Ten Tips On Preventing Infidelity
Infidelity, now more than anytime, is rife and many people are falling into it. It mostly starts in a very harmless and subtle way, either to one party or both of them, and graduates into a nasty piece of mess. I believe if the average person knew some of the triggers that lead to this sad situation, they would take steps to protect themselves and their marriage. I admit that quite a number of the cases have these huge hazard lights blinking all over to keep the wise person away from proceeding any further, but somehow it still happens.
Let us look at some of the things we can do to avoid walking that lonely road of infidelity.
1. Our Relationship With The Opposite Sex. In the company of the opposite sex, how we behave says a lot and leads to many other things. From the jokes we share to the jokes we laugh at and encourage, we send signals. How we respond to certain lines of conversation may send an encouraging or discouraging signals. As a married person, how you dress and where you place emphasis on exposing, whether you are a man or woman may trigger certain emotional or sexual responses in the opposite sex you are with. Alcohol is never a good idea when you are with someone of the opposite sex out of the direct supervision of your spouse.
2. Show Interest In Your Spouse. Continual showing of Interest in your spouse will do you a lot of good, keep you away from getting bored and consequently straying. Most often, in handling cases of infidelity, one of the key things that comes up, especially with couples who have been married for longer periods, is boredom and lack of sparks. Well, Breaking News! You create your own spark and find ways of doing the same things differently.
It is forever, so be creative with everything everyday. Be creative and exploratory in the bedroom, and be receptive to new ideas from your spouse (within certain acceptable boundaries that are not offensive to your faith and person). Be novel in your cooking, dressing, conversation, interactions and how you do your everyday routines. You need to have your marriage at the forefront of your thinking to help you always come up with new things to do. If your marriage is the last thing on your scale of preference, you will have only doom and gloom.
3. Know Who To Avoid: There are some people you need to avoid not because they are evil or bad people; it is because they are a threat to your fidelity. Though you may need some of these people, and some have also been good to you, you need to understand that they pose a clear and present threat to your marriage. When you say I Do to one person, that person must be weightier and 'neck taller' than everyone in your past or your presence.
Ex Lovers. You cannot spend alone time with them, especially the ones you never fully got over. They may have moved on, or you may have moved on, or both of you may have genuinely moved on, until you realise for 'Shagey reasons' they want to take advantage of you because you blurted out the struggle with your spouse, or they got bored and wanted to use you to spice their life up.
Another person to avoid is someone who is married, or knows you are married and yet brazenly makes an advance towards you. Such a person does not respect your marriage nor you. They may say anything to get to you, but ultimately, they are moved by their lack of respect and regard for your choice of a spouse. No one claims to respect someone, yet put them in a position of pain or humiliation by making them do things that will hurt everyone around them.
Anyone of the opposite sex that you feel attracted to or feel vulnerable around, should be avoided as much as you can. We all know that situation where, against all wisdom, you just feel this emotional pull towards a particular person in a way you cannot explain. They suddenly dominate your thought and emotions. Well, you need to avoid them, if you don't want to find yourself in a mess.
4. Healthy Boundaries. Draw Healthy boundaries in your relationships with people of the opposite sex. As a marriage person, your best friend should be your spouse. If your spouse is not, then your marriage is fundamentally in trouble and you need to find ways of fixing that. If you need help in that area, click here and let us talk about it. If your spouse is your best friend, it means no other person of the opposite sex needs to know certain intimate and personal things about you, except they are in a professional capacity.
Do not let anyone of the opposite sex know your vulnerability, weaknesses, passions, and anything that makes you naked before them. There should be a line drawn regarding when they can visit, call or text. They need to know which comments about you or your spouse is ok and which is absolutely not ok. Most often, people have ended up being unfaithful to their spouses because they allowed certain people of the opposite sex too much room and access which ended up being exploited.
5. Unfaithful Friends. Watch your relationship with friends who are unfaithful to their spouses. Soon, they numb you to that despicable act thereby putting you in the position of wanting to try it. They make you feel strange for not giving it a try, and they help you with reasons and justifications and ways and means of going about it. They poison you and set out to reproduce themselves in you.
