One of the challenging questions in affair recovery is whether the cheater has to ‘admit to the affair’. it is best if they do. Better for them, you, and the marriage. Being honest about the affair, including admitting it, moves your marriage toward healing. Not admitting to an affair does not have to stop healing, does not have to stop communication, and does not keep you stuck. So how can you move on with healing when they won’t admit to the affair?
Do they have to admit to the affair? <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you are here today. In today’s show we’re going to be dealing with the question, do they have to admit to the affair.
In operating the blog at Survive your Partner’s Affair, I come across many questions. One of the question I’ve seen shows up periodically and it’s quite a challenging question in affair recovery, is whether or not the cheater has to admit to the affair. Do they have to admit to the affair?
Because a lot of times they find themselves experiencing a lot of frustration because the cheater won’t admit to it. The question comes up, well, does the cheater have to admit to it. That’s what we’re going to be dealing with today.
It is best if they do admit to it. Better for them, it’s better for you, better for the marriage. Being honest about the affair, including admitting it, moves your marriage forward toward healing. Not admitting to the affair does not have to stop the healing, and it does not have to stop the communication, and it does not have to keep you stuck. There are things that you can do, and that’s what we’re going to be going over.
Because an affair does not have to mean the end of your marriage.
How can you move on with the healing when they won’t admit to the affair? That’s what we’re going to be dealing with today. I’d love to go ahead and give you a short, quick answer. This one doesn’t have a short, quick answer. But I am going to tell you what you can do about it.
1. Pray about it. Now, I know that there’s probably a lot of people out there that tell me well you’re just going to pray about it, just going to pray about it. Well, let’s get down to some brass tacks.
What do you need to pray for? That I’m going to give you the direction on. You pray about your attitude, pray about their attitude. You pray for direction. You ask for let me know what I have to do, give me some direction. You also pray that there would be a movement in your spouse to convict them concerning what they have done.
I mentioned the thing about attitude. It’s not just the cheater’s attitude, it’s also your attitude. Because before you go in there wanting them to admit to the affair, they may not be reacting to your question. They may be reacting to your attitude. So many times, having the right attitude when you’re asking a question, does make a big difference.
Your attitude may be blocking things. If it is, you need to make a change.
Besides praying about attitude, ask for direction, then communication, after doing all this you’ve got to give time for the changes to take place. All of us would love to have the proverbial lightning bolt to just zap the cheater into their senses. We all want change, but what’s difficult is giving time for the change to happen.
I’m not saying you’ve got to give this thing an extended period of time. Go ahead and give it a reasonable amount of time when you’re praying, and I’m going to go ahead and give it a time frame of, let’s just say, 14-21 days. That’s two to three weeks. That will give you time.
This is not one of those things that change may happen within a few days or a few hours, but giving a few days, it gives a chance for them to make adjustments and also for you to make adjustments.
2. Discuss your experience with the affair. They may not admit to what they did, but you know what happened to you, you know what you felt. And you can talk about your emotions, your behavior, and your thoughts. You can talk about that.
Because many times when you start talking about it, it can stir things within them. Let me give you an example, because this is one if I just give you the direction without examples it can lead to some potential problems.
You may start, when I found out that you had cheated on me, or I thought that you were cheating on me, my world fell apart. I suddenly had all these fantasies of you and the lover doing this and doing that. I found myself sick to my stomach and just thought of it for several days. I couldn’t get that image out of my head. It was hard to sleep at night, and when I did finally go to sleep I had nightmares about it. It’s just been a living hell.
Every time I go to the store or go to church or go to the hardware store and people look at me, I think they’re going there’s a person who couldn’t keep their man or couldn’t keep their woman. And I feel like I’m the one that’s on trial for what happened.
Whether or not your slept with them, I don’t know. What I do know is I’m feeling miserable and I’m feeling terrible about it. And I need to talk to you about it because you are my spouse.
That’s a place to start. I have found, like for instance in working with teenagers which are notoriously difficult once they shut down, a lot of times when I start talking about my experience with the topic, like for instance I may want them to talk about their mom so I’ll start talking about my mom, and when that happens they start thinking about their mother. And it starts putting some pressure at that level.
So as you start talking about your experience with the affair, it’s putting pressure on them to go ahead and address the topic. And this is a way to go ahead, and even though they might not admit it, what happened to you is real. What happened to you is a valid place to start. It’s a way to start opening the door to discussions on this issue.
3. Use metaphors and discuss in third person. Sometimes cheaters have a hard time talking about what they themselves did. But if you talk about what hypothetically another couple did, like Joe and Samantha and what they went through, it gives a little bit of distance and it makes it a little safer.
This is one of the few times where discussing, like for instance a movie that contained an affair, you can talk about it. In that movie, where Joe cheated on Samantha, or Samantha was looking at that other man and going to meetings with this other man, that can open the door for you and the cheater to begin discussing things.
And by talking about what happened in the movie, or by talking about that hypothetical couple, it gives them a way to start dealing with the issue and talking about it with a little bit of safety.
These are some things that you can do. I encourage you if you do put these things into place, that you start with the first piece. Pray about it before you start taking action. Because prayer, it gives you spiritual strength, it gives you direction, but it can also change your attitude. It can change their attitude. It’s almost like it can open a window of opportunity so that when you do begin the discussions, the groundwork has already been put into place.
A lot of times you can start doing a lot of talking and if the timing’s not right and that window of opportunity’s not there, it literally goes in one ear and out the other. So there are ways that you can begin addressing the affair even if they don’t admit to it. That’s what we went over.
I encourage you, go ahead and start putting these things into place now before you do have a major crisis or before too much time. Because the longer you put off dealing with it, the worse the problem’s going to get.
This has not been a necessarily very pleasant topic, but it’s been an important topic to deal with. I have enjoyed being with you here at Affair Recovery Radio and I hope you enjoyed the show today. Please leave your positive feedback wherever you listen to the show, or you can leave it at my blog, www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com.
If you have any questions, please leave them there. I’ll be glad to get to them, or topics that you would like to see more covered on. I always welcome your questions. If they’re of a private nature, please send them to my personal email, Jeff@RestoreTheFamily.com.
Because I am here to help you through the affair recovery one step at a time. Because an affair does not have to be the end of your marriage. There are things that you can do and I want to help you through that.
So until next time, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Goodbye.
