I often hear from people who are both disappointed and confused about why their spouse hasn’t expressed grief, regret, or an apology for being unfaithful or having an affair. Because it’s not that they don’t deserve it. Cheating is one of the worst things you can do to someone you love. And this kind of betrayal often requires a great deal of lying and deceit, which is also an offense deserving of an elaborate apology. But when this doesn’t happen, it can cause quite a bit of frustration and confusion.
You may hear a comment like, “My husband had an affair with a childhood friend of mine who moved back home after she divorced her husband. Strangely, my husband has never really liked this woman, but Apparently, at some point he changed his mind.” Our marriage hit a rough patch because I am having some medical issues that have prevented me from being as intimate with my husband as I would like. None of us were happy about this, but I honestly thought I would find a resolution and we could pick up where we left off. Imagine my surprise when this other woman invited me to lunch and announced that she had entered into a serious relationship with my husband. When I confronted my husband, he didn’t “deny it. He reluctantly agreed to end the affair, but he doesn’t seem very motivated to make this right. He hasn’t apologized for this, not even once. He hasn’t offered any kind of of explanation. I can’t believe it, honestly, we have seen friends go through infidelities and my husband was always very critical of those who were unfaithful. Obviously he was extremely wrong to go behind my back, lie to me and continue with someone who I consider a friend. But you haven’t uttered a simple ‘sorry’ about this as much. Why not?”
There are many reasons why a husband may not immediately apologize for his affair. In the next article, I’ll offer some potential reasons why you might not get an apology and how you might successfully handle this.
Feels justified in his actions (or wants you to think he is) Many people will put up a defense mechanism in this situation. They don’t want to continue feeling guilty or bad about themselves (although this is often unavoidable). And they think that if they let you see how guilty or bad they already feel, you’re only going to make them feel worse. . So they think that the best thing for them is to try to suppress these negative feelings. They may even try to tell themselves that their cheating was justified because you weren’t meeting their needs or because the marriage was falling short in some way.
You may not be able to convince him to immediately show his remorse (especially at first), but you can often stress that you don’t buy this excuse. You can directly say something like, “I realize you have yet to express any remorse, regret, or apology. I have no way of knowing why this is your position. But I know that regardless of your justification,” we have both agreed on the past that there is no valid excuse for cheating. I still believe that and I still stand by it. There really isn’t anything you can say that is going to convince me that this action was in any way justified. I hope you see this and eventually show some remorse or an apology because I’m not going to change my mind about this.”
He may be trying to lower your expectations: It seems to me that many people will take a position of sorts in the days and weeks after the discovery of the matter. He’s not sure how you’re going to react. You are not sure how long this will change your life. Very often, you will go to great lengths to deny the impact of this. One way you could try to do this is to try to make sure you don’t expect too much.
By not apologizing, he may be trying to let you know that you shouldn’t expect a long, drawn-out healing period where you expect him to be profusely apologetic and begging you to forgive him. Sometimes the best way to avoid this is to let him know that you’re not trying to punish him and don’t expect a lifetime of redemption. But he has every right to expect an apology and to expect him to take responsibility for doing the right thing.
You might consider a response like, “I think it can help us talk about our expectations in the future. You can tell me what you expect and want. I can assure you that I don’t mean to punish you for the rest of your life.” our lives, but I deserve an explanation and a sincere apology. It will be very difficult for us to save our marriage and heal if you don’t understand how bad this really was and if I don’t think you are truly sorry. Your attempt to pretend that you were justified and unrepentant doesn’t really help us. I hope you eventually see it.”