Marriage Helper LIVE: The 3 Phases of Affairs - With Dr. Joe Beam - Episode 06

alive my name is Kimberly Holmes sorry for the technological sound issues it's always something but hey we're gonna roll with the punches on today's show we are going to be talking about affairs we talk a lot at marriage helper about affairs because we've worked with a lot of relationships that have been affected by Affairs and if you are in that situation where your marriage has been affected by an affair then you understand how terrifying it can be there's a rollercoaster of emotions you go through from suspecting that the affair is happening to confirming that there's an affair and then the time after that where you are kind of out of control as to what your spouse is gonna choose to do and so there's a ton of things you want to know you want to know why it's happening you want to know what you can do to get the affair to end and to get your spouse to come back to you you want to know how long it's gonna last as humans we want to know answers for everything yes we do unfortunately we can't always give the answers that we want there are some basic information we can share some principles but I don't know we can answer every specific question a person has because even though we know a lot about affairs having read the research thousands and thousands and thousands of pages having done our own research and having worked with thousands of couples we know quite a bit but even then while there's some commonalities there are also individuals and so we can't always answer every question but we can give some basic understanding absolutely if you've been around the marriage helper community for any length of time then you probably know what we teach about affairs but if you're new then we're gonna give a short intro into that as well so that's kind of where I want to start Joe what are the briefly the three types of affairs that we talk about in general are what if you read different people you can find out that there are a ton of different kinds of affairs based on how people want to divide them we make them as simple as possible therefore we call one the short-lived that means something that primarily is sexual has a very small if any emotional connection and is typically about opportunity like being the wrong place at the wrong time or vengeance or ego they gets out of control drinking all kinds of subheadings to the short-lived affair but those are primarily about sex and then we have what we called the aloud affair and that's when there's what's called an open marriage you can sleep with whoever you want to I can sleep whoever I want to and typically those will end up badly over time they can be exhilarating at the outset but but inevitably at least makes them one I can read and see for most of those couples at ones of destroying the relationship and then the kind that we deal with the most commonly which we call the relationship affair and that's typically one that didn't start off with the intention of Haven being an affair it started off with friendship exposure to another person a lot of interaction with each other the walls come down meaning you start being yourself revelatory you start seeing inside the other person they see inside of you that kind of trust is developed and after a while it crosses a line and then by the time it turns sexual most of those are full-fledged deep emotional bindings and and that's what we call the relationship affair so that third one that relationship affair you'll see a lot of people refer to it as an emotional affair is that the same thing or is that different typically they refer to an emotional affair before it becomes sexual okay like I had an emotional affair meaning we didn't wind up having intercourse with each other but that we crossed boundaries when they came to our relationship so this relationship affair could be just emotional or it could be emotional and sexual yes most of them do actually go into the sexual phase and it's Tillich tensely strongly emotional some do stop before that occurs and good for them I mean it's still not good that they did what they did but at least they didn't go that far yeah okay so that third type of affair that relationship affair is the one we are gonna be spending most of our time on today and I want to start off with warning about this please watch this whole video this whole show to the end with what we're gonna be talking about today you don't want to just hear bits and pieces and then try and put it together ourself it can be quite confusing be very confusing and could lead you to do things that you shouldn't do so we're gonna talk about all that in a second thing after you learn that you better be careful with whom you share it absolutely and we'll explain more in a few minutes about what that means but actually if you try to take what you learn and share it with the wrong person it's going to make things more difficult than they are now absolutely so we're gonna give you tips on all of that but that's why it's so important that you listen to this entire show it's gonna be really good all right so we're gonna be talking about that we define what it is so what we call the term that we use that we describe the relationship affair as is called limerence can you tell our viewers some of them know about it but to the ones who don't know what that word means can you explain what that means well limerence is the phrase we use when it gets to a certain level it doesn't start off as limerence but it can evolve into limits limits is a word coined by dr. dorothy tena back in the 1970s and it describes the act of being madly in love quote-unquote if you want to look it up on research it's like every other thing your research there's all kinds of various and different views as to what it might be some still staying with what ten I've had to say others evolving that like Helen Fisher and her colleagues but basically it's when a person becomes obsessed emotionally with the other person at that point we call it limb race okay so not every relationship affair is limerence most of them get there okay because of the relationship the deep emotional connection but we don't call it limits until it becomes the obsessive like I am now obsessed with you gotcha so if someone doesn't get to that point but they have that obsessive point but they start having a relational affair it could be easier for them to end it yes these are the people that typically because of their value system it's what they believe is right what they believe is wrong these are the people that early on into it begin to realize what I'm feeling for you is not right based on my beliefs and baggage I'm violating my marriage vows for example and and therefore I need to pull out of it know if they can pull out of it at that point they typically have not become obsessed with the other person it may be a little obsessed with the other person but not full-fledged limerence yet and so yeah it is in limits is easier to end at the very very beginning or at the very very end it's more difficult to end when you're actually in that process okay okay so this my question has evaded me but it will it won't come back I've always told myself it was important it will come back hope that's true that's hope that's true okay so this limits I remember the obsession that you talk about what does that look like and if those two people are not bad for each other they might wind up married to each other and okay that's fine but typically and they'll go more linear but a person who is violating his or her belief system by being married to one getting involved with the other it tends I don't know which camera to look at I'm not being told here what you can to look at but if if it's going like this it'll look like three steps forward two steps back those kinds of things as it goes up and down and in that process gets stronger and stronger and stronger the ends of Phase two that's what we call infatuation phase two is crystallization and in that phase the obsessiveness really begins to show late phase one finally into Phase two and in Phase