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How to Make Your Marriage Adultery-Proof
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By Vic & Ditas Español
Shatter the myths and learn the infidelity busters that can help keep your relationship strong and secure.
She came to my (Ditas’s) office weeping and wailing. A box of tissue was no match for her copious tears and all the other secretions that came with it.
“My husband is having an affair with another woman!” she mumbled as she alternated between sobbing and blowing her nose. “I don’t know what to do!” She had a bag full of documents and photo albums in tow. Through her tears, she pulled out a thick folder of documents and showed me the detailed reports of a private investigator that she hired to deep track of her philandering husband’s activities.
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Next, she pulled out some photo albums and, one by one, showed me pictures. Nope, these were not of her wedding or her kids. It was a complete dossier of snapshots of her husband with another woman!
After showing me the evidence she had collected, the tears, the sobs, and blowing of the nose came back in torrents. As the trained counselor in me dictated, I allowed her – even encouraged her – to vent her pent-up emotions as I tried to respond with empathy.
As soon as I saw an opening, I gently steered the conversation towards insight development. I asked her, “What do you think drove your husband to engage in this extra-marital affair? What can he find in this relationship which he cannot find in your marital relationship?”
“It’s all his fault” He is so inconsiderate!” she exclaimed. The floodgates opened again and out came the tears, the sobs and the nose blowing. By this time, the tissue box was almost halfway gone.
This went on for an hour. She’d cry her heart out, I’d listen and empathize, then move the conversation to examining her part in the problem. Then she would blame her husband for all her pain and wail about how unfair he had been to her. Sensing that our counseling session would not go anywhere, I asked her to think things through and come back the following week if she were ready to look at things more objectively.
This case is a classic example of how infidelity or adultery can have a devastating impact in a relationship. Her husband’s betrayal immobilized and paralyzed her, making her unable to move beyond her painful emotions.
But here’s the good news we’d like to share: You can empower yourself to prevent infidelity. In this article, we will be sharing with you some basic principles that we call the Infidelity Busters. These same principles are useful even if unfaithfulness had already invaded your marriage because you can learn to move on from the experience and heal your relationship.
But before we move into a discussion of the Infidelity Busters, let us first explore some common myths about infidelity.
Myth#1: Catholic or Christian couples are immune from infidelity.
Truth: The facts about infidelity are astounding. The Monogamy Myth, authored by Peggy Vaughan, approximates that 60% of husbands and 40% of wives will have an affair at some time in their marriage. Catholic or non-Catholic couples can succumb to the temptation to be unfaithful to one’s spouse.
Myth#2: Affairs occur after many years of marriage as a result of boredom.
Truth: Affairs are more likely to occur in the first two years of marriage than after 20 years.
Myth#3: As long as you have a loving marriage you need not worry about an affair. Affairs occur only when there are marital or sexual problems.
Truth: Affairs can and do occur with loving, sexually functional couples. Not all affairs are sexual. It is possible to have an emotional affair.
Myth#4: Affairs are all about falling in love with someone else.
Truth: Affairs often have nothing do with love but have a lot to do with meeting your personal emotional needs.
Knowing these myths can help you and your spouse take a more proactive approach in making your marriage adultery-proof. Here are some of those proactive steps you can take.
The Infidelity Busters
1. Decide to make your marriage as your top priority each day.
Is you spouse the number one priority in your life? In this modern day and age, it is easy to be lured and trapped in many different directions – your work or career, taking care of children, doing household chores, spending time with friends, serving in church or community, engaging in hobbies or recreational activities. All these compete for a slice of you, and it is easy to make any one of these as your top priority. When this happens, often our spouses take the back seat. Before you realize it, your relationship suffers, making the marriage vulnerable to extra-marital affairs.
Early in our marriage, I (Ditas) had a difficult time balancing three areas of my life: My teaching career and service in the Counseling Ministry, taking care of our children and attending to Vic’s needs. I was a typical stressed-out working mom.
My day started with my full-time teaching job in a private school. From work, I’d rush over to pick up my kids from school, then help them with their schoolwork, cook dinner then attend to some work for the Counseling Ministry.
By the time Vic came home, I was just too exhausted to attend to him. This became a major irritant in our relationship, with Vic feeling that I took him for granted.
I’d always justify my actions by pointing out that I needed to work to argument the family income, that the kids were growing and needed me, and that the things I was doing for the Counseling Ministry was for the Lord! Little did I realize that putting my children and work before my husband was, in itself, an act of infidelity – a betrayal of my marital vow and pledge or commitment.
Fortunately, we dealt with the issues. I made that lifesaving decision to put my marriage as my top priority and to strive for a healthy balance in life.
2. Know your spouse’s needs.
Recently, Ditas and I (Vic) counseled a couple on the brink of separation. The wife had an affair with a man she had met via text. The husband discovered the affair when he accidentally read a text message from his wife’s lover.
When we asked what led to the affair, the wife pointed out that her lover made her feel cared for and cherished. He showered her with attention, listened to her stories and struggles, something that her husband failed to do in the course of their nine-year marriage.
In another case we handled, it was the husband, this time, who was having an extramarital affair. His wife was earning much more than he was and, being an aggressive woman, she made most of the decisions at home and was highly critical of her husband.
Consequently, his self-image and self-respect suffered. But the other woman built up his eroded self-confidence with her constant compliments and praises for him.
