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Although high drama showdowns make for entertainment at the movies, such episodes are not good for relationships. Even though we want a one time episode to “get it all out”, life does not work that way. If you are expecting to ‘fix’ everything with one meeting or one talk with your spouse, it is unlikely to occur. Wounds, including the emotional ones take time to heal. In taking time to heal, it also takes time for the feelings to emerge, and the issues to become clear.
If you plan on having a big showdown, especially in public, you need to change your plan. Showdowns in public places are a form of manipulation. When you are wanting forgiveness, you want the genuine article, not something coerced out of someone due to manipulaiton. The big showdown may provide an emotional release and provide an audience, but it does little to resolve the issues concerning the affair.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
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Affairs crash into lives with the devastation of a major pile-up. With the power of an 18-wheeler, it runs over your personal identity and self-esteem, crushing you in the process.
You began asking yourself, “What have I done wrong?” “What have I done to deserve this?” “What should I do?”
You become a confluence of negative emotions. Suddenly, all the little things that mattered in your relationship come tumbling down. Betrayal and trust go out of the window. And your heart shuts down like a virus-infected computer.
If you allow it, the sense of betrayal can plunge you into depression, you lose your self-esteem and you feel like being exiled into the deepest recesses of your heart.
As you go through this process, having a support group is very crucial. Talk to your closest friends. Let out your emotions. Your friends can help you bear the burden you carry. Although the help of a professional counselor is important, a friend’s friendly pat on the back, hugs and even the empathy and sympathy can help you recover.
As you work through your emotions, keep in mind that your identity and your self-esteem are not tied up with your marriage and in your spouse. Who you are is different from your decisions. Who you are is different that who you associate with. Your relationship may have failed, but that does not mean that you have failed. Your spouse may reject you, but that does not mean you have no worth or are not worth loving. Marriage where the whole sense of identity and self-esteem are wrapped around the marriage have the hardest time adjusting to an affair.
You are a unique person with a unique personality. Go back to your strengths and your successes as a person. When you have strengthened your self-esteem, then you are strong enough to rebuild a relationship.The pouting will need to be put behind if you want to be in relationship with someone. When you regain your maturity, then you can face your spouse, not to beg for him or her to go back, but for both of you to work out your marriage. You can face it as an adult rather than a dependent child. Marriage is for adults, not children. Marriage requires emotional maturity. There is a reason for age limits on marriage. You need maturity to marry, you need maturity to work on repairing a marriage.
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Although it is offered as an excuse, the saying “Affairs just happen” is a misnomer. Many times the couple has communication or intimacy problems, and the opportunity arises for things to happen. Another scenario is when a partners uses drugs or alcohol. In such cases, the drug or alcohol abuse had been going on prior to the affair. The user can be impulsive, but the problem with self-control began before the temptation for an affair came alone.
Using the phrase “Affair just happen” is a convenient way to excuse what occurred and avoid looking at what was behind it. The stage for an affair is often long before it occurs. Taking a look at what led up often requires painful self-exploration. The affair is often someone’s solution to problem. The key quesition is what is the real problem or the underlying problem? If your spouse has given you the “It just happened” story, consider what is behind it. Take a look at what did the affair ‘fix’ or attempt to ‘fix’. What did the affair provide that was not there previously? Dealing with that quesiton will yeild more usefull material than trying to understand what happened that night or what you spouse did. It will help you understand what they were looking for, what made them vulnerable, what set the stage for things to happen.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
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Ending the affair is often a source of conflict. For the resolute spouse it is only a matter of saying “Goodbye, It’s Over!”. For the adulterous spouse, it is not that quick and easy. Letting go of the relationship also involves letting go of the dreams, hopes and optimism that it generated. They often find saying goodbye to those things more difficult than saying goodbye to their lover. Letting go of those things is akin to letting go of oneself, or parts of oneself. It feels like you are loosing part of you.
It is important for the resolute spouse to recognize and realize this. You want to remove the lover, but keep your spouse’s heart intact. Separating the lover from the dreams, hopes and optimism is not easily accomplished. The adulterous spouse is often unable to put into words what they are are struggling with, so they are not able to tell the resolute spouse what they are struggling with. Knowing what they are struggling with will enable you to provide the support your spouse needs, without killing their spirit.
If your spouse has difficulty communicating, you may need to work with them thorough this time.
It is important for the spouse to accept responsibility for their actions. Yes you can break them up, but it will not have the impact that is often needed. You spouse needs to end the relationship. They need to verbalize this in a clear, unambiguous manner. They need to say it out loud. It needs to be loud enough for them to hear it. They need to hear it themselves as well as the lover. “It is over! Goodbye!”
