Tanya asked 12 years ago
My husband refuses to admit that he has been cheating in our marriage. Can our marriage e saved if he doesn’t admit to the cheating?
Insight Psychological Staff answered 2 years ago
Thank you for your question! The first thing that I would suggest is to clarify how both you and your husband define cheating. It is important for both of you to understand the expectations of boundaries you have for each other within your relationship. There is a range of possible behaviours that could be considered infidelity, and the first step may be to clarify any inconsistencies in both yours and your husband’s understanding of infidelity. A couple of questions:
- How do you know that your husband has been cheating? When dealing with infidelity, people naturally, want to discover the reason behind the behaviour that led to the breach.
- What about this situation feels like a betrayal? If your husband’s behaviour has violated your trust, it’s important to be clear to him about what happened, that was a breach within your relationship.
Regardless of what may or may not have happened prior to this point in time, what is it that you want to happen now? What does healing look like going forward?
It may be helpful to see a couple’s therapist who can help navigate the breach and guide the conversation towards repair. As you are navigating various emotions, seeing a therapist can help provide you with a safe space where you are able to work through various challenging issues like trust, power dynamics, self-confidence, and intimacy. If your husband continues to not admit to a breach (and that it has actually happened), you may have to decide what that means for you about your relationship. If both of you still want to stay in the relationship, you may need to reflect on whether or not you are willing to look past the incident and what you would want or need in order to forgive, move on, or rebuild trust.
I wish you all the best moving forward.
References
Sauerheber, J. D., & Disque, J. G. (2016). A Trauma-Based Physiological Approach: Helping Betrayed Partners Heal from Marital Infidelity. Journal of Individual Psychology, 72(3), 214–234.
Thompson, A. E., & O’Sullivan, L. F. (2017). Understanding Variations in Judgments of Infidelity: An Application of Attribution Theory. Basic & Applied Social Psychology, 39(5), 262–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2017.1350578
