241: The Holidays are Swiftly Approaching

Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Marie Murphy, and I’m a non-judgmental infidelity coach.  If you are cheating on your partner, or having an affair, or you’re the “other person,” or you’re engaging in anything you think counts as infidelity, I can help you deal with your feelings, clarify what you want, and make decisions about what you’re going to do.  No shame, no blame, no judgments.  So much of the so-called help that’s out there for people who are cheating is little more than thinly veiled judgment, but that is not what I provide.  I give you guidance and support that respects the fullness of your humanity, and the complexity of your situation – no matter what you’re doing.  When you’re ready to start dealing with your infidelity situation in a way that’s truly right for you, I can help you do it.  There are two ways you can have me as your coach: we can work together one-on-one via Zoom, or you can enroll in my online course, You’re Not the Only One.  To get started with either of these options, go to my website, mariemurphyphd.com. 

Okay people.  This episode is going to come out in late August.  And what that means is, if you celebrate holidays in November, December, and January, those holidays are right around the corner.  That might sound like an exaggeration, but depending on your situation, it actually might be an understatement.

This episode is for you if you have said that don’t want to go through another round of holidays with your infidelity situation being the way it is.  And every year I have clients tell me exactly that.  They don’t want to experience the holidays – or more precisely, the collision between their infidelity situation and the holidays – the way they did last year, and possibly the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that.  If that’s you, I want you to know that this is the time to decide if you’re serious about making change, and to get started making changes if you are.

Before I go any further, I want to be clear about a few things.  For the purposes of this episode, I’m going to keep saying “the holidays,” and when I say that, I’m talking about holidays that are commonly celebrated in the US and other parts of the Western world, such as Thanksgiving and Hanukah and Christmas and New Years.  But although I’m referring to those holidays as “the holidays” today, I am well aware that there are other holiday seasons that may be far more important to you than this one, and what I’m talking about will have bearing upon other holiday seasons that occur throughout the year, too.  The timing will just be a little different.  It’s also really important for me to emphasize that although I know holidays in general and certain holidays in particular are important to a lot of people – hence this episode – I’m not trying to suggest that holidays, generally or specifically, SHOULD be important to you, or important in any particular way.  I myself am not delighted when people assume that I celebrate certain holidays, or that if I technically do participate in “celebrating” them, that I’m at all enthusiastic about doing so.  So if you aren’t a holiday enthusiast – and you’ve even made it this far into listening into an episode that has the word “holidays” in its title – I want you to know that in a way this episode is about dealing with holidays, but perhaps more importantly, it’s about acknowledging the passing of time, and using markers of time as an opportunity to get really honest with ourselves about how we want to spend our time.     

The most important point I want to get across in this episode is very simple.  If you do not like the way your infidelity situation impacts or intersects with your experience of the holidays, it is up to you to take responsibility for changing your situation if you want it to change.  And it’s late August, people.  If your holiday season starts in November, the time to start making changes is now.

It’s your prerogative to decide that you don’t want to take responsibility for making change, of course.  My only exhortation, per usual, is that if you’re going to say you want change but you’re not going to make use of your power to create change, you be conscious of the decision you’re making.

If you want change and you are willing to take responsibility for making change, the first thing I want you to do is get really clear about what exactly you want to be different about the holidays this year.  I know you may have a litany of complaints about how the holidays went last time.  I know you could probably tell me a very dramatic story of how much you suffered during past holiday seasons.  And it’s fine to entertain these woe-is-me tales for a little while.  But you’ve probably done enough of that already.  So the question is not, what didn’t you like about how the holidays went last time.  The question now is, what do you want to be different this time around?  Get as specific as you can.   

This might seem hard, but it’s so important to do it anyway.  Here’s an example of how we can get sucked into our melodrama about what’s wrong.  Sometimes, someone who is the “other person,” meaning, they’re involved with someone who is married or is in a very committed relationship, and isn’t involved with anyone else themselves, and who really cares about the holidays will tell me about how hurt they felt that their affair partner didn’t leave their spouse before the holidays last year, or didn’t manage to at least spend more time with them during the holidays, or didn’t even try to sneak them into a holiday party or two, or didn’t call them enough during the holidays, or didn’t text them the right greeting on their favorite holiday, or whatever.  Furthermore, my client will tell me, whatever their affair partner did or didn’t do during the holidays hurts even more because their affair partner KNOWS how important the holidays are to them, and knows how sad they are that they – the affair partner – are spending the holidays with their family while they – meaning my client – are all alone. 

