Occasionally, I hear from women who are being judged for their reaction to their husband’s cheating. Many wives really don’t want to be around her husband immediately after the cheating is discovered, so they ask him to leave for a while.
Of course, when this news breaks, there will be people who will have something to say about it or have an opinion about it. And this can cause the wife to question her decision or wonder if she acted rashly or harshly.
She might ask, “Should I feel guilty about kicking out my cheating husband? I found indisputable evidence that he was cheating. After this, I tried being a butler for a while and then tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I considered calling him at work.” and facing him, but I didn’t bring myself to do this. Then, I realized that he would come home any minute. I still didn’t want to face him, so I put his clothes in garbage bags and left a note attached to the garage door. I told him I didn’t want him to set foot in our house for a while. I was surprised that he read the note and then left. He didn’t try to change my mind. But he went straight to his mother. And he told her everything. She called me and I didn’t answer. But she left a message saying I should be ashamed of myself for kicking the father of my children out of his own home. She said I should have handled this like an adult and not a child. I asked some friends about Although a couple of them said I had nothing to be ashamed of, a few said I should have listened to what my husband had to say before asking a quick question. decision to kick him out. Who has the reason? Should a wife feel guilty when she drives her unfaithful husband away from her?”
Everything I say (or write in this case) will be my opinion only. And as you’ve seen from the response you’ve received, everyone seems to have an opinion when you’re going through a situation like this. But I would say that only a few people’s opinion really matters. Your opinion is the most important. And your therapist’s opinion should matter too. But beyond that, I’m not sure you need to worry too much about what other people think.
You’re not the one who cheated. Her husband made the decision to cheat. And this, through no fault of your own, he left you with a decision to make about your marriage. You were probably motivated by anger and shock when you wrote that letter. But I’m not sure anyone could blame him for his content.
My take on this is that it is your right to decide what you want and don’t want to move forward with. It is your marriage after all and you have to live with the consequences. I think if there are children involved, you don’t necessarily have the right to negatively affect a child’s relationship with her parent. The relationship between your children and their father is not your relationship.
I always felt that the best thing for my children was to foster a healthy relationship with their father, regardless of what happened with our marriage. That’s why I always kept our marital problems completely separate from his relationship with his children. It was always clear to me that my husband was a great father.
There was a short period of time where I asked my husband for some time and space. However, he had an open door policy when it came to our children. I didn’t feel guilty about needing space from him. I didn’t feel guilty that he temporarily stayed somewhere else. I would have felt guilty if he had kept the children from him, but he didn’t.
It’s probably obvious by now that I think you have the right to make your decisions without fault, as long as the decisions you make concern your marriage and not your relationship with other family members.
I also know that often, as the anger fades, you will sometimes re-evaluate these decisions. At the time when my husband and I were taking a break, I never thought that one day I would be able to review my marriage and be open to trying to salvage things, but that’s what I did.
However, at first I did not want to be around my husband and needed time to process the events that were happening. He understood, although I’m sure some of his friends didn’t think highly of me at the time. And what, however? It is nobody’s business but the people directly involved in the marriage. My husband understood that his decision to cheat was the reason for my decisions and actions. If he had never cheated, then nothing would have changed.
