My Spouse Is In Love With Someone Else
22 Comments
“Help! My spouse is in love with someone else!”
We’ve heard those horrible words in different forms so many times from those that write and/or talk to us, here at Marriage Missions. And the spouse who is left behind, who is telling us his or her story, is devastated! And understandably so!
“Infidelity is one of the most thoughtless, dishonest and cruel acts of self-indulgence imaginable.” (Dr Willard Harley Jr.)
We couldn’t agree more with that statement! Just the thought of having a spouse, the person who pledged to love and be faithful to you for the rest of your lives, the person you have given every part of your heart and body to —just to think that this person could throw your love and commitment away and pledge love to someone else, is inconceivably cruel. No one deserves to hear that “news” from his or her spouse.
How we wish we could erase that betrayal from ever happening to another person!
But sadly, we can’t.
What we can do however, is lead you to read an article which God may use to help you deal with this horrible new in some way. We pray it helps with all our hearts.
Please click onto the Marriage Helper.com link to read what marriage expert, Jo Beam wrote on this subject:
• MY SPOUSE IS IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE
If you have additional tips you can share to help others who are dealing with this dilemma, or you want to share requests for prayer and/or ask others for advice, please “Join the Discussion” by adding your comments below.
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(USA) Joe’s article is very good in terms of helping the “faithful spouse” understand what’s going on in the mind of the “cheater” and what can be done to win him/her back. The article clearly shows he’s experienced with this and I reccommend it to anyone who is going through the situation of being married to someone who thinks they’re in love with someone else.
(USA) Joe Beam was one of the folks I contacted to see if I could get any help winning my unfaithful wife back to the marriage. I asked for his help and was told he would put me in touch with someone locally who could help. But I never got that information even after calling back.
My church refused to do the Matthew 18 process, which is basically the intervention and her family welcomed her affair partner into their home, so they were not going to be part of any intervention. So I went to him looking for some assistance, and came away empty.
Can’t do an intervention if no one is willing to intervene and can’t save a marriage if someone says they’ll provide help and then they don’t provide the help they promised.
(USA) My husband stopped his affair and is trying so hard to show me love, I don’t want him now. How can I change my heart and love him again?
(MALAWI) I am in the same situation and would like to know the answer from this question. I feel I no longer love Him. He has cheated more than three times and claims that he has stopped. I dont believe Him because nothing has changed.
what can I do really?
(SOUTH AFRICA) I am with you there Dorothy. I have been cheated upon by my spouse so many times and I have been faithful in my marriage. How do I learn to trust again? I have forgiven him but I cannot forget the pain he caused me. I ask God to take away my pain and teach me to trust again. I am in so much pain right now.
(USA) I am one who has experience in this area. After 25 years of marriage, I felt I could not withhold my feelings any more. Our marriage was lacking emotion, I had tried over and over to vocalize my wants desires and wishes. My husband was unresponsive to my needs for over 5 years of my efforts to enlighten him. There was a gap, a hole, an emptiness. I found a filling, be it the wrong attention from another, for a time it was wonderful, talking, e-mailing and having someone to take interest in me, my feelings and my needs. I felt alive again. What made me wake up was my children. I never want for them to hurt, or to be feeling like they are to blame.
So I now remain in a marriage ‘for the sake of the kids’, in a relationship that I don’t know how it could ever be what it should be. I stumbled on this page while looking for a Jane Austen quote. Something to the effect of: no matter how much you love your husband, you’ll always love your children more. I am frustrated at what type of life lessons my kids are getting from our dysfunctional relationship. It is not I want for them, not the example, but I can not do it alone, and that is what I feel I am. My kids are old enough to know this can’t be normal for relationships.
So my question… is it worse to stay and give them a poor example of marriage anyway, or leave and at least find happiness in myself, and show them the true happy mom I know I can be and want to be?
(USA) I think you are just looking for a way out of the marriage. Coming from a spouse that has been cheated on more than once and finding the letters that he sent her, and how she was receiving all the thoughtful words and attention that a husband should be giving his wife, I will tell you this. After 20 years in a cold marriage I never once cheated and the damage caused seems like it will take a life time to repair. You have had your selfish fling, now think of your children and try to repair your marriage.
