Chapter Nine – What To Do About It
There are a multitude and by multitude, I mean more than you can shake a stick at, number of resources available for the prevention of infidelity, the exposing of infidelity and the recovering from an affair. There are even books on the market which explain in great detail how to successfully commit an affair. J Now as helpful, insightful or disturbing as this may be, the somewhat disheartening thing is the fact that no one resource, good or bad, will work for everybody. When it comes to infidelity, everybody has a different way to perpetrate it. Everybody has a different way to expose the act and everybody has a different way to come up out of the hole that the act will more than likely sink a person into. But there is one thing – one universal thing, which should not be done when it comes to reacting to infidelity and that is letting the act consume you. Some people when faced with infidelity, will go the route of denial. They will not allow themselves to believe that it could happen to them or they will not accept that it is happening at all. Other people will go the route of revenge. They will do exactly what was done to them and sometimes they will do more and worse just to teach a lesson to the significant other who perpetrated the affair. There is a final group of people who will do nothing when it comes to reacting to an infidelity situation. On the one hand doing nothing is a great idea because it will force the significant other who committed the indiscretion to constantly wonder what, if anything you are planning to do to get revenge. On the other hand doing nothing can be a horrible response because the hurt, which the infidelity has caused, will have optimum opportunity to fester and manifest itself into something dangerous. What many people do is often garner the belief that they are more than capable of handling every situation, which may occur by themselves. Many of these people feel that all they have to do is push whatever hurt or grief or unhappiness, which may occur, down into some far away compartment inside of themselves and there it will stay until these people are ready to release it. But here’s the problem; sometimes, many times in fact, hurt, grief and unhappiness all have a way of taking on a life of their own and sometimes they will overtake a person’s ability to think rationally. This is what is meant by consuming a person. There is a general consensus when it comes to infidelity and this states that after the act is perpetrated, the innocent individual is allowed a period of grief, anger, and maybe even hatred toward the guilty significant other but this period does have a deadline. The deadlines will vary form person to person but the bottom line is that sooner or later, the individual who was hurt will just have to either forgive the other or suck it up and move on. This is what causes confusion with a lot of people. The effects of infidelity are not the same with everybody. And recovering from those effects have a different time period as well. What many people do not realize is that sometimes the effects which people think are only going to last for maybe a week or month, may last for way over a year and in fact may last for many years. As mentioned earlier, people can become turned off to the idea of relationships and sex in general by one act of infidelity. This can cause people to act completely outside of their character and the character that everybody else has interpreted them as having. One act of infidelity does not usually cause an individual to go completely off the deep end but when the act repeats itself and not only repeats itself but reoccurs without proper repair or proper understanding of why it initially occurred, all of those instances which were pushed down into that little far away compartment will come a tumbling out in the worst way.
One of the most, if not the most primary things a person who has been involved in an infidelity based situation should do is make a decision. They should not lose their minds, blow their tops or plot the most calculated plan of revenge for their significant other. The first thing they should decide is whether or not the relationship they have is worth saving. Now normally this would be an easy thing to do except that the commission of infidelity will make most people forget everything, which has happened in the relationship up until the point of infidelity. It’s really kind of amazing when you think about it. The act of infidelity; something which can be done in less than ten minutes has the capability to eradicate what has been put together in some cases for more than ten years. And the only reason that I can fathom that this will happen is because people do not break a relationship up into equal parts, as in one part spouse, one part children and one part friends. Many people will make sex the most important part of their relationship. They will equate sex with love. They will even put sex on a plateau above family. What this means is that once the man & wife or girlfriend and boyfriend sex bond is violated by having sex with somebody outside the relationship, there can be nothing else in the relationship that matters enough to sustain the relationship. These people have already made up in their minds that nothing is more important than exclusivity when it comes to that part of the relationship. For some reason or other, many people think that when sex is had there are always feelings of love and happiness and these feelings of love and happiness are shared equally by both of the individuals having sex. This is not always the case. In fact this is most of the time never the case. Some people have the uncanny ability to have sex void of certain feelings. Of course there are always feelings involved during