I have been quite for a while, but I had an issue I wanted to get opinions on.

the effect of consequences on the FWS being a deterrent to subsequent infidelity.

A few preface remarks from the site. We are all wired for affairs. Meet enough needs in someone's love bank and they can cross the love threshold with/for you.

I have seen it written by several posters here, consequences are the results of actions. I have also seen it that if you want behavioral change, then consequences is how to get it. Further, you don't save the person from the consequences of their actions.

So, what I would like to know is who really believes that an FWS can resolve to never have an affair again because the consequences were so great the first time? Do you think consequences stop people from doing things?

"I bet he'll never do that again"

does that not hold true in this arena as well?

Frankly, the consequences for myself and my wife have been disasterous. Does that I consider the consequences felt by me show selfishness? Does that I considered the consequences experienced by my wife show compassion? The pain and destruction caused by my actions is simply to great to bear.

if we make it through this, I want nothing to do with this kind of pain of issue every again.

I was wondering because mostly I see what looks like to me some talk of consequences and even agreement that they are something people should feel. In fact, I have seen people say that it is THE way yo enforce boundaries and 'teach' others those lines.

doesn't that matter here?


thanks.

Patriot,

Great question. I think that unfortunately, WS sometimes forget or block out the memory of how terrible things are following the A and frankly for him, even during the affair. In my own situation, my FWH's A nearly finished us both off. We both would have sworn on our lives that he would never again even contemplate another affair.

Well, then we went thru a rough period and darn if he didn't start walking down the same behavoir road that led him to his first affair.

I am sure that deep down inside, if he had thought his actions thru, he would have stopped himself right off. But once again, he didn't see where his actions might just lead him nor did he consider how I might react to his heading in that direction yet again.

Once I discovered it, I nearly ended our marriage immediately. FWH finally woke up and realized that he didn't have to end up in a full-blown affair again to bring our marriage to an end.

I do believe that he does now have a pretty clear understanding of what any further potentially adulterous behavior on his part will lead to, but I still pray often that it will be enough to overcome his propensity to make really bad decisions when he is either hurt or angry, cause if it does happen again, I'm done with him.

Who

WhoMe,

I have a question for you. After the first affair, you said that you both would have sworn that he would never again even contemplate another affair.

Did your husband put in place extraordinary precautions after the first affair that would help to affair-proof your marriage?

We counsel w/ Jennifer and that has been a huge part of our recovery. FWH has put into place a LONG list of extraordinary precautions, far more than is listed in SAA.

Both FWH and I both feel that he would never have another A. But I still have those BS fears, ya know. He is doing everything right. And counseling with Jennifer goes WAY beyond what is in SAA.

So I am curious what was in place to protect your marriage after the 1st affair? Did your H have precautions in place that he just blew off?

Thank you for your willingness to share.

Hi patriot!

My only response is that some people NEVER learn from consequences, some do. It depends on how much you care about yourself, and how much you care about others. Heck, in some cases, I learn from others' mistakes.

Also, the pain inflicted on the BS continues as long as the past behaviors continue (justifications, blame game, anger, resentment, and withholoding/withdrawal, among others) even in the absense of an affair.

Simply choosing not to have an affair is not enough, IMO. But hey, that's me, and I do learn from the consequences that I've suffered. I was part of the problems in our M, before the A's, and have made the choice to change, adn have changed. I also have boundaries in place for my relationships, that I didn't have before.

ANy one of us could be the WS, so I say NEVER SAY NEVER.

SMB, would you be willing to share that list with us?

SMB,

The simple answer is that no he didn't. But it was as much my mistake as his.

We came away from our initial d-day at which time he had already ended his affair. Neither he nor I knew about MB until 15 months post d-day so our recovery was never really valid or firm.

We didn't get the MC we should have and completely believed that all we really needed to do was meet each others EN's.

Now he did get it mostly right being completely open and honest, writing a NC letter (although we didn't know that was what it was), and pretty much accounting for all of his time.

What we failed to grasp was that his affair was as much a coping mechanism that he used when things were not going well between us, or at his job, or whatever situation he was experiencing that he didn't feel he was in control of.

So his slip up was in response to our having a severe disagreement on our way to a class reunion. While there he ignored me and flirted with a woman he hadn't seen in nearly 30 years.

It really upset me that he would do such a thoughtless thing after all we had been thru. If that wasn't enough, he followed up his betrayal with an email to a male classmate who was also at the reunion and expressed his interest in the woman.

I found the email message since I had access to the account and just plain told him we were done.

Initially, he thought that he had done nothing wrong because he had no intention of actually getting or staying in contact with her. The similarity to how his first affair began with a former college classmate completely escaped him.

Honestly, It was the folks here at MB that helped open his eyes to what he had done and how terribly serious the situation was.

