A reader wrote wanting to know about “Mental Adultery.” When someone engages in ‘mental adultery’, it poses some challenges.
Although affairs happen in the head before happening in the bed, the mental adulterer hasn’t acted on their thoughts yet. When the affair is ‘all in their head‘, they haven’t actually engaged in adultery in a physical sense.
Some religious oriented readers consider mental adultery just as bad as physical adultery. I recall having a series of conversations with my cohort Rev. Larry Deutsch on this matter.
Larry was a stickler on the dangers of mental adultery. As a clinician I found myself explaining that until the behavior shows up, the options for treatment were limited.
I understand where they’re coming from, I also know there’s a fine line between when a tempting thought pops into your awareness and when you continue returning to the fantasy of an affair.
What is see as problematic is the continued returning to the fantasy of a mental affair. Each time there’s a rerun of that fantasy, it weakens their self-control a little more.
The more they engage in fantasy sex, their self-control is weakened bit by bit. The one fantasizing sees no danger in their destructive habit.
There’s a great deal of pornography that caters to nurturing such fantasies. The porn keeps those fantasies alive by keeping the parts of the brain involved ‘turned on.’
Over time, the emotional attachments start being impacted by the fantasies. When your spouse starts pulling away from you, there’s a problem.
For the betrayed spouse, dealing with mental adultery requires a different approach than how you handle physical adultery. Treating them the same is overkill.
Given the sensitivity involved in addressing fantasies requires your marriage having safety and well-developed communication in place. If those aren’t in place, confronting them leads to emotional upheavals.
Having the safe environment and cooperation are needed in order to address the fantasy, needs behind the need and developing a plan for dealing with it. Some spouses find addressing the needs threatening since it requires hearing out your spouse and listening objectively to what they’re telling you.
I encourage you to order the video “Let’s Talk: Hurting People and Healing Questions.” It deals with ways of improving the communication in your marriage.
You need some of the skills presented in the video for addressing the topic of mental adultery in a non-threatening manner. Any threatening gesturing or threats will trigger defensive reactions and shut communication down.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
