How to cope with a cheating spouse

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During recovery from an affair, it is often difficult to tell yourself the truth. Although difficult, this is an important task that must be done. You will need to honestly deal with what has happened. Be honest with yourself about what your partner did, what you did, and what it means. Twisting and distorting the truth may ease the initial pain, but it does not help with the healing. For the healing to be complete, deal with the issues honestly.

For example: If you or your partner has a sex addiction, or drug addiction-admit it. After admitting what is going on or what went on, accept it. Accept it warts and all. If you did it or they did it admit it and accept it. It is at that point then forgiveness can be helpful. When you don’t tell yourself the truth, forgiveness is always incomplete. When you don’t tell yourself the truth, then you begin making excuses for yourself or your partner. Those excuses often lead to you believing lies about the situation. You may not want to face the reality of what happened, but whether or not you like it or approve of it, it happened. Accepting what happened does not mean you approve or condone it. Your approval or condoning is optional, acceptance is not. It is important that you accept it for what it is. Accepting the truth for what it is brings healing. Denying the truth prolongs the suffering, it not make it worse. The choice is yours-Do you accept the truth or not?

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

There are some couples who believe that all they need to do in order to survive an affair is just love their spouse more. This notion sounds nice, yet working through hurts and pain takes more than romantic ideals. Love does go a long way, and it needs to be accompanied by honesty, good communication, encouragement, acceptance, and forgiveness in order to  have its maximum impact. Very often, people try to make it thorough the emotional healing with a lot of optimistic hopes and warm feelings toward their spouse. This is like trying to take out tough stains with water and elbow grease. There are occasional reports of it occurring, but most people need the high power detergent to clean out the stains. They also need high power tools to facilitate the kind of healing that is needed.

I believe in love. I also believe that it needs to be backed up with actions, acts of sheer willpower, brutal honesty and compassionate willingness to forgive in order to make the relationship work. Many people ‘bail out’ when the pain, discomfort, discouragement or loneliness overwhelm their personal space. There is hope out there. There are many resources that can help walk you through the struggles. I hope you consider my “Affair Triage” program in considering your options. Since the sessions are recorded, you can replay them as you need them. Many times we need to hear something repeatedly before in sinks into our thick skulls.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

If you can rank affairs in terms of degrees of difficulty to overcome, there are some that are more difficult to overcome than others. The types that are very very difficult include affairs with family members, underage friends of your child, friends of your child, and neighbors. Although each of these categories could be addressed at length, today’s posting is about neighbors.

Since you have to deal with these people on a day in and day out basis, overcoming affairs with them is exceptionally painful. The pain and tension often spread and effect the nearby neighbors as well. Reputations for the adulterers are soiled. Sometimes this soiling spreads to the families of the adulterers. (The reason for this is that some people often react to affairs like they would a contagious disease. Since the sources of contagious diseases are shunned, the families may find themselves shunned as well). Involving neighbors sets up a pattern of secrets and divided loyalties. These tensions can spread to the local community through churches and schools. Although affairs with family members is painful, the family members can be avoided. With neighbors, contact with them cannot be avoided. Every contact carries with it the reminder of what happened and serves to trigger all the fantasies about what transpired.

Dealing with affairs between neighbors takes some added effort and time in overcoming its effects.  If you are working through such a situation, remember that since it is more complex, it will take more time to heal. You may have to adjust your expectations about time frames in such situations.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murra

Flirting is often seen as innocent. Flirting is seen as a behavior where no one gets hurt. If  you are in the process of recovering from an affair, flirting is something to avoid. Flirting is the spark that ignited the desires that brought on the mess. If your partner was the one with the affair, flirting may send the wrong message during the recovery time. Flirting is the equivalent of playing with matches. The small talk and the fantasizing often go hand in hand. Stopping the flirting helps reduce the fantasizing. The initial fantasy is not the one that gets people in trouble, it is when you continue going back to the fantasy and play it out repeatedly that troubles begin. Such fantasy, often feed by flirting, creates unhappiness and plants the seed for further actions to unfold.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

Many affairs develop as a result of opportunities created. In scripture, the admonition to make no provision for evil applies to affairs. Taking a few precautions can often prevent affairs from unfolding. Some things to consider include:

-Maintain communication with your spouse. If you are working late, call them.

