The different shades of infidelity

LAST week we started on a topic of how infidelity grows. We continue this week by providing you with tips of how to affair-proof your marriage.

Talk

Find some time each day to have meaningful conversations with your spouse. If you have children, do it after you put them in bed. Talk about what you did during the day. Discuss what you have been thinking about lately. Share your dreams with them.

The idea is to deepen the bond between you and your wife. It’s harder to cheat on her when you have made such an emotional investment.

Common interest

A big reason individuals stray from their spouses is that they begin to find less and less in common with them. When you first started dating, you probably had everything in common. Well, at least you thought you did.

So you would spend lots of time together doing things you both enjoyed. Then you got married and started working and your partner either started working too or stayed home to take care of the kids.

Pretty soon there begin to be fewer areas in which your lives overlap. Avoid this by maintaining a common interest or hobby with your spouse.

Have a sense of honour and duty. Remember that when you got married you made a sacred promise or vow that you would be faithful to your wife. There was a time when a gentleman was judged on whether or not he was a man of his word.

Sadly, people today don’t take those sorts of things seriously. Many people feel justified in breaking their promises when something stops being easy and pleasurable. Buck the trend. Be a man of your word. The honourable thing is to fulfil the duty to your wife that you freely took upon yourself the day you got married.

I know some will say, “You shouldn’t stay in a terrible marriage just to avoid breaking your vows.” Perhaps not, but you do have the duty to do everything you can to save that marriage before calling it quits. And I mean everything.

Establish boundaries

Many men feel they are man enough to handle any situation with a woman. For them, setting firm boundaries reeks of weakness or unnecessary zealotry. But that is what every man thinks right before they take it too far.

Far better to be safe than sorry. In your quest to avoid temptation, it should be understood that in this world you can not avoid being with or around women. You probably work closely with other women at work or school.

The key is to know where to draw the line and then to stay as far away from it as possible. This will require you to do some serious introspection and figure out what your boundaries are. Establish boundaries with your wife. Sit down with your wife and find out what she’s comfortable with in regards to your relationships with other women and vice versa.

Evaluate your vulnerabilities. Sit down with your wife and evaluate your vulnerabilities. Many people don’t realise that they may have personality traits that open themselves up for infidelity. How do you know if you have crossed the line between friendship and something more?

There are three signs that indicate you may have crossed the line into infidelity:

Emotional intimacy: Do you find yourself sharing more of your feelings and thoughts with people of the opposite sex than with your spouse?

Sexual tension: You instinctively know when it is present. Huge red flag! Don’t rationalise it away.

Secrecy: Do you close your email window when you spouse walks by? Do you leave out details of your day because they include encounters with your friend? The minute you fudge anything about your relationship with individuals of the opposite sex, you have stepped over the line.

If you see any of these signs, it’s time to re-evaluate your friendship with those other individuals. You may need broaden your boundaries in order to avoid any temptation in the future.

Avoid temptation

Meet in groups, if possible. If you know you can’t handle being alone with someone of the opposite sex other than you spouse, without crossing the line, avoid being alone with them.

Avoid frequent conversations about your personal life. Many affairs begin when people start talking about their problems with another woman or man besides their partner. They feel like the other person understands them better than their spouse. If not checked, it may eventually lead to infidelity. Not always, but why risk it?

Stay away from online dating sites. A recent study shows that a large percentage of individuals who surf online dating sites are married. Virtual affairs are still affairs.

Think about the consequences. It’s actually much harder to cheat on your spouse than it is to be faithful to them. When you are unfaithful, you have to start sneaking around, hiding phone calls, and lying. That’s a lot of work. While being in a committed relationship takes a lot of work too, it pales in comparison to the rigmarole you will have to go through to have those few moments of excitement with another person of the opposite sex. Another way cheating makes your life harder is having to deal with the consequences when you are finally caught.

In conclusion, making your marriage affair proof requires a large investment of time and emotional capital. But the investment is well worth it. Set high standards for your marriage and for yourself. Man up and you will never stray. Enjoy your marriage.