There are times you’ll want to punish the cheater. They did you wrong and part of you wants them to pay for what they did.
They may deserve punishment. Your motivation and intentions may be good and honorable. If they were not motivated to do right before the punishment, you may want to re-think how punishment changes things.
Handling The Punishment Problem<<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you tuned in today for the podcast. The topic we’re going to be dealing with today is handling the punishment problem.
As you well know there are times that you will find yourself wanting to punish the cheater. They did you wrong, and part of you wants them to pay for what they did.
They may deserve punishment. They may deserve a lot of punishment.
Your motivation and intentions may be good and honorable in terms of the reason why you want to punish them and the type of punishment that you have in mind.
If they weren’t motivated to do the right thing before punishment, you may want to slow down and rethink this. If punishment didn’t change them, well, if the desire to do good did not stop them beforehand, how is punishment going to stop them now?
Who is punishment going to help?
Many times people think punishment is a be all and end all, and that’s going to fix things between you and them. Even in terms of behavioral scientists, especially the behaviorist, have recognized that punishment is not a very effective motivator of behavior.
I know in business circles, they talk about the carrot and the stick. That threat of punishment is often used. When it comes to marriage it doesn’t work very well. We’re going to be talking about that today. Because the solution is going to be think before you punish.
Punishment is a Pandora’s Box filled with uncertainties
The reason for this is that ‘punishment is a Pandora’s box filled with many uncertainties’. Once you head down the road of punishment you start to unleash many things in your marriage, that many times bring more negative outcomes than positive outcomes.
That’s part of the reason I wanted to validate. You may have very good reasons for wanting to punish them, you may be totally justified. But before you follow through with that punishment think through these things that I’m presenting today.
1. Punishment changes the relationship. When you punish your spouse the roles that you and the cheater are in change. They change radically.
Whereas before there may have been some mutuality and equality between the two of you as spouses, at the moment that you take on that punisher role you become a parent. And it pushes them, the cheater, into the role of a child.
And many times when you’re dealing with punishment and you’re dealing with roles of parent and child, child acts up, the parent punishes. Child resists, the parent wants to clamp down more and gets on a power trip.
You do not want this kind of dynamic happening in your marriage. Especially if your goal is to rebuild the marriage.
Because punishment changes the power dynamic. It’s no longer a relationship between two equals, because once you bring punishment in it becomes a power imbalance.
One person has the power and the other person is the victim. Setting up those dynamics typically causes more problems in the marriage than it helps.
2. Punishment gives permission. Now, let me explain this one. When you punish your spouse for the affair, for the lying, for whatever, many times in their mind they look at it as a consequence in terms of let me just pay the fine and get on with life.
Much like receiving traffic tickets they just want to pay the consequence and get on with life.
This whole idea that there’s punishment, they pay the tax, pay the fine, whatever you want to call it, it lets the cheater off the hook at that point. Because they’ve paid their dues.
They have legitimately been punished, the consequences have been taken care of, and all that’s over. And so if you punish them, and then the cheater says we have already dealt with it, that’s behind us, they’re right.
Because when you bring punishment in they have paid their price. You’re going to have to realize that.
Once you punish, that’s it. You lose your leverage. And you’re going to have to be aware of that.
3. Punishment stunts the development of their conscience. Part of what you may be seeking is for your spouse to make a turnaround in their behavior, for them to desire to do the right thing, and to do right by you. What happens, when you punish they no longer have to develop that sense of conscience within themselves.
They rely on external factors. They never have to develop things inside of them to let them know what is right and what is wrong, what the best way to treat you is, and what the wrong way to treat you is. That never has to develop because that’s been taken out of their hands.
One of the things that occurs when you don’t punish, it allows guilt and a guilty conscience to be at work to start bringing change in your spouse.
One of the things that’s hard for people to realize is that the emotional pain and the guilt are actually their friend.
You’re going to want the cheater to experience the guilt and experience some motivational pain because with many cheaters the only time that they’re going to make changes is when they are uncomfortable.
When you remove the pressure, in the form of punishment too soon, they never have to develop those inner qualities. It just doesn’t happen. It literally stunts their relationship growth, it stunts their emotional growth.
From the examples I gave you I think you can see that there are plenty of negatives associated with punishing your spouse. I hope you think about those things before you rush out there and let em have it and punish them.
It’s one thing to share with them and share your pain with them. It’s something totally different when you’re desiring to punish them. Because you don’t want to bring that dynamic in.
There are better ways of handling recovery than delivering consequences. The downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop” provides you with the tools you need for changing your marriage.
At a time the two of you need each other most is when the risk of punishing is greatest.
Best Regards,
Jeff
