Sometimes I hear of wives who really want to save their marriage but don’t know how long they will be able to tolerate the feeling that they need to compete with the other woman. Often the husband has promised that the relationship is over. And yet, for whatever reason, her husband breaks his promises and goes back to the other woman more than once. This can make the wife wonder why this keeps happening when the intentions appear to be good.
I heard a wife say: “My husband had an affair with one of his former clients last year. When I found out, he asked me to give him two weeks to make a decision. I was not happy about this, but I thought my choice was to give him the time or leave my marriage, which I didn’t want to do, so after a few weeks, he came over and told me that he would end it and work on our marriage. However, it was very obvious that he was sad to end it. I asked her to do it, but it was clear that her participation was not entirely enthusiastic. About three months later, I picked up her phone and saw a text message from her. Turns out, she came back to her about a month after we tried to reconcile. AND this has happened twice more. He will promise he’s done with her and then a few months later he’ll find out he’s not. At this point, I feel like I’m almost done with this whole process. I just can’t deal with this anymore. But when I told my husband about this, he begged me to give him one last chance. I told him that even to consider that, I needed to understand why he keeps coming back to her. He needed to understand what it is about her that is so desirable and impossible to beat. Her response to me was that I had no idea why I couldn’t let her go. Obviously, this is not the truth. Why does he keep coming back to her? In my opinion, it is not particularly beautiful or interesting. I just don’t understand. “
It is possible that this husband was not being completely deceitful. It is possible that he himself did not understand their behavior. Men often comment on my blog and say they don’t know why they keep bouncing between the other woman and the wife. They have every intention of moving on and then they find themselves coming back. Why? Well, there are several reasons why you might have trouble separating. I will discuss them below.
He may perceive that he needs what she has to offer: It probably sounds like a broken record when I say once again that the attraction is often not to the woman herself. It’s what he thinks the other woman offers. For example, if she makes him feel young and then he breaks up and starts feeling old and stagnant again, that attraction to wanting to feel young doesn’t miraculously go away. And if you don’t do anything to address this need, then you start to feel like the only way you’ll get some relief is to get back to her.
Yes, you can hate yourself for that. And it may tell you that you never intended to make that mistake twice. But whether he realizes it or not, whatever needs she filled in the beginning have yet to be addressed, so she has to keep repeating the relationship to continue getting that reward.
They may have entered a destructive cycle: We all know couples who break up and get back together several times. And this happens not because they have great chemistry or an amazing relationship. It happens because over time, it has become a habit. It’s almost a script that both people are playing over and over again because neither of them is strong enough to be the one to get up and break the cycle.
He may not believe that his marriage has healed enough: Many men confess that they had good intentions to get back together with their wives, but when they do, they find that healing the marriage takes too much work or is not working very well. So you will follow the path of least resistance and you will find that it is easier to get back to the other woman because she is so desperate to get it back that she is trying to present it as if there are no strings attached. Of course, we all know that this is not really true, but that is often how you will try to present it.
In all of the above scenarios, hopefully you can see that it takes your own work to get through these things. Healing your marriage and breaking a destructive cycle are not things that happen easily or quickly. They take work. They compromise. And sometimes, they take into account that you are very clear about the fact that if it does not end, you will no longer accept it so easily each and every time. He has to know that being indecisive and leading everyone in opposite directions is not healthy for any of you.