Fogville

If you read up on infidelity and frequent support forums, you're bound to run into the concept of the affair fog. There are plenty of misconceptions about the fog from both hurt spouses and unfaithful spouses. Some believe it doesn't exist, others think it is an excuse for cheating.

What's the truth? Allow me to take a more in-depth look at the subject.

What is the Fog?

The fog is used as an analogy or metaphor for a mental state a person sinks into when their desire for something blinds them against any reasons not to seek it. Like someone in a thick fog, all they can see is what they want, and the only reasons they see are those that justify obtaining it.

We all experience this dynamic in our lives. When I was 9 years old, I had received a record player for Christmas. One of my favorite bands was the Monkees, and my favorite song, "I'm a Believer."

I'm dating myself now, but back then cereal boxes had singles you could cut off the back of the box and play on a record player. Finally, after waiting for a long time, a new box of Honey Comb had my song on the back. Only problem is Mom had a rule. You couldn't get the prize until the whole box of cereal had been eaten.

I wanted that song so bad, I single-handedly ate the whole box of cereal in one sitting. It was hard stuffing the last couple of bowls into my stomach, but the goal was in sight. I finished the box, cut out the record, only to discover the record was scratched.

Then the consequences I had not seen due to my foggy mindset hit me. It became obvious when Mom took me and my brothers to get ice cream cones. I didn't want any because my stomach was churning. She wondered about me, but not for long. Because it all came up in Exorcist style on the restaurant floor.

 When our desire for something gets strong enough, our mind has a way of helping us to justify getting it, no matter how illogical, illegal, or who it will hurt. All arguments as to why we shouldn't get it become ineffective. The stronger the desire, the more true this is.

The Affair Fog

Due to the addictive qualities of many affairs, those in an affair tend to be deep in this fog. Even if they have no intention of leaving their spouse or hurting them, the reality that their actions will do just that is ignored. In the back of their minds, they know this is the case, but the desire for what they want is so strong such concerns are about as relevant to them as what a bird is eating on the other side of the world.

I've seen this happen multiple times on the forum unfaithful spouses visit to seek support. Someone comes there either about to have an affair or in the very beginning of one. The more experienced who have been where this person is, attempts to warn them of the pain down that road. How much it will hurt their spouse, their family, their affair partner, and themselves, describing their experience.

What happens?

Rare is the person in that situation who says, "Oh man, you are all right! What on earth did I think I was doing? This is stupid. I'm dumping him today." Instead, they will ignore all that and justify their need to do what they want. They may demonize their spouse. Or feel their spouse will never find out. Or no one will get hurt, that they are the exception to all the horror stories. Or, they feel the "love" (that is, strong desire for their affair partner) is so good any cost will be worth it.

I've seen this time and time again. Logic won't sway them. The warnings from those who've been through it before fall on deaf ears. Only in the aftermath do they discover all the warnings were right. Then it is too late.

The Invisible Fog

The interesting factoid is how when people are in foggy thinking mode, they don't realize that is what is going on. They are blind to the fact that they aren't perceiving the whole picture. It isn't until they are extracted from that mindset that they can see their reasoning ability was impaired by their desire.

My wife experienced this. Now, over three years after I discovered the affair, she looks back at what she did during those months and is not just disgusted and greatly sad at what she did, but can't hardly believed she did it. On this side of the fence, she sees it as one of, if not the most stupidest, series of decisions and actions she's ever committed. At the time, however, it all felt logical, justified, and any thoughts of consequences were ignored or dismissed.

It is this aspect which makes the fog so hard to break through. Reality has been altered into a fantasy holodeck-life. Immersed in it, the unfaithful spouse sees it as the reality. Attempts to convince them otherwise is like telling someone the life they are living is a fake and giving them the choice of pills to take to wake up or not, like in the Matrix.

The Thinning Fog

Another truth about the fog is that it isn't something that usually vanishes all in one brief moment. Rather it gradually thins out over several months or years. Sometimes, the fog stays in areas like settling into the low valleys among hills. For some areas, the fog may stay firmly ensconced for years, or a lifetime.

On discovery day, the fog thinned out for Lenita a good bit. Enough that she desired to heal our relationship and was immediately willing to do the hard things to accomplish it.

However, it took about three months before she was defogged enough to start feeling the guilt. The fog hides the guilt, because guilt of what they are doing to their spouse and family would prevent them from getting what they're desiring. It took about that long before she decided to get rid of all memorabilia of her affair partners. It took almost two years before she began to feel anger at her first affair partner and call what he and her were doing as evil. Not just think it, but feel it.

Another key area this is seen is in the tell/don't tell debate among unfaithful spouses who haven't been caught, even among those who's affair is over. Some of them believe they are no longer in the fog because they can see the thick foggy thinking they've left behind, but not realizing they're not totally out of the woods.

Despite the very compelling and logical reasons to tell, the unfaithful spouse is so driven to avoid the pain of facing the full consequences of their actions that they ignore those realities and justify not telling usually by suggesting it will "unnecessarily" hurt the spouse to do so, or that their spouse will leave them.

