subject: Should I be this Hurt Over My Wife's Cheating? [print this page] "I just found out my wife has been cheating on me. I feel like I should be angry. You know, ready to punch a wall or punch some other guy's lights out. All I feel right now, though, is hurt. Is this normal?"
This is one of those situations where there is no normal. There's no gold standard to hope to achieve. It's not a contest that you win prizes for handling it the right way. How you feel is simply how you feel. The problem that many men in this situation face is that the emotional onslaught is a little outside their comfort zone to deal with.
There is nothing at all comfortable about the pain of finding out your wife has been cheating on you. But, the pain is only the beginning of the emotional upheaval you are getting ready to experience.
There are seven stages of grief that people go through at a time of loss and even if you decide to work things out with your wife after she cheated on you there is a loss of what you believed your marriage was that you'll have to deal with.
What are the Seven Stages of Grief You're Getting Ready to Experience?
1) Denial this is the first thing most men in your position experience. They don't want to admit, accept, or even consider that their wife could have cheated on them and they go through an instance (for some men it is even longer) of abject denial.
2) Pain this is when you feel the world crashing down around you. You feel as though you can't breathe and that nothing will ever be alright again.
3) Anger you hate the world right now. You may even hate your wife. You definitely hate the man she was cheating on you with and there is little in the world that can improve your mood at the moment.
4) Bargaining this is the stage where you start making promises to yourself, to God, to your wife, and to anyone else who will listen. You want things to be as they were. That will never happen for you but that isn't necessarily a bad thing either.
5) Depression this is a hard blow and you deserve to wallow in pity for a little while. The shorter this stage is the better but every man deals with the depression of a cheating wife in his own time. Be on the lookout for depression that seems to be deepening or shows no signs of improvement. There are times when depression goes beyond being sad and turns into a serious medical condition.
6) Guilt this is one that every man in your position will eventually face. It might be completely foreign to you but you will experience some degree of guilt wondering if it is your fault somehow that she cheated on you.
7) Acceptance whether or not you decide to save your marriage you will eventually accept that your wife cheated on you. It may take a long time or a little time but the acceptance is the point where you can truly move on with your life and, possibly, your marriage.
Remember you may experience these stages in any order and some may last minutes while others last hours or even days. Some may last longer and you may not even notice some of them but some combination of these steps is likely to be present as you go through the healing process.
