Although you may not want to consider the possibility, there’s a good likelihood that addiction thinking is impacting you and your marriage. You may think that neither you or your spouse is an ‘addict’, yet the unhealthy thinking patterns associated with addiction are creating problems in your marriage.
The unhealthy addiction pattern I’m referring to is the’ inability to deal with free time’. This quality is present in drug addicts, sex addicts, television addicts, game addicts and more.
The inability to deal with free time is that quality that drives numerous bad choices. Those bad choices were their way of entertaining their brain. Their brain starts considering things just to be ‘turned on’.
The addiction switched into high gear when they continued making bad choices, even though they knew they weren’t good for them.
Recall that you are in a generation raised with electronic devices that demand your attention. When a child says “The tv made me watch it”, they are stating a simple truism. It’s not your child’s imagination running wild.
These days, it’s not just tv. There are cell phones, computers and more. The eSlavery I mentioned in a previous post is a very real threat.
The electronic devices have taken up so much of your free time, that now when you have free time you ask “now what do we do?“. When your mind doesn’t know what to do with unstructured or free time, it creates a mini-crisis.
The solution to that ‘mini-crisis’ is the affair. That crisis gives them an excuse to engage in the dark deeds in their mind. The more it goes against societal norms, the greater the stimulation.
Affairs happen when someone uses the adulterous relationship as a way of dealing with their free time crisis. The affair gave them stimulation and something to do.
After spending years stimulating and entertaining their mind, when the crisis hit, they made the choice of the affair. It provides stimulation and makes them feel ‘alive’.
In such cases, it’s not that your marriage relationship is boring, it’s that their brain wants stimulation and they are giving into those urges. The old saying was that idle hands are the devil’s workshop. These days, I view bored brains as the devil’s workshop, not idle hands.
This is an important area to consider in your affair relapse prevention plan. If you don’t have a plan or address this, you’re missing a mischievous root behind infidelity.
You can find out more in the video on Preventing Affair Relapse. The real culprit may not be what you thought it was.
There are things you can do that calm your brain down. There are action items you can take that keep your brain from dangerous thinking.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
