I was struck by a recent comment in my poll. The responder expressed concern about the ‘intimate words’ that the cheater shared with the lover. You may be like many who focus on the sexual aspect of cheating rather than the risk that your spouse’s heart may be at risk. The cheater is sharing a level of intimacy with someone else when it belongs exclusively to you. It is stealing. This danger is one that previous generations addressed with laws regarding ‘alienation of affection’. I find the term ‘alienation of affection’ a useful one in that it addresses the danger of loosing the love and intimacy that belongs to you.
The comment reminded me that one of the dangers of modern society is that we have grown calloused to many aspects of relationships. That callousness leaves us focused more on the sexual dangers, or desire for revenge rather than the stealing of your spouse’s love and attention away from you. It could be that their job, hobbies or other activities stole their affections away long before the affair. In such cases, the only thing you may be left with are the desire for revenge and sexual concerns. You do need to be concerned with what you spouse has focused their affections on. They belong to you. The misdirection of their affections are only the start of something that gets bigger and uglier when left unchecked.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
7 Responses
yes and as you know …children from the adultery have taken the place of what my husband once had for their mother …and …for me and our children
His consistent ‘dates’ with the children are difficult as though they know he is married with a family he has failed to really make the boundary of this clear to them
Not only has this hurt our recovery in affection it has motivated him to sleep in another room. His connecting with them derailed our recovery.
His constant diverting his affection to all kinds of interests and people left little for US and eventually the sexual draw of a ‘free spirit ‘ who agreed to an adulterous relationship with ‘no strings” has damaged his way of being able to relate to me
The effects of a man regarding ‘WOMEN” in a category rather than obeying GOD and directing his attention and focus to ‘live with your WIFE in an understanding way ‘ which would bond the couple and teach him about the unique qualities of his WIFE …leaves people with little depth of knowledge of the great things about the ONE person they have married
Combined with infidelty with someone of low character who lies it EFFECT the spouses VIEW of their faithful spouse…They not only have become more comfortable with someone who does not condemn their behavior …but they then evaluate their faithful spouse as my husband treats me with assumptions that I am just like the other woman
I do not lie , cheat or steal and have made every effort throughout our marriage to demonstrate transparency so he would not have to ‘mind read’ as per marriage books and seminars over the years tell wives to be open with their husbands
My husband has not SEEN me in the light of my life long behavior and character but only regards me as ‘all women’ and the one in specific who trained him to function the way an adulterous relationship goes.
It is very difficult to get him to realize this
It is like the way GOD tells us to renew our minds so we see HIM and all that HE offers us through the ‘eyes’ of TRUTH rather than the “VEIL ‘ of flesh which understands the Bible only in terms of relating to THIS world.
The Bible is living SPIRIT and GOD tells us we must see it through spirit ..comparing spiritual with spiritual …in other words our view must be through HIS understanding as revealed in HIS total word.
The man who has related for any great length of time and closely with a liar, cheat and adulteress has his view colored by the way he was treated and influenced by HER.
It is a LONG ROAD BACK …or FORWARD which would be better .,..but until the man lays down every assumption about everything….even as the Lord tells us we need to do to ‘enter in’ to His kingdom a man will not be able to change his mental conditioning and attitude about his wife …the one he may have as he begins to realize the deceptiveness of the OW will color his view of all women and in particular his wife ..no matter HOW faithful she has been.
My husband has a character flaw that is more pronounced now that he has HAD the opportunity to make a change and amends. He has fine qualities to be sure ..wanting to help others., make things right ..but NOT in the right protocol for a married man.
It relates to fixing others rather than addressing ones own heart …the crux of the way the first commandment OBEYED THEN prepares one to obey the SECOND one.
Religion stresses the second commandment which is not making the inside of the cup prepared to do so adequately for the task
We must BECOME before we can DO .
Zaza,
You have some tremendous insights on this matter. I was reminded yesterday that with great blessings come great dangers and problems. You are certainly dealing with a great problem. I suspect that with the great pain, your heart has been stretched way beyond your comfort zone and one of the by-products is that you have developed the ability to love people going through such situations in a way you never imagined.
Your husband in many ways is a prisoner of his circumstances. He has been trapped by the lover, much like the man described in Ecclesiastes 7:29 who is in bondage.
It is unfortunate that he does not see you in a different light. He is truly missing out. I suspect that his deeper struggle is that he continues wanting to do things his way and according to what he sees as ‘right’ and remains closed to doing what is right in God’s eyes. In other words, he has his blinders on. Infidelity often changes how people look at things, including their family and those around them.
Thank you for sharing again.
