With you are faced with an affair, you may find yourself asking “What is wrong with me?” This question is one of those ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ kind of question that looks for “WHO” to blame for the affair. There is the assumption that if you can find ‘who’ to blame for it, that it will make things better.
You and the cheater may even move on to the stage where like a game of hot potato, the two of you blame and point out ‘who’ the problem is. When this game is going on, it is easy to blame the lover, since they are often not there. It is no surprise that they often get the blame, when the two of you are playing the ‘blame game’ and the lover is not around. The person who is not around is easy to blame, and they do not fight back when they are blamed.
Some couples are more sophisticated in how they play the ‘blame game’. Instead of merely blaming the lover, they bring in a ‘neutral’ third party, often in the form of a therapist or pastor. They invite them by placing a call for help. Being in the helping profession the counselor or pastor often willingly accept the invitation only to find that the two of you do not want ‘help’ in the form of finding out what each of you needs to work on, and instead use the counselor or pastor as a referee or judge to decide who will be given the blame.
“What type of affair was it?”
When the blame game is taken to the counselor, the blame game continues, but this time with an audience. Each of you puts on their best performance in an attempt to blame the other. The counselor may even participate by addressing “what type of affair” it is. This is a tricky question, since it looks innocent and helpful. Although it looks helpful and may give some intellectual gratification, in many ways, it merely takes the blame game to another level. By identifying what kind of affair, it brings a laser focus to the blame and zeroes in on one party.
After the infamous “why?” question, I consider “What type of affair was it?”, the second most dangerous question you can ask.
The problem is that once you know what “kind of affair” it is, all you have managed to do is affix blame. It does not change your marriage, it does not improve intimacy, it does not change communication. It only gives you someone to blame and an explanation to go with it. If you were caught up in the “What is wrong with me?” question, finding out what kind of affair it is will give you a sense of relief. Whew! You discovered that nothing is wrong with you.
Discovering that nothing is wrong with you may give you relief, but the problems that led up to the affair have still not been resolved. Nothing has actually changed other than identifying who is to blame and having the ‘judge’ or authority figure officially pronounce one party as the ‘keeper of the blame’.
The information about what ‘kind of affair’ it was does not immediately bring the two of you closer. It does not improve communication. You may consider what the question does do. Knowing what kind of affair it was gives you a ‘plausible’ explanation. It gives you something that tickles your mind, yet does little to change the relationship or your emotions. It gives you someone to blame. It lets the other spouse off the hook. In giving relief to one of you and blaming the other, it sets the stage for a huge power imbalance.
Blaming often gives relief to one party, yet shuts down communication. It makes you think that you are moving ahead, when you are still not much further along the road to recovery than when you discovered the affair. Not much has changed other than one of you now has a target on their back.
Blaming is often a powerful drive. It creates an intense thirst that wants to be quenched. The intellectual stimulation provided by knowing who is at fault is often used to satisfy the blame, which it does. Blaming also shifts the power around in your marriage. Just by blaming, you give that person all the power and admit your own powerlessness.
The blaming also often leads to a lot of power games. Anything there is conflict, the blaming comes out and the power games begin. This is NOT intimacy. This is not working together. This is not improving your relationship.
Your marriage can survive the affair, but the answer does not lie in blaming. Instead the answer lies in changing how the two of you communicate. When you change how the two of you interact with each other, it changes the relationship. When you blame, it changes things, but not in a good way.
The most important question you can ask is “Will this bring healing?” If the statements you are making or questions you are asking including “What kind of affair was it?” do not bring healing, then you should think twice about asking them. When it comes time for help, you need to consider what will bring healing rather than who is to blame, or some other version of what is wrong with me.
Finding out who is to blame or what’s wrong with you often does not improve your marriage. Look for what will improve your marriage. In a healthy marriage, your spouse knows what is wrong with you and loves you anyway. They help you through those imperfections. Knowing how to love each other better and finding ways of building each other up is a better solution (like the S.P.R.I.G. principle I address in the Affair Recovery Workshop).
