When you’re bogged down in the affair, you may have forgotten what ‘telling the truth’ is like. As bizarre as it sounds, when you are deep into an affair, you loose your bearings.
When you’re lost in the lies, it’s hard knowing what the ‘truth’ is. If you are among those who are lost in the lies, this post is for you.
The best place to start is with the facts. Identify the facts of what happened. Start with those. What happened? Who did it happen with? Where did it happen? When did it happen? Uncovering these items gives you a good starting place.
The worst place to start is with the “why”. If you start seeking the truth through the why answers, you’ll stay lost if not stuck for a while.
If you’ve gone through the Affair Recovery Workshop, you’d understand the dangers of ‘why’ questions. There are reasons for my avoiding those questions during the early part of recovery.
One of my hobbies is studying military history. With many battles, even those fought in previous centuries, researchers are still looking for answers to the “why” questions.
Historians search battlefields, diaries, archives and personal accounts looking for answers to the elusive ‘why’ questions. When researchers are still looking for the answers to such questions concerning the actions of people 150 or more years ago, it should tell you something.
One of the things it should tell you is that those ‘why’ answers are elusive and hard to find. When historians can’t find those answers centuries later, what makes you think that you can find such answers in a few days, weeks or months?
The motives and reasons behind actions are not immediate and forthcoming.
Learn lessons from the researchers. Start with the facts. Once you have the facts, you can start making connections. All the facts start making sense. Once you start discussing the facts with your spouse, the two of you will come up with ways of making sense out of the events. Like the old game of connect the dots, you start seeing what is behind the events.
Once you know the facts, you’ll begin understanding the motives. The unmet needs driving what happened will emerge. When it comes to the motives, there are many facets. Because these facets change and often reveal unconcious or hidden forces, they get people lost if they make this their starting point.
The multitude of facets is often what gets people lost. Rather than losing yourself in the motives, start telling the truth with the facts.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
Well I find facts somewhat difficult to obtain. As I have said here before. The cheater seems to hold on to “I don’t want to hurt you” Well its a bit too late! I have read your trading one hurt for another blog… well written! As to the WHY? That’s an easy answer. Because they could. Because they were entitled to. Because they wanted to. Yes there are many things in the past that may or may not have created a toxic environment. But I look at that as an excuse. To me, that means one person in the marriage was worse than the other…. mine forgets she became mom and only mom and I was shifted into the stability and a paycheck role. I do not claim perfection, but neither should they. As I always say, it comes down to morals and character! or the lack of.
David,
Morals and character definitely matter. You are right in stating ” it comes down to morals and character! or the lack of.”
The cheater often holds onto a fantasy that enables them to continue doing what they’re doing and covering it up. You rightly observed, “To me, that means one person in the marriage was worse than the other”. With this realization, what are you going to do? Will you help her as a weaker vessel? Will you reach out to her and pull her up? or will you continue maintaining the power imbalance? These are not easy questions to consider. She has forgotten she became a mom. What is your action plan in dealing with it?
She may not be claiming perfection, yet want a way to connect with you and balance out the imbalance. Overcoming the imbalance is often a tricky issue.