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Save Your Marriage Central March 2003 eNewsletter

Infidelity - the first in a series of newsletters covering this topic

© March 2003 Penny R. Tupy Marriage and Relationship Coach
Please forward this to your married and soon to be married friends and family!!

Ok, ok - "uncle." I finally gave in to reality and abandoned all hope of getting a February newsletter completed. The tremendous response to Kay Harvey's article After the Affair, featuring Save Your Marriage Central and my approach to recovery from infidelity, overran every free moment.

That article originally ran in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and then in several newspapers across the country after being picked up by a news service. My email box has never seen so much activity!! If you haven't yet read the piece, you can see it here.

I heard from men and women across the country and even as far away as Canada and the UK. Spouses struggling with affairs that have gone on for years ripping at the heart and soul of the marriage and the family. I had the sad task of exposing more than one affair to mates whose partners kept them well hidden and stated only, "I don't love you anymore, I want out of the marriage." That's a heartbreaking part of my work and I spent more than a few minutes crying for the people who reach out to me in their pain.

It seemed that every day I was faced with the choice between answering countless cries for help from men and women caught in the nightmare of infidelity and writing a newsletter. I chose the former and so here we are at the end of February and no newsletter for this month. Ahhh well, so be it. March is a new month and a chance to do it all again! And this time, I'll get it out on time.

Beginning with this March newsletter I'll be examining infidelity in a series of newsletters. This month I'll look at how affairs begin. What happens that seemingly moral, ethical men and women find themselves caught in a web of sordid, deceitful deeds?

Also beginning this month I have the pleasure of sharing the writings of a guest contributor. David J. Nelson is a betrayed spouse whose wife's affair ended their marriage. He has generously agreed to share some writings from his yet to be titled new book about infidelity. His articles are practical advice and lessons from a non-professional (in the counseling realm) who has experienced infidelity firsthand, has communicated with many other spouses involved with infidelity, and now shares these experiences with others in order to help them navigate this personal challenge. David is a fabulous addition to this newsletter and I’m thrilled to have him. I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do.

This past month I also had a chance to talk to a man who called to volunteer how he overcame his wife's affair and restored their marriage. His story is uplifting and inspirational. He did some things differently than my usual recommendations, and yet he and his wife have a marriage that seems to be thriving today. I'll be featuring that story in a later newsletter in this series.

I'm including a list of other resources for learning more about infidelity and how to prevent or overcome it in your marriage. You'll find it at the end of the articles. Whatever the state of your marriage, I'm certain you'll find much notable information below. And as always your feedback is greatly appreciated -- Penny

Infidelity 101

Infidelity affects an estimated 80% of marriage in the US. If you've read my earlier newsletters or visited www.symcinc.com it's a statistic you've likely seen before. That number comes from a study by Peggy Vaughan author and infidelity expert. The study was conducted in 1989, so it is feasible that the numbers are even higher today. Eighty percent!!! That means that if you are at a gathering with nine other couples, at least eight of the couples in your group either have now or in the past dealt with the affair of one partner. It also means that your chance of escaping such heartbreak is only around 20%.

The good news is that there are things you can do to inoculate your marriage against infidelity. And if you are already dealing with this in your lives you can recover and restore your marriage.

Almost all affairs end. They end sooner when the faithful spouse takes a double pronged approach of addressing issues within the marriage as well as taking a "no tolerance" stance to the affair. This requires a delicate balance and the ability to use one's intellect rather than relying on what our instincts and emotions tell us to do. In the face of an affair, intellect is key. Emotion and instinct will give you misguided advice at nearly every turn.

Generally speaking most marriages don't end in divorce when one spouse has an affair. They end in divorce when the conditions which led to the affair are not addressed and rectified. This takes us into the realm of Recovery. Recovery by far is the most overlooked part of the process. It is also one of the most important aspects of saving your marriage after an affair. I've seen too many cases where the affair has ended, and yet the marriage never recovers because the steps to doing so have been neglected.

