5 principles to help you avoid emotional infidelity in your marriage.
When you find yourself connecting with another person who starts
becoming in even the smallest way a substitute for your marital partner,
you’ve started traveling a dangerous road. So, how do you protect yourself —and your marriage?
Here are some principles many have found helpful:
1. Know your boundaries. You
should put fences around your heart and protect the sacred ground that is reserved only for your spouse. Barbara and I are careful to
share our deepest feelings, needs, and difficulties only with each other and not with friends of the opposite sex.
2. Realize the power of the eyes. They are the “windows of your soul.” Pull the shades down if you sense someone is pausing a little too long in front of those windows. It’s true that good eye contact is necessary for fruitful communication, but there is a deep type of look that must be reserved for only one person: your mate.
Frankly, I don’t trust myself. Some women may think I’m insecure because I don’t hold eye contact too long, but that’s not it at all. I simply don’t trust my humanity. I’ve seen what has happened to others, and I know it could happen to me.
3. Beware of isolation and concealment. One strategy of the enemy is to isolate you from your spouse, by tempting you to keep secrets from your mate. Barbara and I both realize the danger of concealment in our marriage. We work hard at bringing things out into the open and discussing them. Our closets are empty.
4. Extinguish any chemical reactions that may have begun. A friendship with the opposite sex that is beginning to meet needs your mate should be meeting must be ended quickly. A simple rule of chemistry is this: To stop a chemical reaction, remove one of the elements. It may be painful or embarrassing at first, but it isn’t as painful as suffering the results of temptation that has given birth to sin.
Ruth Senter wrote an article for Partnership Magazine entitled simply, “Rick.” It was an incredibly honest examination of a godly wife’s encounter and ensuing friendship with a Christian man she met in a graduate class. Her struggle and godly response to this temptation were graphically etched in a letter that ended that relationship. She wrote,
It has been said that a “secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven.” My Heavenly Father and my earthly father are there right now. Thinking of hurting them keeps me pure.
Here are some principles many have found helpful:
1. Know your boundaries. You
should put fences around your heart and protect the sacred ground that is reserved only for your spouse. Barbara and I are careful to
share our deepest feelings, needs, and difficulties only with each other and not with friends of the opposite sex.
2. Realize the power of the eyes. They are the “windows of your soul.” Pull the shades down if you sense someone is pausing a little too long in front of those windows. It’s true that good eye contact is necessary for fruitful communication, but there is a deep type of look that must be reserved for only one person: your mate.
Frankly, I don’t trust myself. Some women may think I’m insecure because I don’t hold eye contact too long, but that’s not it at all. I simply don’t trust my humanity. I’ve seen what has happened to others, and I know it could happen to me.
3. Beware of isolation and concealment. One strategy of the enemy is to isolate you from your spouse, by tempting you to keep secrets from your mate. Barbara and I both realize the danger of concealment in our marriage. We work hard at bringing things out into the open and discussing them. Our closets are empty.
4. Extinguish any chemical reactions that may have begun. A friendship with the opposite sex that is beginning to meet needs your mate should be meeting must be ended quickly. A simple rule of chemistry is this: To stop a chemical reaction, remove one of the elements. It may be painful or embarrassing at first, but it isn’t as painful as suffering the results of temptation that has given birth to sin.
Ruth Senter wrote an article for Partnership Magazine entitled simply, “Rick.” It was an incredibly honest examination of a godly wife’s encounter and ensuing friendship with a Christian man she met in a graduate class. Her struggle and godly response to this temptation were graphically etched in a letter that ended that relationship. She wrote,
“Friendship is always going somewhere unless it’s dead. You and I both know where ours is going. When a relationship threatens the stability of commitments we’ve made to the people we value the most, it can no longer be.”5. Ask God to remind you how important it is to fear Him. The fear of God has turned me from many a temptation. it would be one thing if another person learned I had compromised my vows, but it’s quite another thing to realize that God’s throne would have a knowledge of my disloyalty to Barbara faster than the speed of light.
It has been said that a “secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven.” My Heavenly Father and my earthly father are there right now. Thinking of hurting them keeps me pure.
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