What about the affection you as victim of infidelity loose in the process? I am talking about the feeling of the victim towards the cheater. My husband affair was a long time ago, was inexplicable to me how he could do that to me, to us to our marriage (he cheated on our weeding night, the affair started few months before our marriage and lasted about one month after the marriage. That was when I found out and he ended it right there and then, he still protects her identity till this day – his excuse was that he thought I will never find out). Not only that I found out, I realized what his feelings at that time were for me and what our marriage meant to him and it devastated me. (I use feelings intentionally because I realized he did not love me).
I asked him many times why he married me especially because he was the one pushing for us to get married – his answer was and is the same each time- he loved me and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Those answers until now did not make any sense.
We are still legally married 27 years later, but I was not able to have those lost feeling again, that loving and wanting to be close to him kind of feeling are lost forever. I did not felt or feel like I am married anymore, I don’t even know if there it supposed to be a special kind of feeling associate with marriage. I was not and am not able to completely trust him again, and when he talks about his love for me does nothing more than making me mad. I was never able to love him again, not like before. I do care about him. There is wall like in front of me that keeps me away; and it keeps me cold and indifferent. From outside looking in I have the best marriage. I hear a lot about how lucky I am, but no one knows the truth, I don’t talk about it with friends and acquaintances because just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.
If he walked away today it will not hurt me, I am not jealous, I do not check up on him, is almost like I expect him to be cheating again. For many years my long term plans did not include him. I don’t have any faith on his love and promises. I do not ask for promises, in fact I don’t ask him for anything.
Before his cheating he was everything to me, now he is my business partner my room mate and my sex partner. Our marriage does not mean anything to me, I don’t celebrate anniversaries in fact I will like to forget that day ever existed. But every time I see a bride I remained of his cheating, and it brings back all that pain and suffering over and over again. I wish I had divorced him.
Everyone seems to be worried about what the cheater feels…I wander if they have any feelings at all………….
Roxanna,
One of the casualties of the affair is the loss of those feelings. The relationship will NEVER be able to go back to that. The two of you may be able to find a place where you have a healthy relationship, but it will not be the way it was. As a victim you loose a lot. You loose your security, self-respect, ability to trust, and other important items. Cheaters and lovers lose many things as well. An affair is a loose-loose proposition for everyone it touches.
The cheater does have feelings. Quite often they either ignore them or allow the ‘fantasy’ about the affair to take over and when it does, they are looking at what they hope to gain from the whole thing. The affair never delivers what it promises to. It can’t. Since it is based on a lie, all it can produce are lies. It surrounds itself with lies. Lies bout who people are, what they feel, what they promise. Even some of the pain is a lie. You may think the affair is the end of the world. It is not the end of the world. It is the end of a relationship and the way it was. It changes the relationship. Changing it does not mean it is over, it will be permanently scarred. The cheater often does not realize these and other matters until they are in DEEP.
The cheater often does not consider your feelings and how you built your life around them. They do not see the total devastation they triggered. They are often only considering their own pain and own selfish needs.
Thank you for sharing your pain. Through sharing the struggles, we all grow.
Hello Jeff
Thank you for the reply, everything you said it is so very true , I read your articles for many years , it helps me understand some feelings I had been struggling with for a long time. I will like to know your opinion about why will someone will continue to keep up his lies after so many years? He tells me he does not remember her last name not even where she lived and he drove there every day for 6-8 months. Why he is hiding her identity?
Personally I had nothing against her and never did. In my heart I believe that no matter what kind of person she is/was it has little to do with my situation, it was him and him alone that destroyed out relationship, it was his choice, his selfishness…and why not, his character, his morals…that is what he knew, his father was a cheater and he knew the pain his mother went through is not like he did knew about the consequences. I used to call him the Jerry Springer poster boy …I heard about a lot of ways of cheating, but his way and the timing…that was way too much.
I guess after all those years I will like to know something about her, after all she played a very important part on my life – uninvited and painful as it may be she changed my life forever.
As for the suffering in our relationship I sure he is the one that lost the most.
I fell like as long as he is not telling the truth, hiding and lying when there is more reason to it makes me bitter, after all I think that after over 30 years of being together I deserve that much. Do you think I am wrong?
I am a person that likes and tell the truth no matter what ..even if it is painful, and I expect the same thing in return. I hate lies and deceptions , and with him going on ,and on it does nothing to improve my trust in him, what is done is done and it cant be undone so lying about it only makes it worst.
I did not asked him about her in a very long time, because I don’t want to be lied to again, I pretend I don’t think about that anymore…but I do every day, there are remainders of that affair.
He often asks if I love him , I told him once that I will love him, respect him and honor him the way he loved me, honor me and respected me on our weeding day and that should be enough for him, after all that was the very day of our life together and I can’t give more than that ..He cried…well..
