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Coping with an AffairCoping With an Affair We want to offer you our deepest regrets and we hope this writing adds understanding about your awkward situation. We wish you every encouragement as you both resolve this obstacle of coping with an affair before you. We will examine an affair by its chronology. Your understanding of the affair by its stages will give you the deep insight necessary for making the injured partner’s correct choices in the latter stages, if you are the injured partner. If you are the offending partner, the best action is of complete discovery now to your spouse. Seek within yourself the reasons you needed to have an affair. Please read this in its entirety and see things from your injured partner’s point of view. We seek your forgiveness, but we seek your emotional healing so you can deserve forgiveness, and that you both can save your marriage, and status within your community. We wish you both every prosperity and respect. You have worked hard on your relationship and we wish it saved and restored. We want to rejoice with you in its successful resolution afterwards. Properly coping with an affair can make your relationship stronger if you apply a lot of emotional work. The first stage is the setup stage. Here is where the offender recognizes an unmet emotional need within himself or herself, and they seek its supply in correct or incorrect choices. Coping with an affair means seeing clearly this setup stage and properly getting these needs met within the framework of the marriage. The offender may see the need as because of the partner, who by withholding affections would force him or her to seek affection elsewhere. This is where the wrong begins to happen. Withholding affection is not a justification for seeking an affair, for a proper response to that would be counseling, separation, or divorce. If the marriage is that badly damaged, divorce or separation is in order. The choice to have an affair will not strengthen a weakened marriage by supplying a need from outside for that which a partner should supply from within the marriage. An important point here is to determine within yourself if you are the injured partner, whether you caused the unmet need by withholding an understanding of some sort, or the offender, by not clarifying to you the partner what changes you need to make to meet their unmet needs. This does not justify their affair, but it makes your resolution stage choices easier to understand. The second stage is the acting out stage. This is where the offender grooms their outside girl or boyfriend to have a sexual relationship. This will come from relationships of convenience such as work, sports, church, or other civic club friendships. Moreover, in cases of predatory personalities, their partners can themselves be victims as they may be contacts such as their students or athletes whom they coach. Offenders may also include supervised employees and other relationships of tactical supremacy, as in the case of soldiers in their command, or prisoners under their control. The third stage the discovery stage. This is the stage where ‘all the chickens come home to roost’. This is the most painful stage for you as the hurt partner as you discover the infidelity. Most often, this happens by some slipup in the concealment of the offender. Such slipups include an unexplained charge on a bank statement, a missed day of work that had no explanation or a chance encounter out in public such as in a restaurant or store. Relationships based on deception can be long-lived, and can often go on for years. With relationships where the partner is a lesser person, as in the case of a student or athlete, the event may last only a few weeks or months. As the students move on and grow in status, the offender loses their superiority over their partner. In such cases as this, it may be some time later that the partner in the affair, often a victim themselves, may be the very source of discovery. They may seek justice for themselves as they visit the hurt partner and tell them of the indiscretions of the offender. With no long-term commonality, Coping with an affair means financial or legal consequences. An encouraging type of discovery would be the willing confession of the offender, for this type of discovery would be hardest not to forgive, and it gives the greatest promise of a fully restored marriage. Be careful of this type of discovery as authentic. Sometimes circumstances would force the offender to confess where you would discover their actions anyway, and they chose this way out to create a false sense of repentance. Whatever their motive, you must be the judge in weighing their fidelity and willingness to work through the missing needs in your marriage. In the absence of evidence otherwise, I would give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their confession authentic. The fourth stage is the resolution stage. This is where you, the injured partner truly weighs the acts of the offender and makes the final decision on a proper response. If you are very dependent upon the offender for your livelihood, as in the case of a stay at home spouse, you will have a harder decision to divorce, as you will have to replace the lost income of the offender. Coping with an affair for you would mean financial loss at least in the short term. Dependence should not mean helplessness, for God will provide you with a replacement companion or source of income if your heart cannot adequately accept such an indiscretion. Remember do not equate a choice to separate or divorce with unforgiveness. You can forgive the offender. However if you see no future in a relationship where you feel such indiscretions may happen again, you are under no moral obligation to continue in it. The offender took their turn and made the situation, and it is your turn now to accept, demand changes, or reject it as you see fit. Coping with an affair means a resolution of equity. The days ahead may be hard for you as you reflect on the seemingly endless possibilities you must consider. We would like to hear from you so that we may pray for you and your relationship.
For help with coping with an affair or any emotional abuse, self-esteem, and dealing with life’s problems in general, please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind, This is the ultimate book on your type of situation, because it deals with fixing relationships. In it, we take you through your spiritual journey back home to your Original Self. We talk about God's purpose behind that soul’s journey, as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We share much about boundaries. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch. If you understand your needs going into a relationship, you can get those needs met much more fully, and meet those of your loved one. Coping with an affair may mean learning you are not as helpless as you think. It is not a gender specific characteristic of either sex to be roaming around with others over the years. Do not let any partner try to sell you that bill of goods! Fidelity is a choice and spousal virtue is not rare. There is a loyal husband or wife out there for you, if you will tell yourself that you deserve one. We are excited that you are reaching out and seeking new insight here for a broader and more empowered life. Thank you for visiting us! God bless you in your search for answers for you and your loved one. Shayne and Lori North in Aurora, Colorado
Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind The Book
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