I hear ya on that. Backslid too many times. She actually posted pics on fb today of the kids at the OM's family pond. I am not happy about it. But, today is my birthday, so I want it to be low stress. I'll talk to her tomorrow about it. Gonna sit her down and ask her what she thinks contact is, then explain to her what it really is.
WRONG APPROACH.
1. ASKING her. Why? Does her definition change YOUR mind? She's fogged out right now anyway.
2. EXPLAIN TO HER WHAT IT REALLY IS. "You can't teach an infidel."
No, a BOUNDARY OF PERSONAL INTEGRITY is the only thing that matters here. Not HER definition, and not some BOOK's definition. But what YOU are willing to abide, and what you're not.
Again, from my personal archives:
To me, that's the beauty of boundaries, or -- as I like to call them -- "My Boundaries of Personal Integrity." Only YOU know what they are, but they should be a very short list; your "dealbreakers," as it were . . . those things that you, as a person with your values, morals and ethics, simply CANNOT ABIDE.
And this is how it works, in practical application: If you decide that "I will not live in an open marriage," and you state that as a boundary to a cheating spouse, and if that drives them away from you, and toward the other person? Well, then that's THEIR CHOICE, and them cheating -- and staying with me -- wasn't an option for me anyway, based on my own authenticity and values, so what have I lost?
All I've lost in that instance is something that I could not have abided anyway.
"You must choose between her or me" is an ULTIMATUM. It's about THEM.
Boundaries should be about YOU -- "I will not live in an open marriage." It's then up to the other person to decide what to DO with that information you've now shared with them, so seriously.
Infidelity affects nearly 80% of the marriages in the US. Most marriages that are rocked by infidelity do not end due to the affair. If the marriage ends in divorce following an affair it is usually due to the couples’ inability to create a program for recovery. A full recovery addresses many issues but the overall focus is to change the conditions under which the affair occurred in the first place.
The first step to restoring a marriage struggling with the issue of infidelity is to end the affair. Until the unfaithful spouse completely ends the relationship with the lover there is no hope of restoring the marriage. I cannot express enough how important this is. I get calls and emails every day from desperate men and women wanting to know how they can save their marriage while their spouse is cheating. The sad but simple answer is, they can’t. Until the affair ends there is no recovery.
One of the most crucial moments in recovering from infidelity is what happens when the betraying spouse wakes up to the pain and misery he or she is causing, ends (or promises to end the affair) and wants to reconcile with the spouse. Usually by this time the faithful partner has been dragged through more hurt and betrayal than he or she ever thought possible. All they want to do is to have their family intact again and to put the affair behind them. They want to resume their lives. And they make one of the biggest mistakes possible. They allow the wayward spouse to come home without first setting the conditions for recovery.
Affairs rock marriages to their core. They are cruel, destructive, and they wreak havoc on families. Once there has been betrayal of that sort life within the marriage cannot and will not ever return to its pre-affair state. Nor should it. There needs to be conditions for restoring love, trust, and for addressing the things that led to the affair in the first place.
The first condition for recovery is that the lover is to be out of the picture entirely. The unfaithful partner must promise and be held accountable for never contacting this person in any way again, ever. If that means that the family must relocate or that the one who had the affair must find a new job, then so be it. Without this condition in place there is a strong possibility that the affair will flare up again in the future.
Once that has been established and can be verified it is possible to begin to address the other issues in the marriage. My work with couples is founded on the need for complete honesty. No where is this more essential than when recovering from infidelity. Couples need to learn to share with each other what they think, how they feel, what they need, what they like, and what is upsetting to them. In addition there needs to be total honesty about the events of their day, their plans, where they’ve been and what they’ve done, and how they feel. Included in my definition of honesty is accountability for time, whereabouts and money….24/7.
With the lover out of the picture and with couples learning to be honest with each other we can begin to look at the things that went wrong in the marriage. There are many reasons people have affairs. And none of them is justified. But if we are going to restore the love and trust husbands and wives have for each other then we need to look at the issues behind the affair. In no way is this to be construed as blaming the faithful and betrayed spouse. There is no excuse for infidelity. Our goal is to be forward thinking and our goal is to create a marriage that is stronger and happier than the one they had before the affair.
If either of the partners has a control or abuse problem that must be addressed before we can go further. If I can’t help them work through this issue and make changes in their behavior in short order I refer the one with the problem to an anger management program. Anger and control must be eliminated before moving on to the next steps.
