Infidelity and Place of Family and Friends

July 18, 2009 by Leave a Comment

In my e-course I suggest leaving family and friends out of the equation when facing infidelity.

Now, some families and friends can handle such a crisis in the marriage of someone close to them, but I believe that is rare. Side-taking and knee jerk advice to protect a person from hurt and pain is often the first response. And, this response is not helpful.

Here are 3 case studies of those recovering from infidelity:

1. How has this E-course helped you change the way you feel, think and act as you face infidelity. Give examples, if you can.

I read the part about not getting family and friends involved over and over to keep me from calling my friends and just dumping on them. I am so grateful, now, because they are not angry at him and I am able to re-establish his ties with friends and relatives now that he’s ready to come back into the circle. I also put all my books away and stopped asking him to understand how I “feel” and expecting him to read things that explained affairs and how they damaged marriages.

the first time I subscribed to the E-course I could not take in much of the information. I believe I was too traumatized. I actually had “monkey chatter” or “white noise” in my brain. It was extremely painful. Now, many months later, I re subscribed for the E-course, and it was like seeing the info for the first time. I wish, wish, wish, I could have had some get right in my face a full year ago, and tell me the info in this course… and I wish wish wish, I could have heard it. I do not know if my marriage would be saved or not. But now… I feel I am at the nearly too late point, with a husband who is only considering divorce, divorce, divorce. I feel hurt by his actions. And yet, I know it is not me. FINALLY I understand this, thanks in part to your work, and the fine people on the infidelity chat board you host.

It help keep my marriage together.Especially the part not to get family and friends involved No one knows except my brother and he found out six months after I did.No one else and I am so thankful..your site and book saved me.It was the best book that I could relate to and the best part was when it is not my fault but issues my spouse had and was going through.

Filed Under: Recovery From Infidelity Tagged With: ,

Infidelity: How Children Know

July 18, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Does how you learn about your family member’s infidelity really matter? – it depends…

Researchers have found important links between the way you discover the information of your partner’s infidelity and relational outcomes – but these same findings are not consistent for a child’s discovery of his or her parent’s infidelity. In my study on children’s discovery methods, I found that children often learned the information of their parent’s infidelity in one of five ways:

• From the parent who engaged in infidelity,
• From a family member (i.e., not the parent who engaged in infidelity),
• From a third party (i.e., a non-family member),
• Explicitly (i.e., During a one-time event in which the child found or overheard something they were not supposed to find or hear that let them know, without a doubt, that infidelity was occurring or had occurred), or
•Incrementally (They had an intuition or suspicion and saw or heard information over a long period of time which they were not intended to hear or see that led them to know this occurred).

When comparing each group of individuals to each other (discovery from the parent vs. incrementally, as so on…) no broad trends emerged. Otherwise said, there was not one group which reported significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their parent than another.

So, how can you use this information?

1) If you have not discussed your infidelity or your partner’s infidelity with your child, do not assume that they are unaware that these events occurred. Children often know much more about their parents’ relationship than for which they are given credit.
2) If you choose not to bring up this topic with your child, be prepared for them to come to you and ask questions. Although this conversation may never take place, you should think about what you are going to say beforehand.

This information was contributed by Allison R. Thorson. For more information, feel free to contact her at athorson@bigred.unl.edu

Thorson, A. R. (2008, November). The Influence of Discovery Method on Relational Outcomes: A Study of Parental Infidelity. Top student paper to be presented to the Interpersonal Communication Division at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, San Diego, CA.

Filed Under: Infidelity Help Tagged With: , , , , , ,