Archives for April 2010

Infidelity Q&A #11: What Type of Affair Is It?

April 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.

If you want to save your marriage, if you want to have a constructive relationship,
if you want to say something or do something that somehow, in some way will
influence the course of the affair, you must know what type of affair it is.

Otherwise, you’re just like a leaf blowing in the wind. You’re like a loose cannon
rattling on the deck. And what you say or what you do will probably cause more harm
than good.

One size does not fit all. You must know what type of affair you’re facing.

Affairs are different. Affairs have different lengths of duration. Affairs begin
because of different motives of your spouse.

The personality characteristics of your spouse will correlate directly with the type
of affair s/he is having.

When people read my e-book, “Break Free From the Affair”, and they go through the
personality characteristics of the person in a particular kind of affair, often
light bulbs go on and say, “Hey, this is him. This is her. This fits him. This fits
her perfectly.”

To influence the affair or to save your marriage, you must do or say something that
fits the type of affair and fits the personality characteristics of your cheating
spouse.

Let me give you a couple examples.

You respond to the affair, “I don’t want to say no,” much differently than to the
affair, “I need to prove my desirability”.

In “I don’t want to say no,” I encourage an aggressive get in his face or get in her
face strategy. In the “I need to prove my desirability,” a person is much more
passive.

You listen. You try to understand.

As you can see the strategies for these types of affairs are tremendously different.

I also have an affair called “I want to be close to someone but can’t stand intimacy.”

For that type of affair, I suggest using the tactic called “leaping your partner.”

However, if you use that tactic (leaping your partner) in the “I want to get back at
him or her” type of affair, your spouse will interpret your strategy as abandonment
and you’ll do more harm than good.

The resentment or the rage will just be intensified, and you don’t want that.

You must know the type of affair.

By knowing the type of affair that you’re facing, you can strategize and use
appropriate tactics that will have the most impact for the results you want.

Filed Under: Infidelity Help, Infidelity Q&A

Infidelity Q&A #10: What If S/He Continues Seeing the Other Person?

April 19, 2010 by 2 Comments

The underlying struggle with this question often centers around ambivalence.

A part of you wants the marriage, wants the relationship, and fears losing a
tremendous amount.

And yet there is another part that says, “I am tired of this. I don’t want this. I
don’t like the pain. I don’t want to be in a relationship where I am disregarded to
this degree. Why not end it?”

It sometimes is helpful to confront your cheating spouse with your ambivalence.

“You know there is a part of me that really wants to be with you and hopes that we
can have a family and can make it through this. And yet another part of me says I am
not going to live this way.”

And then you say, “At some point I am going to work through this and at some point
I am going to draw a line. I am not sure when. I am not sure what it is going to be
like but I know that I will not live like this forever.”

Those statements often give a sense of power.

And, you are speaking the truth.

When he continues or she continues to see the other person begin to shift your
focal point away from him or her.

A person who says, “What if he or she continues to see the other person?” often is
focusing on the cheating spouse.

Often the wounded spouse checks emails or buys spying equipment or gets on the
computer and tries to track down where he or she is.

The energy, the focal point, is trying to determine whether he or she is seeing the
other person.

I suggest you shift your focal point.

Ask the question (I know this is a really, really difficult question,) “Do I truly,
really in my heart want to be married to him or her?”

Spend a considerable amount of time asking that question and exploring that
question from all angles.

Don’t say, “Sure, I want to be with him or her because I love him.” Don’t use the
word love, dig under that.

What are your true reasons for wanting to be married to him or her?

I have some guided questions that will help you in my ebook, Break Free From the
Affair.

Do you really, truly want to be married to him or her?

That question will help clarify what is truly, truly important to you – what you
value and what your standards and boundaries are for your relationship.

If possible, state to your cheating spouse what you are discovering about,
answering that question.

Video: http://www.break-free-from-the-affair.com/blog/?s=continues+seeing+op

Filed Under: Infidelity Q&A

Infidelity Q&A #9: Will I Ever Be Able To Trust Again?

April 12, 2010 by Leave a Comment

One meaning behind this question is, Will I ever trust my cheating spouse again?
Will it ever be the same as it was before?

And the answer to that is no.

It will not be the same as it was before. And there probably always will be a part
of you that holds back to some degree, always remembers.

The trust has been tarnished.

But the trust can be reinstated, can be restored. However, it doesn’t happen easily.

It takes anywhere from three to eighteen months with both working individually and
together discussing, soul searching, examining at what you want from each other,
declaring yourselves, doing everything you need to feel ninety nine percent sure
that his or her words and actions are predictable and trustworthy.

So, yes you can trust again, although it is a long path and it probably is a path
that would be very difficult but well worth it.

You can move your relationship to new levels of intimacy and understanding even
though the trauma lurks in the background.

Another dimension of this question, Will I ever trust again?” is “Will I ever be
able to enter into a loving relationship?”

The underlying concern: “Will you ever be able to trust yourself again?”

You see you have been burned. You have lost your bearings and in ways you have lost
your ability to trust your intuition, your own instincts and you are saying can I
ever use those again to enter into a loving relationship?

Can I trust myself? Will I know what the flags are? Will I know when I am going to
get hurt again? These are very legitimate questions.

To address this question, begin thinking about the standards you have for a loving
relationship? What’s extremely important for you in a loving relationship?

Begin to define those standards very clearly.

Look at boundaries. What are the boundaries you need in your life to protect you?
And when you see a red flag and when you believe you are walking down that path
where you might get hurt, how do you set those boundaries to protect you?

And then the third thing I want you to do is to reflect on the signs of a healthy
relationship? What would it look like to be in a healthy relationship and what does
it look like to be in a non healthy relationship?

Reconfigure you. Redesign you with your standards front and center.
Knowing how to set boundaries and knowing what to look for in a healthy relationship
will enable able you to trust you and in trusting you, will be free to trust others.

Video: http://www.break-free-from-the-affair.com/blog/?s=trust+again%3F

Filed Under: Infidelity Help
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