When it comes to affairs, have you ever heard your spouse say ‘How could I be so stupid?’ By labeling the decision to have an affair or yield to temptation as stupid, they’re taking a shortcut.
This shortcut beats you to the punch of calling them names. In doing so, they avoid the admission of doing you wrong and weasel out of moral accountability.
It would be more accurate to say that they were morally weak in the moment or lacked willpower. But by calling it stupid, they get to avoid the feelings of shame and remorse. So if you ever hear your spouse call their affair or indiscretion ‘stupid,’ know that they are trying to dodge responsibility for their actions.
Their shortcut avoids responsibility. In calling their actions ‘stupid’, they are inviting you to play a game where responsibility is avoided.
They’ve intentionally not learned lessons about affairs and their consequences. Perhaps they thought they could beat the odds or that they could talk their way out of it.
Think about it. No word about being wrong. By taking the ‘stupid’ road, it implies if they were smarter, they wouldn’t be in the situation they’re in.
Being smarter isn’t the answer. Doing the right thing is the answer.
Some of you joined them in playing this game of going down the ‘stupid road’ without realizing what you were doing. They dodged a huge guilt bullet and you helped them avoid it.
They don’t want to face the truth about what they did or the decision-making involved. This way is much easier. The stupid road is the path of no resistance.
It requires no courage to stay on this path because it’s the easy way out. You can avoid all the feelings of being a bad person. You don’t have to own up to your actions. You can live in denial and justification.
Truth be told, their decision was foolish and ignorant. In cases where they knew what they were doing, it was foolish. When they didn’t know the consequences or what they were getting into, it was ignorance.
Ignorance is VERY different. Ignorance involves intentional denial about the affair and its consequences.
They may have even been willfully ignorant, which is very different than being stupid. They closed their eyes to any consequences.
Now that they’re caught, they tell you it was stupid or that beat themselves up with false shame claiming they made a ‘stupid mistake’.
By getting you to buy into the ‘stupid’ excuse, they want your support in avoiding responsibility.
They are inviting you to join them in dancing around responsibility. Accepting the stupid excuse is your invitation to their dance. I hope you don’t fall for it.
I understand how you don’t want to hurt, and want things to get better as fast as possible. Accepting their excuse of being ‘stupid’ gives some quick relief, yet dances around them accepting responsibility.
The stupid excuse get the cheater off the hook of responsibility. It allows them to avoid admitting that they knew what they were doing was wrong and they did it anyway.
It’s been my experience that cheaters do ‘know better’. Education is not their problem. If they need education, it’s needed in other areas.
When they play the ‘stupid’ card, you are faced with some choices. How will you react to the stupid card? Will you be able to see past what they are doing?
This is just one of the many games cheaters play in avoiding responsibility. I cover others in my video “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery”. Click and download the video today. Stop getting caught up in games cheaters play.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
