The build-up-to-cheat is common knowledge in the recovery community, and the warnings signs accompanying it.
Recognizing the BUC <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio, and I’m glad you’re here with me this evening. Tonight we’re going to be talking about recognizing the BUC.
What I mean by BUC is the ‘buildup to cheating’. When a person is preparing to cheat they’ll give off signals. Knowing what those signals are can help you in terms of dealing with your situation.
Even if you’re dealing with one where the cheater has already cheated and you’re working on recovery, if you see the signs that they’re building up to another episode this can help you deal with that.
Within the recovery community, and by recovery community those people that are getting their lives cleaned up from drugs and alcohol and addictive processes, they use a term called BUD. Which stands for building up to drugs, or building up to drink.
Since they have spent years working on their recovery they understand a lot about human thinking in terms of building up before we act out.
What they have realized is that there is typically a ‘buildup’ before people go out and do things. There’s warning signs that the person who is fixing to act out gives off.
You’re going to want to acquaint yourself with those warning signs. With cheaters, many cheaters also give off signals. Knowing them and knowing what you can do about the potential dangers ahead can help you.
Where I live there’s a lot of deer, and I’ve been reminded of some of these BUC principles as I have watched the bucks around here. Because they go around chasing the does and they’re blind and oblivious to the cars and the traffic, and they often get hit.
Likewise when a cheater is building up to cheat they’re like those bucks that are in their mode, in the zone, however you want to call it, and they’re oblivious to what’s going on. They stumble into affairs. Same type of things going on.
In terms of the solution, you’re going to need to know the signs of a BUC, or when they are building up to cheat. What these signs, and I’m trying to make this real simple.
I’m going to use an acronym here and it is DIS. Because they diss you before they disrespect you. Knowing this, this will give you an awareness of what signs to look for.
The D stands for distancing. As the cheater is building up to cheat they will distance themselves from you. That distancing may be emotional, it may be physical, spiritual, mental.
For some reason they’re going to seem like they’re far away. They may be sleeping next to you, but you feel like their heart is not with you.
This is part of the distancing. And you want to be alert to it. They may even do something to self-sabotage so that you’re mad at them, and you create the distance.
However it occurs there’s typically some distance that happens.
I, the cheater typically focuses on the “I, self, me”, way of thinking. As you listen to their vocabulary everything’s going to be I, self, me, I, self, me.
You can hear in their conversation. You can hear it in their thinking. And this shift in focus, where they go from thinking about the both of you as a couple to where they are only thinking about them, what I need, what my needs are, and finding out things for myself, these are often seen prior to a person acting out.
Already we have them pulling away, getting caught up in this I, self, me talk.
The third one is the S. That stands for stuffing emotions rather than dealing with them. Because typically the cheater will go ahead and start holding back on emotions. And you’re going to see, literally, a lot of things building up in them.
I can’t say that this applies to all cheaters, but with some cheaters they will allow this buildup to happen and then they go ahead and act out in the form of the affair. And by using the affair as a way to deal with this emotional buildup, they feel less guilty about it because the affair was seen as a solution.
Many times when they know that affairs are not okay they will create kind of a crisis by this pulling away, allowing the emotions to build up, and start thinking about themselves, and the voila, they use the affair to “fix” their crisis.
You want to be aware of that game that happens with some cheaters. It’s hard to say what happens with all cheaters because each one has their own separate game plan and there are different motivations.
In terms of the pattern you want to recognize this buildup to the cheat, or this BUC. When you know the signs you can see it when it’s coming, and you can intervene before it gets too far.
Once it gets to a certain point it’s almost like they put on blinders and it seems like nothing can stop them from cheating.
You want to intervene before it gets to that point. Because once it gets to that point they’re not dealing with you logically, they’re just going to act out.
In the video, ‘Preventing Affair Relapse“, you’ll learn more about relapse prevention plans and others signs to be looking for. When you see the signs, you’ll know when to take action along with what kind of action is needed.
Best Regards,
Jeff
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