Have you ever noticed that there are some phrases used in softening bad news that end up making it worse. Anytime you hear “It was nothing personal” or “it was just business” you know there’s trouble ahead.
Typically on hearing those phrases, your mind hears the opposite of what is being said. Instead, you hear “This is personal!” and “it was MORE than just business.”
I don’t think its your mind can’t grasp what’s going on, but instead, your gut senses what’s really behind what happened.
Although these phrases are used in taking away any sense of personal attack, they instead make the bad news cold and heartless. In my mind, they are the icing on the whole cake of bad news. They make whatever happens cold and heartless.
A reader wrote me in the midst of heartbreaking news about her husband having a several month affair. In defending himself, he told her “it was just sex!”
With that comment he condemned himself and sent an emotional dagger into his wife’s heart. If sex, lying, deception and manipulation is ‘just sex’, it raises questions about many issues.
It leaves his wife questioning what her special relationship with him meant. I mean, how do you differentiate sex as a statement of love from ‘just sex?’
Is his wife just another place where he can deposit his sexual juices with little to no attachment? If not, how is his relationship with her special?
His comment shattered his wife and he is clueless as to what happened. He was so busy defending what he did, he didn’t see the damage it did.
If it was a matter that he was looking for some temporary sexual healing, then why use all the lying, deception and manipulation? His actions betrayed his true intentions. It was something worth protecting, hiding and covering up.
You don’t put that much effort hiding something that was meaningless. You only put out that kind of effort when hiding something that’s important for yourself.
When you’ve had enough of the ‘just sex’ excuses you will want to join the community at Restored Lifestyle. There you can share your story with others who understand what you’ve been through and what an insult “It was just sex” is.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
