The Angry Cheater Who Lost Their Affair Partner

One of the more confusing aspects of being cheated on for me was attempting to understand my girlfriend's anger after her moments of fun in her affairs surfaced for all of us to see. The two of us attempted to reconcile  for a short time to try and reconcile our relationship after the affair. I had a few parameters that I felt necessary to lay down in order to seriously give reconciliation a serious attempt. I stated that I was going to move out, she needed to immediately end her relationship and cheating with her affair partner and there was to be no contact between them whatsoever. She agreed to these terms and we were initially making serious progress at reconciling. The problem came days and weeks later. Whether the betrayed partner wants to acknowledge it or not affairs require grieving and loss like all relationships that end. The betrayed partner is not too sympathetic to this process of pain of missing the affair partner. I found my girlfriend upset at me and angry at me for setting boundaries and forcing her to end her affair. The next few weeks my girlfriend became angry and short tempered with me for trivial reasons. While I was shattered, filled with self-doubt and an imploded self-esteem as a result of being cheated on; my girlfriend was venting anger and frustration towards me for having the audacity to insist that our reconciliation be one on one without any other people involved. As time went by she became more and angrier and short-tempered as we slowly patched up what little we could in our relationship. My girlfriend admitted she missed the attention from her affair partner, the feelings of being pursued by other men and resented me for putting a stop to this (the joys of couple's counseling). She had the affair and was angry at me for asking contact to cease as we repaired our torrid mess of a relationship. This is an example of the self-centered narcissism that the betrayed partner is up against. Cheaters often become angry when they are made to look at their behavior, when the betrayed partner interrupts their fantastic system they have going with multiple partners and when others see them for they truly are. There is little defense to utilize other than self-preservation through anger. When the affair is discovered, the wandering partner is usually forced to make a decision and cannot have their dual lifestyle any longer. The anger being projected by the wandering spouse is a symptom of their childishness as they cannot muster the courage to look with themselves and take personal responsibility for their cheating. Do not tolerate any suggestions, manipulation tactics or intimidation as a result of a cheating spouse's anger. This is usually the only card a wandering spouse has left to play once the affair is realized. I chose to ignore the anger while we were still together because I knew its root cause was not with me but with her.