Not Cool

We all know that nothing in life is perfect but what do you do when your relationship is full of lies? If you have recently found out that you have been cheated on by your spouse or lover, you need to make some quick choices. Are you going to stay together and possibly put yourself in jeopardy of getting hurt again or are you going to cut your losses now? Surviving infidelity is an incredibly difficult task; you’ve got a long road ahead of you if you want your relationship to survive.

More than half of the marriages that are performed each year will end up in divorce. If you have been married previously, your chances for divorcing again double again. With statistics like this, it’s really hard to understand why anyone would want to get married, sometimes. Of course, we realize the reason-LOVE.

They say that true love can conquer all. You may be forced to question this clich?. When you become the victim of your spouse’s infidelity, you may question everything that has ever gone on between the two of you. You may find yourself wanting to harm your spouse or their lover. There is no answer in violence or revenge. These are temporary cures to an emotional nightmare that will only make everything worse in the end.

What do you do when you can’t trust the one you love the most in life? You’re faced with a nasty reality when you find out that your partner has been untrue. If half of all marriages end up in divorce, you have a very good chance of being alone at some point in time. No matter whom you marry or who you love, you may never again feel safe in a relationship.

You are going to have anger and hate in your heart when you’ve been cheated on. If you felt nothing when you learned of the infidelity, chances are high that you’ll be feeling them eventually. The longer you hold on to these negative feelings; they will literally fester inside of you. You can become physically ill with a variety of ailments from keeping your feelings inside.

Seek professional help if you are involved in a relationship where infidelity has occurred. The only way you’ll be surviving infidelity is if you sit down one on one and individually with a therapist and handle the situation. You can’t get through the thought process alone. You will need someone to help you verbalize your emotions and you’ll need to someone to act as referee over the dispute.

If you are truly interested in surviving infidelity, there’s a lot of work to be done. First of all, you need to understand the reason for the infidelity. It’s not a black and white issue. Your spouse or loved one may try to give you ambiguous reasons for the situation to have occurred but you need to get to the bottom of things.

Oh Wow?

So I went up to the club at my country club last night to network, spread positivity, connect and see what’s up in the world.  Wow, I’m still spinning.  Let me set this up appropriately.  I live in an exclusive country club community outside Las Vegas that is absolutely beautiful.  Our members consist of  business mogels, soap opera stars, entertainers, professional athletes, professional sports coaches and college coaches as well, and here at our club, they have no titles.  In addition, like any country club, we have a men’s golf league every Friday night, so after 5pm every Friday, the grill/club is rockin’ with testosterone filled stories.  Where’s the reality show producers???

I’m a seasoned guy, I’ve been around the world a few times; been through relationships and a divorce with kids, and at 47 yrs old, I understand the complexities of our society in relationship to success in life and with a “relationships” and a partner.  AND yet my head is spinning!

I walk in and sit at the country club bar… order a Heineken, and three women walk up to me and we start a conversation.  One of the women I knew casually through my kids, as they are in sports together; the other two were new introductions.  Because of my questions and my thirst for understanding regarding success and relationships, the conversation quickly went to “how they met their husbands” to “their experiences” and “their current status.”  Let’s put it this way… it was wide open, and here’s the 411… 2 of the 3 women I was having a real conversation with about relationships said they had a 3-way sexual experience with their current husband… one had a 4-way… a flat out swinging experience.  So my follow up question after listening to their stories was… “if you could do it over, would you do it again?”   Without hesitation, they both said yes!!  As a matter of fact, they indicated they would do it again tomorrow…. wow.

All that is well and good.  No judgement here.  It’s not for me… yet I respect people’s needs and different operating styles.  Yet, here’s my thing…with the divorce rate at over 50% and many people that I meet that are married are unhappy or indifferent about life, are these two women on to something???  Outside the U.S., sex is more open rather than almost “Taboo” in regards to experiences and satisfying one’s sexuality.  Hmmmm…… I’m still spinning.  From a man’s perspective, yea!  Let’s switch up and order off the menu…. it’s all good, right? I believe that would be the popular answer from men, and hey, I get it.  Yet, what about exclusivity and a feeling of your lady being sacred?  Old School???  Am I a Pilgrim?  Am I stuck in some TV land re-run?  I don’t know for sure, yet to imagine of some dude having sex with my lady just doesn’t feel good.

With that being said… all is good at the Country Club.  More to come!

Psychology Today

Susan Pohlman, now 50, reluctantly accompanied her workaholic husband on a business trip to Italy believing it would be their last together.  Back home in Los Angeles were their two teenagers, their luxurious home, their overfurnished lives – and the divorce lawyer she had contacted to end their 18 year marriage.

They were leading such parallel lives that collaboration had turned into competition, with fights over things like who spent more time with the kids and who spent more time working.  But knocked off balance by the beauty of the coast near Genoa toward the end of the trip, Tim asked, out of the blue, “What if we lived here?”  ”The spirit of this odd day overtook me,” recalls Susan.  At 6pm on the evening before departure, they were shown a beautiful apartment overlooking the water.  Despite knowing no Italian, they signed a lease.  Two months later, with their house sold, they moved with their kids to Italy for a year.

“In L.A. we were four people going in four directions.  In Italy, we became completely dependent on each other.  How to get a phone?  How to shop for food?  Also, we had no belongings.  The simplicity forced us to notice the experiences of life.  Often, we had no idea what we were doing.  There was a lot of laughing at and with each other.”  Susan says she “became aware of the power of adventure and doing things together, and how they become a natural bridge to intimacy.

Both Pohlmans found Italy offered “a more appreciative lifestyle.”  Says Susan: “I realized the American Dream was pulling us apart.  We followed the formula of owning, having, pushing each other.  You have all this stuff but you’re miserable because what you are really craving is interaction.”  Too, she says, American life is exhausting, and “exhaustion distorts your ability to judge problems.”

Now back in the U.S. and living in Arizona, the Pohlmans believe they needed to remove themselves from the culture to see its distorting effects.  ”And we needed to participate in a paradigm shift: I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect; let’s not get hung up on our imperfections.”  But the most powerful element of their move could be reproduced anywhere, she says: “The simplicity was liberating.”

Great case study, and many of us have been there.  Jennifer and I recently had an opportunity to get a “bigger and grander” house with a big pool and back yard overlooking the Las Vegas skyline.  We pondered for a few days… and realized that the house, although nice, wasn’t the focal point of our happiness, we were.  With that, we decided to keep it simple and chill.