The Cheater as Symptom Bearer

When you’re sick, you exhibit symptoms. When your marriage relationship is sick, there are also symptoms. One of the tough challenges with marriage relationships is in how those symptoms of illness show up.

One of the ways they show up is with cheating. This is not saying that ALL cheating is symptomatic of sick relationships. There are many reasons and motivations behind cheating. When your marriage is in crisis, viewing the cheating as a symptom of a bigger problem is something you may want to consider.

If the cheating occurred after a period of emotional distance, a pattern of unresolved conflicts, and mounting emotional intensity between the two of you, the cheating may be telling you something. When you and the cheater come from dysfunctional homes you bring your problems with you. Along with those problems, you also bring unhealthy ways of dealing with them.

The problems often serve as flash points, since they are never resolved. With each additional unresolved problem, there is more tension. The problems keep the two of you from getting close, so that each of you are left to fend for yourself in dealing with the pain and tensions. You each become ticking time bombs.

Marriages where the cheater is a symptom bearer are often filled with mixed messages in their communication. The mixed communication pressurizes the situation even further.

The mixed communication comes in two forms. The first is that what is said and what it means are often two different things. The second is that communication often has contradictory messages embedded within it.

Messages like “You must always want me, whether you feel like it or not” or “It’s none of your business who I talk to, but you need to tell me about everyone you talk to” often drive people crazy with their mixed messages. When your mind is heat with a mixed message, it often ‘checks out’, which in this case, prevents any action.

In such situations, the cheater may be “pulling the emergency stop” on your ‘out of control’ marriage. If your marriage sounds like the examples given, you may want to consider the cheating as a symptom of something bigger. This doesn’t mean that the cheating should be ignored. It means that the cheating is a warm-up problem for an even bigger problem that involves your marriage as a whole.

Not all affairs are the same, nor can they all be dealt with using the same solutions.

Speaking of cheaters, the video “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery” covers what cheaters need to do from discovery through recovery.

Best Regards,

Jeff

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