Confronting Infidelity - Time to start the healing process.Confronting infidelity is not easy, but your relationship with your spouse will never improve unless it is done. Present all your evidence and give your partner the opportunity to respond. If the evidence is overwhelming, hopefully, your spouse will cop to the affair and you can start to deal with the trauma. Some partners will never fess up and then it is up to you to decide whether you can have a relationship with this person. If your partner refuses to acknowledge the wrongdoing, then the behavior is likely to continue. In confronting infidelity with my spouse, the excitement of the illicit affair was over for them. He admitted that they got some excitement out of the fact that they had to keep everything quiet and that they shared a forbidden love. This secretive aspect to the relationship made them feel closer and have more intense feelings for each other than they probably would have had had the relationship been out in the open to begin with. He was still very much infatuated with her when I confronted him, and he still wanted to continue with that relationship. He had suspicions that their relationship would not work out and said that we might have a chance to try again some day. Don’t expect your partner to be remorseful. You just busted them and they are going to be angry with you for spying on them and upset with themselves for not being more careful. They may even be saddened that they have to give up one of the relationships before he/she is ready. The mind is very skilled at protecting our very delicate egos. You are threatening your partner's ego by confronting infidelity and they are going to try to protect themselves subconsciously. The mind uses several very powerful defense mechanisms to protect the ego. Denial is one of them and that is why I suggested that you gather as much indisputable evidence as possible before confronting your spouse. Rationalization is another. The mind will concoct all kinds of reasons to justify the relationship. Your partner may not even acknowledge to them self that they cheated on you. My husband vehemently denied having cheated on me. He stated that we were broken up at the time that he got involved with the other woman. My husband would never have left if he didn’t have someone else to run to. He left only because they had gone out several times and spent many hours together discussing whether they should get involved and the feelings that they each had for each other. He left so that he would not be a “cheater”. He asked for a separation before they had sex with each other, but they had already been “dating”. They went to lunch everyday for two months before he left, and they went to the movies when he was supposed to be working. They sent emails and text messages to each other when I was sleeping. Emotionally, he had given his heart to her a long time before asking for a separation from me. He started having sex with her while he was still living under my roof and still being intimate with me. I pointed out his hypocrisy and only with some heated discussions was he able to acknowledge that he was unfaithful to me. He was downright unfaithful to her. He readily admitted to that. He started being intimate with her in late October ‘06 and was still intimate with me until February ‘07. He did not know why he could not be faithful to her. He could only say that he didn’t feel needed by me when we were together and my attention to him now was flattering and made him feel good (this is probably the number one reason why men have affairs in the first place). He had a hard time with this as he never thought that he would cheat on anyone. He would feel guilty after we made love, but he would continue to come over. After confronting infidelity, I could start dealing with the trauma of losing my spouse to another woman. I could ask him questions about what had happened to make him leave and really take a hard look at my life and make conscious decisions to change it for the better.
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