As much as I despise people being forced into affairs, it happens. Although it’s easy blaming the cheater for affairs, when facing forced affairs, the rules change.
What changes things is the use of force. When force is used for people to have their way, blame for an affair changes.
The first forced affair I dealt with concerned a 17-year old woman whose family had arranged a marriage for. My initial impression was, “This is Texas! It’s the 1980’s, not the Middle Ages!” Although the idea of arranged marriages has some Biblical precedents, the whole idea of a ‘forced’ marriage rubbed me wrong.
The whole idea of being made to sleep with someone or marry someone against your will rankles me. What made it worse was that a prominent pastor was meddling neck deep in the matter. This added dimensions of politics, religion and legal status all at cross purposes.
The whole idea of being made to sleep with someone or marry someone against your will rankles me. Forced sex upsets me. Typically, in such cases, there are other dimensions brought in as a way of adding additional pressure to ‘make someone do what they don’t want to do.’
To make a long story short, it took some creativity, but the girl ended up not being forced into matrimony at that time.
Now working exclusively with affairs, I didn’t expect encountering forced situations again, and was wrong. With some regularity, I encounter the situation.
In some cases, husbands ‘force’ their wives into having affairs. In these situations the hubby is doing it for his own pleasure.
One situation I encountered involved a husband who forcibly ‘shared’ his wife as a way of paying off his debts. His debts were forgiven, yet his wife carried the scar and shame of what happened.
In such cases, spouses resort to some variation of guilt or obedience. They may even resort to using religion, drugs, threats or the law as ways of pressuring their spouse into the affair.
I’ve encountered this dynamic with swingers more than I’d like. When threats are used in forcing you to sleep with someone, you are being forced.
At those times, their idea of ‘submission’ shares commonality with S&M.
There are also some swinger situations where one spouse ‘forces’ the other into things or where one of the other couples has a predatory mindset and forces themselves on a spouse without ‘permission’.
They don’t care about their spouse not wanting to do it, or resisting the idea. The one spouse uses direct or indirect force in the form of pressure to ‘make’ it happen.
Although the specifics of forced affairs may differ, the fact remains that some affairs are ‘forced’. When you are forced into a relationship against your will and choice, it’s a violent act. Anytime you are handled in a violent manner, it leaves scars.
Some of them heal on their own, others need special handling. If your situation has you experiencing sleeplessness, digestion problems, depressed mood, difficulty thinking, being indecisive, obsessing about the affair, nightmares or being easily confused, you may be experiencing some degree of Affair Trauma.
You mind may have blocked many things out, yet body memories remain long after your mind pushes unpleasant events further and further into dark recesses. You body remembers the violence done against it.
That’s why I put together the “Dealing with Affair Trauma” video. It gives you ways of using special handling in healing those old hurts along with uniting mind and body for healing rather than using one to block out the other.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
