Ending An Affair: Throw Away the Key Ending An Affair: A 6 Part Series Make the Decision Close the Door Lock the Door – Part 1 Lock the Door - Part 2 Throw Away the Key Letting Go and Moving On Love is usually the force compelling us to leave affair partners and return home. For some this statement may seem confusing. We believe it was actually love that drew us away in the first place. However, we often times find that we were mistaken and heavily confused. On the day I married Stephanie I swore I would love her till death do us part. I wanted to be a man who loved his wife, who would protect her and provide for her. I wanted to be a good father and someone who would support and guard her best interest. I never fathomed that I would dishonor her or disrespect her. My heart was to love her to the best of my ability. I also wanted to be a man of integrity. That sentiment reflects my true heart. At the core of my being is a heart that loves, is compassionate, kind, concerned and caring. However, I have other parts of my being that want to be loved and want to feel good about me. All of us live in a state of duality. To please both sides is impossible. I say that in an attempt to help those of you closing the door on an infidelity understand why throwing away the key is a necessity. The other side of me that wanted the affair is both crafty and cunning. While my true self wants to return home, there's a good chance the part of me that entered into the affair may still crave those feelings of affirmation. Failure to throw away the key leaves me vulnerable to something I know my true self does not want. If you've betrayed your heart and fallen into self-deception, self-sabotage remains an eminent threat. This leaves you as your own worse enemy. Avoiding self-sabotage requires guarding your own motivations and actions. Here are a few pitfalls that can unintentionally sabotage our resolve when ending an affair. Guilt and Shame: Feelings of guilt and shame generated by terminating the relationship create temptation to contact the affair partner to let them know how bad you feel for disrupting their life. While the thought of trying to help their pain might seem noble, the basis is self-centered. Telling them you feel bad for hurting them only fortifies your image in their eyes and reinforces their attachment to you. Pretending to be the good guy may help with the guilt and shame, but does little or nothing to help your affair partner move on. You don't need them to tell you that they're hurting any more than you need to tell them that you're hurting, because you're already aware of that reality. This temptation to let them know how you're doing is only a dimly veiled attempt by your other side to sabotage your recovery. Four years after my affair I remember telling Stephanie that I still felt bad about what I'd done to my affair partner. I asked what she thought about my calling her and letting her know how bad I still felt for hurting her and her family. "Haven't you already done that?" she asked. "Why do you feel a need to do it again?" As I thought about it I realized that even after all those years there was a part of me still vulnerable to contacting her. I agreed with Stephanie and never made the call. I now realize part of my problem was a failure to forgive myself for what I'd done. As long as I failed to accept I was forgiven I was in danger of allowing guilt to serve as the key for unlocking that door. It's our inability to forgive ourselves that leaves us vulnerable. You don't need your affair partner to forgive you or for them to be okay with what's happened before moving on. You have to fully let go of that relationship to move forward. Circumstances have changed for you both and you each have equal opportunity to make new choices and find new beginnings. The temptation to tell the other party how bad you feel is especially strong if you played the role of rescuer in your extramarital relationship. Let go of the self-deception that tells you they can't get along without you. As much as the truth hurts they will very likely do much better without you. A technique to move beyond this temptation is to write yourself a letter from your affair partner telling you how well they've done since you've moved on. The story you tell yourself doesn't have to be one of doom and gloom. It's far more likely they'll do well. Allow that reality to be a part of the story you tell yourself. The "Someday" Vision: Eliminating the belief that maybe someday life will bring us together is critical in throwing away the key. If you hang on to the dream that maybe someday we'll get together you'll never fully move on. Tell yourself this relationship is permanently over and will never be. The future has to be rewritten. Typically those in affairs create an illusion of a future together. That dream, of how life will be, is often the most intriguing part of the relationship. While things might be miserable now we imagine how wonderful it will be when our dreams all come true. In reality tomorrow never comes. Circumstances account for only 10% of happiness. Even if we had the life we've created in our head, it most likely wouldn't satisfy. If you can't do it today you certainly won't be able to do it tomorrow. Even worse, believing that someday you'll have the right circumstances to make you happy impedes your motivation to do the necessary work to find your own internal source of peace today. Deciding this relationship will never be, is critical. Failure to do so hinders your ability to dream and cast a new future. Even if your current relationship doesn't work out, the dynamics that made that relationship appealing will no longer be in place. Let it go. While it's scary letting go of that fantasy it's a must. You'll never experience new beginnings as long as you close yourself off to new possibilities by clinging to a fantasy. Once you accept it will never be, a whole new world opens up and self-sabotage becomes far less likely. Breaking the Ties that Bind: "The parts of the story that remain untold are the places where the devil has a stronghold." -Dan Allender Eliminating secrets is essential to throwing away the key. It's not that your mate needs to know all the gory details, but you at least need to bring to light the secrets involving your affair partner. If there's contact let your mate know. Even if it's them contacting you it needs to be brought to the light. Maintaining any type of deception leaves you vulnerable to heading back down that path. Intimacy with your mate is crucial to rebuilding trust and shifting the loyalty in your heart. If you hold secrets to protect your affair partner you'll never fully break the tie. That secret will leave you forever in a covert relationship with your affair partner. Breaking the code of silence frees you from having to protect your affair partner and allows you to move back toward your mate. Living in the Past: The final pathway to self-sabotage is the euphoric recall. Life happens in the moment, not in some past event. It's tempting to dwell on ecstatic moments generated during the infidelity. (Have you ever noticed how it's not that tempting to fantasize about the lousy moments the two of you had together?) The part of you that wants to focus on those fantasies isn't your true self. It's the part that's interested in self-gratification at the expense of others. One way to combat that temptation is to ask yourself what you've done lately to create that sort of delight for those in your family. To throw away the key, your focus has to be on how well you're loving rather than evaluating how well others are loving you. You have to maintain a heart of compassion and concern rather than seeing others as objects you need to manage in order to get your needs met. Living in the past or future robs us of life's reality and leaves us incapable of loving others. Ending an affair requires learning to find enjoyment in each of life's moments. It requires being awake and aware of life's blessings as we flow through life. Once you've thrown away the key by fortifying yourself against self-sabotage there's only one more step: letting go and moving on. At Affair Recovery our hope is for you to find an extraordinary life of meaning and purpose. Believe it or not, you or your spouse's infidelity can serve as a catalyst to move you to better places. Don't let what's been the worst part of your life cause you to believe life will never be what you want. There is hope for something far better. 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