When You can’t Stop Comparing your Spouse to your Affair Partner
If you’re married and you’re involved with someone else and you’re trying to decide what the hell to do about your situation, there may be some value in comparing your spouse to your affair partner. This may be a useful part of the process of clarifying what you want, and making choices accordingly.
However. Comparing your spouse to your affair partner is not always useful, and can become a mental habit with some rather tragic consequences. So it’s really important to become aware of how you make use of making comparisons.
If you’ve been comparing your spouse to your affair partner and you’re getting some discernable benefit from doin this, great. Nothing to worry about.
But here are plenty of ways in which comparing your spouse to your affair partner will not help you much at all. Here are three examples of what this can look like:
ONE:
If you’re trying to make a decision about what you want to do with your relationships, know that making comparisons will not make the decision for you. Yes, the comparisons you make can inform your decision. But you still have to actually make a choice, if that’s what you want to do. Sometimes we think that if we compare and compare and compare, what we want to do will suddenly become so obvious to us that our decision will become easy to make, or will effectively make itself.
And that may not happen. Ever.
If you’re trying to make a choice between your spouse and your affair partner, you may find it excruciatingly difficult to make a decision. That’s fair enough. But continuing to compare them to each other will not solve that problem — it will only prolong it.
TWO:
If you have willingly made a choice between your spouse and your affair partner; if you’ve picked one relationship and decided to make it work, but you can’t stop comparing the person you chose to be with to the person you didn’t choose to be with, you’re probably miserable. It may SEEM like making comparisons is somehow helping you in this situation — if nothing else, it may keep your brain entertained in moments that don’t seem very exciting — but it probably isn’t.
Comparing the person you chose to be with to the person you chose not to be with probably isn’t helping you enjoy your time with the person you chose to be with! And isn’t that the whole point of being in a relationship? Assuming you really want to be with the person you chose to be with, the comparison habit isn’t going to help you make that relationship great.
THREE:
On the other hand, sometimes we make a choice between one partner and another, but we didn’t make that choice for reasons that we liked very much. (Choosing to stay with one’s spouse because it’s “the right thing to do” is a classic example.)
When we make a choice that doesn’t actually feel like much of a choice, and when we don’t especially LIKE having “chosen” the relationship that we did, our minds may protest in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And sometimes this takes the form of incessantly comparing the person that we “chose” to the person didn’t choose. What we’re essentially saying to ourselves is, “I don’t like this!” And that’s fair enough — but continuing to make comparisons isn’t going to help you do anything about that. It’s not going to help you enjoy the person you chose — or “chose” — to be with. Nor will continuing to make comparisons help you make a bold decision to change course.
So what’s a comparison-maker to do with themselves? Start with these three things:
ONE:
Start to notice when you make comparisons. So many of us get into the habit of making comparisons without even recognizing that we’re doing it. With awareness, we can start to change the habit. When you notice yourself comparing your spouse to your affair partner (or vice versa), ask yourself if making the comparison you’re making is helping you in any way that you can clearly identify. If it is, fine. If not, shift your focus elsewhere. Use your mind to do something else.
TWO:
Practice focusing on what’s great about the person you are with. This is what you can do with your mental energy instead of making comparisons. This practice is helpful whether you’re trying to make a decision between one person or another, or trying to dedicate yourself to one relationship after having relinquished another one, OR trying to enjoy multiple relationships without losing your mind. Focus on what’s great about what’s in front of you. (For more on why this can be difficult, and what to do about that, tune into this week’s episode of “Your Secret is Safe with Me.”)
THREE:
Be willing to be honest with yourself about what you really want, and make decisions in the service of your preferences! If you don’t allow yourself to go after what you really want, it can be easy to fall into the habit of comparing what you’ve got to what you would prefer. And addressing the mental habit of making comparisons is only a partial solution to this.
