Husbands who get caught up in an affair often make a lot of promises to convince their wives not to leave or end the marriage. To that end, many husbands promise that if the wife gives him a chance, she won’t regret it. Many wives think about this promise for a while before making important decisions. After all, an affair is so painful. And recovery is not a picnic either. Therefore, staying the course and fighting for your marriage is a decision that should not be taken lightly. Still, many wives decide to try to make it work because it’s hard to just walk away from a marriage. They make the decision in the hope that the husband will keep all his promises.
Many husbands do their best to follow through, but some do it better than others. I hear from quite a few wives who feel that their husband is not following through on what he promised. In fact, many need look no further than the lack of time she is spending on recovery. If this isn’t bad enough, the wife feels that she shouldn’t have to beg for more of her time, but that’s exactly the position she finds herself in. She might say, “After I found out my husband was cheating on me, he cried that very night. He told me he had never regretted anything so much and that he had no idea what he would do if he lost me. He said if I gave him given a chance, I’d see a different man. I wanted to believe this. But I’ve also seen a big change in my husband since he got promoted. He works a lot harder. He’s more ambitious. “I think these changes led to his affair. However, he seemed so sorry and sweet when he promised to change, so she wanted to believe him. Unfortunately, he hasn’t changed much. He still works so hard. He seems like he never has any more time for me. I’m not saying he has less time for me. It is more or less the same. And he hoped that he would try to clear his schedule a little bit so that we could do special things to recover. My friends say that I should say something about this, but I don’t feel like I should. I’m very depressed. I feel like he sold me a big lie. I’m not sure why he made such a big deal about me not leaving him if he wasn’t going to try to make things better. Now I’m regretting it and I’m not sure what to do.”
Be very specific about your expectations: If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my own recovery from my spouse’s affair, it’s that sometimes to get what you want, you have to ask for it and, in some cases, demand it. Sometimes you have to ask more than once. Often our spouse thinks he is doing well while we know he is not. But we can’t always expect them to change unless we talk.
Trust me, I completely understand your frustration. But I think before you give up and walk away from her marriage, you really need to define for her husband exactly what she expects from him in terms of time. After that, it will be up to him to rise to the occasion or not. If he doesn’t, then you’ll have to decide how you want to proceed. But if he does, you’ve gotten what you want and you don’t need to end your marriage. It is certainly worth trying to explain.
You could try: “We need to talk about something that weighs heavily on me. After your affair, you promised you’d fix it. In my opinion, that meant more time for myself and our marriage. So far, I haven’t seen that. I know you “My job requires you to put in the time. However, what we’re going through makes this time in our marriage a special circumstance. I’m not sure we’ll make it if we don’t. Don’t put in the time. Can we sit down and talk about your schedule and figure out exactly where and when we can schedule some time for us? It also helps if you can tell him exactly what kind of time you’re talking about. Do you want me to be home by 6:30 as often as possible? Do you want me to clear your calendar on Friday nights for dinner? Do you want me to walk you to church on Sunday? Ask yourself what’s most important to you and then speak up. You can’t meet your needs if you don’t let them meet your needs. oh clear. Listen to your response. There is always room for negotiation, but it should certainly come to the table with some accommodations.
