A listener wanted to know about ‘accepting the affair.’ The cheater may even ask you, “Why can’t you just accept it?” On the surface, such a question seems innocent.
Part of the problem is that head games are at work behind those questions. They’re asking a question on one level, yet hiding the real meaning on another.
Accepting The Affair <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you tuned in today. The podcast for today is going to be dealing with the topic of accepting the affair.
This was a topic that came to me from a listener, and this listener wanted to know about “accepting the affair.” This may seem like a strange topic, yet some of you will find yourself in this situation.
The cheater may even come up to you and ask “Why can’t you just accept it?”
“Why can’t you just accept it?”
On the surface, when they ask questions like that, there seems to be an innocent quality to it. Part of the problem is head games are at work behind those seemingly innocent questions.
They’re asking a question on one level, yet hiding the real meaning on another level. Because acceptance, when they use the word accept, they want you to receive what is going on and essentially give your approval to it along with you “understanding” it.
Words like acceptance and understanding double meanings, especially in the mind of a cheater. They may hit you with this whole idea of can’t you just accept it.
We’re going to be talking about that, what you can do in some situations.
Many times they’ll go ahead and do it and then hit you with this question that essentially forces you into making a choice, where just out of necessity you feel trapped. The information today will help you in dealing with that.
The solution is, “When confused say NO“. I’m going to be talking more about that.
1. Recognize that “accepting the affair” or however they put it, however nicely they package it, is a trap. Once you agree to “accept it” the cheater will change will change the meaning of what acceptance means.
On the surface it may be a matter of acknowledging that the affair is going on. They’re going “why can’t you just accept it?” In your mind you may say I can’t acknowledge that it’s happening, yet when you say that you accept that the affair is going on bear in mind you mean one thing on one level, and the cheater’s hearing something else on a whole different level.
They hear that you approve what’s going on. When on the surface the only thing that you’re acknowledging is that it’s happening. So realize “accepting the affair” is a trap.
2. Make sure you understand the affair before consenting to “accept it.” Cheaters often want you to accept their actions, when they don’t even understand them.
It’s almost like many times they just jump into a mess and they want you to accept them and accept their mess and clean up their mess, before they even understand how they got into the mess or what caused it.
Once you give them acceptance, it only eases their conscience
The thing is, once you give them acceptance, it only eases their conscience. When they get themselves in a bind that conscience and that guilt is your ally.
You want that tension to exist there, because that tension is what puts pressure on the cheater to start making changes. Once you “accept the affair” that takes a lot of the tension away. It takes away a lot of your bargaining power.
You’re going to have to realize that. Because with some cheaters, once you accept the affair, then you accept any affair that they have.
At least in their mind.
Keep in mind, they’re bending, twisting, and distorting all kinds of stuff and they’re only hearing what they want to hear. It’s almost like they want you to say the magic words “I accept,” and at that point “Oh wow, I’m in the clear, they approve”.
And you never meant to send the message that you approve of it. You just acknowledged that this is happening.
But bear in mind the cheater’s mind is a twisted world that you don’t want to get caught up in.
3. The cheater, when they say why can’t you just accept the affair, they are forcing their reality on you. And by forcing their reality on you they are trying to define the terms of what’s going on.
They want to decide the relationships. They want to realign their commitments. They want to be in the driver’s seat deciding what’s a good marriage, what’s a bad marriage, what’s worth working on, what’s not worth working on, what is acceptable behavior, what’s unacceptable behavior.
They want to define all the terms. They want to redefine what it means to be married. Redefine what commitment means and realign those.
When you choose to accept the affair you are accepting their reality that they have forced upon you. You didn’t choose to sleep with that person.
They chose to sleep with that person. And now, because they are supposedly in love in some case, they want you to accept that that new reality, which you didn’t create, they did. And many times they’ll play that game of getting you to “accept it.”
That validates their position. They feel fine and dandy. But that one little compromise oftentimes opens the door to other compromises. Part of those compromises are them wanting to define the terms in many aspects of your relationship. You don’t want to depend on that.
Because when you accept it, you lose your power, your lose your influence. And not just yours, but any kind of objective measure.
It’s going to make it harder for the counselor to make intervention or the pastor, whoever you go to, or even extended family members, if you’ve “accepted the affair.”
It’s not just taking away your power and influence in a relationship, it’s also weakening anyone else to be able to do interventions in that situation. Because they’ll feel like well, as a couple, we’ve come to this agreement that we accept the affair.
You don’t have to accept the affair!
You don’t have to accept the affair. You can fight it. And I encourage you to do so. But be aware of these word games that are often used with seemingly innocent terms like oh, why can’t you just accept the affair. There’s no acceptance about it.
If you need further help in dealing with the affair, the downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop” guides you through what you need. Rather than spend who knows how many sessions with a marriage counselor, you can receive the help you need from this download.
You can know what to bring up, how to open up communication, find ways of improving intimacy and more.
Best Regards,
Jeff
