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After Ashley Madison

December 31, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

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The dating service known as “Ashley Madison” (they call themselves an agency) often advertises their services as “Life is Short, Have an Affair”.  They even go so far as to offer a money back guarantee.  With near 5 million members, there are many who have taken advantage of their offer. Although they advertise that those who take advantage of the offer will have ‘an affair to remember’ , the question arises as to “What do you do after Ashley Madison?” When the ‘affair to remember’ is over, how does one clean up the mess and pick up the pieces of their lives and families?

The affair will likely be something to remember, but how does one clean up the resulting nightmare. Although some couples have no problem with affairs, there are many that do have problems with the lying and disloyalty of an affair. For some, the whole affair experience amounts to being trapped into a lifestyle and a series of lies that they are desperate to escape from. If you are one of those who do not approve of affairs, or what to escape the lifestyle, there is hope. You can escape that trap. Although the affair may have been a horrid experience that leaves scars on the lives of everyone it touches, you can make changes to repair and improve your marriage. An affair does not have to mean the end of the marriage. It does mean that some major repair work is needed in the marriage relationship and within the lives of those impacted by the affair, including the adulterer.   Find out what steps you can take now to pull out of that lifestyle at SurviveYourPartnersAffair.com .

Best Regards,

Jeffrey D. Murrah

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Filed Under: Rebuilding the relationship, Reducing the Risk

Top 10 Affair Posts of 2009

December 30, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

As the year of 2009 nears its end, I wanted to share what were the top 10 most popular posts of the past year, based on daily traffic numbers.

1. The Sexing up of Popular Culture-June

2. Punish Me!-April

3&4. The Tyranny of Consenting Adults-July

5.  Temptations are all around us-April

6.  The Dark Side of Swinging

7. “Is there any hope for my marriage?”

8. Accusations of Adultery=Flogging

9. The Two Affairs

10. “Do you really want to save your marriage?”

In terms of the top posts carried by other media outlets;

1. Affairs have consequences
2. The two affairs
3. Hurt people hurt people
4. Recovery in a small town
5. Cheating in a small town
6. Canadians and Infidelity
7. Priorities
8. The two affairs
9. Tools for relationships?
10. Having an affair with the church

It is my hope that all of you take the steps to strengthen your marriages in the upcoming year.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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Tramps!

December 29, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

In bygone days, people used terms like tramps, sluts, adulterers and whore mongers to describe sets of behavior that were often seen in people who engaged in infidelity. Over the years, the concept of beauty along with morals have changed so much that identifying such behavior is not as easy as it once was. The Bible even addressed such behavior and provides behaviors to look for. These are taken from references contained in Proverbs and Ecclesiates. I have found them useful for both men and women who are prone to infidelity.

Some of those signs include:

1. Excessive or extreme eye make up.

2. Seductive or provocative dres.

3. Smooth and persuasive talking.

4. Extreme mood changes and moodiness

5.  Frequent sexualizing of communication. Finds sexual references in routine communications.

6. Excessive or extreme use of jewelry. The jewelry will focus on emphasizing sensuality.

7. The wearing of the clothes of the opposite gender (cross-dressing).

8. Often emphasizes secretiveness and secret activities.

9. The use of emotional traps. Many times trying to force or manipulate people into commitments is a form of emotional traps.

10. The desire to want to control other people.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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Filed Under: History of Affairs, Understanding Affairs

Mixed Loyalties

December 27, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

Whenever loyalties are mixed, there are potential problems. Mixed loyalties are one of the major source of problems in blended families. Mixed loyalties are also a major source of problems with affairs. The mixed loyalty issue is easily seen when the adulterer (or adultress)  is torn between their lover and their spouse. The mixed loyalties at that point are the inspiration for such terms as ‘home wrecker’ used in referring to the infidel or their lover. Although that is where the loyalty issue is seen, that is often not where it starts. infidels often make choices concerning their loyalties long before they are torn between their lover and their spouse. Although they may seem to be little choices at the time, the choices become a pattern where that culminated in the affair. These choices started when they quit placing their spouse as #1 in their hearts. When the choice is made to move the spouse out of their preeminent someone or something soon comes along to fill that position.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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Filed Under: Reducing the Risk, Understanding Affairs

Christmas Humbug Affairs

December 21, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

Although Christmas time is often associated with joy, in dysfunctional families, the holidays often bring out the worst in their dysfunctioning. When the dysfunction comes out, there are often arguments, fights, threats, suicidal thoughts, binge drug/alcohol abuse and other problem behaviors. When those who grew up in such circumstances are faced with the pain of expectations and bad holiday memories, they often find some way to escape the pain. One of the ways of escaping that pain is with affairs. Although they view the affair as a way of coping with events in their lives, when news of the affair gets out, there is often even more dysfunction as families struggle in their attempt at coming to grips with the pain and what is happening in front of them.  Affairs are often painful for couples and the holidays amplify pain to intense levels.

