Dear Dr. K,
I just learned that my husband is still in contact with his affair partner. He promised to stop talking to her but continues to connect. I don’t know if they see one another or not. How can I heal the marriage if he is still lying to me? -Betrayed Spouse
You can’t heal if the affair is ongoing. If your husband contacted his affair partner after promising he wouldn’t, there are several problems.
Refusing to break off an affair once discovered doesn’t bode well for the survival of the marriage.
According to research, spouses with higher levels of marital commitment stopped all contact with their affair partners once the affair was revealed. Those with a lower commitment did not. His seeming disinterest in respecting you and honoring his obligations to the marriage correlates highly with a marriage’s end.
Your husband should be investing in you and demonstrating his willingness to heal and repair your broken bonds. This is the time when he should be showing you his love, appreciation, and sexual desire for you.
Talk is cheap. Look at his actions.
The research says that the more he keeps his commitments to you, the more liable he is to leave his paramour for the marriage. The reverse is also true [3].
Prioritize self-care
You have many important decisions to make, but the first is to keep your well-being primary in your mind.
Discovering that your husband is still in contact with his affair partner can be distressing and challenging. A recent literature review over the last 12 years can provide answers about unfaithful spouses and the marriage relationship. As you point out, the healing process can’t begin until and unless the affair ends. If your husband is still in contact with his affair partner, you are still in emotional turmoil.
Emotional distress
I would also like you to consider your emotional needs for a moment. Affairs are powerfully upsetting to us emotionally and psychologically. Feelings of extreme anger, betrayal, insecurity, rage, shame, shock, hurt, despair, guilt, jealousy, and sadness are common.
When faced with sexual infidelity, women were almost as humiliated as they were anxious and jealous [4].
The hurt partner develops lower self-esteem, self-confidence, and a lack of trust. These trust issues carry through to future romantic relationships as well. [5] That fear of abandonment and reluctance to be open with others is “everlasting,” according to some researchers [6].
Also common are intrusive images, memories, and rumination about their previous unfaithful relationship(s) [7]. Jealousy combines with anger, insecurity, rejection, fear, betrayal, paranoia, depression, loneliness, confusion, envy, and resentment, as well as PTSD [5].
Fluctuating feelings of rage, powerlessness, abandonment, and victimization may leave you feeling shaken. Other women are unable to support themselves after learning about their partner’s betrayal. [1]
Major depressive illness
Keep in mind that you are six times more likely to experience a major depressive episode as well as anxiety, according to research than women who have not had an unfaithful spouse. [8]
Physical illness
Work by Lonergan et al. (2021) [7] found that infidelity victims reported persistent somatic symptoms such as:
- insomnia,
- weight loss,
- difficulty with concentration, and
- a lack of appetite and libido immediately after experiencing romantic betrayal [7]
Roos et al. (2019) found that undergraduate students experiencing infidelity as victims of romantic betrayal reported having:
- difficulty breathing,
- bodily trembles,
- extreme nervousness and
- a racing heart when recalling their previous relationship [9].
Shackelford et al. (2000) found that women reported more nausea and physical illness when asked to imagine their partner as unfaithful. [10] After understanding an affair’s psychological, emotional, and physical well-being, consider your husband’s character, psychiatric well-being, and prior behavior.
Dishonesty
The hallmark of infidelity involves secrecy and concealment. However, in your case, you are also witnessing a continuation of lying. He was unfaithful to you and now shows he is willing to lie to continue the affair.
Consider your husband’s past behavior. Was he honest and direct with you before the affair? Could you count on him to do what he promised? Did he hide or omit important details about his actions to avoid disapproval or manage your impressions of him?
First, decide if you are motivated to stay in the relationship.
Affairs aren’t uncommon. Around 25% of marriages experience infidelity. [1] However, if he is still in contact with his paramour, pause and reflect on the overall state of your relationship. Is this the first in a long series of manipulative behaviors? Does this behavior stand out for being utterly out of character? Or can you remember financial betrayals, consistent lying, and other violations of your trust?
You build trust over time.
You have to earn trust over time. The involved spouse does that by being authentic and respecting boundaries. Your partner is doing neither.
In a committed relationship, you rebuild trust over time through honesty and emotional vulnerability. [11] If you used to see your husband as a trustworthy and reliable person, he just blew that up.
Mental health and personality disorders and infidelity
Consider if your spouse might have a mental illness or character disorder instead of it being solely an issue of unfaithfulness.
In Narcissistic Personality Disorders, relationships must meet attractiveness and success ideals rather than just be warm and intimate. [13] There is also a positive relationship between avoidant and ambivalent attachment and narcissism.
Have you violated some self-referential ideal by becoming overweight, losing your job, or becoming ill or pregnant? We often find that recalcitrant affairs happen at these times with these individuals.
Erratic sexual acting out is common in the manic phase of Bipolar Disorder [14] and less frequently with Major Depressive Disorder. We also see sexual infidelity and chronic lying with those actively abusing drugs or alcohol.
Seek professional help
Consider couples therapy or marriage counseling to address these issues in your relationship. A trained therapist can provide guidance, facilitate communication, and help both of you understand your challenges. If his affair is still ongoing, ask for Discernment Counseling, so you can both decide if you want to begin a round of couples therapy. That will help you to decide.
Remember that every situation is unique, and the path forward may vary. The most important thing is to take care of yourself and make decisions that align with your well-being and values.
