One of the critiques I received from a customer included the phrase “I didn’t learn anything new.” The comment haunted me for a while.
Something is compelling me for a return to the “I didn’t learn anything new” comment. In thinking through the feedback, it struck me that the search for the ‘new and improved’ creates many problems.
Many of you are looking for something ‘new’ and improved in dealing with your relationship concerns. The new and improved ideas are flashier than doing relationship work. Someone is selling the next new thing. The problem is that when you go looking for ‘new and improved’, you don’t find it. You are always one level down from what’s really needed.
Rather than trusting ‘tried and true’ approaches, many want the ‘new and improved’. That search for the ‘new and improved’ is likely what contributed to the affair in the first place.
One of you grew tired of things and wanted something you thought was ‘new and improved’ in the form of an affair. Rather than looking for what led to dissatisfaction, boredom or lack of commitment, someone went looking for the new.
The search for new and improved combines both a creation of dissatisfaction along with instilling fantasies about what new things will bring. A new person was brought into your lives, but has it helped change things for the better?
Advertisers work at creating dissatisfaction. They want you to go for the ‘new and improved’. They know that keeping you dissatisfied translates into sales for them. In creating dissatisfaction, they also make you dissatisfied with your current routine life. The advertisers are selling you the idea that ‘new is better’, which works against your marriage.
They want you to equate new with effortless and easy.
Affairs as a whole are about the search for something new. The cheater wants new adventures, new excitement and new love. Rather than doing maintenance on your marriage and overcoming problems, they instead look for something new.
The ‘new and improved’ doesn’t work in a marriage. It’s about an illusion of what something new will achieve, rather than the reality of dealing with your differences.
A better approach would be to define what you want right now, while accepting that it might not be as great as fantasy.
The allure of anything new is appealing. Whether it’s a new car, new home, or new gadget. When something is new, you want to play with it. The initial excitement keeps you fascinated for a while.
When it comes to affairs, the ‘new’ is more about entertainment. The cheater enjoys being fascinated. They love the unknowing, not knowing what will happen next.
Once the cheater gets some of that excitement and fantasy out in an affair, they return to the marriage with a “been there done that” attitude. The ‘newness’ wasn’t that new after all.
The trouble is that the disease of ‘seeking the new’ is not limited to the cheater. It’s likely that both of you are infected with the disease of seeking after the new. You want some ‘new’ way of dealing with the cheater.
There’s merit in taking a new approach in terms of doing things different. Doing the same old thing often gives the same old results. You have some changes to make.
You’ll also need new ways of looking at your situation. Although the idea of instantly changing things, the reality is that even new insights require effort.
Your mind fights making those changes. That fighting is called ‘resistance’.
What makes dealing with affair trauma difficult is overcoming that resistance. The resistance is a natural phenomena that has to be overcome.
It takes work considering ‘What am I supposed to learn from this situation?’ It takes work transforming resentments into gratitude. It takes work changing attitudes.
Have you been through an affair?
The pain of the betrayal is overwhelming. You may feel like your world has come to a crashing halt and that there’s no way out. It’s hard to imagine how you can ever trust again or even love again. But it doesn’t have to be this way! There are ways for you and your spouse to heal together, restore intimacy, rebuild trust, and grow stronger than before.
We want to help you get past the affair crisis so that you can move on with life as a happy couple once more! This video training in the video “Getting Past the Affair Crisis” will guide you in the early days soon after discovering it. It guides you through the shock and adjustment while giving hope for what lies ahead if both spouses work together on their marriage.
Action: Click here now for immediate access!
Once you make those changes, that’s when you’ll see things in a new light and have a new attitude.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
