When I come across truths and words of wisdom or things I like, I underline them. Yes, I am one of those who writes in his books. My books are filled with underlinings, stars, exclamation points, arrows and comments.
One truth I recently encountered was the statement by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, “…sobriety changes with its achievement”. Although Bateson was talking about sobriety regarding addiction, it also applies to affairs. You can easily change his statement to “Fidelity (or monogamous sobriety) changes with its achievement”. (Perhaps Bateson never made such a connection, since fidelity was something that evaded his own life. Although he shaped how others were to live with his influence, his own personal life was less than ideal).
Once the cheater returns to a life of fidelity, things change. Your marriage changes, you change and the cheater changes. The whole nature of how the two of you deal with each other changes. Although fidelity is the stated goal of affair recovery, when it happens, things change. When You reach that goal, the rules change.
Fidelity may scare you. When achieved, the fear of relapse arises. There is concern that the cheater may slip or return to their old ways.
Prior to achieving fidelity, the cheater has a goal to strive for. On reaching that old goal, the new goal becomes one of ‘maintaining’ fidelity. One reason many addictive personalities fail is that they can’t fathom a life without their addiction. This is why programs and instruction that only help you recover from an affair, yet fail showing you what an affair-free living is like will fail you.
With cheaters, they failed at fidelity before and now they are facing it once again. The fear of failure in this area is a both strong and high.
This is one of the big hurdles challenging those struggling with either long term affairs or serial affairs. Make no mistake, achieving sobriety impacts both of you, whether it be in the form of obsessive thoughts or being hyper vigilant in scanning every social situation for potential threats to your marriage.
This is why the topic of Affair Relapse needs attention in your marriage. As I share the Affair Relapse video, regaining your spouse is only part of the struggle. Learning ways of keeping your marriage affair free keeps your spouse in the marriage.
Best Regards,
Jeff
