The Definition of Freedom- Before and After An Affair

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.”  Goethe
My wife, Stephanie, has a friend who decided to give up drinking alcohol. She's not an alcoholic and does not drink to excess. At first, the concept of eliminating alcohol from her life seemed novel, and at the very least, an interesting experiment. Her husband, while not understanding why, since alcohol had never posed a problem, was at least accepting of her choice.

Historically, her alcohol use had consisted of one or two glasses of wine at dinner or sitting on the back porch with her husband in the evening and having a glass of wine as they talked. To replace the habit of having a glass in hand she simply poured Perrier water instead of wine. She said it felt a bit strange the first week, but as time went on that became the new norm.

It was her observations, after several months of “no alcohol”, which intrigued me. Instead of feeling like she had lost something by giving up alcohol, she reported feeling a new level of freedom. Her newfound freedom came from not having to manage alcohol. She said that she no longer had to worry if it was safe to drive after going out. Gone were her concerns that her drinking might cause a problem for someone else who might have a drinking problem, and she no longer worried about developing problems related to alcohol. All of the anticipatory anxiety associated with drinking had been eliminated.

Her story reminded me of the time when I decided to quit speeding. I have a reputation for having a lead foot and have been rewarded by numerous opportunities to take defensive driving. One day, a few years back, I decided to see (and this was for one day only) if I was capable of going an entire day without speeding.  What I discovered surprised me. Instead of feeling bored, as I anticipated, I found myself quite relaxed. I no longer had to keep my head on a swivel searching for police and trying to avoid speed traps.  I drove confidently with zero anxiety about getting pulled over. I had never realized how much anxiety was actually associated with my speeding.

We all have a drive for freedom, but all too often our efforts to fulfil that desire leave us blind to our bondage. As I grow older, I wonder how many of the behaviors I practice in my drive for freedom might actually place me in bondage? Am I actually limited by those things that I believe are my inalienable rights?

All too often I talk with individuals whose pursuit of freedom before or after an affair has resulted in anything but. They want the freedom to have the friends they want, even if that relationship poses a potential risk for their marriage. They want the freedom to go where they want and do what they want to do without having to be accountable to their mate. How did we ever fall for the mistaken belief that the lack of boundaries equals freedom or that the indulgence of our desires results in freedom?

In C.S. Lewis's book, The Great Divorce, he describes hell as the place you go to get everything you ever wanted. At first glance, most of us would have trouble seeing that as hell, but we fail to recognize that no two people can want the same things. Research shows that two thirds of all marital issues are unsolvable.  We can never get everything we want and maintain meaningful relationships, and that’s exactly Lewis’s point. Everyone in his story wound up in huge mansions filled with everything imaginable, but were totally isolated because there wasn’t a single person who wanted exactly what they wanted. Sad to say, that’s the consequence of our drive for freedom.  We get what we want, but at the price of the relationships that we long for.  This certainly can be true after an affair.

You might want to reconsider your definition of freedom.  If you don’t first define the target, you’ll never get to where you’re going. For me, I’ve learned the freedom to behave as I want often leaves me in bondage to things that are anything but free. They come at a price to those I love.