Marriage Killer

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about victims. There really are true victims in this world, of course…people who have been negatively affected by the actions of others through no fault or no choosing of their own. People who died in the 9/11 attacks for example. No fault or choosing, they just went to work that day and their lives and the lives of their loved ones were changed forever. I think a lot of times, however, people can feel as though they have been victimized, not realizing that they really did have a choice.  That’s the idea I want to challenge today.

Take couples where an affair has taken place, for example. Many times the spouse who was cheated on feels as though they have been victimized by their lyin’, cheatin’, backstabbin’, no-good louse of a spouse. This victimy mentality, that they had no fault or choice in this situation, is first of all, not the truth, and second of all…it’s nothing short of a marriage killer! This mentality will ensure that there is no reconciliation. Not only that, it will keep the would-be “victim” trapped in a painful, nightmarish personal hell, and will make them unable to forgive later, keeping them forever tied to the pain of the event.

This poisonous mentality doesn’t exist only with affairs, though. It can also be present in less obvious ways with more obscure painful events, but is still just as damaging and deadly to marriages.  Some examples:  perhaps a codependent wife feels victimized by her overbearing, self-centered, oblivious husband who verbally or physically abuses her. Maybe a voiceless husband feels smothered by his over-bearing wife. Folks that have shame issues feel like everyone else is to blame for what’s wrong in their life because admitting otherwise would be too painful to bear.

I would respond to this by first saying that if you are saying the words, “If HE would just…” or “If SHE would just…”, then you have at least some victimy feeling going on.  You are being in one way or another….controlling.  Sorry to be so blunt, but that’s the truth.  You are objectifying the other person and trying to make them into what you think they should be/think/feel/do.  This will keep you entrenched in a power struggle that is both counter-productive and extremely painful.

I would also be first in line to say that it is not OK for your spouse to be abusive, self-centered, oblivious, over-bearing, controlling, etc.  It is painful and you have to have the self-control of good boundaries with people that are unsafe.  That does not mean, however, that you have been victimized by them! To those of you who are married…no one held a gun to your head to force you to put someone who is so ill-equipped to meet your needs in charge of meeting them!  You’re going to have to own the fact that you picked ‘em, and you continue to pick them.  No one forced you to stay in this relationship until you are so filled with rage and resentment that you can hardly see straight and so filled with the pain underneath that you cry yourself to sleep every night. In fact…you chose this person sub-consciously to hurt you just like they have.

Blaming someone else for what has gone wrong in your life is all about walls and protection. If something actually is my “fault,” then I have to own it, change it, and worst of all….feel it. If I own my half of the problem, then I am admitting that “I did something wrong.” Particularly those partners with shame issues will have a very difficult time doing this. Their shame tells them that if they are found guilty of doing something wrong, they will no longer be accepted and loved. That what they were told growing up was true….that they weren’t good enough. That is very painful, (to the point where it literally feels like DEATH to your subconscious), to face. Their walls built to protect themselves will keep that from happening…instead they will come out, sometimes inside their own head and sometimes guns blazing, to blame anyone in their path for anything that happens that makes them feel that way. It could be any little thing that they perceive will signal someone to judge them.  It’s not rational, the rational part of their brain is not the one running the show when they are doing it!  It doesn’t make it any less real for them, or painful for you, though.

So you married someone who is going to hurt you the most. In fact, YOU YOURSELF WILL ENSURE they will hurt you by putting up walls and hurting them so they will hurt you back. That’s what love is to you. Sucks, doesn’t it! But think about how motivated to change you would be if you weren’t in pain….not very, right? How many people come to therapy because it’s so much fun? Zero. God, nature, the universe, whatever you want to call it…wants you to be healed and whole from the wounds you received as a kid. (This is not about blaming your parents for screwing you up, it’s about being real about what happened. Blaming is about shame, walls, and pain like I said.) We all marry people who will hurt us the way we were hurt as kids so that we will be in enough pain to work on it, heal it, and learn new skills where we are the weakest.

