Cheaters tell you what you want to hear. They know the absolutes you want to hear. “I’ll always/never… “statements. When a cheater uses absolutes it is a red flag for trouble.
The Absolute Trap <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. I want to thank you for tuning in, and I think today you’re going to find it quite interesting. We’re going to be dealing with the absolute trap. When I mention absolute I’m not talking about the vodka.
The situation is that cheaters will often tell you what you want to hear. They know the joy that you will experience when you hear those absolute phrases like “I’ll always” or “I’ll never” . . .
There’s just something about hearing those, there’s a part of you that will want to put faith in it, that they mean what they say. At least initially. After a few times you learn better.
When a cheater uses absolutes, it’s a red flag that there is trouble. Typically people resort to using absolute words like ‘always‘ and’ never‘ when there’s some sort of difficulty going on. If absolutes are needed you are definitely in trouble.
The other thing about absolutes is that they appeal to your need for security. That’s important. When there’s an affair your whole sense of security has been challenged. It’s been compromised in some way.
There’s a part of you that is going to want to get the security. If you’ve got this cheater filling you with these lies, “Well I’ll never do this again“, or “I’ll always do this“, there’s a part of you that’s going to want to jump on that because you’re hearing what you want to hear.
They know, at some level, that you need that sense of security, and those are the magic words that sounds like it will fix things.
When they start using the absolutes they’re making a trade. They’re making this blanket promise and you assume that in making that blanket promise everything’s going to be fine. With a lot of you, once you have that sense of security, it’s almost like it’s a huge blanket that covers all wrongs.
Absolutes sound good, but they can manipulate you. And the cheater. Absolutes often set the stage for the next high drama fight with unrealistic expectations. Typically when someone makes that kind of promise it sounds good initially.
But what happens when things go south? What happens when they break that promise? That’s when the high drama comes in. Usually very high drama that’s not so easy to fix that second time around, or third time around.
Absolutes amount to nothing more than a play to achieve closure before the issue leading to the affair, or the issues that are on the table, are resolved. It’s a way to do an end-around to avoid having to deal with the pain of facing many of those issues. And you need to wake up to that.
In terms of a solution to the absolute trap, you are torn because part of you wants to hear it and then when you hear it you know you’re being set up. There’s part of you that says oh, but it sounds so good. You’re going to have to avoid that.
The solution is to remember HUC Finn. I say HUC Finn because Huckleberry Finn, the character from the Mark Twain novel, he escaped many traps. You’re going to need a HUC Finn to escape from this one. By Huck I’m using the acronym HUC, as shortened form of Huck to help you remember this.
You have three stages here.
- Be honest with each other. This includes being honest about what kind of commitments are being made, what kind of commitments you’re willing to accept, and also be honest about expectations. If you’ve got a spouse that says “Oh, I will never look at another man or another woman again”, how realistic is that?
The thing is, television is going to be bringing all kinds of images of people into your home. The movies will do stuff. That’s not going to happen. And you’re going to have to realize that and be realistic and honest with each other.
If that means that you’re going to have to accept I’m not going to look at another woman in a lustful way today, I can accept that much better than to say “I’ll never do it again in my life“. That’s what I mean by be honest with each other. That’s the H part, H for honesty.
2. Recognize that an unrealistic promise is a COD lie in transit. Here’s where the U comes in, that whole idea of ‘unrealistic promises’. Because when they made those unrealistic promise I call it a COD lie because COD stands for “Collect On Delivery”.
This is something that eventually you’re going to pay the price and they are going to pay the price. All it does is delay when that price gets paid.
If you fall for it all you’re doing is putting off some inevitable pain. That’s what I mean recognize that this absolute promise is an unrealistic promise. It’s nothing more than a COD lie in transit.
3. Beware of closure before confession. This is where the C comes in, or if you like it a double C. That whole idea of having a sense of closure before they confess what has happened.
So many times they’re going to want to get you to make commitments before they say “I did wrong“, or “I hurt you and I don’t like that“, or “what can I do to make it right“. Those are all good statements.
You want to make sure that they have some type of confession. When you have situations where they are pushing to close the issue of discussing the affair, where they are trying to put it all behind you and stop fighting about this before there’s been any confession concerning their part in things, you’re headed for trouble. That’s another form of the absolutes.
Granted, they may not be making an absolute statement here, but it’s part of the same game plan where they’re essentially trying to short-circuit the discussions that need to go on.
These three things, be honest with each other, recognize that an unrealistic promise is a COD lie in transit, and beware of closure before confession, these are things that you can start working on now. I encourage you to do so.
I address ways of dealing with other communication games in the “Affair Recovery Workshop“. You can click the link, fill out the form and download it within minutes. Instead of hoping for changes, you can instead know what to do, when to do it and how to do it.
You may know what needs to be done in your marriage, but are you doing it in the right order? You could be doing all the right things in the wrong way. The workshop guides you in the right sequence that gets results.
Best Regards,
Jeff
