Have you ever considered what the motivation is behind ‘turning a blind eye’ to affairs? Many times family members, friends or even business associates will not voice any concern about affairs or their effects.
They know full well what’s going on, yet say nothing.
The main reason for their silence, is that if they did express concern, they would have to address that area in their own life.
They may not have had an affair, yet still avoid addressing the issue. It may be too painful for them, or more likely, they are harboring such ideas themselves.
This doesn’t make them bad people, just more concerned about their own hurts and proclivities ahead of your welfare.
In modern progressive thinking, many have the ‘what is yours is mine’ if I want it’ kind of thinking. This line of thinking leads to poorly established boundaries. As long as this mindset is popular, little will be said about affairs. They will not condemn the affairs, because condemning affairs will condemn themselves.
Another twist is that they may not have said anything to you because either they want to sleep with or your spouse. If they point out the problem, they may have to do something about it and risk being hurt themselves.
There’s a strange domino effect among profligates. They view affairs as ‘not that different’ from sleeping around. The wedding ring to them is only a piece of metal.
They know if you take a stand on affairs, you’ll have to take a stand on their sleeping around. They know that this connection exists between affairs and ‘sleeping around’.
If they sleep around, they know that it’s okay for their spouse to sleep around as well. Rather than risk having to taking a moral stand, it’s easier to turn a blind eye to affairs.
There are many ways of ‘turning a blind eye’ as well.
There’s ignoring. With ignoring, they act like it never happened.
There’s downplaying, where the impact and the seriousness of the affair is minimized.
There’s joking about affairs. This is where they turn it into comedic behavior in order to remove any negative connotation.
Seducers are often aware of the power of the comedic response to affairs.
There are also those who dismiss affairs is ‘just being human’. In these cases, they acknowledge the affair, yet deny the serious impact of them.
A close cousin of the ‘just being human’ way of turning a blind eye is the ‘business as usual’ approach. With this approach, affairs are viewed as mechanistic and expected.
When they become routine and treated like business, it takes away the emotional impact. This is one of the ways prostitutes are able to do what they do. They treat profligacy as ‘just business’.
Taking such an approach is just another way to compartmentalize that part of your life. It separates it from anything that has emotion involved. It is still just a matter of turning a blind eye, yet in this case, it is a blind emotional eye to what happens.
Another popular way of turning a blind eye is having a secret ‘dark side’. With this approach the cheater has a regular side which may even condemn affairs, yet the secret dark side condones and involves themselves in affairs.
In these cases, the cheater creates an alter-ego, and even a whole alternate universe of associates. In such cases, they are playing both sides of the affair issue.
The nice side gives lip service to the problem of affairs, yet their actions continue condoning affairs. The two sides cancel each other out.
There are many ways of turning a blind eye and many reasons for doing so. None of them are healthy or good for anyone to do. There are always consequences to turning a blind eye to an affair.
This is why I put together the e-book, “Why He Cheats“. It will help you understand the strange convoluted excuse making that often goes into the cheater’s mind. It can be confusing and bewildering to deal with.
You don’t have to wander around in a bewildered state of perpetual astonishment. You can instead start understanding what’s going on in their head.
Best Regards,
Jeff
3 Responses
It is such a difficult thing when a cheater includes other people in their ruse. My husband ‘s business associate BECAME his “best friend’ upon having shared the knowledge of the adultery …as my husband hired the OW AFTER they began their adultery …as time went by she feigned fear of the employer she had when she met my husband and got him to feel pressure to hire her…then because of his passion for her sexually he made her his business partner and put all of his best loved aspects of his life in more peril!
When the friend and business associate was told my the OW about their ‘agreement’ it then put that man in a very awkward situation. He kept the secret for years. I now have to recall how often when I occasioned to meet him and his wife over the years at a party how he must have wondered what I knew…being also a very vocal and transparent believer and sharer of my faith …
Eventually that man began to doubt my husband’s motives over a business deal years later …and he and my husband do not speak anymore.
Last I heard this man’s wife was quite ill with a degenerative disease and their son tried to commit suicide!
The daughter however is doing fine and has a successful career in Hollywood ..amid the degenerate there .
My husband’s next business partner was another woman when his OW got pregnant with his first child with her….
The new business partner had a dubious regard for her own marriage and family …taking two years away at the opposite end of the country for her own career and leaving her husband in ‘charge’ of their two children.
This woman who at that time was no longer my husband’s business partner ..had family difficulties when she finally finished her selfish career time away from her family …partly because her teenaged son tried to commit suicide!
Not a great track record for people associated with my husband and others in the same business.
