It was almost like watching Cheaters on TV. Surreal. Like watching the two airliners fly into the World Trade Center towers.
At work, I needed to get a file off my computer at home, so I logged in over the net using VNC and I accidently stumbled on a chat taking place between my wife and another man about an affair. A fling. A one night stand. Like a cyber version of Cheaters without the camera crew.
The Cheaters Confrontation
I froze in shock. I couldn't say anything to anyone. I felt a panic rise up within me and a need to get home to save my marriage, and yet I did not know how I was going to bring up the subject with my wife, but I managed. I let her know what I saw. And she said she was sorry but glad I found out. She was worried to death how she was going to tell me about it, but that the affair was a one night stand and that it was over. She said she did not like the guy and that he was a jerk.
I felt a sense of relief that she was honest with me, and I was almost more happy about that than I was disappointed by the affair. And, in my heart, I just wanted to thank God it was all over and final. I wanted to forgive and forget and believe that it would never happen again.
That was a mistake.
I am reminded of what Dr. Phil likes to say so often, and that is for every lie that is caught, there are a hundred that are not discovered. I most certainly do not say that to tear down my ex-wife. Nor do I wish to justify or excuse it, but every person on this earth has sinned in many different ways, and this is just one.
But, the reason I like Dr. Phil's quote here is that it shows where there is a symptom of a problem, there is an underlying cause, and there is no reason to expect that underlying cause to go away on its own, so more of the same kind of symptoms are almost certain to appear again. And, this is certainly true of extramarital affairs.
Cheating Taken to the Next Level - Entrenched Affair
When my wife went into the entrenched affair the broke our marriage, she did so under an assumed name. She went actively on the prowl. If I had to guess, I would guess that she may have felt I could not continue to love her because of the problems her bipolar disorder had continually caused everyone in the family. After she had rejected me for Bruno, she and many people were surprised to find out just how deeply I did love her and how I would spend the next couple of years doing everything I knew how to save the marriage. While she continued in her affair. Through much torment and abuse. It almost seemed I was a glutton for pain.
But, I feel that some people begin to search for another partner when they feel they're at risk of having their spouse leave first. They cannot stand the painful fear of being rejected and alone, and so it is easier to be proactive and find another partner first to avoid the risk of being alone.
So my wife left me for Bruno, then transitioned the same way to Tony, then back to me, but only as a dear and close friend, then to Jeff, and then now to Tim. And, my daughter seems to feel Tim is a lot like me in personality and character.
The Underlying Cause of an Affair
All relationships have rocky times. Affairs cannot be blamed on tough times or other people's faults or anything else. The primary reason for an affair is that the person having the affair makes a bad choice. It may be out of lust, cowardice, lack of honesty, but always a lack of wisdom, faithfulness, sincerity, and love are at the root of the problem.
One might argue that if things were easier, the unfaithful spouse wouldn't be unfaithful, but that is not true. Unfaithfulness is like asthma. An asthmatic always has asthma, but he may only have the symptoms of asthma around dust or pollen. An unfaithful person is always unfaithful, though the symptoms only show up in certain situations. Same is true of cowardice, dishonesty, and all forms of sinfulness. A sinner is always a sinner even if the symptoms or actions of sin only show up under certain temptations, but selfishness is still at the root making the decisions for him.
So, could I have cause my wife to be more faithful by changing my behavior? No. At best, I might have been able to keep her unfaithfulness at heart covered up until the final day or until she repents and turns to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and grace to be free from sin.
Influence
From everything said so far, it may appear that this puts all the blame onto my ex-wife for her unfaithfulness. And, that is reasonable. Responsiblity should land where the choice is made. No person should be forced to carry the burden of blame for the decisions that are in the hands of another person.
However, having said that, I need to recognize my part in helping her with her insecurity. Yet she did have bipolar disorder and that makes it hard no matter what anybody does. Still, she did not ask to have bipolar. It is not her fault. She does not deserve to have anyone belittle her. When somebody else suffers from an illness we need to be thankful and keenly aware that we, too, could also be inflicted with an illness whether we want it or not.
But, I still failed to set a good example in our marriage. When my wife was breaking the rules of common decency in marriage, initially I stood my ground and refused to retaliate. I wanted to be the best husband I could be for her and I hoped that if I could be at my best, she would follow my example. Besides, she had many good traits that I could learn from as well.
But, my wife tended to be quite abusive verbally and emotionally. She was not always this way. This trait came and went. Sometimes she was an absolute angel, and other times people wondered whether she could frighten the devil and his whole army away. She had a keen awareness of the most painful pressure points of a person's soul and spirit, and she could attack it with the most intense brutality of anyone I had ever known. And, after a year or two of it, I felt I had to strike back with a few scalding words exactly like hers, in fact, quotes of hers hoping that she could feel the pain she caused others and learn something good for her from it. But, she would not learn. She would only escalate her attacks determined to come out on top every time.
There were times I deeply regretted having married her and wished I had married someone else with a kinder and more gentle spirit. And sometimes that desire and wish became intense enough that I wondered if I would stay with the marriage, but over time I made up my mind that for better or worse I would stay with my obligation and love her and pray for her and do my best, and if I fail, I would try to learn from my failures and be better the next time around.
