Some spouses actively seek their partner’s permission for an affair. Although some ask directly, others hold onto comments made in anger or frustration as verbal approval for their disloyalty. The catch is that once this cat is out of the bag, it is difficult to ever put it back. Once the boundaries of the marriage are broken, they are hard to re-establish. When a relationship rests solely on emotional commitment and loyalty without physical and spiritual commitment, the foundation of the relationship is damaged.
The other problem associated with permission affairs is the one dealing with conscience. If it was acceptable, why did you need permission in the first place? When you are disloyal, there is the accompanying guilt and remorse. I recognize that some people do not have the remorse, or remorseful feelings. Most people do and when they engage in behavior that is not acceptable, they often attempt to rationalize it. This is often done through a strange twisting of religion, sociology, philosophy and any other academic field that they can bend into supporting that adultery is an accepted behavior. Adultery is still disloyalty. Although some may claim that people were never made to be monogamous, emotional reality opposes that idea.
You can make agreements with your spouse that many kinds of behavior are acceptable and in turn use that agreement to silence your conscience, but that will still not make it right.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
