Rumors make any situation worse than it needs to be. Like flies at a picnic, rumors surround affairs.
Even when no affair actually happened, rumors are always there, twisting and distorting facts, along with perverting the motivations and what is said.
How to Handle Rumors About Your Spouse <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio, and am I glad that you tuned in today. The topic we’re going to be dealing with in today’s session is how to handle rumors about your spouse.
Rumors do a lot of damage
With affairs, many times the rumors do a lot of the damage. Even in cases where there aren’t affairs, just talk about affairs are enough to ruin many people’s reputations.
Rumors always make any situation worse than it needs to be. Like flies at a picnic, rumors surround the affair and they make it very unpleasant. An affair is bad enough as it is, but the rumors about the affair make it worse.
And even when no affair has happened there are rumors. And these rumors will twist and distort facts, twist and distort the motivation behind things, and twist and distort what is said.
Whether or not your spouse has had an affair, you may find yourself having to deal with the rumors. With an affair, or without an affair.
I see this as a beneficial session for just about anyone these days. Because I’ve worked in situations where there was an individual wanting to get someone fired, wanted to sleep with someone, so they started spreading the rumors. It’s not beyond people to do that. So there are such a thing as false rumors.
The CRISOS solution
Okay, in terms of the response. The solution I call the crisis solution, or you may want to go ahead and call it the ‘CRISOS solution’, because the first three letters are CRI, which will be the first three items that I cover, then SOS. So CRISOS.
1. The “C” part. Contain the rumors. You cannot control them. You can only limit the damage.
You can’t keep people from saying things, but you can make sure that it goes no further.
Some of the ways that you can do this include making sure your friends—and what I mean by making sure your friends, go to them, talk to them, make sure that these people are your friends, make sure that they are loyal to you. Because sometimes people, when they get hurt, they do things out of character. So you want to make sure of all your friends.
You want to avoid defensiveness. This is part of containing the rumors still. Because when you start getting defensive, many times it makes you look guilty and that adds to credibility for the rumor.
The last part of this first item is to neutralize the rumor by uniting with your spouse.
In terms of containment, make sure of your friends, avoid defensiveness, and neutralize it by uniting with your spouse. Because when you and your spouse present a united front there’s no ammunition for the rumor, there’s no fuel. It cuts it off. That’s why you want to go ahead and unite with them.
2. The “R” part. Rise above the fray. The rumors are going on, you’re going to need to rise above that. Which means when you’re talking to people appeal to their good nature, their good character, their good conduct. When you’re talking to them try to make these appeals to those higher values, those higher virtues, to get past it.
Because a lot of people want to take you down into the mud, so appeal to the higher ones.
3. The “I” part. Ignoring can be your friend. Now, some things you do not want to ignore. In the case of rumors ignoring, many times, can be the best strategy that you can do because getting defensive makes it worse.
Ignoring them, in terms of treating it like you never heard it, nothing’s going on, that can be your friend in this case.
And the last part is the SOS. When I mention the CRISOS, contain, rise above, the ignoring, and SOS. That stands for be willing to ask for help.
When the rumor situation gets totally out of control be willing to ask for help. I encourage you, go ahead and put those first parts of the solution in place before you go ahead and ask for help. I
f you’ve gone ahead and taken steps to contain it, then the person helping you can do more and be much more effective.
The help may be in the form of seeking assistance from your pastors, seeking help where you work through the personnel department, or it might be some type of counselor type on site. Maybe something where you need to go to your boss and see what can be done about the rumor.
And if you have gone ahead and taken these other steps, you’re not going to be seen as a whiner. You’ll be a person whose already taken action, the action didn’t contain it as well as you want it to, and then you go for help and it will go over much better.
I encourage you to apply the CRISOS solution in terms of dealing with rumors about your spouse. Many of these strategies will also work with rumors about yourself, because this is part of what some people would call damage control. This will help you maintain the damage, keep it from spreading.
One of the areas often damaged by rumors is trust. In the video, “How Can I Trust You Again?”. I show you ways you can repair and rebuild trust in your marriage. Rebuilding trust should be part of your plan for dealing with rumors.
Rebuilt trust makes your marriage stronger and more resilient to the dame inflicted by rumors.
Best Regards,
Jeff
