Some things just go together. Whether it be peas and carrots or peanut butter and jelly. When things go together like that it’s hard considering one without the other.
When it comes to affairs, the connection between infidelity and selfishness is clear. Had the cheater considered your needs, the affair likely wouldn’t have happened.
Selfishness is often what drives people to cheat, as they are only thinking about their own needs and desires. This can be a need for attention, physical intimacy, or simply a desire to feel alive and exciting again. Whatever the reason, cheaters are almost always driven by selfishness.
Although the connection between selfishness and infidelity is clear, I want you to consider that relationship in terms of which came first. Did the affair or the selfishness come first?
Although one answer is obvious, before you blurt it out, think about this situation over the long term. Does selfishness lead to more affairs or do affairs lead to more selfishness OR do selfishness and affairs feed into each other creating more of both?
The longer I work with affairs, the more I see selfishness and infidelity feeding into each other. No matter which came first (in my mind, it’s the selfishness), once one of them happens it reinforces the other. The cheater becomes more selfish because they are getting their needs met outside the relationship and the person who has been cheated on often becomes more selfish as they focus on themselves and their own needs in order to heal.
This is worth considering in recovering from the affair. Intervention is needed in stopping the affair AND in stopping the selfishness. Just stopping them only interrupts the cycle.
Recovering from the affair requires the selfishness be replaced by love for you and others even when it requires self-sacrifice. There has to be less selfishness and more of the giving kind of love rather than the taking kind of love.
It’s important that the affair stop. It’s also important that the cheater focus on investing in and rebuilding their relationship to you. They need a new commitment to your marriage.
Their loyalty needs to shift from themselves to your marriage.
I bring this to your attention because if all you do is stop the affair, you’ve only bought yourself some time. That is only the start of the process of recovering from the affair.
Undoing the selfishness is better, yet is still only a start. Recovery needs a renewal of intimacy, commitment and making changes in your relationship and in the relationship each of you have with your family of origins, along with a strong affair relapse plan.
If your recovery plan doesn’t have all these items, it needs to. In the Affair Recovery Workshop, I guide you through what you need in turning your marriage around, rekindling intimacy and going that extra step of dealing with extended family and the affair.
Click and download your copy of the important material. Leaving the problem half-solved or only dealing with symptoms leaves your wounds wide open.
Take action now and heal your marriage.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
