184: The Point of Resolving Your Infidelity Situation (Part 2)

Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Marie Murphy.  I’m a relationship coach and I help people who are engaging in anything they think counts as infidelity to deal with their feelings, clarify what they want, and make decisions about what they’re going to do.  No shame, no blame, no judgments.  A lot of the so-called advice that’s out there for people who are engaging in infidelity 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 resolve your infidelity situation in a way that’s truly right for you, I can help you do it.  To learn about the ways you can have me as your coach, go to the services page of my website, mariemurphyphd.com/services.  I can’t wait to meet you.

All right.  Back in episode 100, which came out sometime in 2022, I talked about the point of resolving your infidelity situation.  And I’m going to return to this topic again today, because it’s such an important one.  If you happened to listen to episode 100 recently, some of the things I say today will sound familiar, because I am going to echo many of the points I made in that episode – but today’s episode is not just a regurgitation of that one, and, even if there is overlap, sometimes we need to hear the same things said in many different ways before we can absorb the messages in the way we need to.

Here's something many of you know very well.  Engaging in infidelity can be a lot of fun.  It can come with a lot of benefits.  And, it can also come with some pretty significant drawbacks.  If nothing else, if you’re engaging in infidelity and you aren’t at peace with what you’re doing, being not at peace, or being in a state of ill at ease, can eat up a lot of your bandwidth.  And that might be fine and even fun, for a while.  Sometimes, it’s exciting to have a thing going on in our lives that sucks up a lot of our energy and attention.  Sometimes we like the drama and difficulties that can be associated with engaging in infidelity. 

Moreover, if you’re engaging in infidelity, you may be able to have your cake and eat it too to a great extent, or in some respects.  For example, some people find it really awesome to have the stability and familiarity of a committed relationship to come home to – and also have the excitement of a secret relationship with someone new.  A lot of people experience that as pretty great.  BUT, even when people get benefits from having these two kinds of relationships, they may still experience some pretty significant drawbacks.  For instance, when you’re focusing on maintaining two relationships, you may not have as much energy left over for other things that are important to you in your life.  Or, you may not like the emotional whiplash that you experience when you toggle back and forth between your two relationships.  Or you may not like engaging in long-term deception.  Or whatever.  There are lots of things that you might find undesirable about engaging in infidelity. 

Thus, at some point, you may start to get the sense that the drawbacks associated with your infidelity situation outweigh the benefits.

Now.  I want to be very clear about something.  I’m not suggesting that if you’re engaging in infidelity, the OBVIOUS conclusion is that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.  I know that line of thinking is out there, but that isn’t my position.  If you aren’t experiencing any problems with whatever you’re doing infidelity-wise, then there’s no problem.  I’m not here to tell you that you have a problem if you don’t have a problem.  No way.  What I AM saying is that I see a lot of people getting to the point where the drawbacks of engaging in infidelity – or the drawbacks that come with the WAY they are engaging in infidelity – start to outweigh the benefits.

And if and when this happens for you, you may want to start to think about taking a conscious, deliberate approach to resolving your infidelity situation in a way that you feel good about.

Here’s another really important point.  I believe that “resolving” your infidelity situation can mean many different things.  If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably know that very well already, but it’s really important to me to make this explicit, so I’ll say it again.  There are many ways to resolve an infidelity situation!  Not everyone agrees with this, of course, but this is very much my stance.  A lot of people will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that if you are doing anything that could be considered infidelity, what you’re doing is bad, and you’d better stop it right now.  So that idea is definitely out there, but it’s really important for us to remember that humans can do whatever the hell they want, and they DO do whatever the hell they want.  So from my perspective, telling people that there are certain ways they have to do to deal with their infidelity situations is just ridiculous because, quite simply, it isn’t likely to be very effective.

So when I talk about “resolving” your infidelity situation, I’m talking about making deliberate choices about how you’re going to handle it that you feel good about.  And that’s very different from how many people relate to their infidelity situations.  A lot of people relate to their infidelity situation as if they have no control over it.  A lot of people relate to their infidelity situation as if they are at the mercy of mysterious forces that they can’t fully understand.  And that can look like a lot of different things, behavior-wise, and one of them is staying stuck in the status quo, and treating the status quo like it’s the only option.

Now… here’s another little something I want to clarify.  I’m all in favor of letting ourselves get tossed around by life to some extent.  I’m all in favor of not making decisions immediately – at least, sometimes.  I’m all in favor of allowing yourself a grace period to explore new situations before you decide what you want to do about them.  I’m all in favor of just going with the flow of life and seeing what happens, sometimes, to some extent.  I believe you have the prerogative to NOT make decisions about your infidelity situation, and to carry on doing what you’re doing – and I believe that you may need some time to explore your infidelity situation before you can possibly begin to clarify what you want to do about it, and make decisions about how you want to handle it that are truly right for you.  So I just want to make it really clear that today’s episode does not boil down to me saying, “you better resolve your infidelity situation as soon as possible.”  That is NOT my point.  But I DO believe that if you are engaging in infidelity, there will probably come a time when you WANT to take it upon yourself to resolve your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about – instead of dealing with your infidelity situation haphazardly, or not really dealing with it at all.