In this newsletter I talk about how affairs start and how they grow. I have a list of signs that indicate a spouse might be having an affair. Next month I'll talk about ways to confront the unfaithful spouse and the steps that are necessary for ending the affair and getting to recovery. Finally in May I'll discuss the often overlooked step of moving the relationship beyond infidelity and into recovery.

Eighty percent is an outrageous number. If you are not one of the many who have been traumatized by this epidemic, I know you will find information here that will help you enhance your marriage so that you never experience the pain of infidelity. And if you are one of the many who are struggling, my hope is to be able to light the path to restoring and recovering your marriage.

Infidelity: How it Happens

Time after time I have someone call me in a panic because their spouse has said "I'm no longer in love with you." My first thought and my initial exploration is "If they're not in love with you, then who are they in love with? Who is the other man or woman?" I ask questions about who the spouse is spending time with, talking about, talking to, and so on. I suggest that it's likely there is an emotional affair taking place and perhaps a physical affair has developed.

Almost without fail I hear, "Oh no, I know such and such, she/he's a good friend (coworker, colleague, church member etc.) they'd never do that to me." And almost without fail, I am eventually found to be correct. I'd like to be wrong. I pray that I'm wrong. But I don't think I've ever been wrongly suspicious.

Affairs almost always occur between friends and coworkers. These are the people that have the greatest chance to create the conditions for love and passion to flourish. If you've read my earlier newsletters you'll remember that they dealt extensively with those conditions. Time, honesty, creating compatibility, romance. The elements that make up a fabulous marriage are the same elements that go into breeding an affair.

Love takes time. In these hectic days we spend more time with our coworkers than we do with our families. Sometimes it even seems that we spend more time with our children's sports coaches than we do with our families! And it is in that time spent together that affairs find a place to take root. It begins with a conversation, laughter, shared experiences and shared fun.

Men and women who have grown apart from their partners suddenly realize how good it feels to connect with another human being. They lap up the attention, the conversation, the camaraderie, the admiring exchanges, the way a hungry animal consumes a meal left in its path.

At first it is entirely innocent. It is nothing more than a conversation that leaves us with a good impression of the person we shared it with. It is when we have not maintained the proper boundaries on outside relationships, and one conversation turns into a regular event, followed by coffee, lunch and deepening feelings that the trouble becomes apparent. From here it is a short step to declarations of those feelings and to moving beyond an emotional attachment to a full blown physical affair.

It is impossible to overestimate the role conversation plays in this drama. And by that I don't mean the regular daily conversations we have with coworkers about the status of a project or the new sales report. No, I mean intimate conversation about the things in our lives that we hold dear. Our children, our spiritual path, our political passions, our views on the world, the topics that get our attention and raise our inner energies.

Although conversation is thought of as a "woman's need" (yes, we've all heard the jokes and the statistics) it is within intimate conversation that the seeds for creating other conditions of love and passion lie. It is within conversation that we show our respect and admiration for others. It is within the context of conversation that almost all flirting occurs and that sexual innuendo is at its best. It is within conversation that we explore each
other as unique individuals and it is within conversation that we make our plans to take that exploration further. It is with words that we express our feelings for another person. Words have power, and in relationships between men and women, that power can create passion.

Men typically deny a strong need for conversation. Most don't seem to have an inner drive to talk the way women do. (Yesterday I heard a statistic on the radio that said men speak 2000 words a day on average, and women speak an amazing 7000.) And yet, it is safe to say that without conversation many of men's intimate needs go unmet. The statistics tell us that men are still more likely to be unfaithful in their marriages than women. It's tempting to simply chalk that up to a greater need for sex or sexual excitement, but the women I talk to whose husbands are having affairs tell me differently. They tell me their husbands are wildly in love with women who spend time talking to and listening to them. They crave the connection and the validation that conversation offers. It is the good feelings generated by those needs being met in conversation: admiration, respect, attention, a feeling of importance - that leads to the next step, that of physical intimacy. Conversation is an aphrodisiac; it is a form of foreplay.

