podcast 104: "The Ping Pong Effect"
Tim Tedder discusses the indecision often experienced when an unfaithful spouse cannot make a choice between spouse and the affair partner. (Recorded 4/3/2016)
Transcript
Let's talk about a problem experienced by many couples following the discovery of an affair. It occurs when the unfaithful spouse is indecisive regarding their choice to return to the marriage or not. An affair in which there has been a strong emotional connection is more likely to result in this kind of uncertainty because the wayward spouse is often conflicted between the choice to recommit to the spouse, or to stay with the affair partner. This indecision can go on for a very long time. I’ve watched intelligent, decisive men and women go back and forth between these two choices over and over again. That's why I call it The Ping Pong Effect.
From the perspective of the betrayed spouse, there are moments of joy and hope with the return of the wife or husband, only to experience a renewed anguish when the unfaithful spouse exits the marriage again. This can go on and on for months, or even years. It is a process which eventually breaks down everybody involved. Why does it happen? It happens because the person who had the affair is in conflict between two options, with each option having perceived pros and cons.
Many times an unfaithful spouse will sit in my counseling office in that place of indecision. They step through the list of choices, advantages, and pros and cons between the choice to return to their spouse, compared to the choice to go back to the affair partner. They are caught in the middle of this, unable to choose either way. I think part of the reason is a fear of making the wrong choice. If they make a wrong choice that doesn't work out, will they still have a safety net to return to on the other side?
For some unfaithful spouses, being caught in the middle stems from an inability (and sometimes a refusal) to make a decision. This inability is often driven by the fear that says, “If I go this way, or if I go that way, I'm going to lose that safety net on the other side.” If that indecision continues, the most likely outcome is going to be that everybody loses in the end.
Sometimes an unfaithful partner will stay in the middle, or delay making a decision, because they are waiting for someone else to make the choice. In other words, they may think, “If I wait long enough, either the affair partner or my spouse may make the choice, then won’t have to make it and I will still have a safety net to fall back to.” By the way, if you're a betrayed spouse, it cannot be fulfilling to have a husband or wife return to you simply because the affair partner gave up on them. You become the default choice. It's very hard to re-establish trust and a return of intimacy when you know you were the default.
I think for some unfaithful spouses, staying in that place of indecision is simply driven by the fear of too many consequences in making the choice they want. The desire of their heart may be to go to the affair partner, but they're afraid to do it because of the ramifications. There may be a threat of losing children, of financial loss through divorce, or the loss of others’ respect. The fear of these consequences keeps them from making a choice.
How can we stop this pattern? Let me say first of all, in order for the ping pong effect to keep going, three people have to stay involved: The unfaithful partner is the ball in the middle. The spouse and the affair partner are like paddles on opposites sides of the table. If you remove any one of these components, the ping pong effect stops. We can't really control what the affair partner is doing in this scenario, so let me speak to those of you who are betrayed spouses and unfaithful spouses.
If you're the betrayed partner here's my encouragement to you: get out of the game the first time the ping pong starts, and don't come back to it until the game is over. This pattern typically gets established because the betrayed spouse is encouraged by the return of a husband or wife, which causes them to become hopeful. Then after a period of time (sometimes days, sometimes weeks), there is a re-exiting from the marriage to either return to the affair, or just to go out into some fog of uncertainty. At this point, the betrayed spouse often begins to plead, insisting that the unfaithful spouse return to the marriage again. They remain ready for the ping pong ball to return. If the unfaithful spouse comes back, the cycle continues until they leave again. As I said before, this can go on for such a long time.
One way for betrayed spouses to stop the effect is to remove themselves from the game. No matter how difficult it may seem, do not step back into the relationship until the game has stopped.
My eBook Winning Back Your Wayward Spouse [Note: This has now been expanded into chapters 3 and 4 of my book, Affair Healing: A Recovery Manual for Betrayed Spouses] and the popular “180 Strategy” both refer to choice of the betrayed spouse that declares, “I am no longer willing to be part of your indecisiveness. I am willing to work on this marriage, but what I need from you is a single-mindedness and a return to our marriage. I need your willingness to invest whatever effort is necessary to help us heal. As long as you remain uncertain and indecisive, I cannot be a part of this.”
If the unfaithful partner says they are certain about coming back to the marriage, yet they have previously bounced out of the marriage even once since the affair, do not accept them back into the relationship with the first proclamation of, “I want back in. I want to be with you.” You need to require a little bit of time to know their decision is certain and single-minded, one that isn't going to diminish again after a few days or a couple weeks of being back in the marriage.
I talked recently with a client just this past week who has experienced this in her marriage during the past few months. I asked if she would be willing to share a little bit about her experience and the following is a short recording of our phone call:
TIM: When you found out your husband had been involved with somebody else and he admitted it, what you experienced was not a quick, come clean, and “hey let's do everything I can to save my marriage.” There was some kind of uncertainty or indecision in there, correct?
CLIENT: There was, that’s correct. But he was very quick to reassure me that it was over, and that he was willing to make a change and move forward.. And do the work that it would take to reassure me that it was okay…
So you had that declaration up front, and felt like, “Okay let's do what we can to fix this…” and then what happened?