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
cheating, infidelity, philandering, relationship, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Like an earthquake, the emotional pain caused by infidelity shakes the very foundation of your being. The foundation of your marriage becomes uncertain. In the aftermath of an earthquake, there is the ‘fear’ that it could happen again, you just don’t trust the earth. The aftershocks leave you uncertain. Likewise pain and fears of the affair don’t stop when it is the affair is ‘over’.
Oftentimes, there are also tsunamis that hit your heart and drown you in tears and pain. Both partners ask themselves if there is hope for their marriage to survive.
Money problems, time and worries about the kids may all seem like hills compared to the mountainous problem called infidelity. You should understand that infidelity cuts through your foundation like an earthquake. Before you start running to a divorce lawyer, consider several things. You have to sort out your emotions and logically decide what you really want to do.
Get yourself some support. You cannot face this issue alone. The sense of betrayal, guilt, and confusion may rack your mental health. Without support, you can become very frail and who knows, you might break down. Your support group may be your friends or your family members as long as they are willing to listen and help you out.
Give yourself and your partner time and space. The affair is a stressful matter. Give yourself some time to think through things. When the going gets tough in a basketball game, the coach calls for a timeout. This time, however, you may also need a timeout.
Communicate. Don’t give yourself forever to settle your differences and your marital problems. After talking with your support group and spending some time for thinking, you should then communicate with your partner. You will have to make serious considerations on how to move forward in your marriage.
Divorce is not the only option available for your marriage. When you have to deal with the aftermath of the affair, you have to really communicate with each other and talk of the best move that you will do to save your marriage.
adultery, cheating, infidelity, philandering, relationships, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Yesterday’s post focused on the topic of recalibration. The process actually involves ‘reorienting to a new truth’ or a ‘new paradigm’. Since none of us like being lied to, there is often a strong angry reaction to this new paradigm. The anger is partly directed at the spouse and partly at ourselves for having believed something that was not so. This anger is a natural reaction to being exposed to a new truth. Whenever our world is rocked like that there will be an angry reaction.
I find that using a paper and pencil to plot a timeline often helps with this. The mind has a way of distorting things. We often bend reality to our whims. Plotting a timeline on paper of the actual events is a way to reduce that bending of reality. It will also let you know what actually happened and when it happened. The timeline will help orient you and your spouse to the reality of events.
Since affairs have a way of disorienting people, you spouse may not be accuartely recalling the dates and events either. They are also attempting to leave and grieve, a relationship and dreams they had. They are also going through a recalibration as well. They are brought back to something that they may have been avoiding. It may have been easier for them to get caught up in their fantasy love life than to face the reality of spouse, children and responsibilities.
The timeline will help.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
cheating, dealing with anger, infidelity, paradigm of affairs, philandering, reaction to affairs, Rebuilding the relationship, recalibration, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
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!
Wendy Dager of the Ventura County Star Newspaper wrote an intriguing column on the prevalence of divorce. Although this is not a divorce blog, it does deal with affairs, and there is a HIGH correlation between affairs and divorce. In the article Wendy raises concerns about what the divorce rate will be among the grandchildren. Similar questions need to be asked concerning affairs. Will your children or grandchildren have affairs? Will affairs be the norm in the future? These are unsettling questions that must be pondered. If you want to stop such patterns from recurring in your family, the time to take action is now. You can do things to turn your marriage around. Divorce does not have to become the norm. Affairs do not have to become the norm either.
Obtaining counseling or help for the dealing with the affair provides other options. You can survive and affair. Consider purchasing Survive Your Partners Affair and helping children deal with affairs as part of your way of stopping the pattern. Affairs and divorce do not have to become part of your family legacy.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
affairs, Affairs in the News, cheating relationships, counseling, divorce, divorce rate, grandhcildren, infidelilty, philandering, relationships, self helpIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
In Italy, a judge ruled that a married woman can lie to the police about her sexual activity in order to retain her honor. It raises questions about whether or not husbands can lie about their affairs to the police as well.
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Watching babies is both education and entertainment. In watching them, one can learn a great deal about human nature. One hallmark of babies is that they ‘react’ to the environment. Many of their behaviors are reactions to what is going on around them. Unfortunately many people continue their lives in the react mode. They passively go through life reacting to one item or event after another. This pattern continues into adulthood where they continue reacting to events and people. In such situations they may have an affair as a reaction to something that their spouse did or did not do. They did not actively initiate an affair, instead it was a reaction. Such a reaction is nothing more that a sophisticated temper tantrum with sexual playthings involved. Don’t laugh, I have worked with couples whose infidelity stemmed back to reactions to something their spouse said or did. In many cases, since the spouse would not let them do something, they ’showed them’ by going out and having the affair. They may call themselves adults, but the pattern of their actions is one of a baby.
You can overcome these baby reactions. Find out in Infidelity: Survive Your Partner’s Affair.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
adultery, cheating, conflict resolution, infidelity, marriage, philandering, relationships, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
