Friday, July 19, 2013

Trust In God !


Grief within Infidelity

What Creates Fertile Grounds for Affairs?

Just like a garden, relationships need to be nurtured and tended. All too often, the garden of our relationship is left unattended; weeds grow and plants die due to lack of water and sun (i.e., care and attention). It is all too easy, especially in child-centered families, for partners to focus on the practicalities of child care to the exclusion of their relationship.
Parents be warned: The seeds for a future affair can all too easily be sown in the early stages of starting a family. Neglecting your partner and your relationship for the sake of the children does not create a happy family. It creates emotional instability, especially if you or your partner start looking to fulfill your emotional needs outside the relationship. Make sure to devote some time to your relationship, too. Your children will be happier and more secure if they see parents who have a strong, loving bond, even if this means the kids don’t always get to come first.
It is also easy, especially in long-term relationships, for couples with or without children to start taking each other for granted or fall into the rut of routine. While there is comfort in structure and predictability, you don’t want to let your relationship become stagnant. Affairs are often a misguided way to seek excitement and aliveness. Unfortunately, having an affair will take you away from your primary relationship rather than toward it. In effect, you are starting a new garden somewhere else and leaving your current garden to wither in the dark. Make the effort occasionally to do something fun and different together. Why? It creates intimacy and brings growth and vitality to your relationship. As with gardening, you want to add fertilizer and occasionally turn the soil so that your plants and flowers will flourish.
Still, you could follow all the above suggestions and tend the garden of your relationship with much care and love, only to encounter the threat of an affair springing up like weeds. As Shirley Glass warns: “A happy marriage is not a vaccine against infidelity.”
To really vaccinate your relationship against affairs, Glass recommends the following guidelines. While some might find them too restrictive—and, as one lesbian couple complained, “too hetero” and another poly couple pointed out, “way too monogamous”—it is worth having them as a reference point. In the guidelines below, poly couples may want to replace the word marriage with primary relationship, but be warned: this list is definitely pro-monogamy.

7 Tips for Preventing Infidelity

  1. Maintain appropriate walls and windows. Keep the windows opened at home. Put up privacy walls with those who could threaten your marriage.
  2. Recognize that work can be a danger zone. Don’t lunch or take private coffee breaks with the same person all the time. When you travel with a coworker, meet in public rooms, not a room with a bed.
  3. Avoid emotional intimacy with attractive alternatives to your committed relationship. Resist the desire to rescue an unhappy soul who pours his or her heart out to you.
  4. Protect your marriage by discussing relationship issues at home. If you do need to talk to someone else about your marriage, be sure that person is a friend of your marriage. If the friend disparages marriage, respond with something positive about your own relationship.
  5. Keep old flames from reigniting. If a former lover is coming to a class reunion, invite your partner to come along. If you value your marriage, think twice about having lunch alone with an old flame. (This may be unrealistic in the lesbian community, as exes are so often part of one’s community and even friendship circle.)
  6. Don’t go over the line when online with Internet friends. Discuss your online friendships with your partner and show him or her your e-mail if he or she is interested. Invite your partner to join in correspondence so your Internet friends won’t get any wrong ideas. Don’t exchange sexual fantasies online.
  7. Make sure your social network is supportive of your marriage. Surround yourself with friends who are happily married and who don’t believe in fooling around.
Let’s look at the worst-case scenario. You or your partner has an affair. How can you help your relationship recover?

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On this fine day of July I like to remember all those who have provided experience, love, care, and understanding during the course of my life and career.

Vincent, My Pop!
Salvatore, - Nonno
Rosalia, - Great Grandmother
Blessed Paul VI -  Pope and Educator
Msgr Felix... My Zio and Mentor
Msgr Andrew, Educator and Mentor
Msgr. Patrick, Educator and Mentor
Mother Josefina,  Encouraged and  Mentor

I ask for their Intercession upon me and all my loved ones at this moment.