6. Appreciation. Show Appreciation to your spouse for the little things they do, even if you feel it is their responsibility. You should never treat your spouse and what they do for you as trivia. Elsewhere, people are not even honoring their responsibilities. Encourage them to go out of their way to do more. Affirm them, show gratitude, show love. Hug them, say thank you often, buy them little gifts. Let them know you appreciate them. That is how you prevent another person from getting your spouse's attention. While we hold each individual accountable for their actions, we also do not discount the fact their certain prevailing factors at home and in the marriage predisposes a spouse to cheat.
7. Work It. No marriage is perfect. When you marry, you need to lose your sense of I-Ness and build a sense of We-ness. Let go of your entrenched views and be willing to consider the other person's views. Be willing to compromise and be willing to be moulded a bit. It is in the shaping of the other and yourself that the marriage gets to a place where both of you are happy with what you see and show the world. It is a place where you both lose your individual equilibria and establish a common equilibrium
Every beautiful marriage you see, is a marriage between two people who are never tired of working it, moulding it and fixing it. Every marriage needs to be maintained, like a house. Just as you don't move to a hotel because your home has lost its glitz, so you do not go talking to another person or building intimacy elsewhere because there are challenges at home. Sit down, assess the situation and find a solution. If you are bereft of ideas on how to make it work, another man or woman is not a solution; seek professional help. If you are looking for a professional to help you, it does not matter which part of the world you are, just click here and help will reach you.
8. Co-Workers. Be mindful of your relationship with your work colleagues. Research shows that infidelity is high among co-workers for obvious reasons. At work, everyone is on their best behaviour because they are there to earn their salary, and the measures against behaviours that are seen as un-corporate can be punitive. So with time, this 'Keeping Up Appearance' becomes the real impression of people about who others are. Again, the long hours people spend together in a less frictional and cordial environment, makes it easy to fall for the facade people put up, making them appear to be a better option of a companion or a preferred choice of a conversation partner...or a good distraction. It gets worse when two people of the opposite sex work together and therefore spend a lot of personal time together.
It is in this space that you need to be extra careful, not to be drawn and connected to someone in an emotional or sexual way. The conducive nature of that environment means that any affair can thrive for a long time making it even harder to stop. The best remedy will be not to start it. Keep a safe distance, keep same sex friends, avoid flirting and unnecessary bonding with people of the opposite sex. Be firm and unapologetic with those who overstep their boundaries. Being nice and managing it, may cost you sometimes, more than just being blunt and moving on with your life. To someone else, it is just marriage, do not take it as a world cup. Is it Just A Marriage to you?
9. Make It Special. Being made to feel special and making your spouse feel special is key to making your marriage work. You will be building a hedge around your marriage and be busily looking inside when you feel special at home. People start looking outside when they feel neglected, rejected, unappreciated and unwanted. Compliment your spouse often, look into their eyes and tell them you love them, stand by them, support them and affirm them. Build them up with your words and actions, and do not tear them down. Be interested in the little things about them and the things they tell you. it goes a long way to protect your marriage.
10. Quality Of Friends. Evaluate your friends network and know who to open up to and on what. A critical step to building a cheating-proof marriage is surrounding yourself with friends who are happily married; friends who have positive impression about marriage, and serve as a check on you. If you are surrounded by wounded couples, people with bitter experiences and people who do not generally exude positive energy about marriage, you will soon find yourself in their state, and when that happens, many things can happen including infidelity.
Again, as a married person, have a limit to the extent to which you allow your single friends have assess to you. Remember, you and your single friends have different needs; turn-around time when it comes to decision making, choices and reporting lines are different. Where they hang out and what they do in those moments also differ significantly from yours. You are different, let that influence your relationship with them and how close you bring them to your home and personal space. It is not being 'someway', because you married; it is admitting that you are growing and things will never be the same. When they get there, they will understand.
What are some of the things people can do to prevent infidelity? Share and let us build ourselves.
Are you married and struggling with a situation you find yourself in? Well, I guess you did not read this article by accident then. But if you really want someone to talk to, kindly click here and book an appointment and help will reach you anywhere in the world.
