My husband contradicts himself – He told the other woman that he loves her, he told me the same

I sometimes hear from wives hearing conflicting stories from their husband when it comes to his feelings towards the other woman in the affair. Sometimes when the affair is first discovered, the husband will express real feelings for the other woman. Often, she thinks that having legitimate feelings will make cheating at least somewhat justified. But as time goes by and he is able to reflect on the situation and see the pain that all of this is causing his wife, it is possible that he sometimes changes his tone. Or, he may have legitimate feelings for both women and may therefore change her statements. Often, his loyalty is understandably to his wife, with whom he has a commitment and a history. Unfortunately, usually once he has admitted feelings for the other woman, it is hard for the wife to forget, even if she believes that her husband loves her too.

I heard from one wife who said, “When I first caught my husband cheating on me, he refused to talk about the other woman at all. However, he eventually realized that he owed me some answers and agreed to go to therapy. During In one of those sessions, the counselor began to probe her feelings for the other woman. She replied that she had real feelings. The counselor asked her what she meant by “real feelings” and she said that she loved her. Needless to say, this is the ultimate .that I wanted to hear.After thinking about this and struggling with it for quite some time, I decided that our marriage had no chance because I just can’t be married to someone who admits they are in love with someone else, when I said this to my husband, she told me that upon further reflection she did not really love the other woman. She says she only thought she did. She says that now that she has had more time to be away from her and to think about it more objectively, she realizes that what they had was not really love. To take it even further, he said that he realizes that what we have is love. In short, he is now turning around and saying that it is me he loves. I want to believe this pretty bad. I would fight very hard for my marriage if I believed that my husband loves me. But how can I believe him when he told me not long ago that he was in love with someone else? How am I supposed to believe him?”

Decide if you want to wait and see how this turns out: I know this is a difficult situation. I know he’s asking you to take a big leap of faith. I know sometimes you wonder how you can be so foolish as to even consider believing his shifting claims. Of course you want to believe that he loves you. But how will you know for sure? I’ll tell you my answer, but I have to warn you that I doubt you’ll find it to be the perfect answer. I’m not sure there is such a thing as the perfect answer in this situation. I think you just have to make a conscious decision about whether you want to give it more time to resolve.

This is why. You cannot know if your husband is telling you the truth. Because he may not even know if he is telling you the truth. It is quite possible that he has many conflicting feelings at the same time. He may well love you very deeply. Men who love their wives can and do cheat. The real question is where he’s going to go from here. Because, frankly, love is not enough. It’s hard work recovering from an adventure. And love is a wonderful first step. Because love can inspire you to work tirelessly to fight for your marriage right now, even when the future is uncertain. Without love, this process is much more difficult.

Why time will often tell you more: Like I said, love will only get you started. You will also need a commitment, a willingness to find out why this happened, and then a plan to heal your marriage and then prevent this from happening again. These are the things that will make up the commitment that will move your marriage forward. So no, you may not be sure if he really loves you right now. And that is a scary place to be. But frankly, in the weeks since the affair, very little is clear. There are no guarantees. Often you just have to decide what you want to happen tomorrow and then make a conscious decision to give yourself more time to wait and see. Because if he really loves you, then he’ll be there tomorrow and next week. And next month. And next year.

It is with time that he will show his love for you. He can say any number of things. But only his actions along with time will tell you if those things are true or not. Frankly, men can both lie and tell the truth in this situation. And if you carefully watch and wait, then time and circumstances will help you figure it out. I know it’s not a perfect answer, but it’s accurate, at least in my experience.