’s ability to “get over it” cannot be rushed: Although the husband clearly does not understand or accept this, there is no set time frame as to how long it takes to “get over” or “move on” after being betrayed by an affair. How long this takes depends on many factors, including the circumstances and people involved, as well as the amount of help and support available to the wife as she begins to move forward.
Frankly, the husband would probably get a much better response if he showed his wife some support and understanding instead of putting pressure on her. He would probably feel like he was working with her instead of against her. I felt that the wife should try to make her husband understand this. I suggested that the next time the husband started to show anger or impatience, he should say something like, “I understand that you want to get through this faster than I can. Believe me when I say I wish we had my old life too. No i enjoy wrestling the way i am just like you i wish this had never happened but none of this was in my control i’m not trying to punish you i’m happy and i want to save our marriage but there are some issues we’re gonna need to resolve for these things to happen. too quickly, we could get a better outcome. Will you work with me instead of against me? Can we tackle this together instead of being on opposite sides? I want to move forward as fast as I can, but if I’m in a rush, we’ll keep checking back and wrestling with the same issues, which I doubt either of us would want.”
You may have to bring up this conversation a few times before it really starts to sink in. And, when her husband begins to get impatient again, she may need to gently remind him that this behavior actually slows her progress instead of speeding it up. Once she begins to realize that you demand limits and refuse to be rushed, she will often back down. A lot of times, he’s trying things out to see how much you’re going to let him push you. Sometimes it is only when you push him back that he will begin to realize that this strategy is not a good one.
Some things that may have prevented the wife from moving on: Although I felt that the wife was completely normal to continue struggling eight months after the affair, there were some suggestions I could give her to help her move on. There are some very common places where handcuffs seem to get stuck. They are often the following:
- worrying that your husband isn’t really sorry about the affair or may repeat the same behaviors;
- worrying that the affair was somehow your fault and that you won’t be able to have a faithful spouse;
- harboring resentment and anger that has no healthy outlet;
- being unable or unwilling to discuss the issues and vulnerabilities of both the individuals and the couple to determine why the affair happened and how you can prevent it from happening again; Y
- allowing his self-esteem and self-confidence to be so damaged by this betrayal that he continues to doubt himself and his marriage even when he has made a lot of progress.
These are just a few of the more common issues I see popping up. This is by no means an exhaustive list of topics, but I felt this was a good place for the wife to start. If any of these things were a problem for her, I suggested that if she could successfully address and fix them, she might have some relief and eventually move forward in a meaningful way. Obviously, she would need her husband’s help with many of these, but she hoped that once she addressed him directly instead of dancing around problems, all of these things would be possible.