Will He Leave His Wife? What the Other Woman and the Betrayed Wife Agree On

I've had a few betrayed wives on this show. Lauren LaRusso is a betrayed wife who also happens to be a licensed psychotherapist, the author of Beyond Infidelity, and someone who works with every person in the affair triangle. Including women like me.

She'd been on my list for a while. Her team reached out before I could.

She was the betrayed wife. I was the other woman. We spent an hour agreeing on more than either side of the internet would like.

Shame vs. Guilt After an Affair

People ask me constantly how I don't feel bad. How I don't feel guilty. How I don't feel regret. All the words I'm apparently supposed to be feeling.

Lauren drew the line clean. Shame is believing you're bad, flawed, unlovable. Guilt is feeling responsible for harm you caused someone else. They swirl together in an affair. And she said there's no rule that says you have to feel either one.

So why don't I? While I was in it, I wasn't thinking about anyone else. I was thinking about me and I was thinking about him. I believed what he told me. And from everything I was told, his wife knew about us very early on. Breaking up a home is not what happened in my situation.

The bigger piece is simpler. Why would I put my self-worth in someone else's hands? Why would I decide who I am based on what people are saying about me?

Lauren pointed out that no role in the triangle gets the scarlet letter like the affair partner does. Betrayed spouses feel shame too, and they didn't do anything. Shame lands on everyone. It just lands on us loudest.

Infidelity Is a Symptom of the Problem

I'm a firm believer in that. I also think something was lacking within me. Today I value myself. I know who I am and what I deserve. You couldn't pay me to get into a relationship like that now. Getting here meant looking inward and asking what was going on inside me that made me okay diving in from the jump, knowing everything I knew.

Lauren did the same autopsy on her side. She was married to a man going through medical school, residency, and fellowship. Her role was supportive and patient. Alone on holidays. Used to the schedule. Which made the cover easy. In hindsight she saw how much she shrank herself to protect his career and his path.

Affair Partner Grief: Does He Ever Think About Me?

A woman sent me a message on Instagram the morning we recorded. She didn't want him back. She just wanted him to reach out so she'd know she mattered. That it was real.

I get it. When an affair ends, he goes back full time to his life, his home, his family. And you're left wondering if he's just really happy now.

Lauren called it a haunting. The silence that echoes after. She has ex-boyfriends from after her divorce she doesn't wonder about at all. An affair is different because the life he wasn't supposed to be living gets put in a box.

There's a Taylor Swift song, I Bet You Think About Me. When it comes up on shuffle, I do think about him. Does he have any idea I built an entire brand and business around our relationship?

Grieving a Fantasy

The other woman builds a whole future in her head. The house. Meeting his friends. Meeting his kids. Then it doesn't happen. So you're grieving something that never even happened, which can be even more fucked than grieving a real life. How do you explain being devastated over something that never existed?

Will He Leave His Wife? Affair Partner Math

Lauren has a name for it. Affair partner math. Delusional, but so strong and so certain.

I did it. I looked up divorce laws in the state he lived in to figure out how long it would take. He never told me he was getting divorced. I'd already been through a divorce myself. I knew how hard it was. Didn't matter.

Lauren's verdict was blunt. If he's still married, he's not available. It doesn't matter what he says about his marriage. And no relationship is supposed to begin with the ending of another one.

Even when he does leave, she said, you're watching paint dry. Years of watching someone dismantle an entire life and family and grieve it. She's seen it work. She wouldn't recommend it.

Why Divorce Is Sad Even When You Want It

My divorce was as amicable as it could have been. It was still hard and painful and it took time.

Years before that, a friend called me the day she filed. She'd been miserable for years. I asked if she was so excited. She said she was so sad. I couldn't wrap my head around it until I was the one who initiated my own divorce.

Lauren cried on her floor for about two years. When she finally moved into her own house, her sister asked why she was crying when she was finally free. Because there was nothing left to push against. Just the reality that it was over.

The Gift of Infidelity

Lauren calls her husband's affair a gift. I don't regret being the other woman. Same place, opposite sides.

I've said that if the version of me from back then went back in time, she'd do it all over again. I love who I am today. Lauren still grieves, years later, and still wouldn't trade the life she has now for the one she had.

I love this version of me. I don't know that I'd be here without that relationship.

FAQ

What is the difference between shame and guilt after an affair?

Shame is the belief that you are bad, unworthy, or unlovable as a person. Guilt is feeling responsible for harm your actions caused someone else. In an affair the two often get tangled, and people tend to expect the affair partner to feel both. There's no rule that says you have to.

Do affair partners grieve when the affair ends?

Yes. The affair partner often grieves both the person and the future she imagined with him. Because he goes back to his marriage and his family, the silence afterward can feel haunting, and many women just want to know the relationship mattered.

Will a married man leave his wife for his affair partner?

Sometimes, but far less often than affair partners tell themselves. A man who is still married is not available, whatever he says about his marriage. If he does leave, the affair partner is usually signing up to watch a long divorce and the grief that comes with it.

What is affair partner math?

Affair partner math is Lauren LaRusso's term for the delusional but certain calculations an affair partner makes about when he'll leave. It looks like counting down divorce timelines or assuming he'll rip off the band-aid, even when he's never said he's getting divorced.

Do therapists work with the other woman?

Some do. Lauren LaRusso works with betrayed spouses, unfaithful spouses, and affair partners, and says affair partners and unfaithful spouses sought her out at a higher rate than betrayed spouses because she speaks about infidelity without judgment.

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