When it comes to dealing with affairs, one of the sticky questions concerns responsibility versus victimhood. You may not have done anything wrong to bring the affair into your life. Even when you did not contribute to the affair, you are left with the choice of whether you will stay in the role of victim or begin making changes to heal your marriage.
In today’s society, it is often popular to be in the role of the victim. The problem with victimhood is that it can paralyze you. When the victim mindset takes over, it can leave you feeling stuck and immobilized. Part of the reason for this is that assuming the role of victim often brings a passive way of thinking. It can leave you emotionally frozen, where you anything that happens to consist of someone reaching out to you.
This is one of the problems associated with the ‘Affair Survival Mode’, it can leave you emotionally frozen and either unable or unwilling to take action. You did not choose what happened. The shock of the affair can transform your mind and emotions.
Although you did not choose what happened, in order to get out of your current state, you will need to make some conscious choices to change things.
Passivity is poison to your marriage, whether it is infecting the cheater, the resolute spouse or both of you. Whether or not either of you chose the affair to happen, the reality is that both of you will have to take steps to remake your marriage relationship.
When it comes to considering solutions to the the problem of affairs, it takes effort. Whether or not you contributed to the creation of the problem, finding your way out requires both of you taking action. Waiting to take action until your spouse does only delays healing.
Looking around for who to blame will eat up your time and emotional energy. Once the affair happens, who will take steps to turn things around. Who is going to make things better? The responsible person will ‘respond’ and take action, while the victim will play the victim card and opt out of any responsibility. The assumption is that they did not cause the problem, so it is not up to them to fix it. Although they may be correct, staying in that mindset becomes unhealthy. Mentally it gives you a way out, yet it also prevents you from taking any action to heal things.
I remember growing up, my best friend had a book of quotes and one of them concerned “response-ability” . It was “Being human is being response-able”. That quote often gave me inspiration to find the best response to many situations that I encountered, whether I caused them or not. I realized that as long as I could choose my response, I had some control over things and turning them around.
I found another quote by that same author, Fred Kofman. “Response-ability is not guilt. You are not responsible for your circumstances; you are response-able in the face of your circumstances.”
The author often addresses business issues. Business often involves dealing with market forces or situations that you did not create. Even though you did not create them, you have to deal with them. In a similar manner, you may not have created the affairs, but you do have to deal with them.
What are you going to do, stay a victim or take action? You have the choice of response-ability or victimhood.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
