What I’ve learned is that’s exactly what I needed. I needed to learn the vulnerability of talking about those areas of brokenness and need in my life. For me, that’s where healing started. Instead of avoiding that stuff, I needed to be with it, sit with it, have conversations about it. But it took me a while to get there. I will say this, once I got to the place where I felt like healing had really taken over my life, that resistance to the conversation really broke down in me. Not that I was excited to talk about my affair, but I realized that that was something that was necessary for my children, for my wife and so it changed.
When in reality the affair lasted two years and they had sex 44 times
Another possible reason for not wanting to talk about things is that the unfaithful may be trying to fight for the marriage and there may be things – especially details – that they don’t want to discuss for fear of hurting their spouse even further. Some of the details are going to be hurtful so they’d rather just keep quiet about it – not even lie about it because they don’t want to cause any more pain. The weird thing about that is that the unfaithful have to be willing to be honest so that the betrayed can forgive and learn to trust them again. But that typically positive singles morsiamet doesn’t make any sense in the cheater’s mind at the time.
Many cheaters also don’t want to talk about the affair and “just move on” because they probably haven’t been very truthful up until that point.
So, talking more about things could bring up more of what they’ve been lying about. They’re thinking, “I’ve confessed some things and for now, my spouse has accepted it, so the more I talk about it, the greater amount of lies I have to remember, and that’s going to be difficult.” So sometimes that’s why the unfaithful don’t want to talk about it. But most times it’s because they don’t want to look at their own shame and they don’t know how to support their spouse when the pain seems to overwhelm them. So, by not talking, they avoid feeling less capable or inadequate and so the alternative then is to just move on.
Now, most of us understand why the betrayed spouse needs to talk about the affair and needs to know details. Sarah did a great job of explaining them, btw. If you’re a betrayed spouse, you have your own reasons for why you need to talk about the affair, and whatever they may be, they are more than enough reason for your unfaithful spouse to comply.
However, if you are an unfaithful spouse, perhaps you don’t fully understand the reasons why your spouse needs to know – or even how to talk honestly about your affair. If that is the case, here are a couple of posts that might be helpful for you:
Finally, here is another excerpt from “Inside the Mind of the Unfaithful” where Tim and I address some ideas on how to get the unfaithful person to talk about the affair:
They can’t seem to just say something and the betrayed snaps out of it
Remember that there can be no one-size fits all answer here and a lot can depend on the circumstances of a couple’s unique story at the time; how invested the betrayed partner is in that moment, if they’re working on the marriage or if they’re still in the confused state or whatever.
