Musing on Marriage(tm) On Being Judged

I got an email this week from a fellow marriage advocate and writer.
I'd initiated a conversation with the person to exchange information,
hoping to grow the village and benefit both our passions in this
business of saving marriages. Early in our conversation I mentioned
that I'd been the one to initiate and force a divorce in my first
marriage – something that haunts me daily when I see the effects on
my kids and on all the kids I see in situations where their families
are falling apart. And, something that I speak of very openly. It's
part of why people relate so well to me as a coach and writer.

As many of you know, this is why I'm so committed to this work. My
personal feeling is that if adults want to mess up their lives and
create a lot of pain and chaos for themselves they have every right
to do so. I feel sadness and compassion for them and will do whatever
I can to help, but as adults in a free society, they have the right
to make those kinds of choices. But once there are kids involved the
picture changes. If you read my Musing on staying together for the
kids you know that I feel very strongly about the obligation of
adults to protect and safeguard our children.

I failed at doing that. I admit it fully – have for years. And those
of you who know me well know how deeply having failed at that hurts
me. It's guilt and a sadness I know I'll never get over. It is the
one thing, the only thing that will make me cry with exactly the same
ease and swiftness as talking about the death of one of my children
many years ago. It haunts me in moments of lightheartedness and it
keeps me awake long into the night. The pain of a parent seeing the
suffering of a child, especially suffering the parent has caused, is
possibly the deepest pain we can endure.

The work that I do with couples whose marriages are not only on the
brink but falling through space brings me into daily contact with
kids whose lives are in the frenetic chaos of falling apart. I see, I
feel, I taste their pain and their terror. I watch from a distance as
they do the things my kids did when my marriage ended – the
rebellion, the failing grades, the adversarial positions they take,
the ending of their childhood. In contrast, I watch other families –
intact families – and their children. The stark difference between
the kids of families falling through space and those whose lives are
stable and secure is more pronounced than the difference between
night and day. Being a front row observer reminds me daily of the
wages of my choices. It hurts – and it makes me more determined to
stand up, speak out, and work to save and heal marriages in any way
possible.

So, this email that I got, in response to a request to combine a
couple of resources for saving marriages said this: "I feel very
uncomfortable seeing someone involved in this work if he/she is the
one who forced the divorce. It's usually the other way around---folks
get into this work because they had a divorce forced upon them."

Wowwww….. you can imagine how that was a knife twisting in my gut.
Not only was I being judged for mistakes of the past, but my ability –
no – my right to move forward and make amends through my work was
challenged, questioned. All the pain and guilt and sadness poured
over me in tidal waves that I hadn't experienced in a long long time.

Why am I telling you this? It's not to gain sympathy or to have you
say, "There, there, P, we know you do good work and we appreciate
it." No, it's to bring to awareness the terrible destruction that
comes of judging another person. At SYMC we are, to the person,
insistent upon and dedicated to the idea that we don't get to judge.
I don't care what you've done in the past – truly. I care about what
you are doing right now and whether your actions are leading you to a
life of more integrity and better choices.

Had an affair in the past? Addicted to some other substance? Anger
and abuse issues? Divorced one, two, three, four times? Sorry to hear
it, it must have been painful for everyone. Now, let's talk about
what you learned and how you can take that knowledge and wisdom and
craft a better life. What can you do to make amends? What are you
doing to ensure you never make the same mistake again? Not just for
you and your family, although you need to start there, but for the
rest of the planet as well.

Judging people, much like labeling, keeps them stuck. Judging
oneself – refusing to grant forgiveness for the things you've done in
the past – keeps you stuck as well. In fact, it's a wonderful way to
avoid the painful process of growth and renewal. If you take the
position that you did such and such and because of it are unworthy to
do something like --- oh, say marriage advocacy ---- then you're
allowing yourself to stay in a place that is less than where you
should be going. You're enabling a lifestyle of mediocrity less than
wonderful choices.

None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. Some yield greater and
more serious consequences. But, for as long as you have breath and
spark within you, the possibility, no, the obligation to learn from
your mistakes and to use that learning as a stepping stone to
something more exists. The obligation to allow others the same chance
to grow and heal and make amends exists as well.

