Dear Dr. Karen:

My husband has had 2 flings since we have been married which is only 3 years and both of these women he had dated before we met. He said they meant nothing and can we move on from it but one of them had a child for him, (she was pregnant when he met me but said she meant nothing to him), apparently he told her he had met someone he wanted to marry, me, and they split up, obviously they were still dating and she got pregnant thinking he would not marry me, she them turned up a couple of months later saying he was the father, he told her to get lost and did not see her or the child until it was 13 months old, this was a shock to him, he thinks the child looks like him, so he has accepted that it is his.

The flings were a year ago just after he had re-met her and the baby, the other girl was also a previous girlfriend. So why did this happen? It hurts me to think of it.  I know I should put it out of my mind but I do not seem to be able to  have the right affirmation in my head to do this. I just keep saying over and over if you did not care for them before and ended it to be with me because you love me and wanted to marry me, why did you then go back and sleep with them again? he says he wanted to make sure!!

Please help me sort it out in my head, at the moment I do not feel very trusting with him and would like to regain my sanity again. He says he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me, why cant I just accept this and move on - why is it all still painful?

Jane

Dear Jane,

Of course you feel pain still, because on some level your relationship issues with your husband have not resolved. You don’t trust him. I don’t blame you. It is very difficult to trust your lover once an affair has happened…or two for that matter.

But let me have you change your perspective for a moment. Pretend you are the other woman. Pretend it is you who had the baby and your husband rejected you…dumped you for another woman. How would you feel? How would you feel knowing that he didn’t want anything to do with you or the baby? That he didn’t intend on supporting you? That hurts too doesn’t it?

One thing that you may wish to understand is that men (and I’m generalizing here) can more easily separate the act of sex from actual heart-based connection. In other words, when women have sex, their heart is almost always involved. When men have sex, it doesn’t have to be.

It could very well be true that these women “meant nothing” to your husband. But personally, I find that kind of scary and disturbing. How would you like to “mean nothing” to someone after they’ve had sex with you or been dating you for some time? It would feel kind of rotten to most women, would you agree? My preference is to be with someone who values another life. It’s not about who’s better and it’s not about competing with other women. We are all ONE. If they are less in your eyes because they had the affair, then you are literally lessening yourself and eroding yourself. See if you can see them all with eyes of compassion. And most of all, be compassionate with yourself.

You can’t change your husband. He’s probably too scared to tell you the truth, whatever that truth is (he probably doesn’t even know on a conscious level). It could be that having one sexual partner in his lifetime is unbearable but he’s trying to conform to the “norm” in our society. Or it could be that if he had it his way, he’d have three wonderful lovers that all got along. You can’t change your husband. You can only change your own reaction.

Your affirmation could very well be, “I live a peaceful, loving and connected relationship with my husband” or “I trust my husband”. And according to John Kehoe, Godfather of the law of attraction, you don’t have to actually believe in your affirmations. By forcing yourself to, you may actually nullify it’s beneficial effects.

Tell your husband daily what you appreciate about him. Reward him whenever he supports you in a loving way. If you wish to stay with him, then learn to trust him, or at least get clear with him on what his needs really are and what your needs really are. Clarity may mean telling him that you trust him and that you really feel best in a monogamous relationship. If that changes for him in the future, then you’d appreciate him telling you the truth, in which case you will do X. (eg. ask him to move out)

You can only change your reaction. A read once about a woman who was married to an alcoholic man. He was enraged whenever he drank and he became violent. She kept protecting him, forgiving him and rescuing him, until she could go on any longer. She went to Al-Anon, an organization to support caregivers of alcoholics and drug addicted people. After getting support for months, she was brave enough to tell him that she loved him, that she wanted to stay married to him, but that she couldn’t accept the alcoholism anymore and she moved out.

He tried to win her back. But she persisted. It was hard for her to do. But he finally decided that his relationship was more important than the alcohol, so he went to Alcoholics Anonymous. It wasn’t until months went by (and he was sober) that she moved back in with him.

She helped him the most by gently and compassionately telling him her boundaries and the consequences for overstepping them. It was his choice after that.

You may be in a similar situation.

I feel for you. Get some counseling yourself. You need the support. Don’t wait for your husband to get it. He doesn’t need it. You do. You’re the one in pain.

Blessings,

Dr. Karen Kan