sex (I mean if there weren’t, nobody would be having sex – except for the babies) but the feelings I am talking about are those mentioned above, the love and the happiness and other closely related feelings along those lines. People can have sex just to get their rocks off, just to get that nut. People do not need to be in love to disrobe and bounce around in the bedroom or in the backseat of a car or in any random staircase. Some people can do it and not think twice about the person they did it to or let do it to them. The problem that many people who are involved in infidelity based situations have is that they all too often think that just because the person they are involved in a supposedly committed relationship with has sex with somebody else, that means that they are in love with this person or that they have strong feelings for this person. This is what makes the ‘what to do about it’ part of infidelity so damned hard. Now granted, most people who catch their significant other in an infidelity based situation will not want to examine the situation, weigh the pros against the cons and then make a rational decision regarding the act. Most people who catch the significant other in an infidelity based situation will want to beat the shit out of the motherfucker and then think logically about making a rational decision on whether or not the relationship should continue. This is not healthy. It is fun. It is relaxing. It is even stress relieving but it is definitely not healthy. Yes, I must say that I do agree that there should be a period of separation from the guilty party but I also believe that it should be after the decision is made on whether or not there is enough in the relationship to continue with the relationship. When people make decisions out of anger (and nine times out of ten, when you get cheated on, you are going to be angry) they often regret them. It’s okay to say ‘I will forgive this mf eventually but I will make him suffer in the meantime!’ On the other hand, saying ‘get out of my house, the relationship is over’ immediately after an indiscretion is discovered is not. And the reason why is while the innocent individual is going through a whole bunch of emotions regarding how they really feel and how much the relationship actually means to them, the guilty party may feel that the relationship is truly over and may set his or her sights elsewhere. Then if and when the innocent party decides to have a change of heart, it is often too late for the relationship to be saved. I do not believe that anybody will fault another who has been hurt by infidelity for being upset at the one who has hurt him or her. I mean we all are human. But just like the one who was hurt in the relationship, the one who caused the hurt may be hurt just as much or more when faced with the prospect of losing the relationship and everything, which has come along with it. Everything is a process. Infidelity is no different. Committing the act does not just happen and recovering from the act does not just happen either.
In addition to making a decision on whether or not the infidelity marred relationship can be saved, many will suggest that therapy is in order as a way of one, getting past the affair and two, ensuring that the infidelity has little to no chance of giving a repeat performance. Personally, I think that ongoing, professional relationship assistance is invaluable in helping people get past an affair, especially if it is done by someone who is not only qualified but who also has many resources for support for when the couple is not undergoing therapy. Unfortunately, many people who have had to deal with an affair cannot afford ongoing, professional therapy sessions and if they could afford them, more than likely they would not be professional. What many people do is consult what I like to call budget psychologists. In other words they will talk to anybody who has or seems to have just an ounce more experience and or knowledge than they themselves do. If a person has been involved in an affair, then he or she becomes the go to guy for the individual who needs help regarding their next course of action about the relationship. Sometimes the belief is that if a person has attended college, no matter what their major, then again, that person becomes the one to advise on the relationship because they’re ‘smart.’ The problem with these budget resources is that way too often, the advice they give is pro victim. In other words, they will side with the victim and place the majority of the blame on the one who was caught in the transgression. Here’s an example: if a woman were to catch her man cheating with somebody else and they break up or experience a great deal of turmoil because of it, one of these friends or ‘budget psychologists’ may say something to the effect of ‘men are dogs by nature, they can’t help themselves.’ This, as comforting as it may be to certain individuals, is not appropriate therapy. This is an opinion – and a negative one at that. Opinions such as these do little to help the victim of infidelity remove himself from the funk that they may be in regarding their relationship. What they often do is make these people who are already feeling dazed and confused about their next course of action regarding their relationship choose the least desired but most immediately gratifying option – and that more times than not is to just dump the motherfucker! People love to listen to everybody who has an opinion on what should be done regarding their relationships and truthfully, I think this is why so many of them prematurely end. What people have to remember is that the relationship they have is primarily between two people. When problems develop between those two people, the solutions must come from you guessed it, two people!
