Without any doubt, I firmly believe that if someone surveyed wives with cheating husbands and asked them what behavior they were most looking for, the answer would be remorse.
This makes sense. Because most of
us believe that if someone feels true sorrow for their actions then they will
be much less likely to repeat those actions. It is why we scold children who triptogether.com have done
something wrong. We believe that if they understand why their behavior was
wrong, we are less likely to have to revisit the issue.
Along those same lines, wives who
don't see remorse often feel that they will never be able to trust their
husband. They believe that since he doesn't see why he is wrong, he is much
more likely to repeat the behavior, which by definition, makes him
untrustworthy. It can be very difficult to rebuild your marriage when you think
that you can not (and will never be able to) trust your husband.
A wife may describe the issue this
way: "when pressed, my husband will mumble a short and insincere apology
for cheating on me, but he so clearly does not mean it. And he is so clearly
angry at even having to explain himself or to have to answer for his actions.
And when we talk about the reasons that he cheated, he is so full of
justifications -- as though he truly believes that he had legitimate reasons to
cheat on me. He says that he wants to make our marriage work. And deep down, I
want that too. triptogether But I just
do not know how this will ever be possible. I do not see how I will ever be
able to trust him. Especially when he doesn't seem to feel that he did anything
wrong and he seemingly feels no remorse."
I am sorry that you are going
through this. It may help (just a little bit) to know that what you are feeling
is almost universal. Very few of us see or get the remorse that we were hoping
for and feel that we absolutely need and must have (especially at first.)
Why He May Be Keeping His Remorse
Under Wraps: Very often, our husband feels that it is in his best interest to
keep his remorse very tightly under lock and key. The fear is that if we sense
his sorrow and his guilt, we will pounce on that in order to make him feel even
worse. In short, he is posturing because he is trying to make things easier on
himself. triptogether.com
Reviews But what he doesn't get is that if he would just allow
himself a little vulnerability and allow you to see the remorse, you could both
move on more quickly without needing to dwell on this.
Why It's Not In Your Best Interest
To Try To Force Remorse: We all tend to dwell and then, when we don't see the
behavior that we are looking for, we try to exhibit force. If he's not sorry,
then by golly, we are going to force that sorrow out of him. We are going to
tell him just how much he has wronged us. But although we are justified in
this, frankly most of the time, this only makes him more defensive and this
only makes him feel more justified.
Getting The Right Kind Of Help To
Nudge Him Forward: I would like to share with you a story I was recently told
about a couple's counseling session. I'm going to paraphrase and I'm not going
to identify those involved. But I hope that very shortly, you will see how this
story relates to the topic at hand.
A couple were struggling with this
exact same issue - the husband was denying guilt and the wife felt that,
because of this, she could not trust him. They had several sessions under their
belts so they both respected and listened to their counselor. The wife said
that she did not feel that she could trust her husband because of his lack of
remorse and the counselor said: 'you are absolutely right. You can not trust
him. It is too soon and he is going to have to earn your trust over time. But
not being able to completely trust him does not mean that you can't move
forward and hope for the best anyway. Of course, you will keep your eyes open,
but you will hopefully move forward cautiously anyway.'
Then the husband piped in with the
fact that although he did feel some remorse, he also felt plenty of justification.
The counselor let the husband go on and on. The wife got frustrated and felt
that the counselor was almost siding with the husband. Until the counselor
blurted out: 'you can say whatever you want, but in the end, people cheat
because they have made a decision to do what feels good at the time, regardless
of their commitments or who it might hurt. When you cheat, you are basically
saying that you value what feels good to you over what is best for your family.
And that is very selfish and immature regardless of your excuses. We can fix
this with a lot of effort. But we can not fix it until you admit to your
wrongdoing.'
At that point, the husband started
to cry and all of the remorse came pouring out like a river. I tell this story
because I want for you to see that sometimes, it takes someone else to bring
the remorse out of your husband. Your husband is much less likely to respond to
your requests for remorse because he knows that you have a vested interest in
wanting it. But, if someone he respects requests it, he is much more likely to
respond.
It's Common To Expect Trust Too
Early: I also tell you this story because I want to stress that I feel that
often, people expect the trust too early. In the weeks following the discovery
of the affair, many wives are already saying they don't feel or foresee the
trust.
Of course you don't. You can't
possibly. I can tell you first hand that you don't begin to feel that trust
until time has passed and you can see that your husband did not cheat again and
that he carried out his promises. I don't think there is any way to skip over
this. Because there is no way to see if he's going to do what he says until
time passes.
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