The scream of a frog is not something you easily forget. That distressed sound grabs your attention. When you hear it, you look around.
I was reminded of this the other day when my son was suddenly startled by the scream of a frog. He began looking for the source of the sound, knowing that some animal was panicked.
He soon saw the source. A frog that had been frequenting our fountain was caught in the mouth of a snake. At that time, the snake only had the frog by his leg. Although frogs in a pot don’t scream, those caught by snakes do.
The frog struggled with all his might to break free. We even intervened in an effort to free the frog. The scream of a frog added a sense of desperation to the situation. Our efforts were vain, as the snake took his victim away and the repeated scream of a frog faded. Each time they became fainter and fainter.
The incident reminds me of many marriages where getting help in dealing with a dangerous affair is delayed until too late. They wait until the lover has the cheater in their jaws.
If you’re the cheater, you’ll want to take action when you see the danger. Waiting until the affair bites you will be too late. You can scream for help, yet it may be too late.
Assuming “I can handle this” is often the last words of someone about to be taken down. Affairs will always take you deeper and further than you ever intended to go.
You’ll also discover that you are much further away from your spouse than you think you are. Take how far you think you are from your spouse and double it. That is a more accurate measure than your assumptions.
Experienced lovers, like an experienced snake refuse letting go. No amount of screaming, crying or drama convinces them of releasing their catch.
You may find yourself feeling helpless as the lover captures and overwhelms the cheater. The cries of “I want help” and “I’ll change” ring out. They pull on your heart strings. You want to help but feel powerless to change anything.
Lovers may use pregnancy, blackmail, or just plain sex as ways of trapping the cheater. Once they get a grip, they don’t let go easily. They managed distracting the cheater and got a hook in them.
When situations like this happen, it can leave you feeling powerless and helpless. Doing nothing only gives the predator lover time to dig in deeper. The longer the delay, they further along they take the all-consuming affair.
The time for action is when you see the danger. The affair danger is always worse than you assume. Taking action when you first suspect it is the time you have the greatest chance of survival.
Rather than waiting for the predator to take in all of your spouse, perhaps you could learn the lesson from the frog before he screams. By the time the scream of the frog is heard or the cheater screams for help, it is often way late.
Tools like the Affair Recovery Workshop can turn your marriage around. Rather than having the double challenge of extricating from the affair and repairing your marriage, you can instead focus all your efforts on your repairing your marriage.
The communication exercises along with intimacy building can turn things around before they get really bad. Making your relationship better is the best affair insurance policy you can buy.
Best Regards,
Jeff