And then it continued. We were apart, so it was hard for me to see whether it was continuing or not continuing. Then I found out, when we were together under the same roof again, that his behavior was not one that was moving closer to me. Eventually it came out that he was still having an affair with the same person, and that he had not been as committed to changing as he had said.
So, coming back to the home again, you didn't experience that effort to connect with you and fix the marriage. Then you eventually discovered the affair was still going on. What was his response to that?
His response again was, “I'm going to end it, and we're going to make this work.” At that point, I had packed my bags and was prepared to leave; but then when he had the reaction that he did (which was tears and remorse, and for lack of a better word, “begging” me to stay), I felt like things would change again - so I moved forward, moved forward again thinking that we would change. We have a new daughter, so I felt like it would be best for us to try to work through this together - for her sake, more so than anybody’s.
And then how was he engaged from that point on with regards to trying to fix...
To make things work? I thought that we were both making efforts. We were reading, we were doing things together to come closer together. A few months later, he got very distracted with work and with other things, and came to the conclusion that (whether or not the other person is still in the picture: I can only assume she is) we need to separate so we can both have clarity in terms of where we are emotionally and where we are in our marriage. Back and forth.
So you experience this kind of back and forth - you didn’t always know what was going behind the scenes, but there would be these moments of, “Hey, I'm all in - let's make us work.” That intensity and that focus would be there, and then it would wane. You know, whether it was because of other distractions, or because it’s what you suspect: there is probably that relationship still pulling him the other way. That would go back, and then maybe another crisis, and he’d be back again. It was a little bit of back and forth.
Yep, correct. It was easy to disguise what was really happening. He’s very intense with work, so it was easy to say, “Work is busy right now.”
What do you think you would have done differently if you could go back again? Any ideas?
I think my biggest regret is not leaving when I found out that it was still going for the second time. So, I found out, I thought we were reconciling and then I found out again; and that was when my bags were packed, and I regret not leaving. Because… I don't know if we would have been in the same position we're in right now, but I feel like it would have pushed things a little bit sooner than it happened. And so I think that he maybe needed to face some things sooner than he did.
I know those of you who are betrayed spouses wish the writing could be on the wall- the black and white: “What's the choice I should make right now?” I can only tell you that once this pattern starts in a marriage (if you as a betrayed spouse are not willing to create some boundaries and distance, and hold out for a period of time in which the commitment and single mindedness is demonstrated to you) it can be a long depressing process that sucks hope and energy right out of you. For your own safety, for your own health, and even for the hope of your marriage, my encouragement is to step out once you see this pattern. The ping pong ball isn’t going to be able to bounce back and forth once you step out. It's going to roll out off one side of the table or the other. You need to get out of the game.
Let me talk briefly about what the unfaithful partner can do. The indecision of the unfaithful spouse is being fueled by these strong emotional appeals to one side or the other. It helps to realize that there are two primary motives that are pulling them back and forth. Instead of investing in those two motives, they need to learn how to start investing in a third one instead. I’ve written about this in other places on the site, but let me just talk about it briefly.
When I see someone that's ping-ponging, more often than not they're cycling back between these two things: On the one hand, they have a sense of obligation and duty—a sense of, “I know the right thing to do is to fix my marriage to avoid divorce. And if children are involved, certainly as a responsible parent I know that that's my duty.” So sometimes with head bowed, they will come back to say, “Yes, I’m willing to work on my marriage.” There’s not a lot of excitement, not a lot of emotion behind it, but there is this strong sense of I knowing, “This is what I ought to do. It's what is expected of me.” That is the motivation of Doing. Driven by the need for approval or appeasement, and the source of approval may be parents, family, peers, partner, church, God, or any other outward standard. But a Doing person's focus is to maximize praise and minimize disapproval. So when Doing is driving a consideration or a choice, the unfaithful partner will swing usually back in towards the spouse or the marriage.
But then there's another pull, another motive I call the Getting motive. The Getting motive is driven by a need for gratification and pleasure. The person acting out of a desire to Get, believes that satisfaction will be realized by gaining something outside themselves. In an affair, it is the relationship that feels exciting and fulfilling and connected. So there is this struggle between the “doing that thing that I’m supposed to do—that right choice I should make;” and what they perceive as “getting—that thing that makes me happy and satisfied and fulfilled.” They'll swing towards what makes them feel good until enough guilt is felt or pressure is applied, then they'll come back to the marriage, to feel some relief. But eventually the sense of their dissatisfaction and the lure of that thing that felt so much better become strong enough to pull them back the other way again. The cycle continues back and forth, back and forth, until someone drops out of it.
My work with unfaithful spouses attempts to help them understand there is a third motive they can grab onto, a motive that will help move them out of ping-ponging. I call that third motive Being. When the unfaithful partner begins to consider who they are from the inside out, they have a better chance of making a healthy choice.
