After The Affair
Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

·         An affair does not happen in a vacuum.  Some may say, “Look, I don’t really know why I did it, but let’s not psychoanalyze it all. It just happened, okay?”  Such a thought represents a lack of introspection and an attempt to sweep the incident under the rug as quickly as possible.

·         When a spouse becomes involved in an affair, it can be a pivotal event in that person’s life.  If managed correctly it can become the beginning of the type of soul searching which brings positive consequences lasting a lifetime.  The adulterous person can ask, “What can I learn about myself now that I have proven capable of such a decision?”   Efforts to explore the why questions can be rewarded with a fuller sense of direction in life and a fuller appreciation for the elements of successful relating.

·         One of the primary thrusts that prompts an affair is the craving for deepest connection.  Sexuality can be described in mere physical terms, but it is far more than the engagement in a bodily function.  Sexuality represents the knitting of two lives in the deepest form of intimacy possible.  In the right context it involves the complete baring of one’s vulnerabilities in a relationship of fullest trust. 

·         A sexual liaison that exists in an illicit context represents a pseudo-attempt to create that ultimate closeness, but because it is devoid of complete honesty and dignity, it is bound to fall short.  For a time the participants may feel a special bonding, but unlike the joy that is found in a healthy marriage, when the involvement is made public, shame or embarrassment or defiance may be present, but not contentment. 

·         Nonetheless, knowing that sex represents the desire for deepest connection, making sense of the affair can be more complete as you contemplate how the need for love played a role.  Have you thought about the deficiency in love that is implicit in an extramarital affair?  Something internal must have been missing for you to break the vow of fidelity.  What was that missing ingredient?

·         To the offending spouse:  Internally, what did you feel you were lacking that prompted you to become vulnerable to engaging in such a risky relationship?

·         How long has the need for greater connection been building inside you?

·         To the offended spouse:  What deficiencies of love did you sense in your spouse prior to the affair?

·         How has the affair affected your understanding of your mate’s love hunger?

·         How has it affected your need to feel loved and appreciated?

·         Some have difficulty admitting emotional neediness.  Wanting to appear independent and strong, they may even claim that the affair was just about sex, not about trying to connect with someone.  Yet sex is never a meaningless act.  A main feature of the person’s attempt to find sex outside of marriage is the craving for affirmation, or at least to feel close to a warm body.  Unfaithful spouses may say something like, “I was tired of living with someone who did not appreciate me like I wanted.  I needed more than the marriage had to offer.”  Other common statements might include:

·         “My spouse was so preoccupied with other things, it made me feel unimportant.”

·         “I felt so tired of being criticized that I had to find relief.”

·         “Nothing I said was taken seriously.”

·         “Other priorities had crowded out our time to be loving.  I got tired of feeling rejected.”

·         “All I wanted was someone who would ‘get’ me.”

·         “I’m not going to live the rest of my life feeling unloved.”

·         “I can’t count the times when I asked my mate to pay attention to me.”

·         A person wandering through the desert without nourishment loses his senses and behaves abnormally.  The same is true for the person wandering through a marriage without perceiving the love necessary for sustained contentment.  Sometimes this neediness can slowly creep in without the person being fully aware of it.

·         To both spouses:  What priorities have been in your lives that have hindered deeper relating within your marriage?

·         How have you attempted to have closeness in the marriage only to find frustration?

FEELING UNFULFILLED IN LOVE

·         There are various reasons a person can feel unfulfilled in love.  Sometimes it is tied directly to marital tensions, and sometimes other features are a factor.  For instance, some adults will acknowledge that in their family histories, love was not as forthcoming as they would have liked.  Perhaps a parent was too critical.  There could have verbal abuse or physical abuse or sexual abuse.  They may have had pain associated with peer relations.  Perhaps a significant person died in an untimely fashion.

·         Emotional aches have a way of staying inside an individual for years, sometimes in a raw, open form, other times in a quiet hidden form.  Either way, as the adult years prove less than satisfying, that deficiency in love can rumble inwardly causing a vulnerability to the possibility of finding love in an illicit form.

·         To the offending spouse:  What history of unmet love needs have you experienced?  How has this affected your decisions in your adult life?

·         What potential did you see in the affair that made you think you could satisfy the hunger for love?

·         To the offended spouse:  What do you know about your spouse’s history that might explain how a deficiency in love contributed to the vulnerability to an affair?

·         Though the past does not excuse improper behavior, how can your understanding of your mate’s history help you come to terms with what has transpired in your marriage?