And getting to this point can be kind of great.  My opinion is that reaching a point where we want to take responsibility for our lives in a new way is a really wonderful thing.

Here's the thing, though. A lot of people think it’s going to be really HARD to deal with their infidelity situation.  And folks have all kinds of reasons why they’re sure this is true, or will be true.

Now, this business of whether something is hard or not is interesting.  Technically, whether something is “easy” or “hard” for us is a matter of our thinking.  Believing that something is or will be hard to do is optional.  I talk about this more in Episode 173, which is called “The Easy-Hard Paradox.”  If thinking about your infidelity situation as something that’s going to be really hard to deal with is keeping you paralyzed, you might want to put some effort into deliberately shifting your thinking!  And you might need help doing that, and that’s okay - that’s something I can help you with.  AND, even if you DO start to shift your thinking about how hard it’s going to be to deal with your infidelity situation, you may still want to believe that your infidelity situation really is going to be hard for you to deal with, in some ways.  That might sound like a contradiction, but it isn’t.  Two things can be true at once: we don’t HAVE to think of anything as hard.  But it’s also legitimate for us to think that something is going to be hard.  We just don’t want to convince ourselves that something is going to be hard, and therefore we can’t do it.  I’ll say that again in a slightly different way.  It’s fair enough if we think something is going to be hard, but we don’t want to convince ourselves that something is going to be so hard that we can’t possibly do it.

Also, if we think that something is going to be hard to do, we want to get really clear on why it’s WORTH IT for us to do it.  People do hard things ALL THE TIME.  Or, put differently, people do things that a lot of us consider really difficult things to do ALL THE TIME.  And quite simply, people do hard things all the time because they have really good reasons to do them.

Your reasons are like rocket fuel.  Having clear reasons why you want to do a particular thing, or why it’s worth it to you to do a particular thing, will help you get the thing done. 

So it’s really important to get clear on WHY you want to resolve your infidelity situation, or what the point of resolving your infidelity situation would be for you.

This is a really simple thing to do.  But so often, we don’t realize that it’s a really powerful thing to do, so we don’t do it.  Or, we come up with reasons why it actually isn’t a simple thing to do.  But I want you to consider that getting clear on why it’s worth it to you to resolve your infidelity situation IS indeed a simple thing to do, and you can do it, and it’s really important for you to do it.

Because in order to resolve your infidelity situation in a way that you feel good about, you may have to do things you’ve never done before.  And you may have to learn how to do those things.  You may have to try out new ways of thinking and doing things.  That can take effort!  Throughout the process of resolving your infidelity situation, you may feel challenged, you may feel uncomfortable, you may find the whole experience really hard, at times.

And I will tell you that that can be worth it, a million times over.  But you need to get super clear on why it’s worth it for YOU.  You need to get clear on what the point of resolving your infidelity situation is for YOU.  Your reasons have to resonate with you. 

Now, sometimes when you’re in the thick of your infidelity situation and you’ve felt confused and conflicted and stressed and tormented for a really long time, it can be hard to see a way out of the fog.  It can be hard to think clearly about what the point of resolving your infidelity situation is when you feel totally besieged by your own drama and you just can’t think straight.

So I’m going to suggest some reasons why it might be worth it to you to resolve your infidelity situation.  You are welcome to take these reasons just as I state them and turn them into your own rocket fuel.  Or, you can use the reasons I suggest to help get you thinking, and you can come up with your own totally different reasons.

So here we go.  Here are seven reasons why you might WANT to resolve your infidelity situation.

NUMBER ONE: Choosing a particular way of handling things, or choosing a particular path and sticking to it can be a tremendous relief.  Now, this can be true no matter what path or approach you choose.  For instance, some people choose to stop engaging in whatever they’ve been doing that they think counts as infidelity.  Some people choose to continue engaging in infidelity, and they decide to make peace with their decision to do so.  Whatever way of handling your infidelity situation you choose, choosing a particular approach and sticking with it can be a tremendous relief.  Saying, “I’m doing to do things this way, and I’m going to be okay with doing things this way” is very different from endlessly torturing yourself by saying “I don’t know what I should do and I just can’t decide…” or some version of that.