Tough Love
The most serious mistake I made was thinking the one night stand was a one time thing.
It's a symptom, and as I said before, the underlying cause would almost inevitably cause the same symptoms with increasing intensity unless the problem is identified and cured quickly once and for all.
Dr. James Dobson wrote some books titled "Love Must Be Tough", and in one of his books he said that when an affair is discovered it is important to forgive but to make it clear that if it ever happens again, the marriage will be over.
The goal is not to destroy the marriage or to be mean and unforgiving, but to improve your marriage's chances of survival. If the affair continues or if your spouse continues to stay on the hunt for another mate, sooner or later he or she will find one and start to form an emotional attachment to that person making it easier and less painful to leave you than it might be to give up the affair.
When people go into affairs, one of the dynamics of that feeling that people mistake for "love" is that this feeling is physiologically identical to the high or buzz people get when they're faced with a dangerous situation. With an affair, there is a sense of adventure, a fear of discovery, a shared excitement. An attachment or addiction to the affair partner forms, and usually the affair partner has no choice but to villify the faithful spouse or suffer terrible guilt.
Closing Advice if Your Spouse had an Affair
So, the best way to save a marriage is to prevent an affair before it happens, and if you stumble across your spouse's one night stand, know that those lead to entrenched affairs as well as sexual addictions where your spouse may crave variety in sexual partners.
Perhaps the best thing I can say at this point is that if your spouse has even had just a single one night stand, get help immediately. Get help to stop this behavior and get to the root temptations that leads your spouse to behave this way. Help your spouse feel secure with you and good about himself or herself in your presense. That is very important.
There are some very good e-books in the column to the right that can be purchased and downloaded immediately online. Spend time in the book, Break Free From the Affair study it, and make a plan, and execute on that plan. You still may not save your marriage and things may go wrong, but it is best if you can come out of the situation knowing you had done your best. And, the lessons you learn in the process can help your marriage do well if it survives or if it fails, the lessons can help you greatly in your relationships with others around you anyway.
In addition to getting some resources to read and study, it may be best to go to Divorce Busting and get an hour of coaching our counseling over the phone. They have licensed marriage counselors trained by Michele Weiner-Davis in techniques that are extremely successful in saving marriages. There is no way you could possibly spend as much on marriage saving materials and resources as you would spend on the unfortunate event of a divorce. Divorce attorneys commonly run $200 or $300 these days and divorces often run into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, the real loss is the family.
A Word of Caution - The Walkaway Wife/Husband Syndrome
But, if you let a one night stand go by untreated, chances are you will quickly end up in divorce no matter how well you may feel you and your spouse are getting along. There is one syndrome that explains how this often work and Michele Weiner-Davis and others call it "The Walk Away Wife Syndrome". What happens is a wife will nag her husband to death about things very important to her, and he will be offended by it and tune her out. Nobody likes to be bullied or nagged. People like to feel good about themselves, so nagging is almost certain to fail miserably.
But, what happens so often is the wife will get tired of nagging and getting nowhere and she will give up hope of ever changing her husband, and then she will look for someone else to replace him. During that time when she is searching and perhaps dating around secretly under an assumed name, her husband thinks everything is fine. After all, if she is not nagging, she must be happy. And, since she is going out and having fun, she may appear happy as she carries around with her the glow of her extramarital affairs -- the temporary joy of sin. Once a replacement mate is found, the old husband can be tossed. But, the husband still doesn't know. A divorce takes planning, and the illicit couple now have to plan ahead how they will destroy this marriage so that the divorce will enable them to have the best possible outcome. Then after all the planning is done and preliminary steps are taken in preparation, the divorce papers arrive, and it's off to court.
The Treachery of this Divorce
Now the husband is in total shock. He doesn't want to work on the divorce or work with lawyers or fight in court. He would rather pray for the other man to drop dead or if possible help expedite that happening. He's in torment, abused, rejected, and reeling, unable to focus on what needs to be done, and he goes into the divorce totally unprepared and vulnerable. He doesn't want a divorce. He is vulnerable to the legal community as well willing to pay anything to protect his family and children from divorce. He is a basket case, totally confused, lost, bewildered, assailed while unarmed. It is really no wonder that so many victims of divorce go postal, fall into depression, lose their jobs, commit suicide, drive drunk, or murder their families or the judges and attorneys involved. Of course, this is obviously not the right way to handle anything, but too often the divorce system and the unfaithful will drive away the sanity and clear thinking of the faithful spouse long enough for them to do crazy things before they can recover and heal.
Closing Advice
That is why it is so important to prepare yourself emotionally for the loss of your marriage. That doesn't mean you're giving up on your marriage but you need a plan that will help you stabilize and keep yourself strong emotionally and spiritually and give you the strength, courage, confidence and comfort doing what needs to be done without panic or worry.
The one night stand is a very serious problem. For men, often it leads to a sexual addiction which can bring deadly diseases back to the family, but usually men do not want to give up their wives. But no woman deserves to be a part of his harem unless she got this man by being the "other woman"
before. As for women, women usually go into an affair to change partners.
But, affairs are always serious and dangerous both to the marriage and to the health of the family.
Get all the help you can get to weather the storm.