And I’m totally sympathetic to not liking this experience!  Fair enough!  But again, the question is, if you don’t like your infidelity/holiday situation, what exactly do you want to be different?

Now here’s where things get interesting.  When I ask people this, they often answer the question by telling me what they hope will be different.  Not what they’re going to do to ensure that the holidays are different, but what they hope or wish will be different.  And what some people who are the other person tell me is, “I want my affair partner to leave their marriage so that we can be together during the holidays, and be a ‘real’ couple,” meaning, a non-affair couple.

And this is a fair thing to want!  Of course it is.  But do you have the power to create this outcome?  No.

Now, sometimes people know this, but don’t want to know this.  And other times, people either do not know this, or do a really good job of pretending they don’t know this.  Some people are pretty sure that if they hope hard enough and long enough, they will get what they want, by way of someone else doing the thing they hope that person will do.

Here’s the deal, people.  It is legitimate to hope for things.  It is legitimate to wish for things.  But if you are serious about having a different experience of the holidays this year, I want you to know that hope is not a strategy for making change.  Neither is wishing.

So if what you want to be different about the holidays this year is not something that you have the power to make different, I want you to recognize that you have two choices.  You can keep on hoping for whatever you’re hoping for.  If you want to keep on hoping that your married affair partner will leave their spouse before the holidays and be available to spend lots of holiday time with you, you can.  But if you choose to do that, you run the risk of having an experience of the holidays that ends up being very similar to your past experiences of the holidays.  Because your affair partner might not do anything differently!  They might, but they also might not!    

You can continue to hope that they will.  You could even attempt to influence them to do things differently.  And your efforts might or might not get you what you want.

Or you can decide to take responsibility for ensuring that the holidays are different this year.  If you say you want the holidays to be different this year, you can show yourself that you actually mean it. 

For some people, the only way to change your experience of the collision between the holidays and your infidelity situation to a degree that you are truly happy with is to stop engaging in infidelity.  If you’re involved with someone who is married, and what you want is to be involved with someone who is only in a relationship with you, and is willing and able to spend time with you during the holidays, the only way to guarantee that outcome is to end your relationship with your married affair partner and make yourself available to find someone who is fully available to be with you.  Does that mean that you’re going to find that person immediately?  No.  You might, but you might not – and you might not want to. 

And you might not like the idea of that.  You might think that it’s “better” to at least have your affair partner during the holidays – even if they’re still very married, and very unavailable to you – than to not have anyone at all.  But is that really better?  It might seem like a short-term win – but is it?  And is it a long-term win?  You get to decide for yourself, but I want to suggest that the answer is probably not.

If you relinquish your relationship with your affair partner, it may hurt.  Of course.  But if you don’t relinquish your relationship with your affair partner, it’s also going to hurt.  And by staying with them, you’re signing up for more of what you know you don’t want.  By letting them go, you’re freeing yourself up to pursue more of what you know you do want.

When I’m talking to people about this, they sometimes say, “Yeah, I get it, but the holidays are coming up so soon!  I can’t imagine breaking up with my affair partner before then!  It’ll hurt them so much!  And it will hurt me, too!  I’ll be SO SAD during the holidays!  I don’t want that!”

There’s a lot I say to my one-on-one clients when they present this line of reasoning to me.  If this is the way you’re thinking, we can talk through all of the specifics of your situation and how you want to handle it.  But in brief, I’ll just say this: you get to choose.  You said you wanted the holidays to be different this year.  Are you willing to make them different, or not?

Now, I’m stressing the possibility that you might need to break up with someone in order to change your experience of the holidays to an extent that you will be satisfied with because this is a distinct possibility.  But it’s just as important to mention that if you have a married affair partner, and you’re generally quite okay with your infidelity situation the way it is, you might not need to break up with your affair partner to change your experience of the holidays.  For some people, the holidays are a really stark indication – or reminder – of the fact that they don’t really want to be in their infidelity situation.  To continue with the example I’ve been using, some people who are involved with a married person really want to be in a non-affair relationship.  They may have gotten really attached to the idea of being with their affair partner, and they may really love their affair partner, but they do not want to be in a relationship with someone who is committed to someone else.  Right?  And while it might make sense for these folks to stick around and see what happens with their affair partner for a while, it might not make sense for them to do that indefinitely.  And if you care about certain holidays, their arrival can serve as a great occasion to ask yourself, “Do I really want to stay in this relationship given its drawbacks?  If I say I want change, what am I going to do about that?”  And this is especially true if you’ve been through multiple rounds of holidays not liking your infidelity situation. 

