Dr. Val FarmerDr.Val
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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

There Is No Excuse For An Affair

May 18, 2009

Want to ruin a perfectly good marriage and family? Who would consciously choose that? Not likely. Yet many well meaning people with good character put their marriages in jeopardy by having an affair. They put their marriage at risk by crossing over important boundaries meant to protect marriage.

Honorable people dishonor themselves and engage in lies, deceit and rank betrayal. Marital vows go by the wayside. Great trauma is inflicted upon the innocent spouse. Also, if great effort and humility isn’t put forth to repair the harm, innocent children and an innocent spouse suffer the maelstrom of divorce.

Unfortunately, our culture and our media are not helpful. Our consumer culture glamorizes and objectifies sex, reducing it to a physical act devoid of meaning and unrelated to commitment and family life. Sex is treated like a commodity. Sex is used to sells tickets and merchandise. If it doesn’t measure up to the hype, the fantasies and the unrealistic importance our culture puts on it, then we feel deprived.

Movies and television portray romance between unmarried partners and between extra-marital partners as love or the awkward beginnings of love. Romance isn’t love. Under the right circumstances it can lead to love. The romance of Hollywood is more about self-delusion, excitement, infatuation, and narcissistic fantasies – another bill of goods that doesn’t measure up to the emotional freight of happiness it is supposed to carry.

Love isn’t a feeling. Love is a behavior. Love is based on honor, respect, trust, deep sharing, friendship, and acts of love and consideration invested on a daily basis.

We are also lead to believe that infidelity is caused by imperfect marriages. Wrong! All marriages have their imperfections, moods, and rough spots. Lots of happily married partners have affairs and lots of unhappily married partners don’t. Marital problems are a rationalization for an affair. Marital problems are often convenient after-the-fact self-serving explanations or a selective revision of marital history used to justify one’s actions once an affair has begun.

People can address genuine marital unhappiness in a lot of other ways besides having an affair. Counseling. Personal change. Separation or even divorce. An affair becomes the biggest marital problem and immensely complicates finding solutions to pre-existing difficulties. An affair makes your marriage partner an outsider and breaks down intimacy at all levels.

Affairs are preventable. Here are some common sense guidelines for protecting your marriage from the heartbreak and trauma of an affair.

- You can be unfaithful without intercourse. An emotional affair can be just as devastating to a marriage as a physical one. People slide into affairs by getting to know someone too well, usually in the workplace. It starts with intimate conversation. You can love more than one person at a time, if you get to know them well enough.

- Be careful of "just friends." It is not just friends. At least not for long. Some of the elements of an affair

are secrecy, emotional intimacy and sexual attraction. Once you lie and hide the relationship, these are danger signals that important boundaries are being crossed. Share your friendships with your spouse present.

- Don’t discuss marriage problems with a sympathetic, receptive and caring person from the other gender. That kind of communication should be with same sex friends, relatives or within the safety of a professional counseling relationship. Many affairs get started as friends commiserate with each other. The emotional intimacy created by good listening is powerful and contrasts favorably against the negativity of the marriage.

- Watch out for old flames, especially first lovers. Don’t set up secret meetings. Invite your spouse along.

- The Internet is dangerous. It has the potential for intimacy, secrecy, and sexual banter/arousal. Beware of chat rooms. Show your spouse all your e-mails. Secrecy around any relationship gives it power.

- Be careful about relationships with opposite sex guests in the home. The home is a powerful, intimate setting. When coupled with intimate conversations, the opportunity for an affair increases.

- Attraction is normal. Flirting is dangerous. There are points in any marriage when you are vulnerable. Harmless flirting suddenly isn’t so harmless. Flirting creates fantasy and fantasy precedes an affair. It is dangerous to fantasize about real people in your life. Saying "yes" to an affair happens in the head before it happens in real life. There is a thought process that takes place before an affair. This is our protection. Pornography fuels marital dissatisfaction and infidelity.

- Watch who you choose for friends, colleagues, and role models. How do your associates handle their marriage vows? It becomes easier to rationalize your behavior when people you admire and enjoy being with are being unfaithful. The so-called innocent "boys night out" or "girls night out", especially with single or divorced friends, is a risky path to walk.

Having an affair depends on three elements: opportunity, pressure, and ability to rationalize. There will be opportunities. The pressures of life will occasionally make us vulnerable.

Our true protection lies in our values, loyalty, honesty and honor. Knowing who we are and what we stand for is our protection from being able to rationalize an affair. Our true protection lies in the vows and promises we make and our personal integrity to honor those vows, no matter what.

There is no excuse for an affair. None