And people think their own choices do not have any kind of ‘ripple ‘ effect….and I am not so sure that the other business partner was not aware of my husband’s ‘secret life’ ….or if any of those who worked for him and with him knew….They were always assuming such activities in the contemporary office or so I was told!
My husband figured the best way to deal with gossip was to not honor it with any kind of response….but truth does not go away and has a way of surfacing ….but it seems none in his vocation care about it….except the victims of it .
Financial ruin, moral decay, spouses and children and all kinds of OTHERS are effected by sin ,….it is a spiritual defiling and darkening corruption that spreads like cancer.
The analogy is telling …
I do believe that because of the efforts of me and my children to be faithful to our Lord and continue to pursue a life of learning and obeying the Lord in all things we have been able to study ….that we have been protected in many ways …health wise….having our bills paid….so far….and my children , though crushed to see their father’s choices to withdraw from me and from effort to clean up his life by going to the Lord and beginning to walk after all that the Lord would teach him …is a sad commentary on a man who has refused to hear ANYONE who does not encourage him to think HE has ‘enough’ answers from within himself …to make any kind of difference,
The decent into darkness is a terrible thing to watch ..even if life ‘picks up’ …without Christ the change is unstable and built upon the sand of human reason and fleshly determination and not the saving knowledge of the gospel of the kingdom of GOD through Jesus Christ.
A savior he does need …but does not want the accountability it takes to live under the Lordship that is part of our victory even in this situation …the world is not going to be made better if Jesus Christ is truth …THIS world is not OF His Kingdom …we enter in by HIM only.,
1Cr 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
1 Cor 15:33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.
35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.
48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Zaza,
Thank you for sharing what happened in your situation. In many ways, there is a strange fellowship that develops around the secret of an affair. Knowledge of it becomes a source of power. That power is often used and abused in business and political circles.
Your spiritual observations are keen. Adultery is one of those sins that brings a curse with it, along with cursing the ground. Besides the curses, it is also considered a capitol offense (e.g. it carries with it the death penalty). That makes the consequences quite strong. It is a serious matter, despite the levity Hollywood and other communities make of it. Part of the curse can keep prosperity from coming their way. Although the world jokes about sleeping one’s way to the top, in God’s view of business success, sleeping around is a sure way to bring about failure.
Knowingly turning a blind eye to it also carries consequences, as your experience illustrates. Some may say, “Oh, it is just coincidence”. My response is “Correct!”, those two events are occurrence in co-ordination with each other. They are co-incidental (e.g. two incidents happening at the same time in the same person’s life.) Turning a blind eye toward affairs does not carry the same heavy curses and penalties, although it is also a serious matter, in that it leads others to stumble and fall.
Your story illustrates how affairs are NOT “just a matter between adults”. They involve whole businesses, whole communities and whole families. When the consequences come, they often impact both those highly involved and those who were slightly involved as well.
that seems to be the clear illustration time and again in the OT …it is full of demonstrations for us to consider the choices and actions and their outcomes …but few actually read those …today there is such a sad number of people void of not just Bible truth but just the news of what is going on in the world….
Just watch some of the interviews ‘on the street’ on some shows…it is used for humor sake but it is sad! Actually ‘scary’ but does explain what happens in the voting booth and how we got here!
God told us that ‘MY people are DESTROYED for lack of knowledge’ and that is so true…what we don’t know does not just hurt us but can lead to destruction of all we hold dear …inside and out!
I just saw and ad for a new movie coming out that is about three women who are the OW ! Hollywood sinking to new lows but reflecting the vast numbers of those hurting from the other vast numbers who are cheating for ‘sport’
This also looks like more and more part of the attempt to normalize sin …such as adultery but also on the horizon the effort to legalize POLYGAMY …and NON marriage …even as gays fight for the right to ‘marriage …’ it is an intentional SPIRITUAL assault upon what COULD have been dealt with merely by some other means toward their supposed ‘end’ of getting some of the benefits from government that married couples have …tax breaks ,,,,various other legal things .
The point is not that they want these rights …but a deeper issue…to destroy the way GOD has set all things up …from creation…to marriage …to gender…
The devil is having his day due to people not caring to learn the truth of what GOD has provided…and since it IS available all over the world to find the Truth IF one seeks after it and believes that GOD IS …then all are accountable to find out …
The DAY is coming soon where all will realize “oops! ” Jesus was RIGHT!” I hope and pray sooner rather than later..
The casualties are mounting and it seems now that the pain of those hurt by infidelity are big box office gags now….so there is money [ ie filthy lucre’ ] in adultery even as ‘entertainment’!
WOW.