You have not been victimized. You chose the life you’ve led. You have 50% ownership of the relational problems, and you are just as unhealthy and unbalanced as your hurting spouse. Yes…you read that right….they are hurting too….under their angry exterior. See them for the wounded kid they are on the inside. Own your half, no more, and no less. Have good boundaries with those who are hurting you, ABSOLUTELY, but don’t believe for one second that it’s all the other person’s fault. It will kill any chances your marriage had, and will keep you inprisoned in your own pain.

Work on YOUR stuff, sweet ones. If you don’t, I guarantee you will either marry someone just like them and repeat the pattern again, or live out your days with a deep pain or unforgiveness that won’t go away.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll write again soon.

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2011, Nancy Eisenman

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone:  317.605.7015

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

©  2017 Peace Counseling Group. All rights reserved.

Dealing With An Affair, Part 3

We’ll make this the last post of this short series about affairs.  I promised you titles of some good books on the subject.  There are a couple that we recommend frequently where I work.  “Surviving An Affair” by Willard Harley is a good one.  A newer one that is for partners of folks with sexual addiction is “Mending A Shattered Heart” by Stefanie Carnes.  A couple of books for preventing affairs before they happen are “Getting the Love You Want” by Harville Hendrix and “His Needs, Her Needs” also by Willard Harley.  “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” by Lee Raffel can help you find answers to whether or not you should separate, and can teach you how to do it in a respectful, calm, cooperative way.

If you would like to have what is basically some “free therapy” on the subject of affairs, my boss Mark Smith’s 45 page e-book on our website is pretty much that.  You can download the .pdf file for free.  It’s called “The Secret To Healing Your Marriage After An Affair.”  It will give you a good base before you actually go into a therapy appointment, and will give you an idea of our paradigm and how we handle affairs etc. at Family Tree.

I hate the word “advice” but if I were going to give you something like advice about affairs, it would be this:  Listen for the warning signals before they happen!  They might not be words, but if you pay attention, you can see or hear the signs.  Is your spouse saying things like “I wish you would touch me/have sex with me more,” or “I need you to be home more, and spend more time with me.”?  They are really telling you that they are lonely and their needs for attention or physical touch are not being met.  Are you refusing to sleep with your spouse until you feel better connected?  Although I can understand the feelings surrounding this, cutting off sexually is a very dangerous thing to do.  If you don’t feel connected, instead of cutting off, get some help, and right now!  Don’t wait!  There is a reason for this problem you’re having, and a skilled therapist can help you deal with it before it becomes a bigger problem (an affair.)

If you find yourself in a relationship where an affair has already happened, you need help right now.  The best thing I can tell you is if you are the cheated-upon spouse, you are not a victim.  A victim mentality will keep you miserable and hurt you 10x worse at least in the long run.  If you are the one who had the affair, get in touch with your emotions and get some help.  Both of you remember, marriage is fair, you picked exactly the right person to hurt you the way you needed to be hurt to break down your psychological walls and heal the broken places.

Thanks for stopping by for a very short look at the issue of affairs.  They are complicated, but if you are open to listen, a gifted therapist can help you squeeze a tremedous amount of insight out of them and make you both more emotionally healthy because of it.

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2010, Nancy Eisenman

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone:  317.605.7015

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

©  2017 Peace Counseling Group. All rights reserved.

Dealing With An Affair, Part 2

Welcome back for Part 2 of a quick series on affair-related issues.  I thought today we could look at the other side of the coin.  We talked about the person whose spouse strayed, but what about the person who did the straying?  Are they really the devil incarnate as the cheated-upon spouse would (perhaps) like everyone to believe?  What can be said to them…that they are the refuse of the earth and little more, and there is no hope for them or their marriage?  I think not!!  Read on.

If you are like most folks who have been caught having an affair, you probably feel pretty lousy about yourself.  The affair may have been exciting in the beginning, almost like pure intoxication, but now that the secret is out, life is not quite as fun.  If you want to keep your spouse, and he/she is in angry/victim mode, chances are they are letting you have it pretty good.  There are some key things to remember in this situation.

