Dealing with an affair when it happens is tough. Dealing with it years later still poses challenges. When the cheater has a series of affairs, there are even more challenges.
Each challenge has its own pain and struggles. Comparing one to the other doesn’t work since they are not the same. Although it’s tempting to lump one affair with another and just tabulate how many happen, the emotional pain doesn’t work that way.
A woman recently wrote to an advice columnist after her husband had children through a series of affairs. Her question was “Is he using me?”
The advice columnist sidestepped the question and referred her to therapy. Unlike the columnist, it’s obvious to me “Yes, he’s using you!” Although the answer to that question was obvious, what’s not so clear is what part she plays in being used. There are times you’re being used in a manipulative way. When it continues happening, you become a willing participant in being used.
My question to the ‘lost and confused’ woman is “What are you going to do about it?”
That’s the rub for each of you. Identifying what you’re going to do and then doing it is where the rubber meets the road. Things get real when you address the issues at that level.
If you need help to figure out what you’re going to do, get it. Find a therapist, join a support group or talk to someone who will understand and can offer guidance. It’s not easy dealing with an affair, whether it happens once or multiple times.
When you’re being used again and again, there are reasons for it. A pattern has been established and will continue until you interrupt that pattern. Knowing what patterns to look for and ways of interrupting them are what will make a difference.
Affairs are one of those behaviors that follow patterns, especially when they happen again and again. Those patterns can be so strong that they last for generations. That’s why there are times you need knowledge of family patterns as well as individual patterns.
In the downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop” you can learn ways of identifying those patterns along with ways of interrupting them. The way it has been doesn’t have to be the way things keep going. Change is possible.
You could be looking at patterns on a daily basis and not realize what you’re looking at. That’s where knowing about family patterns can help you in dealing with the affair situation.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