We began counseling with Jennifer and she was really able to help him understand the absolute necessity for him to never put himself in a position where someone other than me could make deposits into his love bank.

We are fine now, and I do believe we are recovered. But, you know that I also think that I will always be just a little bit fearful that overtime he will forget and possible slip up again.

Who

The death penalty does not deter people from committing capital crimes.

Certain obesity does not stop folks from eating the next unhealthy meal when they're hungry.

Certain poor health doesn't deter junkies from their next fix.

I think our temporary addiction to the sensations of an experience makes us not consider consequences until later.

After all most affairs happen in secret right ? So active waywards clearly have SOME idea that bad consequences might ensue.

Ever heard that a hard "member" has no conscience ? Not until later anyway.

I think what we can do is try to live our lives away from situations where we may be tempted to have an affair again.

Its unreasonable to expect that we might never give into temptation again.

BTW haven't heard from you in ages. I hope that's a good sign.

I think you are confusing "punishment" with "consequences".

Punishment is the deliberate infliciting of pain or suffering in hopes of teaching a lesson, as in physically abusing a WS.

Consequences are the Natural Result of bad behaviour and bad choices, as in: "Gee, my friends and family and co-workers really think I'm a jerk now that they know I lied to my wife to date some office bimbo instead."

Punishment doesn't always help, because it usually involves the inflictor being just as unreasonable and outrageous as the transgressor. Then nobody has a moral leg to stand on.

Consequences usually do help *when they are allowed to happen*, because it's not the BS who is bringing them about. It's the WS's own actions that do that.

Consequences.

Not punishment.

Big difference, even if most WS don't think so.

One way to recognize a *F*WS is that they *do* recognize the difference.
Mulan

Hey TYK,

I thought I would post the list you asked SMB about.
This is my list:

Extraordinary Precautions:

a) I am responsible to protect my wife at all times.
b) I will give full access of all my business records to my wife.
c) I will agree to give all passwords, account codes business and personal to my wife.
d) I will not put myself in an advice giver role with another woman, unless my wife is present and has given her prior approval.
e) I will defer to my wife as the advice giver when it involves another woman, unless she specifically calls on me.
f) I will not spend any time with another woman that my wife is not present.
g) I will allow only my wife to hear my problems or concerns.
h) I will not share my infirmities with another woman.
i) I will allow my wife to be my exclusive care giver, unless she specifically calls on someone else to help her.
j) I will defer to my wife in all matters of charity and outreach, with her being the sole point of contact when caring for women.
k) I will not teach martial arts to another woman without my wife being present and having enthusiastic agreement about such training in advance.
l) I will openly share my daily business schedule with my wife.
m) At any time she requests, I will trade cell phones with my wife for the time she deems necessary.
n) I will allow only men to provide essential care, such as Doctors appointments, hair cuts, massages, individual counseling, etc.
o) I will always defer to my wife regarding any outside activity and will agree to eliminate any activity she feels is interfering in our relationship or the relationships of our children.

This list is to let SMB see that "I Get It" and I am responsible to protect her at all times.....

I put this list together and it is in my "Marriage Notebook" that I keep with me at work and at home. I review this list at minimum once a week, and I can add to it at any time.

An old friend used to say to me all the time "if you go into the shoe store often enough, sonner or later you will walk out with a new pair of shoes". The "extraordinary precautions" are not "general precautions" to keep me from buying shoes in the store. They are a road map designed to keep me completely away from the shoe store to begin with.

Hope this can help someone....

tst,

You rock! This is more or less what my FWH and I stick to as guidelines. Even tho I have never been unfaithful to him, and haven't been tempted to either, I do recognize that I too could be equally vulnerable if the right situation occurred.

Who

Lol, tell that to the recipients of such a penalty. Seriously, it certainly does not seem to deter others that come after. Much the same way that my infidelity is probably not going to stop the next person that is starting their affair right at this moment. And don’t we all wish we could step in and whack some sense into that person. I would assert that consequences have to be felt by the person before that person ‘knows’ that was a bad idea. Meaning your consequences for driving over the speed limit today and getting a ticket might not have the same power over me as ME getting a ticket today would. Does that make sense?


True. Maybe a different level of consequence? Like this would be mild compared to an affair?


Ok. The first time I will grant you that. But after you burn you hand the first time on the stove, you CAN figure out that touching the hot stove is a bad enough idea that simply THAT information is enough to deter you. But it did take doing it the first time to really learn it, right?


Again, I assert that you only ‘know’ what you have actually experienced, so maybe the first time wayward doesn’t get this idea like a FWS does. I have seen several times on this forum where the repeat offenders are considered much worse than the one time offenders. I think that holds true in life in general. Why do people say “Didn’t you learn from the last time?”. I think that is because it is considered worse to have erred and make the same mistake yet again, than to err and figure out that when reality shows up, this is not something you ever want to go though again.