What do these two cases illustrate? When a spouse’s needs are unmet in a marital relationship, their marriage becomes more vulnerable to an extramarital affair. Dr. William Harley explains this in his book His Needs, Her Needs. He lists the five primary needs of wives – attention, conversation, honesty and openness, financial commitment and family commitment. For the husband’s part, he needs sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, physical attractiveness, domestic support and admiration.
Did you notice anything from these lists of needs? His needs are not her needs!
Dr Harley’s studies of married couples revealed that men and women have different emotional needs. The top five listed by men as most important are usually the five least important for women.
In the examples I (Vic) gave above, the wife’s main emotional need was her need for attention and conversation. The man she was attracted to was meeting her emotional needs, which her husband failed to meet. In the second example, the husband’s need for admiration made him vulnerable to an affair when he found a woman who could be proud of him and who could boost his self-esteem.
Recently, Ditas and I had an interesting encounter illustrating how men and women differ in their needs. We went to separate ways that night. I attended a company affair while Ditas attended a meeting in the community where we belong, the Light of Jesus.
When we got home, Ditas started to tell me about what happened in her meeting, rambling about some problems she anticipated in the new project we were embarking on it in the Counseling Ministry. Recognize this need? It was Ditas’s need for conversation.
I was tired and, admittedly, inattentive to her stories and concerns. All I had in mind was the soft, snuggly bed and pillows (my need for domestic support, which translates to my need for a wife who could help me relax my tired mind and body)! So to cut the conversation short, I just told her not to make a big deal out of it, and that what she was seeing as a problem was actually not one.
Before I could escape it, storm signal number four hit right smack into my warm and snuggly bed! Ditas accused me of being unconcerned with her problems; I counter-attacked by pointing out how inconsiderable she was since I had a long and tiring day at the office. As storms always come to pass, we eventually calmed down and – thank God for teachings on forgiveness – I swallowed my pride and humbly said I was sorry.
It was only later that weekend that Ditas and I had the chance to talk about what happened that night. The kids were all going out that evening, so we took the opportunity to catch up on our one-on-one, our regular dialogue time. WE had dinner out and started talking about the issue we faced. Ditas shared with me her need to be listened to, to have someone to whom she could pour out her feelings and concerns. We talked about my need to have a peaceful and supportive atmosphere at home where I could unwind after a “toxic” day in the office. And that night, we looked at each other with more love and understanding in our eyes.
Open and honest communication about your deepest needs will help your spouse become aware of how he or she can meet those desires. It pays to bring out into the open those underlying feelings such as anger, resentment and rejection. In order to make our marriages affair-proof, we need to understand each other’s basic needs and how to meet them.
3. Nurture intimacy.
“We don’t seem to have intimacy in our marriage,” Sheila (not her real name) confided to me (Ditas) in one of our counseling sessions.
Sheila came for counseling because she was feeling dissatisfied with her 12-year marriage with Ralph. “We don’t seem to have anything to talk about. We don’t share common activities. Everything seems to be routine. Yes, we get along well and we don’t quarrel and don’t have major disagreements. But it seems that the excitement in our relationship is gone,” she complained.
What is wrong with Sheila and Ralph? What is their marriage suffering from?
Their marriage is thirsty for intimacy. While there may be an absence of negative aspects in their marital relationship, the lack of positive ones spell a lifeless and joyless marriage. Sheila and Ralph both need to work on building intimacy. Unless this happens, both of them many eventually be tempted to seek intimacy elsewhere.
Over time, spouses tend to take each other for granted. They let the pressures of earning a living and parenting take over leaving little energy for the couple to be intimate. That’s why spouses must work and spend time to nurture and foster the growth of intimacy. Intimacy is the icing on the cake. Without it, the marital relationship will be bland and tasteless.
Sharing activities, interests, spontaneous thoughts and feelings strengthen the bonds of this relationship. The couple must view one another as best friends to whom they can turn to for support, empathy and companionship.
Intimacy is produced not just by sharing thoughts and feelings, but more importantly, by accepting and understanding these thoughts and feelings that increase the sense of closeness of the couple. For the marriage relationship to survive and grow, it must be watered by intimacy.
4. Put Good in your relationship.
The best antidote to infidelity is a God-centered marriage.
Why do we say so? When couples invite God into their marriage, they are connected not only physically, emotionally and socially, but spiritually as well. Husbands and wives develop accountability based on God’s standards. This will guard them against temptation and infidelity and will assist them to be true to the teaching of Hebrews 13:4, “Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.”
For many couples, the extra-marital affair can doom the marriage to failure. But with God in the center of the couple’s life, His all-forgiving love can melt all hatred, resentment and ill feelings in their hearts. With God’s grace, couples who have suffered tremendous pain due to infidelity can be transformed and renewed.
We end this article by looking back at the story of the wedding at Cana. Here, Jesus performed His first miracle by changing the water contained in the six jars, each containing 20 to 30 gallons, into wine.
For the Jews, the number six symbolized imperfection. Our marriages too are characterized with imperfections and filled with cracks. If we will rely only on our human strength and wisdom to repair these cracks, our efforts will be futile. We will eventually “run out of wine.”
But turning to our Lord and placing Him in the center of our marriage will enable Him to transform our imperfections and fill our relationship with love and understanding – abundantly, exceedingly like the 150 gallons of wine that more than satisfied the wedding guests.
Let us also ask the Blessed Mother, who interceded with Jesus in performing this miracle, to pray for our marriages.
Source: Kerygma No 204 Vol 17, May 2007
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