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I recently went to hear John Bradshaw speak. The nationally known author had plenty to say about affairs. as his talk focused on ‘rigorous honesty’. He addressed his own affairs, and what he found to be motivating them. One of the points that I found of interest was that he mentioned his own sexual addiction existed prior to his alcoholism. I suspect as mental health people and the recovery community begins exploring the issues behind affairs and substance abuse, they will find many cases of sexual addiction. The sexual addiction does not make their actions more acceptable, it only provides better understanding behind their actions.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affairs, cheating, honesty, infidelity, John Bradshaw, philandering, relationships, Sexual addictionIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Honesty, especially rigorous honesty is a challenge to achieve. Although it is a challenge, the rewards of such honesty is well worth the effort. One of the barriers that prevents couples from obtaining the healing and recovery from an affair or sexual addiction is the reluctance to have such honesty in the relationship.
In many cases people become comfortable living a lie. They even allow their spouses to believe the same lies thinking that if they are honest with them, then their spouse will leave them. The possibility of them leaving is always a risk. If the relationship is so fragile that honesty will cause them to leave, there are even more serious problems in the relationship that need attention. When you are marreid to someone, you want them to love you for who you are, not the image you project onto the wall or onto their lives. We all need genuine companionship, genuine connection with our spouses. This is not possible if you are still living a lie.
The truth may hurt, but living a lie hurts worse than the truth. There may be peace with the lie, but at what cost? What have you sacrificed to obtain a peace based on lies?
If you want such honesty, the time to begin is now. It may start with little things, but eventually you will arrive if you continue living honestly. Living one lie, will lead to more lies and even greater lies, until you find that you have lost your own self.
Honesty is worth the effort.
Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
adultery, affairs, honesty and infidelity, infidelity, lying, Rebuilding the relationship, relationships, Sexual addictionIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Rather than wait until an affair happens, it is important that you define what behaviors and attitudes that you will not accept in your spouse. You need to define your boundaries clearly when it comes to questionable behavior. Will these boundaries keep an affair from occurring? NO the boundaries will not keep someone determined to commit adultery from doing so. What the boundaries will do is keep you from feeling so lost and adrift when trauma of an affair hits. When you know where you stand, you have some direction.
Another one of the many scars of an affair is that it puts those damaged by them morally adrift. Suddenly you may find yourself unsure of what is right, what is wrong, and which direction you need to go. Do you want them back? What can be and what can not be forgiven? Many issues that were very clear before the adultery are now muddled. This confusion is part of the natural reactions to the upheaval that just occurred. So when such times hit, do not think that you are a bad person or that you lost your faith, due to the confusion.
The preventative is to have clear boundaries. Once an affair occurs, clear boundaries are still needed, although they may be more challenging to come up with. The boundaries provide a reference point or starting point if you will.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, boundaries and relationships, cheating, infidelity, Rebuilding the relationship, rebuilding the relationship after the affair, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
There is nothing wrong with being jealous. After all, marriage is founded on an exclusive partnership between you and your spouse. When your spouse shows interest and actively pursues another person, jealousy is a natural reaction to this violation of the trust in your exclusive partnership.
In spite of jealousy, however, affairs can and still do happen. They are disasters to your family, which if left unchecked could ruin your marriage and your family altogether.Just because there are no arguments does not mean things are settled. The issues leading up to the affair need to be addressed. Addressing these issues requires a strong love and determination for both of you to work it out.
After the affair, however, you will have to deal with jealousy. At the back of your mind, you might be asking whether or not your spouse is still seeing someone else. You might also be wondering if you have 100% of his or her affection and love.
There are two ways to deal with jealousy after the affair. One, you have to strengthen your own security in your own worth and analyze where your jealousy is coming from. Perhaps you are still harboring some bitterness over the affair. Although it takes some time for that to heal, you should consciously choose to forgive if your partner has truly changed.
You should also talk with your partner about your jealousy, especially if he or she is indeed showing some reasons for you to be jealous. When you do so, you can agree on how to ease your feelings of jealousy.
adultery, adultery and jealousy, affairs and jealousy, affiars, infidelity, rebuidling a marriage, Rebuilding the relationshipIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
After my post yesterday on the effects of lying on children, further insights came to me. When change happens, there are the initial or primary effects and there are the secondary effects. The idea of primary and secondary effects is well established. These ideas also apply human behavior such as lying.
Some of the secondary effects are that when parents lie about their own behavior, it will continue spreading to where they lie about the behavior of others. This also includes their own children. You will often find such parents lying or distorting the facts about what their children do. This is easily seen when the child acts out. The parents report of what happened will either be distorted or lied about in order to make it more acceptable. What is saddening is that when parents develp a pattern of lying, they will find themselves doing so as ’second nature’. They will be able to do it without thinking. Lying will have become as natural as breathing. Children growing up in such a world will find that their misbehaviors are often ignored or treated as ’something they can’t help. The idea of children being held responsible for their misbehaviors is no longer the standard used in the home. In order to allow the affair to continue, people are expected to keep secrets and maintain loyalty to only certain members of their group. There will be an ‘insiders’ group and an ‘outsiders’ group. Being raised in such an environment is unhealthy for children.