  1. One, they will show anger to you, but underneath what is really going on is some very ancient, deep-seated abandonment pain that is being exposed to the light of day after a long time behind some thick psychological walls.  See them as a 5-year-old version of themselves, having just been hurt worse than they ever have been before.  It will make the anger easier to understand and diffuse, and easier to control your own reaction to it and not respond back with anger in return.
  2. Two, you are not the horrible person you may feel like, or that your spouse may be telling you that you are.  You have some deep issues as well as they do, like we all do.  That does not make you terrible, it makes you wounded and in need of help.
  3. Three, let a therapist, or someone besides you, ”enlighten” your spouse to their issues, at least in the beginning stages.  The abandonment they are feeling is more powerful than you can imagine, and you are the current face of the flare-up.  They need a neutral professional to lay down the insight, and so do you.  Listen a lot and try not to be reactive.  Most importantly, get help right now!

If your honey has abandonment issues going on, what about you?  If you have had an affair, I’d be willing to bet you have a pretty sizable problem with emotional cutoff.  This is a term that describes an avoidance of feeling your worst, deep-seated pain.  Simply stated, you have such deep pain that it is too difficult to feel it, so you cut off from it by keeping yourself busy with things that are fun or numbing (at least at first), thus avoiding dealing with it.  This is how addictions begin.  It’s a coping mechanism of sorts.  Somewhere along the line, the sweetie you chose to be your primary need-meeter began hitting the same buttons that stir your pain, and you cut off from them and found something to keep yourself busy or numb the pain.  Which one of your parents was critical or shaming?  Did one of them yell at you a lot, or worse?  Where is the abuse in your past?

If you’re wondering how a marriage that has had an affair happen can be saved, in my opinion it’s as simple and as difficult as this: both partners absolutely HAVE to be open-hearted and willing to hear the truth of their own individual issues.  If you are both humble and open to learn about yourselves, you’ve got a good shot at saving your marriage.  Both of you have to be willing to face your pains, grieve them, and work on them.  It is not for the feint of heart.  It’s hard work and it takes not only time, but a lot of courage!  It is also going to require at some point, the ability to forgive.  BOTH of you will need to forgive each other.  That’s the bad news, but the good news is really good!

The good news is that you only need enough courage to make it through one day at a time, and it will come as you need it.  The other good news is that by both of you working you will heal yourselves and your marriage over time, and eventually it will grow into something better than you ever could have had without the affair.  It all depends on both partners being willing to open their hearts and minds, and having good, solid help to illuminate the issues at work in the relationship.  If you are trustworthy in the process, bring your humility, and show up hungry to learn and heal, your marriage has a healthy, fighting chance of survival.

Remember, even if your spouse is playing the victim or can’t forgive, you still have issues that need to be dealt with.  There is a reason you strayed.  Get yourself an appointment with a gifted therapist…like me in a couple of years!  My colleagues at Family Tree can help until then, they are really special.  See you again soon!

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2010, Nancy Eisenman

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone:  317.605.7015

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

©  2017 Peace Counseling Group. All rights reserved.

Dealing With An Affair, Part 1

Thank you for stopping by the Waiting Room today. I’m so glad you did! Today’s topic is actually inspired by request…I have a few friends who read my blog who are either close to folks who are dealing with affair issues or are in an affair themselves, etc. I’m deeply humbled to be asked to blog about what I think about this pain-filled topic. I hope anyone reading this who knows someone going through an affair from any perspective can glean at least one tiny tidbit they can use to help themselves or someone else.

The first thing I would say is that there is just SO much to say! It’s a topic that needs and deserves more than just a short blog, but I’ll try to cover some of the major bullet-points, perhaps in a short series of posts. If you want to read more about it, I’ll have some good resources that I’ll list at the end as well. For now, though, let’s jump right into the deep end and swim our little hearts out!

Most importantly, the first thing that you must hear, absorb, and inwardly digest if you are the cheated-upon spouse is that you are not, repeat NOT, a victim! Sorry to break that to you. I am not minimizing your pain at all, or trying to whack you when you’re down.  I really do hate to just come right on out and say it so bluntly, but sweetie, if this is you, you’re just not a victim of your “lyin’, cheatin’, 2-timin’ spouse.” It’s something you have to hear. Even though it seems harsh and maybe even wrong, I’m telling you this not to hurt you, but to give you a fighting chance of possibly saving your marriage. (…and because it’s the truth!) I realize that saving your marriage may not be possible depending on several factors, but at least this seemingly harsh yet actually loving statement can get YOU on a road to healing yourself. When it comes down to it, you are the only person you can change.

