Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King's horses
And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again
I'm often asked why people who have affairs must permanently end all
contact with their affair partner if their marriage is to recover and
heal. After all, they were often friends with the lover prior to the
affair and they don't want to lose the friendship along with all the
other losses an affair leaves in its wake.
There are lots of quick and easy answers to that question. Ongoing
contact is offensive and painful for the spouse, the affair is likely
to rekindle, true healing of the marriage can't begin while the
involved spouse is still emotionally connected to the affair partner.
They are all valid reasons and there are good scientific reasons to
back them up. So what more is there to say? I had a sudden visual
image the other day that spoke to me about this issue and I'm hoping
I can relay it in a way that makes it clearer.
The vast majority of affairs occur with someone we know. A close
friend, co-worker, or even family member. Prior to an affair, even
relationships as close as long term friendships retain a level of
distance. Shirley Glass (Not Just Friends, 2003) describes it well
when she speaks about the walls healthy marriages have erected around
the couple to protect them from outside risks.
Intimacy requires vulnerability. As an affair couple moves along the
continuum from friendship to lover layers of protection are peeled
away. Topics that were off limits become primary areas of
conversation. Touch that is reserved for the marriage is now
exchanged with someone outside the marriage. Looks that pass between
lovers are different than those that pass between friends and that
layer or protection is now peeled away as well. Little by little, the
walls that surround and protect the marriage are breached. The layers
of distance are stripped away leaving the partners open, vulnerable,
and intimately known at a level deeper than merely friendship.
When couples connect at this level they come to know each other in a
way that cannot be reversed. They cannot unknow what they have come
to see beneath the layers. Nor can they disconnect entirely from the
intimacy that knowing creates.
When the affair ends, as most do, the layers of protection are gone.
Just as all the King's Horses and all the King's Men couldn't put
Humpty Dumpty together again – neither can we replace the layers
covering the deepest most vulnerable parts of our being. We have
been seen and we cannot remove the memory of that vision. An orange,
once peeled, is forever revealed. The same is true of the human heart
and soul.
Years later, an old flame – long forgotten and newly met – can touch
us in ways someone who has not known us so deeply has no power to do.
We know the inner core of our former loves, and they ours. This is,
at the primal level, the reason contact with an affair partner must
permanently end. That knowing – that depth of connection – cannot be
undone. To remain in contact is to ever put the marriage at risk. To
remain in contact sabotages our ability to recreate that level of
knowingness and intimacy with our mate.
This is why our spouses are so offended and threatened with continued
or renewed contact. They intuitively sense the missing protective
layers of unknowing. They instinctively recognize the connection that
has been created and the danger is poses to the marriage. They know
in their depths that as long as contact continues healing cannot
fully occur.
Friends can easily become lovers. But the reverse is not true. Lovers
cannot easily become "just" friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment