“Why don’t you both take a break from each other?”
-Clueless Counselor
This is one of the dumbest pieces of advice given to a couple dealing with infidelity.
The problems of an infidelity ravaged marriage are not solved by creating more distance and less accountability for the cheater. Both are the last things needed, actually.
A break is a very BAD idea for a couple dealing with EITHER emotional or physical affair(s).
Cheating is harder to do with your spouse in the same room–though, sadly, not impossible as some here can attest. It becomes easier–as far as logistics are concerned–with distance from said spouse. “A break from each other” is an excuse to provide such distance, which is another way to say that such advice–IMO–enables further cheating.
Plus, it creates and furthers the illusion at the heart of the problem–namely,
The LIE that the cheater is single.
This lie does not need reinforcement. It needs undermining.
The cheater needs to be confronted with what he or she did by cheating. It needs to sink in that cheating is completely unacceptable behavior, and something they themselves could have chosen to do otherwise, but didn’t.
They do not need a “permission slip” to run away from the responsibilities of the marriage and the person they just violated by cheating.
*A version of this post ran previously.
Dear DM, FYI – most of this post is literally in Greek. At least its showing that way in my Chrome browser.
Thanks for the heads up! I went back into the post and hopefully fixed it.
p.s. i found that if i copy and paste the text displaying as Greek characters into notepad, it displays there as English. Wonder if other folks’ browsers are displaying the Greek characters. I brought up the post in Windows explorer and it also shows as Greek there as well.
DM,
According to my Christian marriage counselor, I was apparently a codependent and smothering my husband by my desire to remain under one roof while he worked through whatever funk he was going through (I had not yet discovered his affair.) And by the way, my husband was one of those conducting an affair right under the faithful spouse’s nose. He would go to marriage counseling complaining that he felt suffocated by my mere desire to sit next to him on the sofa and saying that his disgust for me was why he’d always get up to move away. Well, duh, it’s harder to send those dirty texts to your mistress when the wife is nearby. The Christian marriage counselor’s solution, of course, was that “absence makes the heart grow fonder!’” so if I wanted to save my marriage I should be willing to give him all the space and time he needed. Barf…
So after the emotional and spiritual hell this Christian “marriage counselor” put me through – advocating on my husband’s behalf that he needed to be able to take such a break – I’d like your permission to print off and distribute this particular blog post to every counselor and therapist in my area. Starting with her.
Feel free to share. Although, I doubt that counselor will listen.
True. But thank you for permission to leave it in her office. Maybe a client will see it and get directed to your blog!
If a cheater is unrepentant, space could actually be a good thing for the faithful spouse. It allows them to stop pick me dancing, to protect their health from diseases and to stop doing favors and household chores for the cheater. If a cheater gets to have a great spouse, a free personal chef, gardener, maid, handyman, etc. while they keep betraying, they’re usually happy to take it! All those things should be taken from them as a consequence for their own actions unless they’re willing to become accountable. It also gives the faithful spouse a chance to see that they can make it on their own should they decide they want to divorce. Of course, if the cheater is willing to be accountable and their actions say they’re repentant, then a break would just be harmful.
Yes, circumstances need to be considered. This advice given for the “poor” cheater is usually bad advice from people seeking to “save” the marriage. Now, I can see this as good advice for a faithful spouse to escape abuse, though.
Yes, too many counselors are looking at how to help the cheater instead of considering how to help the faithful spouse. As my dad likes to say “The squeaky wheel gets the grease…or it gets replaced.”