Over the years, I’ve observed a correlation between cursing and affairs. When you are dealing with an affair, the negative feelings are so deep and personal, that there’s no other way of expressing them than cursing.
Cursing and Affairs <<– listen to the audio here
Good evening, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad you’re here with me tonight. The topic we’re going to be dealing with this evening is cursing and affairs.
The connection between affairs and cursing
Over the years I’ve observed a correlation between cursing and affairs. I bring this up because there’s some people that feel uncomfortable with that topic area, and I felt like I needed to address that.
When you’re dealing with an affair the negative feelings are so deep and so personal, that oftentimes there is no other way to express them than to engage in cursing and/or name-calling.
When you deal with an ugly situation, ugly things come out. That’s very true with affairs, because affairs are ugly situations, a lot of ugly feelings are going to come out.
That doesn’t make you an ugly person. You’re going to have to realize that. When you’re dealing with an affair you’re dealing with a fight for the survival of your marriage.
In this fight nobody’s going to be fighting fair. There are few who follow any kind of rules of etiquette and manners. And there is little room for manners when marriage is on the line.
You may be a nice, respectable person who doesn’t like to curse, but when it comes to affairs you’re going to have to deal with the issues in front of you and set aside that piece during this time.
Making Adjustments in Dealing with and Affair
The solution, you’re going to need is “to adjust for the affair”. By adjusting you’re going to need to adjust your tactics for the war that you are in. If this was a matter that someone was being mean to your kid, yes, you could handle it mannerly and follow all kinds of social etiquette. When your husband your or your wife is sleeping around it’s going to call for a different set of solutions. You’re going to need to adjust your tactics for the war that you’re in.
Honesty is more important than being nice
In order to do this;
- Honesty is more important than niceties. You’re going to need to be honest about things. That may mean that there are times you use harsh language. The harsh language is important here because it cuts through any kind of denial.
Let’s say, for instance, your husband is sleeping with a woman and you turn around and say you’re going around banging that slut. That sounds harsh, but you may need something harsh to get through to them, to wake them up. And you’re going to need to be honest about what is going on. As ugly as it is, you need honesty.
No apologies for being hurt or angry
2. Don’t apologize for being hurt or angry. Feeling hurt, feeling angry, that’s natural given what you’re up against. These are natural reactions. You want to be taken serious. Part of being taken serious, this starts with you taking yourself serious. Including in the areas of your own hurt and your own anger.
If you want your spouse to seriously deal with your hurt and realize how hurt you are, you’re going to have to communicate that to them. And you’re going to have to do it in a way where you’re not apologetic. You can’t go up to them and say I’m sorry, but I’m hurt over what you did.
No! You say what you did hurts. You’re going to have to quit doing that.
That’s part of the kind of honest approach that you’re going to need to take, and not to apologize for being hurt or angry. Given what you’re dealing with you should be angry. There should be some hurt. There should be some volatility there. Because of what’s at stake.
DO NOT give permission for the affair!
3. When you’re frustrated don’t give permission for the affair. What I mean by this is a lot of times when spouses get frustrated they just start spewing stuff out.
You don’t want to tell your spouse statements like well,” Just go out there and sleep with that slut”; or “Just go out there and sleep with that jerk, You’re happier with them, go do it”.
Do not make those kind of statements. Because I understand that you’re angry, I understand that you’re frustrated, but when you’re dealing with an affair situation even backhanded permission is to be avoided.
I consider these backhanded permission because I don’t think that you would step up to your spouse and say honey, you have permission to sleep with whoever you want. No. That doesn’t happen. At least not typically.
It’s not a formal permission where you have a written coupon where it says you are entitled to whatever. This is more of a backhanded approach where maybe in a fit of your anger you make some kind of sarcastic comment condoning the affair.
You don’t want to do that. In the cheater’s mind, what they will take away, they don’t hear the sarcasm. They hear you giving them permission.
It’s OK for you to be angry
It’s okay for you to angry. It’s okay for you to cuss, given the nature of what you’re dealing with. But you want to make sure in the midst of that that you’re not turning around and giving permission for them to sleep with whoever.
In this solution, adjusting for the affair, it’s going to be important that you give yourself permission to go ahead and be expressive with your spouse. They may need to feel that you care enough about them to go ahead and let the feelings be raw. The thing is, you are in a fight for the life of your family.
I don’t know about you, but when it’s time to fight, you want to put everything that you’ve got into it. When you’re dealing with an ugly situation there’s often no nice way to express that. And the cuss words will come.
That doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a person that’s going through a bad time. Then you’re going to have to adjust for that and recognize that.
There is a place for cursing when it comes to affairs, and that’s what I was hoping to deal with today. These are some points that you can start working on right now, because the whole purpose of the Affair Recovery Radio podcast series is to take you through the affair recovery process one step at a time. And I encourage you to do so.
If you have found this helpful today I encourage you to leave feedback here at the iTunes site, or feel free to leave me feedback at www.surviveryourpartnersaffair.com. I look forward to hearing from you. One of the real benefits of the site is that you can post there anonymously.
I do not have to know who you are, where you’re from. Feel free to leave your questions. I’ll be glad to get back to you and respond to it either with a post on the side or with a future podcast.
Go ahead and start working on some of these issues this evening, because I know changing that mindset takes a little bit longer and you have to work on it, many times for a period of days, before it starts making an impact. But I encourage you to start the process of making those adjustments, even now.
If you need more help addressing communication issues, my video “Let’s Talk: Hurting People and Healing Questions” provides other tips, tools and strategies designed to help open up your marital communication.
Until next time, I want to thank you for tuning in. This is Jeff Murrah saying goodbye.
