Marriage is amazing. Two people becoming one, ready to take on the world in an impenetrable love bubble. We walk into marriage with expectations of what it will look like and how happy we’ll be.
The house will be spotless at all times. The kids will be clean and well-mannered. The husband will work hard and come home to dote on the wife. The wife will have dinner ready and plated every single day, with slippers and a cold drink ready for her hard-working man.
Then you’re smacked in the face when reality sets in.
The house is a hot mess. The kids are climbing the walls and screaming in a crescendo level that was previously undiscovered. The husband works two jobs and is rarely home, leaving you with said screaming kids. Dinner has been burned and you’re both so tired you barely acknowledge each other.
Those expectations are not being met. Dissention is brewing. We look over the neighbor’s fence and see just how green the grass really is over there and it’s looking reaaally attractive…
Do you think that you would ever engage in an extra-marital affair? For most of us happily married individuals, we would never consider something so heinous. We don’t understand how in the world someone could ever think about being unfaithful to their spouse. We are definitely Judgy McJudgerson when it comes to how we look at these people who would dare to do something like this!
So, how do we get to that place? What is it in our psyche that allows us to develop that mindset where we feel that breaking our covenant is ok?
How thoughts of an affair Creep In
People step out on their marriage for a myriad of reasons, but the biggest and most consistent reason is “unmet expectations.” When we marry another person, we expect them to be there for us, to do life with us, and to support our hopes and dreams. We enter into a covenant with someone who has promised to take care of us and all that we need to be thriving human beings. We trust {part of} that responsibility to another person; the minister asks if you promise to meet your partners needs and you say “I do!”
For me, I knew that I married a man who would support me in all that I wanted to do in this life.
Except, sometimes he didn’t.
I’ve had many business ideas and have felt like I was suppressed in what I wanted to do. It caused me to feel sad and lonely and wishing that he supported me without any questions or reservation. I had the expectations that he would just go along with what I wanted because it would make me happy to be able to do things I wanted to do.
Another word for unmet expectations is selfishness and it’s a very slippery slope to go from being disappointed to having serious thoughts of an extramarital affair. You’re going to want and need things that your spouse is unable or unwilling to give. You have 2 choices: you can let your feelings of hurt, disappoint, and resentment fester and take root in your relationship OR you can tell your spouse that you’ve got some things going on that are effecting you emotionally and physically.
reasons why people consider extramarital affairs
I would never open my mouth to justify someone having an affair. Excluding parties who don’t believe in fidelity, even after marriage, I do recognize that there are usually two sides to a story when an affair happens. There are several reasons why people have affairs:
- A sense of loneliness or disconnect from their spouse
- A loss of interest in the partner’s hobbies, leaving them to build common relationships with others
- Emotional abandonment
- Lack of sex and/or intimacy
- Lack of communication or increase in miscommunication
- Not showing love the way that your spouse needs to receive it
- The marriage becomes physically, mentally, or emotionally abusive
What to Do when the thought of an affair is strong
I told my husband that I would let him know if I was thinking of having an affair. He told me that he would let me know if he was thinking of looking elsewhere too. Before I was married, I would have thought that was really weird, but now I get it.
acknowledge your needs and emotions
I read an awesome book called “His Needs, Her Needs…” and it was about how to keep your marriage affair-proof. With women, we need communication, affection, understanding, support…all the things. If there were ever a time when I felt like I wasn’t getting those things, I told my husband that I would let him know. We tend to pretend that men can read our minds, so when something is bothering us, we don’t say anything.
If he asks us what’s wrong and we say “nothing,” he shrugs and says, “OK” and goes about his day. Then we’re upset. We shut down or blow up. We don’t say anything…or say the wrong thing…and now our anger festers.
We eventually keep going in this fashion until we find someone to meet those needs…who isn’t our husband. Husbands do the same things when their needs of intimacy, support, and understanding aren’t met. It becomes a vicious cycle.
That’s why I told my husband that I would let him know if I was thinking of having an affair. If I feel like he’s not meeting a need, I have to tell him as much. And the same goes for him.
Speak up before you step out
Here’s my advice for you: Communication is key. If there is something amiss in your relationship, you need to talk about it. When the Scriptures say, “let no one put asunder,” don’t be the “one.” Don’t let your pride and stubbornness make you the one who puts your marriage asunder.
A less stressful way that we have this conversation is by doing a Spouse Review. I don’t like to be told that I’m wrong, but it’s something that I need to know. I ask him every few months how he feels that I’m doing as his wife. I check in with him on his contentment level and expect him to tell me if I’m falling short in an area because, when I said my vows, I promised to meet his needs. Our Spouse Review is a proactive way for us to check in and make sure that we’re meeting each other’s needs. We made a commitment that we wouldn’t let it get to the point where we’re stepping outside of our covenant to each other.
The second part of Ephesians 4:27 reads “…don’t give the devil of a foothold.” Infidelity begins in the mind and moves to the heart; all behavior starts with a thought. If you don’t make a concerted effort to stop the spread of this particular sort of cancer, it will completely take over your marriage and kill it. Communication is the medicine that heals.
If you have desires, wants, and needs that aren’t being met, you have to let your spouse know. You can’t fix a problem with someone that they don’t know about. Part of being married is being open with each other and letting your spouse know that your needs are not being met definitely falls into the category of courageous conversations. It’s not easy to know that you’re wrong, but humility has saved many a marriage.
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