Next we look at other things that were painful or objectionable to either partner and we find ways to eliminate those things. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of sharing that information with each other (you’d be amazed at the things husbands and wives don’t know about what each other thinks and feels) and sometimes it takes a concerted effort to design a strategy to eliminate ingrained behaviors.
At the same time, we begin to discuss what it is that each of them would like to have in a happy and fulfilling relationship. Little by little we make progress finding ways to incorporate those things into the marriage. And we do that in a way that works for both the husband and the wife.
It can take up to two years for recovery to be complete. By complete I mean that both spouses would report feeling happy with the state of the marriage and in love with their partner again. If the steps have been followed, especially those of honesty and accountability, trust will most likely have been restored as well.
A lifestyle that is based on honesty and that requires accountability is one we would all do well to practice. These rules would go far to ensure an affair never happened in the first place. Add to that the concept of creating a marriage in which couples avoid things that hurt each other and work at doing the thing that make each other happy and you have the recipe for a fulfilling and joyous marriage.
Affairs end. Marriages can recover. The road to recovery is narrow, but it does exist.
I love houses. Always have. A favorite weekend recreation is to tour the semi annual parade of homes or to check out the newest open models in the upscale developments around the area. During my thirties I was an avid member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation; my fun reading was made up of publications such as "Early American Life" and "Preservation." I've lived in an old house, built at the turn of the last century, and in an historic house of a modern sort – built in the `40's with design elements which were decades ahead of their time. For several years I had a recreational decorating and design business. I helped restore a Victorian, once facing condemnation, to near museum quality standards. I've painted concrete floors to look like marble, designed my kitchen from the walls out, and made strategic suggestions for the structural elements of our current state of remodel. I love houses. And in fact, when I travel to other parts of the country I am far more likely to photograph the residential architecture than I am to record the family on vacation. (Much to the chagrin of my children in later years..)
So, what does this have to do with marriage? Well, I live in the upper Midwest where Mother Nature mesmerizes us with thunderstorms, floods, and tornadoes this time of year. Not long ago I watched a newscast about a house that was damaged when a tree came through the roof of a house in one of our many storms. (The man sleeping just under the spot where the tree entered the house was unharmed but definitely shaken!) It got me thinking about the correlation between marriage and houses.
A marriage is much like a house. When it's new, everything is well kept. It's clean. The roof is good, the plumbing works well, the floors are level and unscathed. But inevitably, over time, things begin to break down. If one owns an older or historic home there are always things which clamor for attention – similar to a marriage that's been neglected or damaged by thoughtless choices, independent living and outright harmful actions. A marriage in trouble is much like a house needing significant repair.
It could be that the plumbing needs to updated, the wiring changed from old glass fuses to code compliant breakers, the walls may be cracked and the floors might need to be shorn up to make them level again. A marriage may have issues and conflicts surrounding in-laws, money, sex, child rearing, hobbies, or even pets. Like a house that needs significant work, those things need to be addressed in small steps, with thoughtful planning and oodles of frustrating starts and stops.
But what happens when a storm sends a tree crashing through the roof? No matter what the state of the home prior to that event, all work needs to stop and energies must be redirected toward emergency repair. The tree needs to be carefully removed, the roof repaired and any other structural damage investigated and repaired before work can resume on the pre-existing conditions.
This is exactly the same dynamic that occurs in marriage when there is infidelity. The marriage may need serious repair work in and of itself. But once an affair sends a tree crashing through the sheltering structure of the relationship all efforts directed at the underlying problems take a back seat to the emergency measures brought about by the affair itself. There's no point in attempting to fix the cracked walls and outdated electricity in the marriage when there is a tree protruding into the bedroom and the inner structure is exposed to the elements.
The affair partner must be completely and permanently removed from the relationship in the same way the tree must be removed from the roof. It's a horribly difficult and painful process. Often the affair partner has been a long time friend of one or both spouses. The loss of the friendship and the betrayal that is felt is heart wrenching, no matter what leg of the triangle one is on. But a friendship that has intruded into the intimate structure of a marriage can no longer be considered a friendship. Boundaries have been breached, and there is no way to return to a state of innocence. None of the needed repair work to the marriage can begin until this step is complete. Intermittently ending and resuming contact with an affair partner creates the same kind of damage as picking the tree up off the roof and dropping it back on again – it creates larger holes and more damage.
