In a previous post I talked about ‘why’ you didn’t see the affair coming. The answer to that question needs some further discussion.
Let me start with a simple, yet insightful truth. That truth is that you’ll find what you’re looking for. The Bible touches on this principle in the phrase “Seek and ye shall find…”
If you are looking for answers about the affair by questioning or blaming yourself, that’s where you’ll start finding answers. They may not be the truth, yet it will give a possible explanation.
Those answers may give you someone to blame and incidents to attribute to the affair, but those answers may not be the truth. An explanation isn’t the same thing as the truth.
In other words, you can’t find the truth by looking for an blaming yourself.
Confusing explanations and convenient facts will point you in the direction of wrong solutions. In those cases, you’ll start fixing the wrong problem.
When it comes to affair recovery, blaming yourself for not seeing it coming isn’t the best solution. It gives you someone to blame, but doesn’t hold the cheater accountable for their choices.
Fixing blame and playing the blame game is counterproductive to real healing. As long as you keep looking for answers in terms of self blame, you’ll keep finding them.
The first step in affair recovery is accepting responsibility and then holding the cheater responsible. Blaming yourself shifts that responsibility away from the cheater where it belongs.
They made choices to step outside of your marriage. Even if you did make bad decisions prior to the affair, they ultimately made the decision to have the affair.
Putting blame in the wrong place only shifts guilt around. Blame doesn’t provide lasting solutions to your affair situation.
If you truly want healing and answers, look for them in truth. Don’t look for answers by playing the blame game.
Uncovering the truth and holding your cheater accountable is what will bring real accountability and lasting solutions to your marriage or relationship.
In affair recovery, how you handle guilt is important. If you short-circuit or diminish it before its work is done, you limit what it can accomplish.
During the recovery process, guilt is your friend. Guilt and conviction put pressure on the cheater to change their ways. This is why you don’t want to point blame and guilt in the wrong direction.
Blaming yourself also keeps your focus from where it needs to be. It gives you the illusion of control to where you think you are doing something, when not much has actually changed.
What is clear is that changes are needed in your marriage. Changes in the relationship, in how the cheater does things and how you do things. When your focus is misplaced, the changes you make will be misplaced as well.
In my video on Overcoming the Affair Crisis, I share with you what areas need changing in the early days of affair recovery. Even if it’s been a while since you discovered the affair, you’ll benefit from knowing where to make changes.
Changes in the right areas lead to healing. Click and download your copy today.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
