Cheating Spouses: Love them or Leave them

Laura’s Take: Marriage is a holy union between two people and God, a union that is meant to stand the test of time. But God gave each and every one of us free will to make our own decisions, and sometimes we, as humans, don’t always make the best ones. Some bad decisions can have only a small impact on our lives, while others can completely change the rest of your life. How does a person cope with the knowledge that their husband or wife is having an affair? If you’re in this position, here are a few things to take into consideration.

• How did you find out? If you had to do your own snooping to find out, then the odds are that he or she wasn’t planning on ever telling you. If they confess without your snoopage, then they are most likely remorseful of their actions and wanted to be honest with you.
• Do you have any children? Sometimes couples that have experienced infidelity decide it’s better to remain in the relationship for the sake of the children. Children don’t like having parents who are constantly fighting, in fact, sometimes they’d actually prefer the divorce. Talk to your children and ask them how they feel about the issue. It’s not just about you and your spouse, it’s about the entire family.
• Do you want revenge? It’s a natural feeling to want to hurt the person who hurt you, but vengeful cheating will only hurt yourself. Having meaningless relations with another person will lower your self esteem and only make you feel worse. Try to get over your pain the hard way, lots of tissues and ice cream.
• Will they cheat again? Well it really just depends on the person, but my belief is if they’re willing to risk their marriage once, why not again? It’s like the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
• Can you ever trust them again? Well I can answer this one for you. No, you’ll never be fully able to trust them after there’s been infidelity. When he’s late coming home from work, you’ll wonder if there’s something still going on. I wouldn’t be able to deal with the constant paranoia.
• What do you want to do? There’s only two options, stay in the relationship or move on. Tell your spouse you need some time to think about what you want. Go away for a few days, and during those days, avoid talking to them, because they could try and persuade your opinion. They already made their decision, it’s time for you to make yours.

If you decide that you want to work things out, try going to a marriage counselor to talk about ways to deal with the situation. Counseling is one of the only ways to really be able to rebuild a relationship. If your spouse truly wants to work things out, there should be no fighting about going to the couple’s therapy. It’s so sad to hear when a couple is torn by infidelity. Please, don’t put yourself or your marriage in a compromising position by letting the world’s temptations get the best of you.

Kris’ Take: This is a very sad subject to tackle but unfortunately it’s a rampant problem. I completely agree with the counseling. I don’t think anybody involved in a situation like this is any kind of condition to try and repair the relationship. A counselor can be an invaluable tool that will allow you to make amends rather than just bury the hurt deep down inside. Chances are, if you decide to manage a cheating relationship just between the two of you, one of you is going to just be burying the hurt. A counselor will have the ability to bring out the emotions and arrive to the conclusions that would otherwise be overlooked, or considered too bothersome to face.

The best thing I can say about cheating in the first place is to prevent it. The reason cheating is so common is because people put themselves into situations where it can easily be accomplished. do you have a female colleague? Don’t go out to lunch with her, or do overnighters with her, or put yourself in any position where the two of you could be found alone. Not only will this help to prevent cheating, it will also prevent office rumors that can be just as equally damaging. Do you have a female friend? Don’t spend hours on the phone with her, and if you two are to hang out, bring your wife along. What will the two of you be doing that you couldn’t do with the woman that you supposedly will love until death do you part? Maybe she’d like to get out of the house or meet another female whom she can be friends with.

If you have a “look but don’t touch” attitude, get rid of it. All it takes is for one of those guys or girls that your day dreaming about to say hi and ask you to lunch, then it’s just a friendly lunch, right? Then he or she is giving you nice friendly compliments, friendly, right? Then you start noticing that your husband/wife doesn’t give you those nice compliments, that means this friend is better, right? They make you feel good so you should spend just a tad bit more time with them, right? But your husband/wife doesn’t need to know about these extra meetings, what they don’t know won’t hurt them, right? The answer to all of those is no.

If it sounds like I’m being too strict, then that’s because I take relationships seriously. You must make sacrifices so it will work, and if you don’t think that’s the reality of it, then you’re willing to sacrifice your marriage for another relationship which still validates my point. You can’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time if you never went there to begin with.

Undivided Attention!