The question of BEing is one that touches on character, on values, on legacy. It considers the story that a person wants to tell with his or her life. How will that story end? It's not just a consideration of the circumstances they prefer to be in, or what they want people to say about them. Rather, it involves understanding the person they are, the man or woman they are becoming, and the man or woman they long to BE. They consider more than just the immediate gratification by considering the long-term story they want to tell.
What does it look like if a person does that work? I have much more confidence in the choice that they are going to make on the other side of it. A book that I often recommend when a person is trying to wrestle with this thought is written by Donald Miller, A Million Miles and a Thousand Years. It is a book that talks about the stories we tell with our lives and how to tell a good story.
CALLER ONE: Hi, I wanted to know what boundaries do you suggest that should be made by the betrayed spouse in a case of ping-ponging.
The boundary should, in a general sense, be one in which you are no longer investing in the relationship. Of course, in many marriages and families, there are still ways you are going to have to relate to one another. You're going to have to communicate to do the business of life stuff: paying bills, taking care of kids, and decisions about things to which you have mutually committed. My encouragement would be to limit your interactions with the unfaithful spouse to only those matters—the business of life things. Avoid relationship discussions. In other words, do not try to engage them to talk about your marriage. Don't go to couples counseling together when there's indecision. It will not be helpful or effective unless you're going to Discernment Counseling.
The boundaries allow you to maintain a relationship in which the business of life things are dealt with, but you are no longer investing in relationship. Your focus should be on you being healthy and getting outside help. Make no further relationship investment with the unfaithful person until they come to a place of single-mindedness and say, “Okay I’m not ping-ponging anymore. I've made a choice. I want to come back.” Even then, give it a little bit of time to see that there's enough certainty for you to risk coming back into it again.
CALLER TWO: How many years or months or whatever, should I expect an affair to last until it fizzles?
I can tell you that there are affairs that fizzle in weeks and there are affairs that continue for years, so there is no one answer to that. It depends on so many factors. One factor is the health of the marriage itself, both now and in the past. When I’m dealing with marriages that have never had a strong healthy connection and then one partner finds that in someone else outside the marriage, it becomes more difficult for them to return back to a marriage in which they’ve never shared love and connection before. But in most marriages, they did love each other in the past; they did have connection that they both experienced as good.
Other factors include the severity of the consequences if the affair is chosen. Also, how willing is the betrayed spouse to say, “I want to work towards forgiving you and the restoration of our marriage,” in a way that the betrayed spouse can have some hope that it may actually take place. Another consideration is how invested the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner have become in each other. “Invested” can mean lot of things: emotionally invested, financially invested, etc. In affairs where there are children involved (born to the affair partners) there will likely be a long-term relationship between them.
What are the chances that an affair actually becomes a real relationship?
Well, it can happen, but it does not usually happen. If you know the statistics, you know that with most affairs the number of couples that can actually make it—those that leave their spouses to be together and move on to have a long term satisfying relationship—is small. (I’ve seen statistics near 4%.) But out of all the potential people with whom someone could start an affair, there is a chance that they could begin an affair with someone that actually has a number of natural connections with them.
Everybody in affair believes that is true of them. Everyone thinks they’ve found their soulmate. But in a small percentage of people, there may actually be significant ways in which they connect with each other. Those points of connections can be their visions of life, how they view at the future, things that are important to them, communication styles, sexual connections, or the way that they plan and dream. It could be a number of different factors, but I do think it's possible. I’m not one to say that every affair is absolutely doomed as a fantasy, and there can never be something of legitimacy in that relationship. Sometimes it can happen.
CALLER ONE: I have another question about boundaries. We’ve never separated, so when he comes I'm wife, and when he’s gone I'm not. So do I, would I need to stop that?
When he's home, if part of your functional business of life is running a household, and there are certain things he's responsible for, and certain things you're responsible for (For example: if he's making the food and you’re cleaning this room, or we know whatever those chores are), that's fine. And certainly in regards to your children, you have to remain emotionally and relationally involved. But I would say, when it comes to the other factors of marriage (For example: if you are having sex with him), in my opinion, yes that should stop. You are being the paddle in the ping pong.
Yeah.
He gets to have his cake and eat it too. He can fall back to whichever one he wants to go to. You can say to him, “Listen, I’m sorry this is happening. I want to have a right kind of marriage with you and I’m willing to do my part in making that happen. But I am not willing to participate in a marriage when someone else is involved. You need to figure that out if you're going to go be with that person, if you're going to be with them. Make that choice and do it. But I’m not willing to act as your wife when you are giving yourself to someone else.” And I think you can say that in a way that is not mean, accusing, or demanding.
CALLER THREE: My wife has had the affair and it's over now. However, she tells me frequently that she’s lost feeling. She says she doesn't have the feeling that a wife should for me, and she thinks the marriage should end. Yet she doesn't do anything to end the marriage, or do anything to save the marriage. We're just stuck. It’s just a total rot. I can't figure out how to proceed. I’ve gotten to the point where she’s got me questioning my desire to continue, just due to her inattentiveness. I'm sort of being treated like an orphan, and it gets old. So I'm just not sure how to proceed.
