How to Love a Husband Who Cheated After 24 Years

You have a long road ahead of you both! Beware of the temptation to think that your real problem is the fact that he cheated. Cheating is a symptom that something is deeply wrong with the marriage. In all cases, cheating is an act of aggression against the person upon whom you are cheating. The cheater is saying 'screw you' via his unfaithful behavior.

In order to begin the process of repairing the marriage, your husband needs to say why he was so mad at you. He needs to tell you what you did to make him mad or what you didn't do that led him to be angry. It's going to be hard for you to listen and understand his anger because you are feeling wronged and violated by his infidelity. I understand how you feel. But if you want to save your marriage and love him still, which you said you do, then you're going to need to make a huge shift in your thinking. You're going to need to tell yourself that you had a hand in what happened.

For the marriage to fall apart, you had to be doing something that was dreadfully unacceptable to him. The way he communicated his discontent wasn't right, but if you can focus on your own responsibility in the matter and remember that you had a hand in driving him away, you will be on the path to repairing what's wrong in the marriage. If you are able to really take responsibility for your part, then you will be ready to listen and understand whatever it was that you did that didn't work for him.

You will also need to be responsive to his needs from here forward. He is also going to need to make changes. For one thing, he needs to commit to talking with you from now on whenever he's angry rather than acting his anger out by being unfaithful. In addition, he needs to realize that he had a hand in provoking you to behave in ways that he found unacceptable. For example, let's say he cheated because he was sick of your always being mad at him. Well, why were you mad at him in the first place? He needs to modify what it was that he was doing or not doing that made you so mad!

Now we're back to you. While he has to modify what he was doing to provoke you, you also need to learn how to handle your anger properly. Read my book, Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First), which will show you how to communicate your thoughts and feelings in a way that won't send him running away from you. Your learning how to communicate properly, especially when you're angry, is crucial in order to avoid future infidelities.

I've given you the blueprint for saving your marriage. There's a lot of work ahead of you. But if you both commit to putting each other 's needs first and making each other happy, you will save this marriage and find a deeper love than you ever knew was possible.