Sometimes I hear of couples who are having a hard time putting the affair behind them forever. Often the cheating spouse is more than happy to move on, while the faithful spouse can’t seem to put the past where it belongs. I heard a wife say, “A couple of years ago, I made the biggest mistake imaginable. I cheated on my husband with my boss. I took responsibility and fully admit that it’s my fault. We’re gone.” through much counseling and we managed to save our marriage, even though that very marriage is far from perfect. I love my husband. I want our marriage to work. I can even accept a little bit of anger and resentment from him because to “Be honest, I absolutely deserve it. But, him always yelling at me in the face is getting so old. He takes on all the details that he knows I’m not proud of.” And he brings them up every time he gets mad at me.” For example, if there is some tension between us and I try to show affection to my husband to make things better, he will reject me and bring it up. You might make a comment like ‘there’s no reason for us to argue. I love you and I am on your side. He’ll respond with something like “well you weren’t on my side when you were sleeping with your boss in the penthouse at the local hotel.” There is nothing I can say to answer this. I never stopped siding with him, but he’ll never believe it. But he’ll never miss an opportunity to remind me that I’ll always be trying to make it up to him but I can’t. a. I love my husband and I want to stay married to him. But I’m not sure if I want to spend the rest of my life constantly reminding myself of my flaws. What I can do?
Believe it or not, I could identify with this wife. Although I was the faithful husband, I do remember the downcast look on my husband’s face when he used to snap at him after the event was already over. And, most of the time, the cheating spouse can understand why this is happening. After all, infidelity is probably the worst betrayal many of us can imagine. In a perfect world, we imagine that our spouse has only desire and affection for us. And when we have to face that what we counted on is not the truth, well, that is a very harsh reality. And even after you’ve tried to move on, sometimes the anger is still there because the pain is still there. So sometimes those little hurtful comments aren’t intentional. They just come out of our mouths before we can censor them. Of course, this does not make it correct. And neither of you should have to keep reliving the adventure for years after it’s over. So now, I’m going to offer some tips on how to handle this.
Bring comments to your spouse’s attention: Often the cheating spouse gets into the habit of staying silent because they know they deserve some of the feedback. So even though what his spouse says hurts them deeply, they will just sigh and accept it. The thing is, your spouse may not realize how much of this is going on. That is why he should draw your attention to this in the kindest way possible. You don’t want to sound defensive. You don’t want them to believe that you felt justified in cheating. He just wants them to realize that they continue to attack. And, if he handles this correctly, he may be able to improve his situation.
A suggested script might go something like, “Honey, that really hurts. I know I’ve deserved that comment in the past. But, for the past two years, I’ve done everything in my power to make this right.” Our marriage can’t heal forever if we keep hurting each other over something that happened a long time ago. Is there anything you’re still angry about that I can help you with? Because I just can’t help noticing. that this is happening quite a lot. Can you share with me if there is an issue that I haven’t addressed yet? I’d be happy to give you any guarantees you might need, but we can’t go on like this. I take full responsibility for my actions, but it hurts both of us and our marriage when the anger keeps coming. What can we do to get through this because it’s so discouraging for me to have to relive something you really want to put behind you?”
Do you see how you were trying to approach this in a spirit of cooperation and understanding? The last thing you want to do is get angry or imply that you won’t put up with this. Because, frankly, your spouse is reacting out of insecurity. If your words make them more insecure, then the problem will get worse instead of better.