Popular media portrays affairs as glamorous and filled with excitement. These affairs involve beautiful people against a romantic background. Such portrayals sell movies and the affair fantasy.
You may even fantasize about the cheater and how they spend their time with their lover. You may assume that the cheater is having fun while you are caught up in the daily grind.
Affairs And The Daily Grind<<– listen to the audio here
Hello, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re with me today. I want to thank you for tuning in. The podcast today is going to be dealing with affairs and the daily grind.
Popular media often portrays affairs as glamorous and filled with excitement. A lot of fireworks and background music often accompanies affair situations, that adds to that whole sense of glamor. And the affairs in the movies and on TV often involve beautiful people set against a romantic background. And these portrayals, that’s all about selling movies.
Selling the idea that affairs are glamorous
It also sells the affair fantasy because many times people have this idea that affairs are something glamorous, that when you have an affair it’s going to be with a beautiful person, that if you’re one of the beautiful people affairs are just a routine part of life. This is all fantasy. The more you fantasize about the cheater and how they spend their time with their lover, and how they’re having this wonderful time, the more miserable you’re going to be.
You’re also going to be very wrong about the reality that they’re in, in most cases. Because many times you operate under the assumption that the cheater is having fun while you’re caught up in the daily grind.
I’ve talked to some spouses and they feel like this is unfair, because they’re out there having fun and I’m here taking care of the kids, doing the routine stuff of life.
Yeah, they’re having the affair, but it doesn’t mean that they’re having fun. We’re going to be talking about that today.
The solution is going to be “Separate the affair reality from the affair fantasy”. In terms of separating the affair reality from the affair fantasy, I’ve got three places to go ahead and start.
Separate the affair reality from the affair fantasy
1. You have to realize is many lovers use the affair to escape their daily grind. The reality is many of the lovers are people who are very desperate for some kind of change of pace. They’re desperate to change the boredom in their own life.
They struggle with boredom like you do, and they’re looking for something to make it a little different. To spice things up. To change the routine. Unfortunately, they make the choice of an affair.
2. A plain looking lover poses as big a danger as a beautiful lover. Because one of the things about the affair fantasy, when it has been fed with a steady diet of movies and television, is that you assume that the people that pose the biggest threat to your marriage are the beautiful people. And that is not the case.
Many times the lover is a very plain looking person. People miss the threat of the lover because they’re looking for someone that looks like a man or a woman out of a Hollywood movie.
Because they don’t see the beautiful person out of the Hollywood movie they don’t see the threat. And this is one of the realities you’re going to have to wake up to. The plain looking lover poses as big a danger as the beautiful lover.
3. Never underestimate the power of a guilty conscience and karma. Many times you assume that oh, the cheater’s out there having a good time, they’re not feeling a tinge of guilt, and everything is turning up roses for them. That may be your fantasy, but the reality is eventually the guilty conscience of either them or the lover oftentimes catches up with them. They can delay it, they can put it off, but things do catch up.
Karma, as some people refer to it, also has a way of catching up. You can go ahead and call it paybacks, you can call it God’s judgment, you can call it karma. Any way you slice it it happens. There are natural consequences when you violate the natural order of things and affairs are a violation of the natural order of things.
Get out of the way and let natural forces have their impact…
There is always going to be a reaction to those violations, rest assured. Those reactions will come. I know it’s very tempting for you to jump in there and make it happen.
Many times the best thing you can do is just get out of the way and let the natural forces have their impact. We’ll talk more about that in a future session.
These three items, these are things that if you put them in place it will help you separate the affair reality from the affair fantasy, and help you see the situation for what it is.
Rather than being caught up with this Hollywood manufactured fantasy about the affairs, about the lover, about how you think that they’re having fun. Which they’re probably not.
And you’re going to have to realize that. These are things that you can work on right now as you listen to the podcast. Because the more that you can deal with the reality of the situation as opposed to dealing with the fantasy, the closer you’re going to come to a very workable intervention.
Many times spouses come up with interventions, but they’re trying to intervene into the fantasy rather than the real situation. It’s almost like they’ve got the right solution but they’re solving the wrong problem.
That’s why it’s important to look at the reality of the affair. And the daily grind is definitely a big part of that.
Here at Affair Recovery Radio our goal is to help you through the affair situation one step at a time. The steps that I’ve presented today will help you make that transition, make that break, between the affair fantasy and the affair reality.
If you have enjoyed this podcast or found it helpful, I encourage you to leave feedback at the location where you listen to the podcast. If you want to, you can visit my blog site at www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com, leave your questions and comments there. I’ll be glad to respond to them either directly via email, or by means of a blog post, or by means of a podcast.
Because the more we understand about affairs and help each other through this, the more it benefits everyone.
For more ideas, check out the Affair Recovery Workshop.
Best Regards,
Jeff
