I often hear of people struggling to regain their confidence or self esteem after their spouse cheated on them or they had an affair. Often, they will tell me that they are a completely different person after the adventure. And many intuitively know that for their marriage to survive, they will need to deal with these insecurities effectively.
I heard a wife say, “My husband cheated on me with a much younger, prettier woman. When I found out, he said he would break up and it seems he did. We’ve been working on our marriage and I feel like we’re making some progress. But I have problems with being very insecure. This wasn’t a problem for me before he cheated on me. Yes, I’m older, but so is he. I take relatively good care of myself and feel like I look relatively decent. But I can’t compare myself to someone that she’s much younger, prettier, and thinner than I am. My husband says the affair wasn’t about her looks. He says it was about his own desire to be young and desirable again. But what does that mean to me? I can’t change my age. So I can’t make him feel young around me. And now every time we go out and there’s a young, pretty girl, I feel insecure. I worry that my husband is looking at younger women and I find this a bit disturbing and pathetic, and then I look in the mirror and see a miserable old woman. The sad thing is, before he cheated on me, I actually liked what I saw in the mirror. I would never want to be young again because I am so much wiser than I used to be. However, at the same time, my husband has shown me that he likes eye candy and he will look for a younger woman. He tells me that he loves me and that he’s still attracted to me, but how am I supposed to believe this when he proves otherwise?” I’ll try to address these concerns in the next article.
His infidelity does not change anything about you or your physical appearance: I know you might think it’s easy for me to say, but it really isn’t. I was in the same situation as you. And I also looked in the mirror and worried if I was pretty and sexy enough. But here’s something I didn’t realize at the time and maybe you didn’t either. Your attractiveness and sex appeal before and after the affair have not changed at all. Your appearance will not change in a few months. But your perception of those looks can change. Because your confidence has taken a hit. It is very important to understand that nothing about you has changed except your circumstances and your perceptions. And, the good news is that you are in control of both.
Ways to erase or deal with your insecurities after your spouse cheated on you or had an affair: I’m not dumb enough to think that this is a “mind over matter” problem or that if you give yourself a big enough pep talk, this problem will go away for you. I know from experience that simply relying on positive thinking doesn’t work. I also know from my own life that in order to believe that your husband loves you and finds you attractive, then you must absolutely believe it yourself. Because if you think you’re not good enough, or pretty enough, or attractive enough, then it really doesn’t matter what your husband says or how sincerely he says it. You won’t believe him anyway.
That’s why anything you try should include self-employment. If you were confident before the cheating and only find out that your confidence is affected by the cheating, your job will be a little easier. As her marriage heals and time shows him that her husband stays because he wants to, then he will begin to take back some of her arrogance. Because in truth, very few people are going to stay with someone they are not attracted to, especially in the long run. So time has a way of restoring your trust because you know he won’t and he can’t pretend forever.
In the meantime, you can help this process by being very kind to yourself. If there are issues about your appearance that bother you, there’s nothing wrong with addressing them. However, never use this as an excuse to punish yourself. Surround yourself with kind, loving, and supportive people, including yourself.
And, if some of your insecurities existed long before your husband acted inappropriately, you usually have a little more work to do. A very wise counselor once told me that an affair has nothing to do with a person’s love for their spouse. It is usually due, at least in part, to a lack of self-esteem on the part of one or both spouses. When I first heard this, he confused me and made me a little angry. However, after thinking about it for a while, I realized that my own insecurities had always plagued my marriage. For a long time she had acted out of fear and lack because she didn’t believe she was a good mother, daughter, or wife. And this seriously affected me in many areas of my life.
I would never claim to be grateful or even agree with my husband’s affair, but I can look back and admit that something good came of it. One example is that I was forced to look at my insecurity issues and then not only acknowledge them, but also fix them. It benefited me from forming my own career and addressing things about myself that I didn’t particularly like. Doing this helped with my healing but also improved my marriage.
And once I progressed, when my husband told me that I was adorable or beautiful or sexy, I believed him. Because it was the first time he believed it about me.
