← Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Preventing Heartbreak: Strategies to Stop an Affair Before It Starts (Part 2 of 2)
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- [00:01]
Gary Thomas
Your marriage can be healed.
- [00:03]
Jim Daly
A Hope restored marriage Intensive from Focus on the Family can transform you and.
- [00:08]
Gary Thomas
Your spouse's relationship in just a few days. We'll go to this thing, but this is it. If this doesn't work, we're done. What we have now, it's way more than we ever had before and that I ever even dreamed of in the marriage. Discover more@hoperestored.com or that's hoperestored.com. Most affairs start with sort of feeling each other out. Yeah, my marriage isn't so great and your marriage isn't so great. What not. That's the major firewall. This is the easiest place to stop it.
- [00:51]
John Fuller
Pastor Gary Thomas offering tips on how to avoid an affair, which can often start with just a casual conversation. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller.
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Jim Daly
John, this is great information on a fair proofing your marriage and you may be surprised by some of the very gradual steps that can lead to a full blown romance. As we heard last time, Gary has counseled many couples through this kind of marital trauma and he has gained a lot of wisdom in this area. He also admitted that as a young husband and father, he got involved in an emotional affair that thankfully got interrupted before it went too far. Today Gary is going to get into the nuts and bolts of how affairs start and how to make sure your marriage is in a healthy place to avoid those temptations.
- [01:41]
John Fuller
It's really good. And here now is Gary Thomas speaking at a pastors conference hosted by Focus on the Family. And we're rolling back just a little bit as we get started.
- [01:54]
Gary Thomas
Affairs are frequently gradual, entered into by many steps and we're going to talk about those steps rather than just being this great one night cataclysmic thing. Often we can look back and see what sets us up. They're gradual, but I also want to point out from a Christian perspective, they are evil. The movie industry makes it sound so romantic. We know as Christians how evil it is to break a bond that God himself has established. I want to show you how something that sounds sentimental is evil. Here's how men like to flirt with women. Women. I'm just putting this out there. You might have heard this. A guy will start out with this. I just wish I could talk with my wife the way I can talk to you. Sounds like a compliment, right? But he's slamming his wife. If you become his wife, he'll slam you. He's saying I've got to build up our relationship by tearing down my wife how is that not evil? Or then he says this. Your husband doesn't realize how good he has it. What a wonderful woman he gets to spend this life with. It sounds so wonderful, but he's tearing down. So first he tears down his wife, now he tears down your husband. How evil is it that a man would try to make a woman think less of her husband than wanting them to get more and more intimate and connected? It's always destruction. It sounds romantic, but look, talk down my wife. Talk down your husband, talk down his marriage. By definition, affairs have to kill a marriage to succeed. It's not romance, it's not love. It's murder. And we need to look at it that way. But women, here's how men are often drawn into an affair. And it's probably not what you think. Women tend to be most sensitive if they think your husband's working around a beautiful woman or he's next to a beautiful woman or something. And if a guy is really crass, if a guy has a history of one night stands, that might be the case. I don't think it's probably the case with most of the people that would be at a conference like this. And so you don't want to guard against the wrong thing. I loved playing basketball when I was young, but I was just terrible. My number was 00, which was basically my scoring average for that team. And so other teams would guard me and I'd be laughing and my coach would be laughing because it was wasted time, right? They should just let me run up and down. They were guarding the one that wasn't going to cause a problem. And women, you can often think that it's going to be physical attraction, but that's not usually what draws men into an affair. Marlene Dietrich, who in her day was considered one of the most beautiful, sensual women of her day, even got this. She said this. The average man is more interested in a woman who is interested in him than he is in a woman with beautiful legs. Guys, when you know that that's what sets our hearts going. And so when a woman is smiling at you a lot or she's holding that icon and it feels like this neurochemical connection, it kind of is just be aware of what's happening and see it as the threat it is. It's an invitation to disaster. It's not an invitation to escape. There's nothing good that will come out of it. You can't fault yourself if you feel that. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. But what you do with it will determine whether it becomes fatal or not. This woman wrote a blog called Steps to my Affair. Her name's Debbie. I can't find it. I hate to not attribute things to people because it happens to me all the time. So I'm very careful of not doing that. And I'm sorry, Debbie, whoever you are. She had an affair. She explains what happened to her affair. I've kind of tweaked these a little bit. There's not an exact quote, but she said these were the steps to her affair. And I found it so practical for us to see what often leads to it. Three levels. The first one I call a prelude to an affair. The first one is this. You share your marital frustrations with each other. You will stop 90% of your affairs if you don't go past step one. Guys, women, let's make an ironclad commitment. We will never talk about our marriage negatively with a member of the opposite sex. And we will go out of our way to speak positively of our spouse whenever we're in a situation with someone else. That can stop everything. Most affairs start with it's sort of feeling each other out. Yeah, my marriage isn't so great and your marriage isn't so great and whatnot. That's the major firewall. This is the easiest place to stop it. The second one is you sense an attraction to this person and sense they are attracted to you. Now, if you're in mission, this should be irrelevant and it should be something you fear, not hope for. It is delicious to hear that somebody feels for you again. When you feel like there are no feelings left in your marriage, but it's just gonna confound your life. It could wreck your life. It could compromise your faith. You don't wanna know. It's dangerous to know. Don't go there. You take extra time to get ready. You're thinking about how you're gonna dress, what perfume you're gonna wear. Wives or guys are getting into shape. We had a guy at a church setting, he lost 20 pounds from his stomach and put it on his shoulder and arms. We kind of should have known. I'm not saying that always happens if your husband's getting in shape, but it's sort of stereotypical that that often happens when you suddenly pay attention to how you look. You think about this person even when you are not interacting with them. That's stage four. But I would say you are already damaging your marriage. You don't have a lot of time if you're in ministry and you're raising kids and you're married, you should be thinking, how do I bless my spouse? What does my spouse need to know? How can I be kind to my spouse? How can I bless, you know, give to my spouse? If you're thinking about someone else, you're already cheating on your marriage, even though there's been no physical contact. But then we get to level two, step five, where I think you're practicing an affair. By practicing, I mean, you're trying it out. The clothes aren't coming off, but you're sort of seeing how it's gonna go. You start fantasizing about being together as a couple. Maybe some of you are in that stage right now. This is where it's gotta stop. Why? Your brain can't distinguish fantasies from reality all that well. And what you're doing when you're mentally imagining being together. And it could be taking a bike ride, climbing a 14er, or going paddle boarding. You're breaking down the natural inhibition of feeling guilty by being alone with this person. You're helping your brain. You're sort of priming the pump that this is something you already do. And if you've already done it, can it really be that bad? I'm just saying, if anybody's watching online, if anybody's here, if you're at that stage, you're getting dangerously close, you're starting to slide down the cliff. 6. You manipulate circumstances to spend time together. Now, it's not just a happenstance. You're setting things up. You're having a reason to work together, you're creating situations. 7. Here's the practicing. Playful banter, teasing and flirtation. It's kind of safe. What do you think? Oh, they're okay with that. Then let's try this. And it just escalates. And this is when you get to stage eight. Others start to ask, is there anything going on with you guys? And you go, oh, we're just friends. We're just good friends. Can I just be honest? If anybody is asking you, is something going on between you and her or you and him? Something's going on. My wife said, do you have feelings for her? And I'm trying to. The only reason she asks is cause she sees evidence of that. Take that as God's warning because you are now past the precipice. You're starting to slide down. You get to level three, participating in affair, meeting together in secrecy, even if you're clothed. I think that's beginning to constitute an affair. If you're ever in a situation where they're there texting and Calling each other. Now you're interacting and communicating. It was a woman who had an affair that told me. This is when I knew the affair was going to start. The first, I erased a message