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Fear is a powerful motivating force. Fear keeps some spouses from even mentioning their suspicions of an affair. Fear is what keeps the adulterer from bringing up the affair. Fear is what keeps the couple from discussing what is missing in their marriage and what their needs are. Instead, they may complain about the secondary symptoms of what is missing, since that is often easier to discuss and blame over. It is easier to complain about sex than to discuss intimacy needs. It is easier to complain about ‘poor communication’ than to discuss the fears that often keep them from open discussions.
Living with fear is often more extreme with couples who grew up in families that operated and existed in fear. Whether fears of rejection, honest, violence or something else. Living in fear brings poor choices and a sense of desperation. There are fears that religious leaders or people in the community would reject them if they were honest. Fear brings torment into the lives and marriages of the people exposed to it.
You can take steps to escape the fear. It begins by being honest with yourself. Tell yourself the truth about yourself and what is going on. Learning to live with honesty will open your eyes to many things. You will find yourself living in a more genuine manner. No need to hide behind masks and veils, you can begin to see through those obfuscating items. True love is incompatible with fear. As you begin increasing your awareness of fear, you will begin hating the fear and how it dominated your life. Once you have begun telling yourself the truth, then you can take steps to secure your safety.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
affairs and religion, fear and affairs, overcoming fear and affairs, overcoming the fears associated with cheating and exposing cheating, Rebuilding the relationship, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Although Oedipus made the fateful declaration of “I married my mother!”, many couples discover after being married a few years that they also have married someone like their parents. Making such choices carries with it heavy emotional baggage, especially when there have been affairs in the family history. In such situations it is easy to blame the spouse for issues, although the real unresolved issues lie within you. When childhood issues are not resolved, the dynamics are often recreated later in life. It is as if you recreate your family of origin all over again in a new location. You built your new family with the old family building blocks. With the reconstruction, there is a also a carry over of the issues from the family of origin. It is not by accident that the Bible speaks negatively of ‘familiar’ spirits, these same attitudes creep into new families when not addressed. If your family has a history of infidelity, you will want to take steps to not recreate similar situations in your present relationships.
Here are some steps that will help:
1. Be honest with yourself and yourself.
2. Rather than ignore emotional needs, do something about them.
3. Take steps to sever the emotional bonds that have unhealthy connections.
4. See your spouse as they are. Do not make comparisons of them with others. Accept them for who they are.
5. Accept yourself for who you are.
Being that the holiday season is upon us, there are windows of opportunities for healing that are not there the rest of the year. You have a chance to start the new year on a firmer footing.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
affairs run in families, cheating and family patterns, family history of infidelity, family of origin issues and affairs, marrying my father, marrying my mother, Rebuilding the relationshipIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Affairs often bring out the childish parts of people and their personalities. One of the children’s games that often occurs is “They have to make the first move”. In this game, the parties keep a tense status quo in their relationship, while each waits on the other to make the first move. With such a ’stand off’, each party often justifies their position by emphasizing their innocence and the wrongs that were done to them. In situations where they focus on the wrongs they endured, they attempt taking the moral high ground through maintaining self-righteous positions. They believe that they are in the ‘right’ and refuse to make the first move. They often use scripture to justify their position and make them feel good about what they have done. Such actions are a misuse of scripture.
The saying “You can be right or be in relationship” holds the key to these situations. They can spend their energy maintaining their rightness or do what it takes to repair the relationship and improve their marriage. Which do you want to be —being ‘right’ of being back in relationship with your spouse?
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
affairs and self righteousness, cheating and self righteousness, moral high ground and affairs, Rebuilding the relationship, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Within the recovery community are many nuggets of wisdom that have many applications for other areas, including dealing with affairs and their aftermath. One of those nuggets is to “Stick with winners”. This saying has many applications for marriages. One being that when your marriage relationship is strained, it is not the time to hang out with losers, or those who have a history of troubled relationships. You want to be with and listen to couples who have stayed together and managed to work through their issues. When you are in crisis, you are more vulnerable to bad advice. Hanging with people who are winners will help you more than associating with other people, even though they may be fun and full of laughs.