-Do not visit bars or clubs when you are out of town by yourself.

-Avoid going out or being alone with members of the opposite sex.

- Do not wear provocative clothing or allow conversation to drift into sexual innuendo or provocative jokes.

-Avoid drinking when you are not with your spouse.

-Do not call old boyfriends or girlfriends. This also includes to not keep their pictures around either.

-Do not fantasize about relations with other people.

These are some simple steps that can be taken to minimize the opportunities for an affair to develop. Although there are times that events ‘just happen’, in most cases, the door of opportunity is left open for an affair to occur.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

Determining the “right” thing to do is not always easy. What the “right” thing to do is has a great deal to do with what standard you use. That standard will also determine what options are available. If you go to a lawyer, they will inform you concerning your legal options, if you go to a pastor, they will give you the Biblical options, if you go to a counselor they will consider the psychological options. You will have to live with the options you choose to follow. You will also have to choose what options are even under consideration. There may be legal or social options that are not acceptable concerning your spiritual convictions. It is during times of choices that you discover what are your convictions and what are your preferences. Do you prefer not to seek divorce or is divorce not even an option considered?

You may want to consider your circumstances, your spiritual beliefs/convictions, what your advisers tell you, what logic dictates, what that ‘still small voice inside’ says and what your “gut” tell you to do. Consider what each of the above list tells you and how it lines up with the others. You may want to ask questions concerning peoples reasons for suggesting various options. “What made you suggest that I …….?”  is a question that can give you some insight.

Doing the right thing does not mean that it is the easiest or cheapest path. You also have to consider what is the best choice for you, your family, your convictions. Each of these do play a part in the decisions under consideration. If you are used to giving injust in order to ‘keep the peace”, then doing the right thing will be a new challenge for you.

These are just a few guidelines to consider during your time of making choices.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

In working with couples going through affair situations, there are often difficulties with accountability. Oftentimes, the resolute spouse ‘overlooks’ faults rather than deal with them. It is not that they do not see the faults, they choose not to mention them. By not bringing those items to their attention, it creates a mutual ‘denial’ situation.

In having accountability, one brings the items to the persons attention, then works with them on dealing with them. That is where forgiveness or other actions are involved. If you choose to overlook after the items are brought to your partner’s attention, there are times for that. The not bringing things to peoples attention even before they are mentioned is not good. Accountability is needed. It is through accountability that honesty develops.

This will help you understand the importance of accountability.  Without accountability, it allows the adulterous spouse to keep believing their own lies and deceptions. If there is to be healing, the deceptions must be brought to a stop.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

Forgiveness is an issue that many people want but few understand. Forgiveness involves letting go of the emotional pain. It also means letting go of the desire and any right for revenge. Although the right for revenge is let go, that does not excuse any prosecution for laws violated. Only a judge can exempt from prosecution, since most of you are not judges, you do not have the authority to exempt your partner from prosecution. You do have the authority to release them from the emotional bondage and emotional indebtedness that may exist.

Forgiveness is not a one-time ‘get out of jail card free’. It is a process. Although many of us would like to release all the pain at one time, as humans we often only let go of a little at a time. It is as if we have to forgive a little each day until the whole pain is gone through the process of being diminished.

Forgiveness does not mean what occurred was right. It does not mean that you approve of what happened. It only means that you are letting go of the emotional pain. I often have to take people through the forgiveness process through a series of steps.

Sometimes you may only forgive one or two incidents at a time. That is understandable considering the experiences you have been through.

In terms of the theology of forgiveness, in the Bible we are commanded to forgive. We are commanded to forgive repeatedly. There are no exclusions on the forgiveness requirement. Forgiveness is required, divorce is not. There are no requirements for obtaining a divorce based on affairs.  This may help some of you sort out what is required and what is NOT required.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah