Love has not much to do with infidelity or extramarital affairs. Infidelity and affairs have much to do with powerful personal needs over which the cheating spouse seemingly has little awareness or control.
So, a common theme for the cheating spouse is: “I won’t make any decision.” S/he tries to maintain a broken, fragmented world of secrecy and deception.
His/her sense of personal control and power may be so limited he waits for others to make decisions for him/her.
And so his/her spouse waits for him/her to decide or act decisively when s/he has little capacity to decide.
Here’s a case study:
The question: List 3 or 4 meanings that your partner’s affair has for you. That is to say, what impact is the infidelity having upon YOU? For example, how has is changed what you think about? how you spend your time? how you think of yourself? etc? Tell a story or give examples of how your life is now different.
Before my husband starting having the affair our marriage was already on rocky ground. He even let me know during one of our marriage counseling sessions that he was looking for someone else. Not soon after that he found someone else. I thought he would soon leave and that would be the end of that. But that was 7 months ago and he is still having the affair and has not left yet. He stays home some nights and with her some nights. This is all I think about. Is he coming home tonight or will he go over there. I feel like he has no respect for my feeling what so ever. I’m not sure how much more of this i can take, but every time I try to leave and go live somewhere else he makes all sorts of threats to me. I just don’t understand why he keeps coming home, why doesn’t he move in with her. Does that mean he still loves me or just doesn’t care enough about her to give me up?
Why should he leave.? He has the best of both worlds to live in. If he threatens you every time you try to leave…then tell him to leave. Stop this now-today!!!! Don’t you deserve to be Happy? Don’t you deserve someone that will appreciate/respect you? Yes and Yes !!!!! This man, if you can call him a man, is playing you both. And you hit it right on the button when you said he doesn’t respect you…he doesn’t. Why should he…you are letting this happen. Please listen to me…it’s time for us women and men who have cheating spouses to finally put an end to this nonsense. There is Greener Pasture on the other Side…trust me. After 23 years of marriage, and just going to divorce court this past wednesday, I know there is. So will you once you finally decide enough is enough. I wish you the Best and I will keep you in my Prayers.
Why doesn’t he/she leave? Because maybe one part of him/her knows what’s truly best for them. They too become attached, build an idea of the future that they are not ready to give up, or they truly do love you (in their imperfect way)… Maybe in their shattered lives you are the only true constant? Or just maybe they’ve become used to having you around making their lives so much easier. I do agree with the opinion that they can’t or don’t want to make a decision, they do not take responsibility for anything that is happening in their relationships. The relationships seem to have happened to them. It doesn’t mean that they do not feel guilty about it or that they didn’t wish that they weren’t in this mess. It all just wasn’t their decision. All that they wanted is feeling loved, admired and alive. They didn’t want to hurt us. My husband too has what you call- external locus of control. He really seems to love me, but he’s been destroying me and himself for a long time now. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants. I believe that he does know what he doesn’t want, though. He doesn’t want to lose me, he doesn’t want to commit himself to one woman (me or her), he also doesn’t want to lose the attention of the op(s). What I would like to ask is: is there any point in trying to help him out of this mess? Shouldn’t we just care for ourselves and move on with our lives and hope that the next person will not be broken? Statistics show that your chance of finding a partner who will never stray is rather limited. It also feels to me as though helping my spouse grow beyond this confusion will inadvertently keep my focus on him. I realize that most of us (the one who are being cheated on) claim that we were really living our lives for our relationships. Isn’t that a strange coincidence? If we would be able to help our confused spouses, how to do it? I understand the concept of charging neutral. But my feeling is that in the cases of spouses who don’t want to choose, empowerment would be the right thing to do. How about making them feel that they are worthy of a full life, of being able to make a true success of themselves, not having to hide and lie (that takes up a lot of energy I believe), and that they themselves are the masters of their destinies. The risk is that they might find that they don’t want to be with you after all and choose the other person. But then…isn’t that better to what we are going through now? I haven’t tried it yet, but as soon as I do I’ll let you know how it is going! :-)