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You're angry, but you can't just stuff it all down.
By Mitzi Bockmann — Written on Jan 24, 2022
In spite of all of your best efforts, your wife cheated and you can’t get over it.
You want more than anything to do so so that you can move forward and out of this pain but find you just can’t.
Is this inability to get over your wife cheating making you wonder if maybe the best thing to do is to just stuff it all down and hope it passes?
That's not the best idea if you really want to heal. Emotionally strong men eventually realize they need to face their issues head-on.
Everything you're struggling with is natural.
Fortunately, there are things that you can do to figure out what the next steps are and move on the way the most emotionally resilient men do.
Here are 5 things you need to do if your wife or girlfriend cheated.
1. Decide what you want.
Why are you finding this so frustrating? Is it because you want to forgive her so that you can stay together and live happily ever after? Because you find yourself hating her and you don’t want to hate the mother of your children?
Because you want to end the marriage but you think that leaving isn't an option if you can’t past your wife’s infidelity, that if you just leave you will be stuck in this cycle of anger forever? Because your friends are sick of hearing about this subject?
Or is it something else completely?
Whatever the reason, it’s important to identify the "why" and "what" you want, to set a goal that you're working towards. Without a goal to move towards, action is difficult.
If you want to get past your wife cheating because you would like to stay with her and live happily ever after, then that will entail one course of action: therapy.
If you want to get past your wife cheating for the kids, again, you probably therapy to help you both manage the effect the infidelity will have on the kids.
If you want to get past your wife cheating so that you can move on without bad feelings, then that’s a whole other course of action, one that involves you doing what you need to do to make that possible.
There might not be just one outcome that you want but pick the one that feels the best in your stomach. It might be challenging but you can do it!
2. Tell her what you want.
Once you've decided on what you want, it's important that you share this with your spouse. Even if you're still somewhat struggling with what you want, tell her that you could like to aim towards the thing that you decided you want to aim towards.
Why? Because it’s important to know that you are on the same page before you take the next steps.
If you want to stay together and be happy but she doesn’t, you can decide whether or not you want to try anyway.
If you want out and she doesn’t, then at least she knows what you want and she can decide if she wants to do the work to help your marriage end in a way that will help you all heal.
Whatever it is you want, it's important that you both know the direction that whatever work you do is headed.
How good would it feel for you to be on a path towards letting go, no matter what the outcome is? Getting on that path, no matter the outcome, is better than standing still, not sure what steps to take next.
3. Be honest.
Have you been honest with your spouse about how you feel about what has happened?
Those who have struggled with a spouse’s infidelity all react in different ways. For me, I confronted the issue head on. I screamed and yelled and cried and talked and asked questions. I wanted to deal with this and move past it.
But that isn’t always the way. For many people, learning about infidelity causes them to close down.
Instead of telling their spouse how they feel about the cheating, they stay in their head, obsessing about what happened, imagining scenarios that may or may not be based on the truth.
Perhaps, you're acting like everything is fine. That the affair is over and you're OK with that and that you want to move on, even if it’s a lie.
Or, perhaps, you want more than anything to talk about it but you have been giving your wife the silent treatment because you are scared of the words that might be said.
If you aren’t being honest with yourself or your partner about your feelings, then there's no chance that you will be able to get over your wife cheating.
Stuffing down your feelings will only lead to more anger, not less, which is not what you want.
4. Explore your options.
You might be wondering what the future will look like.
You thought you had it all figured out. That the marriage would continue, even if there were issues. That love and respect were still part of your relationship and that would be enough to carry you through. That if you could just make it until the kids go off to college, you guys would be OK!
Unfortunately, infidelity throws a wrench into all of those plans and you're left alone, afraid of the future.
Gather some information about what your future could look like.
While you might think that a future together would be impossible, reading up on other people’s experiences might be helpful. Talking together with a therapist might help make the vision of the future a little clearer.
If you want to walk away from the marriage, perhaps, you're hesitant to do so because of what could happen if you do.
When my husband left me, I held on tight. I was scared that I would have to do my own taxes and that I would lose my health care and and have to get a low paying job and move out of my house.
My research led me to understand that I wouldn’t necessarily have to get a low paying job or lose my house. I could still get health insurance through the state and my taxes, well, I would think about those later.
Knowing the answers to my questions helped me have a clearer picture of what a future without my husband might look like
Without concrete information, making a decision about what your future looks like is impossible. And, if you're stuck in this place where you can’t let go of your wife cheating, it might be because you're scared of the future and feeling stuck.
Knowing your options might help change that.
5. Take action.
For days, weeks, or months, you've probably been in a state of shock — angry, sad, guilty, perhaps blaming yourself, scared, and depressed. And during that time, you worked out really hard or drank a few more beers than usual or both.
And while doing those things can numb the pain, they won’t help you let go of your wife’s cheating.
Now is the time to change that. Instead of being stuck in this place of limbo where you can’t move on in any direction, imagine what it would feel like if you started working towards the life you want.
Imagine doing the work, with or without your wife, to get past feelings that have been holding you back, towards a future where you don’t spend every moment of every day thinking about your wife’s infidelity. Wouldn’t that feel good?
So, get up off the couch and take action. Work to identify, right now, what it is that you want and take a step towards it, even a small one. A small step is better than no step at all.
Working to let go when your wife cheated is not an easy thing.
But you can let go of your spouse’s infidelity, move forward, and stop being stuck in this in-between place that's sucking you dry.
Identify what you want, be clear with your wife about what it is, be honest with her, and everyone, about how you're feeling, explore your options, and take action!
You don’t know what the future holds — all you know that you want to be out of the place that you are now.
And you can do it — you just have to start now!
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Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based, certified life and love coach. Let her help you find, and keep, love in this crazy world in which we live. Email her at mitzi@letyourdreamsbegin.com and get started!
This article was originally published at Let Your Dreams Begin. Reprinted with permission from the author.