Once the affair partner is no longer in the picture, the hard work of repair can begin. First and foremost the gaping holes left by the affair must be mended. Depending on the length of the affair and how far into the emotional bonding of the marriage the affair partner was allowed to intrude, repair work could be replacement of the entire roof or simply a minimal patch job. The longer the affair, with the marriage being exposed to the damage of wind and rain, the more repair will be needed. The holes left by infidelity are things such as damaged trust, resentment, the inevitable withdrawal felt by the straying spouse when the affair ends, and stress on the underlying structure of the marriage.
Marriages rarely end in divorce due to the affair itself. But failure to repair the damage from the affair will almost without fail lead to complete destruction of the marriage. Marriages end because there the gaping holes remaining which continue to expose the relationship to more harm. Some couples can do the repair work themselves. These are the calmly methodical sorts who can read about the necessary measures and implement them in without becoming bogged down in the emotional tug of war recovery always entails. For most couples, as with homeowners, hiring a professional is indispensable in making sure the repairs are done well and in a timely manner.
As the holes are patched, the shingles replaced, and the structure found to be intact attention can once again be turned to the problems which existed before the tree made its untimely entrance into the lives of the homeowners. Those issues and conflicts may have become larger or more serious because of the damaged caused either directly or indirectly by the crisis of the storm – that's the nature of destructive events; they have far reaching consequences. Time, patience, persistence, and good professional help can make all the difference in repairing a storm damaged home or healing a marriage torn apart by an affair.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the King's horses And all the King's men Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again
I'm often asked why people who have affairs must permanently end all contact with their affair partner if their marriage is to recover and heal. After all, they were often friends with the lover prior to the affair and they don't want to lose the friendship along with all the other losses an affair leaves in its wake.
There are lots of quick and easy answers to that question. Ongoing contact is offensive and painful for the spouse, the affair is likely to rekindle, true healing of the marriage can't begin while the involved spouse is still emotionally connected to the affair partner. They are all valid reasons and there are good scientific reasons to back them up. So what more is there to say? I had a sudden visual image the other day that spoke to me about this issue and I'm hoping I can relay it in a way that makes it clearer.
The vast majority of affairs occur with someone we know. A close friend, co-worker, or even family member. Prior to an affair, even relationships as close as long term friendships retain a level of distance. Shirley Glass (Not Just Friends, 2003) describes it well when she speaks about the walls healthy marriages have erected around the couple to protect them from outside risks.
Intimacy requires vulnerability. As an affair couple moves along the continuum from friendship to lover layers of protection are peeled away. Topics that were off limits become primary areas of conversation. Touch that is reserved for the marriage is now exchanged with someone outside the marriage. Looks that pass between lovers are different than those that pass between friends and that layer or protection is now peeled away as well. Little by little, the walls that surround and protect the marriage are breached. The layers of distance are stripped away leaving the partners open, vulnerable, and intimately known at a level deeper than merely friendship.
When couples connect at this level they come to know each other in a way that cannot be reversed. They cannot unknow what they have come to see beneath the layers. Nor can they disconnect entirely from the intimacy that knowing creates.
When the affair ends, as most do, the layers of protection are gone. Just as all the King's Horses and all the King's Men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again – neither can we replace the layers covering the deepest most vulnerable parts of our being. We have been seen and we cannot remove the memory of that vision. An orange, once peeled, is forever revealed. The same is true of the human heart and soul.
Years later, an old flame – long forgotten and newly met – can touch us in ways someone who has not known us so deeply has no power to do. We know the inner core of our former loves, and they ours. This is, at the primal level, the reason contact with an affair partner must permanently end. That knowing – that depth of connection – cannot be undone. To remain in contact is to ever put the marriage at risk. To remain in contact sabotages our ability to recreate that level of knowingness and intimacy with our mate.
This is why our spouses are so offended and threatened with continued or renewed contact. They intuitively sense the missing protective layers of unknowing. They instinctively recognize the connection that has been created and the danger is poses to the marriage. They know in their depths that as long as contact continues healing cannot fully occur.
Friends can easily become lovers. But the reverse is not true. Lovers cannot easily become "just" friends.
I need to know if I'm wrong for asking my husband to give up the friendship with someone he has had a recent affair with? I can't try to fix my marriage knowing that she's still in his life, even though they are not sexual anymore. He downright refuses to let her go. He tells me I don't understand their relationship, yet he can't explain it. I feel I'm second to her. Is it possible to rebuild my marriage like this? If so, how do I get past those feelings? He also defends her as well.