because I didn't want my husband to see it. If you gotta hide from your spouse, there's a reason. You're hiding because you know it's wrong. It's an affair. And then you get to 11 intimate contact notice, that's number 11 on the scale. And so you can look at this as you're counseling. You can tell people you're at level five, you gotta go back, you're at level two, you're at level eight and tell yourself this is what often happens. This is the prelude to an affair. So what is the antidote? I want to spend some time on the antidote first. For us as Christians, it comes back to commitment. We have another reason. Are we in or not? Are we going to be committed to our marriage going back because of how God treats us? I must be as faithful to my spouse as God is faithful to me. I want you to bring God into the picture. I must be as committed to my spouse as Christ is committed to the church. Eminent theologian Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, who have been married for 30 years, said when their dinner parties are there in New York and they ask couples who got divorced, why did you get divorced? They said the most common answer is, I don't really remember. There can be reasons where you are forced into that, but that's not a good enough reason for a Christian. We don't live just for our own happiness or even our kids happiness. We live to bring glory to God, to model God's reconciliation, to demonstrate God's covenant love. And if we can't do that in our most intimate relationship, we fail at a fundamental level. We gotta bring God into it. Because I found, well, God just challenged me a couple weeks ago and I think at my age he's really worked over my ambition some which I'm grateful for, but I know it's always going to be there. But God warning me, Gary, don't seek to be great. Revel in the fact that you're greatly loved. It's a whole turn, guys, women, instead of trying to be great, rest that you're already greatly loved. Because if you know you are greatly loved, you're not susceptible. You don't need the love of an illicit affair. God is filling up that need. But here's the thing. Ambition feeds affairs. I've seen it time again. I don't know why, but there is a spiritual connection between ambition and lust. So check your commitment. Fall in love with God again. Second, fast action. As soon as you feel woozy, don't spend any time fantasizing meeting with the other person. Double down on your marriage. Okay, I've let my marriage go on the shelf. I need to double down. I need to make it the best it can be. It may not be wise to share it with your spouse. Depending on the state of your marriage, you shouldn't do it alone. You gotta have solid friends, other pastors, good friends, counselors or whatnot. Don't try to do it alone. Definitely do not share it with the person that you're infatuated with. You have to work with a counselor. Is it wise for me to share it with my spouse right now? Maybe eventually you will, but don't make it more than it is. It happens. Here it is. This bald guy. Sometime in Colorado Springs told us about it. Now. Now I'm facing it, and so I can just deal with it. It doesn't mean anything. That means you deprive it of everything that feeds a relationship. Four T's. This is. This is youth group, ministry level. I don't mean to insult you, all right? But the four things that will feed a relationship. Thought time, touch and talk. Thought time, touch and talk. If I don't think about it, if I don't talk to her, if I don't spend time with her, if I don't touch her, it will die. It's like putting a plant in a closet that's dark and not watering it, it won't go on. The sooner you nip it in the bud, the easier it is to leave alone. Otherwise, you feed it, and I'm telling you, you're gonna wake up women. It'll be, he's just a dude in my bed. He was larger than life, and now he's just a dude in my bed. Guys. I thought she was an angel, Garrett. I think she's a demon. She's gonna destroy everything I've wanted to live for. And then just be aware that I said, live in the marriage you're in. Last night, talking about ministry. Be honest about the state of your marriage. When I was talking with David and Terri, they have a ministry now where they help couples grow their intimacy by doing physical things together. And they're using the research that John Gottman talked about, that when you get your heartbeat above 95 beats per minute, it opens you up emotionally to a new kind of intimacy. And then later, he was telling me, yeah, we've seen this rash of affairs between wives and CrossFit trainers, and it reminded him of the 95 beats per minute. And you got a woman who maybe her marriage feels distant. She gets her heartbeat above 95 beats per minute. The trainer is, you know, touching her just to keep her form correct. He's encouraging her. Like maybe her husband hasn't encouraged her for a decade. And it's not surprising that her heart feels carried away. You've got to be honest about what state your marriage is in if you're in a vulnerable place. If