Desire after cheatingLost desire after your husband's affair: what happens and what to do

Why desire disappears after your husband’s affair

Desire disappears because the feeling of safety next to your husband is gone. Your body is protecting itself from the person who hurt you, and it does so more honestly than any words.

It usually comes like a bolt from the blue. He is in the shower, his phone pings, you glance at the screen, and there is the conversation. What happens next is different for everyone: some women sob, some fall into a numb trance, some get angry and want revenge. And for almost all of them, desire vanishes in the first weeks.

Coldness in bed during this period does not mean that love is gone or that something is wrong with you. Your body is reacting to the loss of trust exactly as it should, and it is not yet ready to open up to the person who hurt it.

I don’t want my husband after he cheated: what is happening in the body

After an affair, many women feel a physical disgust towards their husband, and during sex the other woman appears before their eyes. Some catch themselves comparing and checking: is he thinking about her right now?

Women describe it in different ways. It is unpleasant when he hugs you from behind. His smell is unbearable. You want to wash after a kiss. Sex is possible, but it is as if you are watching yourself from the outside and feeling nothing. This is how the body responds to a threat: it hits the brake, and no technique will release that brake until the threat is gone.

There is also the opposite version. Some women throw themselves into wild sex after an affair, to “win back” their husband and prove to themselves that they are better. This is a reaction to pain too. It just rarely heals anything, and afterwards the coldness comes back twice as strong.

Can you get thrush after your husband’s affair

Thrush is caused by Candida fungi, and the CDC does not class it as a sexually transmitted infection. It is more often triggered by antibiotics, hormonal changes, diabetes and stress.

The stress of an affair can cause a flare-up by itself, so the timing is not surprising. But do not jump to the conclusion “I have thrush, so he brought home an infection”. Bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis and other infections produce similar symptoms, so self-treatment is a bad idea here.

If your husband cheated, get tested even if you have no symptoms. According to the WHO, many sexually transmitted infections run without symptoms. What to test for and how often I describe on my page about STIs and HPV, and there is a separate article on thrush and its causes.

Cheating statistics for men and women: why the numbers don’t add up

There is no reliable figure for how many men and women cheat. Studies count in different ways, and the main discrepancy starts with what counts as cheating in the first place.

For one couple, cheating means sex on the side; for another, messaging with explicit photos; for a third, even watching porn. I once described for my readers where harmless flirting ends. When your partner says outright that it bothers them. When messages start getting deleted. When your friends ask whether you have forgotten you are married. When you have to make excuses. When it takes up a lot of your time. When a sexual undertone appears.

The same goes for the “physical signs of cheating” that people search for online: there are no reliable signs, neither in a man’s body nor in how he behaves in bed. Hunting for them only winds up your anxiety. That is why other people’s statistics are of little help. What matters more is agreeing on what the two of you consider cheating, and ideally before anything has happened.

Forgive or leave: 5 questions to ask yourself

Only you have the answer to “should I forgive the affair”. A friend, your mother or a psychologist will give you their opinion, but you are the one who has to live with the decision.

First wait until the emotions settle and you can think clearly again. Then ask yourself five questions:

1. How long have you been together? If the relationship has only just begun, it is easier to part. If there are years behind you, perhaps all the good in them is worth forgiving one mistake.
2. What state was your relationship in before the affair? Was there enough understanding, sex, time together, heart-to-heart conversations?
3. Is he sorry? What concrete steps is he ready to take to refill your “trust account”?
4. Is this marriage worth saving? Sometimes an affair shows that the relationship ended long ago and you had not noticed.
5. Are you ready to forgive for real and not bring up the affair in every argument?

An affair is not always a reason to separate. It can become a springboard that takes the relationship to a new level.

I am not urging you to forgive or not to forgive. If you are torn between staying and leaving, in my piece on whether to divorce if you don’t want your husband I go through the signs that help you tell.

How to get desire for your husband back after an affair

Trust first, then intimacy. Sex you force yourself into in order to keep your husband delays recovery rather than speeding it up.

People often ask how to get a husband’s passion back after an affair, as if you are the one who has to work at making him want you again. Look at it differently. The person who emptied the “trust account” is the one who has to refill it. He can be transparent about his messages and plans, answer the same questions as many times as you need, not rush you into sex, and not take offence at your outbursts.

The images in your head during intimacy will not leave on command either. If that woman appears before your eyes again, stop and say so. It is better to break off sex and hug than to carry on feeling that you are not really there. Usually they fade with time, especially if you do not keep quiet about them. This is exactly why my practicum “Orgasm. Everything you need to know” has a lesson called “Built-up resentment? The Gibberish practice” and a forgiveness practice: the resentment that keeps the body closed is something we let go of there rather than push down (the practicum is in Russian and Ukrainian).

Once the decision to stay has been made, bring touch back slowly, and set the pace yourself. First hugs with nothing to follow, then caresses, and only when your body stops tensing up, sex. How to bring intimacy back to life once trust has returned, I describe in my article on how to bring passion back into a relationship.

I don’t want my husband after my own affair

If you were the one who cheated, desire for your husband often fades from guilt and comparison. And from the realisation that something had been missing in the marriage for a long time.

In this case the affair is usually a symptom. Something went earlier: closeness, conversations, the feeling of being seen and wanted. The 2018 review by Mark and Lasslo shows that desire in a long-term couple is also shaped by the relationship between the partners, and that a drop in desire specifically for one’s own partner is common. It is worth looking at what came before the affair, otherwise the story will repeat itself. My course “Sexual Compatibility in a Couple” has a lesson on this, “The seven stages of love”: it shows which stage you got stuck at and what the couple was missing long before the affair (the course is in Russian and Ukrainian). All the common reasons why desire for your husband disappears I have gathered in one place.

Women come to me with such stories both alone and as a couple. I will not judge anyone, but I will help you make sense of it: you can book an online consultation with a psychologist and sexologist.