Dear Seeking Safety,
After the disclosure of infidelity, the only way that healing and recovery can occur is if the unfaithful partner stops all contact with the affair partner. You are not wrong in your request. Until safety is established, the trauma reactions will continue. Your husband's loyalty appears to be toward her rather than toward you.
You cannot fix your marriage by yourself. He is trying to call all the shots and is showing very little compassion for your pain. Rebuilding your marriage in this troubled situation is like trying to construct a building on quicksand. It might look all right on the surface, but the foundation is insecure and the whole structure could collapse at any moment. You could use some help to figure out what you want to do about your marriage. It sounds like you and your husband could benefit from improved communication, so couples therapy could provide a safe place to resolve these issues.
Once an affair is first revealed, whether it's discovered or admitted, the victimized spouse is usually in a state of shock. The first reaction is usually panic, but it's quickly followed by anger. Divorce and sometimes even murder are contemplated. But after some time passes (usually about three weeks), most couples decide that they will try to pull together and save their marriage.
The one having an affair is in no position to bargain, but he or she usually tries anyway. The bargaining effort usually boils down to somehow keeping the lover in the loop. You'd think that the unfaithful spouse would be so aware of his or her weaknesses, and so aware of the pain inflicted, that every effort would be made to avoid further contact with the lover as an act of thoughtfulness to the stunned spouse. But instead, the unfaithful spouse argues that the relationship was "only sexual" or was "emotional but not sexual" or some other peculiar description to prove that continued contact with the lover would be okay.
Most victimized spouses intuitively understand that all contact with a lover must end for life. Permanent separation not only helps prevent a renewal of the affair, but it is also a crucial gesture of consideration to someone who has been through hell. What victimized spouse would ever want to know that his or her spouse is seeing or communicating with a former lover at work or in some other activity?
In spite of career sacrifices, friendships, and issues relating to children's schooling, I am adamant in recommending that there be no contact with a former lover for life. For many, that means a move to another state. But to do otherwise fails to recognize the nature of addiction and its cure.
Look at M.S.'s husband. Here he is, thousands of miles from his lover, and yet he still feels compelled to call her. Can you imagine the trouble M.S. would have had separating them if they had not moved? Their move was the best thing that could have happened to their marriage because it not only revealed the affair, but it also set up the conditions that would make ending it possible -- total separation.
We don't know if R.J. still sees his lover, but he says he has broken off all contact. In many cases where a person is still in town, that's hard to prove. But one thing's for sure, if he ever does see his lover, it will put him in a state of perpetual withdrawal from his addiction, and make the resolution of his marriage essentially impossible. In fact, one of the reasons he is not recovering after three months of separation may be that he is not being truthful about the separation.
How should an unfaithful spouse tell his lover that their relationship is over? If left to their own devices, many would take a Caribbean cruise to say their final good-byes. Obviously, that will not do. In fact, I recommend that the final good-bye be in the form of a letter, and not in person or even by telephone.
My advice is to write a final letter in a way that the victimized spouse would agree to send it. It should begin with a statement of how selfish it was to cause those they loved so much pain, and while marital reconciliation cannot completely repay the offense, it's the right thing to do. A statement should be made about how much the unfaithful spouse cares about his spouse and family, and for their protection, has decided to completely end the relationship with the lover. He or she has promised never to see or communicate with the lover again in life, and asks the lover to respect that promise. Nothing should be said about how much the lover will be missed. After the letter is written, the victimized spouse should read and approve it before it is sent.
How to Get Through Withdrawal
In R.J.'s case, his feelings for his wife are as bad as they have ever been. In the case of M.S.'s husband, he is suffering so much that he can no longer make love to his wife, something that had always come very easily to him in the past. What is happening to these men?
They are experiencing symptoms of withdrawal from the addiction they have to their lovers.
As soon as a victimized spouse decides to stay married and struggle through reconciliation, he or she usually sets out to meet whatever needs the lover had been meeting. If it was sex, the spouse offers more and better sex. If it was affection, it's more affection. Both M.S. and R.J.'s wife were willing to do whatever it took to regain their wayward spouses' love.