So, to emphasize, for some people, it isn’t the holidays that are the problem.  It’s the infidelity situation itself that’s the problem.  It’s being in a relationship that has attributes that you really do not like that’s the problem.

For other people, though, the infidelity situation isn’t really the problem.  Some people who are the “other person” are fine with their affair partner being married, for the most part.  They’re okay with their infidelity situation for most of the year – but during the holidays, they aren’t.  If that’s the case for you, you can solve for how you relate to the holidays.  You can make changes in how you think about the holidays, you can make changes in how you relate to your feelings during the holidays, and you can make changes in what you DO during the holidays, in terms of how you spend your time.  And that might serve your purposes quite well! 

But please do not kid yourself and say that all you need is a change in strategy when what you really need is to change your situation.  If you are involved with someone who is married and unavailable during the holidays and you are SURE that you don’t like those features of your relationship and you have no desire to stop disliking them, why not do yourself a favor and actually honor your own preferences?

Because how much longer do you want to do this for?  How much longer do you want to do a thing that you know you don’t like?  How much longer do you want to hope for change instead of making change?

I know that making changes can be scary, whether that’s breaking up with your affair partner before the holidays, or making changes in how you deal with your relationship with your affair partner during the holidays.  And it’s totally okay to feel that fear.  The important thing is to learn how to skillfully tolerate feeling fear, so that fear doesn’t end up dictating the decisions you make.  And if you don’t know how to do that yet, that’s okay, because you can learn, and I can teach you.

So, let’s get back to the question of what specifically you want to be different during the holidays.  I want you to answer this question by stating goals that you have the power to achieve, rather than stating things that you hope might happen but do not have the power to make happen. 

For example, if you’re involved with someone who is married and you want to continue that relationship but you want to adjust your experience of the holidays, you might set goals like, “Create more fun for myself with people I care about,” or “Give myself space to feel whatever I feel about my affair partner’s lack of availability during the holidays without letting that turn into a pity party for myself.”  Each of those goals will take some doing.  To do either or both of those things, you will have to intentionally manage your thinking, skillfully relate to your feelings, and change your actions.  And although you might not find this particularly difficult to do, it still might take some doing.  It might take some dedicated time and effort on your part to make these kinds of changes.  Or it might take a lot of time and effort on your part!  But that’s okay!  That’s not a problem!  Investing in the process of making change is how you create a life that you are satisfied with, or delighted with, or at peace with.

Now, if you’re involved with someone who is married and you have decided that you either want them to have made significant changes in their marital situation before the holidays or you don’t want to be involved in your relationship with them anymore, you will probably have a to-do list that goes something like this:

One: decide what exactly your affair partner would need to do, and by what date, in order for you to continue your relationship with them.  Remember, you want the holidays to be different this year.  That is your overarching goal.  Your overarching goal is NOT to continue your relationship with your affair partner at any cost.  Unless it is, but for now, I’m assuming that it isn’t.  So, you could say, well, if my affair partner has told their spouse they want a divorce and has moved out of the home they share with their spouse before November 1st, I will be happy to continue my relationship with them.  But if they haven’t done those things, I will break up with them.  Now, this timeline and these criteria are just examples.  You get to choose where you set your limits.  But if you are going to ensure that the holidays are different for you this year, and if you don’t want to continue your relationship with your affair partner unless they make certain changes, you have to be very clear with yourself about what changes you want to see, and when you want to see them by. 

Two things are important about this.  First, you don’t HAVE to give your affair partner any more time to make changes before you end your relationship with them.  You might say to yourself, “As much as I wish it were otherwise, I really don’t think this person is going to leave their spouse – not before the holidays, and maybe not ever!  And I just want to get on with the business of ending this relationship and moving on with my life.”  You can start that process TODAY if you want to.  And you might want to!

And second, your requirements for what changes your affair partner would need to make in order for you to gladly continue your relationship with them are for YOU.  The point of coming up with these criteria are not for you to hand your affair partner an ultimatum.  They’re for you to be clear about what you are willing to do and what you are not.

