Heading towards the end of the year, it’s a great time for stories. Although I’ve never been what I consider a ‘great storyteller’, the events in my life have shaped my views of relationships and ways of dealing with them.
Although I talk a lot about the danger of affairs, I know from experience how easily they can happen. I suppose that as a counselor, I am in one of those helping professions that are vulnerable to such things. I’ve had my share of close calls. They have taught me how easily they can happen.
One Friday night a female client came in for her first visit. I’d met her previously on a marketing call. At the time we met, I considered her attractive and experience a few unbecoming thoughts after that visit. When she came into the office, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
The issue that brought her in was her husband having an affair. In the back of my mind, I wondered ‘How could someone even think about having an affair with someone else when your are married to a woman like this?’ As the session continued, she expressed how she was experiencing emotional turmoil and pain.
Things came to a head when she proclaimed that she wanted to sleep with the next man she saw. The room grew silent for a moment. Part of me wanted to lock the doors and say, “here I am”.
At that moment, I realized how easily an affair could have happened. I could have been “Almost Persuaded” in a bad way. It was Friday night, there were no clients in the waiting room or other people in the building. There were curtains on the window and a big comfortable couch.
Part of me worried if she could sense the struggle going on inside of me in that brief moment.
I also realized that although I was the counselor, it would have been easy to make a poor choice. Many times the easiest choices are the poor ones. I can imagine how easy it is for doctors, teachers, pastors, or other helpers to make poor choices.
Being trained in dealing with both transference and counter-transference, along with my conscience reminding me of my values, that part of my brain that took off like a runaway train was promptly stopped.
I’ve heard the stories about how situations quickly spun out of control. Pastors wanting to comfort people who are emotionally upset. Teachers working closely with students and so forth. In many of these, there is not ‘almost persuasion’, they instead give into their urges.
In my situation, we managed talking through her concerns and frustrations. She learned some ways of dealing with her situation, I learned how easily someone can slip into a bad choice. I have a heart for cheaters as well as the betrayed.
My experience taught me the value of John Bradford’s saying, “There but for the grace of God,…” when it comes to poor choices and slips.
If you or your spouse continue struggling, they need prayer. They may also need some additional help in the form of the “Affair Relapse” webinar which goes into strategies and tools for overcoming those temptations of falling.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
