Well i wonder though how much beliefs have to do with the WS changing their behavior.

Like with my h, he believes that members of the opposite sex can be friends. And there have been many on this very forum that would agree with that 100%, that there is nothing wrong it.

However I believe (and always have) that once you are married you should no longer be friends with members of the opposite sex.

I feel that in order for me to truly feel like my h will not cheat again is for him to also BELIEVE that it is wrong to have a friendship with other women.

However if his belief truly is that there is nothing wrong with it, me simply asking him to not do it anymore may work for a while but eventually it will end up that he does it again because he BELIEVES it is okay.

Did that make any sense ..........

Ultimately what protects us is KNOWING that we aren't protected if we choose to place ourselves in tempting situations.

It's RECOGNIZING temptation...

It's a REALIZATION that NONE of us are strong enough to resist temptation - that will power, morality and integrity are UNRELIABLE against temptation.

It's getting that we can ALL succumb to temptation, and therefore choosing NOT to place ourselves in temptation's way.

It's BELIEVING what Dr. Harley says about none of us being immune...As much as I adore Dr. Harley, that isn't a new concept, and I know he would agree...The Bible is clear that mankind is highly susceptible to temptation - from the very first chapter it shows us that, yes? It's no mistake that the Lord's Prayer says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..."

What is scary...What is risky...Is the person who believes that they can practice dangerous behaviors and come out unscathed every single time - that they are somehow above it all - IMMUNE...Trusting someone who thinks this way is a fool's mission...

It's like trusting someone who says :

"I'm great at the game of Russian Roulette - I play that game all the time and I'm still alive!" [So far...It's only a matter of time...]

Or

"I'm an excellent drunk driver! I drive that way constantly and I've never had a DUI or killed anyone!" [YET! It's only a matter of time...]

People that deny their fallibility are to be avoided...I say all this as a repentant and remorseful FWS - I've experienced the scales falling from my eyes and seen not only how horrible my committing adultery was - but I was blessed also by seeing other sins of mine as a result of that repentance - and given mercy and allowed to repent for those also...And that sorrow and remorse for what I've done in the past still doesn't serve to protect me - or Mr. W - What protects us is the understanding that if I put myself back in tempting situations that I would fail again and again...[and vice versa]...Remorse and repentance from past transgressions don't protect you from future temptations...The only thing that does is not putting yourself in those situations...

A change in attitude and heart means being HUMBLE and recognizing our powerlessness over temptation...That serves as the ultimate protection...

Mrs. W

Total sense, SC...He must recognize TEMPTATION and refuse to put himself in those situations...

Mrs. W

What we believe results in what we do. Changing what we do without changing what we believe about it results in temporary changes since we will not be likely to make permanent changes as long as we still think the same way about what we are doing.

If I am doing something that I do not believe is right, I can only do it for so long before I feel that I am sacrificing or being untrue to my beliefs. Therefor, I begin to revert back to my old way of doing things because it supports my belief system.

The poster in question had an affair, in fact two of them though one was before she was actually married but at a time when she was supposed to be in a committed relationship with her soon to be husband. She confessed her transgressions and has been committed to restoration of the marriage but her husband is not buying into recovery yet refuses to accept defeat and move on either.

Her own Love Bank is pretty near bankruptcy since her husband continues to use abusive methods (as defined by Dr Harley - DJs, SDs, AOs, IB, Emotional Dishonesty, even Annoying Habits)in order to get his way. He isn't merely punishing her for the affair or even for two affairs but is simply acting from his belief that nothing he does can result in happiness for himself or others. This is in part due to FOO issues and in part because he has a belief that HE will never be good enough, at least that is my opinion.

Much if not most of his actions predate the affair itself and the affair is simply one more thing he can point to to reinforce his belief that he can never be happy, with his wife or with anyone else for that matter. Rather than seek a solution to his unhappiness, he seems to be inclined toward making his wife as miserable as he can manage.

While this man might actually be able to change his actions and begin doing things that would lead to not only the recovery of his marriage but also to his own healing from past hurts, not just in regard to the affair(s) but in relationships from his past as well, he will not be likely to follow through for any length of time until he accepts responsibility for his own actions and examines why he does things the way he does.

His wife, admittedly a former wayward wife, accepts responsibility for her choices, is having difficulty getting to the root cause of her choices in part due to his total lack of support and undermining any attempts to reconcile her choices with what she now actually believes. She has been doing what she can to meet his ENs, avoid any Love Busters herself and trying to schedule enough RC time with him in order to improve the balance in her account in his Love Bank.

He is stuck, in part because he believes that the entire world is out of kilter, nothing he ever believed was true, that he can't believe anything with certainty now and that none of what he does is having any affect on the condition of his feelings right now. A sign of this is that while he seems to move forward, allows things to improve for a short time, looks as if progress is being made he then reverts to his old ways of doing things and ends up right back where things were before the affair, during the affair and after the affair.

All JMO based on observation...from afar at that.

When I got what appeared to be a boil, I believed it was just a boil and that it would follow the same course as other boils I had during my lifetime. It seemed to follow that course to the letter at first. It swelled, broke open and bled, shrank in size and began to dry up. I believed it was going to heal with no change in what I did.