(EGYPT) What is good for the childern, is to live a HAPPY life between loving, caring mum and dad. Otherwise it will not be good for them. You will be teaching them that marriage is only two people living in the same place, who do not care for each other, each one with his own separate life!
You chose either live with your husband after knowing your mistakes that drove him to this, and do your best to gain him back or if he is a sick man running after new relationships every now and then, then leave him and live the rest of your life happy with someone else or even alone which will also be better than living under this pressure. But then the 2nd option means you were blind for long period, you should have discovered this earlier. I discovered this with my husband after 10 years and am blaming myself for that.
(USA) After nearly 19 years, my husband announced “I’m not happy; I began a friendship 3 years ago and over the course of the past few months, we fell in love.” I received the classic “I love you, but I’m not in love with you” line. He has apologized, but has never asked for my forgiveness because he does not feel that he deserves it. He is remorseful for putting me through this pain and cries often at the thought of the hurt I am going through. Yet… that does not stop him from still seeing, texting and talking to this woman.
He has waivered a couple of times telling me that he’s not sure, he’s really in love with me and how could he do what he’s done to someone who has been so good to him. I could not take the ups and downs, the hopes and then the crashes of emotions of this, so I told him “I love you, but I can’t go through the emotional turmoil of waiting for you to decide if I win the contest of your emotions.”
He continues to stay in our home to get our home in order to sell. But, he is making plans to be with this woman – quit his job (a career that he can do anywhere), leave his parents and friends behind and move in with this woman who lives nearly 5 hours away. This is the second marriage she has destroyed and had a child from another affair. I still love him – the man I married, not the man he has become. I would take him back, but there would need to be serious counseling. I pray to God several times a day that he will use me to show my husband God’s grace and love and for him, to ask God to forgive him of his sins.
(USA) So sorry, Kelly, that your husband is treating you this way. I can’t even imagine the gravity of pain and rejection you’ve been experiencing. I cry with you. As I read your heart-breaking comment, I was reminded of a few quotes we had posted on the Marriage Missions’ Facebook page earlier today: “Don’t get caught up in thinking the grass is greener somewhere else.” -TGW. “The grass is always greener on the other side, until you jump the fence and see the weeds up close.” -A.G.
“Love” can be so slippery in how it can be defined and felt, when we allow ourselves to ignore that which is Truth and that which is a false mirror and mirage of the truth. How I pray your husband wakes up and embraces Truth and realizes the slippery slope he’s willingly sliding onto by going in the direction he is. Three years of feeding a “friendship” with someone of the opposite sex, when one is married, is bad enough –it should never, ever be perpetuated. But then taking it to the next level and abandoning one’s vows, spouse, job, home, family and friends, for this type of “love” is reckless on every level imaginable. His tears and remorse are empty unless they’re followed by true repentance and changed behavior –NOT jumping the fence, and saying, “sorry” as he continues on his way.
(USA) Thank you Cindy for your words of encouragement. It’s odd you mention the “grass is greener” because on one of his “confused” moments he did mention he thought the “grass was greener elsewhere but realized it was green and healthy with me” – but that thought didn’t last long.
Cindy – they were BOTH married! So this is reckless on both of their parts and if that’s the way they want to live – starting a relationship based on lies, deceit and destruction of past relationships rarely ever succeed. You are right that unless he repents and changes his behavior, his remorse is empty and I do realize that his guilt and remorse and his constant wanting to know if “I’m healing” is his way of easing his conscience. If he knows that I actually slept more than 3 hours -he feels better -not me. I am realizing each day that I am stronger and seeing each day a new selfish behavior that love essentially blinded me to in the past.
(SA) Dear Andrew and Vanessa, You bless me every day of my life since I received the Text. You make me strong. At the moment I’m going through rough time my husband does not sleep at home. He has had an affair. He is no longer supportive like he used to be. His mother chases my son out of the house as he is not his father.
My son is sick please pray for him as well. He vomits blood and he does not eat for 18 days. 2009 he was shot in the chest and had a zip operation, Age 24yrs.