However, if you do decide that you’re going to give your affair partner more time to make changes in their relationship, that creates the second item on your to-do list.  You get to decide if you’re going to tell your affair partner that you are planning to break up with them if they don’t do x, y, and z by a certain time.  There are pros and cons to telling them about your plans, and to not telling them about your plans.  So you get to choose what you’re going to do, and then you perhaps get to plan and execute a conversation with your affair partner about your intentions.  And if you do plan to have a conversation like this, you may find my episode on ultimatums, which is episode number 165, very helpful.

It’s possible that one of the next things you’ll have to do is break up with your affair partner.  I know you might not like that idea AT ALL.  And that’s fair enough.  But it is possible that in order for you to get more of what you want out of your life, and more specifically, your relationships, and your experiences of the holidays, you will need to break up with your current person.  And you can accept that this may be painful for you without making it unnecessarily awful.

I am a big believer in the value of executing breakups as well as we possibly can.  That doesn’t mean perfectly.  If there is any such thing as a perfectly executed breakup, I have yet to hear about it.  The goal is to get the job done – that’s the most important part – and to do it in manner that you feel reasonably good about, to the best of your ability.  And my online course, You’re Not the Only One, contains a whole section that prepares you to execute an effective and compassionate breakup.  If you think you are on the brink of breaking up with someone, I highly recommend that you invest in preparing yourself for this process, and the teachings I offer you on how to break up with someone in You’re Not the Only One are the best teachings of this sort that I know of.  Breaking up with someone you care about probably isn’t going to be delightful.  But it doesn’t have to be a complete trainwreck of an experience, either.

If you are planning a breakup, I want you to consider that both the planning and the execution and the aftermath are going to take some time.  Sure you can do this – or any other item on your to-do list – efficiently.  You don’t need to let any step towards change take forever.  But it’s also important to remember that some things do take a certain amount of time, and to plan, to the best of your ability, how much time it’s going to take you to accomplish your goals. 

And then, beyond breaking up with your affair partner, if you end up doing that, you probably want to also plan for how you’re going make the holidays enjoyable for yourself this year.  And yes, that might include planning for how you’re going to grieve the end of your relationship AND enjoy the holidays.  But even if this sounds challenging, I assure you that it’s do-able.

These example to-do lists that I’ve shared with you are just examples.  The point is for you to get clear on what your goals are, and then begin to make change, with the end results you want to create in mind.  And to get started on this process NOW.  If you want change, and you want change to happen by a certain date, do not bullshit yourself by saying you’ll get started making change later.

If it sounds like I’m being a little too stern, I get it – but sometimes we need someone to tell us in no uncertain terms that it’s time to cut the shit!  But also, allow me to shift my tone a little.

If you are willing to do things that seem hard or scary or otherwise uncomfortable for the sake of being faithful to yourself, you will reward yourself immensely.  So often we forget that our primary human relationship is the one we have with ourselves, and when we prioritize cultivating that relationship, and being faithful to ourselves, we make it so much more possible to experience more of what we want in life – and that includes having the kinds of romantic relationships that we really want to have.

So if you think you’re facing some unpleasantness during the upcoming holiday season as you go about making changes in your life, I want you to imagine the holidays next year.  What could be amazing for you during the holidays next year?  Imagine how good things could be for you, a little more than a year from now, and then imagine things being just a little bit better.  And practice trusting that even if your relationship situation is not to your liking right now, it can be in the future.  You don’t have to know exactly how that’s going to happen yet.  Please do not try to figure that out right now.  You just have to be willing to practice trusting that what you want is possible, as you take care of the things you currently need to do in order to make it so.

All right, people.  If you are serious about making changes in your infidelity situation so that you may experience the holidays differently this year, let’s get to work.  If you want my personalized help setting and achieving your goals for change, schedule an introductory coaching session with me now.  The holidays are coming.  Don’t waste time.  Because I believe in truth in advertising, I will tell you that my excellent online course, You’re Not the Only One, does not contain any specific teachings about how to navigate infidelity during the holidays, or anything specifically related to the holidays, for that matter.  However!  It does contain teachings on all of the essential skills you need to do the kinds of things we’ve been talking about today, such as making decisions, and dealing with your feelings, and intentionally managing your thinking so that you can create the experience of your life and your relationships that you want to have.  And as I said earlier, the course contains a whole unit about preparing for and executing breakups, which alone is more than worth the price of admission if you think you’re about to break up with someone.

To book an introductory coaching session with me or to enroll in my course, go to my website, mariemurphyphd.com.  I can’t wait to meet you.

Thank you all so much for listening!  That’s it for today.  Bye for now.