Although you may publicly speak out against affairs, you may want to ask if you’re enabling a cheater. I realize that not every spouse enables cheating behavior. If you are taking the position that cheating is no longer tolerated, accepted or condoned, good for you.
Although some of you found the strength needed in taking such a stand, many of you struggle with doing so. In some cases, you may be enabling a cheater in ways you never imagined.
Enabling a cheater occurs along a continuum ranging from ‘turning a blind eye’ to full-blown enabling.
‘Turning a blind eye’ is when you allow joking about infidelity. You may not laugh at their jokes, yet by not speaking out, you allow the cheating mindset to begin creeping in. This often becomes a tricky situation, especially when they use humor. Although some of their stories and jokes are humorous, when you laugh at them, it gives the appearance of your approval.
The next stage is when affairs and infidelity moves from occasional toleration to acceptance. At this point, you consume infidelity as part of your entertainment. These days, Hollywood thrives on feeding you a steady diet of infidelity. They want you to accept and consume it.
Each new season often tests the limits of infidelity a little further. In consuming the infidelity message, you become a type of infidelity voyeur. The consumption desensitizes you to affairs. When you’ve had a steady diet of cheating, your emotions are trained to accept it.
What you may consider entertainment is training your emotions and mind. The actors are role modeling behavior. Like a fashion show, they are putting a new morality on display for you to take in. The more you consume, the less likely it will be that you’ll take a strong stand against infidelity. You begin loosing your moral compass.
As popular culture tests the moral limits, the line between entertainment and porn starts blurring. When porn is an acceptable form of entertainment, your ability to take a moral stand against cheating is impaired. When the lines blur, your enabling a cheater more that standing against their infidelity.
The next stage is when you or your spouse begin fantasizing about infidelity. It may come in the form of cos-play or fantasies. This is the danger of fantasy in the bedroom. When you cross the line of fantasizing about sleeping with someone else it opens the door to an affair.
When fantasy costumes enter the bedroom there’s also the danger of fetishism developing. This is when you or your spouse start getting turned on more by the costume or toys than by your spouse. The attachments formed to the fetish objects start redirecting desires and passions.
It’s not by accident that the swinger culture often includes ‘dressing up’. They know the power of fantasy and how dressing up can change the dynamics of things. When the excitement of dressing up is combined with sexuality, things can go sideways quickly.
When the dressing up turns the corner toward cross dressing, the risk of cheating increases dramatically. Am I saying that cross-dressing leads to cheating? No, not directly. What does happen is that the excitement of cross dressing is easily manipulated. When that excitement is directed toward cheating, it’s hard to control or stop.
There was a reason that Scriptures addressed the issue of cross dressing. Those old rules helped keep people from putting themselves in some strange situations.
When your passions are highly aroused, your at higher risk for sexually acting out on impulse. Your ability to say ‘no’ is compromised. It’s as if your headed downhill in a car with no brakes. There’s excitement, but little ability to stop.
These are just some of the ways, you may be enabling a cheater. Rather than enable them, you need to take steps at stopping the behavior.
Best Regards,
Jeff
