Why can’t my husband let the other woman go once and for all?
Sometimes I hear from wives who really want to save their marriage, but don’t know how much longer they can 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 seem to be good.
I heard from a wife who said, “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 It was give him time or leave my marriage which I didn’t want to do so after a few weeks he came to me and told me he would break up and work on our marriage however it was very obvious he was sad to end it he did as he was told I asked him to do it, but it was clear his involvement wasn’t entirely enthusiastic. About three months later, I picked up her phone and saw a text from her. Turns out, he got back to her about a month after we tried to reconcile. And this it’s happened two more times. He promises he’s done with her and then a few months later I 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 this to my husband, he begged me to give him one last chance. I told him that to even consider that, he needed to understand why he keeps coming back to her. I needed to understand what it is about her that is so desirable and impossible to overcome. Her response to me was that he had no idea why he couldn’t let her go. Obviously, this is not the truth. Why does he keep coming back to her? She’s not particularly beautiful or even interesting in my opinion. 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 her behavior. Men often comment on my blog and say they don’t know why they keep going back and forth between the other woman and the wife. They have every intention of moving on and then find themselves coming back. Because? Well, there are a number of reasons why you might be having trouble breaking up. I will discuss them below.
He may sense 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 is to 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 stuck again, that attraction to wanting to feel young doesn’t miraculously go away. And if he doesn’t do anything to address this need, then he begins to feel that the only way to get some relief is to go back to her.
Yes, you can hate yourself for it. And I may tell you that he never meant to make that mistake twice. But, whether he realizes it or not, whatever need he filled in the beginning hasn’t been addressed yet, so he needs to keep repeating the relationship to continue reaping that reward.
They may have entered a destructive cycle: We’ve all known couples who break up and get back together multiple times. And this doesn’t happen 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 stand up and break the cycle.
You may not think your marriage has healed enough: Many men confess that they meant well to get back with their wives, but when they do, they find that healing the marriage takes too much work or isn’t working very well. So, he’ll follow the path of least resistance and realize it’s easier to get back to the other woman because she’s so desperate to get him back that she’s trying to present him as if there are no strings attached. Of course, we all know this isn’t really true, but that’s often the way she’ll try to present it.
In all of the above scenarios, hopefully you can see that it takes some self-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 take commitment. And sometimes, they make it very clear to you that if it doesn’t end, you’re not going to take it back so easily each and every time. He has to know that being indecisive and pushing everyone in opposite directions is not healthy for any of you.