Kris’ Take: All the world needs is love, love, love — Love is all you need. WRONG! Okay, so the Beatles were onto something but they should add another word in there; Attention. Yes it’s true, if you love someone you should give them attention, but it doesn’t mean it is required. And this happens to be a big problem in many relationships: A lack of attention. Guys are notorious for this, whether it be work, sports, or electronics in general. It seems like they’d rather be married to those things than you right? I sympathize on this subject just because I see it happen all too often, and it can wreak havoc on relationships and end marriages. Ladies, the only advice I can give is to try and talk about it. There’s no magical cure unfortunately.

Men, please pay attention to the woman you love. If you can’t give proper attention then you need not be seeing someone. Do both of you a favor and don’t engage in a relationship: that way she can find a man that will treat her right, and you won’t be bothered taking your attention away from what is truly important to you. It’s not only stupid, but completely selfish to try and say “I love this woman, and no one else can have her” and then turn around and say “okay, go do something while I watch this show, and the show after that, and the show after that.” Because that is what is essentially happening.

If the two of you are already married, then I suggest talking it out. If you have the ability to, you can even speak with a marriage counselor. There is this huge stigma about marriage counselors, but I’ve only heard good things. People are afraid that if they go to a marriage counselor, they’re admitting they have a problem. Well, yes, but you’re also admitting that you care enough to fix it. Not going to a counselor means you have a problem and you couldn’t care less whether it gets worked out. If you don’t have the money there are many other resources out there, many churches can arrange for you to speak with a counselor free of charge or at a steep discount.

If you love each other enough, then provide the attention that you two need. It’s not enough to just be married, part of the job is to make each other feel loved and encouraged.

Work Husband and Work Wife

Related Articles:
10 Ways To Catch A Cheater
Love Isn’t Blind
How To Be A Better Husband

Kris’ Take: I used to watch these sitcom television shows where people would talk about work husbands and work wives. I thought this was completely fake until I heard some people at my job talking about it. If you don’t know, a work husband or work wife is pretty much the title one receives when they spend too much time at work with someone of the opposite sex. So, Joe is married and he spends ten hours a day at work pouring over a project. He also has a partner that helps him named Jane. Jane and Joe know everything about each other because they spend 10 hours a day together. They’re very friendly and Joe feels more confident confiding in Jane then he does his own wife. Once he gets home, he has some dinner and heads off to bed with barely a word to his wife, just some generic conversation “how was your day?” “Fine, how was yours?” This would most definitely be considered a work husband/wife scenario. This kind of relationship is fine if you’re single, but from my viewpoint, completely inexcusable if you’re married.

I know that you’re bound to forge relationships when you work, but when it starts destroying your true relationships, then it’s time to draw some lines. How can this be done? Stop sharing every little thing with the person at work; Plain and simple. This person doesn’t need to know about your marriage problems. If you have marriage problems that need to be talked out, then bring it to your wife, or a marriage counselor. By talking about marriage problems with another woman, you’re pretty much yelling “I’m unhappy, do you want to make me feel better?” And I’m sure sometimes this is the person’s underlying intentions without even realizing it.

If possible, change project partners. If you’re able to get a man instead of a woman, or vice versa, then do it. Why tempt yourself? In this world of political correctness, segregation is so highly spoken against. “Women can do what men can do.” That’s correct, and I believe it to be completely true, but that doesn’t change the fact that by working with each other you can create a temptation. I’m not blaming women for this, I’m just saying this happens normally without anyone really noticing. Think about how you met your husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend. If it started out as a friendship, then it was probably pretty platonic in the beginning. And that changed after spending time together. People think that merely controlling your “sexual tension” is enough; No, it’s not, there shouldn’t be sexual tension at work. It’s work. The only sexual tension that should be controlled is the tension that you have for your husband or wife because you’ve been apart for 8 – 10 hours. If you have any other kind of tension, you need to request a new partner or team, and you need to let your husband or wife know so you can fix it before it becomes a real problem.

Infidelity runs rampant through relationships, and it is so terribly sad to see. These people that pledge to love each other for sicknesss or health, richer or poorer, and yet our divorce rate is 50%! 1 out of every 2 marriages fail in America, and every one of those marriages took the same pledge. There’s no reason except for people’s selfish ways. It may sound extreme what I suggest, but no job is worth a marriage. When you take that oath, you better be willing to live under a bridge and stay faithful rather than have a billion dollars and fail them.

Laura’s Take: I’m not too familiar with these terms, but I definitely agree with you, Kris, that people shouldn’t put themselves in such compromising positions with coworkers. I can’t even imagine how I would feel if my husband was closer to someone else at work than with me. If you can’t completely keep the promises you’ve made to your husband or wife, then you should seriously think about what you’re doing to your life.

