Today, I’ll start off with a question about privacy. How you answer it has bearing on whether or not you are helping create the opportunities that make an affair possible.
Let me start off saying, the decision to have an affair was made by the cheater. The topic today deals more with relapse prevention.
In your soul searching you’ve likely wondered “Is there anything I could have done differently?”. You also want to know what you can do in reducing the possibility of an affair happening again.
Besides making the choice for an affair, the cheater also developed the attitude that goes with cheating and the opportunity to cheat. How you answer today’s question deals with removing those opportunities from your home.
First you need to remove any pornography from your home. It also helps in removing highly sensual material that serve as precursors to pornography as well. Removing those items is not always possible, yet reducing the risk is helpful.
The next area deals with the privacy question. That question is “Do you and your spouse allow each other unhindered access to your phones?”
Allowing unhindered access to the phones reduces the opportunity for an affair. When you phones are considered ‘private’ and access is limited or guarded, there are trust issues.
Demanding privacy sends the message that you don’t trust your spouse. It also sends that message that you’re likely doing things with your phone that questionable.
If you’re serious about affair recovery, allowing each other unhindered access to each other’s phones is a must. Anything less than unhindered access allows the old affair mindset room to begin creeping in again.
The right to privacy should have gone away with your marriage vows. The two should have become one. When the cheater considers privacy a right rather than a privilege, it’s a warning sign.smar
Any allowance for privacy was given up with the affair. At that point, the cheater’s selfishness showed that they can’t handle the privilege of privacy.
If you’re still allowing the cheater cell phone privacy, there are unresolved trust issues. In such cases, the cheater doesn’t trust you. It’s NOT about you distrusting them. They’ve already shown that they can’t handle trust.
You may not have viewed cell phone privacy issues this way before. Recovering from the affair means that thinking about privacy and phones need some changes.
In terms of the trust issues, your marriage needs the content in the video “How Can I Trust You Again?” The video deals with ways of rebuilding trust in your marriage again.
If you don’t believe me on the cell phone issues, think about how the affair began and was maintained in the first place. The attitude of demanding privacy, time, space, etc. were precursors to trouble then and they are symptoms of trust issues now.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