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
4 Responses
What can I do to get my husband back. I love him. I want to stay married to him and work on our marriage. He has moved in with her. He still says he loves me and comes home a lot. He says he loves her as well. We have had a lot of trauma in our 30 year marriage. Never between us. Mainly sickness, death, addictions, etc. in other family members. An old acquaintance friended him on facebook. She had been unhappy with her marriage for years. She had other affairs as well. It was my husbands choice to get involved but she was very persistent. She told him how horrible she was treated by her husband. My husband got sucked in and fell hard. Even when I found out a year ago and my husband told her he wanted to make our marriage work. She would not leave him alone. Adversity was still going on with our family. My husband kind of snapped and then moved in with her. She moved into an apartment after her husband found out. He says he doesn’t want a divorce. We still have our finances together. He basically makes more than 95% of our income. Please help. Any information will be useful. I will fight to keep him.
Dear TH
How sad I am that you are dealing with this.
Deception was spoken of by Jesus Christ more often than many of the other aspects of the last days …
We are in the very midst of such a time where deceiving is abounding.
It is in and out of the church.
I have learned as I pursued more understanding from scripture that God actually addressed MEN and gave them instruction in how to protect themselves and their wives from their OWN FLESHLY areas which were vulnerable to deceit .
Sexual lust is one area that is now encouraged and “fed” by the media ….
Generations have been encouraged to follow their fleshly appetites without
any concern or consideration of the fall out.
Character building has been cast aside for generations sadly.
Post modernism had replaced biblical doctrine based upon the scriptures.
Today many are following hirelings who discourage sound doctrine on the foundation of scripture.
I don’t know your background…faith-wise but it sounds like your desire is to restore your marriage.
Support for standing for marriage is found in sites like Rejoice Marriage Ministry as well as Jeff’s offerings here.
The predatory effort of this woman your husband is enamored with is of a spiritual nature which she mostly does not realize either…but she does KNOW what she is doing is sinful and wrong.
Her difficult marriage does not make what she is doing proper or right .
As they say “two wrongs don’t make a right’
It is not “LOVE” as they may claim.
Romans 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
Your husband needs deliverance by him first facing the idea that his choices were not based upon any ‘right’ since he gave up the ‘right’ to change partners when he VOWED before GOD to take upon himself the responsibility to marry.
As long as he is not willing to rein his life by the truth …to learn how to deal with his flesh…it may just be the dynamic that the LORD will work as you stay faithful and pray .
Prayer is not always consider the strong weapon against such situations but we should not underestimate the power of prayer , prayed according to the truth of scripture …and that is one dynamic distinction …we need to learn about what God tells us about prayer ….not someone else who may claim something about it.
We need to pray according to what GOD has recorded He is willing and able to do in keeping with His will.
I know your pain …it is severe and difficult …I know it is especially difficult after a lengthy lifetime with your husband.
He is deceived but you can leverage through prayer due to the fact that YOU are his spouse…GOD hath joined you together …upon your husband’s request to take upon himself responsibility for one of God’s women!
How can I say that ?
1Co 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
This is addressed to those who are born again and are believers in Jesus Christ.
Still …there are many aspects of our walk that will help you through this and will engage the man who is your one flesh spouse….for life.
I thank Jeff for the venue we have here to discuss and encourage one another.
May your heart be delivered from the pain that you know now and may your husband wake up to the inappropriate ‘squatting ‘ he is now engaged in another man’s territory and outside the boundaries of his own marriage.
Sowing in another man’s field yields bad fruit!
If he is dissatisfied with his own field maybe he should spend more time weeding and watering there!
Sowing loving care upon his own wife…let God take care of the woman who is only going to be actually HARMED as he is trespassing on her life…even if she doesn’t see it that way!
She is in danger as she is facilitating stealing too!
Not a good “deal” for anyone!
Zaza,
I like the comment, “Sowing in another man’s field yields bad fruit!”
Some of the best lines seem to arise out of adversity
Small compensation but every good thing still comes down from the Father of lights in whom there is no shadow of turning
May all turn to sow the wisdom of God at home rather than working overtime in the field of the world