A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
When I work with a couple who are recovering from the husband’s emotional affair, I almost always notice a striking difference between how the man wants to deal with the problem as opposed to how the woman wants to deal with it. The husband, having been caught and/or admitted to the affair, has apologized to his wife and wants to move on right away and put the affair in the past. The wife, on the other hand, says “not so fast, buster.” (OK, she doesn’t actually say that, but that’s what she’s thinking.)
Typically after a few counseling sessions in which the affair is discussed, the husband begins to get frustrated and wonder why we still need to talk about it. After all, he has apologized, right? He feels bad about it, it won’t happen again, etc., etc. What else does he need to do? I have to say to him (sometimes more than once per session) that his wife is not over what happened, that it’s going to take some time for her to recover, and that he needs to trust the counseling process.
So why is it that the man is so anxious to put the affair in the rear-view mirror and move on? Because men are problem-solvers by nature? Yes. Because men don’t like to talk about emotions as much as women do? Of course. But I believe the chief reason is defensive: the husband feels terrible about what he did and it’s painful for him to think about it, let alone talk about it.
Yes, these sessions are difficult for the husband. His wife is crying and talking about how betrayed she feels. My job is to help the husband be empathetic. He needs to understand what is wife is going through and to know how she feels. Ultimately, my goal is for the husband to absolutely convince his wife that he understands what she is going through. Then the healing can begin.
Tags: emotional affair, empathy
This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm and is filed under About Marriage Therapy.
9 Responses to “Moving On…Now or Later?”
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August 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] Yesterday I wrote about how some men want to minimize and not talk about their affairs (whether emotional or physical). As a real-life example, I give you John Edwards. [...]
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:25 pm
The article is so true. I am recently going through the same as I found about my husbands affair few weeks ago. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore except the 2 hour discussion that we had.
It’s left me feeling very insecure that he is probably never going to like me going forward and probably has never liked me. The story is a little different in my case as it is reveled to me now by my hubby’s emails that i was his father’s choice and he wanted to get married to that girl and didn’t do it since his father didn’t approve it.
I don’t know in which century we are living but i can’t talk about this affair with my hubby at all as i told him that i am willing to work with him to save our marriage. but inside me i am afraid that he is still going to talk behind my back when bad times comes and is never going to give me the love and respect that a wife deserves.
I want to save the marriage mainly for the kids. have one and expecting another one . Do you have any tips to deal with the emotions that i am going through?
Thanks,
Anonymous name
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:14 am
My husband had a year long affair without me knowing. I thought I knew my husband so well and he promised me he would never do anything like that to me, but….
Now, months later I wonder if I did right staying with him. We’ve gone through so many stages and I too wonder if he will seek her out if he gets upset or drinks too much.
I also have trouble leaving her alone. I still email and watch her facebook. I can’t believe another woman would try to take someone’s husband.
I constantly think about it and search for signs of an affair. I panic when I don’t know where he is and what he’s doing. He doesn’t understand this at all, which makes it harder for me.
On top of all the above, he’s not even sorry he had an affair. He says it “awoke” something in him.
Am I a fool for staying with my man?
Woman Fool
September 8th, 2011 at 8:23 am
My husband had an 8-month emotional affair with a much younger coworker. When I found out about it, obviously I was devastated but we both agreed that we would seek counseling rather than rush off to divorce. What this counselor stated is EXACTLY what happened. Once he admitted it and “owned” what happened and said that he was truly sorry and it would never happen again, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It amazed me that he could seem to be so willing to brush the whole thing off as a “midlife crisis” and me finding out as simply a “wake up call” for him. Cased closed. We are still trying to move past it, but it’s not easy for me. There is still a part of me that hasn’t forgiven him and is hesitant to trust. And he still doesn’t understand why I “won’t let go of it” and move on. Obviously we have a long way to go to heal, if we ever will be able to.
September 22nd, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I am amazed at how familiar this all sounds to me. I just found out my husband had a two-year emotional affair with a former co-worker. I’m finding it hard to get past the two year part. I mean TWO YEARS. I can’t help but think about things that have happend during that time, and then realize that “oh yeah, that is happened while he was involved with her”. He, too, has said he is sorry and doesn’t want to go much beyond that. How do you get over the betrayal? I was trying so hard to make the marriage work - we were even involved in marriage counseling while this went on. I’m not sure I can get beyond all of that. It is a relief (in a sense) to realize we aren’t that unusual - it happens to others as well.
