My Husband Is Having An Affair... With A Man!

The woman sitting across from me in my office was obviously upset. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying as she carefully dabbed at her tears to avoid streaking her eye make-up. She was an attractive woman, neatly dressed, in her late 30's and couldn't stop crying even before we began to speak.

The woman sitting across from me in my office was obviously upset. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying as she carefully dabbed at her tears to avoid streaking her eye make-up. She was an attractive woman, neatly dressed, in her late 30's and couldn't stop crying even before we began to speak.

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"I see how upset you are, " I said to her quietly and calmly. "There's no rush to speak. Whenever you're ready, I'm here to listen." Within a minute or so, she began to tell me that she'd recently discovered that her husband was having an affair... with a man.

This is more common than people think and it is shocking when it happens to you. It can feel like your world has turned upside down.

"I don't know what to do!" she continued. "Should I leave him? Demand that he leave? Should we stay together and try to work it out? And, if we do that, what does that mean?! And what about our children?  I don't even mean for the future but I'm a mess right now and although I'm trying my best to be there for them, there are times when I'm doing all I can not to break down in front of them." She began to sob.

Again, quietly and calmly, I said to her, "You're understandably disraught, confused and full of questions. When you're ready, I can help you sift through it all so you can prioritize; to figure out where your attention needs to be first sort of like triage in an emergency room. It's like you've been in an emotional accident and you've got to attend to the most pressing issues first and once they're taken care of, you can focus on the next layer and then the next. Does that make sense to you?"

She nodded. I waited. Her breathing slowed, her tears stopped. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Taking care of my children is the most important thing right now."

I leaned forward, smiled and said, "So, tell me about your kids." As she did, her body relaxed a bit, a little twinkle appearing in her eye and a slight smile coming to her face. She talked about wanting to be strong for her children and we explored what that meant to her. She wanted to maintain as normal a life for her children as she could.

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"Taking care of your children is so important to you," I said to her. "I wonder if you've thought about taking care of yourself, too?"

"No, not really" was her quiet response.