“Sticking with winners” also means you need to avoid the hangouts and places that losers congregate. Find out where the winners go and go there as well. Do the things that the winners do. Avoid loser talk, loser attitudes, and loser places. Losers also do not joke about affairs and cheating. Let those who have lost at love and relationships joke about their failures. Read what winners read, learn to think like a winner, practice the behaviors of a winner.
This phrase also helps with sexual addictions as well. Sticking with winners will help you avoid relapses into unhealthy behaviors. The little phrase “Stick with winners” is simple, but powerful when it is put into practice. The old phrase, “You can know a man (or woman) by the company they keep” addresses this same idea. Losers can corrupt good manners and good habits.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
coping with an affair, coping with infidelity, Rebuilding the relationship, repairing your relationship, Sexual addictionIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Often the simple things are what makes the difference in relationships. When affairs happen, there are often enormous hurts and accusations. Although it is tempting to ‘let it all hang out’ with your spouse in terms of your hurts and accusations, you need to consider, “Will it bring healing?” In most cases, venting creates more distance. With that distance is more hurt. The time that you need them, you have pushed them away with your rants. Although it is counter-intuitive, the solution is to “Shut up and listen!”. Focus on understanding your spouse rather than trying to convince them that your opinion and view of the situation is the only right one. I have seen many couples where one party tries to ‘explain’ things, even though what they called ‘explaining’ was nothing more than persuading their spouse that their view of the situation was the only right one.
When one listens, there is greater understanding. Only ask questions that provide understanding rather than those involving accusations.
For more ways of dealing with the pain, obtain “Infidelity: A Survivor’s Guide”
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
dealing with affairs, dealing with cheating, my husband cheated, my wife cheated, Rebuilding the relationship, that cheating bitchIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
One of the dangerous mindsets that spell disaster in the aftermath of affairs is “all or none” type of thinking. With such a mindset, one of the spouses assumes a demanding posture where they insist that the wayfaring spouse be 100% in the marriage or ‘get out’. Along with the 100% commitment, that spouse often includes hidden demands of a sexual nature as well. This type of thinking forces the other spouse to be thrown into a relationship with their partner rather than wanting to be in the relationship. It creates a situation where the marriage is held together by needs and threats rather than commitment, compassion and love. The “All or None” mindset often forces people’s hands into the relationship. Yes, they may decide to stay in the relationship, but that does not mean that their heart is committed to relationship. Demanding that your spouse do things may initially get you what you want, yet in the long run, it alienates them from you.
In the aftermath of an affair, what is needed is understanding, NOT making demands that often carry with them veiled threats.
If you want to know about other behaviors and mindsets to avoid, you will find more in the “Affair Recovery System”. Learning what NOT to do can help you avoid costly mistakes that often have large emotional and financial price tags.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
making demands on your spouse after an affair, Rebuilding the relationship, recovery from affairs, recovery from cheating, Reducing the RiskIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
It is darn near impossible to argue with someone who is listening to you. Likewise if you listen, really listen to your spouse, it will be hard for them to start an argument or fight. In the aftermath of an affair, many couples find themselves caught up in attack-defend-let me explain myself mentality rather than actually listening to what their spouse is saying. This chaotic cycle of fighting is worsened by the images that many couples use as their role models for how couples should address the problem. If couples would quite using movies and television for inspiration and instead focus on listening and understanding each other, many problems of chaos would disappear. The “Affair Recovery System” presents many ways to improve your ability to listen along with what not to say in the midst of such chaos. A common mistake is to speak one’s mind only to find that no one was listening to it.
You cannot argue with someone who listens to you. You may want to give it a try. Rather than defend, correct or otherwise make excuses, try listening.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
affairs, cheating, listening to your spouse, Rebuilding the relationshipIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
The emotion filled question “Can my marriage be saved?” is often asked by hurting spouses. My response to their question ranges from heartbroken pain to being appalled. The question is one that seeks for validation and hope regarding their relationship. It is as if those hurting couples are wanting the counselor to give them permission to work on their marriage.
I am still amazed that there are some that ask the question with the full emotional drama that often accompanies it and within a day or two they are behaving like they did before their emotional crisis. Many of the items needing correction are ‘common sense’ to me, yet the couples were oblivious to them.
