I Can’t Make You Not Have an Affair "I can't make you NOT have another affair. If you're going to cheat, you're going to cheat." About a year or so into recovery, Samantha very calmly told me those words in Rick's office. I immediately saw Rick's eyes light up, followed by a gentle smile that showed Rick was very pleased with the new insight Samantha had arrived at. It was a significant moment for her, to realize she needed to let go, trust God and even trust me (in developing levels of progression) that if I was ever going to have another affair, she in her own power couldn't prevent it. After all, I was a great liar. If I want to, I still can be. The difference is - I don't want to. And I don't have to. Samantha realized that if I wanted to have another affair I could, and that it would then be up to God to show her or not. It was a tremendous time of healing for her as, quite frankly, she had an enormous amount of anger at God for allowing all of this mess to happen to her in the first place. Anyone who knows my story though, knows that God did indeed reveal the affair to her in a way she would have liked to have traded, yet she came to know all of the details. Nevertheless, she came to a point in her healing when she realized she could not control the events that would unfold behind the scenes. She did, however, have control over how we lived and what mechanisms we had in place to earn trust. Trust, early on in recovery, isn't the most important factor in marriage; safety is. Later trust can and will re-flourish, but early on, it's nowhere to be found. While trusting someone before they have displayed the character, honesty and consistency to win it back is a mere dice roll at best, safety is a whole different component. You can replace trust with safety and safety mechanisms like open and vulnerable honesty about fears, concerns, hurts and temptations. Trust will come, over time, as safety mechanisms are followed and utilized, but safety can come much much quicker as you're open and honest with each other and establish a climate where you're (as Rick says all the time) "naked and unashamed." Yet, this takes a commitment on both parties to live open and honestly, without judging or shaming the other for their vulnerability. I'd like to post a few of Rick's closing comments in The Truth About Trust which says it better than I ever could: If I ask my wife whether or not she trusts me, she’ll almost always respond, “No, but I do trust God, and I trust God with you.” Trust and faith have a lot in common. Personally, I believe that faith is an organ of the soul, just like my eyes or ears are organs of my body. My eyes were never intended to generate light; rather, they were intended to perceive light. My ears were never intended to generate sound; they were intended to perceive sound. If they begin to generate sound, that will certainly drive me a bit crazy. In the same way, faith is an organ of my soul and was never intended to generate the work of God; rather, it was intended to perceive the work of God. Our problem begins when we focus our faith on something unstable. If we place our faith on our ability to handle this betrayal, then that should scare us to death. If we focus our faith on our mate’s ability to get it right, we’ll probably have a panic attack. We have to place our faith in something solid if we want to eliminate fear, and we do have to eliminate fear before trust is rebuilt. Faith allows for a firm footing regardless of your mate. It is separate and apart from him or her and provides a stable anchor as you deal with life’s struggles. Extending trust to your mate requires an inner strength and stability that can come from a stable faith in God. Like love, trust requires risk, and may require your own healing before you can once again extend that gift. Faith will help you walk that path.
