Cleaning up after an affair is never a pleasant task. Bob found this to be very true in his life. He decided that he needed to stop his affairs. One of his early discoveries was that ending the affair was just the beginning.
Bob thought he was his own man. He soon discovered that his affairs had controlled more of his life than he previously thought.
Even after he ended them, there were still the cravings, the obsessive thinking and the emotional void. Many of the feelings that he was trying to avoid, he was now having to face.
Bob came to the realization that the affairs were controlling many parts of his daily life. He often wished he could just ‘flip the switch’ and turn off the thoughts and feelings. He discovered that if there ever was a switch, it was no longer working.
His first successes came when he made conscious choices that 1) the affairs were over and 2) that he was going to get past this. The initial struggle was between his mind and his body.
Although part of him wanted to get better, the other part wanted the excitement and thrill of the affairs. He found he often had to make daily choices as to which part of him would prevail.
After a few weeks, that first struggle settled down. Now he had to get the affairs out of his heart. Although he ended the affairs weeks ago, he still found himself aroused by thoughts of the affair or when he saw women that resembled his lover.
It surprised him how he was aroused without even thinking about it. It was as if a magnet was pulling him to those women.
At first it was the way they wore their hair and the color of their hair. He worked to say no to those urgings. He even found himself praying to ‘resist’ the urges. Then it was anytime he smelled the perfume she wore. He then had to say no to that urge.
After a while, it occurred to Bob that he had not yet learned to “hate” the affair. His friend, Max had told him that he needed to learn to hate the affair. At that time, he dismissed Max as a kook. Max’s words kept coming back to him and he realized Max may have actually known something.
When Bob started hating the affair instead romanticizing it, he found his struggle with the emotions started settling down. He even quit dreaming about the affairs and lovers.
Now after six months of struggle, he finally had some peace within himself. Max had told him months before, “Bob, you are deeper down the rabbit hole than you think”. Now Bob started understanding what Max said to him.
It is my hope that you learn some lessons from the struggles Bob went through. Instead of Bobbing around aimlessly in the aftermath of an affair, you can find direction and clean the emotions out of your heart. Bob still has some work to do in cleaning out his head.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
Good article….too bad those who engage in adultery seldom read this kind of material…..I wonder if the ‘struggle’ is something they take seriously or just fall back into it …that is without some kind of accountability and help of others who are committed to taking responsibility . I think many times it is a lack of understanding how damaging sin is …adultery or any other…it will grip the minds of those who do not realize the depth of damage to THEMSELVES .
Since those who commit adultery are SELF centered ….it seems to me they must come to experience or realize the reason God proclaimed sin as bad is because it damages those who do it …as well as others who experience the collateral damage.
May more come to know this truth …and many more read your offerings here.
Zaza,
Thank you for your comments. I often wish more of those who engage in adultery read the material here. Some take the struggle seriously, while others use the struggle as part of their “wooden leg” ploy. (A relationship game where those who play it fall back on ‘what do you expect of a person with a wooden leg?).
I think many cheaters and their families do not understand how damaging adultery is. They do not understand the long-term effect, how it changes their thinking, how it changes their heart, and how it changes their brain into a monstrosity. The changes and transformations are real. They also take much longer to undo than it takes to create them in the situations when they can be undone. Most of the time, the changes cannot be undone. They do not want to see the link between their adultery and their own pathologies/problems. They want to disconnect the cause from the effect.
Talking about it in terms of sin is definitely something that cheaters and their families do not want to do. When it is views as sin, adultery becomes a ‘moral’ or character issue. When you view adultery from that perspective, you no longer have the excuses, “I can’t help it!” or “Humans are not naturally monogamous!” or “I’m a man/woman and can’t help it!” . When they continue viewing sin as God keeping them from having “fun”, they miss the picture. This behavior was labelled as “Sin” because it is destructive and we can not handle all the emotional and spiritual elements of it. Adultery being labelled as sin is intended as a loving protection, not as a prohibition from fun. When cheaters view God as a kill-joy, they do not understand this. They are often unable to view him as loving. If they viewed him as “loving”, they would see the proclamation of adultery as sin from the perspective of being a protective measure rather than a prohibitive measure.