“In the aftermath of an affair you’re overloaded with questions. You question God, yourself, and your spouse. You may even be questioning your own sanity.
Everything you thought you knew is now a mirage. You don’t know whether to trust or not.
At this point you know you have questions, yet aren’t sure what you are looking for. When you don’t know what you’re looking for, an answer could be in front of you, but you don’t realize it’s there.”
What are you looking for? <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here today. The radio show today is going to be a little bit different from my regular format. Because in terms of the question and answer, it didn’t quite work out that way.
The question we’re going to be looking at today: “What are you looking for?” This may seem like a question that you say,’Where’s he coming from with that?’, but the thing is, after an affair, in the aftermath of it, you’re overloaded with questions. You may feel like there was a special discount sale on questions, because there’s so many and you’re so stocked up on them.
You find yourself questioning God, questioning yourself, questioning your spouse. You may even find yourself questioning your own sanity at times, wondering am I going crazy with all this stuff.
You’ve been thrown into a whole new world, without any kind of owner’s manual. You’re just thrown into the situation and nobody there to tell you what to do.
Everything that you thought you knew, you realize, was actually a mirage. It’s like everything that was solid is not really that solid anymore. You don’t know whether to trust things or not.
You don’t know who to trust and who not.
You don’t even know if you can trust your own feelings.
At this point you know you have questions, but you’re not sure what you’re looking for. When you don’t know what you’re looking for, an answer could be in front of you but you don’t realize what it is because you’re not clear what you’re looking for.
That’s why I posed a question today, “What are you looking for?”
This is designed to help you sort through that questioning period, to get it clear in your head what it is that you’re really looking for.
The answer’s going to be: Get things in focus.
It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we have things in focus. In the aftermath of an affair everything’s fuzzy. All these answers that I’m fixing to share with you revolve around what it takes to get things in focus.
1. Write out your question.
Once you have written them down you can start looking for patterns. When you have that whole list of questions you can see, are all the questions about my spouse, are they all about me, are they all about whatever. That’s going to give you a clue.
Look for common subjects, common themes, any kind of pattern there. Are they all what questions, are they all why questions, are they all how questions. This can give you some more indicators.
2. Look at your question from different perspectives.
Many times when you look at a situation and come at it from a different perspective, or even ask a different question, or entertain a different mindset, you can come up with new solutions.
I think this is one reason why the campaign several years ago with the WWJD, or What Would Jesus Do, was so effective. When you put people in a position where they are looking at their situation from a whole different perspective they come up with different solutions.
You could approach this, what would “fill in the blank” do, how would they handle it. I’m sure that you have some heroes or heroines in your life, people you look up to, think about how those people would handle situations like yours. That oftentimes can give you some new perspectives and new ideas, and new inklings.
3. If you must ask why . . .
(I hate “why” questions!). I discourage people from using them because the why questions often get people stuck in the past and they start looking for who to blame. But I know some people just can’t get past the why questions.
If you’re one of those people, consider “The five why principle”. In the five why principle you ask yourself the why question on whatever topic it is five times.
For example, why did my husband have an affair. Why did he have an affair with that person. Why that person at that time. Essentially just look at the whys and try to drill down.
Like with question one, what was the why behind it, question two what was the why behind it, question three what was the why behind the previous question. You drill down.
That’s about the only time that why questions lead you somewhere. When you can drill down at least five levels through all of the confusion, then you have something solid.
When you have to start drilling down, you get out of the fluffy aspect of ‘why’ that gets you stuck in the past.
These are three tools that I have found helpful in assisting people in regaining their focus. Because you will need focus as you go through that time.
So in response to , “What are you looking for?”, the answer is, ‘you’ve got to get things in focus’. Once you get them in focus, it what you’re looking for becomes clearer. I gave you three ways of gaining better focus.
These steps will help you right now. You can sit down in your living room and start to work on this right away. You don’t have to have the cheater there with you, you can start to work on these right away.
Because here at Affair Recovery Radio my goal is to help you through affair recovery one step at a time. And that’s what we’re here to do.
If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions for future topics, feel free to leave your comments here at the site where you listen to the radio show, or go to www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com, go to the blog there, and leave your questions there. I’ll be glad to respond to them.
Best Regards,
Jeff
PS-In the ebook, “Why wasn’t I Enough?” I deal with the most frequently asked questions regarding affairs. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, the questions others ask guide you in your search. Knowing those areas with questions will help you with yours.
