The reaction of wives who find out about their husband’s affair is very mixed. Some jump into action immediately and want to know everything. They push for every detail even though these details can be very painful. But they feel they have to know the whole truth to heal cleanly.
Then there’s another camp that I’d almost rather not know everything about. Some set out to find out or prove the matter and then wished they had “left well enough.” I recently heard from a wife who said, in part, “I started to suspect something was up with my husband a couple of months ago. He was acting distant and cold and always had an excuse not to be home as much.” I checked his computer and his Facebook accounts and found what I feared: he’s been having an affair. Worse than that, I know the woman he’s been cheating on me with very well. Reading the interactions and little love notes between them is very painful. “Honestly, I wish I had never taken this path. Because now I don’t know how to deal with it and I can’t help but keep checking his computer every day. So now, every day, I face more pain. My friend says my feelings are ridiculous because I’m only burying my head in the sand when I should be furious. I’m angry, but I feel more hurt and indecisive than angry. Is it normal to wish that I never knew about it? And now that I know, what should I do? do now?
There are a variety of appropriate reactions to an affair. No one should judge yours: Believe it or not, this wife’s reaction is not that uncommon (although I often hear confusion about such a reaction). Many wives want to confront their husbands immediately when they find out about an affair and just can’t understand someone who has the opposite reaction.
The thing is, it’s not okay to judge another person’s reactions (at least in my opinion) and this wife’s friend was actually causing her a lot more pain than necessary. I see a variety of reactions to learning about an affair, and I find all of them valid and feel like it’s unfair for someone to be judged or criticized for their feelings during this painful time. Some wives have problems with confrontation or worry about their husband’s reaction when they confront him. This wife knew that her husband was going to get mad because she was looking at her computer (even though she had a very valid reason for doing so). And knowing about the matter now meant that she felt compelled to review the problem every day. , see what has been going on or what progress has been made with the matter, and be hurt again.
Still, once he gained this knowledge, there was no way he could go back in time and simply deny or forget what he had learned. The problem then became how she was going to proceed and move on.
What do you do when you wish you never found out about it? Unfortunately, this wife was unable to undo what she had already done. She couldn’t erase her memory and forget about the adventure. But, she could deliberately and carefully act in the present. Right now, she was more concerned with a confrontation and the pain she was feeling. Given all of her struggles, she didn’t necessarily have to reveal everything she had read or learned. She could approach her husband with her concerns, mention the changes she had noticed, and see if he would go ahead and tell her the truth about her affair. If she did, then she could avoid any confrontation over what she had already learned.
Of course, the husband could deny everything. And if that were the case, then she would have to make a decision about how she wanted to proceed and what she wanted to reveal. Because while the knowledge of an affair can be devastating and painful, denying the truth isn’t healthy either. Pretending you don’t know just to keep the peace or to limp along in your marriage often doesn’t save you from the pain because you have to live alone with the conflict of knowing what you know. There is that tension of trying to continue denying reality when this is almost impossible. The truth is that the conflict still exists, it’s just that it’s an internal conflict instead of an external conflict because you carry this knowledge on your own shoulders instead of sharing the load with the person who set this whole course of thought in motion. events. movement.
I understand wishing you could put the genie back in the bottle or go back to a time when you were blissfully ignorant, but I’m afraid that’s not possible. And, to really begin to heal and close the issue, you may have to face it head on. This does not necessarily have to be done in a confrontational way. No need to yell or yell. The wife could write a note and walk away from the situation, forcing the husband to react in such a way that she would show him where her loyalties really lay. There are many options that can remove at least some of the volatility.
But at the end of the day, an affair is a highly emotional and troubling reality that’s almost impossible to ignore or sweep under the rug. Your marriage is not likely to continue normally as you deal with this knowledge, and resentment and tension are likely to build up. So while I think it can be completely normal to wish you never found out about the affair, it’s much harder not to act on this knowledge. And eventually, something as serious as infidelity will have to be dealt with, but there are ways to make it less confrontational and painful.