References
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My husband has had a long term affair with his employee at a faith organization. We were married for 16 years and have 4 little girls. He believes it’s God’s will. He raged at me to die and hoped to convince me to commit suicide in order to have this woman free and clear. He then threatened to kill me himself. I filed for divorce and she is divorcing her husband for him. I still fought for my marriage all the way along and gave him an opportunity to change his actions but they’re now “engaged” and have been secretly living together. His friends, work and her family support them and think they are soulmates. He said he now knows he never loved me and even blames me for his abuse and cheating. I was an incredible wife! It has ripped our family apart. My kids are in therapy, I’m in therapy and he has zero remorse or guilt. In fact, he’s full of pride that his plan worked out and he won. His mistress told me if I had been a better woman it would never have happened. He claims he rescued her too from an abusive relationship and he has blown all our shared money on trips, hotels, gifts and now lawyers.All our dream trips- he has now taken with her, despite the fact he was stingy with money with me. I have lost all my personal savings that I now owe for his cheating debt. His work helped him pay for his legal team and living expenses. I am about to lose my house and he’s hoping to get custody of the kids with his mistress as he claims she will be a much better mom to them and he is more financially secure. They are acting like teenagers in love and he is giddy with happiness- he’s earned his freedom to be 20 and in love again. My question is this- did I do the wrong thing to file for divorce (he says when I mentioned the word divorce when I suspected his cheating & caught him flirting was when he said he started his sexual affair because the word divorce gave him permission to cheat- he said I pushed them together). Why is he not remorseful- this is now a couple of years of them working and living together and the novelty has not worn off? Will he ever have regrets? Can it be true love?
What if your husband who has cheated, wants to go live with his affair partner for 2 weeks to see if their feelings are real?
comment and resource sharing: I am listening to the restoredsummit organized by Michael and Christine Leahy that began on Sunday. One of yesterday’ s speakers was Marnie Ferree, LMFT, CSAT
Director, Bethesda Workshops who spoke about your essay about when the addict won’t end his/her affair. And today I read your article on that subject. I also want to share that for me in addition to AlAnon, SAnon, Celebrate Recovery, ACoA, CoDA, and counseling, I’ve also found great teaching/learning from Leslie Vernick I’ve been married for 31 years and confused by his baffling behavior for much of that time unfortunately. I always confronted his gaslighting and lies/secrets/silence, but I was naive and idealistic and sensitive and did my part 100% to give and give and give to our relationship, and I honestly simply didn’t realize that his behavior was systemic and sick despite the glossy charismatic magnanimous successful high functioning exterior. Now I do! and we are still “married” but living apart. He’s still a reliable provider thus far and wants to change but doesn’t want to get help or do any of the work needed to change. I am literally learning ballroom dancing without him, because although he’d like to be my partner he admits he has no interest in learning how to ballroom dance. It’s the same across the board. We have four beautiful kids and not for the love of them nor me, least of all himself (and certainly not his own family of origin, where his denial/delusion clearly stems given the many other people with secrets and issues over 3 generations) will his needle move. Thank you and so many others in this “crazy” field of work who help both directly and indirectly. I am in a season of saying thank you. The free resources and articles are valuable, so valuable, like this one, which re-confirms that his kind of brokenness is universal and that I am not alone and that I can heal and be my best self with or without him and with or without his own healing. I am praying (in my own non-religious but deeply spiritual/soulful way haha) fiercely for the healing of my kids! So so prayerful. Thank you.
Hello,
My husband of 19 years has been having an affair for over 2 years now plus sleeping with other woman. Once I discovered the truth I kicked him out of our home. I decided to reconcile 7 months ago as he swore he ended the affair and would do anything to save our marriage. We have been in couples counseling and our marriage seemed better than ever, however I couldn’t shake that gut feeling that he was still having an affair. I just discovered that he was in fact still having an affair. I kicked him out again and am now ready for divorce. He only sees this woman maybe a couple times a month and just to meet at a hotel for an hour or 2. What would make someone throw away everything just for a sexual encounter. I must add we have a very active sex life and always have. I’m just at a loss.
My husband is having an affair. He refuses to cut ties. I am completely devastated as I did not see this coming. We have 5 kids (ages 16-2) and my oldest is angry at him. She is disappointed and broken that he has chosen not to cut ties. I don’t want my marriage to end. What do I do.
There is no one answer that fits every situation, JoAnn. So much depends upon your husband’s investment in your marriage and the reasons he got involved in the first place. Please read all of our posts on affairs and keep a look out for the ebook on the topic that is coming out soon. A lot is riding on your marriage with 5 children… I hope you seek help soon. Dr. K
My husband is involved in an emotional and sexual affair. Do i let the affair die off by itself? He wants me accept the woman so he can have both woman and still stay in the marriage. He wants the woman to back off the affair on her own. He says that he will dedicate 1day for the woman and the rest of the days is for my family and kids. Do i leave things as it is now? Instead of asking him to chose between me and the woman? Pls help. Need help urgently. Tks
It makes no sense that your husband allows a person outside the family to dictate what happens inside the family. However, this is not your decision to make. He has told you he isn’t willing to cut it off, regardless of the validity of his reason. Your job is to decide how much you want this marriage at the cost he is asking you to pay. That, no one on this website can tell you. Take a look in the mirror or go get your own counseling to help you sort things out. You can’t decide what HE is going to do. You can only decide that YOU are going to do. Thanks for writing and I hope you reach some clarity. Dr. K
Thank you for your reply. I might decide to leave him as he has promised the woman to dedicate 3days to company her and also promised to take wedding photo with her. He also suggest to her that he will wed her overseas.
Oh. How painful. I’m so sorry for your pain. Dr. K