You have to be honest with yourself, there is an excitement that comes with something that is ‘New’ and ‘Improved’. Anytime you stroll through one of the big stores, there is always the temptation to see what is ‘new’ in terms of the appliances and electronics. You just want to take a look at what’s new.
The lure of the new calls you to investigate. Once you see the ‘NEW‘, you may be tempted to touch it, look closer and see what features it has.
Once you are there, then your curiosity kicks in and you start having questions about what is ‘NEW’. After a few minutes, you mind may start imagining what it would be like having one of those ‘NEW’ things in your home. That is when you are hooked. When the fantasies of you and the new start taking over your mind, you want one.
After the fantasies kick in, then you start figuring out ways of obtaining it. You come up with ways to find the money, space, etc. that is needed for the ‘NEW’ and ‘Improved’. Besides finding ways to accommodate it, your mind also starts coming up with ways of ‘selling’ to your spouse. You have to convince them that the ‘NEW’ is good for the both of you and that the ‘NEW’ will somehow improve you lives.
Your mind may even start coming up with schemes and plans when you are not consciously focused on it. That is the way your mind works. You gave it the job of finding ways to ‘make it happen’, and it begins coming up with possible solutions.
This same process is often what happens with affairs. The cheater is distracted by the lure of something new.
Popular culture and consumerism works on us overtime to create cravings for the ‘NEW’. The desire for something new often leaves us dissatisfied with what we have. In the case of marriage, the corrupting influence of culture often tries getting you to view your marriage as old, boring, or stale.The term used is ‘consumerist mindset’.
With such terms, they are trying to lure you to the NEW. They don’t emphasize how your marriage has provided you with security, stability and faithfulness. If you viewed your marriage in those terms, you would not be looking for the new. You would instead be satisfied with the relationship you have.
When consumerism infects our relationships, we are vulnerable to the lure of the ‘NEW’. There is something exciting about having the latest and greatest, in appliances, electronics and lovers. If you want your marriage to last, you will have to develop sales resistance to this crazed thinking.
I call it crazed, because how else could a person leave a secure, stable and loving marriage in search of the hopes of something new. It is crazy to leave a sure thing in search of some quick excitement. Although it is crazed thinking, many cheaters fall prey to it.
Like a disease, consumerism infects their mind, their desires and their thinking. When the infection really sets in, they start obsessing and fantasizing about the ‘NEW’ relationship. Not only do they think about it, they start scheming ways to obtain it. The excitement of the NEW takes over their mind. Their thinking becomes driven more by desire than common sense.
Like a sickness, the longer the sick thinking stays in their head and heart, the more ill they become. It is as if the unhealthy desire takes over.Their brain starts shifting more and more of its focus over to the NEW. They fantasize about it, they make plans about getting it, they imagine how their lives will improve.
While holding onto the ideas that the NEW relationship will change things, they also start disparaging the marriage they have, telling themselves that it is holding them back, that it is stale, that their needs are not being met, etc.
All the energy they once put into their marriage, they now redirect to the NEW.
When the desire takes over, their mind is filled with twisted thoughts that directly connect their well-being to the NEW. They think that if they do not have the NEW, life is not worth much. They think that without the NEW, they are nothing. The idea of the NEW infects all their thinking. They believe that the NEW is all that matters.
If your marriage has been infected by the sickness of the NEW, you need help. Your marriage can survive the affair if you know what to do. Find out what you need to do to save yours with the Affair Recovery Workshop.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