There's a poem (that half an hour of online searching cannot find)
which talks about our fear, not of failing, but of being truly great.
Don't let your mistakes or those of anyone around you, impede or
dissuade you from greatness. Stop judging and take positive action.
What small thing can you do today on your walk toward greatness?

Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) Woodlands or Fields?

I live in rural western Wisconsin, a bucolic paradise of quickly
disappearing family dairy farms and little towns that have never
heard of Starbucks or Target. (I didn't say I liked it, I said I live
here ….) Anyway, as I was saying…. This is a beautiful spot on the
planet, rolling hills, woods, fields, pastures, and picturesque
farmsteads for miles and miles.

A couple of years ago when one of my boys was in Cub Scouts we had an
opportunity to take a ride in a small plane with one of the other
scout's dad who generously offered his plane and his time. We flew
from the little airport about 40 miles from us up over our little
town and back along the river – seeing quite a bit of the surrounding
countryside.

What an eye opener! Driving along the highways or county roads you
roll past miles and miles of fields and pasture with the occasional
hill of trees in the distance. From the vantage point of a car (or
pickup!) this part of the world is mostly open fields with a few
wooded areas tossed in for good effect. But from the air – with a
larger, farther reaching view, an entirely different picture presents
itself. In reality the woods are enormous, covering more than half
the surface of the earth in comparison to roads, fields, and
pastures. Who knew!? Not being a bird, or having a plane of my own, I
had no reason to think the landscape was any different than what I
saw from the highway. That little jaunt in a twin engine prop plane
changed my vision of where I live.

So what's that got to do with marriage? Glad you asked. The having to
do with marriage part is all about a shift in awareness – of seeing
things from a different perspective and realizing that simply because
you have always seen things in one way or another does not mean that
it is the only way to see those things.

In the early months of my career as a coach, Harvey*, whom I had
mentored on and off over the course of a year, asked me to coach him
through a difficult time in his marriage. His wife had moved out of
the house after having had an affair and she was on the verge of
filing for divorce. Her primary complaint about the marriage was
Harvey's anger and control tactics. She told him that over the course
of their 20+ year marriage she had been mostly unhappy.

Now, if you do work with couples experiencing infidelity you know
that a re-write of history is common, and perhaps that's what
Harvey's wife was doing. However, having mentored Harvey for close to
a year and then working as his coach it was readily apparent that he
did have problems with both anger and control. He would rant at me at
least once a week, twist things around, becoming both demanding and
disrespectful – I could see why his wife complained and I believe
that she had been truly unhappy.

Harvey, on the other hand, just couldn't see it. He said something to
me that since that time a whole host of men have said about their
wives' version of their marital history "When is she going to wake up
and realize that she's wrong and that we had lots and lots of good
times?" Harvey was just like me rolling along in a car across western
Wisconsin – seeing only the open fields with the trees in the
background. He didn't have the point of view to see that the trees
really covered a much greater part of the landscape than the fields
visible from the road.

Other versions of Harvey's statement are – "But I have pictures of
us at where she is smiling and laughing," or "I
remember going to and that she had a good time,"
or "We had lots of times where she was happy," or any number of
versions of the same refrain.

Interestingly, I only get this insistence that the past was wonderful
from men whose partners have left. And, even more interesting is
almost without fail these are men who have demonstrated problems with
control, anger, and abuse – verbal or physical. I have not (at least
as of today) heard a woman say the same thing about her spouse who
has pulled back from the marriage. There's probably a whole week of
Musings on the difference between men and women and how they react to
emotional situations, but that's for another time.

What I want to highlight today is the need to accept and validate
what the other person is saying about his – or in these cases her –
reality. Harvey's wife and the wives of many other men are seeing the
marriage from the air. To them, the good times are tiny open fields
edging the highway but the overriding picture of the marriage is a
forest of hurt and sadness. When they look back at their years of
being married they see little pockets of smiles, mostly at events or
activities maybe on holidays, and endless miles of tears.

