adultery

Not all affairs are the same.

Dave Carder in pp.96-107 of his book Close Calls: What Adulterers Want You to Know About Protecting Your Marriage shares about the four different classes of affairs:

CLASS 1:  One-Night Stand

• Unplanned, immediate
• Intense, lustful, passionate
• Little or no long-term emotion
• There is usually immediate remorse
• Recovery in a marriage doesn’t take as long as other classes of affairs

CLASS 2:  Entangled Affair

• Addictive relationship
• Develops gradually
• Intense emotionally
• Sexual activity develops much later in the relationship
• Emotional deficit creates vulnerability
• Recovery takes a long time

CLASS 3:  SEXUAL ADDICTION

• Multiple partners, impulsive
• Roots go back to childhood or early adolescence with inappropriate sexual exposure
• Sex only experience, never satisfying, increasingly distorted sexual activity
• Sex becomes a way to medicate pain
• Sobriety first for recovery, then individual help, then later marital help
• Recovery usually requires professional therapy

CLASS 4:  ADD-ON AFFAIR

• Satisfies a specific void.  Emotional deficit in individual’s life or in marriage.
• “Spouse shares an emotionally satisfying experience with an acquaintance because the other spouse has no interest in participating in this activity.” (104)
• Develops gradually
• Recovery takes a long time with marital therapy

(Adapted from pp. 96-107)

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1.0 – Jeff’s book review of Close Calls

2.0 – How to Know if You’re High Risk For an Affair

3.0 – 3 Components of Every Affair (and Every Good Marriage)

4.0 – The 4 Phases of an Affair (or Close Call)

5.0 – 4 Classes of Affairs

6.0 – How Trust is Built and Rebuilt

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jeff@porntopurity.com

@porntopurity on Twitter

How do most affairs develop?  They usually go through four distinct phases.

Dave Carder in pp.93-96 of his book Close Calls: What Adulterers Want You to Know About Protecting Your Marriage shares the four phases of an affair.

PHASE 1:  A Growing Mutual Attraction
Attractions are natural, when a relationship moves into the “beyond a friend” zone, it has entered the first phase of an affair.  Denial can be present.  It makes the attraction worse because a person takes their feelings underground.  There is a conscious and unconscious reaching out toward the other person

PHASE 2:  Entanglement
This is the infactuation phase.  Friends share their feelings of attraction to with one another.  Contact increases.  Friends may fantasize about one another.  Meetings become supercharged with emotion.

PHASE 3:  Destabilization of the Relationship
The friends have on-again / off-again periods of withdrawal.  They will try to refocus on the demands of life but keep coming back to each other.  More and more, they rely on each other for comfort, security, and partnership.  The long-term relationship becomes intense.

PHASE 4:  Termination and Resolution
“Without commitment, sexual passion creates an artificial sense of closeness.  It is the sexual tension in a dating relationship that provides the energy for the couple to work through the differences in their backgrounds, their goals and values…these same couples, after marriage, don’t continue creating the passion that an affair provides.  They had it once and they let it die.”

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1.0 – Jeff’s book review of Close Calls

2.0 – How to Know if You’re High Risk For an Affair

3.0 – 3 Components of Every Affair (and Every Good Marriage)

4.0 – The 4 Phases of an Affair (or Close Call)

5.0 – 4 Classes of Affairs

6.0 – How Trust is Built and Rebuilt

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jeff@porntopurity.com

@porntopurity on Twitter

Every affair contains three key components.  But, every good marriage also has these three components.

Dave Carder in his book Close Calls: What Adulterers Want You to Know About Protecting Your Marriage shares a wonderful marital insight.  The things we are chasing after in an affair can be the same things that can breathe life into our marriages.  (pp.82-85 of his book)

The author’s breakdown is fantastic…

Childhood Magic – He describes this as “freedom from responsibility”.  It’s the carefree attitude.  We can do whatever we want.  Relaxation and fun.  In unhealthy marriages we probably have a deficit of this.  An affair partner takes us back to the childhood magic.  Very dangerous!

Adolescent Sexuality – “chaotic, unplanned, spontaneous and oblivious to the circumstances.  It is lustful, passionate, and totally caught up in the moment.” (83)  We felt this on our Honeymoon and in the early years of marriage, but it often fades away as careers progress, kids come, and our marriages hit bumps.  This is the spice that belongs only in marriage.  The affair partner fans this flame and it’s easy for an illicit relationship to get out of control.

Adult Mobility – Traveling together.  Spending time together.  Going out of your way to meet the other person.  This happened when we have good romance and dating.  We remember it in our own dating and courtship years.  As married individuals drift apart in their relationship it’s easy for an affair partner to fill the void.

When our marriage has no childhood magic, no adolescent sexuality, and no adult mobility it creates gaps of vulnerability.

Then the author flips it…

He encourages married couples to fan the flame of their relationship by reintroducing these three elements back into their marriage.  This is an affair-proofing technique.  It’s a way we can pour into our marriage and build it back up again.

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Blazing insight from a great book!

1.0 – Jeff’s book review of Close Calls

2.0 – How to Know if You’re High Risk For an Affair

3.0 – 3 Components of Every Affair (and Every Good Marriage)

4.0 – The 4 Phases of an Affair (or Close Call)

5.0 – 4 Classes of Affairs

6.0 – How Trust is Built and Rebuilt

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jeff@porntopurity.com

@porntopurity on Twitter

Some of us are at higher risk of having affairs.  Our family history, personal history, stressful incidents in life, and our risky behaviors cause us to be more vulnerable.

Dave Carder in chapters 2, 3 & 4 of his book Close Calls: What Adulterers Want You to Know About Protecting Your Marriage share several areas where we may be at risk.

High-Risk Family History

• History of infidelity
• Single parent / blended family
• Physically abusive / chronic conflict

High-Risk Personal Factors

• Sexual molestation
• Adolescent promiscuity
• Learning disabilities / ADHD

High-Risk Times

• Loss – death, health, occupational / career
• Life changes- pregnancy, school years, teens launching
• Life transitions – moves, promotions

High-Risk Behavior

• Opposite-sex friendship with private conversations
• Volunteer opportunity with opposite sex
• “Soloing” in a public place
• Fantasizing about another

Q:  How many times do you hit this High Risk list?

OMG, I’M HIGH RISK!
You’re not alone.  Many of us could be considered high risk.  I think Close Calls was written to awaken us to the truth of where we are.  Some of us are in dangerous places.  Some of us need to heal from wounds of the past.  Some of us need to make some radical changes to our current behaviors.  Some of us need to make an appointment with a counselor or minister.

WHAT CAN I CHANGE?
I can’t change my family history or personal past.  I can adjust how I deal with the past.

I can’t change the difficult times and life transitions.  I can make sure that I have good support during these times.  I can be aware that they are vulnerable times.  I can set up a good strategy for myself and my marriage.

One thing I can change is my current behaviors.  If I’m putting myself at risk, I need to stop the bad behaviors and replace them with good ones.

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Close Calls is a catalytic book for marriages and for our purity journeys.  Pick it up and pay close attention to these High Risk chapters.

1.0 – Jeff’s book review of Close Calls

2.0 – How to Know if You’re High Risk For an Affair

3.0 – 3 Components of Every Affair (and Every Good Marriage)

4.0 – The 4 Phases of an Affair (or Close Call)

5.0 – 4 Classes of Affairs

6.0 – How Trust is Built and Rebuilt

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jeff@porntopurity.com

@porntopurity on Twitter