Do you avoid conflict and feel uncomfortable sharing negative feelings? Do you or your partner avoid discussing important things out of fear of conflict?
When important negative feelings are sidestepped, over time, it creates emotional distance. Emotional distance can cause one or both partners to feel lonely.
Emotional distance or feeling lonely is a vacuum that needs to be filled. Many affairs start when one partner can't confide in their spouse.
So they confide in someone else, and as a result, emotional intimacy develops and that intimacy leads to physical intimacy.
Could this be you?
The profile of the typical cheater…
1. Men ages 55-65 and women 40-45 who are entering the workforce.
2. Individuals making more than $30,000 a year.
3. Having higher income, higher social status, and more travel opportunities.
4. Being religious is not a buffer.
The Real Indicator Of Vulnerability
Even though there is a “typical” cheater profile. An even better predictor of vulnerability is loneliness and opportunity.
You may wonder how happily together people could end up so torn in an affair….well let’s talk about that.
How Happily Married People Make their Marriage Vulnerable to Infidelity:
It starts with vulnerabilities in the relationship like the ones we’ve already described.
Next, problems escalate when coworkers or friends form secret emotional attachments to each other. This is especially evident as people cross small boundaries that are needed to protect their marriages.
There are problems when a coworker or friend knows more about your marriage than your spouse knows about your friendship.
That secrecy opens up a window of intimacy that is very destructive to your marriage. Remember emotional intimacy leads to physical intimacy.
Very few married people believe what they are doing will lead to adultery. The unbelief fuels the issues. People say, “oh we’re just friends” and “don’t overreact…we’re not doing anything.”
Some good marriages are also prone to affairs, usually when one partner grew up in a home or works in an environment where it is normal or viewed as okay to cheat.
The right boundaries need to be seriously implemented to ensure that your relationship doesn’t lead to disaster.
What You Can Do If You Suspect Broken Trust
You may believe that your relationship is beyond saving or what has happened is beyond forgiveness. It may feel that you will hurt forever and you’ll never look at your partner the same again.
While you won’t ever forget what happened and the pain does last a while, your relationship is NOT beyond saving. Don’t get us wrong, we won’t string you along and give your hopes up.
We won’t lie and tell you every couple decides to work it out. But we can tell you that thousands of couples completely heal their relationship when they do the right things.
Your wounds don’t have to bleed for years. You know you need more than a bandaid to fix these issues.
You can completely recover and restore the happiness you deserve in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of discomfort possible.
But the trick is doing all the right things.
Can Marriage Counseling Help Couples Recover After Betrayal?
Yes! Research has shown couples who come to marriage counseling because of adultery make the highest gains in marriage counseling over a 6 month period.
This means that, on average, couples who come in to counseling because of an affair do the very best in marriage counseling.
It is likely because couples realize they are need of help, whereas, the average couple typically underplays their issues until it blows up in their face.