That can be a hard place to be in. I am not going to pretend to know her motives, but sometimes the person who had the affair comes back to a marriage because the affair fell apart on its own or the affair partner left. Other times, there's still a connection with the affair partner, and it's just secret and unknown. There can be many possible things going on, but sometimes they come back to the marriage without being reinvested in the marriage. Sometimes their indecisiveness or their lack of any effort is simply a strategy to force the other person to make the choice. In other words, they may be thinking, “I know I did bad things, but I don't have to be the ultimate bad guy. If you file for divorce and I can say, ‘Well I came back, I was willing. You're the one that decided to get the divorce.’” That’s a terrible game to play, but sometimes that's really what's going on. Unfortunately it does sometimes fall to the betrayed spouse to initiate a more permanent choice, because obviously you can't keep doing this and feel any kind of healthy satisfaction in the marriage that you have.
My encouragement would be (and you may have done all these things) to say to her clearly, “Listen, I would like to rebuild our marriage and I’m willing to do my part in this. But I can't do it alone. Is this something you want? And if you do, are you willing to do your work? Do the work required for us to get better? Would you maybe go to counseling or whatever?” Or, “If this marriage is something that you don't want, are you willing to file for divorce?”
If she is sincerely caught in a place of indecision, let me mention again an approach to counseling that I think would benefit the two of you and that is Discernment Counseling. If you want to know more about Discernment Counseling, you can go to DiscernmentCounseling.com. The website explains what that entails, and you can even search for possible counselors in your area that are trained in Discernment Counseling. It is counseling that's different from normal couples counseling.
The goal of the Discernment Counseling is not to fix a marriage. If the two of you were to go to marriage counseling right now, it's very possible you would just stay stuck because you don't have the same defined agendas or goals. But Discernment Counseling is for marriages in which at least one partner is leaning out of the marriage. He or she is not committed, or is even asking the question, “Do I really want to stay in this anymore?” And if that's true of either partner, discernment counseling is a short term counseling approach, in which you go together to a counselor, but the majority of the time is spent with each of you individually. The goal is coming to a healthy choice in which either one of you decides that you are either going to move out of the marriage; or a commitment is made to a short term, six month process, in which you wholeheartedly invest in seeing what your marriage can become, given new attention. Discernment Counseling is intended to move you to a choice.
In your marriage, you can sit in this kind of indecision for a very long time. It will wear both of you out. It is not satisfying. I would encourage you to do things that would move you to a choice, and if she refuses to do any of those things, then (unfortunately) it is up to you to make a choice. I can't tell you when that choice should be made or exactly how far it should go, but I would certainly say that the healthy thing for you to do would be to establish some boundaries, and to focus on what your individual growth looks like. That way, you can make appropriate choices moving forward.
CALLER FOUR: I’ve been married twenty three years. The first infidelity situation happened with my wife, in 2011. She just walked out of the marriage and stayed gone for like four to five months. We took her back, and five years later the same thing happened again. During the five years that we were attempting to get back together, there was no emotion. No intimacy, no nothing. Just this past year - 2015 - she's been gone now nine months, and doesn’t want to talk about it. She left me and the kids again. And so we're like at a gridlock. She just texts. She never calls and talks to the kids or me at all...I’m just wondering if the guilt is so heavy that she doesn't want to speak? Or what in the world is going on in her mind?
Well there certainly may be some shame and guilt going on. I think it's probably more likely that whatever choices she's making, she has become very good at justifying those choices.
Right, right.
Every one of us is pretty good at justifying our choices. One of the biggest steps most people in affairs find themselves taking, is one in which they become emotionally detached from a spouse and possibly even from their children. It’s too painful to consider the repercussions and the choices they've made to leave their family.
I think along with that, she's kind of like reinvented herself. She even went on her Facebook, took her name off, and put this new name on. It has no pictures of family at all - it's just herself on there. We're like, “Okay, what in the world is going on? This is a twenty three year mom. What's going on in her mind?” She eluded to the fact that she was in love with another woman, and she left the marriage. A month after that, come to find out, that didn't work out and she didn't come back. But she went running further away. So it's just this gridlock - we're at a standstill. The family doesn't know what to do. She said she doesn't want to come back, and she doesn't want to be married anymore. But she's not making a move towards divorce or anything of that nature.
Well, it sounds like she's been out of the marriage for quite a while. Again, I never tell people what they should or shouldn't do in regards to staying in a marriage or getting out, unless I believe someone is at risk. That's an individual choice. There are some people that choose to stay in that place of sacrifice for a long time, for whatever reasons—maybe out of hope for the children, or hope for the wayward person will change.
If you choose to stay, I think you have to withdraw all efforts to try to get her to change. The invitation is always there, and she has parents who love her and so forth. Certainly, they will continue to want to be invested in letting her know, “We want you back, you're welcome to come back, forgiveness is here,” and those sort of things. But you as a spouse should not be making any effort to do that. You need to focus on what it means for you to be a good father to your children, to heal yourself, and that’s it.
It may be that you have to be the one that says, “You know, I'm sorry that you can't be committed to this, but I need to move on. We need to move on.” It's not fair that you’d be the one that has to initiate separation, or divorce, or whatever. But sometimes it's left to you to do those things. She would probably rather not have to deal with it, because it would tap into responsibility and shame and guilt.
