There are some parts of the affair recovery journey you’ll walk alone. You can ask for the counsel and advice of others, which helps you see the situation from different perspectives.
I was reminded of this when a reader commented “my wife’s lying and swinging caused our divorce.”
Even after you hear your cheating spouse out regarding their version of the affair, you will be making some important decisions and living with the choices you make. One of those places where you make choices and walk alone is the choice of whether to work through things with your wife or divorce her.
Swinging is also problematic, although it may be alerting you to other concerns. Swinging is one of the symptoms associated with sexual addictive behaviors.
When your spouse starts lying to you, it makes it hard to know what to believe. Sorting through the challenge is what motivated me to write the article “Is it an affair or sexual addiction?” back in 2010.
Being unclear about what you’re dealing with leads to bad choices. You may be making a reasonable choice based on faulty or incomplete information.
I have many questions for the hurting husband leaving the comment about the cause of the divorce.
At one extreme, pride and ego lead some husbands to ditch their wife when such an event happens. They consider her damaged goods and aren’t willing to work through the issues.
At the other extreme, some husbands allow their wife to have an affair without confronting it. They assume it’s OK and wait for things to blow over.
It seems the great majority of men choose to work on their marriage with a betrayed wife who cheated.
I know that each of you has limitations on how far you can go in salvaging your marriage. I wonder if his wife suffered from sexual addiction.
There’s just something about the way he phrased it that left me feeling like the lying and swinging were his excuse for divorcing her rather than her initiating a divorce so that she could continue living that kind of life.
When your spouse has a sexual addiction, it tests your commitment to your marriage. Sexual addictions aren’t fun. Dealing with an addicted spouse takes you way outside of your comfort zone.
You’re forced into facing to hurt and anger with a frankness you never imagined discussing that way before. Addiction also puts you into a place where you need the support and help of others in dealing with it. When the addiction is sexual, there is the specter of shame that complicates matters.
This is where the video “Forgiveness: Stop the Pain, Tear down the walls and remove the Roadblocks” comes in. It provides you guidance by walking you through the forgiveness process. I encourage you to download it and start making changes.
Forgiveness isn’t excusing what they’ve done. It’s not giving them a free pass. If that’s what your idea of forgiveness is, then you’ll definitely benefit from downloading the video.
Sexual addictions don’t mean that your situation is beyond hope or beyond healing.
Admitting that there’s a problem and seeking help for it gets you started.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