If these husbands want to change the tide of the marriage – if they
hope to have a chance of enticing their wives back they need to stop
arguing about whether or not she was happy. A dozen (or a thousand)
pictures of a smiling woman do not a happy marriage make. Instead
they need to accept that her reality, although different from theirs,
is as real to her as his is to him. Instead of waiting for her
to `wake up' these husbands must accept at face value what she is
saying – she was unhappy, the marriage was not a wonderful place for
her, and then he needs to do something about it.

Changing one's vision of reality is often difficult. Unless we can
experience what someone else is experiencing it's virtually
impossible for us to know what it's like. We can imagine – but we
struggle to hold in our consciousness a point of view different than
our own. This, I believe, is why I see this phenomenon in men with
control problems. Control and the ensuing anger come from the idea
that our way is the only way and that we have a right to insist on
getting our way at any cost to the other person. Tunnel vision. The
inability to understand that there is a way to view something that is
different from our usual position. Rigidity.

Today, three or four years after my eye opening ride in that plane, I
sometimes forget that there are vast expanses of woods beyond the
fields and pastures that line the highways of rural Wisconsin. But
when I stop to think about it, I know they're there. In my minds eye
I can envision the hills and bluffs covered with trees. If your wife
is telling you she's unhappy – that she's been unhappy for a long
time – don't argue! Just because you see things from the front seat
of the car doesn't mean that another reality doesn't exist. Fly with
her – ask her to tell you about her reality. And then ask her what
you can do to make the next leg of the trip one that is much more
satisfying for her. And then, do it.

Happy Flying,
Penny

*Name changed to protect privacy and confidentiality

Musing On Marriage(tm) Staying Together "For the Kids"

Before the "me" generation of the late 60's and 70's married couples
with children tended to stay married for a lot of reasons that aren't
as powerfully present in today's world. Women now make up nearly 50%
of the workforce in the US and we generate more than half of the US
economy. Women are not as likely to stay married due to financial
dependence as they were in the past. Women are also better educated
and less dependent overall. The sexual revolution of the 60's and
70's made it possible not only to remove pregnancy from sex but it
also displaced the idea of sex only within marriage and not until
marriage. Religion, which played a strong role in keeping couples
together has become less and less of a motivating force. Some studies
suggest that the rate of divorce is higher in the "Bible Belt" than
elsewhere. The Catholic Church, once the last holdout against
divorce, now takes a circuitous route to acceptance with the
annulment process – claiming the marriage was never valid to begin
with. And even those Catholics who divorce without seeking an
annulment find acceptance – if not in their home parishes in
neighboring Christian communities. The untouched factor for many
years continued to be staying together for the sake of the kids.

We've all known couples who were passionately unhappily married but
who gritted their teeth and stuck it out. For the kids. The parents
who couldn't stand the sight of each other but who sat down to dinner
each night as a family, celebrated holidays as a family, attended
school functions as a family, and created a stable home – as a
family – from which the children would inevitably move away from and
into their own lives as adults. These parents stayed together,
sacrificing the best years of their lives – pouring the hearts and
souls into their work and their hobbies to avoid the pain of their
failed marriages – mostly because they believed doing so was in the
best interest of the children.

Were they right? I don't know that there's a definitive answer to
that. What I do know is the carnage I see day after day in the
divorced families where staying together for the sake of the children
no longer is an option. In fact, the concept itself seems to be
disappearing from our consciousness. Now we hear about the need for
self actualization. The need to find oneself or to pursue one's
passions (often that translates to the person waiting in the wings).
The need to realize one's own dreams, even if that means shattering
the lives of the people closest to oneself. We don't talk much,
anymore, about staying together for the sake of the children, and
when we do it's in pitying tones for those who choose that route. As
if they've somehow failed the rest of us by their dedication to the
wellbeing of their offspring.

The pendulum has indeed swung in the other direction. Which of course
raises the question of whether there is a middle ground – a place of
balance between self and other. At what point does one sacrifice too
much of self for another, even ones' own child? And at what point is
one being selfish is pursuit of personal fulfillment? Is staying in
the marriage purely for the sake of the children something to be
looked down on or even feared?

Should we stay in a miserable marriage solely for the sake of the
children? I think the question needs looking at in a slightly
different light. Would I ask someone to stay in an unhappy marriage
just for the children without doing anything proactive to change the
marriage? No, I don't think so. But then, I wouldn't advocate going
to work just for the paycheck without actively participating in the
job one was hired to do. Both seem to be a recipe for frustration
verging on madness.

