How to cope with a cheating spouse

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After finding out about your spouse’s affair, the possibility of vengeance or revenge is high.  Although vengeance seems to be a good way to let off steam and get a few things off your chest, such actions are driven by passion and emotion rather than logic. In an effort to help you manage those feelings, this will be the first in a series on understanding and dealing with revenge.

Vengeance is often empowered by the thoughts of the hurt. The more you play it over in your head, the more power the vengeance will have. The hurt is its power source. If you want to overcome vengeance, you will have to cut off the power source. This means quit driving by the locations that you associate with the affair, to quit ruminating about what happened, to quit fantasizing about what you are going to do to _______________ (fill in the blank with whatever explicative you desire).  Cutting yourself off from the hurt, will not automatically take it away, but it is a start. In subsequent posts, I will provide other interventions that you can do to reduce the vengeance.

Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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Telling the children about an affair is a heart wrenching matter. It is not easy to tell them without the rage and intense hurt spilling over. As a parent you also want to avoid explicit details and adult language to describe what occurred. The pain of hearing about an affair is painful enough. Turing the “let’s sit down and talk time” into a family auction where the pieces of the home and members of the family are taken apart is not good either.

As a parent you will want to be factual, without name calling, patronizing or candy coating in addressing the matter. Focus on being age appropriate. Telling a 5-year old that “daddy had an affair” will not register. It is also not good to tell a 16-year old, “Mommy did something really bad”.  Although the feelings are intense, avoid the name calling. Name calling can backfire. If you intensely attack the disloyal spouse, some children will rally to that spouse solely based on the tendency to protect the weaker parent out of instinct.

Before having “the big meeting”, pray. Ask God for wisdom in what to say and how to say it. Recall that an affair does not automatically mean the end of the marriage or family.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

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In the aftermath of an affair, there is the deep seated desire to punish. Sometimes, this desire is directed at the paramour and sometimes at your spouse. One of the more difficult things to sort out is what is behind this desire. Is it a need to right the wrongs done? If that is the case, punishment will not make things better. Is it to make your spouse pay? Making them pay will certainly not make them want to be near you or draw closer to you. Is it about wanting to get even with the paramour? Getting back at the paramour may make you feel better, but it does not remove your spouses role in what happened. Such questions, when through through will help you to regain your focus, since anger has a way of distracting us and blinding us to what we really want and need. So, before you take off and punish someone, take a moment and consider whether or not it will help to bring healing to the situation.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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One of the lines that I enjoyed in the move “Joe versus the Volcano” is when the main character is having a conversation and the comment is made that very few people are actually awake and that we spend most of our time asleep. This comment has a bearing on affairs. Many times people are in ‘robot’ mode rather than really alert and making choices. There are occasional “moments of clarity” when you suddenly wake up and see what is actually going on. More people need to wake up and recognize the issues related to what happened in the affair and what their options are.

BTW, this is a good movie to watch in when going through the issues related to an affair. It will help you see what things are really important in life.

Regards,

Jeff Murrah

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In dealing with an affair situation, finding the rights words and the right time to say them is often challenging. The best time to say them and the ideal time to say them are not the same. Even though you may have rehearsed what you are going to say several times over, it is usually best to speak from the heart rather than give a canned presentation. It is usually true that if it is rehearsed and prepared, that it is not genuine. You may want to rehearse things to fully comprehend what you are struggle with, but do not expect the exact words that you rehearsed to be the ones that come out of your mouth when it is time to speak up.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

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