two there's certain characteristics you won't mention those now are you only asked more questions about that let's not get into that just yet but you just briefly over viewed phase one right okay before getting into the all of these phases so when limits are starting as dr. beam is saying there's these three phases that people go into now here is the warning again before getting into these three phases it's going to be easy for you to want to get obsessive trying to want to figure out where is my spouse and so here's what I want to talk about should people care I mean does it matter to know which stage is my husband or which stage is my wife in in the sense that it helps you understand some of his or her behavior then yes because it's like okay what's happening now is not just my spouse people who get into this stage or phase typically act like that and in that sense it can be helpful because it keeps you from freaking out like mmm okay this is known we expect these kinds of things to occur so I understand but if you're trying to do it in terms of trying to figure out exactly how long everything is going to last like for example according to Fisher's work dr. Fisher we know that limits can last somewhere between 3 months and 48 months it seems that most of the time it lasts 24 months or less but from three months to 48 months there can be some that are much shorter some that are even longer but those are extremely rare so rare that statistically we call them an outlier in other words we see it but we can't even measure it because it's so rare the problem is when people try to figure this out saying oh that means there this many months left before he or she's out of this that's when it can be a problem because you start getting expectations that that nobody should have like one guy actually said well with 36 months in there there's only 12 more months and we're out probably but you could be out tomorrow right or it could be a little longer than twelve months so if you do it and trying to know exactly where he or she is so you can know exactly what's coming next mm-hmm that's not going to work if you want to understand the general principles of each phase so that you can at least know have some understanding of why he or she's doing where he or she's doing then that's good okay but don't let it confine you use it as a guiding principle of this is the way it goes but also this isn't something I need to take as the an absolute guarantee well because of the fact that it moves like if you're going through phase one infatuation and again it's loopy it's not a straight thing and then it starts into phase 2 sometimes it can go a little back into face 1 for a while back into Phase two for a while and then over here for example when it starts coming out of crystallization which is phase 2 and starts going into deterioration which is phase 3 sometimes it'll get down here and then go right back up here again because we're talking about human emotions and people in human emotions you can't predict everything here she's going to do and when they're going to do it the general principle yeah because if you know a person is really down here in the sense that it appears to me that my husband and wife is in late deterioration then some of the things you would do here you would do based on the idea that they may be here but but not trying to say okay exactly here exactly here exactly here exactly here the general principles what you're looking for okay again and I'm being redone and I apologize so that you know that makes them what he or she's doing other people have faced the very same thing that it's not unique just to your spouse and they know that what you're doing is the wisest thing for you to do okay okay all right so we've talked about that stage one which is infatuation right alright so in a infatuation we have the people are going into it what are the main again what are those main things to look for in infatuation I mean I don't know what you're saying if your spouse is if you feel like your spouse is in an affair then what are the main things that would let you know that's the stage that they're in or can you tell I don't know that the matters again it's it's trying to understand that people are going to do certain things if they're closer down here in the beginning then they're gonna make more tries to stop it if it's in violation their beliefs and eggs so for example if you're husband and wife came to you and said there's this woman at work I'm beginning to pay a lot of attention to her it's going too far now told her to quit calling me etc then you're probably relatively early in a phase one and you'd want at least four your support is rather than going what what do you mean you're turrible full evil person because if he or she is open enough to be transparent to you they're there asking for help and if you want to save the marriage you give help you don't attack them now as they get closer to the top of that is when they're gonna make much more likely to hide it and if you think that things are something's wrong for example there's time missing I don't know where she is she disappears for hours at a time or my husband said he was working late but I ran into his buddies and they said no way all closed up shop at 5:00 if there's money missing for example I don't know where that hundred dollars went or that fifty dollars went and they're not saying you tried to watch every little penny every person spends I don't necessarily mean that but it's like there's significant gaps here something's going wrong or if the other person begins to be extremely cold toward you not wanting to spend any time with you whatsoever at all then probably is getting up closer to the crystallization phase which means that he or she's probably not gonna be open and transparent what do you mean if you confront them here I know you're involved with somebody I just don't know who it is they're much more likely to lie because at this point they're trying to hide it you understand they're trying to keep you from understanding that it's going on by the way people often say that's the thing that hurt the worse he lied she lied I get that I understand that but what would you expect them to do if they're already crossing boundaries yeah and if they're not in the early phases of it then yeah are they gonna lie if they get up here in a Phase two for example you're gonna see things such as they're gonna start rewriting history meaning they're not gonna remember any good times with you as a matter of fact you're not everybody does this in Phase two but most do they're gonna vilify you they're gonna be saying bad things about you to other people they're gonna be saying bad things about you to you is everything's gonna be your fault if they're up here into Phase two and the crystallization phase because what's happening up here is that they're going through some psychological things to help them do something this and a violation of their beliefs and values meaning that they're involved with this other person they know they shouldn't be and therefore because of the cognitive dissonance and we don't need to get in all that right now but because of the cognitive dissonance they have to have somewhere to live with themselves and so you become the problem it's all your fault and like I say they don't good things about you at all they take you things like I've never been in love with you back over in this phase they may say something like well I love you like a sister but I'm not in love with you appear it's if you're like I've never been in love with you I don't know why I married you or I married you for the wrong reasons and it'll have the reasons by the way and and so you become the bad person they vilify you rewrite history all that kind of thing and at this point they're almost completely obsessed with the other person up to 85% of their waking hours will be spent thinking about that person they'll be remembering things they've been doing together not necessarily sexual things but other things so they'll be replaying in their in their minds when they went to the