Have you ever been deluded? When there has been an affair, the chances are that you were deluded in some way at one time or another. The experience of being deluded is at first pleasant and then unpleasant. You may feel fine when in the midst of delusion, yet on finding out you were tricked, everything suddenly sours on you. Delusion is like a chain without an end and it can be difficult to get out of. Take for instance the wife who has fallen in love with another man; she may continue this love affair until her death, deluding herself that her lover does not have any other relationships apart from herself.
During my college years, one of my roommates was arguing with a girlfriend. Since his room was next to mine, their loud voices were barely muffled by the cheap walls. I recall him saying to her “Tell me what you want to hear, and I’ll tell it to you!” On hearing that, I thought to myself, ‘surely she’s not going to fall for that’. Well, I was wrong. She fell for it. She actually asked to be deluded.
That experience stayed with me over the years. It popped back into my mind when reading an interview with Jim Camp, who is a skilled negotiator. He talked about creating mindsets. Jim described how a good negotiator allows their target to get into a particular mindset, even if its’ a deluded one. The negotiator often just steers them along.
That young woman in my story didn’t need a negotiator’s help. She steered into the delusion on her own. My roommate just allowed her to believe what she wanted to believe.
Maintaining an affair often includes delusions. There is a choice about either being double-minded or allowing yourself to believe a delusion. The delusion choice is the more frequently chosen. When that choice is made repeatedly, it becomes an entrenched mindset. Undoing such a mindset takes some serious relationship overhaul work.
The married person may have a delusion that the other person loves them and there is no one else. If they were to question this delusional idea, it would destroy their happiness. So in order to maintain the delusion. They will continue the relationship until the day they die. It certainly makes being in an affair easier for them!
Even after the affair has ended, it takes time undoing the damage done to your marriage and your own thinking. It could be that you’re still under the influence of deluded thinking.
My newest video, “We Need to Talk: How to Rekindle Closeness and Bring Back Intimacy into your Marriage” guides you through what you need in undoing such mindsets and delusions.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
