Dear Prudence: My Husband Isn’t Having an Affair After All. Can I Divorce Him Anyway?

[minoanmiss]

Q. Cheater, cheater … awesome fella? For the past six months, my husband has been distant, secretive, and impatient with me while also being in frequent contact with his cousin’s wife. I assumed there was an affair, but it turns out that he was helping her to leave a domestic abuse situation, and she had sworn him to secrecy. They both swear that nothing happened, and I believe them.

The problem is that it doesn’t help. For the past two months, in my head, I’ve been emotionally on my way out the door. I’ve talked to lawyers, investigated my options for rentals closer to work, and been unhappy but ready to leave. Now that I’ve discovered I was wrong about my husband, I still feel ready to go. He doesn’t understand, since he was actually doing a really good thing. Which he was, but at the same time he lied to me and let me feel terrible—and he knew I thought he was cheating—in service of this good thing. In addition to being emotionally divorced already, I’m quite angry too. I know it was for a good cause, but I still feel like he reverse-gaslit me by letting me believe he was a cheater and then doing the “Ha, you misjudged me!” reveal.

My mother and sister think I’m being ridiculous and that he’s a hero. My dad thinks that your spouse’s well-being should come before anyone else’s and I am better off without him. I don’t know. It feels ridiculous to leave someone because you found out they’re not cheating. I know the answer is going to be couples therapy, but I want to know if I’m in the wrong or not before we go in there. I’ve felt “ganged up” on a lot recently, with everyone saying how good a guy my husband is. I mean, he is—but maybe not a great husband?

Oddly enough—because this sounds so unique—I answered a question about almost the exact same situation about two years ago on the podcast. You might find that answer helpful. In the meantime I’ll just say that you are entitled to feel hurt and upset about the past six months. You don’t have to determine whether your husband is a hero or not; all you have to do is identify how your experience of the past six months made you feel. Would it really have been impossible for him to say, “I’m helping someone I care about leave a very dangerous situation and I’ve been sworn to secrecy until after they’re out. If it were my story to tell, I’d share it with you in a heartbeat; since I can’t, I just want you to know the broad details so you don’t feel confused or abandoned”? And did helping her really mean that it was appropriate for him to get impatient and distant with you?

I think it’s probably a good idea to spend a little more time with the question of whether you two can repair your marriage before deciding to file for divorce. (You are, of course, allowed to if you want, even if other people in your life disagree—they’re not the ones who are married to him.) But if he can’t acknowledge that you have a right to feel hurt, that he essentially disappeared on you for half a year without a word to reassure you, then that says a lot about his priorities.

Comments

Re: I'm honestly not sure what to think about this one

[jenett]

I'm sort of at "What was he doing to make it clear to his wife that she still mattered to him during this time?" Because if he'd been busy at weird times, but also very aware of the implications, making it clear it wasn't something about her, etc. I feel like that would have come across rather differently, y'know?

(Or even saying "I know I'm really preoccupied right now: I can't tell you why because it affects someone else's safety." which might cover a lot. Or even the first part, with a "It's important to me, I hope you can trust that I'm doing the right thing, and I'll tell you more about it when I can."