People often poke fun of Dicken’s character Scrooge who responds to Christmas with “Bah-Humbug!”. What they don’t know is that for those growing up in dysfunctional families, Christmas brings with it unpleasant memories, pain and misery.  For those people, responding with “Humbug!” is one of their ways of coping with and avoiding the pain. In the case of some adults, the modern way of expressing their humbug reaction is to have an affair as a way to escape the painful memories and desperation. In such cases, it is not about an attack on Christmas, but rather an attack on the pain from their past (or present). It is not a healthy way of coping by any means. When people are hurting and are desperate, they often try to find solace via relationships and sex. With the higher emotional aspects of the holidays, there is a higher risk of affairs being used to cope with the pain.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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Living in Fear

December 20, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

Fear is a powerful motivating force. Fear keeps some spouses from even mentioning their suspicions of an affair. Fear is what keeps the adulterer from bringing up the affair. Fear is what keeps the couple from discussing what is missing in their marriage and what their needs are. Instead, they may complain about the secondary symptoms of what is missing, since that is often easier to discuss and blame over. It is easier to complain about sex than to discuss intimacy needs. It is easier to complain about ‘poor communication’ than to discuss the fears that often keep them from open discussions.

Living with fear is often more extreme with couples who grew up in families that operated and existed in fear. Whether fears of rejection, honest, violence or something else. Living in fear brings poor choices and a sense of desperation. There are fears that religious leaders or people in the community would reject them if they were honest. Fear brings torment into the lives and marriages of the people exposed to it.

You can take steps to escape the fear. It begins by being honest with yourself. Tell yourself the truth about yourself and what is going on. Learning to live with honesty will open your eyes to many things. You will find yourself living in a more genuine manner. No need to hide behind masks and veils, you can begin to see through those obfuscating items. True love is incompatible with fear. As you begin increasing your awareness of fear, you will begin hating the fear and how it dominated your life. Once you have begun telling yourself the truth, then you can take steps to secure your safety.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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“I married my mother!”

December 17, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

Although Oedipus made the fateful declaration of “I married my mother!”, many couples discover after being married a few years that they also have married someone like their parents. Making such choices carries with it heavy emotional baggage, especially when there have been affairs in the family history. In such situations it is easy to blame the spouse for issues, although the real unresolved issues lie within you. When childhood issues are not resolved, the dynamics are often recreated later in life. It is as if you recreate your family of origin all over again in a new location. You built your new family with the old family building blocks. With the reconstruction, there is a also a carry over of the issues from the family of origin. It is not by accident that the Bible speaks negatively of ‘familiar’ spirits, these same attitudes creep into new families when not addressed. If your family has a history of infidelity, you will want to take steps to not recreate similar situations in your present relationships.

Here are some steps that will help:

1. Be honest with yourself and yourself.

2. Rather than ignore emotional needs, do something about them.

3. Take steps to sever the emotional bonds that have unhealthy connections.

4. See your spouse as they are. Do not make comparisons of them with others. Accept them for who they are.

5. Accept yourself for who you are.

Being that the holiday season is upon us, there are windows of opportunities for healing that are not there the rest of the year. You have a chance to start the new year on a firmer footing.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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They have to make the first move

December 16, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

Affairs often bring out the childish parts of people and their personalities. One of the children’s games that often occurs is “They have to make the first move”. In this game, the parties keep a tense status quo in their relationship, while each waits on the other to make the first  move. With such a ‘stand off’, each party often justifies their position by emphasizing their innocence and the wrongs that were done to them. In situations where they focus on the wrongs they endured, they attempt taking the moral high ground through maintaining self-righteous positions. They believe that they are in the ‘right’ and refuse to make the first move. They often use scripture to justify their position and make them feel good about what they have done. Such actions are a misuse of scripture.

The saying “You can be right or be in relationship” holds the key to these situations. They can spend their energy maintaining their rightness or do what it takes to repair the relationship and improve their marriage. Which do you want to be —being ‘right’ of being back in relationship with your spouse?

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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“I didn’t mean what I said”

December 14, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

In the arguments that often accompany affairs, it is common to hear the phrase, “I didn’t mean what I said”.  When this phrase occurs with great frequency, there are problems in the relationship that are larger than the affair. This is a phrase often heard among people struggling with co-dependency in their relationships.  Just because you may have said this does not make you co-dependent, yet if it has become a way of life and you expect your spouse to ‘know’ your intentions and meanings, there may be some ‘co-dependency’ in the relationship which will need to be addressed in healing the relationship.

Although science touts the idea of mind reading as a breakthrough, acting as if you can read or your spouse can read your mind is disastrous for  health of the relationship. Spouses do not read minds and you do not know what your spouse is thinking. You may be very familiar with their patterns, but that does not mean you know what they are thinking and can think for them.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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Sticking with winners

December 14, 2009 By Jeff Murrah Leave a Comment

Within the recovery community are many nuggets of wisdom that have many applications for other areas, including dealing with affairs and their aftermath. One of those nuggets is to “Stick with winners”.  This saying has many applications for marriages. One being that when your marriage relationship is strained, it is not the time to hang out with losers, or those who have a history of troubled relationships. You want to be with and listen to couples who have stayed together and managed to work through their issues. When you are in crisis, you are more vulnerable to bad advice. Hanging with people who are winners will help you more than associating with other people, even though they may be fun and full of laughs.

“Sticking with winners” also means you need to avoid the hangouts and places that losers congregate. Find out where the winners go and go there as well. Do the things that the winners do. Avoid loser talk, loser attitudes, and loser places. Losers also do not joke about affairs and cheating. Let those who have lost at love and relationships joke about their failures. Read what winners read, learn to think like a winner, practice the behaviors of a winner.

This phrase also helps with sexual addictions as well. Sticking with winners will help you avoid relapses into unhealthy behaviors. The little phrase “Stick with winners” is simple, but powerful when it is put into practice. The old phrase, “You can know a man (or woman) by the company they keep” addresses this same idea. Losers can corrupt good manners and good habits.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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