Help him to consider our marriage and that we have to go finish Lobola and sign at Home affairs. I have a little girl 11 years with him and we have been together for 20 yrs, going to good German School. I’m still in probation here at Bosnia. This is my final week. I am going through a hard time. I have even become to be inpatient with myself and seems as if I loose respect for him but I love him as my husband and the father of my child please help to pray for me and my family to be united again. I trust and believe to Almight God. But it is very very hard to me to accept.
Hope we have room for my problems. May God Bless you two. Thanks
(NIGERIA) Last week friday, he left home for work and didn’t come and i didn’t see him till yestertday. He has accepted that there is another woman and that my family and i are the cause of his misfortune.
I’ve been bearing a lot of responsibility in the house to avoid conflict, i don’t ask him for monthly upkeep and he keeps asking for money which i give.
I am in hope that there will be a brighter day
Yesterday morning, while chatting the other woman told me “to let him be” “he is with me right now” and “will come home when he wants”.
I’ve exchanged words with him this morning cause I was a bit shaken and lost for words. I don’t want my marriage to crack, though he is an unbeliever. He has succeeded in keeping me away from his family. After, we got married, i learnt he has another child. We have a two yrs old girl together.
Could you please plead for God’s mercy on my behalf, I am suffering and really don’t know what to do.
(USA) I found out my husband was having an affair in May. He sent a text message to me that was intended for his affair partner. The text was sexual in nature… complimenting her over what the two of them did during lunch that day. My daughter was looking over my shoulder when the text came in. I’ll never forget when she said, “Dad wouldn’t be cheating on you, would he?” I was devastated and didn’t really know how to respond. I felt myself go into shock.
Being Christian, I do not believe it is God’s will that a marriage break up, or a family break up. So, I told him I loved him, and I that I forgave him, and wanted to make our marriage work, but I was shaken to the very core of my being. I gave him the choice- to break it off with her entirely and stay with me, or to leave and give me a divorce. He chose to stay with me, and told me that day that he broke it off with her.
In October, I found an email sent to him by her in which she wrote how she thought of him everyday… physically, emotionally, and that they were magic together. I thought I was going to have a nervous break down when I read it. Our kids were there when I fell apart. He told us (my son and daughter) that he started talking to her again in August. That since he was given an ultimatum, he was scared at the time and needed to figure out for himself if he wanted to remain in the marriage or not. He claimed that a week prior to the October email that he told her that he had decided to remain in the marriage, but the two of them weren’t sure how they were going to handle their relationship since he decided to stay in the marriage. He thought they could be friends.
He said after watching me and the kids fall apart on the day her email came in, he understood that he couldn’t maintain a friendship with her. Having to relive the pain of finding out that he was still in the affair has left me emotionally raw. As we try to rebuild (we are in therapy) I’ve noticed that he is emotionally distant from me. I am trying so hard to follow the advice of the experts and share my feelings with him and to be understanding that he is experiencing a loss, as well. I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to rebuild our marriage.
My fear is since he is emotionally distant that the spark is gone, and that he can’t or doesn’t want to rekindle it. One of the hardest parts for me is his affair partner is 15 years younger than we are- in her late 20′s with a 3 year old and 5 year old. We have a 16 year old and 17 year old. How do I compete with someone who is so much younger? He shared with me that what he liked was that she needed him.
It was difficult to hear him share that, but I know I needed to hear what he got out of the affair in order to rebuild our marriage, but I feel like I am nothing now. I don’t know exactly why I’m writing this post. I think I’m searching for an answer. How do I make it so he no longer loves her, and can turn his attentions to making our marriage work. I feel hopeless and know I need a lot of prayer. I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest everyday. Fear and anxiety are a normal part of my life now. I can’t eat or sleep very well, and I can’t focus on the other areas of my life like kids and work. Will it ever get better? Will I ever feel whole again?
(USA) Ellen, he’s probably in love with her, and probably still in love with you, too. Just a guess based on what you’ve written.
Have you found out why he started the affair? If he was missing something, needing something, perhaps you can give it to him. I’d guess most men start an affair looking for the sex their wife doesn’t give them. Looking for the love of a woman who is happy to see them. Looking for a woman who appreciates the man and wants to make him happy and wants to fullfill his every fantasy. When he was with her he might have felt on top of the world. That is what you are competing with.