lake together I kind of stuff they'll also be playing elaborate fantasies about the future about what it's going to be like when they find they wind up with him or her how great life is going to be when that happens and they actually start putting details to those fantasies and so that's why they spend up to 85% of their time thinking about the person up here up here it's the most intense part you wouldn't expect that to end that fast I mean at that point just like I took a while to get there it's gonna take a while to get out and even here they're going through all kinds of emotional ups and downs because they're hyper vigilant to the to the L o the Lord object and when they think that limit is showing favor toward them they're in ecstasy but when they think that the limit object is showing any kind of disfavor or displeasure with them they're in misery because they're in their reading every little thing the other person does everything means something - she did this that means he's thinking that etcetera etcetera and so we become a hyper vigilant toward the other person and they live in this tremendous fear that they're not gonna want them together and you're gonna see that fear yeah and again so you're gonna see a lot of emotions on their part but not tore you right or even toward your children because they're focused on that other person what are some of the things going on in their brain like chemical wise according to Fisher's work and which is interesting they do some MRI work actually fMRI work functional MRIs dopamine is increasing dramatically which is an ecstasy chemical a feel-good chemical using the other high serotonins decreasing dramatically serotonin is a calming chemical so they're actually very easily agitated the emotions are as high as they can be and and not just the good emotions the bad emotions Ramos is high again that that emotional rollercoaster their own because of the hyper vigilance of thinking what if he or she doesn't respond to me oh they become extremely jealous by the way of alo what what if he or he is around somebody else mm what if they wanted blooding them instead of me so they're actually very miserable people on this stage are very miserable but also ecstatic hmm and it's going like that and so when you see a person and you think boy that's not the person I married you're right they're so confused with happening their brain and emotions they don't know which way is up which way is down all they know is they feel really good when the other person shows in favor they feel really bad when the other person doesn't and that's the focus of their life and so if you expect to use logic and reasoning with this person it's not going to work nothing you say is gonna make any difference to this person whatsoever as a matter of fact if you attack the yellow they'll defend the yellow of their lives nobody understands him or her like I do but you also can't use emotion with that person in Lois sense if they're very emotional at this time the things they're feeling all that kind of stuff if you come to them very emotional to try and elicit guilt or some kind of feeling to come back to you that's not going to work either their emotions are focused on the yellow therefore if if they perceive you is trying to get between the two of them you become the enemy even if that's our six-year-old like your six-year-old son comes to you and tries to get you to go back to mom or back to dad you probably won't react as intensely as you would toward your spouse who is the true enemy in your mind in your mind not really the enemy but the enemy in the end the limerence mind they'll react negatively toward the six-year-old as well you don't understand you don't get it you need to go away Wow all right let's talk about phase three so phase two is crystallization which basically you named it that because these are your three stages no actually these are the stages that exist in literature but not applied necessarily to limerence okay so I've applied them to limits infatuation has actually applied to other kinds of love as well again in the outset the infatuation phase of limerence is similar to the infatuation stage of other kinds of love crystallization actually was a term coined a couple of centuries ago in literature having to do with seeing only the best than another person but it's not really part of the psychological literature it's more of a well ancient psychological literature and so I've kind of pulled that out of the Attic if you will dusting off the cobwebs and say that really applies to this very well here right and then deterioration is the phase that is the word I chose that one I'd actually picked up on my own to be it's going to come apart at some point it can't stay like this right I just can't and so when it starts coming down again not linear they're always messed up but when it comes down it's when some of the thing obsessing about the other person begins to change they may begin to see his or her flaws which they couldn't up here and the other person was perfect they they will begin to see as they get further down into Phase three now here's something where what they gave up when it cost them up here they'll give up the world for them whatever I had to sacrifice to be with you I will down here it's Wow I don't have the relationship with my kids I used to have because of you where I lost my job because you or my reputation is gone because of you none of that mattered up here none of that mattered up here I'll leave my kids for you I'll leave my spouse for you I'll leave my god for you I don't leave anything for you that's all that matters up here but at the end of phase 3 some of those things come back to haunt you okay so in Phase three what will you see the Limerick person do differently they'll start pulling away from the Limerick object yellow somewhere down in here and in the LMA keep pulling them back they may actually keep pulling them back in the face - they'll if they're still deeply in phase two they'll keep trying to pull this person back in the face - mm-hmm but if they're not if they're coming out of it as well you start seeing them separate they'll start going in different directions this person still may not want to come back to you because up here they have vilified you it's all been your fault you're bad you're terrible you're evil that's what they were thinking up here well that's still under conscious down here so that they may still not not come back to you mm-hmm and that's why we tell people don't think that when this thing ends it necessarily means the other person is going to come home that that they're actually things you should be doing that can lead this person back home and that's when we also say if the limit object dies I mean just gets killed in a plane crash it does not mean that your spouse is instantly gonna come back to you here's he may but not necessarily because they had vilified you so much there's still a process of things you need to go through to help lead him or her back to you mm-hmm okay so in with all of that information you said just before you start it into that of the real benefit of knowing those three stages is that it's a guideline for you to see maybe where your spouse is why they might be that way but it's also not something you should approach your spouse with and say here's what you're doing here's where you are you need to know this some of the early stuff we put out about which was very accurate we have become more accurate and and I hear from that will be even more accurate than now because we continue to learn about it but some of the first stuff we put out which was really accurate people thought oh I just need to show that to my husband and my wife and they'll see what they're doing and they'll come home people say that all the time all the time one time I saw it work really one time I got read it and went oh my goodness he called you didn't he or he called us actually was in one of our workshops okay he was in one of our job as he saw it now I have had people read some of my articles about limerence and actually call them as for