{"id":52,"date":"2011-09-09T12:33:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T12:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mormontherapist\/2011\/09\/how-do-i-keep-an-eternal-perspective-through-infidelity\/"},"modified":"2011-09-09T12:33:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-09T12:33:00","slug":"how-do-i-keep-an-eternal-perspective-through-infidelity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mormontherapist\/2011\/09\/how-do-i-keep-an-eternal-perspective-through-infidelity.html","title":{"rendered":"How do I keep an eternal perspective through infidelity?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
How does one find a balance between unconditional love, differences in marriage, and eternal perspective?<\/span>
Context: My wife blames her same-sex affair and relapse affair (4 months later) primarily on my poor church attendance (as well as my social anxiety). She knows she should take responsibility but returns to blaming me when talking about us to me and family. I made large strides in focusing on her needs after the initial affair: frequent (1 a week) activities with her family, seeking treatment for my infertility, working day shift, 1-2 dates\/week, increased church attendance, socializing at church, listening to her, and sleeping all night in the same bed (a problem left over from me working nights, I don\u2019t sleep well in our bed). She doesn\u2019t seem to recognize this. She is upset with my desire for her to go walking with me every other day and my desire for sex and has only done either a few times since the initial affair. It upsets her my needs are so simple and easy to define. She has moved out (immediately after relapse) and won\u2019t move back in till she sees \u201creal effort and change from me\u201d because she doesn\u2019t want to repeat a cycle. Her father had an emotional affair, years ago, with similar reasons. Her mother became active and spiritual because of it. <\/span>
I love my wife and feel that I was selfish and immature through much of our marriage (married 8 years, I\u2019m 35, she is 30). I have mild social anxiety and general dissatisfaction with my lack of success in life. She feels she is codependent and has been repressed while trying to keep the peace. <\/span>
I want my wife to be happy. Her affair partner seems to be an addiction and escape. She doesn\u2019t feel physically attracted to the woman. She only has sex because she is filled emotionally by the woman and wants to do what the woman wants because of it. She struggled with stopping all contact (unavoidable at first). When she gave in and talked to her she would become critical of me and hopeless about us. She continues to have contact with her during this break. I want to help her through this if at all possible. I want a marriage where we both know \u201cleaving\u201d (divorce or infidelity) is not an option. She has been such a giving, loving person most of our marriage that I feel her current attitudes are temporary. I feel that church activity and prayer and scriptures really do bring greater happiness and a stronger marriage. I have a strong desire to remain active and strong in our faith.<\/span>
I desperately want someone that loves and accepts me no matter what. I don\u2019t like the idea that if we fix us and I grow weak and become less-active she will leave me. I\u2019m saddened by the thought of her feeling alone in church. I have always been empathetic about her affair and how she must feel and how she felt to do it in the first place. With the relapse I told her immediately it was OK and we all make mistakes, and she had done her best. <\/span>
How do I reconcile my need for unconditional acceptance, my desire to be active, my history of inactivity, and her needs and her happiness?<\/span>\n

Well \u2014 isn\u2019t your first sentence the question of the century\u2026 \ud83d\ude42
I think all couples at some level struggle to find the balance between my needs\/desires, your needs\/desires and a greater goal that at times can mean putting needs\/desires temporarily aside.\u00a0 Finding this balance through things such as communication, compromise, boundaries, sacrifice and finding one\u2019s own voice is, in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges in marriage and where the greatest potential for personal growth resides.\u00a0
Your situation presents as complex with many facets \u2014 and so right away, my first suggestion for you and your wife is to start both individual and marital therapy.\u00a0
Here are some themes I would encourage you to explore with a therapist:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • What are your needs and her needs?\u00a0 What is the level of interdependence that you are both comfortable with?\u00a0 In other words, do you have a sense of security that your partner is able to meet your needs?<\/li>\n