But it didn't work for either of them. That's because both of their husbands were in withdrawal. They were both addicted to their lovers and separation from them caused them to suffer from depression. That, in turn, made it almost impossible for their spouses to meet their emotional needs. So all of that love and care that was being extended to them was being wasted. Until they would recover from withdrawal, the efforts of their wives to please them will be very disappointing.
Withdrawal is the emotional reaction to the loss of something that gives great pleasure. It's similar to the feelings an alcoholic has when he makes a commitment never to drink again. It's also similar to the grief that comes from the loss of a loved one. A lover is like alcohol and like a loved one. Not only do unfaithful spouses miss what it was their lovers did, meeting important emotional needs, but they also miss the person they had come to love.
Our most common emotions are anger, anxiety and depression. Symptoms of withdrawal usually include all of these in a very intense form. I usually suggest that anti-depressant medication be used to help alleviate these symptoms. While the most intense symptoms of withdrawal usually last only about three weeks, in some cases they can linger for six months or longer before they start to fade.
It is extremely likely that a commitment to remain separated from a lover will be broken unless extreme measures are taken to avoid it. That's because the emotional reaction of withdrawal is so painful. Honesty is an extremely important element in reconciliation, and it should be understood that if the unfaithful spouse ever sees or communicates with the lover, he or she should immediately tell the spouse that it happened. They should then agree on a plan that would prevent a recurrence of contact in the future. But as soon as any contact is made, it throws the unfaithful spouse back to the beginning of withdrawal, and the time it takes to overcome the feelings of grief begins all over again.
There's a sense in which M.S.'s husband was in withdrawal even before M.S. discovered
As soon as the move was made, he became depressed, and what M.S. noticed the most was his lack of interest in sex. Depression will do that to you (and so will anti-depressant medication -- one of it's only side effects is a loss of sex drive).
If M.S.'s husband were to avoid talking to his lover for three weeks, it's likely that his sex drive would start to return, since the worst symptoms of withdrawal would probably have ended. He has a long history of sexual interest in his wife, and I guarantee that he will eventually do just fine in bed.
The problem that R.J. may soon face is that his wife's cheerful attitude will wear thin. There's no telling how much longer she can try to please him without an approving response from him. Sometimes I tell spouses to just avoid each other until the withdrawal stage passes because all the effort to be kind and thoughtful is easily wasted until they start feeling better.
It's the stage of recovery after withdrawal that gives spouses the best opportunity to learn to meet each other's most important emotional needs and overcome Love Busters. Spouses should save their most tolerant mood for that stage, where they could both be receptive to each other's care. And that will be the subject of next week's column: Learning to meet each other's needs after an affair.
Thanks guys. I did let her back way too soon, without spelling out the boundaries and enforcing them. And we are one of those couples that will have to relocate, especially for me. It's not a matter of if we move, but when.
The reason I want to ask her what she thinks no contact means, is to get her into a civil conversation. Right now she gets very defensive and clams up. If I mention the word boundary, she gets very snippy and disrespectful. I know my wife. If she feels I'm controlling her, or doesn't feel safe, she clams up. Her opinion or definition of contact has no influence on mine. The boundaries I want and need are for my safety, and my children's. They are my boundaries.
When she gets defensive, the red flags go up immediately. She's trying to hang on to something she shouldn't, or is hiding something.
The lack of boundaries played a very detrimental role in my behavior, and I have reacted poorly, very poorly at times, so she has to feel safe in order to talk about it. If we can't have a discussion about it, then what's the point? If she can't respect me to have a civil conversation about this very serious topic, then I'm wasting my time. Does that make sense? I've been awake way too long because of work and other commitments, so I may be talking out of my arse!
M 32 WAW 34 D - 5 S - 4 PA 1/09 Moved out 3/09 She filed 5/09 90 Day Postponement 11/09 State Dismissed case 4/10 Moved home 9/10
EJ, you need to stop using the word "ME" and "MINE" when talking wtih your wife. It just encourages selfishness I find.
If you say "These are the boundaries identified by professional family therapists and they applied to our WHOLE FAMILY" she can't twist that.
If you say "these are my boundaries" she can just say "wel they aren't mine" or some such.
Just tell her "These boundaries are for the whole family and I intend to honour them as I am holding you to do that as well.. I am NOT asking you to do anything I am not prepared to do."
I find when they see and hear that you are meeting them 50-50 they don't have much ground to argue.
Ignroe her getting defensive.. just say it and walk away. You don't need her to reply.
She's in withdrawal anyways... SHe's going to be bitchy