So let's change the question around a bit. Is the welfare of the
children reason enough to stick it out and work on an ill marriage,
even if there seems to be no feelings and no hope? To that I say a
resounding, Yes!

I'm really not picky about the reasons why people choose to stay in a
marriage, giving it another shot at recovery. In fact, it seems to me
that honoring one's obligations as parents, guardians, and nurturers
of the next generation is one of the better reasons to do so. What I
don't want to see is the old paradigm of staying for the kids and
enduring a life of misery. Stay for the kids – and then work hard and
work smart to effect positive change in the marriage.

Musing on Marriage(tm) A Wedding

I went to a wedding this past weekend. It was a beautiful event. The
bride wore her mother's wedding dress, the flowers were a colorful
array of wildflowers and roses, the ceremony was elegantly simple
without all the pomp and hoopla that distract from the solemnity of
the day, and the couple seemed truly and deeply in love with each
other. It was one of the most delightful weddings I've ever attended.

I sobbed internally through the entire ritual.

Those of you who know me know that I cry at the drop of a hat. I
cried watching the riverboats make their way up the Mississippi for
the Grand Excursion this July. I cried at the series finale of
Friends. And I cry every year just watching Independence Day
celebrations. But this was different. This was more than emotion
running over at the eyelids; this was tears of loss and sorrow and a
feeling of impending doom.

See, what I know is that no matter how beautiful the wedding or how
deeply connected the couple seems as they stand there at the altar or
dance their first dance their chances of "forsaking all others til
death do us part," is pretty slim. The numbers are not in their
favor. Sixty to eighty percent of marriages in the US are struck by
the ravages of infidelity. The incidence of wives having affairs is
increasing drastically with the ease of emotional connection via the
internet. Sexual addiction (a form of infidelity) is at epidemic
proportions.

Every day I talk to clients or receive email and phone calls from
people around the world telling me the stories of the tragedies which
strike their marriages. And as I watched this young couple, so
obviously in love, I wondered how long it would be before the wedding
pictures and video would be the source of greatest pain rather than
joy. And the tears fell silently in my heart.

As I watched them exchange their vows and I listened to the priest
speak about the covenant of marriage (lifelong, exclusive, and
created) my mind went to a dear friend who was experiencing his 21st
wedding anniversary – newly divorced after his wife's multiple
affairs. And I cried.

As they cut their cake and walked among their guests I thought of
someone close to me whose husband has left her yet again for another
woman – caught in the horror of his addiction and unable to break
free. I saw her internal strength and commitment in the face of this
betrayal. And I cried.

As I watched them dance their first dance, laughing and smiling into
each other's eyes I thought of my own first marriage. So many years
and so many lost dreams ago. And my heart felt as if it would never
be happy again.

Infidelity is a catastrophic event that wreaks destruction every bit
as great as hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. The internal landscape
of all whom it touches is changed forever. People recover, some go on
to contribute to society in a way that they might never have done but
for the loss in their lives. But none of us would ever choose such a
path willingly.

With all my heart I hope and pray that this young couple will never
experience or even know of the sorrows I see and hear daily. I wish
them many years of honesty, friendship, love and companionship. And I
grieve for those whose dreams of such are shattered.

Musing on Marriage(tm) Infidelity and the Egg

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.

Musing on Marriage(tm) Infidelity and the Cat

My cat got in a fight the other night. A raucous screeching fight
that jerked us awake at 2am. When you share acreage with coyotes,
eagles, rabbits, pheasants, and stray cats, as we do, the sounds of
nighttime hostilities are not all that unusual. But the unmistakable
absence of the cat the next morning along with the bits of fur near
the patio confirmed my worst fears. He'd tangled with something more
than he'd bargained for.

We spent the day checking outbuildings and walking paths in the
woods – hoping against hope to find him. Preferably in one piece. To
no avail. Finally, at about 4pm, he sauntered on to the patio, took a
sip from the dog's dish and walked into the house as if nothing had
happened. But by evening it was clear he was not feeling well. Our
usually friendly and active pet planted himself in a spot in the
front hall – not moving except to turn around once in a while.