me saying you've been reading my mail you know what I'm thinking or feeling yeah but this guy actually ended everything when he first learned about it so that's one out of how many things we'll see what we were taught most of the time don't give me tickling my sinuses are going on it's definitely a statistical outlier most of the time if you try to show that information to your spouse mm-hmm their reactions gonna be you don't understand right this is real love nobody has ever felt that way yeah and what you need to understand is what they're feeling is real it's a real emotion and it's intense as all get-out and if they think you're trying to tell them that this is not gonna last forever they're not gonna believe you because they're convinced that it's gonna last forever don't you understand it's their fear that it won't last forever that makes it so intense fear intensifies passion and so this fear here like oh here he is now they're acting kindly toward me I feel ecstasy all know here she's doing something I think they rejected me I'm telling misery that's that fear that makes that so intense and emotion that's doing like this and if you to walk in and say oh by the way that's gonna end right now hearts gonna end in a month or six months or whatever it might be they're like but don't you understand everything I'm focused on now is making this last rest of my life I'm not about to listen to you that tell me it's going to end and so even if I'm talking to somebody up here I'm not gonna have very much effectiveness and telling them that it's going to end because at this point they not believe it no so they'll just reject you you don't know what you're talking about and then if you bring them to us for people like us when we try to help them they're already in their mind prepared not to believe anything we say because you got that thing about limors from us therefore we must be idiots yep and they won't listen to us so the worst thing you can do is try to share this information with your spouse thinking it'll stop him or her it's gonna do actually more damage than good you shouldn't be doing that because it's gonna mess things up yeah absolutely we see that so so so often all the time and the whole description of it just brings me back to the way the experience I have with this is when I was a teenager and I was dating someone and then I thought this is it we'll be together forever and then when my parents or whoever would try and step in and say I couldn't date them or they wouldn't get four weren't good for me or whatever it just made me put a wall between me and my parents I mean if you think of it in terms of a teenager whether you were one that did that or whether you have one who's doing that it sounds similar it's that actually it's very similar now typically were the teenagers we call it an infatuation because it's more Charlotte right it typically doesn't last as long as it does with adults that's why we don't typically talk about rumors for teenagers we actually leave it at the infatuation stage it's seldom guests of the crystallization stage but but yeah it's definitely similar it's not as intense right okay so we answered the question of should you tell your spouse about the three stages I suggest that you do not or about limerence in general I suggest that you do not okay after this short break when we come back we're gonna talk about what you should do with this knowledge we're gonna answer a ton of questions that we have coming in on our facebook chat so stick around we'll be back in just a minute or so a barrage helper we're able to help people all over the world which is so awesome I want to show you something follow me this is the office of one of our client relations reps mark and mark isn't something really cool that I wanted him to share with you all mark tell us about what's on your wall it's a map of the United States if you haven't noticed that and so I got up for Christmas my kids gave it to me and what I do is I put a pin end to the city from where each workshop couple I've had the privilege of helping have come from so what this means to me is that these are the couples that I've had the privilege of helping possibly save their marriage now this is a just a scratch on a surface this is just workshop so understand that our coaching clients and save my marriage course clients literally span the globe so I know personally I've had coaching clients from England Australia Norway you know pretty much span it it's been there so but yeah let's just workshop really cool stuff and just a visual reminder of what I do why I do it and how far we actually reach which is pretty incredible we go from Vancouver British Columbia down to San Diego out to Miami and up to Maine and all points in between so covers all whole us which is really neat I love this over the past just nine months right so this is where they're all coming from we would love to be able to help you to whether it's through our workshop which is amazing and our team that mark is on can tell you even more about that or they can tell you about coaching if workshop isn't an option for you right now or any of our online options as well you can always give us a call contact us you can go to marriage helper comm or give us a call at eight six six nine zero three zero nine nine zero and Mark and the awesome people on his team they'll be able to get you set up with answers with solutions with hope for what you need in your situation and on your journey we hope to see you here Nashville of that map and Mark's office it is so awesome he's always adding pins to it and we're getting to see where people are coming from from across the world to our workshops here's one of the testimonies that we have of someone who has come to our workshop and it saved their marriage this is from Jennifer and she says the mayor Telfer team helped me when I was in desperate need of sound proven guidance that would help me number one get my life pulled together after it had been shattered and number two provides steps I could work through to do everything I could in hopes that my spouse would reconsider ending our marriage ending our marriage I began with the save my marriage program it gave me tools and a needed focus I listen to every video clip from dr. Joe and completed the workbook each week I listen to the radio show and worked through the program steps and I was able to pull myself up enough from my initial despair to realize that I wanted to grow and improve myself so one day I could walk on the love path hopefully with my spouse I wanted to know the foundations of a strong loving relationship and learned how to increase connections that led to shared aspirational goals marriage helpers information is rock-solid it is backed up by scientific research in the marital per team is the most passionate group you can find it's saving and restoring marriages I was also fortunate enough to attend the workshop with my spouse and it provided even more information that we use every single day in our marriage I plan to send my daughters through the course when they are engaged so they can learn this information before they are married use the tools to grow and enhance their marriage and hopefully avoid the pain and hurt from unknowingly bringing destructive habits to a marriage relationship keep it up Jennifer is awesome and she'll be getting some of our I love my family shirts we're excited to send those to her and some other goodies from Tennessee we love love love love those testimonies and for those of you who have children who are engaged who are getting married or know someone who is we have a special price for our workshop that we have for engaged couples so if that's something you're interested in we want them to come through so that they just like Jennifer said can get the tools before something happens in their marriage and yes they do come to the workshop yeah well we have a whole lot of people whose marriages are in trouble and it's a really why because they get to see not only hear the principles but they get to see how people can miss those principles up and also