Freedom From the Threat of Unfaithfulness
Divorce and adultery are among the most severe forms of child and spousal abuse.
Suggested Reading
- Breaking Free From the Affair by Dr. Bob Huizenga
The pattern
Adultery often begins with one spouse using the threat of unfaithfulness or divorce to bully their way to instant gratification. This pattern of behavior does not usually begin during marriage or even during courting, but it usually begins in childhood with parents, siblings, and friends.
So many of us “faithful ones” fail to see faithfulness cannot be offered in exchange for something. By the time a person threatens unfaithfulness, all true faithfulness, integrity and true love have been totally obliterated from that person’s heart, mind, and soul. All appearances of honor are merely a conveniently placed mirage, a charade, a facade, a virtual reality.
Usually this starts back in childhood when a child blackmails his or her parents and siblings holding them hostage under constant fear of abuse, rejection, abandonment, or self-destruction. So, those around these spoiled children comply, and the children learn to control their environment through this kind of manipulation and abuse. When others resist and the child escalates the abuse, rather than letting the child experience the consequences, those around him or her weaken and comply, and if someone clamps down, one person comes to the child’s defense and cries, “abuse”.
Some say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to raise a monster.
So, this child grows up learning that if abuse doesn’t work initially, step it up a notch. Be a bit more extreme. Scream louder. Abuse more painfully. And, if you can get others to comply, rather than giving them relief in return, blame them for delaying your gratification, and if you punish them enough, they will comply more quickly next time around.
Look at the bridezilla’s on TV. I cannot think of a better way to get a fool for a husband than to be a bridezilla. Any man with any wisdom would flee to the hills from a bridezilla. But, a wise man would not give a woman the opportunity to become a bridezilla.
And it seems so many women marry abusive men because they would rather live with an abusive man than be alone. That is a horrible choice to make. Why bring children into this world under the iron fist of a narcissistic, unfaithful abuser?
The fear of breakup or divorce is just one weapon in the arsenal of an abuser. Some abusers abuse with their fists. Others abuse by doing all they can do to make their spouses feel worthless, calling them pieces of dirt, pieces of dung, people of bad morals, idiots, morons, questioning their manhood or femininity, accusing them falsely of lying or breaking promises they never made, threatening divorce, calling them incompetent, ugly, threatening suicide, cursing, swearing, screaming, walking out, having affairs, driving recklessly, getting drunk, taking drugs, gambling away the finances, blackmailing, or otherwise attacking whatever is sensitive and brings the most emotional pain possible.
When the faithful spouse can no longer comply, perhaps a real affair or imminent divorce will step up the abuse another notch. And then by manipulating the faithful spouse and children into feeling guilty because they cannot keep up with the demands, the unfaithful shelter themselves from responsibility.
There is one solution to this, and that is to make a firm decision to stand firm and refuse to comply with such behavior.
Think clearly about this for a moment. What are you afraid of losing? What is holding you hostage, entrapping you, enslaving you to fear? What is it that makes fear your god, your lord, your taskmaster, your supreme being of total unswerving worship? Dump it. Your freedom comes when you face your fear and press into it and let the consequences happen and embrace them, accept them, appreciate them, and have faith that something good somehow will come out of it.
Are you afraid of losing someone’s faithfulness? It’s already long gone. The best you can do is let the consequences for their choices fall back onto them and stop sheltering them so you can get free and perhaps that can help them come to the place where they see how important faithfulness is to them. But, don’t invest your heart into fears and slavery. You are not doing your loved one any favors by enabling him or her to continue to be an abuser.
Use common sense. Don’t cry abuse where there is none. Don’t go looking for it. Look for good in your spouse and your children and give it attention, and ignore bad behavior steadfastly refusing to reward it. If it comes to illegal or dangerous or abusive behavior, do what is wise and best. Separate. Call the authorities and report it. If your spouse or children misbehave and suffer and try to blame you, don’t argue. Let them rattle on, and don’t reward them for it. Ask them if they enjoy the consequences of their behavior maybe. Don’t seek revenge. Don’t try to teach them a lesson. Do what is right and mature and wise. Hold your dignity. Make choices that you feel are honorable and right and wise and identify yourself in your mind as a repentant, forgiven, wise, confident person.
Isn’t this so much better than going into a panic when your spouse threatens an affair or goes into an affair or threatens divorce?
The affairs are about the unfaithful person and never about the faithful spouse or the children. If your spouse decides to be a male or female harlot, that doesn’t mean you’re one. And, it doesn’t mean you made your spouse that way.
Think about it. Think about what happens when you panic and give in. Even if you think you can comply and keep your spouse satisfied by giving in for the rest of your life, you can’t. Sooner or later you will run out of ability. Perhaps you will die from the stress and strain and still find your spouse going into an affair because you cannot continue to meet your spouse’s demands while you are aging, becoming weaker, less attractive, or while you are on your death bed.
And, if you support your spouse’s and children’s narcissism, how will that affect your future generations, their happiness, their success in life, their success in marriage and family life, and such?
We train our children by the way we live. When we let down our boundaries and enable our spouses’ and childrens’ narcissism to thrive, we train them to become accustomed to living this way, and when it’s time for them to marry, they will naturally tend to look for somebody who will help them continue to live in the way to which they had become accustomed.
That is why it is so vital that parents be the adults, that they model the kind of behavior that the children should have. That is why it is so important that parents be faithful, that they love as promised, that they stay true to the wedding vows, that they don’t look for the worst in others but look for the best. That is why strong, healthy boundaries are absolutely necessary to the security and emotional well being and development of wisdom, integrity, courage, and love in children.