  • What is your social anxiety about?\u00a0 How does it affect your personal life as well as your relationships with loved ones?\u00a0 Is this something diagnosable and could you benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy and\/or psychotropic medication?<\/li>\n
  • If your wife feels like she was codependent in your relationship and didn\u2019t like it, is she in danger of repeating this pattern in her new relationship?\u00a0 You mention she tells you sexual attraction is not involved and she is putting this woman\u2019s needs ahead of her own.\u00a0 If this is truly the case then your wife is not solving any of her problems \u2013 she is just changing the partner with whom she will have problems with.\u00a0 <\/li>\n
  • Has your wife explored her sexual orientation?\u00a0 I\u2019m not completely convinced that this may not be an underlying factor greatly affecting more of your marriage than you might think.\u00a0 Within our faith structure this is not usually a safe thing to feel like one can explore.\u00a0 Yet denying or ignoring same-sex attraction is an ineffective way to deal with one\u2019s sexuality.\u00a0<\/li>\n
  • Family history issues need to be explored further. \u00a0 <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Although affairs can many times stem from disillusion or discontentment in the primary relationship, this does not justify the choice to have the affair to begin with.\u00a0 Your tone implies you are taking quite a large amount of blame for her inappropriate actions.\u00a0 Why is this?\u00a0 It will be important for the two of you to address the infidelity as separate from your underlying relational issues.\u00a0 If your relationship can survive, she will need to offer reparation for her actions.\u00a0 You will need to take the time to heal from her actions.\u00a0 That is one piece.\u00a0 Once this work is under way, then you can begin to explore the problems that reside within the relationship between the two of you that existed prior to the affair.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    You mention this idea of \u201cunconditional\u201d love.\u00a0 Although beautiful in its concept, it is also complex and has a \u201cperfection\u201d quota attached to it.\u00a0 Since perfection is out of reach for us, there is a sense of impending failure many feel when pitted against the somewhat unrealistic challenge of loving \u201cunconditionally.\u201d \u00a0 I\u2019m not sure marriage is necessarily a place where love happens unconditionally. I\u2019m not sure this is even healthy.\u00a0 In other words can I promise to love you no matter how you treat me or what you do that may be destructive to my well being?\u00a0 Not healthy boundaries in my book.\u00a0 Maybe better stated than \u201cunconditional love,\u201d I\u2019m speaking of the type of love that keeps a marriage viable.\u00a0 Much of the love that keeps partners together occurs when things such as respect, appropriate boundaries, and appropriate behavior are routinely in place.\u00a0 When uncertainties such as infidelity happen, you may still love your spouse, but the relationship needs to be redefined.\u00a0 And as this relationship is redefined some marriages end.\u00a0 Others move forward to new territory.\u00a0 Either way, the process of infidelity is usually unsustainable for a healthy marriage if it remains chronic.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    I would encourage you to explore the possibility of offering unconditional love maybe in a different context.\u00a0 Are you able to offer it to yourself before you expect someone else to offer it to you?\u00a0 I\u2019m not implying that in marriage there aren\u2019t needs that we look for our partners to meet.\u00a0 However, this concept of self- work and self-progress is usually much more effective for people than focusing on how their partner can change or love them better.\u00a0 From some of the things that you say about yourself, I believe some work on self acceptance might be useful for you to consider.\u00a0 Something to explore in individual therapy. <\/p>\n

    I wish you the best in the painful process of moving forward you and your wife will be facing in the near future. \u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How does one find a balance between unconditional love, differences in marriage, and eternal perspective?Context: My wife blames her same-sex affair and relapse affair (4 months later) primarily on my poor church attendance (as well as my social anxiety). She knows she should take responsibility but returns to blaming me when talking about us to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow do I keep an eternal perspective through infidelity?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How does one find a balance between unconditional love, differences in marriage, and eternal perspective?Context: My wife blames her same-sex affair and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mormontherapist\/2011\/09\/how-do-i-keep-an-eternal-perspective-through-infidelity.html\" \/>\n<meta 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