And what is the definition of those situations? In my opinion, that can not be boiled down to “don’t work with women” or something of that nature. It is more comprehensive than that.


I agree, in as much as it is also impossible to call any marriage affair proof. The only marriage that is truly affair proof is the one that doesn’t exist. And that means managing risk. That is what life is anyway, in many areas. Managing risk.


Frankly, no. Things are not great.

Mulan,

You said


From that I derive that an appropriate influence to behavioral modification is allowing people to reap what they sow. Sound fair? There is, I am sure, I philosophical debate as to what is allowing and what is adding to, but for now, I will limit my definition to the above. For meaning, when I say philosophical debate, I am talking about the gray area difference between consequence and punishment. A consequence for infidelity can be estrangement from family, yes? I think in the gray area, it could possibly be a punishment, because you have other peoples feelings involved. And that varies based on who know how many variables. It is reasonable to assume that bad feelings will be the result of infidelity, but to what degree? Total estrangement? Temporary? Obviously the variables exist because not ALL marriages that come here make it. Some do.



Oh? Was it the use of the word ‘teach’? or something else. I was pretty certain that I had a good grasp on the difference. A consequence would be would be pain after you cut your finger off. A punishment would be as you describe here


That said, I still assert that the former fingerless person has certainly ‘learned’ something from their experience. Thus they have been taught.


I don’t disagree, but to me it still holds some human variability, and I think it is this variability that can convert a consequence into a punishment and vice versa.


I think often that can be true. But not always.


Well, I am not a WS anymore, but I don’t think there is such a vast chasm between the two.



Do you think I get it now? Have I reflected an understanding of the difference?

It seems to me that many people make a poor connection between actions and consequences.

As in, they recognise that the 'action' of being unfaithful for Reason A with Person B resulted in Consequences 'C'.

But they don't necessarily recognise that a slightly different action with a slightly different personality for a slightly different reason is essentially the same action.

For many, infidelity is a coping method for a particular stressor...given the same stressor at a later date, they have no other solution than the one that offered relief before.

Bob P seems quite right to me in pointing out that the intense distraction obviates the guilt, for someone who has let themselves get into a state of serious temptation.

TA

I think this is important. If you get into that state of serious temptation, the rational part of the brain is compromised.

This is why "protecting your weaknesses" is so important.

I would love to hear the input from any of our members who recovered from one or more As only to have another. Was it due to lack of protection?

It depends on a person's maturity level. Emotional intelligence.
Immaturity causes repeat performances of misbehaviors.... with or without consequences.

One would HOPE that the pain of "consequences" is not the ONLY means by which a former wayward learns life lessons! (touch the stove and hand hurts)

One would hope that any former wayward develops a strong moral compass with clearly defined 'right vs wrong' behaviors .... for MORAL reasons .... not just to avoid pain.

Emotional intelligence ~and~ moral development .... if one only avoids infidelity just because "IT HURTS" ... it's a shallow reason, in my opinion.

I require more from my spouse than behaving well in order to avoid pain.

Pep

Interesting question. I don't think consequences do as much to change behavior as people like to think. I have several reasons for thinking that way.

Many people are not inclined to think in the abstract. In simplest definition, anything that has not actually happened is abstract. So, as Pep pointed out, most children do not learn that touching a hot stove will burn their hand, until they have actually burned their hand. Now, WS, suffer consequences, but when trying to motivate them to not repeat infidelity, the consequences are still abstract. i.e. until you actually D them, getting a divorce is still an abstract consequence.

Additionally, many people do not truly recognize cause and effect. The best analogy I've seen for this is the game of Russian Roulette. When someone plays this game, 1 round in six chambers, it is easy to see what caused a participant to blow his head off. But if you had a gun with 10,000 chambers and still only the one round, he could play the game for years and never blow his brains out. When he eventually did, there are those who would have never predicted it, and even worse, those who would be stumped at the cause of the individual's demise. The effect (or consequence) is discounted because it happens infrequently. The other items that seem to obscure cause and effect is time and cumulative actions. Most people need to see effect immediately preceded by cause to connect the events. A delay in this sequence tends to allow people to forget the cause. Cumulative actions i.e. when A, B and C combine to cause an effect, while neither A or B or C, by itself would have caused the same thing, often never get recognized. If you can't see cause and effect, consequences don't mean much.