how they can work through problems and make it work well I think it's the best premarital stuff in the country absolutely so many people and I won't get off on a tangent but so many people they say we did our premarital counseling and all they asked us was how many kids do we want and where do we want to live and it's not that easy when you get married as you all know it's not exactly like bringing roses into the Rose Garden it can be difficult so we want to give them a real taste of it and let them see that marriages can work through things so it's absolutely absolutely awesome all right Joe we're getting back to talk more about limerence so one of the things you said at the beginning of the show is knowing what stage someone is in helps you as the spouse wanting to save the marriage know what to do differently that might look different in stage one than it would look in stage three no if I said that I was wrong okay it does not necessarily mean what you do in stage one is different than what you do in stage three how good it's gonna be that is pretty well the same thing all the way through it's to help you understand that what your spouse is doing is not the first time this has ever happened and it's not just your spouse then it's a commonality of people go through this process but you pretty well are gonna be doing the same thing all the way through which is not pushing because when you try to push they're gonna move away from you that if they do decide to be open and transparent with you and they're typically more likely to do it early or late it could happen up here but not as common at all more likely earlier late if they do decide to be transparent with you you listen you you we can passionate you try that under then that you realize that if you try to jump between the two of them thinking that's gonna solve the thing or you attack the other person thinking that's somehow gonna make things better it doesn't that if you try to control the situation it's gonna get even more of a control as far as you're concerned so it's about being a person that if you really truly want to save the marriage and you realize you could just say hit the road Jack don't you come back no more no more no more no more and the words of the great philosopher Ray Charles or or if you want to save the marriage it's like okay this is gonna be a process this is not a sprint it's a marathon and through this process I'm gonna see my husband or wife do some things that are gonna be very much like a jerk they're gonna say and do things that are gonna be so self-absorbed they idealize the other person maybe even idealize the other person's children to the detriment of me or to the detriment of our children they'll at points appeared to be totally unlike the person I fell in love with then married well if you understand what's gonna happen if you want to fight for the marriage and you stay strong we can't go through all of us here there's a thing called the pi's you can find that on our website and Kimberly continue more about that but you practice the PI's for you and and you be that person that rather than attacking you stay strong and you stand up for yourself you don't allow yourself to become a doormat that's bad too so sometimes there's a fine line here between being the compassionate strong one and being a jerk yourself which you don't want to be so that over here when finally this starts coming out which hopefully won't take that long but it could that when it does that your spouse begins to realize wow this is the person with whom I should be this is the person that loved me no matter what this is the person that loved me when I act like an idiot this is the person love me when I was mean and selfish and and that is what eventually pulls them back and we call that the love path and I can't explain the love path here that quickly but you pretty well do the same thing all of this we talk about just to help you understand okay it doesn't mean things are getting worse it just means that dressing through the stages it doesn't mean there's no hope it just means he or she's progressing through the stages so that when these things happened you know panic oh my oh my go hmm well they told me that was gonna happen and and know that eventually this limericks thing is gonna end it always ends and you want to be the person that when it does that rather than your husband or wife saying I don't want to come back to you that they do want to come back to you know we can't guarantee that they'll come back to you because we know a lot but I will take it if anything works if anything works this does Joe have you read the book or heard no about the book love must be tough James Dobson uh yeah I've read it like a hundred years ago right there was recently someone that was asking a question saying okay I get I get the limerence thing I get all of this but I read this book love must be tough and basically I've never read it but the premise of it was you you if your spouse is wanting out then you say okay and you cut off communication I think this is right and then they see what they're missing and then they'll come back so is that what you do in this as well and do you take what we're teaching do you combine it and pick and choose some other things that are out there like that how is that gonna work for people well you can do whatever you want today I mean it's your choice uh-huh dr. Dobson interesting man and and then the love must be tough concept actually when I was doing the radio program with with him many years ago I was actually told in advance there were certain things about what we teach that I couldn't say and because they were in contradiction to what dr. Dobson believed and if dr. Dobson didn't believe it you couldn't say it on their radio show okay so and there was this show I did it the way they wanted me to do it I'm just trying to tell you that if you cut them off which is your right you can do that and you can move on with your life if you wish why would they want to come back to you you say because they're gonna see what they're missing if they're truly in a limit relationship they're not seeing anything but that that's all they're saying now are there times when you need to be tough we teach that all the time you do not allow yourself to become a doormat you don't let him or her do just anything and everything they want to do if it's gonna be detrimental to you or if you have kids it's gonna be detrimental to your kids there are places where you just draw the line and say mmm no not gonna happen etc for example that they get an attorney and they start some legal proceedings we suggest strongly that you get a very powerful and strong attorney and you stand up for yourself you said well why do it what about being compassionate and kind let the attorney be the gladiator that's what he receives for let them fight and if your spouse looks at you and says yeah that just proves I should have left you a long time ago because all you care about is my money or whatever else am i me you very calmly but strongly and gently kindly say hmm I'm not the one who wants this divorce I didn't start this but as long as you proceed through this and then my attorneys the one that I'll listen to because I know that he or she has my best interest in heart you're still gentle cannon would you let that attorney be powerful and strong so are there places where you need to be tough yeah but if you cut off all contact and so you go away I think that's pretty well can I happen careful what you wish for exactly so I hope that you all are hearing this if this is what your marriage situation is in then there's not gonna be a way you can guilt your spouse to come back there's not gonna be a way that you can cry or beg or whine or plead in just the right way or say the magical words that's gonna break this thought in their mind break these feelings break this emotion and just bring them running back home to you that's not how it works it takes day after day after day of consistent practice on your part of these things of working on yourself of being calm and gentle which doesn't