“Quit beating your wife”
“Quit going to strip clubs”
“Quit saying mean things to your spouse”
“Quit referring to your spouse in derogatory terms for their body parts”
“Quit referring to the step-children as demonic prodigy”
“Quit calling your old boyfriends and girlfriends”
“Quit trying to talk your spouse into a threesome”
“Quit comparing your spouse to former lovers”
“Quit using religion as a hammer to force your spouse to have sexual relations”
“Quit choking your wife”
“Quit letting your husband back into your life after he has repeatedly beat you”
“Quit asking your spouse to steal and lie for you”
Although these seem like common sense, many people react to hearing them with the “deer in the headlight” response.
Instead of “Can my marriage be saved?” perhaps the question needs to be “Will you quit doing those things that are destroying your marriage?”
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
common sense answers to save a marriage, Rebuilding the relationship, saving a marraige after an affair, saving a marriage after cheatingIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Not all Mother-in-Laws are evil. Some are very wonderful people who are filled with love, hope and encouragement. Although not all are evil, some are. I have to address the topic since a Mother-in-Law is in a unique position to encourage or devastate a marriage. I have encountered some MIL who keep photos of their child’s former girlfriends/boyfriends displayed in the home. Such actions keep the memories or ghost of former lovers alive, rather than allowing them to die a timely death. There are some who spread rumors of affairs which makes any kind of healing more difficult than it needs to be. Some even work to create situations that foster affairs. Going to such extremes as giving out phone numbers and arranging dates for the disliked spouse of their child. Although they may not see eye to eye with their child’s spouse, such actions are evil. The fruit of such actions are detrimental to the whole family. It is akin to poisoning the family water supply. Yes, she may poison the disliked spouse, but her actions, rumors and hate mongering destroys the fabric of the family itself.
I have also seen the passive destruction where the mother plants seeds of doubt, and insinuates affairs are going on. When they are not insinuating affairs, they are making statements about how the disliked spouse is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for their child. Such MIL’s never pass up a chance to take a dig or launch an insult that comes their way. Such people work around the clock to tear down and destroy their child’s marriage. They often lay awake at night considering what new plan they can put into play. It is as if they can not sleep until they do something devious.
The destruction is made worse by how such evil MIL’s profess love and adoration for their child, while working the whole time to undermine their child’s marriage. The confused messages of love and hate are contradictory and confusing to deal with. Evil MIL’s make recovery from affairs difficult if not an insurmountable task.
Some of the things that you can do to limit their evil work:
1. Set and enforce clear boundaries
2. Do not tell them any information which they can misuse
3. Do not give them addresses, phone numbers or email addresses of your friends
4. Talk to your spouse about the need for clear boundaries and how it will strengthen your own marriage
5. Do not accept the guilt trips thrown at you
6. Learn to recognize and avoid traps the MIL sets for you
7. Approach each family get together with caution
8. Holidays are especially vicious. Be prepared for them to try something.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
evil, meddling mother in laws, Rebuilding the relationship, recovery from affairs and mother in laws, recovery from cheating and mother in laws, Reducing the Risk, satan and your marriage, satan wants your marriage to fail, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Gary and Jennifer were having problems. A discovered affair now has their marriage in a precarious place. Over the years they drifted apart and now they were face to face with their worst fears. in response, they decided to see a counselor. After the initial introductions, the counselor posed the question “What are you here for?”. In response, they told the counselor to ‘work on the marriage’. The counselor sat back and posed the question again with persistence. This time, the counselor added, “Are you here for marriage counseling or divorce counseling?”. As the reality of the question sank in, they sat there like deer in the headlights. They had never really thought this one through. The questioned stunned them into considering what they were actually asking the counselor to do with them. They wanted out of the pain, but had never considered about life after the pain. They were now faced with having to be honest with themselves about “What are you here for?” and it scared them.
You may want to consider the question even now. Once you decide what you are ‘here’ for, then you need to consider are you willing to do what it takes?
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
marriage counseling after cheating, questions about healing after an affair, questions about healing after cheating, Rebuilding the relationshipIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
