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Rebuilding A Marriage

Brian: Well certainly, you can't be devastated and then get back to the same spot as before by one action. If that was the case we wouldn't have needed to go out for dinner for three months in a row. It takes a long time because there is this huge hurt. Everyone needs to take these little steps towards the right thing and just because they don't say things in one particular fashion does not mean they didn't mean it. It just means your perception of what they said; your imagination is telling you something else because our natural reaction is to be angry. We want to retaliate. We want them to be as hurt as we are, without really understanding that maybe they are, but in a different way. Well maybe not the same hurt but they are obviously hurting also. The betrayed person tends to think that the betrayer is just having fun and not having any emotional struggles.

Anne: I think it takes quite a measure of grace for the betrayed person to step up to the plate and listen to the betrayer while they are still hurting so much, but that's the part that has to happen. And that's what's so hard. In another way it shows the fact that I'm finding that they betrayed person does not understand the 3rd party at all. They think "who is this bitch with no morals that can sleep with my husband and doesn't she realize what she's doing to me? She's the ultimate bad of bad people." One woman felt that single woman need to be educated and understand how much they are hurting families. (She didn't even understand that many of the 3rd parties are married women!) What she's saying is let's just take the opportunity away from husbands. That would solve her problems, she thinks. The responsibility lies both with the 3rd party and with the betrayer to not have affairs. It would be great if we could create a world where affairs didn't happen, but that's just about as likely as achieving world peace. The solution lies not in educating people in how painful affairs are because when people get involved in affairs it's like a drug or alcohol addiction. Thinking you are going to deter people from affairs by telling them how they hurt people is like thinking that teenagers will stop having sex because of the risk of pregnancy or STD's. It doesn't work. It doesn't deter very many. Talking about the bad consequences does not hinder people from having affairs. What does hinder people is something more complicated. They have to be willing to look inside themselves and ask themselves the questions: Why do I feel this way? Why do I want this affair? What is it I'm trying to replace in my life? What do I really need in my life? They need to look inside themselves at what's motivating them. That's where the solution lies. It's an individual decision. The responsibility lies within both parties having the affair.

Brian: The reason for affairs is there is some emotional need that is lacking in a persons life. The affair is not the responsibility of the betrayed person, but the betrayed person does need to identify and understand their faults in the marriage. They need to recognize those things. There are little negative trigger points in the marriage that are difficult to recognize. If we could learn to recognize these things we would have a much greater success rate in preventing affairs.