When it comes to dealing with limits and accountability, you may find yourself becoming more like a parent and less like a spouse. When cheaters become more irresponsible, you may find that you react by becoming more responsible. You assume a position of hyper-responsibility. In that role you go beyond hold the cheater accountable to the point where you try to control them. Trying to control them only puts you in the parent role. During the recovery from an affair, they need a spouse, not another parent.
If you truly want an adult to adult relationship, you will have to give up the parent role in dealing with the cheater. They are a big boy or big girl. They will make their own choices. In fact, you want them to choose you out of preference rather than you being the default only choice they have type of situation. In such cases, they may opt for staying in the marriage only because there is no other option. When such situations occur, there is more manipulation than there is love. The reality is that they do have options and choices.
They may need to be aware of what the consequences are of their choices, but they do not need you making those choices for them. Taking away their choices takes away their dignity. I know that after an affair, you may not think that their dignity is important, claiming that they did not care for you dignity. They did not regard your dignity. They did you dirty, but that does not justify you doing them dirty in some kind of junior high school payback mindset.
Marriage is for adults, not junior high schoolers. Marriage is a relationship people choose to remain in. So the next time you want to make the choices for the cheater, think about what you are about to do. ‘Will it help them to increase their responsibility by making the choice for them?’
For more on learning how to recover from an affair, consider my webinar course.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