When it began to bleed and swell again, I believed that if I took care of it by keeping it clean, avoiding breaking it open with any over extension of the skin in the area and kept it covered to prevent further infection it would just heal and I would be done with it. It wasn't until it had doubled in size over a period of three days or so and was showing signs of growth that was becoming dangerously close to exponential that I began to even consider doing anything differently.

My doctors gave me antibiotics in the belief that they would clear up whatever infection was present and that I would begin to heal with no further action by anyone. This is how the body usually deals with infections and so it was a valid belief in most cases.

A week later it had doubled in size again and was now getting dangerously close to disfiguring me for life even if it got no bigger at all. Rather than give me more antibiotics and wait longer to see if it would get better, my doctor and I changed our beliefs and I was operated on to remove the infected tissue and an all out effort was made to find the source of the infection. 25 years earlier the methods of determining the cause did not exist and the infection might have killed me, or caused so much damage that a secondary infection killed me instead.

Once identified the right antibiotic was given and the infection was killed, but I still had an open wound and that required additional procedures, also relatively new in the medical world in order to actually allow me to start healing. Even the dressings that were once used caused further damage and my doctor was amazed to discover that a better option already existed. He changed his belief again to accommodate the new technology and I made faster progress than if the old ways were kept up.

Einstein's definition of insanity begins to apply when we continue doing things a certain way and are getting nowhere. We repeat the same patterns based on what we have always believed to be true and end up repeating the same dumb stuff that got us to where we are and can't seem to figure out how we got there. We take the same road, wind up in the same place and wonder why we aren't where we though we should be.

As it applies to an affair, EPs will only work if you put the right EPs into place and believe that they are right and will keep you from having an affair. If your affair began as a pick up in a singles bar, going to a singles bar might not be a good idea. But if you continue to hang out with single friends, hang out in bars, dance with members of the opposite sex, talk intimately with them and allow them to make Love Bank deposits at every turn you are not going to stop having affairs.

Affairs happen because we believe we are not vulnerable. They happen because we believe that LOVE is magic and we can't fall in love with more than one person in life. They happen because we believe that we can be strong enough to ward off temptation under any and all circumstances we find ourselves in and because we don;t realize that any time we allow someone to do something that tickles our pleasure centers we are bypassing the protection of our feelings.

We don't protect our weaknesses until we believe we have them and we can't begin to avoid exposing them until we know what they are.

If I believe that my wife will be faithful no matter what I do to make her unhappy or no matter how I treat her then I will treat her in ways that will make her unhappy and that will cause her to believe that she cannot be happy with me. If someone comes along that makes her feel happy, unless she believes that being happy is not a good thing, she is vulnerable to an affair. This is the dynamic that we talk about when we say that the BS is 50% responsible for the state of the marriage before an affair.

Once a person accepts that another person might make them happy, if they believe it is their right to be happy no matter where that happiness comes from, then an affair is an almost forgone conclusion. People change their beliefs all the time.

I am meant to be happy. This person makes me happy. God wants me to be happy (this is not necessarily true, BTW) and so God wants me to be with this person. The actions of allowing the affair to flourish are the result of our modified beliefs.

Until I believe that my actions affect others, I have no incentive to change my actions. What I believe determines what I do. If I believe that my marriage is hopeless, I am not very likely to do what I need to do to make it better. If my marriage is a lost cause, why not just move on to something else? If I think my wife doesn't love me and that I can never be happy with her it follows that if someone else comes along that I can see happiness and love with that I allow myself to fall in love with her. This is exactly the process so many waywards follow to get to an affair and it is based entirely on a belief system...

Now it's clear as mud...

The 14th post of

* this thread*

discusses this issue.

I believe the source you looking for is.....

"ONe would think that at least the people with strong religious convictions and moral commitmenst would have special protection from extramarital affairs. Yet I have counseled hundreds of people with these convictions who were not able to resist unfaithfulness. Just observing the many religious leaders who have succumbed to the temptation of infidelity proves to me that UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS infidelity is irresistible.

The truth is that infidelity doesn't necessarily develop out of a bankrupt system of moral values. Instead, personal values change to accommodate the affair. What had be inconceivable prior to tan affair can actually seem reasonable and even morally right after an affair. Many people who have always believed in being faithful in marriage find that their values do not protect them when they are faced with the temptation of an affair...."

pg. 16 "Surviving an Affair"


My guess would be either A.) they already practiced EP's or boundaries or
B.) they haven't been "tempted".....yet


Count me on this......


yep....see above...


For me, it is BOTH. Pre-A my H was definately one of those "I-would-never-do-that-adulters-are-awful-people-burn-them-at-the-stake-and-if-you-even-think-about-doing-that-just-divorce-me-because-that-is-what-I-would-do" persons. BUT......looking back, there were some behaviours that should have been red flags because they didn't line up with this belief. Not a lot mind you, but some.....

For a BS, just beginning Recovery, putting those EP'S in place is all we can do, especially since we cannot trust the belief system of the WS (a little side note here....my H was not really happy to be giving up passwords, cell-phone accounts and ect. His reasoning???...this is absolute HE77, what makes you think I would ever want to go through this again?????...... ).

But it is with TIME that the BS then listens to what the WS says and sees if it lines up the WS actions. If the WS beliefs do not change, then the actions will eventually also.....

not2fun

Thank you for the replies. It makes sense to me. After ignoring red flags in the past, I don't want to make those same mistakes again and patience is not my strong suit these days.