look like entering into fights with them every time you talk as a matter of fact you avoid the fights as much as you can now you still sent up for yourself we're not saying that you don't but fighting with him or her fighting with the other person it's not gonna be to your benefit in most cases no and these things aren't easy to do the concepts are easy but actually implementing them into your life when you're feeling all of these emotions it's much easier said than done so that's why we encourage you to get with our coaches our marriage coaches will you can you tell them everything about the situation whether your spouse is divorcing you whether they're living in the same house it doesn't matter whatever your situation is in our marriage coaches will walk you through step by step okay work on this part of it now they'll help you get your emotions calmed back down I love being able to when I hear the people who when they're entering into coaching and they're just so tired and they're so hopeless and just devastated because everyone their friends their family their pastor has told them that this isn't gonna work to just let their spouse leave let them be with the other person there's nothing they can do I just heard it again last week and at the end of a conversation it's I have hope again thank you and that's just the one session with our coach and so I strongly recommend it they will take you we're teaching you that 80 percent of the foundational material but there are coaches take you that extra 20 percent of okay here's how you implement it based on your situation and where you are and here's what you shouldn't say to your spouse they'll ask you questions like okay if you do what you're planning on doing that you just tell me about now again we're not guaranteeing you that if you use our coaches it's automatically gonna make your marriage good and everything is gonna be wonderful we just keep telling you that our system if anything works if anything works this will when they're gonna lie to you we're not going to claim there's a magic phrase or a magic action are you all kinds of places Internet's been $49 by video that'll tell you exactly what to do and if you say those words knew those things your spouse will come running back madly in love with you you do better off to take that $49 and give it to charity at least then some good would come from it yeah absolutely all right so let's get into some question okay and if you have more questions about coaching actually you can find out on our website you go to marriage helper com you can call us we don't have anything about coaching yet on our website because it's relatively we haven't pushed it to the public until now because we we have a limited amount of coaches and they're already slammed but we are going to be doing more of that in the future so call us if you want more information about our coaching and you can find that number on our website or I'll tell it to you now it's eight six six nine zero three zero nine nine zero Joe one of the questions people ask a lot is can limerence for the ello stop and then start again typically it doesn't stop and start again in the up here too what I mean by that is it may stall but it doesn't really stop it doesn't really go away it just stalls for a while and that typically occurs if the person is thinking I shouldn't do this this is against my morals against my values I shouldn't I shouldn't have you involved in this then it can stall for a while or if they got over here and in a later phase and begin to see the flaws and the spouse and begin to have some troubles for they're arguing or fighting with each other it can also stall for a while but then restart it doesn't truly stop it stalls because once the limerence is over and then some time passes according to the best research out there it does not come back as limerence the understanding of limits in the research at this point is they can definitely can only be for one person at a time it can't be for two people at the same time or more just one now that's so obvious in the research but the other is that once it truly ends with a person it doesn't come back with that person now there might be a fantasy that comes back about how then they're just remembering the parts they like they're not remembering the parts that we're miserable and sad and hurtful but so down here they can actually start having some some daydreams about the good parts but it's not a reoccurrence of limerence typically that point is because what I'm having over here is not fulfilling mm-hmm they don't get an elaborate scheme of that person they're just looking for memories and not even consciously doing so but looking for memories to where at one time though I felt could mm-hmm okay good answer some other of the questions that have come in here they're asking okay so if my husband is in or my wife is in stage two with our vilifying me all these things and because of their feelings towards me in this stage they start the divorce proceedings then how what is it that I can do you mentioned getting an attorney fighting for myself but is there anything else to focus on typically suggest that you drag it out because the longer you go the better chance you get toward the end of limerence but in the process of dragging it out do the things you need to do like we heard one lady say all that his attorney keeps asking for this but I won't give it because dr. beam said drag it out well if it's subpoenaed by the courts or asked for dragging it out is not violating those kinds of things you don't want to take the judge off that you that's not going to do you any good don't do things just to aggravate the other person thinking that's going to drag it out it just means you don't have to jump every time the other person wants you to jump you can take your time to think things through think and do things the way that are the best benefit for you and and dragged out in that sense not in their sense of just taking off everybody else involved that's typically not a good thing but they may actually wind up divorcing you now I know you don't want to hear that and nobody wants ed to happen but if anyone listening knows my history and when I was in phase two is when I divorced my wife Alice then the limerence ended because it always does for me thank God it ended before I wound up marrying the other person and and therefore I was still single but I had so vilified Alice I didn't come right back to her as a matter of fact I thought being alone still better than me man Alice because now I'm living a lifestyle like I'd never lived before I'm moving to nightclubs I'm drinking and then I might just stuff like that which I found myself enamored of for a while basically it was a way to cover my pain but I didn't understand that you see but when I finally came to my senses as it were Alice had done all these things you know nobody taught Elsa do it she just did it instinctively she'd been strong and powerful her attorney stood up to me all those kinds of things she had always been kind and gentle now early early on she did the wrong things like almost everybody does but after that she was pretty strong and even so that eventually when I came to my senses it's what I call Alice and asked if she would consider the possibility of taking me back what I mean by that is we have couples come through our workshop often who already are divorced and they're coming to see if they can put it back together and to marry each other again one couple had been divorced for ten years another couple recently was what eight or nine years so even if they were under divorcing you in there up here it doesn't mean it's necessarily over unless you choose hard to be at any point you can decide I'm done I'm gonna move on with my life and you have the right to do that and and I don't suggest you spend the next 10 years waiting for him to come back that's not my suggestion at all there is a point when sometimes you just accept what is is and you move on with your life but even then if you have learned and followed the principles that we teach even if this