With harsh winter weather, I often cope by staying inside. One of the realizations I had after staying inside from the cold after binge-watching is awakening an awareness of how often programs promote infidelity. I’m hearing readers waking up to the reality that many shows glorify cheating and make the betrayer out to be someone who’s either looking for love or leaving an abusive situation.
This tendency is far-ranging, from hallmark movies to prime-time network television shows. In binging, viewers are seeing how blatant the promotion of infidelity is.
At one time, the media was expected to promote positive virtues and adhere to community standards of decency. Over time, they quit promoting virtue and wholesomeness. Instead they now promote what entertains or what you can’t stop looking at. Rather than promoting community standards, they are undermining them.
Things really changed when some know-it-all nanny figure in the federal government decided to stop enforcing federal obscenity laws in 1996. When no one is enforcing obscenity standards, what’s to stop the media companies from promoting infidelity and recreational sex?
The promotion of infidelity brings with it many deleterious effects. It normalizes affairs, numbs you out to cheating and removes accountability from the cheater. The insidious part is that all this has been working on your mind and emotions a little at a time. The media companies have been normalizing sexual behavior that in previous decades was considered aberrant with reckless abandon. In doing so, they are intentionally changing the standards of what is normal. They have not only done this with sexual behaviors, race and gender, they have also been normalizing infidelity.
Just because the television show or movie presents affairs as ‘normal’ doesn’t mean that they are. The media productions are designed for programming. It is intentionally changing your mind concerning the issue. It takes you from “that’s wrong!” to “I can understand their reason for cheating”.
Each episode or movie you tolerate and let into your mind chips away at your morals and soul. The more you consume, the more vulnerable you are.
To protect yourself from the damaging effects of media on infidelity, you must become conscious viewers. You can do this by being aware of what shows you watch and how it makes you feel. Be mindful to turn off or change channels when something unethical is being portrayed.
The danger isn’t limited to the days leading to the affair. When the programming continues during affair recovery, it opens the door to affair relapse.
Your marriage relationship has already been damaged. Weakening it, even more, is not in your best interest. One thing you can do is to counter the programming by verbally expressing how its sending the wrong message, or that its misleading.
When you counter the programming, you can start neutralizing it.
Another thing you can do is download the video on “Overcoming Affair Relapse”. It guides you through the high-risk situations that you may not have even considered. There are hidden dangers of affairs re-igniting in places you didn’t think about.
When you know the dangers, you can develop an affair relapse prevention plan that works. Click and download your copy today.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
I hope that this article has been helpful in bringing your awareness to the dangers of casually consuming programming which promotes infidelity. Understanding the power of the media on our minds and emotions is a great starting place to create an affair relapse prevention plan.
