Why I Forgave My Wife for Cheating
By: Mason Braxton Bennett
Tags: Relationships, Love, Infidelity, Marriage, Men

Why I Forgave My Wife for Cheating

“You’re letting her take you for a fool.”

“Cut her loose.”

“Your marriage is over.”

“You’re letting her take you for a fool.”

These are some of the comments I heard from buddies and relatives who found out about my wife Julianne’s affair. In their view, what she’d done was unforgivable, and my decision to stick by her made me spineless. No matter how much I argued my position, the insults and assumptions kept coming.

“You don’t respect yourself.”

“You got played.”

And the most hurtful one of all: “You’re a cuck.”

Why do we mock men whose partners cheat?

‘Cuck’, or ‘cuckold’, is a derogatory term that refers to a man whose wife is unfaithful. The shame associated with being known as a cuck leads some men to despair.

William Shakespeare, the famous playwright, wrote about this issue in his classic Othello. In that tragedy, the main character’s unfounded fear of being a cuckold drives him to murder his wife.

Jibes like ‘cuck’ make me uncomfortable. I fear they contribute to sexual insecurity. It doesn’t make sense to mock a man for his spouse’s sexual choices. They are separate individuals, and he does not control her.

To my knowledge, there is no equivalent insult in English for a woman whose husband strays. Generally, we don’t belittle wives whose husbands have flings or affairs.

I wish society could extend the same compassion to men. When a husband tries to heal his marriage after his wife’s infidelity, the last thing he needs is ridicule.

Sadly, ridicule is the response I’ve gotten from many for sticking with Julianne. As my cousin Andrew put it: “Jeez, dude, you’re pussy-whipped! If some chick cheated on me, she’d be out the door in a heartbeat.”

But what Andrew failed to consider is that Julianne isn’t just ‘some chick.’ She is my wife! We’ve been married fifteen years and dated for four years prior to that. That’s not something I’m willing to throw away, even if we’ve hit a bump in the road.

Call me weak or emasculated if you want. But personally, I think it takes real strength to tune in to empathy and compassion to save a relationship. Besides… I doubt guys like Andrew would be so scornful if Julianne were a man, and I were a woman.

I choose to see my wife — not as a cheater — but as an imperfect, lovable human. Here are a few key reasons why I remain loyal to her, in spite of the challenges our marriage has faced.

Why forgive a cheater?

I know what it’s like to crave an escape

The biggest reason I forgave Julianne was that I understand what it’s like to crave an escape. Too many of us take the moral high ground, pretending cheaters’ motivations are alien to us.

But not everyone who cheats is a cold-blooded psychopath. Many ordinary, kind, well-meaning people end up committing adultery. Some of them are trying to fill a void created by sadness, loneliness, or a sense of lack.

That doesn’t make them evil people. It means they picked a poor way to deal with their pain.

In my day-to-day work, I counsel people who have a dependency on drugs and alcohol. When I see an addict whose relationships are breaking down, I don’t say: “What a horrible, selfish person. Can’t they see they’re upsetting people around them? How dare they use drugs to escape!”

Instead, I ask myself: “What suffering does this person want relief from? They must be hurting beyond belief if substances give them more solace than their loved ones.”

I took the same approach to Julianne’s flaws. My line of work helped me see her infidelity as a symptom of the brokenness she felt inside. She was chasing happiness, and she mistakenly believed her affair would provide it.

When she realized she’d fallen into this thinking trap, she came to me and confessed her mistake. Her revelation shattered me, but I had to respect her honesty. Her candor gave me faith that her intentions weren’t malicious.

I haven’t always been a perfect husband

I’m not claiming to be responsible for Julianne’s unhappiness, but I definitely had a role to play in it.

According to Relate, the UK’s largest provider of relationship support, feeling like you and your partner have drifted apart is one of the most common reasons for infidelity.

In many relationships, work, childcare, and other humdrum responsibilities can end up dominating life. Couples’ time together becomes increasingly functional until they’re no longer having fun with each other. Eventually, they end up disconnected from each other.

I didn’t realize this was happening in my own relationship. I’ve always been something of a workaholic. Yet until Julianne confessed her affair, I had no idea how lonely my obsession with work was making her feel. She spent most of her evenings and weekends alone, and I was often too tired for sex. Receiving little validation from me, she grew tempted to seek it elsewhere.

I have to emphasize here: I’m not justifying my wife’s infidelity. But as someone who promised to love her, I must acknowledge where I, too, could have done better. Otherwise, how can we ever hope to learn and move forward as a couple?

I’ve since changed my work schedule, and I make a lot more time for my spouse. Recently, I’ve learned to speak her love language, too. I’m finally paying attention, and I can see she’s much happier for it. I think this bodes well for our future.

I don’t think she’ll break my trust again

My wife’s affair prompted me to read stacks of books on the subject of infidelity. Throughout my research, I found a reassuring theme.

Time and again, writers confirmed the same truth. Relationships that begin as affairs tend to be limited in their longevity. In fact, 75 percent of individuals who marry their affair partner end up divorced.

This is because affairs are fantasy-based — built on longing, distance, and imagination. The reality of a stable relationship rarely lives up to the illicit excitement of the affair.

Psychotherapist Esther Perel puts it like this: “When the sublime mixes with the ordinary and affairs enter the real world, most of them end.”

Julianne, too, learned the hard way that affairs only provide temporary excitement. In fact, she’d already cut contact with her affair partner before confessing her infidelity to me. As soon as she realized the grass isn’t greener, she doubled down on her commitment to the partner she already had.

In that sense, I think her slip-up makes her less likely to cheat again — not more. What sane person, after putting their hand in the fire once, would dare to do so again? Julianne now knows that when marriage feels ‘stale’, the solution is not an affair. Could anything have taught her that better than her own first-hand experience?

Not long ago, we had a ceremony to renew our vows. This time, I can say for certain my wife understood what she was promising.