relationship doesn't come back and we we truly hope this one does we're all about restoring marriage isn't making marriage is stronger we're not about trying to marry off to somebody else we really aren't but if you do all these right things if god forbid it doesn't work and eventually your spouse comes up marrying another person you now know so much more about relationships about how to make wonderful relationships that that that's going to attract somebody really good into your life or you're gonna have a good future with him or her you know again that's not our goal for you but it's a secondary benefit if mm-hmm if this other person just never comes to his or her senses we hope and pray they do and our system is designed to help you get them to where they do is it common or typical that a person in the affair will want to file for divorce not unusual at all typically if they don't it's either because they don't have the resources like I can't afford to do that or because of the fact they're still some of the morality nagging at them like and often then they try to get the spouse to divorce them they'll do everything they can like you deserve somebody better than me you'd need to be with somebody who's really good for you I'm not and and they'll do those that's one approach or does it they mean as a snake they'll do everything they can to get the other person to divorce them which if there's a vestige of the morality left up here you know the morality is going to come back hopefully at some point hopefully but if there's a vestige left up here then often that will keep them from actually going to above the divorce if the spouse who's in limerence starts sharing things with you with the spouse you know the standing spouse they start sharing things what we would call bricks which that basically means these are things about me that I don't have to tell you but I'm taking a chance and telling you these things about my feelings about things that have happened to me all of these things in a way to try and be open and transparent so if this starts happening does that typically happen in a certain stage or can it happen in all of them it can have and all of the good is more likely to occur early in stage one or in the latter parts of stage three this one is more likely to occur but who knows it can occur at any point you understand that because limits is an emotion and a very powerful emotion is quirky and it can vary with people and so let's say a persons are in phase two but they're doing this and now they go way down here and whenever down here you're the person that's still listening that person is still safe and so they may start sharing like crazy right here now is it a good thing yes but if they're really in Phase two then they still may go right back to where they were before okay it was just a dip and they'll go back you say then what benefit was it it's still hoping that when over here it's like being with you it's better than not being with you I remember that when I was in the very middle of that you were the one that listened to me right even if they bang right back up to where they were and that little tip you were doing that listen to me you cared about me you shall be compassion that can I've seen that happen a lot of times by the way that did eventually as this began to fade over here lead the person back to his or her spouse that's thing that happened a lot and yet understand that if it happens here don't think huh okay it's over here she's back doing a dip but it's a dip that actually in the advantage of the marriage in the long run even though it's gonna frustrate you when they pop right back up to where they were hmm okay so in the instance going back to the divorce we don't recommend that you file if your spouse is trying to get you to file by being mean or doing things like that we don't recommend that you take that bait no but again you need to decide what's best for you for example you're gonna be in financial ruin if you don't because your spouse that's not going crazy and they're committing all kinds of debt you may have to just to protect yourself from financial things that are going to happen out there or if if your children are in jeopardy in some fashion I mean there may be a reason that you need to divorce but as a general rule we suggest that you don't but we always suggest take care of yourself and take care of your kids if you have them and therefore if you have to then you do that because you need to take care of you yeah let's talk about the kids for a minute so a couple of questions that came in one of them specifically the other woman in this case so it's the husband having an affair the kids are older they're in their 20s they're angry at their dad they don't want anything to do with it now the other woman is emailing the children telling them that they are treating their dad terribly that they need to be talking to him what should the mom the moms reaching out saying what do I encourage my kids to do should they respond should I let them stay silent how does that work I don't think mom should be telling twenty-year-old what to do she can be the listening caring she can be the sounding board they can bounce their ideas off of her and and you can suggest them things for them to think about the third into 20s be very careful about telling him what to do now if they're telling you we don't like that woman it really makes us angry that she's contacting us about how we should be acting toward our dad after she's the one to pull us away she's got no business doing that if that's what they feel then they have the right to say that to her now he dad's probably gonna react badly toward them if they do because if he's in phase two particularly he's gonna defend her at all cost but they have the right to do that they have tried to say they listen woman leave us alone and if you don't leave us alone we're gonna do whatever we have to do to make sure that you do leave us alone so you walk her on the Facebook make sure she can't get your Twitter account to change your cell phone number if you need to yeah and so the kids have a right to do that I don't think you should be suggesting to them one way or the other what they do let them do what's honest for them because they're in a different situation as the kids than you are as the spouse mm-hmm absolutely we have some other questions that have come in one person is asking she says my husband and I have been separated he's never sincerely apologized for his actions and my children and I have been deeply hurt in spite of all this I've been tried to encourage my kids to continue a relationship and tell them how they feel but they don't want to my husband and I still talk a little bit but we're living separate lives lately he's coming once a week to mow the lawn even though I haven't asked him to I asked him to show me how to do it myself but he said not to worry about it that he would take care of it he also comes buying gives me flowers about every month or so I'm not sure what to think of all of this is this normal behavior because he's feeling guilty or it could be that or could it be that he's coming out of an affair the limerence as you started the program people want to know why why did he do this - you that if you try to figure out the why of every action every word every look yeah you're gonna drive yourself crazy ya know if you want to know why I just put it on Facebook because all those people know why people that don't know you they don't know you and they'll tell you exactly why he's doing it I hope you don't listen to that because they're inserting their own selves into that their own experiences or the experiences they've been witness with others not your experience so why don't you just take it at face value you say he hasn't apologized yet don't anticipate that it will if you're still living a part then this man based on what you've written here appears to be initially trying to restart some kind of relationship no I'm not saying that that means he's trying to come back and be your husband at this point I am saying the least he's trying to