On a recent Saturday morning store adventure with my wife, we visited Bed, Bath and Beyond. Visits there often amaze me with the latest gadgetry and products.
My reactions range from “How Neat!” to “WHO would use something like that?”
One gadget that caught my attention was a sleeping sack. It functions like a sleeping bag for when you are in hotel beds. By sleeping in the sack, you avoid unpleasant experiences and bodily contact with the hotel bed.
The experience brought to mind the issue of long-term affairs. In a similar way, cheaters want all the comforts that come with a stable squeeze while not exposing themselves to those unpleasant experiences that come with committing to a relationship. They run away from bills, responsibilities, and staying monogamous.
Like the sleep sack, they want the comfort of the bed, but not the everyday exposure to the everyday germs and unpleasantries. The longer they stay in the affair, the greater the risks they and you are exposed to. Like sleeping in diseased and dirty hotel beds, the longer they do it, the sicker they become.
Relationships are always moving. They are always dynamic. You are either growing closer each day or further apart each day. With a long term affair, you are trying to “keep the puppy in the box” as one woman put it.
You’re attempting keeping a relationship under control that wants to grow. You are restraining something that doesn’t like being restrained. It’s an unnatural relationship with unnatural expectations.
A puppy kept in a box becomes freakish in its growth. It’s unnatural and stunting. An affair relationship forced to stay inside constraints is an equally freakish event.
The long-term affair relationship by default has to be sick and dysfunctional. It’s purposely kept stunted and deformed from being a ‘relationship’.
The cheater may find it exciting, but that doesn’t keep it from being sick. Neither party is allowed growth and the betrayed spouse is kept surrounded by secrets or deceptions. The dysfunction of the affair spreads into your marriage.
Over time, the freakishness spreads into every family relationship. You may not see it, since you’ve grown accustomed to it. Being used to things being that way does not make them healthy or functional. Like a disease infested hotel bed, you may be used to sleeping on them, but it doesn’t make them healthy or good for you.
Both the affair relationship and the marriage are made sick with long term affairs. No one is allowed to become healthy and have functional relationships. There are no sleep sacks that protect you from the dangers that long term affairs bring.
If your marriage has been sickened by a long-term affair, it needs help. Both of you need help in forming functional and healthy relationships. The Affair Recovery Workshop provides the tools you need to get your marriage healthy again,
Best Regards,
Jeff
