Are you to blame for his affair? I think to some extent yes you are and women need to start paying attention to the little details.
Looking back at that time I do admit I feel some responsibility for my husband’s wandering eye. It happened years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child.
While many will argue that no matter what the circumstances are no man should ever cheat, I don’t always blame him if he does. My own partner cheated on me and it was a difficult learning curve for me, as I was partly to blame.
I was not the easiest to live with, I was emotionally exhausted and suffering with kidney pain, I was admitted to hospital for pain relief it was that severe.
Our once active and fun sex life had dwindled to nonexistence and I rejected his advances.
I do not blame him for turning to someone else for comfort. Had he have met her in real life I may have felt different, but the flirty chats had just happened online. While I didn’t have the time to sit and pay my husband attention, some other women took my place and provided him with some much needed company.
Of course when I found out I was heartbroken and the anger I felt soon followed.
I was more hurt that he was talking to these women, (there were more than one), while I was carrying our child and was so ill.
I wasn’t deliberately avoiding, rejecting and ignoring him; I was for most days unable to even walk. Reaching a safe milestone of 37 weeks was all that played on my mind, I was told I needed to be induced but I held out till then.
While I worried and cried and refused to talk to him about my fears, choosing instead to bottle it all up, he turned his attention to online dating forums, this was his way of coping.
Knowing I was sleeping upstairs while he carried out this flirty talk repulsed me.
What if my older children were sat watching TV in the same room, as he was sat on the laptop?
It took months, years even to finally accept it had happened and was able to put it rest and prevent myself from bringing it up in every future arguments to throw back in his face.
If you neglect your partner, you only have yourself to blame right?
I am not a weak nor venerable women in that sense, yes I have many issues, yet I was never afraid to be a single parent, that fear never entered my mind. I looked at the reality; I wasn’t giving him the attention he craved, so he found it elsewhere.
I had stopped dressing to impress, some days I didn’t even brush my hair, just lounged around in my PJS and stopped applying the make-up. It was a huge transition to the full of life girl he had met. I let myself go during pregnancy.
I certainly took him for granted, while I slept a lot, thanks to the pain killers I was taking for the Hydronephrosis of the kidney.
(Hydronephrosis refers to the swelling or dilation of the kidneys caused by an obstruction in the flow of urine, which then causes the urine to back up in the kidney’s small tubes and central collecting area. This extra pressure in the kidneys can cause kidney damage, such as kidney stones, or long-standing distension in one or both kidneys can cause kidney failure.)
As you can imagine this was not a pleasant time for me and I admit I took my husband for granted. He did the cooking, cleaning and running around, so I could lie on the sofa for most of the evening. This started at around 25 weeks, for 12 weeks he was basically alone.
Those last 12 weeks of my pregnancy was when it began. I would not find out for some many months to come, but I was hurt that he had chosen to cheat during our pregnancy.
I look back and I understand why he did it.
I don’t think it had anything to do with sex, I mean he had never met any of these women nor had he suggested that they should. It was purely someone to talk too, who paid him attention and compliments.
While he needed someone too big up his ego and make him feel wanted, I was neglecting him. Are you to blame for his affair? I do think in part yes. Had I not have made him feel lonely and unwanted, he would never have turned to these women online.
I don’t condone his cheating and he knows if he so much as joined another dating site, his bags would be packed before he even had time to put in his password.
This has made us stronger. We had to sit down and really talk about our feelings and be honest. When he told me he had done it because I wasn’t paying him enough attention, my first reaction was to scream;
“Attention? I was heavily pregnant with our daughter and worried sick that my kidney would fail and our baby would be born far too early. I was hardly able to walk let alone have sex. I had 3 other kids to care for and despite everything I still tried to do everything, it was you who told me to just rest and allow you to take care of me “
I do think I said all that and for months I would throw this back into his face. Yet over time it became easier and once I had forgiven him, I also took some of the responsibility.
Are you to blame for his affair? What do you think?
