Will You Make Sense of Your Relationship and Stay With a Cheating Husband?

Making sense of relationships is hard enough as it is.  Throw in a cheating husband (or wife or partner) and it becomes much, much harder.  Dr.  Slake has some good thoughts here.  But this is a subject that's highly debatable.  And why not?  Why not debate on it?  Especially if it's about making sense of relationships?

Q&A – Should I Stay With My Cheating Husband?

Daily Inspiration

By John H. Sklare, Ed.D, Lifescript Personal Coach

Published July 19, 2012

 

Q: Last August I found out that my husband of 26 years was having an affair. We separated at the time, during which I had a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide and was hospitalized. I’m currently in therapy. After six weeks we got back together, until I learned the affair had continued. He now says he wants to work on us, but he’s still seeing this girl. What should I do?

-B. W.

A: Hi B,

You’ve certainly had your share of tough times in recent months and I’m sorry that you find yourself in this situation after 26 years of marriage. Because of the breakdown and attempted suicide that you shared, I’m also relieved to see that you’re currently seeing a therapist. My instincts tell me that it will take more than a brief and surface level exchange with me to help you find your way through all of this heartache, betrayal and disappointment.

Because your husband has been dishonest with you about seeing this woman twice, I’m reminded of that old saying, Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me. However, because you’ve been married for 26 years, I understand your desire to try to work this out and stay together. I tend to judge people by what they do more than by what they say and, as a result, I’d have great difficulty trusting this man again. On the other hand, if you honestly believe that he’s sincere and you want to give it another go, I would absolutely insist that marital therapy for the both of you be an integral part of the reconciliation agreement.

Wishing You Great Health,
Dr. John H. Sklare

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My Thoughts

 

People get their hearts broken.  That's  part of loving.   That's why making sense of relationships is important.  People need to know how to deal with heartbreak.  Otherwise, it's the relationship that would break.

Dealing with cheating is something else.  It breaks, not only the heart.  It breaks the person.  Easier if there were no wedding vows.  But when you promised to love and to hold, the issue of "let no man put asunder" comes in.

I used to think that this is impossible: to forgive and let God take care of the healing.  But it happens.  I've seen a lot of couples get over the "cheating" and they are now happy.  I've seen the pain of staying with the "cheater", but the obedience to God's directions really do pay off.

God gave us the wisdom, and the will, to do what we can in making sense of relationships.  But it's Him, only Him, who can truly make sense of our relationships for us. 

What Do You Prefer in YOur Relationship: WORDS OR ACTIONS?

Words Versus Action
Daily Inspiration
By John H. Sklare, Ed.D, Lifescript Personal Coach
Published December 10, 2010

There are two separate but distinct kinds of emails that I receive from people who are struggling in their relationships: Those whose significant other says he or she loves them but doesn’t show it, and those whose significant other shows love but never says it.

Personally, I tend to judge people more by what they do than by what they say. However, the ideal relationship contains a healthy mix of both of these. But some people get all words and others get all actions. Today I ask you to reflect on which two modes of loving communication you most appreciate. In other words, even though both are important, what’s more important to you in an intimate relationship? Is it what your lover says or does?

Wishing You Great Health,
Dr. John H. Sklare

MY THOUGHTS

What's more important to me in a relationship?  If I have to choose between words and actions, I'd probably go for the latter. Who doesn't want to feel that you're loved?.  Who wouldn't want to be showered with love?  Still, it's nice to hear, every so often, what the other person feels.  Why does it have to be a choice between the two?  I believe you can have both.  It's not impossible.  But if you are in a relationship where you have one but not the other, be thankful.  Be very thankful.  Some people have not even experienced either one.

Happiness in Marriage

Happiness in Marriage
Don't Depend on Marriage to Bring You Happiness
By Sheri & Bob Stritof, About.com Guide

One of the myths about marriage is that marriage will make you happy. That's not true. Marriage alone cannot bring you happiness.

A Happy Marriage Comes From Within
Your happiness both as an individual and as a married partner must come from within yourself. Being married can add to your happiness, but it is not and can not be the primary source of your happiness.

"... getting married is not necessarily the key to achieving eternal bliss. Most people were no more satisfied with life after marriage than they were prior to marriage in a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology."
Source: Anne Becker. "Marriage Is Not the Key to Happiness." PsychologyToday.com. 3/18/2003.

A Few Strategies for Creating a Happier You and a Happy Marriage

* Like yourself.
* Be yourself.
* Be nice to one another.
* Show mutual respect.
* Be supportive of each other.
* Agree to have fair fights.
* Each evening, share with one another three happy things that you noticed during the day. Talk about why these moments of happiness occurred.
* Both of you write down how you want to be remembered. Talk with your spouse about how the way you are living your lives helps or takes away from what's important to you both.
* Make a list of things that make you happy such as a sunny day, a hot bath, a child's laugh. Create ways to include these happy times in your life more often.
* Do a random act of kindness not only for a stranger each day, but also for one another. Don't talk about these acts of kindness with one another. They are for your own personal self-esteem and growth.
* Fill your own emotional needs.
* Compliment and affirm your spouse.

Word of Caution
We are not saying that you can create a happy marriage when there is infidelity, abuse, lying, etc.

If you are in a dysfunctional marriage, please seek professional counseling so you can make an informed and rational decision as to whether or not your marriage is worth saving.

