You may want help in dealing with your spouse’s affair, yet have to hide it. Any books, email or blogs you visit have to be anonymous or disguised.
There are many reasons behind feeling like you must hide. Even though the hiding limits the support available, it is a price you feel is necessary.
Handling Hiding <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here today. The podcast today deals with handling hiding.
Initially I thought about entitling it ‘Handling Hiding In Shame‘. I’m holding off on the shame issue.
But the issue of hiding is an important one in dealing with affairs because you may find yourself wanting help dealing with your spouse’s affair, yet believe that you have to hide it.
Some of you have expressed to me that you want the help, but it’s so shameful that you have to hide the fact that you’re wanting help. You purchase books and information, but you have to hide it.
Any kind of books, email, or blogs that you visit you have to disguise that you went there. You have to keep it anonymous, because you don’t want your spouse finding out that you’re trying to find out about the affair.
You hide that you’re trying to get help. There’s a stigma associated with it.
Now, there’s many reasons behind that feeling like you have to hide. Even though hiding limits the amount of support available to you, you feel like this is a price tag that you see as necessary. You feel like you have to hide, because it’s so painful or whatever else is going on.
If you’re in such a situation, how do you handle it? That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Handling the hiding.
Handling the Hiding
The solution that I want to present today is that you need to get comfortable with avatars. Avatars are going to be those representations of who you are. In the old days people talked about pen names, nowadays they use the term avatars.
In terms of getting comfortable with the avatars,
1. You want to master computer skills such as anonymizers. These are programs that allow you to visit various websites with an anonymous identity.
You want to be able to master proxy email addresses. There are programs that when you send an email the responses come in that they go to a third party email that’s seen as a proxy. You need to feel comfortable in using those.
You need to feel comfortable creating fake accounts, erasing your cache after you do searching and reading websites concerning affairs and dealing with affairs.
Because I encourage you to visit those sites. The help is there. If you feel like you have to be anonymous, these are skills that will allow you to visit the sites, yet still keep your identity safe and secure. Learn what each of these are, develop skills to where you feel comfortable using them.
2. Consider using sites where you can remain anonymous or under a pseudonym. Some sites do ask for emails and they’re not amenable to proxies, and they want you to reveal who you are.
You can either use a fake identity, but something even simpler is just go to the sites where you can stay anonymous and that the people are okay with your anonymity.
Those are the sites where you’re going to feel freest about being able to share your story, as well as listening to their story. There’s help both ways, because many times when we’re hurting sometimes hearing someone else’s perspective or their story can give us some insight concerning our own situation.
3.Exercise caution in discussing revealing details. I know many times you’re hurting so bad you feel like you’ve got to let it all hang out, or just tell your story in all its detail. Be careful about that, because many times in the midst of sharing the details of your story people can figure out who you are or where you’re at. Be very careful about revealing too much.
Knowledge is Power
The adage that knowledge is power is important here also. Because in the event that the relationship continues deteriorating to the point of divorce all your activities on the Internet may find itself there in front of a judge in a divorce court.
Because of that you want to protect yourself early on with the anonymity, to prevent things from spiraling out of control.
Learn how to get comfortable with avatars and the various tools I mentioned like anonymizers, proxy email addresses, creating fake accounts, learning how to erase the cache. You may even want to think about doing your web activity in coffee shops or libraries where you can use another computer and things can’t be traced back to you.
These are ways to go ahead and get the help that you need while still remaining anonymous. Handling hiding is an important issue for a lot of you and it can be done.
Resources like the downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop” give you ways of getting help and still be private. Obtaining help without the neighbors or your insurance company finding out allows you to get the help you need without additional shame piled on.
Best Regards,
Jeff
