In a healthy marriage, spying on your spouse is unheard of. When your marriage is healthy, you trust and often turn a blind eye to many things. The mere suggestion of spying is distasteful. You want to think the best of your spouse. That all changes when an affair happens. What you would not have dreamed of soon becomes an obsession. It also means that your marriage is not a healthy one. It is often hard accepting the reality that your marriage is not healthy. It is a bitter pill to swallow after telling people that your had a good marriage and now realizing that it was dysfunctional. It changes your reality, it rocks your world, it changes you.
When the foundation of your marriage, which is trust, becomes damaged, things change. Spying, which would not be considered before is now a viable option. You want to know the truth, gather the facts and know what is actually going on. In the past you could ask your spouse and believe them. Now you are left to find out on your own and you begin questioning everything.
If you ever wondered how could you spy on your spouse, now you know.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
5 Responses
I do not track my husband …but I check out his story from time to time as I need to find out if he is actually interested in becoming an honest man. I also think that the person that has lied for so long with so little effort cannot know when he is lying . It is so effortless after all the time he had two lives.
I have pointed out to him that he is disappointed with himself and if he intends to make changes to become the man he wants to be that accountability is necessary …we are all accountable eventually …to the Lord.
I am not sure that this impresses some people …but for my own continuing with this man I find it important for him as well as me and our family.
I don’t want to be the relationship ‘police’ but it is not unlike working with children to train their character as it is also like becoming a follower of Christ and learning from the Bible that we all must examine ourselves and face our condition having begun as deceived by our own flesh …and deceivable since we usually trust others to be as honest as we expect of ourselves…..not the wisest but it is what happens.
The Holy Spirit works in us through our gaining knowledge of the Word and we are thus ‘taught of Him’ to see the truth …of ourselves and all things ….something of a shock in some ways but God knows us better than we know ourselves.
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Psa 5:6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
Pro 11:18 The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
Hbr 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
So for the believer it is the Word of God which reveals the thoughts and intentions we have …for those who do not know this or apply this process of learning about one’s own heart [ beam] there is no knowledge or little of the way their own flesh LIES to them …thus ….justifications lead people to ‘white’ lies which are in truth LIES which ensnare ..especially if one lives by them.
Psa 51:2 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
That can’t happen if we are not aware of the need to ‘examine ‘ ourselves in the mirror of the truth.
Psa 26:2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
This is a good place to start…anyone who is following the Lord welcomes this process…but it not everyone believes that ‘honesty is the best policy’ and today many can’t even tell what is truth since relativity has invaded the attitudes of many about there being absolute standards …..God’s Word is truth.
The role of ‘relationship police’ is not a healthy one for marriages. When a spouse takes on that role, they have become a parent figure and the cheater becomes the irresponsible child figure. Since marriage communication occurs between two equals, such a dynamic is lethal to a healthy marriage.
Very true….I was trying in our marriage to avoid this like the plague! Since I am so much older than my husband especially aware of this and did all I could to operate in our marriage as the equal partner and the wife as it is taught in the Bible.
As I now have had a closer examination of this issue I see that I married a man who was active in a life long activity which offered a LOT of adrenalin pumping activity . When we married he had already just been ‘let go’ from that athletic career.
I have recently considered how this activity had been so foundational to his life that the loss of it was not really considered in how it effected him.
One of the remarks he made around the time of our first child and his first step into adultery was “I’m bored’ ….As this came to mind I began to think about that as a real issue for him and many men who find their adrenalin ‘fix’ in adultery.
I remembered how his family also enjoyed things which were somewhat ‘risky’ and offered some excitement.
To be an adrenalin ‘junkie’ brings about dissatisfaction with what is considered a more ‘normal’ source of satisfaction and contentment.
He was on a meteoric rise in his career …through which he desired more and more ‘freedom’ to act apart from his marriage and family.
His behavior also effected me in terms of feeling that he loved me as he once did since this kind of carelessness in choosing so many activities that denied me access to him and eventually put me outside the ‘circle’ of his activities of choice.
His choices also involved some kind of extra challenging or actual carelessness in regard to his responsibilities to his family and distinctly me.
His ‘boredom ‘ may have been a symptom of a man who was unwilling to enjoy and be thankful for the many blessings and opportunities that his diligence, talent and opportunities presented for him to choose to be thankful and see them as opportunities to bless others , introducing them to the Lord OR to use those to serve himself.
He may have had an urge to be challenged which all men are designed in some part to enjoy as God made men to provide for their families….and to protect. The experience of doing that in a very physical way has not been as prominently ‘visible’ as it once was such as pioneers used to have to protect their families from many dangers and they had to exert much effort to house and feed them.
