Warfare in Marriage
2010/02/09
The wayard spouse who does not 1) take responsibility for the affair, 2) allow the betrayed spouse time to grieve the affair, or 3) allow an appropriate time for the betrayed spouse to be angry over the affair, invites warfare into his or her marriage. Warfare may come slowly, but it is the stage where the betrayed spouse decides to dish out a little bit of hurt of his or her own. Sometimes this takes the form of a retaliatory affair. And sometimes that retaliatory affair happens years later, when the former wayward spouse least expects it.
To avoid such destructive game-playing, the affair needs to be dealt with – entirely – when the affair is first revealed or discovered. If the wayward spouse takes responisibility for his or her conduct in having an affair, and allows the betrayed spouse time to both grieve and be angry, a retaliatory affair is far less likely.
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Katie is the author of “Infidelity Crisis: How to Gain Forgiveness and Respect After Your Affair,” available at http://www.aftertheaffair.net/ She started this blog to address some of the questions routinely received via email. If you have a question that you would like to see addressed in the blog, please email katie @ aftertheaffair.net and include the word “blog” in your subject line. Due to time constraints, not all questions or issues can be addressed – your patience and understanding is appreciated.
2010/04/02 at 5:29 am
Although my husband wanted to save the marriage after I filed for divorce, restoration has been difficult to achieve. He still says he would not have fallen into the affair if I had been a better wife. And he will not acknowledge the damage his actions caused, from financial to the impact on our children. And while he slandered me terribly to people in the community as well as family, he has not taken any steps to set the record straight. He expects everyone to overlook what happened and pretend it never happened. What kind of a person am I dealing with? I should also mention his affair spanned about three years and they were both plotting to dump their spouses.
2010/04/02 at 10:58 am
If your husband will not take responsibility for what he did in the past, then you have no reason to believe that he will not act in the same way (or worse) in the future. I’m sorry.
2010/05/06 at 8:19 pm
You refer to three key points
1) take responsibility for the affair,
2) allow the betrayed spouse time to grieve the affair, or
3) allow an appropriate time for the betrayed spouse to be angry over the affair, invites warfare into the marriage.
We are now at 20 months after the affair – When he returned home, it was to move back into the Country and start a new job. He has been using “the stress of the new job” as a reason why he has not fully committed to working through issues (my issues) of the affair …and to fix the things in our marriage that lead him to the poor decision of having the affair. I am havnig difficulty discerning how much of this is truly he has had stress at work …and how much he is avaoiding this work….this is causing an ugly cycle of warfare.
any thoughts?
2010/05/25 at 10:54 am
You cannot make your husband work through issues stemming from the affair. He has to be willing to do this on his own. If he is not, yes, this will lead to eventual warfare, if it has not already.