NUMBER TWO: Being able to live a love life, or sex life, romantic life, or relationship life – or love/sex/romantic/relationship life that you REALLY LIKE usually feels a lot better than dedicating a lot of time and energy to maintaining a love life that you don’t really like, or is just an exhausting source of drama.  Choosing a particular path within your love life is great.  Choosing a particular path within your love life that you are enthusiastic about is even better. 

NUMBER THREE: We don’t know how much time we’ve got!  To quote Pema Chodron, death is certain.  Time of death is uncertain.  What matters?  As I said earlier, I think it’s fine to get tossed around by life a little.  I think it’s fine to indulge in believing that we don’t know what we want, a little.  But at a certain point, we may prefer to do our best to make clear decisions about how we’re going to live our lives, because we don’t know how long we’ve got, and we want to live as deliberately and intentionally as we can.  This applies to more than just our love lives, of course. 

NUMBER THREE: Resolving your infidelity situation will probably make your life a lot SIMPLER.  There are a lot of ways this can happen, but I’m not going to list a bunch of examples.  Instead, I’m going to encourage you to consider the specific ways that resolving your infidelity situation could make your life simpler.  And I also want you to consider the ways that you might benefit from simplifying your life.  Now, if you think about this, and you decide that you don’t value simplicity, that’s fine.  But you also might discover that the idea of simplifying your life REALLY appeals to you.  A lot of people find intrinsic value in simplicity, or relative simplicity.  And you just might, too.

NUMBER FOUR: If you resolve your infidelity situation in a way you feel good about, you will almost certainly have more time and energy available, which you can dedicate to other things in your life that are important to you.  A lot of my clients who have been dealing with their infidelity for what they think is a long time tell me that their life has become primarily focused on their infidelity situation.  And they’re at the point where they do not find this exciting or novel or fun.  It’s just a really big time and energy suck, and they really want to be able to devote more of their time and energy to other things they care about – not just their love life, not just their infidelity drama.  Carrying on a long-term affair, or engaging in any kind of long-term infidelity can start to seem like a full-time job.  And at some point, you might want to quit that job.

NUMBER FIVE: If you resolve your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about, you will almost certainly become a person who has decided to be more faithful to themselves.  Now, I say “almost certainly” because I don’t like to speak in absolutes.  But I actually do believe that pretty much by design, in the process of resolving your infidelity situation in a way that you like, you will become someone who is more faithful to themselves.  And this is SUCH a big deal. 

NUMBER SIX: In the process of resolving your infidelity situation, you will almost certainly show yourself that life can turn out differently than you thought it was going to, and that you can make that okay.  Or much, much better than okay.  This can be a really big deal, too.  Some of us really latch onto the idea that life has to go a certain way in order for us to fundamentally be all right, as humans living on planet earth, our lives have to unfold in a particular way.  Showing ourselves, in very concrete terms, that we can depart from our anticipated path, and the world will not end can be a really big deal.  And even better than that, we can show ourselves that when we depart from our anticipated path, not only does the world not end, but life can get even better, or even richer, or even fuller.

NUMBER SEVEN: It is also extremely likely that in the process of resolving your infidelity situation, you will have to deal with some challenges.  By being willing to meet those challenges as they come, you show yourself that you are a person who can deal with life’s challenges as they arise.  You may have shown yourself this before, in other arenas.  But showing yourself this again, and in this way, may be tremendously empowering.  Sometimes we’re reluctant to deal with our infidelity situations because we think it’s going to be challenging to do so – and the problem with that is that this approach feels terrible, because we constrain ourselves and prevent our own evolution and growth.  ALLOWING our own evolution and growth, and developing faith in our capacity to meet challenges with courage is such a gift to ourselves.  And those we come into contact with!

These are seven possible reasons for why it might be worth it to you to do what you need to do to resolve your infidelity situation, even if it’s hard or challenging to do so.  These reasons, some of them or all of them, might be the point of resolving your infidelity situation. 

Or maybe they aren’t.  Maybe these reasons why you want to resolve your infidelity situation that I’ve just mentioned don’t resonate with you.  If they don’t, get to work on developing your own reasons.  What is the point of resolving your infidelity situation for you?  Get clear on that.  Get super fucking crystal clear on that.  Because your reasons are your rocket fuel.  Having a clear sense of what the point of doing something is will help you do that thing.

And of course, if you need HELP figuring out what the point of resolving your infidelity situation is, I am one such source of help.  When we’re totally caught up in the drama and confusion of our infidelity situations, it can be hard to think clearly about why it makes sense for us to find a way out of our own personal drama fog.  That’s okay.  I’m here to lead the way to clarity.  If you’d like to work with me one-on-one, you can schedule an introductory coaching session with me through the services page of my website, mariemurphyphd.com/services, and you can also learn about the other ways that you can have me as your coach from that page of my website, too.

All right everyone, thank you all so much for listening.  Have a great week.  Bye for now.