The family conferred and it was decided that unless he was greatly
improved by morning we'd be visiting the vet the next day. When
morning came he was still holding fort in his spot in the hallway,
refusing food, and feeling warm to the touch. I called the vet.

Unlike most cats I've had, Mischief likes to go for rides in the car.
But he's really not all that thrilled about visiting the vet. A
shaved head (to get a good look at his wounds), thermometer reading,
and shot of penicillin later, he was a very unhappy kitty. The vet
sent us home with a bottle of once a day antibiotics and instructions
to clean the wound daily. Yes, a very unhappy kitty indeed.

I have this theory that you can tell when pets are feeling a whole
lot better because they fight like crazy to avoid taking their
medication. This time was not any different. The first day – not a
problem. The second day – he managed to get a good dig into my son's
arm with his claws in the process. The third day – the first attempt
sent the dropper scuttling across the kitchen floor, the second
attempt he spit out all over me and my son. After that, he wouldn't
come near me the rest of the day and treated all attempts on my part
to be friendly with complete disdain.

The fourth day – today – I couldn't bring myself to try again. He was
looking good, acting well, and still mad at me for the previous day's
attempt. I decided not to even try. And then, my son came to me
holding the cat. "Mom, we need to give Mischief his medicine – aren't
you going to do it?" he asked.

"Well, uhmmm, I was thinking I wouldn't, " I said.

"But I want to make sure he's better."

"I know, " I sighed, "but I don't want him to be mad at me again…"

And that's when it hit me. This is exactly what happens to my clients
when I ask them to do what I know is needed to help create the
conditions that bring about an end to their spouse's affair. They
love their mate and don't want him or her to be mad at them. They
want to be the nice one, the good guy, the one who is loving and kind
and supportive. Not the one upsetting their partner's world with all
kinds of unpleasantness.

A sick cat well on the mend is a small issue. I can deal with the cat
being mad at me – he'll get over it – he's a cat, and I feed him. But
how incredibly frightening it is for husbands and wives whose spouses
have done the unthinkable to rock the boat even further. It feels
like the final shove over the edge of a cliff – when the marriage is
already teetering precariously. And yet, like giving Mischief his
medication, it needs to be done.

Illness and the painful steps we need to take in order to overcome it
are easy to recognize and understand. But infidelity hides under the
guise of a love story. It confuses and blinds us to the very real
parallels between an affair and an illness. If we are to save the
marriage and move it away from the cliff and back towards healing we
must first address the illness, the addiction, of an affair. Doing so
requires unpleasantness.

The betrayed spouse, determined to save the marriage, is not allowed
the luxury of giving into emotions or instincts. Instead, they must
steel themselves against the emotional onslaught and take direct
action. Expose the affair. Confront the spouse and the affair
partner. Tell what they know and how they know it. Ask for help from
friends, family, and other influential people in their lives. And if
none of that brings about the end of the affair – they must protect
the marriage by separating entirely until the affair comes to an end
of its own accord. And yes, the straying partner, will indeed be very
angry.


"I don't want him to be mad at me." A normal compassionate desire.
True compassion however, looks below the surface of our own fear of
rejection and abandonment to the greater good. Often times in life we
must cause pain in order to ward off more harm. Infidelity may very
well be one of the greatest tests of our ability to do so.

Musing on Marriage(tm) Holes in the Roof

I love houses. Always have. A favorite weekend recreation is to tour
the semi annual parade of homes or to check out the newest open
models in the upscale developments around the area. During my
thirties I was an avid member of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation; my fun reading was made up of publications such
as "Early American Life" and "Preservation." I've lived in an old
house, built at the turn of the last century, and in an historic
house of a modern sort – built in the `40's with design elements
which were decades ahead of their time. For several years I had a
recreational decorating and design business. I helped restore a
Victorian, once facing condemnation, to near museum quality
standards. I've painted concrete floors to look like marble, designed
my kitchen from the walls out, and made strategic suggestions for the
structural elements of our current state of remodel. I love houses.
And in fact, when I travel to other parts of the country I am far
more likely to photograph the residential architecture than I am to
record the family on vacation. (Much to the chagrin of my children in
later years..)