Roxana,
I am touched by how you have read my articles. It encourages me to hear that they are helping you. In terms of you wanting him to be honest, that is not asking too much. It is not asking too much to expect the person with whom you have the most intimate relationship with to be honest with you. There are some spouses that ask the cheater to lie, so that they can have the ‘appearance’ that ‘all is well’. They do that to their own detriment and the detriment of their family. Wanting honesty and integrity sets a standard, which families need.
In terms of your bitterness, that is your choice. I understand how you would be bitter given what has happened. It is hard to get close to a bitter person. Your bitterness may be protecting you, yet it is also creating a barrier that keeps him out.
I have spent a great deal of time talking about ‘the affair fog’. did a presentation with EmotionalAffair.org on this topic, where we went into greater detail on it. You may want to check that out, since it goes into greater detail on the topic and may give you some understanding of how he does not remember. I think that I also made some posts on the topic and you could search through those as well.
I welcome your questions, since responding to them helps you and others who are struggling through similar issues in their marriages.
Thanks Jeff for your empathetic response
I find that I am so desparate at times to be confirmed…probably because I have few to none to share my heart with . I have been in search in the Word to try to make sure I am walking right in this an any other situation.
One of the things I find is that the pain in how he is continuing to say he is sorry but he has given up on making things better or learning all the various ways he COULD be making an impact that could change the way things are .
He seems to just enjoy the same “use’ of our family as he did before…we are his ‘home-base’ his comfort zone, his “blankie’.
He enjoys my cooking, tells me I am still as attractive as ever, I’m witty, and have all kinds of wonderful attributes that he loves but that he has done too much damage to me and us.
I would agree that this is so in terms of how painful his continued connecting is with the OW if not for her , since now he says he sees her for what she is and hates her…hmmmmm pretty fierce feelings …which belie to me deeper ones ..which he denies..
Anyway ..the pain is cyclic.,,.I am kept in the loop , which I think he SHOULD do …sending me copies of the texts between him and the 12 yr old and occasionally the mother….but it cuts like a knife.
I sometimes think I would rather not read their exchanges but then I don’t want to be in the dark anymore.
I feel like I am on the fringe of his life …as usual …all the while my wonderful husband has everyone in his life thinking what a great guy he is ..and HE IS …except he has had to live by lying and cheating and stealing from our family to keep his facade up …AND to continue to support us
He is honest in all of his business dealings and straight forward …especially kind and considerate UNLESS the light of truth is shined upon his behavior that he has yet to do more cease the relationship with the mom and to say he is sorry with about every other breath.
Tonight he was helping in the kitchen ….[might have been nice in the past but I am thankful for his doing so now…and I tell him so ]
He said ” how would you like to feel that you can not do anything right ‘
I said that I knew just how he felt ..for most of our marriage he demonstrated that I was not necessary nor wanted in most of his activities and plans.
It seems that these are demanding that we care for THEIR pain …and that OUR pain is what they would like us to ‘stop’ …all the while ..not doing what it takes to help with that
It is kind of like what GOD must feel like when we offer him NOT what he has commanded but just what WE have determined HE should accept ..
Cain got angry when his offering was rejected…I finally figured out WHY his offering was rejected.
He offered OF the produce which came from the GROUND which GOD had just notified Adam was CURSED as a result of his disobedience.
God ‘s criteria was the first of the flock without blemish ..a type of Jesus Christ ..but also it was OF HIS OWN CREATION …
The offering by Able the second born was acceptable because he offered according to the instructions given by God
Cain was ‘wroth’ out of his PRIDE …He was the first born and did not want to be humbled to have to go to his brother to get what GOD was requiring .
God would not receive anything originating from that which was CURSED.
So it is …the spouse should not be ‘honored’ with something that is considered ‘ good enough” by the one who damaged her and the marriage …it is a weak gesture…and JUST like CAIN the one who is giving less than their best and most …is ANGRY because THEY feel THEY should be able to make the rules.
I feel my husband at times is like Balaam ….who beat the ass when the ass had enough sense to see the angel in the way and turn away so it would not be killed! Thus saving Balaam’s ass! heeheeehe.
The ones trying to obey GOD will always be shunned and criticized
CAIN KILLED ABLE because he did not like the COMPARISON with his brother ..he made him look bad …or so he thought
Ever hear someone tell a man who was cleaning the garage on a sunny day when others were going golfing ..”Hey you’re making us look bad…! Knock it off!”
So it is …Jesus Christ came into the world FOR CONTRAST and calls upon us all to do our best to follow him …and in that we MAY cause others to ‘look bad’ …The only way for them to deal with this is to lower the standards so they don’t have to feel so badly about the sin they want to commit
The world likes to “normalize’ sin ..thus the media is serving it up as normal or at least acceptable so people begin to go on down the broad road of destruction …because ‘everybody is doing it’
To which I am thinking GOD must be saying like a mom “If EVERY body jumps off the bridge will you?”
Apparently the answer more and more is a ‘yes’ from the lemmings central!