After an affair, there is a risk of relapse. You cannot control your spouse and their choices. When a cheater is in a high-risk situation, the likelihood of relapse is high. There are always risk factors anytime the cheater walks out the door. You cannot eliminate every risk, but when the risks are high, extra precautions can be taken.
Affair Relapse: When is it a high risk situation? <<– listen to the audio here
Hi. This is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio and I’m glad that you joined this radio show today.
In today’s show we’re going to be dealing with ‘affair relapse’. “When is it high risk?” I ask that question because there are high risk situations that you will find yourself facing. Especially with someone who has cheated before.
Because after an affair there’s always always a risk of relapse. You can’t control your spouse and their choices. And when your spouse or the cheater is in a high risk situation, the likelihood of relapse is high. Does that make sense? A high risk situation, the risk of an affair is high.
I know any time the cheater steps out of the door of your home that there’s a risk of an affair. And you can’t control all of those. But you can become aware of those special situations that pose an undue amount of risk where the risk level skyrockets up to levels that it is hard for anyone, especially them, to say no to.
When the risks are that high, there are precautions that you can take. That brings me to the question. When is it a high risk situation? We’re going to be covering what constitutes high risk situations, where the level of risk is higher than everyday routine life. There will be five of them that I’ll be going over today.
1. Special days. What I mean by special days, this includes holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and accomplishments. By accomplishments, let’s say you or your spouse just recently received some really wonderful news or got a raise or a promotion at work. These should be happy days. And also your holidays. This includes Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s, Mother’s Day. These special days.
Part of the reason for that is that on these days there are a lot of emotions stirred up. When those emotions are stirred up, you’re at more risk. Some of these, like for instance the times of accomplishment, the person is feeling good about themselves. And a lot of times they are scared when things go too well.
Of course, if they just had some sudden bad news like someone dying, that also puts them at risk as well. But these good times, a lot of times, are blind spots. People oftentimes, out of common sense, know to take extra precautions during the really bad times. But the good times are also a high risk time, along with the holidays and birthday.
With birthdays, the person feels a little special about themselves like the rules don’t apply to them because it’s my birthday. I’m special today. And so on those days, a lot of times they take more risk.
I mentioned anniversaries. And this not only includes, like for instance the anniversary of your marriage, it may be an anniversary of the death of people close to them, it may be the anniversary of affair related items. For this reason you may need to know some details about the affair that you didn’t really want to know at first.
Like what day did you meet them, when did y’all decide to have or formalize the relationship. Because those days stick in our minds. I’m not saying you have to go into detail with everything about the affair relationship, but knowing those particular dates are important. Because at some level they’re going to be vulnerable or be remembering the person that they cheated with, on that day. For that reason you need to take special precautions.
2. HHALT. In the recovery community they just use HALT. But we’ve got to put two H’s in here when you’re dealing with cheaters. Because the H stands for both hungry and horny.
Of course, if a person is sexually aroused for whatever reason, they’re always going to be at higher risk. Because when they are aroused, especially when they’re cheaters, they’re not thinking. Or they’re not thinking very clearly. They’re just thinking about getting their needs met. They are not thinking in terms of consequences.
Likewise when a person is in a state of need, like they’re hungry or thirsty, where they’re needing something, a lot of times the body does not always differentiate. It just knows I have a need, that need must be satisfied. And so they will look for things that will satisfy those needs.
Some other cases where they are not thinking straight are the A, the angry. When they are angry they’re not thinking straight, they are just reacting. It’s almost like when you’re in an angry state your brain hops in the backseat of the car and the emotions take over the steering wheel. You just sit back and hold on for dear life, and wait for the ride to come to an end.
Also, after the angry, is the L which stands for lonely. They are by themselves, be it out of town or on a business trip or even late at night, they’re going to be more at risk.
T, that stands for tired. When a person is tired it’s almost like their thinking is a little different, their defenses are down, they’re more vulnerable. So if you have any of these, the hungry, horny, angry, lonely, or tired, you’re looking at a high risk situation.
Once again, one high risk variable by itself does not mean that they’re going to go out and have an affair. But when you are looking at times where you’ve got two or more of these things lining up, that flashing yellow warning light should be going off in your head. Like for instance, you have one of those HHALT’s and it’s a holiday. You’ve got problems.
3. History of addictions. This is potentially dangerous because addictions run in packs. They usually go all together, be it sexual addiction, gambling addictions, alcohol addiction, drug addictions, they tend to run in packs. Many times when a person is used to that whole addictive mindset or has an addictive personality, they will often replace one addiction with another. They can’t get their fix with drugs, they get it with the affair.
You need to be aware of that.
4. Large amounts of unstructured time. If they have a lot of unstructured time on their hands, they’re going to be more at risk. They need to have something to do. It’s when they get bored that they usually start thinking about affairs.
Number five, access to fast cash. When people have access to fast cash, and by fast cash a lot of cash transactions on a daily basis, I’ve seen some people that were like, for instance, used car salesmen or some business people that dealt with a lot of cash transactions, there’s some cheaters that when they get a lot of money in their hands they start thinking in terms of affairs. And so you need to be aware of that.
These high risk situations, one by itself you don’t have to sound the alarm. But you start getting several, you need to be aware, you need to start taking precautions to make sure that the relations that they’re in do not turn into affairs.
Affair relapse can be managed, but you need to be aware of what the high risk situations are. That’s why I wanted to go ahead and go over with you what is a high risk.
Here at Affair Recovery Radio, we are focused on getting you through the affair one day at a time. And today we were dealing with the whole issue of affair relapse in terms of identifying high risk situations so that you can take those added precautions on those days.
In the future we’ll be dealing with some other issues related to affair relapse and dealing with it, but I wanted to go ahead and cover that in today’s show.
If you have enjoyed the show, I encourage you, please leave your feedback there at the podcast site that you listen this, be it iTunes or some other location. The transcript will also be available at the website, www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com so that you can see it written down what all we covered today.
If you have any concerns, or questions, I encourage you to write to me, Jeff@restorethefamily.com. And I’ll be glad to answer your questions. Because I do want to help you through the affair situation.
Until next time, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Goodbye.