·         What love deficiencies have you had in your history that may compound the attempt to come to terms with your mate’s affair?

·         Not only may deficient love be a part of the individual’s family history, but other soured significant relationships can play a role in a person’s hunger to find emotional relief. 

·         A previous marriage may still generate painful memories.  Friends may have proven fickle.  Status may have been lost in a career.  One’s dating history may have been empty.

·         To the offending spouse:  What experiences have you had beyond family relations that proved to be dissatisfactory?

·         How might the affair be understood as an attempt to compensate for these relationships that have proven disappointing?

·         To the offended spouse:  What is your speculation about the influence of non-family disappointments on your mate’s choices?

·         How has the affair caused you to see your mate’s social needs in a different light?

·         When an affair occurs, it is quite common that the straying spouse will indicate that the marriage has been less than expected.  High hopes that were held in the early stages of the marriage may have given way to disillusionment as arguments were not resolved.  Neglect may have felt unusually painful.  Criticism or invalidation may have been too common among the partners.  Communication may have been stiff or empty.  Sexual compatibility may have been lacking.  Coordinating life’s priorities may have proven more unnatural than expected.  Loyalties to other people may have overridden loyalties to the marriage partnership.

·         While it is not fair for the straying spouse to blame the partner for the affair (free will was still a factor) couples trying to put the pieces back together can attempt to objectively communicate with each other about the ways the marriage did not meet expectations.  Doing so can prevent the couple from returning to the same non-productive habits that had proven unsatisfactory prior to the affair.

·         To the offending spouse:  Without blaming, what would you like your mate to know about your love needs so the future can avoid a repeat of past disappointments?

·         How might you make adjustments so you would be a more compatible love partner to your mate, which in turn could increase loving exchanges within the home?

·         To the offended partner:  How difficult is it for you to discuss the ways you and your mate can more successfully exchange love?  Why is this?

·         What adjustments would you like to see within the marriage so love could be more fully sustained?

MINIMIZING EXCESSIVE NEEDINESS

·         As you attempt to understand the role of unmet love needs in the onset of the affair, you can do so with the goal of determining how to find contentment without having to look outside the marriage illicitly again.  Since an affair represents an external means of addressing an internal problem, it would make sense to first adjust the inward thinking so vulnerabilities will be reduced.  Let’s examine some key points to be pondered.

#1.  Worth Is An Inborn, Spiritual Matter.

·         Our sexualized culture has taught us to look to a love interest to prove that worth is a part of an individual’s psyche.  “If I can get an appealing person to demonstrate that I am special,” so the reasoning goes, “it proves that I am valuable indeed.”  While it is gratifying to be positively reinforced by another person, worth is not a matter that is contingent on another human’s pronouncement.

·         When you were born, a team of people scurried to care for your every need.  You were hugged.  Smiles were abundant.  Phone calls were made announcing your arrival.  Why?  What had you accomplished to warrant such VIP treatment?  Your worth was simply part of your existence.  By virtue of your created status, you were recognized as one deserving of affirmation. 

·         As the years passed, key people may not have done a complete job of communicating that worth to you, nonetheless, that worth still exists.  Your very humanity is proof of your worth.

·         To the offending spouse:  What is your belief about the undeniable existence of human worth?

·         If you gave fullest emphasis to the truth that you have worth regardless of human pronouncements, how would that affect your lifestyle choices?

·         To the offended spouse:  Do you believe a person can still claim personal worth even after an affair?  Why?

·         If you and your mate made greater efforts to reinforce each other’s worth, how would the atmosphere in your home be different?

#2.  Tap Into Your Emotional Competence.

·         An affair can represent hidden pessimism.  By looking to another person to give affirmation, even if it illicit, the straying spouse is presuming, “If I’m living in a marriage without sufficient emotional reinforcement, I can’t find satisfaction.”  Power is given to another to declare if happiness can be real. 

·         Adults can find their own emotional stability even when your mate does not sufficiently affirm.  This is not to say that human affirmation is insignificant, but that a person can inwardly overcome the disappointments of relationship disappointments.  For example, when rejection is felt, rather than assuming that your spouse has to be there for affirmation, you can recognize that the ability to live with strength and value lies within.  It is not the preferred way to live, you can draw upon your inner strength as opposed to collapsing emotionally when your spouse is less than ideal.

