Surprisingly some of you may actually be having an affair to deal with your spouse’s affair. Let me illustrate with the story of Cindy and Kenneth.
Kenneth had an affair. When news of his affair reached Cindy, she was upset. She tried talking to Kenneth about it, but avoided talking to her. In his mind, talk was ‘not-him’.
She was hurting and desperate for someone to listen to her and the pain she was going through. She also wanted someone to comfort in the midst of the pain she was experiencing.
After several attempts at talking to Kenneth and being shut out, she decided it was time for them to go to ‘a therapist’. She selected one for the two of them to visit. Cindy felt relieved at “finally” being able to talk to someone. She was able to talk about her issues.
Here she was able to talk and someone listened. In her mind she believed the therapist cared for her, which helped her feel safe and secure, while Kenneth often shut her out and left her wallowing in her pain.
Cindy looked forward to each session with the therapist. Although Kenneth still didn’t talk much, she could finally unload all of what she had been struggling with and the emotional pressures she experienced.
Since it was a therapist, she felt safe telling her side of things. The more she told, the more she wanted to tell. It was as if she could magically open up to the therapist.
She talked about the affair, her sex life, and early childhood experiences. She was able to tell the therapist things that she had previously only told her husband or no one at all.
What Cindy was not seeing was that she started having feelings for her therapist and was involved emotionally. She thought about the therapist after sessions and thought she may have even dreamed about her and the therapist.
Cindy didn’t realize that she had lowed her inhibitions and opened up in a way with this stranger in ways that previously had been limited to her spouse.
What made things weird was that when Kenneth accused her of having an affair with the therapist, she defended the therapist and denied that anything happened.
Since they had not been physically involved, she didn’t believe that an affair happened. She dismissed Kenneth’s concerns as ‘looney’. Cindy found the whole suggestion that she was having an affair with the therapist was preposterous.
It was true that she felt safe with the counselor, was willing to openly discuss things with this stranger that she would not have talked about outside of her marriage. Things that would embarrass her to discuss with friends, she was willing to openly discuss with the counselor. She felt alive in a new kind of way with the counselor, yet in her mind, this was ‘not an affair’.
Kenneth could see it in Cindy’s eyes. That look she used to give him, she was now giving the counselor. She was willing to listen to anything the counselor said without question, do what the counselor said, yet resist anything he said to her or suggested. Kenneth now began understanding what Cindy felt after he had his affair.
Kenneth saw how when he took on a lover, it changed the dynamics of his marriage. It bothered him to no end that now Cindy was bringing in a stranger and changing the dynamics of their marriage as well. She smiled on seeing the therapist the way she used to smile at him.
Seeing her act toward the therapist like she used to act toward him told him “You’ve got a problem!”
It was as if Cindy was having a ‘revenge’ or payback affair with the therapist without even seeing the affair. True, at that point it was a sexless affair, but how long would it be before that changed? He knew from experience that once the fantasies and dreams began, it was only a matter of time before the affair moved to the next level.
So, are you having an affair with your therapist? Remember that there is more to an affair than just the sex. If you are sharing feelings or talking about things with your therapist you should be talking to your spouse about, you could be at risk.
But, here’s the good news: Kenneth and Cindy can change. You can change. You can start today with the Affair Recovery Workshop. In fact this is the perfect time to say “enough!” I’m not letting that relationship or that affair ruin my marriage any more. When you take action on that, things start changing, including your marriage and yourself.
Best Regards,
Jeff
