Read that... Penny said it all much better than I can
Particularly these passages :
Minimal Contact feels better than being out of touch.
In my experience, continuing to have minimal contact is one of the riskier strategies. Unfortunately it is the one that, intuitively, seems to make the most sense. So let‘s take it apart a little and see if I can help you understand why this strategy has the power to be destructive to the goal of saving your marriage.
Minimal contact that is conflicted and adversarial does nothing to heal the relationship; it only serves to drive a bigger wedge between you and your partner. I think we‘d all agree that‘s pretty obvious. What may no t be so obvious is that minimal adversarial contact has possibly a more adverse affect on the betrayed mate than the one having the affair. Remember the Great Race that I mentioned earlier ? Adversarial and conflicted contact is very likely to accelerate the betrayed partner‘s readiness to throw in the towel.
Minimal contact that is calm and courteous, then, seems like the best possible solution. Instinctively and intuitively it‘s what you‘ ll be driven by your own attachment chemistry to maintain. Do n‘t be fooled. Minimal courteous contact can be deadly. A few thing s happen which, combined, create a dangerous biochemical time bomb.
First, you send a loud and clear message to your spouse that the affair really isn‘t all that devastating to you. After all, if yo u can inter act pleasantly, then
you must be doing just fine. You must be accepting the inevitable break up of your marriage. Even if you have said something to the contrary, your actions are where the real message lies.
Second, you derail the attachment chemistry we want to trigger in your spouse. When a relationship is threatened (even a relationship we claim to no longer want) the instinctive reaction is to find it suddenly more attractive. But in order for this to happen there must be a perceived threat to the status quo. When you remain in contact and you give the appearance of being calm and at peace, there is no perceived threat to the relationship.
Yes, I understand that your wayward partner says they don‘t want the marriage, or perhaps they say they need to make up their mind about it. Those kinds of statements are made within the context of having all the control over the destiny of the marriage. You‘ve already made it abundantly clear that you want to save the marriage and that yo u‘re willing to do what it takes to do so. But when you take back so me of your personal empowerment and remove yourself fro m a situation which you find unacceptable, your partner understands at a very basic bio logical level that he or she is no lo nger in total control of the outcome. This triggers the reaction of needing to hold o n to the marriage more rather than less.
Think about being in junior high or high school. We all had friends, or maybe you yourself did this, who wanted to dump a boyfriend or girlfriend first œ before getting dumped. It‘s the same so rt of reaction. We want to have the final say on the
relationship- it doesn‘t matter if we‘re fourteen or fifty- four. Everyone wants to be the dumper and not the dumpee!
Third, you short circuit the dynamic of forcing the affair partners to rely entirely upon each other. In almost every triangle the spouse plays a certain role and the affair partner plays another. The straying mate has two people vying for his or her attention and doing all they can to entice him o r her to choose. Removing yourself fro m that dynamic now puts the burden entirely o n the shoulder s of the affair partner. Almost always he or she comes up short, but your spouse won‘t find that out until you step away entirely.
And finally, staying in minimal contact keeps you from fully detaching and healing. It keeps you stuck in that p lace of hurting and obsessing. When the affair ends, and your spouse is ready to talk about reconciliation, you will need every ounce o f strength and calm you can muster. This isn‘t possible when you are caught in the chaos of the betraying spouse‘s affair drama.
If you are worried about giving the impression that you‘ve moved on with your life and are willing to accept the new relationship, minimal courteous contact is the worst thing yo u can do. Even if you made verbal or written statements to the contrary, your actions will speak volumes drowning out your words entirely. Minimal courteous contact says loud and clear, —I‘m fine now that you‘ve left, and I really don‘t find it all that distressing. In fact, I‘m quite happy to accept your new life and your new partner.“
