The ‘hall pass‘ refers to when you give your spouse permission to have an affair. This can occur intentionally or unintentionally. The cheater’s mind latches onto the ‘permission’ even when spoken in anger or jest.
What about the ‘hall pass?’
<<– listen to the audio here
Hi there, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Today’s topic, or I guess I should say question for today, is what about the hall pass.
This term, ‘hall pass’, has grown to be very popular in modern culture. The hall pass is giving your spouse permission to have an affair. This can occur either intentionally or unintentionally.
Many times couples will sit down and talk and the conversation steers into fantasies, and you might talk about certain Hollywood stars or personalities or sports figures, that you’d have an affair with if you had the opportunity you would have an affair with. You may even start off in kind of a joking way, and it turns into an implied hall pass, essentially, where one person is given permission by the other to have an affair.
In some cases there is an intentional hall pass given. Whether it’s intentional or unintentional or it’s just on the fantasy level, they’re potentially dangerous.
The cheater’s mind, when they hear that there’s any kind of permission given for affairs, they latch on that. Even if you give them permission to have a fantasy affair or that they can sleep with some Hollywood figure, they take that as approval of all affairs.
Because in their mind they hear approval and affair linked together. They don’t hear any of your quanitifiers or qualifiers there. When they do that they often act out on it. To them, it’s a green light.
Even when what you say is spoken in anger or in jest, like for instance you may be in the midst of this big old hairy fight with your spouse and you yell at them well just go and sleep with so-and-so, and you mean it as just an off the cuff remark, the cheater hears that and they often interpret that as “Woo hoo, I have got permission!” And they act on it.
You’ve got to be careful, because although this is joked about in modern society, the reality is many times there are hall passes given. Whether actual intentional hall passes, or unintentional comments and jokes where this occurs.
The solution to the whole hall pass situation, you want to cancel any hall passes. Cancel current ones, cancel former passes. You’re going to have to get rid of those things. In order to do this I’m going to mention several things that you can do right away.
1. Make it clear that affairs aren’t okay. You’re going to have to state this clearly and plainly. Cheaters will not take hints because their mind has latched on the whole thing that they’ve got permission.
You’re going to have to make it clear affairs are not okay. There is no hall pass. You’re going to have to make it that clear.
You say, but I’m not talking to a child. I know that you’re not talking to a child, but I also know the mind of cheaters and how they need things very clearly and very plainly. Otherwise they have a way of twisting and distorting what they hear.
2. Avoid fantasy play talk about affairs or who you would have one with. Many times cheaters will go ahead and they will get into this mode where they try to, essentially, take a back door way into getting a hall pass and they will use this fantasy play talk and say if you could have an affair with anyone who would you have an affair with.
This type of stuff, all they’re seeking at that point is permission from you to have an affair. And this is just a back door way to do it, so you want to avoid that type of play talk about it.
3. Cancel, revoke, and invalidate any emotional ledgers. What I mean by emotional ledgers, because many times what happens with couples, they have a ledger system set up.
A ledger system, much like in accounting, are the books of what you owe and who owes you. And if you hear things like you owe me, or I should be able to do this, or I should be able to do that, in combination with some of these financial terms then there is probably an emotional ledger.
It’s not formally where you actually have a book that you pull out and say “Well I did XYZ for you, so you need to do ABC for me”. This is more on an emotional level.
Many times what happens, cheaters will essentially put you in a position where you owe them for numerous things. Essentially they build up enough credit to where they cash it in one day and have an affair. You don’t want that type of situation to develop.
If you happen to be one of those couples that has allowed these emotional ledgers to develop, you want to cancel, revoke, and invalidate those things. You want to get out of that whole mindset because that is not conducive to keeping your marriage healthy.
In terms of the hall pass, in order to cancel the passes, to review the three items that I mentioned here. First of all make it clear that affairs are not okay. Under any circumstance. You don’t care whether it’s with this Hollywood star or that Hollywood star, they’re not okay.
Number two, avoid fantasy play talk about affairs or who you would have one with. Once again, this is a back door to getting a hall pass. You want to avoid that. Because once those agreements are made, like I said, they latch on to the permission for the affair.
Number three, you want to cancel, revoke, and invalidate any emotional ledgers. So that this relationship debt that often builds up will not build up. And they’re not going to cash in one day.
These are three things that you can start to work on now that will help put your marriage and your relationship back into a healthier spot. Because hall passes definitely don’t strengthen your marriage. If anything, they weaken your marriage. They weaken that sense of commitment you have to one another.
If you inadvertently gave a hall pass, you can do something about it. One thing is ordering your copy of the “Affair Recovery Workshop” and start turning your marriage around.
Best Regards,
Jeff
