When someone has an affair, the terms sticky, quicksand or whirlpool are often used in describing it. When sticky/quicksand are used, there’s a sense of being trapped. Whether intentional or unintentional, the trap is real.
Dealing with Affair Quicksand <<– listen to the audio here
Hello, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Tonight’s topic we’re going to be dealing with is dealing with affair quicksand. I think you’ll find it very helpful if you’re faced with an affair situation. You want to know how do I deal with this mess and this sense of being stuck.
When someone has an affair, a lot of times when you listen to them, or you find yourself describing your affair situation, using terms like sticky or quicksand or whirlpool or vortex. Each of these describe situations where you’re stuck.
The situation is getting more stuck-like, taking you deeper and deeper and deeper into it. It feels like you’re not able to get out.
When you’re in a sticky or quicksand type of situation there’s a sense of being trapped. Whether you’re trapped intentionally or unintentionally or accidental, that trap is very real.
Because sometimes you have wandered into an affair situation, or awareness of an affair situation. You didn’t intend for you to be involved in any way, but you’re stuck.
It may be just finding out about an affair. It may be your spouse had an affair, you found out about it, but you don’t feel like you have the liberty to say anything to your spouse about it. That is one of these kind of trap situations.
Things that get you stuck
Many things can be used to trap people. Things like secrets, loyalties, emotional debts, crying, hasty promises, threats, money, etc. Your spouse may be threatening you with leaving you alone, whatever.
With these threats and these situations like affair quicksand, you want to make sure that you deal with them. When you leave them alone they only grow larger, more powerful, and more dangerous.
Like the quicksand pit get bigger, it gets worse, and there’s less hope. That’s why you need to go ahead and deal with these situations.
Getting Unstuck
In terms of dealing with the quicksand situation, the solution is stop making the situation worse. I’m going to be going over some of that today.
- Make sure that you are safe.
Whether it means to stay or to go, safety first. That should be your first concern. If you’re not safe, then you need to get out of the situation.
Once you’re safe, you can start working on the other options. But first we want to make sure that you are safe, that your kids are safe. That’s what you want to do first.
That may mean you need to keep quiet about the affair until you get an island of safety. Or it may mean that you may need to leave the situation you’re in if there is a danger to your physical safety.
Let’s assume that you have the situation where you are safe. Safety does not necessarily mean that you’re comfortable. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you like it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s pleasant. But it’s safe.
2. Avoid fearful people.
The reason this one is important is because when you allow fearful people into your life it makes the situation worse. When you’re in a quicksand type situation that comes with affairs, having people around you that say what if this, or this might happen, or that might happen, or they may do this to you, or they may do that to you, all these type of what if scenarios focused on the negative will do nothing more than generate a lot of fear inside of you. It’s hard being surrounded by fearful people and not be fearful yourself.
It’s like being in a house full of dogs with fleas. You’re going to come out with fleas. There’s no way that you can avoid it.
These fearful people, like those flea-bitten dogs, some of that fear is going to get in your life. You want to avoid these type of people because they are only going to make the situation worse.
The way they make it worse, they create a sense of fear. And fear has a way of either paralyzing your or distorting things so bad that you can’t see what the options really are that may be right there in front of you.
Or things may become so exaggerated that you see yourself as unable to take the necessary steps that you may, in truth, be very able to accomplish. But fear says no, you can’t do that, or no, you’ll never be able to do that, or no, you’ll never be able to amount to anything. That’s fear talking.
3. Resist making promises or commitments.
Many times cheaters and those around them will try to corner you into making promises or commitments. Then once you make that promise or commitment, they use it to entangle you deeper. It’s almost like they use it against you.
Until you get out of the affair situation you want to avoid making a lot of promises and commitments. A lot of times when you’re right in the middle of it everything is high emotions, high drama, and making decisions under those circumstances are typically the wrong decisions.
Many times you start making decisions based on what’s going to reduce the emotionality, what’s going to reduce the tension, rather than what’s actually going to help the relationship.
Because you’re not seeing things realistically. You are seeing things blown out of proportion in terms of the emotions. Seeing it blown out of proportion in terms of the fears.
Seeing it blown out of proportion in terms of the anger. And you need to be seeing things realistically right now.
Getting back to the main topic, dealing with affair quicksand, to review once again you want to stop making the situation worse. Because making it worse is going to reduce your chances of survival. That’s why safety first, make sure you’re safe.
Even if you were caught in a quicksand pit you want to make sure that you find a place that’s safe where you have some footing. If you can put your foot on something in the quicksand, or at least stay still and try to stabilize, try to get some safety, then you can start making some maneuvers to either get help from outside or do something there.
After you have the safety you want to avoid fearful people. They’re going to make it worse. Then number three, resist making promises or commitments.
Another action step you can take is ordering the “Affair Recovery Workshop”. In the downloadable Workshop, you’ll learn techniques and methods for turning your relationship around. You’ll also discover what mistakes to avoid during the critical stages of affair recovery.
Best Regards,
Jeff
