Should a wife be blamed when her husband has an affair?
Is it really a woman’s fault if her spouse or significant other cheats on her?
As an infidelity expert, these are questions I’m frequently asked by women who discover that their husbands or boyfriends are having an affair.
Below, I answer these and several related questions about who’s to blame when a man cheats on his mate.
Q: My husband had an affair. Is it my fault that he cheated on me?A: The first thing a woman usually does when she finds out that her spouse or significant other is cheating on her is to blame herself and wonder what she did or didn’t do to make him have an affair. So let’s get one thing clear: your cheating husband is responsible for his own marital misbehavior. It’s NOT your fault that your husband had an affair. A wife is NOT to blame when her husband cheats.
Regardless of what was happening in your marriage, no one held a gun to your husband’s head and made him cheat. Cheating is a choice he made. He’s the one who decided to have an affair.
It’s a common ploy for a cheating husband to blame his wife for the fact that he had an affair. Don’t fall for it. Your husband is responsible for his own behavior. If he cheater on you, he has no one to blame but himself.
Q: Did my husband cheat on me because of something I did or didn’t do?A: The vast majority of extramarital affairs are totally unrelated to anything that a wife did or didn’t do. The way a wife treats her husband does not determine whether or not he’ll have an extramarital affair. (See the article entitled
Happy Husbands Cheat, Too)
For every thing your husband says you did or didn’t do that drove him to have an affair, there are thousands of men whose wives did, or didn’t do those very same things, and those men remained faithful to their mates.
So don’t let your husband or anyone else try to convince you that it’s your fault that your husband cheated on you. It’s highly unlikely that your behavior drove your husband to have an affair. Regardless of what you may or may not have done, your husband is the one who made the decision to cheat.
Q: My husband says there’s a book that proves it’s my fault he had the affair. Is that true?A: husband is referring to a book entitled
The Truth about Cheating, which was featured on several talk shows last year. Written by a well-respected marriage and family counselor, this book has been used by numerous cheating husbands to provide yet another excuse to use for their extramarital affairs -- even though the author says that was not his original intent. In my opinion, this book sends the wrong message to women like you, who are already traumatized by their husband’s infidelity. Let me repeat: A wife is NOT to blame when her husband cheats.
Q: Did my husband have an affair because he wasn’t happy with me?A: Probably not. Though there are some exceptions, marital unhappiness is not one of the primary reasons why men cheat. (For more information on this, see the article entitled
The Top 10 Reasons Why Men and Women Cheat.) Keeping your husband happy will not guarantee that your husband will remain faithful, because happy husbands cheat too.
Last year, studies published in 3 different medical journals around the same time, found that even husbands who professed to be in happy marriages, and were satisfied with their wives, still had extramarital affairs. These men cheated despite the fact that their marriages were happy, and they were very satisfied with their mates.
Q: What can I do to keep my husband from cheating on me?Some men are more prone to infidelity than others. (See the infidelity quiz,
Will He Cheat on you? to find out if your husband is one of these potential cheaters.) But the reality is that there’s nothing you, or any woman can do that will guarantee 100% that your husband will not have an affair. The books and articles that claim to help women affair-proof their marriages are misleading because they make a woman think that certain behavior on her part will keep her husband from having an affair.
While some of these books and articles contain very useful advice, there is nothing that can guarantee that your husband will never cheat.
Infidelity can happen to any one, at anytime, under any circumstances. No one is immune. Yes, there are things that you, as a wife, can do to put the odds in your favor, and decrease the likelihood that your husband will not have an affair. But nothing you do will guarantee 100% that your husband will not cheat.
© copyright 2009 Ruth Houston
Ruth Houston is a New York-based infidelity expert who is frequently called on by the media to comment on infidelity issues in the news. She is the author of
Is He Cheating on You? - 829 Telltale Signs, the founder of
InfidelityAdvice.com and publishes the
Infidelity News and Views blog.
