I kicked out my cheating husband, should I feel guilty about this?

Occasionally, I hear from women who are being judged for their reaction to their husband’s cheating. Many wives really don’t want to be around their husband right after the cheating is discovered, so they ask him to go away for a while.

Of course, when this news breaks, there will be people who will have something to say about it or have an opinion about it. And this may cause the wife to question her decision or wonder if she acted rashly or harshly.

She might ask, “Should I feel guilty about kicking out my cheating husband? I found indisputable evidence that he was cheating. After this, I tried butlering for a while and then tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I considered calling him at work.” and facing him, but I didn’t dare to do this. Then, I realized that he would be coming home any minute. I still didn’t want to face him, so I put his clothes in garbage bags and left a note attached to the garage door. I told him I didn’t want him to set foot in our house for a while. I was surprised he read the note and then left. He didn’t try to change my mind. But he went right to his mother’s. And he told her everything. She called me and I didn’t answer. But she left a message saying I should be ashamed of myself for kicking the father of my children out of his own house. She said I should have handled this as an adult and not a child. I asked some friends about this. Although a couple of them said that If I had nothing to be ashamed of, some of them said that I should have listened to what my husband had to say before making the quick decision to kick him out. Who has the reason? Should a wife feel guilty when she kicks her cheating husband out of her?”

Everything I say (or write in this case) will be my opinion only. And as you’ve seen from the response you’ve received, everyone seems to have an opinion when you’re going through a situation like this. But I would say that only the opinion of a few people really matters. Your opinion is the most important. And your therapist’s opinion should matter, too. But beyond that, I’m not sure you should worry too much about what other people think.

You are not the one who cheated. Her husband made the decision to cheat. And this, through no fault of your own, he left you with a decision to make about your marriage. You were probably motivated by anger and shock when you wrote that letter. But I’m not sure anyone can blame him for his content.

My take on this is that it is your right to decide what you want and don’t want going forward. It is your marriage after all and you have to live with the consequences. I think if there are children involved, you don’t necessarily have the right to negatively affect a child’s relationship with her parent. The relationship between your children and their father is not your relationship.

I always felt that it was in my children’s best interest to foster a healthy relationship with their father, regardless of what happened with our marriage. That is why I always kept our marital problems completely separate from his relationship with his children. It was always clear to me that my husband was a great father.

There was a short period of time where I asked my husband for some time and space. However, he had an open door policy when it came to our children. I didn’t feel guilty about needing space from him. I didn’t feel guilty that he was temporarily staying somewhere else. I would have felt guilty if he had kept the children from him, but he didn’t.

It’s probably obvious now that I think you have the right to make your decisions without fault, as long as the decisions you make concern your marriage and not your relationship with other family members.

I also know that often, as the anger fades, you will sometimes reevaluate these decisions. At the time my husband and I were taking a break, I never thought that one day I would be able to look at my marriage and be open to trying to salvage things, but that’s what I did.

However, at first I did not want to be close to my husband and needed time to process the events that were taking place. He understood, though I’m sure some of his friends didn’t think too highly of me at the time. And what, however? It is nobody’s business but the people directly involved in the marriage. My husband understood that his decision to cheat was the reason for my decisions and actions. If he had never cheated, then nothing would have changed.