Let's talk about a problem experienced by many couples following the discovery of an affair. It occurs when the unfaithful spouse is indecisive regarding their choice to return to the marriage or not. An affair in which there has been a strong emotional connection is more likely to result in this kind of uncertainty because the wayward spouse is often conflicted between the choice to recommit to the spouse, or to stay with the affair partner. This indecision can go on for a very long time. I’ve watched intelligent, decisive men and women go back and forth between these two choices over and over again. That's why I call it The Ping Pong Effect.
From the perspective of the betrayed spouse, there are moments of joy and hope with the return of the wife or husband, only to experience a renewed anguish when the unfaithful spouse exits the marriage again. This can go on and on for months, or even years. It is a process which eventually breaks down everybody involved. Why does it happen? It happens because the person who had the affair is in conflict between two options, with each option having perceived pros and cons.
Many times an unfaithful spouse will sit in my counseling office in that place of indecision. They step through the list of choices, advantages, and pros and cons between the choice to return to their spouse, compared to the choice to go back to the affair partner. They are caught in the middle of this, unable to choose either way. I think part of the reason is a fear of making the wrong choice. If they make a wrong choice that doesn't work out, will they still have a safety net to return to on the other side?
For some unfaithful spouses, being caught in the middle stems from an inability (and sometimes a refusal) to make a decision. This inability is often driven by the fear that says, “If I go this way, or if I go that way, I'm going to lose that safety net on the other side.” If that indecision continues, the most likely outcome is going to be that everybody loses in the end.
Sometimes an unfaithful partner will stay in the middle, or delay making a decision, because they are waiting for someone else to make the choice. In other words, they may think, “If I wait long enough, either the affair partner or my spouse may make the choice, then won’t have to make it and I will still have a safety net to fall back to.” By the way, if you're a betrayed spouse, it cannot be fulfilling to have a husband or wife return to you simply because the affair partner gave up on them. You become the default choice. It's very hard to re-establish trust and a return of intimacy when you know you were the default.
I think for some unfaithful spouses, staying in that place of indecision is simply driven by the fear of too many consequences in making the choice they want. The desire of their heart may be to go to the affair partner, but they're afraid to do it because of the ramifications. There may be a threat of losing children, of financial loss through divorce, or the loss of others’ respect. The fear of these consequences keeps them from making a choice.
How can we stop this pattern? Let me say first of all, in order for the ping pong effect to keep going, three people have to stay involved: The unfaithful partner is the ball in the middle. The spouse and the affair partner are like paddles on opposites sides of the table. If you remove any one of these components, the ping pong effect stops. We can't really control what the affair partner is doing in this scenario, so let me speak to those of you who are betrayed spouses and unfaithful spouses.
If you're the betrayed partner here's my encouragement to you: get out of the game the first time the ping pong starts, and don't come back to it until the game is over. This pattern typically gets established because the betrayed spouse is encouraged by the return of a husband or wife, which causes them to become hopeful. Then after a period of time (sometimes days, sometimes weeks), there is a re-exiting from the marriage to either return to the affair, or just to go out into some fog of uncertainty. At this point, the betrayed spouse often begins to plead, insisting that the unfaithful spouse return to the marriage again. They remain ready for the ping pong ball to return. If the unfaithful spouse comes back, the cycle continues until they leave again. As I said before, this can go on for such a long time.
One way for betrayed spouses to stop the effect is to remove themselves from the game. No matter how difficult it may seem, do not step back into the relationship until the game has stopped.
My eBook Winning Back Your Wayward Spouse [Note: This has now been expanded into chapters 3 and 4 of my book, Affair Healing: A Recovery Manual for Betrayed Spouses] and the popular “180 Strategy” both refer to choice of the betrayed spouse that declares, “I am no longer willing to be part of your indecisiveness. I am willing to work on this marriage, but what I need from you is a single-mindedness and a return to our marriage. I need your willingness to invest whatever effort is necessary to help us heal. As long as you remain uncertain and indecisive, I cannot be a part of this.”
If the unfaithful partner says they are certain about coming back to the marriage, yet they have previously bounced out of the marriage even once since the affair, do not accept them back into the relationship with the first proclamation of, “I want back in. I want to be with you.” You need to require a little bit of time to know their decision is certain and single-minded, one that isn't going to diminish again after a few days or a couple weeks of being back in the marriage.
I talked recently with a client just this past week who has experienced this in her marriage during the past few months. I asked if she would be willing to share a little bit about her experience and the following is a short recording of our phone call:
TIM: When you found out your husband had been involved with somebody else and he admitted it, what you experienced was not a quick, come clean, and “hey let's do everything I can to save my marriage.” There was some kind of uncertainty or indecision in there, correct?
CLIENT: There was, that’s correct. But he was very quick to reassure me that it was over, and that he was willing to make a change and move forward.. And do the work that it would take to reassure me that it was okay…
So you had that declaration up front, and felt like, “Okay let's do what we can to fix this…” and then what happened?
