Preventing and Overcoming infidelity

 

This article should be given to every newly wed. It should be mailed out each year to every home. At minimum, it should be listed as a “to do” on a couples annual relationship checkup list. In the interests of healthy relationships, we need to be reminded about what is acceptable and what is going against our own personal boundaries.

Shirley Glass is an expert in the field of infidelity. If your relationship has not been hit by infidelity right now, then you need to pay attention.

Seven Facts You Need to Know About Infidelity

1. A happy marriage is not a vaccine against infidelity.
2. The person having the affair may not be giving enough at home rather than not getting enough.
3. It is normal to be attracted to another person, but fantasizing about what it would be like to be with that other person is a danger sign.
4. Flirting is crossing the line because it is an invitation that indicates receptivity.
5. Infidelity is not only about love or sex–it’s about maintaining appropriate boundaries with others and being open and honest in your committed relationship.
6. You do not have to have sexual intercourse to be unfaithful. Passionate kissing or oral sex is a violation of your commitment to your partner.
7. Emotional affairs are characterized by secrecy, emotional intimacy, and sexual chemistry. Emotional affairs can be more threatening than brief sexual flings.

What You Need to Know About Love

• People compare and confuse the intensity of being “in love” during an affair with the secure, comfortable feeling of reality based “loving” that occurs in long term relationships.
• The feeling of being “in love” is linked to Stage One idealization, passion and infatuation.
• True love, which you grow into, is characterized by acceptance, understanding, and compassion. That is why so few people end up marrying their affair partners, and those who do have an extremely high probability of divorce.
• Once the affair is no longer the forbidden relationship that takes place in a golden bubble, the cold light of day soon bursts the romantic fantasies.

After an affair, a relationship is more vulnerable than ever. The affair has created uncertainty and opened the future to other possibilities. Shirley Glass recommends these seven tips to ensure you can overcome infidelity.

Seven Tips for Preventing Infidelity

1. Maintain appropriate boundaries with members of the opposite sex, including friends of the relationship, family members, and people at work. Think about what should be sacred between husband and wife.
2. Recognize that work can be a danger zone. Don’t lunch alone or take coffee breaks with the same person all the time. When you travel with a co-worker, meet in public rooms, not in a room with a bed.
3. Avoid emotional intimacy with attractive alternatives to your committed relationship. Resist the desire to rescue an unhappy soul who pours his or her heart out to you. Do not share your feelings of attraction towards a person you are attracted too.
4. Protect your marriage by discussing relationship issues at home. If you do need to talk to someone else about your marriage, be sure that person is a friend of the marriage. If the friend disparages marriage, respond with something positive about your own relationship.
5. Keep old flames from re-igniting. If a former lover is coming to the class reunion, invite your partner to come along. If you value your marriage, think twice about having lunch with an old flame.
6. Don’t go over the line when you’re On-Line with Internet friends. Discuss your online friendships with your partner and show him/her your e-mail if he/she is interested. Invite your partner to join in your correspondence so your Internet friend won’t get any wrong ideas. Don’t exchange sexual fantasies online.
7. Make sure your social network is supportive of your marriage. Surround yourself with friends who are happily married and who don’t believe in fooling around.

All relationships can benefit from having a conversation around affair prevention.

[box type=”warning”] Talk about the 7 Tips for Infidelity Prevention with your partner. Take turns going through each of the 7 points. Give an example on each point, on how an infidelity could happen, or could be prevented. What is one action step each of you will take today, to protect your relationship?[/box]

 

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Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading Not Just Friends – Rebuilding Trust & Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity

Shirley P.Glass, Ph.D

Available on Amazon & many bookstores

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