After discovering the affair, your next focus is often on the lover. Who are they? what do they look like? Besides the questions, you may find yourself making comparisons in areas such as looks, sexual preferences, social standing, money, social skills, etc.
Such comparisons are disappointing. At best you’ve analyzed what you’re up against. At worst, you find yourself obsessing and self-deprecating.
Comparing yourself to the lover <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you are with me today. The topic we’re going to be focusing on today is one that commonly happens in many affairs, and that is comparing yourself to the lover.
After you discover the affair many times your next focus is often on the lover. It’s almost like after the discovery of the affair your mind then shifts onto the lover.
You want to know who they are, what do they look like, you want to find out many things about who this mysterious lover is.
Comparing Yourself with the Lover
Besides the questions that you’re asking, there’s also another process at work where you find yourself making comparisons. You get this image of the lover in your head and then you start comparing who you are with they are.
You compare yourself in terms of money, looks, sexual preferences, social standing, social skills, and the list goes on. The comparisons continue. It’s almost like throughout the day, hour after hour, there’s all these comparisons going on.
The comparisons, besides being frustrating, are often disappointing. At best you analyze what you’re up against. You get some kind of mental construct or idea of what it is you’re up against.
If things are at their worst you find yourself obsessing and self-depreciating. You have this mental image of them and you feel like well, I fail in this area, I’m not as good as them here, I’m not as good as them here, what do I have to compare. Things such as this.
The comparison of yourself with the lover does not turn out good. We’re going to be talking about how to deal with that. The benefit of such comparisons does not balance out the effort.
The amount of time and the amount of emotional and mental energy that you poured into this comparison definitely does not pay good returns. It’s not a good use of your time.
With that in mind, we’re going to be talking about the solution. The solution is to break the comparison habit.
Breaking the Comparison Habit
In doing this we’ve got three steps that we’re going to be talking about today, things that you can go ahead and start doing today during the broadcast.
1. Comparing yourself to others is a losing proposition. You’re going to have to get that through your head. This isn’t something that you can ever win.
Because many times when your mind gets in that mode you think well, if I just can figure this out, if you just give me enough time or enough information, I can outdo them.
There’s never going to be enough time, there’s never going to be enough information, there’s never going to be enough accurate information. Because you cannot be the lover. You’ll never be the lover. Any time you compare yourself to the lover you’re going to fail.
I know in my life, as a counselor, I used to use the illustration that when I compare myself to Tom Cruise I’m never going to add up, because I am not Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is not Jeff Murrah.
The two of us operate in two different spheres. If the variables I choose to compare myself on, if I choose psychological mindedness and some of my own strengths, yes, I can outdo Tom Cruise. But if I look at the attractiveness, the money and so forth, Tom Cruise wins out.
It gets to be a frustrating thing. Instead of comparing yourself to the lover you’re better off comparing who you are with your own potential. For illustration’s sake let’s say, for instance, your name is Betty. Compare who Betty is now with what Betty’s potential is. Or who Jack is now with what Jack’s potential is.
That, you can do. You cannot compare yourself to the lover. It is always a losing proposition.
2. You become what you focus on. This is one of the problems when you hold a grudge and also when people get caught up with this comparison.
Because that mental picture, because it’s there in front of your mind all the time, you start becoming that picture. When the focus is on the lover, you become more and more like the lover and less and less like yourself.
This is why it’s very important what that focus is, of our mind, because we do become like our focus. That is just the way our mind works, the way it’s been designed and created.
3. The acceptance of who or what you are begins with you. I say this because you want the cheater to accept you and to love you. The biggest part of getting them to accept you is to start by accepting yourself. It’s going to be hard to get them to accept you when you don’t like yourself.
When you don’t acknowledge yourself or value yourself, how are you going to get them to do it?
The process starts with you liking who you are, accepting who you are, validating yourself. Then it becomes much easier to get the cheater to turn around and start liking and accepting you.
I mention this on this topic because with this comparison there is always a sense of dissatisfaction that you’re left with. When you start comparing you often leave being dissatisfied.
That dissatisfaction can turn around to where you quit liking yourself and accepting yourself or thinking of yourself as ugly or unattractive. You’ve got to turn that around.
The solution of breaking the comparison habit has three steps. Comparing yourself to others is a losing proposition. Just accepting that truth.
Two, you become what you focus on. That means you’re going to have to change that focus. And three, realize the acceptance of who you are and what you are begins with you.
These are things that will help you to make that mental shift, because you’re going to have to make some of those shifts. I know initially you are going to want to know about the lover.
But you’re going to have to take some steps to keep it from getting out of hand. And that’s what this is designed to do, to get you to reduce the comparison habit.
This will help you through this affair process, to keep you from self-destructing. Because when you self-destruct you’re not helping yourself, you’re not helping your spouse. This will take care, or at least start you, on this process.
In the ebook, “Why He Cheats” I go into greater detail regarding the basis of those comparisons, which are fantasies. Your fantasies and the cheater’s fantasies each play a part in what happens. Understanding their impact is important in moving past the affair.
Best Regards,
Jeff