And then it continued. We were apart, so it was hard for me to see whether it was continuing or not continuing. Then I found out, when we were together under the same roof again, that his behavior was not one that was moving closer to me. Eventually it came out that he was still having an affair with the same person, and that he had not been as committed to changing as he had said.
So, coming back to the home again, you didn't experience that effort to connect with you and fix the marriage. Then you eventually discovered the affair was still going on. What was his response to that?
His response again was, “I'm going to end it, and we're going to make this work.” At that point, I had packed my bags and was prepared to leave; but then when he had the reaction that he did (which was tears and remorse, and for lack of a better word, “begging” me to stay), I felt like things would change again - so I moved forward, moved forward again thinking that we would change. We have a new daughter, so I felt like it would be best for us to try to work through this together - for her sake, more so than anybody’s.
And then how was he engaged from that point on with regards to trying to fix...
To make things work? I thought that we were both making efforts. We were reading, we were doing things together to come closer together. A few months later, he got very distracted with work and with other things, and came to the conclusion that (whether or not the other person is still in the picture: I can only assume she is) we need to separate so we can both have clarity in terms of where we are emotionally and where we are in our marriage. Back and forth.
So you experience this kind of back and forth - you didn’t always know what was going behind the scenes, but there would be these moments of, “Hey, I'm all in - let's make us work.” That intensity and that focus would be there, and then it would wane. You know, whether it was because of other distractions, or because it’s what you suspect: there is probably that relationship still pulling him the other way. That would go back, and then maybe another crisis, and he’d be back again. It was a little bit of back and forth.
Yep, correct. It was easy to disguise what was really happening. He’s very intense with work, so it was easy to say, “Work is busy right now.”
What do you think you would have done differently if you could go back again? Any ideas?
I think my biggest regret is not leaving when I found out that it was still going for the second time. So, I found out, I thought we were reconciling and then I found out again; and that was when my bags were packed, and I regret not leaving. Because… I don't know if we would have been in the same position we're in right now, but I feel like it would have pushed things a little bit sooner than it happened. And so I think that he maybe needed to face some things sooner than he did.
I know those of you who are betrayed spouses wish the writing could be on the wall- the black and white: “What's the choice I should make right now?” I can only tell you that once this pattern starts in a marriage (if you as a betrayed spouse are not willing to create some boundaries and distance, and hold out for a period of time in which the commitment and single mindedness is demonstrated to you) it can be a long depressing process that sucks hope and energy right out of you. For your own safety, for your own health, and even for the hope of your marriage, my encouragement is to step out once you see this pattern. The ping pong ball isn’t going to be able to bounce back and forth once you step out. It's going to roll out off one side of the table or the other. You need to get out of the game.
Let me talk briefly about what the unfaithful partner can do. The indecision of the unfaithful spouse is being fueled by these strong emotional appeals to one side or the other. It helps to realize that there are two primary motives that are pulling them back and forth. Instead of investing in those two motives, they need to learn how to start investing in a third one instead. I’ve written about this in other places on the site, but let me just talk about it briefly.
When I see someone that's ping-ponging, more often than not they're cycling back between these two things: On the one hand, they have a sense of obligation and duty—a sense of, “I know the right thing to do is to fix my marriage to avoid divorce. And if children are involved, certainly as a responsible parent I know that that's my duty.” So sometimes with head bowed, they will come back to say, “Yes, I’m willing to work on my marriage.” There’s not a lot of excitement, not a lot of emotion behind it, but there is this strong sense of I knowing, “This is what I ought to do. It's what is expected of me.” That is the motivation of Doing. Driven by the need for approval or appeasement, and the source of approval may be parents, family, peers, partner, church, God, or any other outward standard. But a Doing person's focus is to maximize praise and minimize disapproval. So when Doing is driving a consideration or a choice, the unfaithful partner will swing usually back in towards the spouse or the marriage.
But then there's another pull, another motive I call the Getting motive. The Getting motive is driven by a need for gratification and pleasure. The person acting out of a desire to Get, believes that satisfaction will be realized by gaining something outside themselves. In an affair, it is the relationship that feels exciting and fulfilling and connected. So there is this struggle between the “doing that thing that I’m supposed to do—that right choice I should make;” and what they perceive as “getting—that thing that makes me happy and satisfied and fulfilled.” They'll swing towards what makes them feel good until enough guilt is felt or pressure is applied, then they'll come back to the marriage, to feel some relief. But eventually the sense of their dissatisfaction and the lure of that thing that felt so much better become strong enough to pull them back the other way again. The cycle continues back and forth, back and forth, until someone drops out of it.
My work with unfaithful spouses attempts to help them understand there is a third motive they can grab onto, a motive that will help move them out of ping-ponging. I call that third motive Being. When the unfaithful partner begins to consider who they are from the inside out, they have a better chance of making a healthy choice.
The question of BEing is one that touches on character, on values, on legacy. It considers the story that a person wants to tell with his or her life. How will that story end? It's not just a consideration of the circumstances they prefer to be in, or what they want people to say about them. Rather, it involves understanding the person they are, the man or woman they are becoming, and the man or woman they long to BE. They consider more than just the immediate gratification by considering the long-term story they want to tell.