If, hypothetically, he left you for her, their relationship might sour eventally. But for now, it is all high, all wanting and desires being satisfied. Maybe an illusion, maybe not based on reality, but seemingly real all the same. Can’t your relationship with him be the same high, giving him the same sense of head over heels in love? I do not know. And I’m not even saying you should try, just that it seems you want to.
Maybe he is a dirtbag and you have done nothing wrong. Or maybe there was something missing from you, that he tried to tell you about for years, but you never seemed to listen, never seemed to care. Assuming he is basically a good man, I can only assume the other woman was able to provide him with something he was missing. And I doubt it was something as shallow as younger looks or a thinner body. Instead, it would have been something more substantial, and she just happens to be younger.
I think demanding he stop seeing her is fair. You should also be given whatever powers are needed to police his behavior. It won’t be easy for him to stop seeing her, but it sounds like he would agree to it. Still, I just wonder if at the core of the issue is some problem that is yet to be resolved. Perhaps a mismatched sex drive between you two. Perhaps something else, but I don’t know what.
I wish you the best. I just wanted to say that maybe he is torn and cannot easily drop her. He can get over her, but it will take time.
(USA) I have been in a relationship with my husband for 26 years, 21 of which married. We have two beautiful teen girls. There are so many things that can be factors in what is going on at the moment. First off, my husband is a compulsive gambler (in denial). We are in Chapter 13 bankruptcy due to his gambling. He commutes out of state for work during the week for the past year. We are half way through our bankruptcy and he has continued to gamble. It has caused me to have anxiety and stress on a daily basis.
I am holding down the fort all week, running kids every which way, keep up the house etc, worrying about money and how it will all get paid, shop in thrift stores and eat thrifly. He stays in four star hotels, fine restaurants, bars etc on the company’s dime. His life during the week is a dream world with no stress. He comes home on the weekend to me who is overwhelmed and needs his help. He puts blinders on and does not see all that is needed and why he can’t gamble.
He now has been having an affair for three months and told me he loves her. He wants to get an apartment there, again, on company money, to see where this leads. This person is seeing him as a man of means, and has left her husband with her child to be with my husband. They feel they will have a perfect life.
I feel he can’t deal with the stress that is self-imposed and it is so vastly different from the life he leads there with no worries. I do think there is an emotional attachment between them because that connection has suffered between us since this financial crisis and commute started. If only everyone could escape their reality and live in a dream world.
At this point, he does not want to work on our marriage at all. He is moving on to this person. I am absolutely devastated. His gambling has been our only issue. He has good moments and bad in his addiction, but he has always been a great father and husband. I know it is an addiction and he has to see that for himself.
How do I cope? Do I wait it out and hope he sees his mistake? I have a million things rushing through my head and I do not know what to do. I do not have a career, family near me, etc. I do not want to rush to divorce and then regret it. I love him and am willing to work to make this an even better marriage that will need changes. I do not want to go back to what it was but stronger. How do I get through this??
Will he see that he is throwing a great family away for instant gratification? I know he has anger, resentment and hurt in him and feel he has not dealt with that at all but instead is running from it all to find a happiness that is really sitting right here in his family if he just freed himself of all those negative feelings. Hope someone has some insight for me!
(BOTSWANA) The problem we face with the marriage in African set up is the parents involvement, where the parents of one of the couple wants to dominate the marriage of their children. In my case they want money from their daughter who has not been working for many years and I have been supporting the family.
Three months upon starting work they want us to break up so that they can have full control of their daughter’s finances. You know what I did? I asked God to give me wisdom and He did because I did not fight her. I let her go ahead to do what is best for her. She went to take care of her mother and brothers even those who are working.
Two weeks back, she came back with financial problems and I gave her the car that she returned to me thinking that she is financially independent. She can buy her own car. When things went wrong she remembered the family where she used to have everything she wanted. The problem is now we don’t trust each other and her financial problem has affected the family’s finances. God will always find a way out for our problems when you give Him chance. At the end, my marriage is the winner.