your heart's in a vulnerable place, don't put yourself in a vulnerable place and be wise. Don't do something that's going to collapse you. Right. We all know that Satan tends to hit us when we're weakest, where we're weakest, and exactly how we're weakest. The classics talk about the two important things is to know God and to know ourselves. Be humble about the state of your heart, your vulnerabilities and your marriage. Be overwhelmed by God's great love for you. And you're going to keep yourself out of those. You're going to know what to do in those situations. Fourth, maintain emotional connection. In my book, I've really leaned hard on Dr. Hart and Sharon May's book Safe Haven Marriage, about how to be emotionally connected. If you're emotionally connected to your spouse, the chances of strain are so unlikely. And I don't have time to get into this a lot. I'm not gonna explain it well enough, but the three things that create emotional connection. Emotional availability. Part of marriage is making myself emotionally available. I create space in my life to be emotionally there for my to care about what she cares about, to hear what she hears. Sensitive responsiveness is the second one. It's a learned skill that means I'm not trying to solve it or fix it if she has a problem, because that makes her think I'm just bothered by her problem and I'm trying to make it go away so it doesn't bother me. When your spouse shares something that sensitive response. Make yourself stop. What is the most sensitive way I can respond to this man that must hurt or that must make you afraid? And then trust is a big thing. And trust isn't just about sexual betrayal or texting when you shouldn't. Trust is something that's built that if you say you're gonna do something, your spouse knows it's done. They don't have to follow up, they don't have to question it they can trust you. And I like this because if emotional connection has been broken, these are the three tools to build it back again. David and Terry talk about how these three things help them get back together. But we have to recognize how marriages are often slowly eroded. Here's a long quote from Safe Haven. Emotional disconnection doesn't require an emotional earthquake. Just pile on the critical comments, insensitive remarks and irritating acts, whether intentional or unintentional, and you can break your partner's heart. Not much more than a flat toned hello from your spouse after you've waited all day to see him. A kiss that did not seem warm, a hand touched, then quickly pulled away. Unwillingness to stop for a hug. Failure to help get the kids up and ready in time for school, the thoughtlessness of not putting the dirty dishes in the sink, clothes left in the hallway, or not having time to listen when a listening ear is desperately needed. All these can do deep damage. One at a time, you put them together and the marriage is going to become more and more distant and more and more vulnerable. Then finally, step five for the antidote. Take the long term view. Take the long term view. What I want to say to every guy. I don't have stats for women, but I have it for men. 87% of men who cheat on their wives want to go back after the affair is over. After they've dropped an atom bomb in their wife's heart. They're hoping she'll be healed enough to take him back. Of course, 87% aren't willing and I understand that. Guys, you want to talk about foolishness when you know There is a 9 out of 10 chance you will compromise your kid's security, you will hurt the woman you love, probably forfeit your ministry, and there's a 90% chance you're going to wake up like that woman said. The woman said to the guy, he's just a dude in the bed. Or this angel has become a demon and say, how did I get here? I'm telling you, you're going to get there. Research shows that only about 2 to 3% of affairs morph into a long term relationship. So the odds of it going on are extremely small. And if it does, 85 to 95% of those that do go on end in divorce. There's no future in unfaithfulness. Think about it. Two people that destroy two families to get together. What are the odds that they're going to have strong family that can stay together after that? And I would say there have been, I Remember one night I woke up, it was like a nightmare. Because I just think what would have happened if I would have let the emotional affair, that infatuation, become more. Two of my kids wouldn't be on this planet, which means two of my grandkids wouldn't exist. I can't even imagine the horror of that thought. The woman that 41 years into marriage, I love more than life, with her kindness, her support, she's. We're one. Every marriage is gonna go through difficult seasons. But when 90% of men wanna go back after the affair is over, you know what that tells me? The problem was with the relationship, not who they married. They let the relationship die and become vulnerable. And the affair was sort of an escape, but they realized, no, I was with the right person. But let me give you the good