MY THOUGHTS

so, i hope you're not in a dysfunctional marriage. work on these tips, then. yes, work. some people think, saying "i do" is enough. real work comes after the vows. and more work is required when your wedding photos start to fade. when bulging tummies, double chins and sagging (i was going to say cheeks!) share that old creaky bed each night. it's so easy to fall out of love in the everyday mundane things of a married life. once you do, it's a lot harder to try and fall in love all over again. if you're married and you have not seen the movie fireproof, please do.

Making Love Last

Make Romance Last
By Helen Fisher
O, The Oprah Magazine | November 18, 2009


I have a friend who met her husband at a red light. She was 15, in a car with a pile of girls. He was in another car with a crowd of boys. As the light turned green, they all decided to pull into a nearby park and party. My friend spent the evening sitting on a picnic table talking to one of the guys. Thirty-seven years later, they are still together.

We are born to love. That feeling of elation that we call romantic love is deeply embedded in our brains. But can it last? This was what my colleagues and I set out to discover in 2007. Led by Bianca Acevedo, PhD, our team asked this question of nearly everyone we met, searching for people who said they were still wild about their longtime spouse. Eventually we scanned the brains of 17 such people as they looked at a photograph of their sweetheart. Most were in their 50s and married an average of 21 years.

The results were astonishing. Psychologists maintain that the dizzying feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months toâ??at bestâ??three years. Yet the brains of these middle-aged men and women showed much the same activity as those of young lovers, individuals who had been intensely in love an average of only seven months. Indeed, there was just one important difference between the two groups: Among the older lovers, brain regions associated with anxiety were no longer active; instead, there was activity in the areas associated with calmness.

We are told that happy marriages are based on good communication, shared values, a sturdy support system of friends and relatives, happy, stable childhoods, fair quarrelling, and dogged determination. But in a survey of 470 studies on compatibility, psychologist Marcel Zentner, PhD, of the University of Geneva, found no particular combination of personality traits that leads to sustained romanceâ??with one exception: the ability to sustain your "positive illusions." Men and women who continue to maintain that their partner is attractive, funny, kind, and ideal for them in just about every way remain content with each other. I've seen this phenomenon, known as "love blindness," in a friend of mine. I knew him and his wife-to-be while we were all i n college, when they both were slim, fit, energetic, and curious: a vibrant couple. Today both are overweight couch potatoes. Yet he still tells me she hasn't changed a bit. Perhaps this form of self-deception is a gift from nature, enabling us to triumph over the rough spots and the changes in our relationships. I'm not suggesting you should overlook an abusive husband or put up with a deadbeat bore. But with the holidays upon us, it's worth celebrating one of nature's best-kept secrets: our human capacity to love…and love…and love.

What is intimacy to you?" Recently, I asked this of a man I've been seeing. He replied, "Doing things together." I knew what he meant.

Most of us have a primal craving to be truly known by someone before we die, to build a deeply committed relationship based on honesty, trust, self-disclosure, respect, appreciation, interdependence, and togetherness. But the sexes often define intimacy differently. When women want to draw closer, we face each other, lock eyes in what has been called the "anchoring gaze," and proceed to reveal our hopes, our worries, our lives. To women, intimacy is talking face-to-face—a behavior that probably evolved millions of years ago when ancestral females spent their days holding their infants up in front of them, soothing them with words.

Men, however, often regard intimacy as working or playing side-by-side. Sure, they might discuss a bad week at work, even troubles in their love lives. But rarely do they share their secret dreams and darkest fears. (When they do, they often use "joke speak," camouflaging their feelings with humor.) And men almost never look deeply into each other's eyes. Their approach to intimacy probably also harks back to prehistory: Picture ancestral males gathering behind a bush, quietly staring across the grass in hopes of felling a passing buffalo. They faced their enemies but sat next to their friends.

This is why, to build intimacy with a man, I do things with him—side-by-side. That way, when I talk, he isn't threatened by my gaze.

Curious to find out more about such gender differences, I asked 4,876 members of the Internet dating site Chemistry.com , "What would you do as an intimate activity with a partner?" and offered various choices. I found that men were far more likely to regard "debating" as intimate. I wasn't surprised: Intimacy requires being in your comfort zone, and men's testosterone is associated with competitiveness. On the other hand, women were more likely to consider "organizing a neighborhood or community party together" and "taking a vacation together with a crowd of your closest friends" as ways to be close. Because estrogen is associated with social skills and nurturing, I wasn't surprised by this either.

What I didn't expect was that 95 percent of all respondents rated "talking heart-to-heart with your partner about your relationship" as something they'd do to be intimate, while 94 percent felt that "doing something adventurous together" spelled togetherness—with hardly any difference between the sexes. If these results are any indication that men are learning to appreciate women's need to talk, while women are understanding the male way of showing love ("actions speak louder than words"), then bravo!

There are, of course, many other things you can do to cultivate togetherness . Help your partner achieve his goals. Face your problems as a team. Develop a private spiritual or religious world. Choose a new interest to pursue jointly. Do chores together. Play.

And get the oxytocin flowing. Oxytocin is a brain chemical that produces feelings of trust and attachment. Men get a blast of it when they kiss, women feel a rush when they hold a lover's hand, and during orgasm, both partners are flooded with the powerful substance. So last but not least, enjoy each other physically. Good sex really does build intimacy.

MY THOUGHTS

SO, THERE IS A WAY TO MAKE LOVE LAST. BUT WE NEED TO WORK ON IT. IT'S NOT AUTOMATIC AND IT'S NOT YOUR PARTNER'S RESPONSIBILITY. IT'S YOURS! IF YOUR PARTNER IS NOT DOING HIS/HER SHARE, LET GOD HANDLE THAT FOR YOU. LOVE CAN LAST. I KNOW....