Do “Accidental Affairs happen?” An accident is defined as a fall that occurs by chance. An affair is definitely a fall, so the real question is whether is was by chance.
I believe that some affairs do happen by chance, although the number of affairs claimed as by accident is suspiciously large. Accidents also don’t happen multiple times.
Dealing With Accidental Affairs<<– listen to the audio here
Hello, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you tuned in today. The program today focuses on dealing with the “Accidental Affair”.
You’ll probably have asked yourself, do accidental affairs really happen? Well, when you look at the definition of the word accident it is defined as a fall that occurs by chance.
An affair definitely is a fall, so it fits that part of the definition. So the real question is whether or not that fall occurred by chance.
In my own experience I’ve come to believe that some affairs do happen by chance, although the number of people that claim it was an accident is much larger than it really is. There’s more people claiming that they were accidents, as opposed to them really being accidents.
If we looked at all the people claiming that their affairs were by accident, it is suspiciously large. A huge number. Accidents also do not happen multiple times. A person can fall once, but if they slip up and they have the accident with the same lover again and again, that’s not an accident.
How do you deal with those accidental affairs?
The question comes up how do you deal with those accidental affairs? Well, the solution is “You need to determine whether it was an accident or accidentally on purpose”. When you find out whether or not it was a true accident or whether it was intentional, that will help you sort out what you’re dealing with. And that’s often the first hurdle that you have to overcome. So we’re going to look at what you can do there.
1. Look at the planning. Consider whether or not there was any kind of planning or preparation that occurred prior to the affair happening, or did it just happen to be a chance meeting?
In all likelihood if there was planning involved it was not an accident. Many times people that go out and pick someone up for a one night stand, when they walk out of the house that evening they know what they are planning on doing.
If the cheater had done any planning, then you know that it wasn’t an accident. By planning, this is going to include activity on the phone, setting up a meeting, activity on Facebook or other social media arranging for the two people to happen to be in the same town at the same time.
These types of things all constitute forms of planning (plotting).
Definitely there is a correlation between the amount of planning and the likelihood of accident. What I mean by that, when there’s a lot of planning you can rest assured that it was no accident. It’s an inverse relationship, but there is definitely a relationship.
2. Consider what role alcohol or drugs played. Although drugs and alcohol often go hand-in-hand with affairs, the more they’re involved the more the rules change. I mention that because there are episodes where, like in the case of xanax, rufeys or rohypnols, a person can be drugged or can have their drink spiked to where they don’t realize what’s going on. Drugs and alcohol take away a lot of the willpower.
So there are cases where accidents occur when you have drugs and alcohol.
In some cases the person made a foolish choice in drinking that much, or in partaking in the drugs. And that’s a whole nother matter.
The bottom line with this one, when you have an altered state of consciousness, be it through drugs or alcohol, it changes the whole sense of accountability.
You handle it one way if they were the one that chose to drink too much. You handle it another way if someone accidentally or intentionally drugged their drink or slipped things to them. You’re going to handle that in a whole different manner. That can help you determine whether or not it was an accidental affair or not.
3. Were they lying, lied to, or deceived? I mention this one because lies and trickery definitely change attribution. Attribution is the fancy way of saying where you put the blame.
When a person is lied to, or they assume that what the lover told them was the truth and they were acting in good faith, you’ve got to look at that differently than somebody who went out and intended to have an affair and they knew that what they were doing was wrong. And there was never any question.
There are many men and women out there that when they know that they are messing with someone who is married, there’s a hesitation. There are also people that are known to lie about their marital status and to lie to the person.
It’s not beyond them to lie. You know already in terms of dealing with the cheater what the likelihood of lying and cheating is.
You need to bear all these in mind when you’re determining whether or not the affair occurred by accident, or accidentally on purpose.
Once again, to review. Look at the planning, what role did alcohol and drugs play, and were they lying, lied to, or being deceived. All these factors are the important things to consider in determining whether it was truly an accident.
These three items you can put into place today as you’re listening to the podcast, and I encourage you to do so, to start you on the road to dealing with your affair recovery. We wish you the best in your affair recovery, and we’re here to help you one step at a time as you get through recovery from your spouse’s affair.
Best Regards,
Jeff
