Why is there no remorse after the affair?

I get a lot of frustrated emails from people telling 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’re not sorry than the fact that they cheated.” Another common comment is “not only is he not sorry, but he’s throwing this back at me as if HIS issue is MY fault. What’s wrong with you?” I’ll try to answer these questions in the next article and tell you why it often takes a while for remorse to show up.

Lack of remorse for deception 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 cheating, there are many stop signs and considerations along the way. It is likely that on several occasions the little voice inside your head will 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 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 they will justify their deception. 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 one time, that it has nothing to do with you, and that no one has to know or get hurt. They will delude themselves into thinking 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. Many people use an affair as a distraction or a smoke screen about what is really going on inside of them or what is 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. Nobody 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 deception is no big deal and they keep up this charade, even when they get caught: “It’s no 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 profoundly wrong. And, they already made the leap in their minds, a long time ago. Very few people they’re willing to do a full 360 now, if they did, they’d have to admit what they’ve been trying to hide from themselves all along.

Often showing no remorse after the affair is his attempt to make it go away: I have so many people who email me and share with me how difficult it is to see their spouse hurt in this way. They never expected the reaction they got. They assumed they would never get caught or suffer any repercussions (as ridiculous as this). So it really can be a nightmare when they’re trying to make their way through the crap their 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 quiet and cold. They are sorely mistaken for this, but as usual their 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 isn’t going to go away until he starts talking. He is just delaying what needs to happen anyway and he needs to understand this.