Affairs begin with time and attentiveness. For women who have felt neglected in their marriages, it can be as simple as a look that says, "I find you interesting." They take root and grow through conversation that deepens in intimacy and shared experiences. The slide from friendship to affair can be almost imperceptible until it's too late. Shirley Glass in her new book Not Just Friends and on her website has a great quiz that indicates if a relationship has moved from friendship to emotional affair, or if it is in danger of doing so. Some of the characteristics to watch for are secrecy and depth of intimate sharing. I encourage you to check out her site, it has a wealth of information pertaining to the subject of infidelity.

Affairs can occur even in happy marriages. But they are most likely to happen when partners have grown apart, lead individual lives, or when the marriage has been neglected in favor of other pursuits. It is in the gap left by that neglect that the attention of a friend or coworker has the potential to turn a relationship into more than "just friends."

If you are experiencing infidelity in your marriage, or suspect that your mate may be having an affair help is available through our coaching center. Visit www.symcinc.com for more information.

Guest Author DAVID J. NELSON

"Am I crazy??"

© David J. Nelson 2003
All rights reserved. Used with permission

What you may have read or heard is true: Betrayal by infidelity is the most horrendous act a spouse can inflict on another.

Devastating and demoralizing. Emotional rape. The ultimate pain.

Layer on top of this the added dimension of mind boggling confusion.

The wayward spouse - the person you, the betrayed spouse, have loved and cherished - has been "replaced" by someone who looks like them and talks like them but IS NOT the same person. Not only are these "strangers" seemingly detached from their former values and beliefs, but in almost all cases, they seem to have no perception of what's going on outside of themselves, including NO CLUE of the pain and confusion that you the betrayed spouse are going through.

Why? Because they've been abducted by aliens and had their brains scrambled.

OK, OK, I'm digressing already. I'll back up.

The purpose of this article is to describe the feelings and help a "new" betrayed spouse cope with what most describe about the initial confusion when they suspect or discover their spouse is involved in a romantic affair.

First, the confusion can be summed up in three words: "Am I crazy?"

My most vivid early memory upon suspecting, then discovering my wife's affair was one of denial and wondering if I was the crazy one. "This can't be happening! Am I imagining things? I must be wrong, none of this makes sense!!" Over and over I asked my close friends and family, "Am I crazy?" The answer was always an understanding "No." Based on my communication with hundreds of betrayed spouses since then, it seems I was "normal." What I was feeling is the usual betrayed spouse reaction - gut wrenching pain compounded by disorientation.

Participation in a romantic affair, whether it's sexual or emotional, usually requires rationalizations and cover-ups to a bizarre degree. The infidels, or "affairees," seem subconsciously to know what they're doing is self destructive and wrong, and in order to protect their secret, they engage in attempted deceptions and lies that a four year old would not believe. At the same time, they project blame onto the faithful spouse and manufacture or exaggerate past marital problems as the "cause" for their infidelity.

Affair lies and blame shifting become weapons of mass deception.

The deadly serious aspect of this for betrayed souses is that the wayward spouses seem to believe their own lies and revisionist history. In addition to us, apparently they are trying to deceive themselves - and they usually succeed. Because of this self deception, their disjointed stories and bizarre explanations are delivered with the poker face of a professional gambler. This results in feelings of extreme confusion by the betrayed spouse because none of what's happening makes sense, yet the wayward spouse is adamant and convincing that it does. Unlike the four year old, the betrayed spouse resists believing what they suspect, because of both the utter bizarreness of it all and the sincere explanations of their spouse. The betrayed spouse processes the information rationally. The wayward is thinking irrationally. Hence, betrayed spouse's self doubt ensues and we wonder, "Am I crazy?"

When I was experiencing this as a betrayed spouse, I literally thought I was going nuts. To make matters worse, when I confronted my wife about my suspicions, backed up by evidence, she very convincingly defended herself and lambasted me for doubting her loyalty!! "How dare you accuse me of an affair!!! That doesn't make sense!! Why would I do that!!" In response, I slinked back into my own self doubt. I wanted to believe her. Little did I know I was dead-on right.

