The Fallout From Infidelity

I brought it up in this post: the effect infidelity has on the cuckolded partner.  Daisy, bless her heart, asked how anyone gets over something like that.

My answer in that post, as now, is to rebuild your life.  On your own terms.

For several years, I volunteered as a rape crisis advocate.  My role was to get to the hospital as quickly as possible after being called, and help make sure that the victim’s best interests were being looked after.  Oddly enough, when medical and law enforcement get together, they sometimes forget that the patient is a human being whose life has just changed irrevocably, and that he or she is desperately trying to get back on some reasonable emotional footing.

One of the best ways to help them do this is to give them control of their care and the investigation.  They’ve just come through a situation in which control was forcibly taken from them, and the best thing anyone can do to help them is to make sure that they have a say in what happens to them next.

Discovering that one’s spouse has been unfaithful is very much like being raped in this regard.  Something central to one’s identity has been taken against one’s will, and the world has changed.  The unfaithful spouse has been controlling and manipulative, covering his or her tracks to avoid discovery, and if it’s gone on for any length of time, the cuckold loses faith in his or her own connection with the world.  

When I realized my wife was having an affair, I no longer had doubts about her and began to doubt myself.  There’s no small amount of irony in that.  Clearly, I was not good enough, appealing enough, dedicated enough, smart enough, aware enough, attentive enough…the list goes on.  And each time she lied about where she was and who she was with and what she was doing, I knew she was lying, and I chose to act as though I believed her.  Because I was not good enough, or appealing enough, or attentive enough.  When the truth would no longer be denied, she begged me to let her stay, and I offered her another chance, though I set down one condition: she had to arrange for couples counseling.  

She never did.

Eventually, I got tired of waiting for her to live up to her end of the bargain, and I moved out.  I took control.

The problem with getting past a partner’s infidelity is that one’s view of one’s self has changed and one’s sense of being worthy of anything worthwhile is gone.  I know my ex-wife is a narcissistic sociopath, and yet there’s that constant little inner voice that chimes in and says, “yes, but as screwed up as she is, if you weren’t good enough for her, how can you expect to be good enough for someone as wonderful as you say you deserve?”


Those are the kind of games that my mind played with me for years because I allowed myself to buy into her choices.  I thought that the right thing to do was to be the stand up guy, to do what I could to hold the marriage together because I loved her and she said she still loved me.  The truth came through eventually; she chose yet another man over me and our marriage.  (To be fair, it’s entirely possible that she wasn’t unfaithful again, but all the same signs were there that had been present the first time, and I wasn’t about to stick around long enough to find out.)

For anyone wrestling with this issue, I offer this simple statement: You are not responsible for the choices made by others.  You make your own choices, which may contribute to your spouse’s emotional state…even be the reason they give for having strayed…but in the end, the most important thing you can do for yourself is to relinquish responsibility for the choices your unfaithful partner made and acknowledge that it was their choice.  

If letting go of inappropriate responsibility is the most important step in regaining control of your life, the second most important step is holding your partner accountable for their actions, especially those following reconciliation.  To this day, my ex-wife swears she has no idea why I left.  It wasn’t her initial infidelity, it was that when given the opportunity, she chose another over me again.  I’ve told her that several times, and she still doesn’t get it.

We are all individuals, and circumstances will absolutely differ, but what I’ve found is there comes a point when you either surrender completely, or you stand up and say, I will not take this any longer.

I’m not big on ultimatums.  I figure that the leopard will show his or her spots sooner or later, and usually sooner.  The key is to realize that those spots won’t change through any action of yours.

The saddest part of all is that there are no absolutes.  I could say that if I had it to do again, I’d have followed through when I kicked her out the night it was finally all out in the open, but my decision to let her stay resulted in my younger daughter.  She’s such a joy to have around that it’s simply not possible to regret changing my mind that night.

Don’t bank on any miracles, though.

And don’t give up your choices.