In today’s culture there is not as clear and present danger to most men and their families …the very real danger is present in more covert ways as the Bible communicates our need to become equipped with wisdom and to be under the direction of the Lord …This kind of response to the Lord is also somewhat of a ‘adrenalin’ rush ..since standing forth for Him can bring us into many situations which challenge our loyalty to Him and often includes us being in circumstances which are not as comfortable in many ways.
Failing to recognize the very real responsibility to overcome the fear of how one’s wife may effect one’s self image or that following Christ in truth will bring about rejection ..a man may not realize that his purpose and life in Christ offers PLENTY of experience in the ways that are ‘thrilling’ and even ‘risky’ …after all Christ said if any man would follow Him they have to ‘deny themselves’ …which is hard to oppose one’s fleshly desires at times…..then ‘take up his cross’ …dying to the flesh is an ongoing challenge…and not for the weak willed!…and then to ‘follow ‘ Christ is another challenging and adrenalin pumping call .
But when raised in a culture which basically now has boys and now men getting their challenges from playing games …and when they have felt little responsibility toward the women who also have taken up many of the places that men once called their own domain….it is little wonder many men take more and more risks’ to experience what they call ‘feeling alive’
One of my husband’s friends who knew about the adultery once asked him ‘ why do you keep on doing this ?” and my husband replied ‘ She makes me feel alive !’
So I considered this along with the ‘bored’ comment and began to see that during my first pregnancy he had SOME thrills from his career climb and success but along with that success he was more and more dissatisfied with not having the kind of adrenalin rush his once thriving athletic activities offered.
Though he played in a lesser form of the sport it was not the same . It lacked the future promise of fame and fortune. I found out that after the games he also went to pubs with the guys and flirted and picked up girls …When we were courting he refused such invitations but with me pregnant and his life appearing to him to become one long ‘normal ‘ life without hope of notoriety or excitement he once knew …he seemed to have acted out as girls offered the ‘thrill ‘ of cheating .
Adultery no doubt beckons men to something other than sex. He told me that his adultery had little to do with sex as he enjoyed our sex life. I found this too much to believe since it went on for so long. But he maintains that he cannot pinpoint what the other woman had to offer that was so much ‘better’ than what I was …or am …and that now he sees her for what she is and hates her.
I think that the thing he does not consider was how the loss of his life long goal and dream of playing the sport he loved for so long would effect him.
I had even offered at the time he was retired to stay at home and wait while he played out the pursuit of this dream for as long as it took …realizing I did not want to be blamed one day for his not getting to pursue his dream…He declined to do that .
But though I felt that this was something he should pursue I had not really thought through the adrenalin side of this …My husband’s family enjoyed social drinking , and gambling …cards and horse racing …lottery tickets…not to an extreme but that was part of his family culture. I think he may not have recognized the adultery as the vehicle to gain this feeling of risk and excitement that he thought of has the OW “MAKING him feel “alive’
I think I am beginning to see one of the dangers of a culture that encourages the seeking of pleasure and pleasure being defined as ‘excitement ‘ or ‘risk taking ;’ threatens people’s ability to be content with living a responsible and productive life.
All kinds of risky endeavors are now publicized as glamorous and identified with ‘manhood’ .which could take a husband and father OUT of the family responsibilities that GOD has ordained in the jurisdiction of serving Him and marriage and family.
As the scriptures inform us that we are not our own , that Jesus Christ has bought us with a price…we are led to realize that we are not “FREE” to choose risky and dangerous ‘adventures’ for our entertainment.
A lot of violence is notably recognized as NOT good yet many observe blood and guts ….sexual sin and other things as ‘options ‘ of entertainment ‘ if you dare’
It reminds me of Jesus being taken to the top of the temple and tempted and challenged by Satan to jump …to ‘cast yourself down ‘ …testing GOD …but Jesus wisely replied that we are not to tempt the Lord with tests of such kind.
I don’t think men have a death wish but are seeking to find out what manhood is and apart from learning from GOD they are taking whatever is foisted upon them by the media and other men who think that manliness is all about their physical prowess and ability to conquer things which are not really the things which GOD has designed them to overcome.
Women and children suffer the loss of the husband and father and men actually , in adultery , display a vulnerability and weakness …as Norm Wakefield put it in his ‘Equipping Men ‘ series …a man who drools over a passing woman …is ‘laying down his manhood’ …a very humiliating idea ….he is submitting himself to be seen as a man willing to serve a woman who is not his wife and to exchange his dignity for the fantasy of sin in his mind .
I think my husband was deceived when he put aside learning from the Lord and he began to be dissatisfied with all the blessings he had since he did not see them as a ‘challenge’ or exciting.