·         You do not have to let your emotional stability be dependent on human pronouncements.  Excessive neediness can be neutralized by a strong sense of self identity.  To accomplish this, personal beliefs of a hand-me-down variety can be set aside in favor of those derived from real soul searching.  Have you determined that you can be calm, for instance, when someone else chooses to be argumentative?  Can you apply patience when others are uncooperative?  Would you hold onto confident thoughts when another chooses to invalidate you?

·         The capacity exists for you to determine to set your own course, but you have to be willing and aware enough to detach from the pronouncements of others.

·         To the offending spouse:  How competent are you to take charge of the direction of your personal beliefs?

·         In what circumstances will you need to override the feelings or pronouncements of others as you choose instead to act upon your own sense of direction?

·         How could your marriage improve if you depended less on your mate to set the direction for your daily responses to life?

·         To the offended spouse:  How would your response to the affair be different if you looked less to your spouse to act right and more to yourself to set the direction for your life?

·         In what circumstances is it difficult to feel self sufficient?  What are ways you could adjust your responses in those circumstances?

#3.  Have Realistic Expectations.

·         A truth that often emerges in the aftermath of an affair is that there is no such thing as an ideal relationship.  While the affair is in progress and the individuals are allowed to live inside a bubble of non-reality, that idealism may seem within reach.  Yet once the bubble bursts and reality has to be factored in, the straying spouse can be forced to admit that no one can be so wonderful that a stress-free life is guaranteed.

·         Expectations for a marriage can become realistic when partners come to terms with the two sides of every personality.  Each individual has the capacity for love and goodness, and when those qualities are present, happiness certainly can follow.  Yet those same individuals have the capacity for flaws and blunders, leading to poor choices or ongoing insensitivities.  Light and darkness are part of each person’s equation.   Are you willing to live with the unflattering truth that no relationship will ever be charmed?

·         To the offending spouse:  What realistic disappointments were you hoping to avert by choosing to become involved with the third party?

·         How would your approach toward marriage be different if you maintained more realistic expectations for life’s up’s and down’s?

·         To the offended spouse:  What unrealistic expectations were in place in your marriage prior to the affair?

·         What can reasonably be expected from you as your mate looks in your direction for love?

·         How would your marriage improve if you and your mate put less pressure on the marriage to give ultimate fulfillment?

#4.  Depend On Each Other While Also Planning For Emotional Independence.

·         Dependency within marriage is a glue that can hold the marriage together…to a point.  It is desirable for mates to know that they can look toward one another for love and emotional reinforcement.  Yet the marriage can collapse when one or both spouses assumes the relationship should be so fulfilling that emotional contentment cannot be found when the couple is out of synch. 

·         The healing of your marriage can proceed when you offer each other love and companionship in satisfying amounts, yet when you simultaneously have a back-up plan for feeling content in the event that dependency needs go lacking. 

·         To live with emotional independence, you can identify specific scenarios when you are most vulnerable to letting your feelings get out of bounds.  Is it when your spouse is argumentative?  When you feel ignored?  When you disagree about how to manage the children?  When you have been falsely blamed?  In each of these scenarios, you can pre-plan how you can respond with confidence, reason, and determination.  If your mate does not harmonize, you can still determine to stay with your plan. 

·         To both spouses:   In what circumstances will you most need to choose your own separate path, even as it seems that your mate is not on the same page as you?

·         How will you know that you have found balance between dependency and individual independence in the marriage?

·         What agreements are you willing to make with your spouse so you can continue working to find improved exchanges of love?

·         How can you best express that you genuinely want to be a trustworthy conduit for love inside the marriage?

#5.  Choose To Love Even When Your Feelings May Not Be At Their Peak.

·         It is incredibly easy to be loving when the other person is living with all the wonderful ingredients that you like.  Anyone can do that.  The mark of a successful life and a successful relationship is to love when the other person gives you little reason to do so.  (Admittedly, marriage would be a relationship where both spouses understand this concept.) 

·         Each of you has frustrations with the other that you wish would go away.  That is normal.  Mature love is displayed when you continue in loving traits (patience, kindness, calmness, tolerance) simply because that is the way you live.  You love because it is your nature to do so. 

·         To both spouses:  In what circumstances can you demonstrate that your love is not contingent upon the other person’s perfect behavior?

·         You each have moments when you can less than lovable.  How would you like your spouse to treat you during those moments?

·         Knowing that you each are committed to loving one other simply because it is part of your marital commitment, how might you nonetheless attempt to make this effort easier for your spouse?