So, what does this have to do with marriage? Well, I live in the
upper Midwest where Mother Nature mesmerizes us with thunderstorms,
floods, and tornadoes this time of year. Not long ago I watched a
newscast about a house that was damaged when a tree came through the
roof of a house in one of our many storms. (The man sleeping just
under the spot where the tree entered the house was unharmed but
definitely shaken!) It got me thinking about the correlation between
marriage and houses.

A marriage is much like a house. When it's new, everything is well
kept. It's clean. The roof is good, the plumbing works well, the
floors are level and unscathed. But inevitably, over time, things
begin to break down. If one owns an older or historic home there are
always things which clamor for attention – similar to a marriage
that's been neglected or damaged by thoughtless choices, independent
living and outright harmful actions. A marriage in trouble is much
like a house needing significant repair.

It could be that the plumbing needs to updated, the wiring changed
from old glass fuses to code compliant breakers, the walls may be
cracked and the floors might need to be shorn up to make them level
again. A marriage may have issues and conflicts surrounding in-laws,
money, sex, child rearing, hobbies, or even pets. Like a house that
needs significant work, those things need to be addressed in small
steps, with thoughtful planning and oodles of frustrating starts and
stops.

But what happens when a storm sends a tree crashing through the roof?
No matter what the state of the home prior to that event, all work
needs to stop and energies must be redirected toward emergency
repair. The tree needs to be carefully removed, the roof repaired and
any other structural damage investigated and repaired before work can
resume on the pre-existing conditions.

This is exactly the same dynamic that occurs in marriage when there
is infidelity. The marriage may need serious repair work in and of
itself. But once an affair sends a tree crashing through the
sheltering structure of the relationship all efforts directed at the
underlying problems take a back seat to the emergency measures
brought about by the affair itself. There's no point in attempting to
fix the cracked walls and outdated electricity in the marriage when
there is a tree protruding into the bedroom and the inner structure
is exposed to the elements.

The affair partner must be completely and permanently removed from
the relationship in the same way the tree must be removed from the
roof. It's a horribly difficult and painful process. Often the affair
partner has been a long time friend of one or both spouses. The loss
of the friendship and the betrayal that is felt is heart wrenching,
no matter what leg of the triangle one is on. But a friendship that
has intruded into the intimate structure of a marriage can no longer
be considered a friendship. Boundaries have been breached, and there
is no way to return to a state of innocence. None of the needed
repair work to the marriage can begin until this step is complete.
Intermittently ending and resuming contact with an affair partner
creates the same kind of damage as picking the tree up off the roof
and dropping it back on again – it creates larger holes and more
damage.

Once the affair partner is no longer in the picture, the hard work of
repair can begin. First and foremost the gaping holes left by the
affair must be mended. Depending on the length of the affair and how
far into the emotional bonding of the marriage the affair partner was
allowed to intrude, repair work could be replacement of the entire
roof or simply a minimal patch job. The longer the affair, with the
marriage being exposed to the damage of wind and rain, the more
repair will be needed. The holes left by infidelity are things such
as damaged trust, resentment, the inevitable withdrawal felt by the
straying spouse when the affair ends, and stress on the underlying
structure of the marriage.

Marriages rarely end in divorce due to the affair itself. But failure
to repair the damage from the affair will almost without fail lead to
complete destruction of the marriage. Marriages end because there
the gaping holes remaining which continue to expose the relationship
to more harm. Some couples can do the repair work themselves. These
are the calmly methodical sorts who can read about the necessary
measures and implement them in without becoming bogged down in the
emotional tug of war recovery always entails. For most couples, as
with homeowners, hiring a professional is indispensable in making
sure the repairs are done well and in a timely manner.

As the holes are patched, the shingles replaced, and the structure
found to be intact attention can once again be turned to the problems
which existed before the tree made its untimely entrance into the
lives of the homeowners. Those issues and conflicts may have become
larger or more serious because of the damaged caused either directly
or indirectly by the crisis of the storm – that's the nature of
destructive events; they have far reaching consequences. Time,
patience, persistence, and good professional help can make all the
difference in repairing a storm damaged home or healing a marriage
torn apart by an affair.

Wishing you clear skies…
Penny