Many people denigrate history. Believing hindsight is 20/20 often causes a certain bias. When we review history, we tend to assess something as being a mistake based on what we know now, as opposed to what they knew then. Read history and often the writer will describe a military leader A (when losing a battle) as making such and such mistake, because that writer also knows what the military leader B was doing. However, at the time, military leader A had no idea what military leader B was doing and the reality is military leader A did not make a mistake. This gets repeated time and time again. The perception that most develop is that if military leader A had been smarter, more keen or what not, he could have avoided negative consequences. And since most people believe they are smarter, more keen, more capable, while they are aware negative consequences exist, they assume that their capability will allow them to avoid them.

This is driven by the fact, it is in our nature to believe good fortune follows the more exceptional person. Take the book The Millionaire Next Door. It attempts to say these are the characteristics of millionaires, (hard work, perseverence, frugality, etc.) and if you have these characteristics you too will be a millionaire. It comes to this conclusion by saying we interviewed 1,000 millionaires and they all have this characteristic. But, interview 10,000 people who have those characteristics and you will find scant few who are actually millionaires. One could call this the impact of luck or randomness. Some don't believe in luck or randomness. They believe if they act a certain way, certain results will occur. This decreases the impact of consequences as a motivator, since the bad thing can't happen if I act in the proper way. This gets seen time and again when one says I am a good husband/wife, I do all the right things, yet I have fallen in love with someone else. This relates to the inability to truly recognize cause and effect.

Another problem is the consistent misvaluation of the effects. In the Russian Roulette example, what if each game the participant won, they recieved 1,000,000 dollars. Some would say playing this game is worth it. Only a 1 and 10,000 chance that I end up dead. 99.99% of the time I walk out of here with a million dollars. But I would suggest that this is a misvaluation. How much is one's life worth. Even probablity adjusted its worth more than many millions. Now, most people would not make this misvaluation, since the stakes are so high, and the results so stark. Yet, how many people have lunch with a co-worker, which 99.99% of the time would not lead to losing your family, friends, etc, because they put too low a price on keeping them. Consequences are meaningless, because they have been probablistically devalued.

Which leads to, even worse, when keeping the family hasn't been devalued, but the 1,000,000 dollars has been overvalued. I view this as loss of perspective. I read a quote once that said "For the many wonderful things he possess, he fancies a thousand others." Consequences mean little when the grass is always greener. A lot greener to some.

Additionally, most people can't tolerate doing something (or not doing something) that does not appear to pay off. For example, most people can't stand insurance. They complain about the premium being wasted money, since nothing happened. The more years they pay it, the more upset they are about it, the more they desire to quit doing it. Which is really ironic, because statistically, the longer it doesn't "pay off", the more likely it is to pay off. Again, this works against consequences being a motivator for change, since the change doesn't appear to pay off.

Finally, many people do not truly appreciate that they have a choice. While I concede that there may be situations where one has no choice about a course of action, many, many times, these arise out of self made artificial constraints. When a person convinces themselves they have no choice, then consequences are irrelevant.

So, to sum up, many people can't recongnize consequences, or their role in brining them about, and even if they do, they assume that the can avoid them either by their own gifts or superior strategy, and if they can't avoid them, its worth the risk, besides they are tired of not taking chances, and they really don't have any choice in the matter.

Just my 2 cents.

if one only avoids infidelity just because "IT HURTS" ... it's a shallow reason, in my opinion.

That is also the opinion of one of the greatest moralists and philosophers of all time...Kant, and his categorical imperative which is based soley on 'duty'.

"Kant believed that if an action is not done with the motive of duty, then it is without moral value. He thought that every action should have pure intention behind it; otherwise it was meaningless."* <other source>

If the only reason to NOT do something is because of the later consequences...it has no moral value.

One should't commit adultry because it is WRONG...pure and simple. There should be nothing to come after that...no "it hurts families", "i might get caught" "my wife would kill me".

When you base action on the consequences you could actually be saying that you WOULD do it if those things were removed from the listed outcomes.

If there was no chance that it would hurt the family...you would. If there was no chance of getting caught...you would. If there was no chance of your wife killing you...you would.

It leads to that conclusion...imho.

committed

*edited to not not take credit for someone else's words

I think a LACK of consequences will pretty much assure another affair.

Death penalty not deter? OK, then remove it, and watch the killings increase. It certainly detered those it affected! They for sure never killed again!

I agree completely.

The problem with using the "consequence" threat as a deterrent is that it basically teaches the potential WS to be more careful about not getting caught - but not to avoid the action.

Moreover, many WS use the "action-consequence" logic to actually justify their actions - "well, the BS was not meeting my EN's, therefore I had the affair" - no doubt we all heard that one.

AGG

I think a LACK of consequences will pretty much assure another affair.

I think that lack of CHARACTER will.

In my opinion, repeat and serial adulterers all have one thing in common...lack of character.

committed

Character matters, and mattered, more than the economy. That was true back in '92, and is still true today. And will always be true.