What does it look like if a person does that work? I have much more confidence in the choice that they are going to make on the other side of it. A book that I often recommend when a person is trying to wrestle with this thought is written by Donald Miller, A Million Miles and a Thousand Years. It is a book that talks about the stories we tell with our lives and how to tell a good story.
CALLER ONE: Hi, I wanted to know what boundaries do you suggest that should be made by the betrayed spouse in a case of ping-ponging.
The boundary should, in a general sense, be one in which you are no longer investing in the relationship. Of course, in many marriages and families, there are still ways you are going to have to relate to one another. You're going to have to communicate to do the business of life stuff: paying bills, taking care of kids, and decisions about things to which you have mutually committed. My encouragement would be to limit your interactions with the unfaithful spouse to only those matters—the business of life things. Avoid relationship discussions. In other words, do not try to engage them to talk about your marriage. Don't go to couples counseling together when there's indecision. It will not be helpful or effective unless you're going to Discernment Counseling.
The boundaries allow you to maintain a relationship in which the business of life things are dealt with, but you are no longer investing in relationship. Your focus should be on you being healthy and getting outside help. Make no further relationship investment with the unfaithful person until they come to a place of single-mindedness and say, “Okay I’m not ping-ponging anymore. I've made a choice. I want to come back.” Even then, give it a little bit of time to see that there's enough certainty for you to risk coming back into it again.
CALLER TWO: How many years or months or whatever, should I expect an affair to last until it fizzles?
I can tell you that there are affairs that fizzle in weeks and there are affairs that continue for years, so there is no one answer to that. It depends on so many factors. One factor is the health of the marriage itself, both now and in the past. When I’m dealing with marriages that have never had a strong healthy connection and then one partner finds that in someone else outside the marriage, it becomes more difficult for them to return back to a marriage in which they’ve never shared love and connection before. But in most marriages, they did love each other in the past; they did have connection that they both experienced as good.
Other factors include the severity of the consequences if the affair is chosen. Also, how willing is the betrayed spouse to say, “I want to work towards forgiving you and the restoration of our marriage,” in a way that the betrayed spouse can have some hope that it may actually take place. Another consideration is how invested the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner have become in each other. “Invested” can mean lot of things: emotionally invested, financially invested, etc. In affairs where there are children involved (born to the affair partners) there will likely be a long-term relationship between them.
What are the chances that an affair actually becomes a real relationship?
Well, it can happen, but it does not usually happen. If you know the statistics, you know that with most affairs the number of couples that can actually make it—those that leave their spouses to be together and move on to have a long term satisfying relationship—is small. (I’ve seen statistics near 4%.) But out of all the potential people with whom someone could start an affair, there is a chance that they could begin an affair with someone that actually has a number of natural connections with them.
Everybody in affair believes that is true of them. Everyone thinks they’ve found their soulmate. But in a small percentage of people, there may actually be significant ways in which they connect with each other. Those points of connections can be their visions of life, how they view at the future, things that are important to them, communication styles, sexual connections, or the way that they plan and dream. It could be a number of different factors, but I do think it's possible. I’m not one to say that every affair is absolutely doomed as a fantasy, and there can never be something of legitimacy in that relationship. Sometimes it can happen.
CALLER ONE: I have another question about boundaries. We’ve never separated, so when he comes I'm wife, and when he’s gone I'm not. So do I, would I need to stop that?
When he's home, if part of your functional business of life is running a household, and there are certain things he's responsible for, and certain things you're responsible for (For example: if he's making the food and you’re cleaning this room, or we know whatever those chores are), that's fine. And certainly in regards to your children, you have to remain emotionally and relationally involved. But I would say, when it comes to the other factors of marriage (For example: if you are having sex with him), in my opinion, yes that should stop. You are being the paddle in the ping pong.
Yeah.
He gets to have his cake and eat it too. He can fall back to whichever one he wants to go to. You can say to him, “Listen, I’m sorry this is happening. I want to have a right kind of marriage with you and I’m willing to do my part in making that happen. But I am not willing to participate in a marriage when someone else is involved. You need to figure that out if you're going to go be with that person, if you're going to be with them. Make that choice and do it. But I’m not willing to act as your wife when you are giving yourself to someone else.” And I think you can say that in a way that is not mean, accusing, or demanding.
CALLER THREE: My wife has had the affair and it's over now. However, she tells me frequently that she’s lost feeling. She says she doesn't have the feeling that a wife should for me, and she thinks the marriage should end. Yet she doesn't do anything to end the marriage, or do anything to save the marriage. We're just stuck. It’s just a total rot. I can't figure out how to proceed. I’ve gotten to the point where she’s got me questioning my desire to continue, just due to her inattentiveness. I'm sort of being treated like an orphan, and it gets old. So I'm just not sure how to proceed.