The truth of it is, you chose your spouse to hurt you in exactly the way you needed to be hurt to break down your emotional walls. Yep. We are attracted to those who will hurt us like a mosquito to a bug-zapper. We can’t even help it, it’s….instinctual. We are attracted to people who underneath have the worst qualities of those closest to us growing up.  Look back into your childhood. If your spouse has had an affair, I can tell you without even knowing anything else about you that somewhere along the way, you were abandoned! Even if your parents both stayed married and lived with you, you were still abandoned somehow. You didn’t get the love and attention you needed in the quantities that little kids need. You chose someone to care for your feelings and to be your need-meeter who was inherently unable to do so, and you stayed with them until they did it. They “loved” you the way you grew to know what love is. Love, abandonment style. I know quite personally of what I speak.

The universe allows us to be attracted to our parents/caregivers worst qualities. It seems like a cosmic joke, but really it is they way we are healed if we let it. If you learn to look at your pain as a gift from the universe (after you stop laughing and saying “ya, right Nance”….read on…I really am serious!), you can learn where you were hurt as a kid, grieve that pain, heal from it, and learn to see, understand, and cope with it. You can learn to let those walls become more permeable and to use healthier ways to deal with it instead of cutting off, playing the victim, or becoming a “control-freak.” Seeing yourself as victimized by your cheating spouse is the best way to not only halt any healing that could have come from this pain, along with driving the death-nail into the coffin of your marriage, but doing so will also ensure that if you get into another relationship down the road, you will choose another cheater to love, just with a different face. Pretty good motivation to figure this stuff out, huh?

Instead of trying to play a victim role, plant your hind-quarters firmly onto a gifted therapist’s couch. Open your eyes and ears to the realities of your issues.  It will be extremely difficult to see those issues, and not fall into a victim mentality, without some good guidance.  Let them help you learn, grieve, grow, and heal from this absolutely excruciating experience. Gather some meaning from the pain. It’s difficult, but it’s worth it!  Stop by again soon and we’ll cover some more ground with this issue.

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2010, Nancy Eisenman

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone:  317.605.7015

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

©  2017 Peace Counseling Group. All rights reserved.

Infidelity Statistics

I recently saw some statistics on infidelity in a magazine in another waiting room, and I felt compelled to share.  The numbers were absolutely staggering!  I didn’t check the scientific methods of this particular website, but just googled infidelity statistics and this is one of the sites that came up…check out some of these numbers, courtesy of a website titled, “Infidelity Facts” ( InfidelityFacts.com)  The numbers are similar to the ones reported in the magazine I read.  Take a look:
Percentage of marriages where one or both spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional: 41%
Percentage of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had: 57%
Percentage of women who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had: 54%
Percentage of men and women who admit to having an affair with a co-worker: 36%
Percentage of men and women who admit to infidelity on business trips: 36%
Percentage of men and women who admit to infidelity (emotional or physical) with a brother-in-law or sister-in-law: 17%
Average length of an affair: 2 years
Percentage of marriages that last after an affair has been admitted to or discovered: 31%
Percentage of men who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught: 74%
Percentage of women who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught: 68%

I just wanted to share those figures, keeping in mind that the actual numbers are probably higher yet, given the nature of the questions asked…some of the folks may not have told the whole truth given the shame that can accompany some of the answers to these questions.

I thought that this might be quite eye-opening, to know that infidelity is THIS common.  If you find yourself either having an affair, or being married to someone who has, the first step is to get yourself into the office of a top-flight therapist.  (Give me a couple years, and you can come and see me!)

Marriage and relationships are tough.  I know first hand!  If you find yourself in need of some guidance, or even just a referee to call the fouls while you work through some stuff like an affair, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone or send an email and find a good therapist.  It’s not as scary as you think…therapists are the least judgemental folks you will find.  Thanks for stopping by!

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2010, Nancy Eisenman

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone:  317.605.7015

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

©  2017 Peace Counseling Group. All rights reserved.