A reader wrote me from Vietnam about her situation. She stated, ” you forget to give advice to people like me. My husband abandoned me to the country of my birth while he travels“.
She went on explaining how her husband, who’s in the oil industry only shows up periodically and how she recently discovered he has a child with another woman. She is devastated by the discovery.
Affairs are bad enough, yet when there’s a child, it becomes more intense.
Although her situation highlights several issues, I’ll focus on one.
When a spouse is married to their job rather than to you and another is the issue of affairs across borders.
In terms of a spouse being married to their job, be it the oil field, ministry, military or healthcare they are at higher risk for affairs. Whether or not they intended their job to become a mistress, once it does, there are problems.
This mistress is demanding. When she calls, the spouse feels compelled in answering, no matter what time of day or night.
Under the excuse “the job demands it” or “they need me”, your spouse leaves you for their mistress.
These jobs are often demanding. Employers don’t help matters when they create a ‘workplace family’. The needs of the workplace family begin displacing the needs of their real family.
I often think of this as the “NCIS Problem”. Much like the television show NCIS has a workplace family that trumps real families, even though they say ‘family comes first‘. What is not addresses is ‘which’ family comes first?
The whole thing is insidious. The slogan ‘family comes first’ sounds wholesome, but what they really mean is that the work family comes first.
It starts off with simple compromises. The job forces them to choose between job and family. At first your spouse may struggle with it, yet over time they continue choosing their job over their family.
The intentions may be honorable, yet when your spouse is more invested in their job than in your family, it should be sounding alarms for you.
Even when they claim not ever having had an affair, when you and your needs are consistently placed behind the needs of the job, the job has become a mistress.
The same patterns that happen with affairs happen. Your marriage needs healing as if there has been an affair.
The downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop” guides you in dealing with these issues. When the alarms are sounding, you need to be taking action.
Best Regards,
Jeff
