As you deal with affairs, you will encounter the ‘double-team.’ This is when the cheater and lover join forces in double-teaming you. The double-team can catch you off-guard with accusations and claims.
Dealing with the ‘double-team’ <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad you’re here with me today. The issue we’re going to be tackling today is dealing with the double team.
As you find yourself dealing with affairs and affair situations, or perhaps this is just one affair, you haven’t had to deal with several, in all likelihood you’re going to encounter ‘the double team.’
The double team is when the cheater, and the lover, join forces together in teaming up against you. This double team can catch you off-guard. You thought your spouse was on your side and next thing you know they’re teaming up against you.
When they’re teaming up against you it’s real easy to start feeling overwhelmed. You may have thought that your spouse is a sleazy scumbag for what they did. You’re telling them they’re “a sleazy scumbag”, they’re denying that they’re a sleazy scumbag.
Then the lover chimes in and joins in with the cheater and says “no, they’re a wonderful person”. They both agree that the cheater’s a wonderful person and it’s two of them against you.
It turns into a he said, she said scenario.
This can be overwhelming. And it may be on, like for instance, your assessment of the lover, your assessment of the cheater, or issues that come up concerning the kids, or other things where the two of them are on the same team against you. And that makes it very overwhelming.
Besides catching you off-guard, there can be many accusations and claims made that are hard to deal with. On a low level it just may boil down to going into some fights.
When the two of them team up and it’s a legal situation or something turns into a courtroom situation, it can be devastating. The teamwork of those two can make a lot of false claims that is very difficult to disprove in a court of law.
When they do do this double team, it can be very dis-empowering. It almost feels like it takes away a lot of your influence of power. You and your spouse may have shared your influence and power, and may have balanced each other out.
When the lover joins on their side it’s almost like the teeter-totter is going in the other direction. Against you.
In some cases it’s not just a matter of turning the teeter-totter against you, it can become a literal bullying situation where the lover and the cheater bully you into submission on many issues.
The solution to this double team is going to be stand up to the bullies. Much like you may teach your children stand up to the bullies, you’re going to have to stand up to the bullies too. In this case the bully is the cheater and the lover.
How do you do that? That’s what we’re going to cover here today, how to stand up to these bullies.
1. Refuse giving them the space in your head. I use the term space in your head because many times when you argue with them, after the initial argument it still rattles around in your head.
And it’s almost like they rent out space in your head and they keep repeating this over and over and over again, drilling it into you.
I’m a little older, so I’m familiar with the concept of eight-track tapes. Much like those old eight-track tapes you used to play the tape over and over again.
In this case, the accusations made by the double team keep running around in your head. You’re going to need to refuse to give them space. Just because they agree on it does not make it true.
The whole assumption is because we are both adults and we agree on it it must be true. No, that doesn’t make it true. So you’re going to have to refuse giving them space in your head.
2. Deal with your spouse directly. If you need to talk to your spouse or confront them, do it directly you to them. Do not bring or allow them to bring the lover into the situation.
Bringing in the lover turns it into a double team. And you’re going to want to essentially refuse to play by those rules.
You may have to insist that they wait out in the car, or other things like that. You want to do all the dealing with your spouse directly, and not get the lover involved.
3. You’re going to need to resist the temptation of attacking the lover. You may want to see the lover as the problem.
In some cases the lover may be the problem. But when you’re dealing with a double team that’s not what you want to do. Because attacking the lover puts you in a bad position.
When you do attack the lover the cheater tends to come along and rescue them. Once that patterns gets set up where the cheater starts rescuing the lover because you’re being mean and picking on them, that’s going to push them further into the lover’s arms.
That’s why you do not want to attack the lover. You attack the cheater’s behavior, and the cheater’s choices, the cheater’s thinking. Not attacking the lover.
I’ve given you some things that you can do in terms of standing up to the bullies when they decide to go ahead and double team you. It’s not an easy situation, but these are things that you can do, and you can start doing.
Like for instance the one about refusing to give them space in your head. You can do something about that right now.
In terms of dealing with your spouse directly that’s something that you can start doing, that you’ve got to make the decision now to do it.
In terms of resisting the temptation of attacking the lover, I know that you are probably playing out all these scenarios in your head about what you’re going to say to them, what you’re going to do to them, don’t attack the lover. The problem that you have right now is with your spouse.
You don’t want this double team pattern to start up, because all it does is just increase in intensity and emotion and drama, and everybody gets hurt. It ends up being an everybody loses situation, and you want to stop that game before it gets started.
These are things that you can right here and now to start turning the situation around. If you are in one of those situations with the double team, now you know what you can do to stop it. And keep it from getting worse.
For more help, consider joining the affair recovery support community at Restored Lifestyle.
Best Regards,
Jeff