But how could she do this? What rational person could behave this way? Can't she see how much this is hurting me? What could explain all of this?

The whole scenario was so outlandish that the alien abduction theory was the only plausible explanation. No earthly explanation would do. As I have come to learn, my experience was typical of betrayed spouses. The wayward spouses' behavior and false justifications - right down to the dialogue - are so similar that it's down right spooky. A lot of brains are being scrambled on the same Mothership.

If you hear, "Just friends" or "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," you're probably talking to an alien.

What I was witnessing was the extreme denial and rationalization expressed by just about all wayward spouses in the passion of a romantic affair. They have entered the "fog." They are love drunk and fog bound. They cannot see beyond their own selves and self absorption. They cannot "see" as rational people do because they have painted over all the mirrors in their lives. There is no self doubt on their part, no self evaluation, no, "oops" response before they speak or act. This is why it's soooo easy for the betrayed spouse to see through their lies and catch them in hypocritical statements once the betrayed spouse realizes what's going on.

Stories abound of crazy statements and situations that would be hysterically funny if not for the seriousness:

"Where have you been?" "I forgot to come home after work."

"Why is your underwear on inside out and backwards?" "It's more comfortable this way.

Another essential result of the fog is that the wayward cannot appreciate the pain the betrayed spouse is experiencing. How could they? No person in their right mind would intentionally harm someone to this degree - especially not someone whom they've shared their lives and dreams with, had children with.

But based on recollections of many, many "recovered" wayward spouses, they honestly did not know what they were doing to their spouse- or anyone one else directly affected. A very common statement by wayward spouses who have come out of the fog is "What was I thinking?" followed by declarations of overwhelming guilt and remorse. But at the time, they were doing what was justified, necessary and right in their minds.

The Mothership was in control.

What this all boils down to is a straight forward recommendation for the "new" betrayed spouse:

You are not the crazy one. Don't try to make sense out of what’s happening. You are not dealing with rational people, so your normal thought processes won't work. This is exactly why you are confused. Your spouse will act as if he/she has been abducted by aliens and had their brains scrambled. Just watch and don’t take any of this personally. If you can do it calmly, confront your spouse with any solid evidence you have of the affair, but expect denials and lies beyond belief.

Finally, even though this may be hard to accept, believe that your husband or wife does not know the pain that you're feeling. They are more confused than you are.

Signs that Your Spouse Might be Having an Affair

You're certain something isn't quite right and yet you can't put your finger on what it is. Or perhaps your spouse has become so distant you can't seem to reach him or her. It may even be that your partner has moved out or told you that he/she is no longer in love with you. You suspect that there may be someone else and yet if you've had the courage to bring it up with your mate the suggestion has been adamantly denied. Are there signs that a spouse is having an affair? The answer to that is yes. But one needs to be careful not to confuse signs with proof.

"I don't love you anymore."
When someone I am working with tells me that his or her spouse has said this, a big warning bell goes off in my head. I consider this to be one of the most consistent things unfaithful men and women say to their partners. This statement suggests that a person is comparing how he or she feels about the spouse to the heady feelings of infatuation caused by an affair. Although feelings of love can fade over time, the recognition of such is not usually so abrupt that it is spoken of in those terms. The exception of course is someone who is very self aware.

"We're just friends."
Next to the, "I don't love you," statement this ranks as one of the most predictable statements wayward men and women make. A typical pattern is spending more and more time with a "friend" either at work or possibly at a recreational activity. This person is often described as someone who "has a lot in common" with the spouse, and who "understands" things the spouse is going through in her or her life. This could be anything from dealing with a boss or coworker to major life altering experiences. Either way, it's a warning sign.

"I need my privacy."
This is typically a defensive statement made to hide activities or relationships that an unfaithful spouse knows would cause an uproar. A secret life is hidden behind the guise of privacy.

