When your house is on fire, what do you do? Do you wait for things to get better on their own, thinking the fire may burn itself out? Do you debate which fire department to call based on their ratings and how much out of pocket it will cost you? Do you call up your friends for their advice before you do anything?
When your house is on fire, it’s time to take action. You take action to save yourself and your family. When a fire is going on, you do not stop and argue with each other.
I find myself amazed at how when the house of your personal life is ablaze from the passions of an affair, many of you freeze up or respond in a nonchalant manner. It’s not the time for nonchalance or freezing up. The logic is simple, when your house is on fire, take action!
it’s not time to assess the damage or analyze what kind of affair it is. It’s time to act! By the time you assess or analyze things, more damage is done.
Like a fire, the emotional conflagration of an affair is not going to put itself out, until it has consumed all it can. Sure, you can wait it out, but it will not leave much behind.
Instead of debating which counselor to go to, or seeing who is covered on your insurance or getting on some waiting list, take action now. When you take action now, you start the healing.
Once you start the healing,can bring in the counselor later, when they can help you work out some of the details. If you’ve taken action, the counselor will be more effective, since by then you will know specifically what you need to work on and where the two of you are getting stuck
Some of you may be thinking, “The issue is the affair”. The affair is often the cheater’s solution to what they see as the problem. What needs attention is that problem.
You may say, “we just can’t communicate!” In that case, do you know where the constraint in your communication is? Sure, it’s easy to say, ‘they don’t listen to me’, but have you considered the possibility of self-sabotage in how you have been presenting things?
What are you and your spouse doing that’s choking off communication? When you can’t breathe, you do something to open up your air passage. You don’t waste your time figuring out what kind of pressure they are putting on your neck or whether or not they really mean what they’re doing.
Could it be that your non-verbals send one message while your words say something else? Could it be that your spouse does not feel valued by you? Could it be that the two of you force solutions on each other rather than actually solve problems together?
I have often stated, that you are not as good a communicator as you think. It could be that all that communicating you thought you were doing were nothing more than nagging in a different set of clothes, and your spouse sees that.
Knowing what needs to be talked about and how to do it effectively is like having the relationship construction manual. You may be one of those people trying to build your marriage on things seen on TV or what your parents did rather than what you and your spouse need, or the way that God intended it to be.
When you throw God and the instruction manual out the window, how will you know where to start?
Getting your relationship back on track requires immediate action and attention. Your response to the affair sends a loud message about how important marriage really is for you. Delaying or postponing action send the message that your personal comfort or emotions are more important than your marriage.
Delaying action is a guarantee of delaying healing. Inaction is a guarantee of continued, prolonged pain.
For specialized help in dealing with such situations, I’ve made a video dealing with coming to grips with the affair. It’s called “Getting Past the Affair Crisis“. It’ll help you take action rather than allowing matters to continue spinning out of control.
Best Regards,
Jeff
PS-Consider ordering “Can I Trust You Again?” or the ‘Affair Recovery Workshop‘ to start your recovery today.
