My husband won’t tell me the name of the woman he cheated on me with. How can I make him tell me?

I often hear of wives who are trying to deal with two frustrations simultaneously. First, they are devastated that her husband has admitted to cheating on them. And second, they’re beside themselves because she doesn’t reveal who she’s been cheating with.

I heard from a wife who said, “My husband finally admitted that he had been cheating on me. I strongly suspected him all along. He hasn’t come home on time. He’s been getting a lot of private phone calls and texts.” He has been distant and cold to me. He hasn’t shown any sexual interest in me for a while. I have repeatedly accused him of cheating on me and he has always denied it. However, last night he finally broke down and admitted that he had been cheating but had recently left. If that’s not devastating enough, he won’t reveal who he’s been cheating with. He says that who she was doesn’t matter because she is now out of her life. He says that he wants to move on with our getting married and put this behind us. How can I even begin to do that when he won’t even tell me who she is? Why would he hide this from me? I will discuss these issues (and try to answer his questions) in the next article.

Potential Reasons Your Husband Won’t Tell You Who He Cheated With: There are several reasons why a husband will want to keep the other woman’s identity a secret. Sometimes the husband knows that if you discover her identity, you will be tempted to think about or obsess over her and thus make it more difficult for you to move on. A lot of men worry that the moment she gives you her name, you’ll immediately google her or find her on facebook and then contact her to get her side of her story or to confront her. Many husbands want to avoid this at all costs.

Another possibility is that their identity particularly annoys you. It is common for it to be a friend, colleague, neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance or even relative. If it’s someone you know, you may feel doubly betrayed. I’m not saying that none of these examples are valid reasons for him to hide his identity from you. I’m just trying to share what might be behind your thought process to help you come up with a plan or strategy.

How to handle it when your husband won’t tell you the other woman’s name: I believe that you have a right to this information. If you’re going to try to save your marriage, you need to be fully aware of what (and who) you’re dealing with. You can’t do that if he’s leaving out some pieces of the puzzle. He may well be reluctant to give you his identity out of fear. But there will be a lot of difficult conversations in the days to come and you need to move on anyway. He needs to understand that if he is serious and sincere about moving forward with you, he must be forthcoming without exception.

To communicate this, a suggested conversation should go something like: “I understand that you may be reluctant about my reaction to his identity, but that’s a risk you’ll have to take because I can’t assess our situation without having all the information. I need to know everything.” , including details about who she was, where you met her, the nature of the relationship, and how long it lasted. And that’s just for starters. For us to even begin To heal, you’re going to have to show me that you’re willing to be honest and forthcoming about everything. I will do my best to work with you but you will have to do much better than this I am not even beginning to think about our healing or what I want to do moving forward until I have all the information when you are ready to give it to me let me know Until then, we don’t really have much to talk about. You say it’s over with her and you want to move on until you’re completely honest with me.”

I can’t promise you that these words will suddenly make you talk, but they will certainly give you something to think about. Some husbands will try to wait for their wives to come out. They will just sit back and see if the wife will eventually drop the subject of the other woman. They hope they can ingratiate themselves with her in some other way. Whether you allow this or not is up to you. But I think his identity is information you need to know. Of course, there are several ways you can find that information yourself, but it’s much better if he tells you himself.

That is not to say that his identity is completely vital to your recovery. Infidelity is devastating no matter who the other person was. But many women find it particularly difficult if they personally know or care about the other woman. Still others want to know if she is younger, prettier, or what made her husband risk her marriage.

And this is where you can hit a slippery slope. While I agree that you deserve to know who she is, I’d warn you not to obsess over her once you get this information. It’s understandable to want to know as much as possible about the hoax (and this includes information about her). But some wives get the basic information they’ve asked for and find it’s not enough. They will then take you beyond her and inquire about her, confront her, and then continue to think or think about her.

This is often not the best for you. Whether you want to save your marriage or not, the focus should be on your healing and your ability to move on. If you think about her too much, you wish you had the ability to do that. However, this isn’t even possible if you don’t know who she is.