I attended a seminar last night presented by a psychologist specializing in treating emotional trauma with an emphasis in PTSD. He said a few things I really, really liked and would like to share them here.
First, crisis issues precipitate any real change in behavior. An example might be a diagnosis of diabetes. You’ve known the health risks for years and failed to act. Only when confronted with the real-world diagnosis that your body has had enough of your current lifestyle do you decide to change. Now you eat healthier, exercise more and monitor your body’s functions.
Second, crisis issues force you to make decisions. You must choose a course of action. A line from one of my favorite Rush songs says, “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.” Very well said. You can choose to ignore the crisis or you can choose to attempt to resolve or diminish the crisis issue. Regardless, the crisis forces you to make a decision.
Third, the decisions you make while in crisis define your character. This, perhaps, spoke more to me than anything else. If a crisis issue meets you head-on, do you choose to reach for a bottle and avoid the issue by drinking it away? Do you grab the remote and tune to a crime drama to avoid the issue? Do you grab a book and try to lose yourself in fantasy? How you react in crisis defines your character. You can’t hide from it. If you fall into despair and hopelessness when a crisis occurs, you need to reevaluate your self-image. Are you really as optimistic as you think you are? Does your self-worth and integrity suffer every time you have a life crisis?
Finally, all decisions you make have consequences you must own. Think about it: If you get angry at your spouse because they lost their job, you’re in crisis mode. Rather than embrace the situation and work towards resolution, you condemn your spouse and turn to friends and alcohol to avoid the crisis. One night you decide to drive home after having one drink too many and find yourself waking up in a hospital being charged with drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter. Whose fault is it? Did your spouse “make” you drink? Did your spouse “make” you drive drunk? No. Inasmuch as you must suffer the consequences of your actions, so too must you take responsibility for the decisions you make in or out of crisis. Listen to your self-talk, the voices in your head when you’re alone. Do you hear them accuse others of “making” you this way or do you hear the voice of reason acknowledging the decision(s) you made might not be the same you would choose if you could have a “do-over”?
All very true… glad you’re writing again… 🙂
I think I’ve read everything now. I mean everything on the site. You sound kind of like a preacher but in a good way. I like it. I think what I like most is that you can preach like a Baptist preacher on a hot Sunday morning and I don’t feel like you’ve talked down to me or made me feel guilty. That’s cool. And you make me think, too. I tried not doing anything for an hour. That was deep. So anyway, I like the site. But what REALLY grinds your gears? – Chris
Really? A Baptist preacher? I wouldn’t have thought that at all about myself. I’m glad you like the posts and I appreciate the reply. We have significantly more lurkers than responders out there. What really grinds my gears? You mean besides people that e-mail me replies instead of posting a reply on the blog? I’d have to say infidelity.
Infidelity: A breach of trust or disloyal act. Very powerful. Can this be a forgiven act? Can a person eventually earn the trust again? Curious.
Can infidelity be forgiven? Honestly, I’d say yes. Why? Let’s break it down. I’ll go out on a limb and make an assumption that you’re referencing inter-personal relations rather than business relationships. I’ll go one step farther and assume you’re asking about infidelity in marriage just for the sake of argument. You defined infidelity as a breach of trust or a disloyal act. This implies that there was once a certain level of trust or loyalty. So let’s say we’re talking about John Smith and Jane Jones.
When they first met, although there might have been a physical or emotional attraction that led to an immediate sexual act, there probably was no feeling of loyalty between the two. Trust was probably limited to what would and would not be permitted within the sexual act (no pictures, not in public, nothing degrading or humiliating, etc.). After a while the two develop a relationship with stated or implied rules; monogamy and honoring the other person’s basic rights come to mind. Sharing decisions, money and property (can I borrow your car?) builds trust. Knowing that the other person is where they say they are and developing a healthy expectation that the other person is trustworthy builds loyalty. Trust and loyalty help confirm our belief that we have above-average decision making skills. It also frees us from an unhealthy “trust no one” mentality which is in and of itself a vicious, self-defeating concept.
But at some point in their relationship, one of our two individuals performs an act of infidelity. Some will say that means sex with someone outside of marriage, but even your definition does not require marriage as the basis for the infidelity. Both John and Jane can be married to each other and monogamous, but if one of them is sharing details of their relationship with someone else other than their now firmly-established partner, isn’t that “emotional cheating”? If John shares intimate photos of Jane on the internet, even anonymously, isn’t that a breach of trust? If Jane has a “work husband” with whom she goes out to eat or drink (though never, ever, kissing much less having sex with) can’t that be perceived as a disloyal act? Infidelity has the potential to destroy at least three people’s sense of self-worth: John, Jane and the third person (whether that be an innocent “friend” at work or the clearly intentional sexual partner).
So, if these two people who had no explicit trust or loyalty to each other when they first met developed both of these throughout the course of their relationship, defaulted in some way, could they forgive or be forgiven? Again, I have to say yes. If one of them, one time, performed an act of infidelity, that may not necessarily be a justification to end the relationship. It goes without saying that if the individual had a pattern of behavior that constituted infidelity that would be different. If your significant other, after years of fidelity to you, innocently pecks the new office assistant on the cheek under the mistletoe at the company Christmas party, could you forgive that? Is that an act of infidelity? What if they swapped spit during an intimate embrace under the mistletoe? Where’s the line? If your husband admitted to you that he sometimes wished you looked more like your sister while you were making love, is that an act of infidelity?
I think our culture places too much of a link between marriage and infidelity. You don’t have to be married to commit an act of infidelity. I could go on for days on this specific topic but I won’t. I’ll finish this by saying it is not just the person slighted that needs to offer forgiveness. The person who committed the act must accept responsibility for what they have done, accept the forgiveness offered by the other person and be willing to honestly forgive themselves. If someone honestly and deeply regrets what they have done and wishes to make amends, part of the process is to forgive themselves. That doesn’t mean they renew their get-out-of-jail-free card. It means they will allow themselves to move past what happened with the intent not to repeat the offense again. If you forgive someone for an act of infidelity, you need to forgive them. You cannot use your hurt and pain as a weapon in your arsenal to pull out for future use simply because you *feel* hurt or slighted by that person later.
There is a saying that goes, “forgive and forget.” It’s a lie. You absolutely can forgive. I encourage real forgiveness. But you cannot forget. Honestly, I would not want you to forget. Take what happened and learn from it. Learn to communicate better, spend more quality time together, learn to recognize what happened that caused the situation in the first place and remember it. You cannot, however, say you forgive someone for something and then months or years later bring it back up to hurt the other person. I think a better saying would be, “forgive the person for the offense and forget about bringing it up later to hurt them.”
All this said and I still don’t know if I answered your question.