September 26th, 2011 at 12:46 am
Wow. All of this hits home - hard. My husband had an emotional affair with a co-worker 5 years ago. Hundreds of texts and phone calls at all hours, and the few texts that I actually read were pretty suggestive of a serious emotional affair. Horribly painful ordeal getting over that one. Fast forward 5 years and I find out that he has been secretly watching internet webcams and chatting online with numerous women - often in a very sexual manner. The pain has been unbearable. He has confessed, yet says he finds it hard to remember anything that was said during those sex chats (I found a chat log which I couldn’t even read in it’s entirety, I was too physically sick just reading the small portion that I did). He apologizes constantly and has promised it will never happen again. We are in marriage counseling, but he is also one of those men that feels he has done everything right, confessed, apologized, cancelled his messenging accounts, etc. - so why do I keep questioning him? Why do I still want details? Why can’t we move forward? My question is, why can’t I just move forward? The whole thing has been so painful, why do I still want to know every single detail of the sordid mess?
February 7th, 2012 at 8:15 am
What if the shoe is on the other foot? I don’t see many recovery articles discussing the affair being the wife’s.
February 12th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Hi there, Wow all of these stories sound eerily familiar to me. i found out my husband had an emotional affiar recently. it has been hell to say the least. i do know that it ended or petered out a couple of years ago after her husband asked her to stop. my husband and this woman were boyfriend/girlfriend 20 years ago. She dumped him because he partied too much and she was very straight and studious. the relationship was never meant to be. however, fast forward 20 years later to a chance meeting and all of a sudden they are plannig playdates together. i asked my husband to stop speaking with her because i could smell something wasn’t right. he was too excited about pursuing this. he became overly passionate about seeing her, and then agreed to end the relationship. i later found out that he created a secret email account just so he could communicate with her. after seeing some emails, it began as nostalgia and a lot of talkiong about the old days, which i get. but then it sort of flipped into present day. it was affection yet not romantic. but he did sign off his emails, loving you lots. a little much. he denied as much as he could. i even phoned her. she apologized and said this email relationship caused a lot of problems in her marriage as well. my understanding is they never met although they lived in the same city and never phoned or texted. they both did not speak about their marriages in a negative light. in fact, she told me that he referred to me as the love of his life. what the hell? i’m going crazy over this. it was clearly more than he says it was otherwise he would’ve have tried so hard to keep it, in secret no less. we have seen a marriage counsellor. but i’m realizing that this has just heightened our already existing marital problems and gives me a sweet way out if i want it. he really wants to work at the marriage and is visibly devastated when he sees how hurt i am. however, my issue isn’t so much the secret emailing. again, it wasn’t sexual in nature..just affectionate. it was the moment when he said he would stop communicating with her and didn’t. it’s the lying. a man doesn’t realize that once you’ve lost your wife’s trust, you’ll never get it back completely . and if that is the truth, there really is no point for a marriage to go on. if you can’t completely trust that your partner has your back, you are wasting your time. i wish most men knew the damage they are causing by these lazy little affairs they have. to throw a life they have built with someone else just for some attention is very selfish. unfortunately it also illustrates that the marriage clearly has cracks in it. so do you work on the cracks after the fact? is it even possible?
right now, i don’t believe.
April 13th, 2012 at 7:47 am
Before we were married, my now-husband told me all about his best friend, a former coworker who lives 1000 miles away now. They met while he was married to his first wife but it was just a professional relationship. This best friend has never married. I never met her but my now-husband wanted to invite her to the wedding. At the time, I didn’t see an issue with it. A few times while we were dated, one of us would bring her up; I asked a question one time about why they’d never dated. He was evasive and I dismissed it as a guy thing. While we were dating, we talked about everything … details, etc.
Within 6 months, I accidentally (long story about his teenage daughter’s problems) found a letter in a word document where he detailed his relationship and feelings for her. What a shock! He’d never said anything about this. The document stated that they’d had an intimate weekend together (I’d ask him once about what an intimate weekend meant to him and he said it would involve sex, not knowing that I was talking about his own intimate weekend). Now I knew that he’d not only been friends with her but had dated her (they apparently went out more than once according to this document).
While we were dating, he went to see her (yes, I knew about the trip but didn’t know that it was an ex-lover at that time).
After I found the document (6 mo after our marriage), I asked him about it and about his relationship. He said he didn’t know if he’d ever really loved her and that they were really just friends. He continued to talk and email with her, even after I let him know that it bothered me that he’d been with her and lied about it to me (or refused to be honest?).
He told me that he’d tell me if he’d see her. He is going to a conference in her hometown. I asked last night if he planned on seeing her (we haven’t discussed her for months now). He said he was, but just for an hour. I let him know that this really upset me. He has now finally agreed to go to counseling and he said he’s not going to see her. He also said that I was too insecure (he’s trying to turn this around and make it my issue, right). I’m anxious for counseling but should I trust him since he’s lied to be and only honest now when I ask?