I get a lot of frustrated emails from people who tell me their spouse shows “absolutely no remorse” after being caught cheating or having an affair. Common comments I get are things like, “Maybe I’d like to save the marriage if I knew he/she was sorry. But he/she isn’t sorry at all and has no remorse. I’m just as angry.” about the fact that they are not sorry than the fact that they cheated.” Another common comment is “not only are you not sorry, but you are throwing this in my face as if YOUR thing was MY fault. What’s wrong with him?” I’ll try to answer these questions in the next article and tell you why it often takes a while for remorse to kick in.
Lack of remorse for cheating is often a means of self-preservation and a continuation of denial: Let’s think about this for a second. When a person starts down the road to deception, there are many stop signs and considerations along the way. On several occasions the little voice inside your head will probably ask you what you are doing and warn you that you are about to cross the line. Therefore, they often find themselves at a crossroads knowing deep down in their hearts that what they are doing (or about to do) is wrong, selfish, and hurtful. In order to go ahead and do it anyway, they have to find some way to justify their actions.
There are many ways in which they will justify their deceit. They will tell themselves that they don’t get what they need at home. They will tell themselves that you don’t understand them. They will promise themselves that it will only be once, that it has nothing to do with you, and that no one has to find out or get hurt. They will delude themselves that nothing bad will come of this, because they will handle the matter and come back to you as if nothing happened.
As you can see, they are lying to themselves a lot. They can’t or won’t see this for what it really is: their attempt to restore their self-esteem and feel on top and desirable again. A lot of people use an affair as a diversion or a smokescreen about what’s really going on inside them or what’s really going on in their life. But who wants to be honest about this and admit that “I’m going to engage in the disgusting act of cheating on my spouse because I’m weak, selfish, insecure and don’t like or respect myself very much right now.” As you can imagine, this type of internal dialogue is quite rare. No one wants to admit these things to themselves and fewer people want to admit these things to their spouse.
So, in their own minds, they have to set it up so that the cheating isn’t a big deal and they keep up this charade, even when they get caught: “It’s not a big deal. She meant nothing to me.” Why are you exaggerating?” Deep down, they know these words are disgusting. They know they are lies. But to admit this would be to admit that they were sorely wrong. And, they already made the leap in their minds, long ago. Very few people they are willing to do a full 360 now.If they did, they would have to admit what they have been trying to hide from themselves all along.
Often, not showing remorse after the affair is your attempt to make it go away: I have so many people email me and share with me how hard it is to see their spouse hurt like this. They never expected the reaction they got. They assumed they would never get caught or suffer any repercussions (as ridiculous as this). So it can really be a nightmare when you’re trying to pick your way through the muck your actions have caused. (Trust me, I know it’s not a picnic for you, either.)
They want all of this to go away as quickly as possible. So they shut up. They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to give you the details because they know that once they do, you’ll only get angrier and more distant. They prefer to avoid this and are making the mistake of remaining silent and cold. They are very wrong about this, but as usual, their way of thinking is backwards.
Making it very clear that you need to see remorse to move on: Often before you see any remorse, you have to demand it. You have to make it very clear that you will not think about saving the marriage or consider moving forward until you know that he is deeply sorry and that he understands exactly what this has done to you. Ask him to sit down and allow you to share with him what you feel and what you need. Make it very clear to him that this is not going to go away until he starts talking. He’s just delaying what needs to happen anyway and he needs to understand this.