The next thing a couple should do is attempt to get to the bottom of why the indiscretion occurred in the first place. Now this is one of the simplest and at the same time most difficult things to do. And the main reason is because people fucking lie. On the simple end of the spectrum, to successfully get past damn near any adverse situation, the most primary and basic thing an individual needs to do is communicate with the other person. On the difficult end of the spectrum, there is the issue of the guilty party in the relationship not divulging complete truth as far as what the actual reason was for why the infidelity was initiated or not telling the truth at all. From personal experience, not as me being the initiator but the other way around, I have found that people will lie or not tell the complete truth because they think that the other in the relationship cannot handle the complete truth. They feel that for some reason or other, they have to soften the blow. This leads me to believe that if a person cannot tell the truth regarding a specific and serious situation, like that of infidelity, then that person must either have been under the impression that the other was unable to handle certain types of adversity early on in the relationship or the person who committed the infidelity was lying all along. Saving a person’s feelings is a noble gesture but that type of gesture will often provide long term unhappiness for the one seeking to repair the relationship. When people communicate, they have to be truthful. They have to be prepared to completely hurt the feelings of the other because holding back is only going to give everything that you didn’t talk about time to re-manifest itself and attack the relationships’ happiness again. This means if a husband has a pee pee, which is too small for the wife’s enjoyment and she doesn’t find this out until after years of courting, then she must be the one to tactfully inform him of the situation. She cannot say ‘well he is a good man and I love him so I will silently deal with this situation.’ When people do this, they are lying to the significant other as well as themselves. They are restricting their happiness and as much as they think they can do this without any future problems, what they often fail to realize is that happiness, rather the happiness of each person in the relationship is critical for the relationships’ survival. Sooner or later the fact that one is not being satisfied will become the cause of infidelity – even if that person never admits it as being so. Once a couple gets down to why the indiscretion occurred, they can then decide whether or not they can fix whatever it was that caused the occurrence. In the case above, the couple would have to make a decision to be completely honest in the communications to each other. And this means complete honesty from ‘I cannot deal with somebody who has your size penis’ all the way to ‘I am not completely happy with the sex that we are having but I will stick it out with you and try every alternate method for sex that we can find. And if after exhausting every possible resource, I am still not happy with having sex with you, we will then sit down and examine every other option for the continuance of the relationship – up to and including seeing other people while staying together, not having intercourse or ending the relationship altogether.’
A lot of people believe that forgiveness is an instant remedy for the person who has committed infidelity. I tend to disagree. As stated earlier I do definitely believe that forgiveness is a strong and necessary part of the getting the relationship back to where it needs to be process. Also as stated before an individual must make a decision on whether or not they are capable and willing to forgive the one who committed the transgression before anything else. It is not that easy for someone to say, well yes, you did hurt me in probably the worst way that an individual can be hurt outside of physical pain but I forgive you. Let’s look at this from a different perspective shall we? Let’s say for example that the average person had just purchased an eighty thousand dollar Mercedes. Okay I know that average people do not buy $80k cars but just go with it. And let’s also say that your average run of the mill teenager has just received his driver’s license and is driving a twenty thousand dollar car. The individual who has purchased the eighty thousand dollar vehicle is on the way home to show it off to the wife and family and the individual who has the twenty thousand dollar vehicle is driving recklessly because as stated before he has just received his license. Now both of these individuals meet up unexpectedly on the West Side Highway and have an unintentional meeting. No one is injured but the vehicles are nowhere near the pristine condition that they were before the meeting. Here’s the question: does the individual in the eighty thousand dollar vehicle say to himself ‘my car which costs about two times the salary of many hard working peoples’ annual salary has just been damaged for apparently no reason other than reckless driving, I should forgive the one who has caused the accident and go and see if he is alright’ or does he say ‘this motherfucker just fucked up my car! I should go kick his ass!’ More often than not it will be option number two and why? It is because when negative things happen people almost instinctively look at an individual’s intent behind the occurrence. They do not immediately concern themselves with maybe there was a reasonable explanation behind why the accident happened, they say it happened because… And this is what happens most of the time in infidelity based situations. People do not examine why the situation occurred. They just want to believe that it occurred because the guilty party wanted to hurt the other. But we all know that this is not necessarily the case. If it were, why is it that many of those who commit infidelity spend countless amounts of time trying to cover up their indiscretions? True, it is often because they fear the ramifications of their actions but the most feared ramification of all is that of losing the other party. Regardless of the reason why infidelity is committed, it is almost never because the guilty party wants to end the relationship. If that was the case then the guilty party would commit his or her indiscretions in the face of the other. And as we all know, this is rarely done. In the case with the $20k car plowing into the $80k car, no one knows if the teenager had actually planned to damage the brand new car. More than likely it was just an unfortunate accident but it will not be seen as such. If it becomes public knowledge that that teenager was having heart trouble or trouble breathing, then the intent fact will be shifted quickly in the direction of well maybe he couldn’t help himself but the problem with society is that when most are hurt, they never like to give the benefit of the doubt. They want to be mad. They want to be angry. They want to exact the most heinous revenge that can possibly be disbursed. This is what happens with negative situations. Notice how when the situation is positive, people never look behind the reasoning or if they do, it is after the jubilation has somewhat subsided. You hit somebody, it causes pain, they get angry and wonder why did you do that. You give somebody a hug, they will smile, they may wonder why but that wonder will quickly subside. It is because people are used to the right thing. They are used to being happy. They have this expectation of things going the way they want them to. When things don’t go right or as what is often expected, people become under the impression that the other wanted to hurt and cause pain and so therefore they react with everything other than forgiveness.