#42 Husband’s salon tan is a sign of cheating / Signs you are causing your partner to cheat.
Dear Abby: A while back you listed clues to look for if you suspected your husband of being unfaithful. I’d like to add to that list: a bronze body from a tanning salon.
My husband “Jerry,” and I are the “ideal” couple. We’re both physically attractive and in good condition. We’ve been married 46 years.
Jerry brings me coffee, fruit and the newspaper in bed every morning. He has also seduced, or tried to seduce, my sisters, some of my closest friends and business associates.
When I confront him, he tells me that I have a problem and that I need help — not him! I am in therapy in order to find out what to do with the rest of my life.
Please print this list again for those who might have missed it. —Suspicious No More
Dear Suspicious No More: You are a strong lady. I’m sure you’ll make the right decisions about your future. I’m also pleased you are getting professional support, because therapy can be helpful regardless of age.
And now, the list:
1) A sudden change in manner of dress and grooming.
2) Secretiveness.
3) Unexplained absences.
4) Unfamiliar charges on your credit card or phone bills.
5) Hang-ups on your home phone.
6) Stops confiding in you or asking your advice.
7) More business trips than usual.
8) Sets up a new e-mail account and doesn’t tell you.
9) Mutual friends start acting strangely towards you. (They either knew about the cheating or have been told stories about what a horrible wife or girlfriend you are.)
10) Refuses to let you take him to the airport when he’s leaving town.
11) Carries condoms even though you are on the pill.
12) Deletes incoming phone messages from caller ID.
13) Leaves the house in the morning smelling like Irish Spring and returns in the evening smelling like Speedstick.
14) Becomes accusatory, asking of you have been true to him, usually out of guilt.
15) Raises hypothetical questions such as,
"Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person at a time?”
16) Buys himself new underwear.
17) Insists that the child seat, toys etc., be kept out of his car.
18) Stops wearing his wedding ring.
19) And the telltale sign of a cheating spouse? Having to ask the question in the first place. Listen to your gut.
Gabby's Reply:
Dear Suspicious No More: I trust you are aware that your letter comes from victim and blame. It’s important that you acknowledge this. Why? Because, if you don’t get to your cause in this matter you will have to recreate the scenario again with your next partner. Worse yet, you will pass on the behavior to your children; you'll notice that via your leadership communication-skills (mostly nonverbal) you will have trained them to hide their thoughts of choice from you, that you have trained them to be deceitful.
While his reason is an invalidating abusive make-wrong, your husband also happens to be right. You do need help. To validate your sanity—he needs equally as much help. The source of the problem however is you, and, the reason you give for being in therapy won't solve your problem. That you have been in therapy and still write from blame indicates that you have masterfully (unconsciously) chosen a therapist whom you can con, in part so as to be able to say how hard you tried to make things work.
Let’s begin at the beginning. It was your karma that attracted a deceitful person. People who have no need to get caught for a lifetime of withholds, abuses, and deceits (with parents, teachers, and friends) attract partners who are whole and complete (not addicted to abuse, and deceit). It’s not that they have been “better” than you, it’s that they have acknowledged their perpetrations to themselves and their victims. The mind of a person who is whole and complete is not clouded with incompletes. A person who is whole and complete, having acknowledged all lies, deceits, and perpetrations, can see and hear (experience) another's lie. A person who has yet to acknowledge, say to their parents, that they sneaked out to have sex with their boyfriend during high school, cannot always tell when another is being deceitful to them. Sneaky withholders attract sneaky withholders. There are no exceptions to this rule.
It could be said that unconsciously attracting and choosing to marry someone addicted to withholding thoughts (to deceit) was your integrity at work, supporting you in completing your relationship with your parents and others. Once you have acknowledged your perps you’ll be whole and complete and you’ll have no need to have another mirror your out-integrity.
The next thing you need to acknowledge is that you have not been a safe space for your partner to tell you the truth. You unconsciously shut down communication. Truth-telling and exchanging is an acquired leadership-communication skill—so too is withholding, deceiving, lying, and training others to lie to you, an acquired leadership-communication skill. To master being the space in which others tell you the truth you must first commit to hanging around only those who are committed to communicating openly, honestly, and spontaneously.
