Why don’t cheaters think about the people they’re going to hurt when they go on an adventure?
I often hear from wives who just don’t understand how their husband can be so insensitive as to leave her and their children to pursue the other woman on an affair. She often tries to ask her husband open-ended questions in an attempt to understand how he could possibly do something like this. But no matter how he answers and no matter how hard she tries to understand, she just can’t.
You may hear a comment like, “I am so disappointed in my husband. We have been married for eight years. We have two children under the age of five. Seven months ago, my husband started an affair with a co-worker. When I found out about it, not only did he promise to end the affair, but he quit his job so I wouldn’t have to worry. I was so relieved. But it didn’t last long. A couple of months later, my husband started acting weird all the time. He finally admitted that he had started the affair again. This time, when I asked him to end it, he refused. A couple of weeks after that, he said he was leaving me because he was in love with her. He told me he was sincerely sorry and that he hated himself for doing this, but he explained to me that he just couldn’t walk away from her. What happens to him and all the other men who leave their children for another woman? It’s such a selfish thing to do.”
I agree that this is an unthinkable action. He disappoints his family in many ways. And I think wives have a hard time understanding this because it’s something we wouldn’t do. Even when we are unhappy in our marriage, we will often put up with it for the sake of our children. When our husbands don’t do the same, this is so disappointing.
I have a few theories as to why a man might leave his family when he’s in the middle of an affair. I will explain some of them below, but I would like to emphasize that I am in no way making excuses. For my own situation, I don’t think there is any valid excuse.
Men often don’t think rationally when having an affair: You know the phrase “I wasn’t in my right mind”? Well, I think this is applicable during an adventure. To betray your spouse and yourself, you will often have to act outside of your normal, rational self. Because if you were not able to do this, it would be very difficult to carry out your trap. In a sense, you have to turn off your regular rational thinking and your regular emotions. And this is one way they can let go of those who are most important to them. They just aren’t having their normal thought processes. This doesn’t excuse their behavior, but it may offer insight into why they aren’t acting like they normally would.
They know that they cannot look their family in the eye every day and continue doing what they are doing: Cheating husbands often live with a high degree of guilt. Every time they have to go home and see the faces of their children, every time they have to look into the trusting eyes of their spouse, they feel pain and guilt. Many cheaters will explain how hard and difficult it is to live this kind of double life. Then it becomes clear that he can no longer live this way. For whatever reason, he isn’t ready or willing to end the matter, so he will cowardly go the route and get away from his family so he doesn’t have to feel guilty every time he has to look at them.
Of course, neither of these things is a valid excuse. And even if she comes home and begs for forgiveness, it can be extremely difficult for the wife to look at him the same way again. I am not saying that healing is impossible because it is not. But the husband will probably have a lot of work to do over a long period of time if he wants to win her family back. It is very important that he shows his wife that he fully understands how deplorable her actions were. It’s even more important that he has a plan to make sure this never happens again.
And, some men never realize their mistake. Some do not return to their families, which is even sadder. Some really want to try to return to their families, but fear rejection. But many husbands realize their mistake and then desperately try to reason and negotiate with their wives. At that point, the wife has to choose whether she believes her marriage is worth saving or whether she believes her husband can be rehabilitated. This is a decision that only she can make. But she will often consider her willingness to go to be responsible for her actions and put safeguards in place so this doesn’t happen again.