If you are in such a situation, it is important to begin taking steps to undo what has been done. Start by being honest with yourself and your family. Set up some accountability. Set up consistent structures that will add stability to the family.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affairs, Affairs and Children, effect of affairs on children, effect of lying on children, families and affairs, infidelity, lyingIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
In the same way that milk and cookies go together, affairs and lying go together. The whole foundation of the relationship is based on lies. The parties involved lie either to themselves or their paramours about their dating status. The relationship begins on a premise of untruth or a total disregard of the truth.
When a relationship begins with a total disregard of truth and acceptance of lying, it is not surprising that the lies only become more frequent and have larger proportions. I am amazed at parents who have affairs and are then surprised when their children lie to them or disregard their parental authority. I am not surprised that the child does this, what surprises me is the hubris of the parent in expecting the child to be honest and to respect them. Children are not stupid. They see what is going on. They soon figure out that the moral system preached is vastly different than the one lived. Given the contradictory message they are given, they act accordingly. The children act in a logical manner. It is the parents that are illogical in expecting the child to live in a moral world that they themselves reject.
Sadly, many parents would rather medicate their child than address the real issue of their own irresponsibility. The having of an affair is a matter of hedonistic self-gratification. The child acting out is a natural consequence of the parents choices. At times the child reacts to the parents attitude and at other times it is their behavior. Even when parents think that they are smart enough to keep awareness of the affair from their child, the child knows something is not right. The child instictively knows the truth of what is going on. The only person deceived is the parent.
This past weekend, I saw this kind of situation in action. The parent continued maintaining their denial and avoidance of responsibility in the situation. It is my hope that by addressing the effects of lying that it wakes some parents up so that the situation can be improved.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, Affairs and Children, cheating and children, effects of affairs on children, infidelity, lying about the affairIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
A question that often haunts those who have experienced an affair concerns the possible re-occurrence of the situation. Clients often want to know how to keep it from happening again. Although the world craves quick fixes and easy answers, there is not one in this area either. What I often share with them is that when people repent or turn from the error of their way, there are changes in both their thinking and their behavior. When a person is only changing either their behavior or their thinking, such change is short term. These half-way changes are often done only to make peace and rejoin with their spouse. They regret the trouble they have gotten into more often than having engaged in an affair.
So the first sign is to see whether there was genuine change or only partial change. Another thing to look for is their willingness to keep secrets. The keeping of secrets damages the spirit of the marriage. Another sign is how they spend and handle their money. When they keep rigidly separate accounts without a GOOD reason, it is not a good sign either.
When a spouse is truly repentant, they will be willing to discuss what led up to the affair along with what the warning signs of heading back into that situation are. A common mistake many couples make is assuming that by not talking about what happened, it won’t happen again.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it does have some items to help in dealing with the question.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affair, affair prevention, cheating, infidelity, keeping adultery from happening again, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
When spouses violate the trust of the marriage it is amazing what kind of comments they make. The illogic of their comments I often find astounding. Comments like “It didn’t mean anything”, “It was a joke”, “We are just friends”, etc. do not stand up to scrutiny. If it didn’t mean anything, then why did they bother with it and cover it up in the first place? If it was a joke, why isn’t everyone laughing? If you two are just friends then why does it have to be so secret?
Such comments merely disperse the guilt. They do not convey the assumption of responsibility or the intent to make things better. They are excuses plain and simple.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, cheating, excuses for infidelity, infidelity, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
CBS has recently launched a new television series entitled Swingtown. The series promotes openly promotes “swinging” . By placing the setting of the series in the 70’s, and claiming that the main characters are experiencing part of the sexual revolution, they are trying to add some legitimacy to swinging behaviors. Back in the 1970’s swingers were considered ‘perverts’ and “sex fiends”. Communities often shunned those who participated in such behavior. There were swingers in many communities, and they often developed networks with other swingers who shared their values and lifestyle. Even the term “swinging” is an effort to make it sound hip. The old term was “wife swapping”. Some efforts were made to call it “open marriage” in order to add some false respectability.
Shows such as Swingtown do not promote healthy marriages. Watching them and indulging in the values they promote will begin to change one’s values and the willingness to accept such activity. If you care about your marriage and want to survive an affair, you will want to avoid such programming which promotes what you are seeking to avoid.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, Affairs in the News, cheating, infidelity, swinging, swingtown, wife swappingIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Understanding the role of faith and affairs is a topic that researchers are now exploring. The June 2008 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family reports that having faith in God does not protect a person from infidelity. Another study by researchers at Fuller Theological Seminary found that church attendance did make a difference. Those who regularly attended church were less likely to have affairs that persons who did not attend or attended irregularly.
Although these studies seem contradictory, taken together, they make sense. Just having faith in god or having good intentions does little to prevent adultery, whereas those who follow up their faith with action and take steps to put their faith into practice have a lower likelihood of wandering into infidelity.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, Affairs in the News, cheating, Fuller Theological Seminary, Journal of Marriage and Family, preventing adultery, preventing infidelity, role of faith in infidelityIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
