Have you used resources for coping with an affair situation?

[Owl]

I'm just curious...

 

Have any of the posters on this forum considered reading/researching information about affairs/infidelity to see how it applied in your own situation?

 

Or is your situation "unique", and therefore this information wouldn't apply?

 

I'm asking this, because another thread got me to thinking about how few people I've seen on LS in general that have actually taken the time to read/research anything on how affairs work, how emotional/physical attraction works, what the stages/processes of love are, etc...

 

If a BS wanted to see how things looked through an OP's eyes, or if an OP wanted to try to understand what their MM/MW was thinking/going through, there are several good resources out there. I've read several, and it helped me tremendously in being able to cope with what I went through, as well as offer advice on this and similar forums.

 

Has anyone here read:

 

"Surviving an Affair"

"His Needs/Her Needs"

"Not Just Friends"

"The Five Love Languages"

 

...and thought about how any of that applied in your own situation?

[bentnotbroken]

I read HIS NEEDS HER NEEDS years ago, when I was trying to work on what I thought were my issues, why Mr. Messy wouldn't treat me with love and respect. After the affair and we went to coounseling, the therapist recommended that we read THE 5 LOVE LANGAUGES as wel as THE 5 APOLOGY LANGAUGES. They were very helpful and can be used with any relationship. But the book that helped me the most is was LOVE MUST BE TOUGH by Dr. James Dobson. It was one of the few books that let me know that I wasn't the only one with issues and if he wasn't willing to acknowledge his role in our problems, there was no hope for us.

 

So I moved on. Best move(other than letting God do the driving)I could have made.

[OWoman]

Someone on the infidelity board (I think it was SmartGirl?) suggested MM read How can I forgive you (Janis Abrahms Spring) in working through his issues around BWs abuse of him, and he found it very useful. I must confess I struggled a bit with it - the big concepts seemed fine (don't forgive cheaply unless you want to be a doormat; don't harbour grudges if you want to heal; if the perpetrator is willing and able to work on mending the relationship, go for real forgiveness; else opt for acceptance which doesn't require you to forgive) but as with any self-help / pop-psych book it seemed to me just a bit too pat. It's easy to accept, for example, that MM's W is a basket case, that she's never going to accept that she's at all culpable for inflicting abuse (it's always everyone else's fault, in any situation involving any other person) and so acceptance is the best one can hope for since true forgiveness requires the perpetrator to acknowledge (in the first instance) and want to repair the damage - but each day there is fresh outrage generated by her behaviour, fresh wounds dealt to the kids and to MM and to innocent bystanders that she chooses to spew her venom on. "Accepting" that she's damaged doesn't prevent fresh anger, fresh outrage bubbling up in response to fresh abuse - and short of preventing the kids from having anything more to do with her ever, having her served with restraining orders preventing her contacting anyone - friends, family, colleagues, random acquaintances - remotely connected to MM or his broader circle, or even having her committed to an asylum, how does one deal with such a thing? Not something a glib book can help with easily.

 

I've read some other books on As too (don't recall titles) and I seldom get more than a few pages in as they just don't resonate for me at all. They tend to stereotype "male" and "female" responses in ways I can't related to at all - I'm more typical of their "male" stereotype than of their "female", in many instances - and then launch into sweeping generalisations based on that which may work for the 53% of the population who related to it, but as I'm not among those, it didn't touch sides for me.

 

The 5 love languages I also found rather amusing - my "dominant" love language turns out to be all five, depending on the context and my mood at the time, and I don't know anyone who's simplistically wired enough to have a single "dominant" love language - certainly no one I've been involved with in any intimate way. Shopping list solutions make it very easy to get it very wrong, IMO, like finding the G-spot and thinking you're now an expert lover because you know how to drive a woman. If life was really that simple there wouldn't be such a huge market for self-help books - the first three or so would have gotten it all sewn up.

 

I'm just curious...

 

Have any of the posters on this forum considered reading/researching information about affairs/infidelity to see how it applied in your own situation?

 

Or is your situation "unique", and therefore this information wouldn't apply?

 

I'm asking this, because another thread got me to thinking about how few people I've seen on LS in general that have actually taken the time to read/research anything on how affairs work, how emotional/physical attraction works, what the stages/processes of love are, etc...

 

If a BS wanted to see how things looked through an OP's eyes, or if an OP wanted to try to understand what their MM/MW was thinking/going through, there are several good resources out there. I've read several, and it helped me tremendously in being able to cope with what I went through, as well as offer advice on this and similar forums.

 

Has anyone here read:

 

"Surviving an Affair"

"His Needs/Her Needs"

"Not Just Friends"

"The Five Love Languages"

 

...and thought about how any of that applied in your own situation?

[Owl]

Interesting response, Owoman.

 

I guess I took "The Five Love Languages" a little differently than you did.

 

You're right...no one has ONE language. Or even two.

 

All of them apply to some degree to everyone.

 

What I got out of it was that some of them are more effective for some people than others. Example in my own marriage: My wife feels more loved by me doing small things around the house that keeps the house looking nice. She likes me telling her that I love her and such. But flowers/candy/small gifts...don't mean as much to her. Me...I LIKE the small gifts and such. They have a bigger impact on me than if she does small things like fixing my plate or something that SHE feels more loved by.

 

I thought it did a great example of explaining that concept. There was also a chapter in there that talked about the different kinds of love that I think MANY people would benefit from.

 

Did the book have the author's "slant" to it? OF COURSE...LOL...if all of these books said the same thing, they would be useless.

 

Your observation about being more "male" in perspective than female was interesting as well. My wife have a similar unusual dynamic. I'm not in any way feminine...but have a much easier time understanding emotions and motivations than she does. That's normally a more feminine trait...so we laugh about that sometimes.

 

But it didn't negate the value of what I read in the books I mentioned. I simply took what applied to our situation and used it, and recognized that there are some minor shifts in dynamics that you have to take into account.

 

I think that books like these are great...if you read them with a balanced approach...too open to some of the silliness you read is bad...to closed to things that you "don't want to hear" is also bad.

 

Thanks for the discussion!