Preventing Emotional Infidelity

We often think of being unfaithful as just physical unfaithfulness. We rarely think about how we could be emotionally cheating on our spouse. I am a single woman, and so I don’t have much experience with emotional cheating; however, I do have experience with preventing my married friends from growing too emotionally attached to me.

Two of my best friends are a married couple. The husband is one of my best friends in the world. The two of us have so much in common. He’s basically me in male form. But because we are so close, I have to make sure that I am careful in my actions so that his strongest attachment is with his wife.

For one thing, I try to keep myself from texting him too often. If I can, I usually try texting them both in a group text and only send him direct messages on occasion.

Another thing I do is I make sure we are never hanging out alone. If it is just the two of us hanging out we always have to be in a public place or that another person comes along.

A final thing I do is I make sure that my relationship with his wife is strong. I know that if I harbor a love and respect for her then I could never bear the thought of hurting her.

These aren’t perfect, foolproof ways but they are lines I have drawn to prevent strong emotional attachments that shouldn’t be there. As the single friend, I should be doing everything I can to support and sustain their marriage. Marriage needs a lot of support in order to survive, and as the single friends we should be the ones helping to build it up. Because we love our friends, we are happy for them, and we want them to succeed. And if none of this is convincing you to draw clear lines, then do it to avoid the confusion and drama. Emotionally connecting with someone who is married gets very complicated very quickly, and chances are you are the one who will end up getting hurt. So if nothing else, draw lines of protection to save yourself a little heartbreak.

Becoming Charitable

In his book Drawing Heaven into your Marriage, H. Wallace Goddard, Ph.D. quotes C.S. Lewis on charity:

When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth?

I like this idea that our natural reactions help us to identify and recognize who we truly are on the inside. It makes sense to me that if we are a truly charitable person, then our first reaction would be to reach out in love and understanding. If we are not truly charitable, then our first reaction would be to become angry or offended. The question is, how do we get to the point where we become instinctively charitable? The only answer I have to offer: patience, diligence, and practice.

We have to patient with ourselves. We cannot expect ourselves to be charitable right away. That goes against the natural man. When you mess up just remember to be patient, repent, and try again.

We must also be diligent. Becoming charitable is not something that occurs overnight. We need to make the commitment to see ourselves through and consistently work at becoming better.

Finally, we must practice being charitable. This means consciously trying to be charitable. It means that when we have an uncharitable thought, we mentally slap ourselves and correct the initial reactions. As we do this, we will begin to notice a change in ourselves.

I am not saying that this process will make us become perfectly charitable, but if we commit to becoming more we will slowly become a little better every day.

Anger is a Choice

In his talk “Agency and Anger” Elder Lynn G. Robbins talks about how anger is actually a choice. This seems odd. I know that when I feel angry it is a natural reaction to outside forces acting on me. Robbins argues that the idea that we are a slave to our anger is one of Satan’s greatest lies. After experiencing a situation that caused me to be angry, and choosing to not be angry but instead reach out in love, I know that what Elder Robbins teaches is truth.

There was a guy who I was absolutely in love with. We were good friends. I have a particularly flirty roommate, and she knew how I felt about him, but that didn’t stop her from hardcore flirting with him in front of me when he would hang out at our apartment or when we went out on group hangouts, and this really hurt me. I confronted my roommate twice about her actions and how they were affecting me. I wasn’t trying to attack her, I was simply trying to express to her that her actions were hurting me. Both times she blew me off. She told me that she didn’t care how I felt, this is who she is, and if I wanted to be her friend I would just have to learn to accept it. Admittedly, the second time I said some choice words to her and stormed out of our apartment, where I proceeded to burst into tears. Confrontation is very hard for me. This was the first experience I had really had dealing with someone who absolutely did not care about my feelings and was unapologetic about hurting me. She never did apologize sincerely to me, and it came down to me. I had to decide what I was going to do.

Over the next few weeks I made the decision that I was going to kill her with kindness. I was going to be the bigger person and not let her actions prevent me from reaching out in Christ-like love. Whenever she would do things to purposely hurt me, I turned the other cheek.I chose to not let her anger me. Instead, I reached out to her with kindness.  I encouraged her in her goals. I built up her self-esteem. I learned to love her in spite of the way she treated me.

This experience prepared me for my own future marriage. I learned that even in the closest relationships, your partner/friend can do things that hurt or annoy you. Through this experience, I learned that anger got me nowhere. When I reached out with kindness, love, and service thought, the relationship was much improved and I felt better about myself. Marriage is about giving and loving all that we can, and thanks to this roommate I learned to love completely selflessly someone who did things that hurt and annoyed me.

The Shift of Roles in Marriage

Dr. John M. Gottman points out that one of the great problems affecting modern marriages is the fact that gender roles in marriage are shifting. Traditionally, men had the role of being the provider of the home while the woman was the nurturer and homemaker. More and more women are entering the workforce and complaining to their husbands about how they are not taking an active role in the home. This shift in roles can be understandably confusing.

I know have seen this type of confusion in my own life. I grew up in a home where parent’s played out the traditional roles.  My dad brought home the bacon and my mom was the homemaker. Due to modern society, there was a lot of confusion in the home. I remember that my mother would complain to my father all the time about how she was not a maid and that he needed to take a more active role in cleaning and taking care of the home. This was very frustrating for my father, who already spent the whole day working. I compare this to another couple I know, and have spent much time in their home. This couple has drawn a clear line between their individual responsibilities. The mother is clearly responsible for the rearing of the children, while the husband is responsible for providing for the family. Because the wife knows and accepts her role, she has no expectations of her husband to do the role that she has chosen. She does not complain to him at all. Because of this, I have noticed that he willingly chooses to help her in the home. This is an interesting observation to me and tells me that when we do not have nagging expectations of our partners, they are more likely to help you.

Ultimately the world is changing and the definitions of marriage change every day. I think the best thing you can do for your marriage is drawing a clear line right now for what your role will be as a caretaker and provider. That way there will be less strife in the home because you and your partner both know your respective roles.