Although the news, political speeches and public service announcements advocate reducing hate, when it comes to affairs, you will need to take the opposite approach. One reason that you may be facing an affair is that you did not ‘hate’ affairs. This means that you will have to hate the infidelity and its effects on you and your family. Rather than making or accepting excuses by the cheater, you will need to take a stand. In taking a stand, this means you will need to speak out against affairs.
Some of the activities you can do to promote the hatred of affairs include;
1. Quit joking about affairs or treating them as a light matter. Many cheaters view such jokes or taking it lightly as ‘permission’.
2. Quit condoning affairs by keeping them secret.
3. Refer to the affair by what it is, adultery or infidelity, rather than using ‘soft’ terms like straying or ‘cattin’ around.
4. Do not excuse affairs by saying he’s just a man or she’s just a woman. Yes, that may be their gender, at the same time, they are supposed to be responsible adults who honor their promises and commitments.
5. Although terms like ‘slut’, ‘homewrecker’ or ‘whoremonger’ are strong, they get the point across and cut through all the pish-posh niceness. Using these terms in referring to what happened is not out of line.
6. Do not allow the cheater to have some time to break it off. They need to cut it off, and cut it off NOW.
7. Remove the movies from your home that encourage or condone affairs.
8. When the cheater sleeps around, insist that they obtain medical tests. Your health is at stake! They will bring the germs and diseases of the lover to your bed unless you take action to stop it.
One reason that affairs are so prevalent is that many like yourself have been too accepting and accommodating. When it comes to affairs, there is no room for fairness. There is no room for toleration of what has been done. When you allow toleration and fairness, you will one day find yourself having to face the situation of your children being expected to treat the lover as well as they treat you..to be fair. There is no place for fairness when it comes to affairs and your marriage. When you begin sliding down that slippery slope, it ends in disaster for you and those around you.
I know that such an approach may be counter-intuitive for some of you. When it comes to your marriage, you need to realize that marriages are special relationships with special rules. When you apply equality and fairness to how you treat the lover and the affair, your marriage has lost its special status. At that point, you become nothing more than a person being used for what the cheater can get out of you. You become nothing more than another one of their lovers. ‘Fairness” waters down your special status as spouse. Your position is one of being another lover. The only thing that separates you from the lovers is your legal position and the children (if you have any). That legal position only allows you to have first rights to the assets. If your marriage means more to you than having first dibs on property or children then you need to take action to insure that affairs are hated and that your unique position is secured.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