"I need my space to decide what to do about our relationship."
Frequently men and women who are involved with someone outside their marriage will say this as a way to ensure more privacy. A sudden desire to move out of the home is often an indication that there is someone else in the picture and that the spouse is seeking ways to have more freedom to come and go without question.

A change in work habits.
Working late, going in at odd hours, or putting in significantly more time can all be indications that a spouse is unfaithful. Certainly all of us are subject to increased work loads, so watch for other signs as well.

Spending a lot of time on the computer.
The ease with which one can have secret email accounts has allowed infidelity to blossom at alarming rates. Chat rooms and online dating services increase the problem exponentially. Pornography is huge business and sexual addiction is becoming rampant. If this is a concern there are many spy software packages available to track what is being done on your computer. Spending a lot of time on the phone, especially the cell phone. Many affairs occur primarily on the phone and in email. A spouse who cannot be separated from his or her cell phone and especially who is defensive about the calls is acting suspiciously.

Inconsistencies in the details. Behavior that does not add up.
Not being where he or she said was expected to be. Missing time. Money that cannot be accounted for. Receipts for things which you don't have. Missing clothing. Clothing that does not belong to your family. Being caught in little lies about the details of the day.

Your fears and suspicions.
If you find yourself needing to find excuses for your spouse's behavior or needing to convince yourself that your mate would never cheat on you then that in itself is a warning sign. Your intuition about your life is frequently one of the best indicators available. If you suspect your spouse might be cheating on you, do some investigating and then confront him or her with what you've found. Do it in a way that is calm and courteous. Ask for honesty, but know that spouses who are unfaithful frequently lie even in the face of irrefutable evidence. It is important that you remain respectful at all times. Becoming judgmental and accusatory will not help you. Continue to be vigilant and to look for more evidence.

If you suspect that your spouse could be having an affair and you would like my thoughts or input email me at help@saveyourmarriagecentral.com . I can help you look at the clues and suggest other avenues to explore.

Other Resources:

eNewsletters:
Oct 2002/ Honesty
Nov 2002 / Time
Dec 2002 / Compatibility
Jan 2003 / Romance
Mar 2003 / Infidelity Part I Discovery and Dynamics
Apr 2003 / Infidelity Part II Exposing, Confronting, Separating
May 2003 / Infidelity Part III Recovery
Sep 2003 / Conversation
Oct 2003 / Internal Shift
Jan 2004 / Volunteer
Feb 2004 / Infidelity Overview

Infidelity Resources:
www.symcinc.com
www.dearpeggy.com
www.marrriagebuilders.com
www.shirleyglass.com
www.sexhelp.com (Sexual addiction information)

Not Just Friends Shirley Glass 2003
Surviving An Affair Willard F. Harley Jr. PhD 1998 Revel
In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Online Compulsive Sexual Behavior Patrick Carnes et al Hazelden

If you would like one on one assistance in implementing these concepts into your marriage call me at 1.877.416.2657

Check out the Coaching Center

Be sure to visit www.symcinc.com for archived copies of the eNewsletter. Changes and additions to the site taking place as you read this!!!

Did You Know?

Infidelity affects an estimated 80% of marriages in the US?

That statistic comes from Peggy Vaughn, author of The Monogamy Myth, in 1989. I suspect that given the passage of time, those numbers are even higher today.

What that means in terms of day to day life, if you are at a gathering with 10 other couples, 8 of those will be struggling with infidelity in their marriage.

Most marriages do not end in divorce because of an affair. Rather they end in divorce when the conditions which led to the affair in the first place are not addressed.

Need Help Now?

If you are dealing with infidelity in your marriage, or if you suspect that your partner may be having an affair, I can help you find your way back to a healthy marriage. Call me at 1.877.416.2657

Free follow up phone coaching session with paid initial consult

© Penny R. Tupy, Marriage and Relationship Coach
January 2003

Your feedback always welcome and encouraged!!! Thanks for reading. PRT
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