stay in your life or the life of your kids or both can be bet to cut the grass understand that men typically nests it's not true of every man but it's generally true of men men typically indicate intimacy through actions through things they do the fact that he comes and cuts the grass for you and you said well I'll cut it myself II said no no I'll take care of it if you think about no way that men tend to think no I can't tell you exactly about your husband because I don't know your husband but that actually is a way of doing something for you which is in the way the men thing is a thing of intimacy the fact that about once a month he brings you those flowers the same thing you say but he's not saying anything men tend not to be as verbal that's what men are extremely verbal like me with men tend not to be as verbal but the fact that he's doing those things I look at that and go awesome I'm glad he is be kind be appreciative and maybe when he gets through cutting the grass have some cold lemonade made and say hey how about some women they have it set up there under the shade tree if he doesn't like coming in the house have a little table out there and and maybe the next time you sit out there and drink a cup of lemonade with him or a glass of lemonade with him don't try to get your kids to feel differently than what they feel encourage them to be honest and open with their emotions you be their safety net it's like you're being that's great and when you bring to the flowers very good when he gives them to you you might say something like hmm I think these will look really good on the dining room table I've got just the perfect face for it here tell me what you think do it while he's there you don't have to go into a conversation you'd have to expect anything from him what you're just doing is help it go a little further a little further a little further now you say but I want him to come in and tell me how sorry yes for what he did right now you're dating again just a little just a little think about it like that don't expect everything else from him just a little let it evolve continue to do the right things reinforce his behavior about positive reactions from you and and hopefully this will lead to sometimes sitting under that shade tree drinking the lemonade or cold beer if that's what he prefers and he starts talking a little bit don't pour sit don't push it just let it happen this seems to me to be evolving in the right direction don't push it don't push it let it happen be patient it sounds like this guy I'm not you worth rescuing and this might be the first part of that mm-hmm you said that it's a little bit like dating like you're dating a little bit I would think it's more like flirting with what she said it Milky Way because it's when think about it when someone back when you were single maybe with your husband when he was flirting with you if he were to hand your few flowers your response would not be what are these for no why did you bring this your response would be oh my goodness thank you so much and it also wouldn't be well what does this mean about our relationship because you're just flirting right right that's very good so that's more so where this is right now all right Joe for the final question I have a lot of people are saying and asking well what's the difference in me following this thing moving working on my pies practicing the smart contact being kind in general doing that versus enabling them to continue to have their affair and also know that I'll be here as a backup okay first of all don't ever say you're always going to be there I'm serious actually one woman told me about a little over a year ago I didn't realize how much I was giving the message I was giving until he said hey if this other thing doesn't work out for me I'll come back because you've made it plain you'll take me back no matter what I don't think it's a good idea that you get that message I'll take your back no matter what enabling is when you're actually doing things to help him or her do the things they're doing don't do that for example the person is living at home with you and they're leaving every night at 10:00 and coming back at 1:00 a.m. maybe you don't tolerate that kind of behavior now we don't have time to explain that in great detail here there's a thing called the valley that I don't have time to explain at all in this program but there's some behaviors that you tolerate for a while if things are actually progressing and developing your relationship again but there are some things you don't tolerate at all there are definitely things you draw boundaries about this can't happen and if it does this is the consequence that's going to occur there's a thing called criteria we say this must happen if it doesn't here's the negative consequence if it does here's the positive consequence so we're not saying enable we're talking about here you being a strong powerful you that's stronger than anything here's he's doing but we're not talking about you making it possible for them to do terrible things we're saying that as they're doing the things they're going to do that you can't control them any way that you continue to be that strong and powerful person but you don't ever indicate well if you want to go see her that's fine with me I wouldn't do that unless you wanted to be over and then say like this hey if you want to go see her fine with me I'm out of here anyway but not when you're doing the other things you understand you don't you don't encourage or reinforce bad behavior this is about you being the best you can be it's not about you trying to control their behavior either trying to stop them or they help them they make her own decisions about that we're talking about you making decisions about you that's really really good so if you take anything away from this program the first and most important thing is that watch the whole thing there are so many things that we talked about and if another part is we didn't even go into detail about every part of this that all works together into the bigger process of it we didn't talk about smart contact we didn't go into depth about pies we didn't talk about the valley there's this big system that's going on here and we just taught you this one little sliver of it in one part of the pie which again is why we encourage coaching from someone who's trained in this not from your friend down the street or the person on Facebook they people mean well but I don't even know how to finish that sentence they give terrible advice they do mean but they really mean well and also there's the people again who mean well but they don't know how to handle these kinds of situations so they tell you it's hopeless and that's not what you want either so again we encourage you to really listen to this whole thing to dive into the other resources we have but before you do any type of action with it we really encourage you to talk to someone who can know about your specific situation so that you don't end up making things worse what's the saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure you don't want to have to already in the situation you're in to have even more cure that you have to go and and try and undo so we hope this has been really helpful for you it was something that people always have a lot of questions about so continue go back re-watch it contact us if you want more information about coaching you can call us at 86 six nine zero three zero nine nine zero and we will be sure in our upcoming episodes I want to do one about pies and one about smart contact what do you think I do what you say you don't know I work for you awesome shows awesome shows alright y'all have a great rest of your week we'll see you here next Monday have a good one [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Marriage Helper

Views: 118,808

Rating: 4.7375565 out of 5

Keywords: marriage, divorce, marriage help, marriage counseling, nashville tennessee, joe beam, doctor joe beam, marriage coaching live, marriage coach

Id: 1ZpEdP60468

Length: 67min 9sec (4029 seconds)

Published: Mon May 14 2018