Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, Guido Reni (1631)

The psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Frank Pittman is a lead­ing expert with regards to the issue of infi­delity. By far, one of the best writ­ings on the topic is his book Pri­vate Lies: Infi­delity and the Betrayal of Inti­macy. If you or some­one close to you has been impacted by an affair, it is a must-read and is a clas­sic on the issue of infidelity.

One of the bet­ter parts of the book is when he dis­cusses the ways in which a cou­ple can pre­vent an affair from hap­pen­ing in their lives. Here is a review of some of his thoughts.

Dr. Pittman main­tains that to pre­vent an affair, you need to first pro­tect your mar­riage. One of the glar­ing facts is this—most affairs usu­ally occur in one of two places—in a social set­ting (like church) or at work. With this, we need to care­fully reg­u­late our rela­tion­ships with those of the oppo­site sex (or the same sex, if we are attracted to those of the same gen­der). In terms of my work as a coun­selor, every per­son I have coun­seled who had an affair started this rela­tion­ship in the con­text of friend­ship. If you are in a rela­tion­ship with some­one that might be too close, here are some of the ques­tions you might ask yourself:

•    How per­sonal do I let these con­ver­sa­tions get with this per­son?
•    Do I usu­ally only share neg­a­tive details about my mar­riage or spouse?
•    Do we some­times speak with sex­ual innuendo?

If you answered these ques­tions pos­i­tively, you may be in a rela­tion­ship that is mov­ing in a wrong direc­tion. I like a quote in the book; Dr. Pittman pro­claims, “Carry your mar­riage with you wher­ever you go.” In this con­text, imag­ine your spouse is with you in every con­ver­sa­tion, in every inter­ac­tion, and with you in every­thing you do.

One of Dr. Pittman’s more unortho­dox admis­sions in pre­vent­ing an affair is to accept the pos­si­bil­ity of being sex­u­ally or emo­tion­ally attracted to another per­son. Being phys­i­cally or emo­tion­ally attracted to some­one can often be com­mon and to expect that you are never going to be attracted to some­one else is sim­ply unre­al­is­tic. If this is the case, acknowl­edge this attrac­tion, and don’t hide it. This will often mean that you will need to share such infor­ma­tion with your spouse. By doing so, this may be the one thing that takes the power out of the attrac­tion and temptation.

Another way in which you can pre­vent an affair is two-fold, work on your mar­riage, but in the same breath, be real­is­tic about it as well. First, work hard at striv­ing to keep your mar­riage inti­mate. Inti­macy, whether it is sex­ual or emo­tional, is the glue of the mar­riage and can never be over-looked no mat­ter how many years you have been mar­ried. Sim­ply put, be inten­tional in being inti­mate in all dif­fer­ent kinds of ways with your spouse. Be inten­tional with talk­ing to one another. Be inten­tional with affec­tion. Be inten­tional sexually.

How­ever, at the same time, be real­is­tic about your mar­riage. No one should expect their mar­riage to make them happy. Accept the real­ity of mar­riage, it isn’t always beau­ti­ful and easy. Each mar­ried cou­ple must accept that they are both imper­fect and should never require the other per­son to be a source of hap­pi­ness for them. If this res­onates with you, you maybe are expect­ing too much from your mar­riage. If this is the case, what should you do? First and fore­most, pay spe­cial atten­tion to your rela­tion­ship with God. Delve deeper with your friend­ships. Learn how to be alone. Find some­thing to be active in that you enjoy doing on a reg­u­lar basis.

As we have already said, the con­se­quences of hav­ing an affair are seri­ous. God says clearly, adul­tery will bring spir­i­tual, phys­i­cal, and emo­tional calamity. But Scrip­ture is also clear that adul­tery is first and fore­most, pre­ventable. As an exam­ple, through­out the book of Proverbs we learn many dif­fer­ent ways in how to pre­vent an affair. Its main sug­ges­tion: run. Like Joseph with Potiphar’s wife (Gen­e­sis 39), run as far away as you can from your temptations.

Right now, some of us need to make some changes in our lives for this to hap­pen. Sim­ply begin here: start by being forth­right and hon­est with your­self, your spouse, or maybe a close and trusted friend. Let some­one know what is going on. Let some­one know the dan­ger­ous places you are tak­ing your­self. Let some­one know that you want to run far from your temp­ta­tions, but some­times you don’t have the strength to do so and you need their help.

Next time, I will end this series by offer­ing a per­sonal word or two.