I Got the Truth About His Affair: Why it Didn’t Help

The soul-crushing shock, the anger, the questions that haunt you in your sleep—as if sleep is even possible—I get it. I lived it. You want to know WHY the affair happened.

Today, I want to share the specific breakthrough that moved my husband and I past the “why loop” and into actual safety. Whether your goal is reconciliation or just finding peace for your own future, exploring the “why” is ensuring that the past doesn’t repeat itself.

Honest and Accurate Answers Are Not Possibly Early On

Early into recovery, I kept begging my husband for an explanation. Something, anything, that would help me make sense of his insane choices. I didn’t know it then, but honest and accurate answers were not possible at that time. That’s because most unfaithful spouses are being driven by coping mechanisms, compulsions, false beliefs, and bad habits that run below the surface.

While there are some VERY rare exceptions (the ones that eventually star on America’s Most Wanted), I do not believe that anyone wakes up one day and goes, “Today feels like the perfect day to blow up my life and take down innocent victims. I’ve been carefully weighing my options, and I think I’ll go with having an affair."

Our experts believe the trauma caused by infidelity is only exceeded, God forbid, by the death of a child. Do not dismiss the gravity of what you are feeling.

Common Excuses

So why is something as trauma producing as infidelity so prevalent? Why do people do it? Here are my responses to some of the most common explanations offered:

• “We were all at this bar until really late, I barely remember what happened. I got drunk and was just stupid.” Okay, you might have been a deadly combination of drunk and stupid, but this is not your WHY.
• “We worked together, we became friends, started spending more and more time together, and then it just happened. I never meant to hurt you.” No, you, the unfaithful spouse, are not a helpless victim here. Infidelity is not an accident and this is not your WHY.
• “You never appreciated me or loved me like I needed you to. You were always too busy with work, or the kids, or telling me how I could never do anything right.” This is not your WHY. It does sound like an excellent conversation to have had with your spouse and a marriage counselor before resorting to an affair or feeding an addiction.
• "You never wanted to have sex. I was sick of you rejecting me all the time. I have needs you know!!" This is also NOT your WHY.

These explanations are often an attempt to override their own feelings of shame and guilt. I’m happy to report that my husband did not blame me for his infidelity, but early on, he was unable to offer anything to satisfy my demand for the reason he went off the rails and started living a double life.

My husband spent months and thousands of dollars researching his “why.” He literally sat me down with what looked like a Ph.D. dissertation on his own infidelity. He thought he finally had the answers. He read it to me...and I could not dispute a single word.

Career highs, career lows, a history of being very comfortable lying and getting away with it, believing you worked harder and were smarter than me, and feeling you deserved something on the side…I could have written that for him. It’s completely useless to me.

But I realized I wanted answers to a different question.

No matter what my husband said, I couldn’t wrap my mind around HOW the person that vowed to love me and protect me could do THIS.

How Could You?

I realized my question was really: “How could you? How could you do this to me and our kids? How could you risk your job? How could you think that no one would find out? How could you think you could get away with this?”

What drives another person may never make sense to you. In early recovery I remember saying over and over to my therapist, “I still don’t understand how my husband, or his affair partner, could do what they did.”

She said, “Candace, we can talk about this for as long and as often as you'd like, but you will never understand how they could do what they did because YOU would never do what they did. It’s not who YOU are.”

Why the Answer Is Still Important

So if it didn’t help me at all, why should you bother to put the time and energy into unpacking your or your mate’s "why?" Let me tell you. In retrospect, this information was way more beneficial than I initially thought.

Here’s why: The unfaithful spouse saying they’ll never do it again, on it’s own, is totally worthless. If your actions were totally random and there’s nothing to pinpoint, how can you possibly avoid doing it again? You’ll forever lack safety. If the wayward stays in denial about how they got here, they will be ripe for relapse. Slow down. Take a look back at your life. Learn. Grow. We are all capable of change!

The unfaithful spouse is going to need to unpack and analyze their “why” in order to create safety and prevent relapse, whether their marriage stays intact or not. As our Founder Rick Reynolds says:

Avoid Blaming Your Marriage

Yes, I was too controlling with our finances and parenting and only let my husband decorate the garage but at the end of the day, that was not the reason for his infidelity.

Ask yourself important questions like: What did the affair mean to me? Did I feel entitled to the affair? Did I ever express my needs, emotionally, intellectually, or sexually, in my marriage? Dig deep to identify the barriers of self-deception and distorted thinking that led to your actions.

While asking yourself these questions can help unpack your thought process, it’s important to make sure we’re all crystal clear that cheating is a personal problem and not the result of a bad marriage or the betrayed spouse’s failure to meet their needs.

A deep dive and significant level of vulnerability can help explain (not excuse) and provide insight into what led them down such a destructive road to the affair or addiction.

Maybe your unfaithful partner got passed over for a promotion they felt certain would be theirs. Maybe they’ve been battling insecurities about their appearance or lack of self-worth their entire life. Maybe they have untreated childhood trauma or attachment issues. Maybe they never learned proper communication skills. Maybe they have a substance abuse problem. Maybe their affair stemmed from a desire to escape the realities and responsibilities of adult life or difficult emotions. Whatever it is, or combination thereof, it’s their job as the unfaithful spouse to figure it out.

Where should the unfaithful spouse start?

Check out Wayne Baker, an expert in infidelity trauma and his 6-part recovery series called, “How could you?” Wayne explains the thoughts that can lead to betrayal, as well as the moral justification that very often takes place. He defines doublespeak and distorted comparisons, exposes the secrecy factor, and shines a light on that all-too-familiar dehumanization and blame of the betrayed spouse.

As I leave you today, I want to share something really impactful that my therapist told me: She said, “Your recovery is about grieving your way though this and finding life on the other side, not continuously trying to make sense of the senseless.”