That can be a hard place to be in. I am not going to pretend to know her motives, but sometimes the person who had the affair comes back to a marriage because the affair fell apart on its own or the affair partner left. Other times, there's still a connection with the affair partner, and it's just secret and unknown. There can be many possible things going on, but sometimes they come back to the marriage without being reinvested in the marriage. Sometimes their indecisiveness or their lack of any effort is simply a strategy to force the other person to make the choice. In other words, they may be thinking, “I know I did bad things, but I don't have to be the ultimate bad guy. If you file for divorce and I can say, ‘Well I came back, I was willing. You're the one that decided to get the divorce.’” That’s a terrible game to play, but sometimes that's really what's going on. Unfortunately it does sometimes fall to the betrayed spouse to initiate a more permanent choice, because obviously you can't keep doing this and feel any kind of healthy satisfaction in the marriage that you have.
My encouragement would be (and you may have done all these things) to say to her clearly, “Listen, I would like to rebuild our marriage and I’m willing to do my part in this. But I can't do it alone. Is this something you want? And if you do, are you willing to do your work? Do the work required for us to get better? Would you maybe go to counseling or whatever?” Or, “If this marriage is something that you don't want, are you willing to file for divorce?”
If she is sincerely caught in a place of indecision, let me mention again an approach to counseling that I think would benefit the two of you and that is Discernment Counseling. If you want to know more about Discernment Counseling, you can go to DiscernmentCounseling.com. The website explains what that entails, and you can even search for possible counselors in your area that are trained in Discernment Counseling. It is counseling that's different from normal couples counseling.
The goal of the Discernment Counseling is not to fix a marriage. If the two of you were to go to marriage counseling right now, it's very possible you would just stay stuck because you don't have the same defined agendas or goals. But Discernment Counseling is for marriages in which at least one partner is leaning out of the marriage. He or she is not committed, or is even asking the question, “Do I really want to stay in this anymore?” And if that's true of either partner, discernment counseling is a short term counseling approach, in which you go together to a counselor, but the majority of the time is spent with each of you individually. The goal is coming to a healthy choice in which either one of you decides that you are either going to move out of the marriage; or a commitment is made to a short term, six month process, in which you wholeheartedly invest in seeing what your marriage can become, given new attention. Discernment Counseling is intended to move you to a choice.
In your marriage, you can sit in this kind of indecision for a very long time. It will wear both of you out. It is not satisfying. I would encourage you to do things that would move you to a choice, and if she refuses to do any of those things, then (unfortunately) it is up to you to make a choice. I can't tell you when that choice should be made or exactly how far it should go, but I would certainly say that the healthy thing for you to do would be to establish some boundaries, and to focus on what your individual growth looks like. That way, you can make appropriate choices moving forward.
CALLER FOUR: I’ve been married twenty three years. The first infidelity situation happened with my wife, in 2011. She just walked out of the marriage and stayed gone for like four to five months. We took her back, and five years later the same thing happened again. During the five years that we were attempting to get back together, there was no emotion. No intimacy, no nothing. Just this past year - 2015 - she's been gone now nine months, and doesn’t want to talk about it. She left me and the kids again. And so we're like at a gridlock. She just texts. She never calls and talks to the kids or me at all...I’m just wondering if the guilt is so heavy that she doesn't want to speak? Or what in the world is going on in her mind?
Well there certainly may be some shame and guilt going on. I think it's probably more likely that whatever choices she's making, she has become very good at justifying those choices.
Right, right.
Every one of us is pretty good at justifying our choices. One of the biggest steps most people in affairs find themselves taking, is one in which they become emotionally detached from a spouse and possibly even from their children. It’s too painful to consider the repercussions and the choices they've made to leave their family.
I think along with that, she's kind of like reinvented herself. She even went on her Facebook, took her name off, and put this new name on. It has no pictures of family at all - it's just herself on there. We're like, “Okay, what in the world is going on? This is a twenty three year mom. What's going on in her mind?” She eluded to the fact that she was in love with another woman, and she left the marriage. A month after that, come to find out, that didn't work out and she didn't come back. But she went running further away. So it's just this gridlock - we're at a standstill. The family doesn't know what to do. She said she doesn't want to come back, and she doesn't want to be married anymore. But she's not making a move towards divorce or anything of that nature.
Well, it sounds like she's been out of the marriage for quite a while. Again, I never tell people what they should or shouldn't do in regards to staying in a marriage or getting out, unless I believe someone is at risk. That's an individual choice. There are some people that choose to stay in that place of sacrifice for a long time, for whatever reasons—maybe out of hope for the children, or hope for the wayward person will change.
If you choose to stay, I think you have to withdraw all efforts to try to get her to change. The invitation is always there, and she has parents who love her and so forth. Certainly, they will continue to want to be invested in letting her know, “We want you back, you're welcome to come back, forgiveness is here,” and those sort of things. But you as a spouse should not be making any effort to do that. You need to focus on what it means for you to be a good father to your children, to heal yourself, and that’s it.
It may be that you have to be the one that says, “You know, I'm sorry that you can't be committed to this, but I need to move on. We need to move on.” It's not fair that you’d be the one that has to initiate separation, or divorce, or whatever. But sometimes it's left to you to do those things. She would probably rather not have to deal with it, because it would tap into responsibility and shame and guilt.
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