news. Because of the grace of Jesus Christ, because of the power of the Holy Spirit, because of the affirmation of our Heavenly Father, who will love us when nobody else does. I have seen couples go through these affairs and have intimate, strong marriages afterwards. When Lisa and I met with David and Terri a few years after the affair, they sounded like newlyweds. And what we routinely hear is couples saying, I wish we didn't have to go to an affair to get to this place, but we would never go back to what we had before. And so my plea for you as a married couple is have an affair to figure out that you need to work on your marriage. If there's even a whisper that it might be helpful for you to get a marital checkup, now's the time to do it. Don't wait too long. Don't say that. No, we're good. We don't have to have an affair. My wife. What helps, and I think it probably helps a lot of you when you see people make such a mess of their lives. Lisa and I will leave these couples together and we'll say, hey, let's just skip that. Just figure out. It's why, guys, I'm always asking, am I not hearing something? Am I not seeing? Because I see these guys that are just deaf and blind, and I don't want to get there. So there's hope in Jesus. There's hope in the gospel. But we also want to take the warning that let's learn from others experience instead of making it our own.
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John Fuller
Wow. Such words of wisdom from Gary Thomas on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
- [23:41]
Jim Daly
This has been so good, John and I love how Gary emphasized the importance of not waiting too long. If your marriage needs help, think about it. Marriages do not magically get better on their own. More often than not, couples tend to drift apart further and further over the years. Gary also mentioned how helpful intensive counseling can be, and that's what we do at our Hope Restored intensives. Many couples say the intensive experience is like getting a full year of counseling in just a few days and it's worth every moment. We have beautiful retreat centers from coast to coast that help you get away from the stress of everyday life and focus on healing your relationship. And the results are dramatic. Over 80% of those who attend two years later are married and say they're doing well. Look for a link to Hope Restored when you visit our website and when you're online with us, get a copy of the book by Gary Thomas called Making youg Marriage a Fortress. It will give you the information you need to fortify your marriage and make sure it has a firm foundation before the next storm of life comes along. And storms are inevitable. It's a great book for every stage from dating to a lifelong commitment in marriage. We can send the book out to you for a donation of any amount and we'll include a free audio download of this entire two part presentation from Gary Thomas. That donation can be a monthly pledge as well, which really helps us balance out our budget throughout the year and together, you know, it's you putting those dollars in play, so to speak, giving us the fuel to do the ministry to help repair these marriages. We are so grateful and we see you as a team member. So join us monthly to support focus and to do the work to help these marriages each and every day.
- [25:40]
John Fuller
You can make your monthly pledge or one time donation of any amount when you follow the link in the show notes and request your copy of Making youg Marriage a Fortress and you'll also find a link there in the notes to our Hope Restored Marriage Intensives as well. When you're online with us, look for a free PDF of the steps that lead to an affair. Gary talked about these and this is a free download for you to have and to really discuss with those that that you know and love. Next time. Author Molly Defrank offers hope and confidence for mothers of boys.
- [26:17]
Gary Thomas
And all of this is happening in a world where our young boys are being told their masculinity is toxic and that the future is female and our young boys are growing up in a world they're just getting pummeled.
- [26:27]
John Fuller
Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Take a moment, if you would please, and leave a rating for us in your podcast Apple, and then share this episode with a friend. There are so many people that don't even realize the danger their marriage is in. And so help us spread the word about this important content from Gary I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.
- [26:57]
Jim Daly
Live your truth. A lot of people say that, don't they? But truth isn't something we decide. God has decided it for us, and it's our job as believers to share his truth with a world in need. I'll encourage you to do that through my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly. I visit with fascinating guests about important topics like gender confusion, cancel culture, and more, while helping you share God's love with others. Listen@refocuswithjimdaily.com.