On Thursday morning a simple message came to me from a reader’s cell phone. It simply asked ” What if only one spouse is willing?”
In seven words, the reader said a lot. Her simple question echoes in the lives of many other readers. She asked what many of you are thinking.
I wrote back, “One spouse being willing to work on recovering from the affair is a good start. These days some spouses are too scared to take initiative or don’t know where to begin. They wait for the other to take the first step.
Your relationship, like a street, has two sides. Each side will need to be cleaned up.
Getting things better starts with at least cleaning your side of the street.”
I like the metaphor of a street needing cleaning. Each side is piled with its own trash and refuse. Passers by will complain about how bad it looks as the residents on each side put of cleaning anything up until the ‘other’ side starts first.
Neither sees the benefit of taking initiative and cleaning up their side first. There’s something about momentum that starts things happening.
One of the things I enjoyed about Paris is how the public works department cleans the streets just about every day. You even see conscientious shop owners cleaning their portion of the sidewalk every morning rather than waiting for someone else to do it.
It illustrates how in preparing for a new day, the importance of cleaning your side or portion of the street.
When it comes to recovering from affairs, it will take each of you. I also know that it starts with one of you taking initiative.
Someone has to take the lead and say “Let’s get some help!” or “Let’s talk and do something about this'”
Putting off getting help out of fears that one person is willing is still putting off getting help. Delayed help is no help.
Each day help is delayed is another day for unhealthy patterns to become habits. The longer the habits continue, the harder they will be to break.
Each day you avoid talking about the affair makes it easier to avoid talking about it the next day. Your marriage starts falling apart a little more each day, until it reaches a critical point where all the care is gone.
Blaming is always easier than taking responsibility and initiative.
You can start changing that by ordering the “Affair Recovery Workshop“. It only takes one of you to start making change for your relationship to start recovering.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