You and I grew up emulating what’s referred to as the adversarial communication model. It’s the same model our parents and all (yes all) teachers use. It’s characterized by each person in the relationship withholding his/her thoughts of choice. I’ll withhold from you that I think you’re a wimp and you’ll withhold from me that you think I’m arrogant. Instead, we’ll both carry on our relationship on top of these thoughts withheld from each other, acting polite, withholding key truths, truths essential to each other’s growth.
For example: It’s most likely that one or more of your friends knew or intuited that something was wrong between you and your husband but they withheld the thought, perhaps communicating their disrespect nonverbally by not inviting you to their parties. They withheld their knowledge/intuition about the seductions or cheating, their experience, for reasons. Reasons are the bane of most relationships. One either communicates openly, honestly, and spontaneously, or they have their reasons. A couple either communicates openly with each other or they are stuck doing their imitation of communication. This addiction to withholding thoughts costs each his/her aliveness, for most it’s the beginning of the end of the marriage. Any thought withheld serves as a barrier to the experience of communication (love).
Once you are clear about responsibility you will know that however unconscious she may have been your sister seduced him equally as much. We know this is true from the results her leadership-communication model produced. This "seducing" could not have progressed beyond the first glances had she nipped it in the bud, and, had she spontaneously brought it to the forefront at that very moment. Depending upon how powerful you're willing to be you can also look at it from the point of view that for as yet some unknown, but brilliant reason, you intended them to flirt with each other—perhaps so as to become clear about responsibility.
When you are in-integrity it’s virtually impossible for your partner to hide things from you and vis-à-vis. Any withhold becomes as a mote in thine eye. You’ll sense in a nano-second when he has something on his mind, usually something that he believes will upset you (read about The Clearing Process).
Here are a few telltale signs that you may have driven your partner away:
1) You are withholding one or more thoughts from him/her. A withhold can be a judgment, a perpetration (even a childhood one), or an unacknowledged abusive communication (you were abusive or condescending to him and have yet to acknowledge it to yourself or him).
2) You have perpetrated, or still are perpetrating, fraud or deceit which you have yet to acknowledged (read, cleaned up). For example: Cheating: To a high school teacher. Lying: To a parent or former partner. Badmouthing: Another behind their back which you have yet to deliver verbally to his/her face. In other words, you are run by your arrogance, wanting to believe there are no consequences for childhood perps and abuses. You have been trying to make life work without having to clean up the messes.
3) You support your partner in communicating abusively, condescendingly, without insisting that he/she acknowledge to you that they know they did it, each and every time. Condoning such abuse, by silence, creates contempt and disrespect.
Note: There is a difference between acknowledging abuse and apologizing for abuse. An apology guarantees more of the same. To support someone in apologizing to you (to elicit/listen to another's apology) sets them up to have to do the undesirable behavior again—until you are clear about acknowledging.
4) You find yourself blaming your partner for your inability to cause him/her to open up to you.
5) You have created subject matter that cannot be discussed. For example: If you asked a question and it triggered upset (upset is used to distract another away from a truth) and you did not get your answer, then you have rewarded abuse for the illusion of harmony.
6) If you think that things would be better if only he/she would open up more, if only they would communicate with you, if only they would answer your questions. This point of view is called blame. You are stuck blaming him/her for your inability to cause communication to take place.
7) You notice that you cannot consistently cause your partner to maintain eye contact with you during conversations. You have trained him/her to hide thoughts from you, so many that they now hide the window to their soul from you for fear you will see the enormous number of thoughts they have hidden from you. In truth they mirror your own uncomfortableness that comes from the thought of having to verbally communicate the thoughts you have been hiding from them. The inability to be with another (to look into their eyes and be with them comfortably) without causing them to avert their eyes, is called being out-integrity. Integrity can be restored (recreated) in even the most damaged relationship within a period of three hours with the support of a communication-skills coach.
The answer: Get thee to a communicologist. You, not you and your partner, need to spend some time with a communication-skills coach. Thanks, Gabby