When we find out our spouse has been unfaithful, it feels as though all of the progress we’ve made together is thrown out the window. We become angry and resentful; we fight; we argue; we struggle to communicate.
Although you want to work things out after the affair, it scares each of you. The possibility of success scares you almost as much as the affair itself. I considered this no-win situation and recalled the same pattern with ABD’s.
One of the strange phenomena that I encountered while in graduate school was “ABD’s”. An “ABD” is someone who has done all the work needed for obtaining their doctoral degree except the dissertation.
What made “ABD’s” strange is that they completed all the work, yet stopped right before the final task. Many actually drop out of college at that point. It just blew my mind considering all the work they did only to drop out right before graduating.
I finally solved the mystery of ‘ABD’s’ when I learned about the ‘fear of success’. As odd as it sounds there are people who talk about success, yet actually fear it.
Failure may elicit either guilt or shame . Guilt results from doing something wrong, hurtful to others , while shame results from being wrong, hurting oneself. The difference between guilt and shame is that people feel guilty about their behaviors, whereas they feel ashamed of themselves .
Success scares them so much, they sabotage any chance of success in their life. For them, success brings fears. The fear of success shows up in the form of being scared that they will survive the affair. If they survive the affair, they no longer have an excuse for failing.
I’ve also seen this ‘fear of success’ in affair recovery. You may be one of those who fear having a successful marriage.
One of the hallmarks of this fear of success is the inability to receive. One sure way of keeping your marriage sick is the inability to receive.
That inability keeps your marriage in a sick place. It keeps the two of you in a state of unhealthy relationship. It keeps the fights and arguments going. In fact, you may find the two of you having the same fight over and over.
Affairs are another one of the ways some cheaters avoid successful marriages. Like the ABD’s, they do something that throws a monkey wrench in their relationships. They gravitate toward the unhealthy since healthy relationships scare them.
With unhealthy relationships, they feel more secure. This is especially true when the cheater comes from a dysfunctional family.
In the download “Affair Recovery Workshop”, I address what you can do in changing family patterns. Those old unhealthy patterns are impacting your marriage more than you realize.
Those old patterns and fears they create can be changed. In the workshop, I’ll guide you through the sequence you need in making those changes happen. Tackling the family patterns and fears they create in the wrong order makes the situation worse.
Going through affair recovery in the right sequence does make a difference in whether you make the situation better or worse. You may be sabotaging your own success.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