Our new baby in his mind was my activity …which he avoided even finding out what God would have shown him about this …HE told me he would not read the Bible to learn what God would teach him about being a husband ..so he did not realize the great challenges and blessings of leading his family …HE found easy thrills much more to his liking ..and those came to be more available to him as he changed his career from being involved with the sport …even in a different capacity than a player …and he began to work in a corporate capacity with many women around to peak his interest. Many of them saw him as ‘fair game’ as their own lives were not satisfying to them.
Ignorance of the way GOD has designed us ..with needs we may experience but not realize how to live rightly with them …have led many to bite the bait that Satan and the world offers to those who are not practicing contentment and gratitude.
Without stopping to count your blessings we become covetous and vulnerable to all kinds of sinful and harmful ideas which eventually …if not dealt with by examining ourselves by His Word ..will bring about choices to act upon them when the opportunity presents itself.
So I believe it is true that if a person is not willing to consider their own life in light of the way GOD reveals how our flesh will lure us or stumble us …that all of the surrounding offerings will take their toll.
Putting God’s word IN our minds and then thinking about what they mean to life itself is useful ,.,not just to live a life shunning some of what is ‘fun’ but to know our own heart in terms of how those choices are damaging if made apart from the wisdom of GOD in how we may be satisfied and not tempted by things which are damaging to our own soul and devastating to the very treasures of what GOD has given us to freely enjoy.
It is the same old story …the world, the flesh and the Devil wants to pull us away from all the good that we have been freely given by GOD into a ‘counterfeit’ by way of a perceived ‘need’
Sex is not really a ‘need’ such as our need for food , water and air…but it is perceived as a ‘need’ if one believes they have a ‘right’ . In the Bible man and woman are instructed to not withhold sexual pleasure from one another …that does not mean that there are times when it will not be possible and at that time self control is commanded…not to go out and find someone to ‘give you sex’ as some believe .
Man will not die without sex…and a woman does not usually marry with the knowledge of this aspect and a most often equal desire for sex ..just to deny the man . This is one of the lies that some men have believed …that women do not desire sex as much as a man.
The problem often is that the man thinks the woman is JUST LIKE a man in terms of the way she is turned on …and so he ignores the things GOD would instruct him to do to maintain her feeling safe with him .
Behaving carelessly about the woman’s emotional feelings with such behaviors that demonstrate thoughtlessness, flirting or lusting after other women …or dismissing the concerns of the wife have a devastating effect on her feeling secure in his love . The effects of men looking at any other women and especially expressing interest in other women …even in movies or magazines is an insult to a wife. She begins to examine herself in face and body by the standards of the women he seems to find ‘interesting.
THis puts a damper on the feelings in women that would lead them to more sexual desire.
The OW paradigm does not require this kind of care since the OW already feels ‘chosen’ by the man and if he is married and married to a good looking woman that is something of an aphrodisiac…also the dynamic of adultery offers adrenalin and hormonal charges that often the OW is ‘ready ‘ just as the fantasies of the man have predicted. Also she does not always make herself available to the man …she has the option to have him visit or not.
Thus his view of the OW is different than his wife.
Also the wife may go through medical situations which cause a longer time of abstinance …combining the lack of a man’s knowledge of how a woman is emotionally …how she is anatomically and how his own behavior has a lot to do with her responses …ends up with him blaming the wife for much of the way she is functioning in their relationship ..just as the Bible tells us .
The OW on the other hand has had a place in his imagination …his focus is upon ‘getting ‘ her to do what he wants and thus he is more careful in how he acts around her and more willing to work to get what he wants from her.
She is willing to ‘work ‘ his fantasies since she may view the ‘conquest’ that he does not really consider HERS and she also may view his other attributes such as his money or position of power to be something she might exploit.
As I look back over our sex life I see that once he began his adultery he did not initiate sex and he would leap off me and go to the bathroom to wash off …immediately …he said that this was what they taught him in health class …to avoid disease!
My husband , though very well educated in one of the best Universities in our country ….NEVER took any biology , anatomy or any other type of instruction other than a high school health class and that back when they did no sex ed to speak of …he avoided the premarital counselling as he was on the road …..so he was really only educated by his peers and media….not the best instruction .
When I tried to level with him about various things my health was putting me through he did not believe me and he took an attitude that he learned from other men ‘ Once a woman gets what she wants from you ..children ..then she stops ‘giving you sex’
This idea that sex is something women ‘give ‘ you is so destructive …it makes the woman seem like she is controlling through her sexuality and it comes more and more from seeing women as objects.
