Should I confront my wife about cheating? My name is Paul Friedman. I founded The
Marriage Foundation and first I would like to say that I'm
sorry, you're having to go through this. I'm going to give you a simple answer
direct and that is don't confront her and I will explain
why. And then I'm going to talk about
marriage a little bit for you so maybe you could analyze for
yourself what's going wrong, and perhaps
you can save your marriage.
The confrontation should be understood that it is a form of attack.
There's no other way to put it. You could say it's defensive
in nature
or you could pretend it's out of curiosity but as soon as
you bring it up you are confronting her. And from your own internal
reactions that when people are confronted
it becomes a biological trigger. Your biology is always dictating
to your mind that you are having to survive.
This is what biology is all about. Every living
thing is all about survival. It doesn't matter if it's a single cell
organism or us, an advanced life form, the most advanced
which is a human being. The fight or flight
is defensive and when someone is confronted
that's what you're going to be dealing with.
In this particular scenario obviously, if you're confronting someone who's
very advanced. You won't have that to contend with but you don't confront
those people. So, what does that look like?
If she's flight, she's going to lie to you, be evasive.
She's going to get out of range of what her subconscious is perceiving as
an attack. It could come up in a billion different forms.
If she chooses the fight and it really depends upon the
individual then you're looking at blaming you,
arguing with you, calling you a liar, accusing you -- she'll fight back.
In either scenario, you're not going to accomplish
the objective that you probably want to accomplish
which is to get it all on the table so that you could repair what's going on.
If that's not what you want to do then The Marriage Foundation is the wrong
place for you to be because we're all about repairing marriages.
So the question comes up, what do you do? You have discovered that your wife is
unfaithful and you know
intuitively or intellectually or both that it probably marks the end of your
marriage. Because when women stray
it's usually with the heart. Women are not like men. They don't
use affairs or cheating as a release valve
very very rare. It means that they have already moved on
95% at the time. So, we do get some clients
who take the men's course because they're now
intent on either healing the marriage or at least
learning enough about marriage and about themselves
so that they don't get into this situation again.
And I know that's a very practical thing to say and you may not want to hear it
at this point. You may be focused on, "No, I can fix this.
I can heal this."
And maybe you can, I don't believe in absolutes.
I don't believe in telling anyone it's impossible
very tough. So the course for men will give you the guidance
that you need and confrontation is definitely not included in that.
You have to take a look at more than just your marriage
to heal your marriage. You have to take a look at your half
of the marriage, what have you been contributing to the marriage
that would put her in a mindset where she's even
capable of strain because it's very unnatural. It's unnatural. I don't
care how many movies you've seen and I don't care how many
anecdotal stories you've heard of women cheating.
That it's not natural for women to cheat. It is
likely in many cases for them to prepare for leaving and that's typically
what we're facing. So if you confront her it's only going to create more drama.
What you really want is to kind of be 50/50
except that she's leaving at the same time.
Work on salvaging the marriage by changing yourself.
Nothing else is going to work by the way. Nothing else is going to work. Whining
and dining her that's just material and people don't
get married for material reasons. They get married
for spiritual reasons. Marriage is a very spiritual institution.
I mean you're talking about unconditional love as the foundation
but you have not and she has not done anything to create this
unconditional bond, this unconditional loving bond which is
an off the charts thing. And so it's a
mistake for her to have cheated on you, there's
no question. Right and wrong, yeah it's wrong.
It's unfaithful but you're not to be the judge.
It's not your place. You didn't get married to judge her. You
didn't get married to criticize her, condemn her,
control her blah blah blah. You got married
to be happy, to live in a space of unconditional love
and that you know isn't happening. You knew that that that's not happening
even before you discovered that she's cheating on you
so there is no guaranteed solution to healing the marriage
at this point and you're at a crossroads. So the best direction for you
is to heal yourself, do the self-work and do it with the context
of marriage so that if there is hope for your marriage
it will bring it back together.
Your mission at this point should be to reduce drama.
Don't be in an accepting mode. Don't accept
if and when she brings it up that she's cheating on you. Don't accept that.
Don't go, "Okay, I guess that's okay." It's not okay.
On the other hand, don't be angry either. Be loving it's what you should have been
doing all along.
Marriage is all about love. It's about happiness
through love and clearly, your marriage has not lived
up to that and because there's only two of you
you have not done what it takes. I know it's not fun to hear this.
Who wants to get that gut punch?
But now you have to do what's right right for you,
right for your wife. If you have children, right for your children.
I hope this was helpful as terrible as it is
and I would urge you to
get more of the videos. Subscribe so you get more,
like this one so it shows up more often and I'll pray for you. Blessings to you!
Blessings to your wife! Blessings to your family!
And I hope it works out for you.