I recently received an email from a wife who was trying to come up with a strategy to get her husband away from the woman he was having an affair with. The wife told me that she was afraid that the “other woman” was younger, prettier, and had some control over her husband. So she didn’t know if or how she could compete with this. She felt frustrated and wondered if the situation was hopeless. Finally, I asked her if she could wave a magic wand and get exactly what she wanted, what would she wish for? She told me that she just wanted to save her marriage and for her husband to love her and want only her.

I totally get it, having been in a somewhat similar situation. But, I also believe from experience that you really can’t and shouldn’t compete with something that isn’t real anyway. Doing so will not only rob you of your self-esteem, it will often make you look less than desirable where it really matters. I will discuss more about this matter in the next article.

Why competing with “the other woman” is generally not a good idea: If you accept that you must compete with another person to fight for your marriage, you are almost tolerating the fact that this other person is a valid consideration for your husband. Sure, she may be acting silly right now and might think what she’s feeling is “real” and strong. But, do not lower yourself to this level. You don’t deserve this. And, if you approach him when he has this mindset, you might not come out on top anyway.

It’s much better to wait until he comes back to reality. He’s not thinking or evaluating anything clearly right now, so trying to reason with him probably won’t work and will only make you feel worse about yourself and your situation. I can tell you from experience that when you allow yourself to be treated this way, it will affect how he feels about you and how you feel about yourself.

One of your jobs right now is to look after your own well-being. Allowing yourself to compete with another woman for her husband is not in your best interest, especially emotionally.

Have faith that this woman’s true colors will eventually come out: This is what you have to realize. While this woman may seem so exciting and low-maintenance at first, she will most likely get this result because of the way she portrays herself. But, she can’t go on like this forever. Nobody wants to give something of themselves without receiving something else in return.

Over time, you will have to play your hand and this is usually when your husband will see you in a whole new light. Usually this is not a question of if, it is a question of when. The “newness” and the excitement wear off and she no longer sees her through rose-colored glasses. And when this happens, she wants to look very positive by comparison.

This is not as likely to happen when you have lowered yourself to her level and made her think of you with the same thoughts as her. As difficult as it may be, sometimes you just have to behave with integrity and wait. This can be difficult at first, but it will usually be worth it in the end. Because she is the one who will end up looking silly, demanding, and foolish, while you will come across as the one who took the right path and didn’t indulge in the same unfortunate behavior as the two of them.

If you must make changes, make sure you do it for yourself, not to compete with it: The truth is, one of the big steps to recovering from this (whether it saves your marriage or not) is to restore your confidence and self-esteem. So it will be understandable if you wonder if you shouldn’t make some improvements and changes. But make sure that everything you do is done to make you happy, not to make someone else happy.

I did some things to restore my self-esteem in my own life. But I limited these things to topics that had concerned me long before the adventure happened. I fixed my teeth. I learned to dress to play to my strengths. And I worked on liking myself. At the end of the day, what you want is to come out of this situation with confidence, which you will need in the days to come, no matter how it turns out.

But, you don’t have to and shouldn’t be competing with anyone. Your goal should be to make yourself happy. When her husband approaches, she can decide how he wishes to proceed. But setting yourself up to compete with something that isn’t even reality is probably not in your best interest and probably won’t help you with your goal of restoring your confidence and ultimately being happy.