When your cheater turns self-serving, they throw up obstacles to intimacy. This often happens when they try justifying what they have done. In order to live with their guilty conscience, they create situations where it looks like you are the problem and that you do not want to be with them. In the recovery community, they often use the term ‘self-serving crisis’ to describe the phenomena. If you have contributed to the crisis by avoiding them, you will want to take steps to turn that around. If you have not, then you will want to neutralize the claims the cheater is making.
Rather than argue with the cheater, you will need to take another approach. The obstacles are often more real in the cheaters mind than in real life. When you recognize that you are dealing with the cheater’s mental distortions rather than facts, it may help you keep your cool and not take things so personally. Many spurned spouses make a mess of things by taking things personally and arguing with the cheater. The arguing only pushes the two of you further apart. By arguing with them, you are validating and creating the distance they claim exists. Your arguing actually creates what they imagined.
Bear in mind, that you are often dealing with mental/emotional constructs rather than physical ones. They will make wild claims so that they can live with their inner selves. I go into this in more detail in my e-book’s section on ‘how to argue’ with your spouse.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