Kris’ Take:  Don’t worry honey, you’ll never have to hear these words from my mouth.

Don’t Forget What You Do Have

Kris’ Take:  Every morning I listen to morning shows on the radio.  I hear people asking for help because of this and that.  There are a lot of people out there in need of something, and one thing I commonly hear brought up is how people are lonely.  As humans, we have a need to be wanted or accepted.  A husband, wife, fiancee, boyfriend, or girlfriend fulfills this need, but many people forget the feeling of being alone.  It gets caught up in complaints about how the other snores too loud, didn’t cut the grass, or forgot to wash the dishes.  And sometimes it even gets taken as far as divorce.  What each of us needs to do is re-evaluate the importance of people in our lives.  How would you feel if they weren’t in your life?  How would you feel being completely and utterly alone?  Some people would say they’d be just fine.  But for how long?  Those people I feel are extremely short sighted, and I don’t think they realize they’d soon be seeking out friends to fill the void. 

It’s okay to complain when you’re frustrated, but at the end of the day make sure the two of you are hugging and cuddling.  You never know what tomorrow may bring, and that’s if tomorrow ever comes.  Be happy and proud that you have someone in your life, because there are people who pray constantly to have that kind of companionship in their life.  Today I heard a statistic that 70% of wealthy men over the age of 55 said the two most important things to judge their success was:

1. Having a happy and loving family.

2. Being able to retire early.

Why did they want to retire early?  So they could spend time with their happy and loving family.  That means that men who consider themselves successful measure that by having a family, not how many figures are in their bank account!  So remember:  while you’re busy complaining about the wife, husband, or kids you have, there are other people out their who would love to have the blessings you’ve got.  Don’t forget what you do have.

Christmas reminds me…

Kris’ Take:  In America, where we are surrounded by advertising and glittering images, we are constantly pressured to buy, buy, buy and keep up with the neighbors.  It can sometimes become very easy to fall into this trap.  When people fall into this trap I call them an Uberconsumer.  That is a word that I completely made up on my own so I know it won’t pass spell check.  When you’re an uberconsumer, you completely lose sight of what is truly important.  People begin to covet their iphone and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses.  Sometimes I find myself in this position where I am blindly driven to succeed and few times do I ever really sit down and define what the word succeed means.

 Sure, the world says that succeeding is acquiring large amounts of money, power, or a combination of the two.  I know for some people that is success, but I think to myself, what is truly important to me?  I would rather have loving children and a faithful wife rather than a million dollars.  I know money is necessary to properly supply the needs of the people that you love, but a line must be drawn.  I know there is some guy out there that is working tirelessly to shove millions in the bank for the family that he has at home.  What he doesn’t realize is while he is slaving away, the kids are growing up, the wife is developing new interests that she isn’t able to share with him because he isn’t around, and all this is doing is widening the gap between him and the family that he thinks he is doing this all for.  It’s really a catch 22.

 There needs to be a balance.  I’m a highly driven person, and that is probably one of my biggest blessings, and one of my biggest flaws.  I need to know how to balance my drive to provide and succeed financially, and also make ample amounts of room for attention and quality time.  I think of the plant analogy:  You buy a plant and put it in the window so that it is sure to have plenty of sunshine.  Then you go to the river to get it water.  But wait, a gallon is okay but you will need plenty of water to sustain it throughout its whole life.  So you hurry home and drip a couple of drops on the plant and you run back out to the river. 

You collect hundreds of gallons of water, every once in a while running back to drip a few drops onto your plant.  You’re too busy to notice that the plant is beginning to brown and wither.  It doesn’t matter how much water you gather, it won’t save that plant without the right amount of attention.  In this case the plant was only receiving a couple of drops a day at best.

 This Christmas I went to my mother’s house and it was nice spending time with her.  I don’t get to see her often and it reminded me of just how nice and important family is.  I see it everyday, celebrities that “have the world” but in all reality, they are unfulfilled.  Look at Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  They will be going to Louisiana to help rebuild, I think that is fantastic, but examine that a little further.  All of the money, and sway that they have, they must be fulfilled, right?  They have the ability to live their lives completely for themselves and not lift a finger, yet they choose to do the opposite.  This shows me that no matter how much money a person has, there is far more to life.  I know this is an obvious conclusion, but look at how many people spend their lives, lose their lives, and lose their families because they love money more.

 Christmas reminds me that it’s okay to work for the money you need, but to remember to put everyone that you truly love before it.