I do believe the feminism has brought this about …as I know of no women that marry JUST to get a man to give them babies…although the OW got babies for the purpose of making my husband provide money for her …She is one of the feminists who promote this idea among men as well as the locker room …
The war between the sexes is not just a war between genders it is a war against genders as we see the working of Satan to completely destroy what GOD intended for the man and the woman to live together and train up godly seed in a loving mutual state of matrimony …thus elevating and honoring Jesus Christ who loved his ‘bride’ the church sacrificially …
Still in all if a person will turn to the Lord and ask for Him to teach, train and love them through being the Savior of the soul there is hope for anyone …even those who have been deceived into the dark recesses of adultery and all other destructive enterprises..
May this be so for my husband and all who have gone this way down into the pit ….
Zaza,
Frequent talk about ‘boredom’ and the adrenalin junkie make for a dangerous combination. In reading through your description, it sounds like he is wanting stimulation in order to ‘feel alive’. For those who have crossed the line into adrenalin junkie or sex addict, living real life with real problems and at real speed is not stimulating enough for them. They often engage in edgy or sexual behavior (sometimes both) in order to ‘feel alive’ . Their brain chemistry is such that they need to be ‘revved up’ and have their brain turned on, in order to feel normal. Since the body often depletes the adrenalin quickly, they keep doing things to keep them in that ‘turned on’ state. For example, it takes about 300 grams of caffeine to ‘turn on a brain’. This is the reason many people want at least two cups of coffee in the morning. They crave that sensation of their brain being activated or ‘turned on’. When you combine a doughnut (and the sugar they have), they are in bliss. Caffeine high + Sugar high = ready for action.
Having played football myself, I know how coaches often keep their players ‘on’, which means ready for action. After many years of this, it can become a way of life. Football has its own risk with the training to suddenly ‘take off’ and move into action immediately. This sets up a tendency to continue doing and wanting things impulsively. When your body and brain are trained to take off and stay on, it takes some effort and time to ‘gear down’. Many athletes do not realize how to do this. That puts them in a position where they are vulnerable to anything that will keep them in that state of arousal.
It is a matter of brain chemistry and maintaining elevated levels of stimulants in their brain. Getting them to gear down has many commonalities with detoxing, since they are learning to wean themselves of those levels of stimulation and the chemical high that goes with it.
Those are just some of my observations on brain chemistry related to affairs and the special vulnerability of athletes to that. Many of these principles also apply to soldiers who are turned on by the adrenalin of combat.
It may give you a way to connect and understand your husband better.
Yes indeed. In coming to this kind of understanding I realized it is NOT ME! It was not about me or whatever it felt like in terms of me being deficient …which for a long while was a mystery to me ….Now having thought this through I realize that this is most probably JUST what started him down that path..Once on it at some point I think he wanted OFF the merry go round if what he said is true about after the first baby he cooled off on the idea of another but by that time she had him trapped .
I still think it is a factor that people must realize when they encourage their children to become focused upon their identity somehow being wrapped up in such activities that nothing else seems to be their purpose in life.
I too had trained all my youth toward my career and had some considerable success but I had become a follower of Christ and that made a big difference in the purpose of life. When I had to retire for many reasons I recall going through a duration of ‘mourning’ . Performance careers tend to become so much a part of who we are ….and are usually active day and night .
I think becoming a wife and then a mom supplied me with plenty of challenges and a long view of accomplishment as I fully invested in godly goals for our family. I had expected my husband to stay on that course but I think the absence of the kind of unique focus that athlete enjoy plus the combination of as you pointed out the physical , the mental and the rush during activity was not complete in marriage and career. Risk was the next level that took his affection for ‘normal’ away.
I think many men will take up a sport that works in supplying this …or as with his family …if he wasn’t playing his sport…he was watching sports…as a sort of surrogate “rush” through vicarious involvement.
In any case ..Even had he taken his walk seriously I think it might have been great if he could have understood this aspect of his make up ..and for me it would have helped me help encourage him to take up some lesser activity than those which were ‘taboo’ and thus became more attractive to him
Womanizing men and women who live on random sexual attention are both losing out on the way long term investments of the whole person eventually bring so much more satisfaction and a lot less regret.
My husband is in deep self loathing …I try to support him with encouragement and authentic things I can appreciate but he deflects all efforts. He just wants to be alone …or have it ‘over’ but he wants to keep providing since that is something he knows he can’t not do.
Present economics and political nonsense of our country remind me of the smaller microcosm of a household dealing with adultery….messes in the world at large are nothing new but it does compound stress in the lives of people who are used to having everything go their way and having been used to paying off the troublesome consequences of sin …but perhaps it will be the needed ‘wake up call’ for some.
The Bible even gives those who trust in Christ hope in this kind of chaos…but he is still resisting return to the Lord….Keep on praying …keep on going …Hugs to you both!