The main logical reason? Simply put, hurt spouses say their are two reasons that learning of an affair hurts them and the relationship. One, obviously, is the betrayal of love and trust by becoming intimate with another. The second, and often listed as the worst of the two, is the deception.

I can vouch for that. As I stated in our book, I felt a real loss to know that she was having sex with another man, something she'd never done in her life. I was her only lover in life, and she is the only one I've had.

With that as a given, the one thing that really shook me was how she could do what she did, not feel guilty about it, act like everything was normal, and that she was devoted to me. I didn't think she was capable of that kind of deception. That shook my trust and ability to rebuild it more than any other aspect. I stood over our bed, watching her sleep, and wondered how she could sleep knowing what she was doing. She had become a stranger I didn't know.

While discovering the affair itself was bad enough, the deception compounded it greatly. Blessed is the hurt spouse whose unfaithful spouse has the courage to confess rather than let them discover it themselves and struggle to find out what happened.

But the fact that the affair has already hurt the spouse and marriage, and healing it can only happen when they are aware of it, or that keeping that information is a way to control the hurt spouse who deserves to know so they can make their own decisions is pushed aside due to foggy thinking, even when they believe they are out of the fog.

If the hurt spouse doesn't know, it is highly unlikely that the fog is gone. There will always be a reason one can find to not do the right thing. I know, confessing is a hard thing to do. No one likes to tell on themselves. No one likes to confront the consequences of their actions, and experience the pain in another you know you've caused. But that doesn't justify continued deception, continued hurting of your spouse.

Foggy Excuses?

Some suggest that there is no such thing as the fog. That it is an invention to make excuses for the unfaithful spouse's infidelity.

It is true some unfaithful or even hurt spouses may use it in that manner. But such thinking is a fallacy. So dismissing it on those grounds is a fallacy.

The reality that strong desires for something can cause one's mind to block all feelings, logic, and arguments against getting it, and accept all justifications to do so is well documented. Prolonged exposure to giving into one's desires in that fashion ingrains the false reality in the mind, forming an addiction. So a drug addict will rob and kill to get their next fix, or a gambling addict will risk their life savings, mortgage, and the kids college funds to gamble.

The fallacy is in believing the fog let's the unfaithful spouse off the hook. That they couldn't help it. That if they were magically transported back to before the affair started, knowing what they know now, they would still have the affair because they can't change due to the fog.

This isn't true. It is still the unfaithful spouse who fed that desire, who waded into the quicksand, who justified crossing boundaries they should have known better than to do so. No matter the pull of one's desires, one can always say "no." I'm not saying it is easy, but it is within each person, even in the middle of the fog, to recognize they are not thinking right, and turn against the demand of their desires.

Animals have no choice. Humans always do. They do not need to be enslaved to their desires and the fog like an animal. They can avoid it, or acknowledge their wrong thinking and purposefully exit the fog. We have the ability to ignore our desires when they are destructive, and do what we know is best for those we love, not just ourselves.

How to Get Out of the Fog?

Three main steps.

One, confess. To both God and the one you've hurt. Facing the full consequences of your actions will go far in heading one out of the fog. Nothing destroys fantasy land and fogville faster than bringing it all into the light.

Two, take responsibility. Be honest about what happened. Agree to discuss it as needed, and face the sin head on. This, in addition to the first, will shatter the fog's illusion.

Three, repent. That means more than feeling sorry for what happened, or saying you're sorry. It includes actions that take effective measures to address why you gave into the temptations, and ensure that it won't happen again. Focusing on addressing the sin will continue to counter the fog until your desires give up.

In short, you're taking responsibility for which mindset you feed. The more you feed your desires without restriction, the stronger they are and the thicker the fog it creates will be. Starve them and feed desires for the good things in your life, the stronger you'll be against the affair fog.

When have you experienced a desire so bad you ignored warning against fulfilling them?

Managing the Passions

An old Cherokee legend illustrates for us the basic concept of how to manage one's passions.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

In the first article, Fire of Passion, we examined what the passion are. In the second, The Passions in Christianity, we examined the Christian understanding of the passions, their origin and the main key to being able to manage them. If you've come to this article without having read those two, I highly recommend you do before proceeding on here.

Now we want to examine the various ways we can starve the bad passions and feed the good ones so we can effectively manage them.

How Do We Tell a Good Passion from a Bad One?

The easy answer is anytime a passion damages yourself and/or others, it is a passion you don't want to be enslaved to, but control. The longer answer is it can get a bit complicated at times.

There are two categories of bad passions. One is the inherently bad passion. Some passions are going to be destructive to you 99%+ of the times they are indulged. Many drugs fall into this category. The first time some use a drug like cocaine, they are immediately hooked. It would be a rare case indeed when even trying it once didn't end up causing a lot of pain for the addict and those around him.

The other is abused passions. Some passions are inherently positive and good. Hunger is an obvious one. If we don't eat, eventually we'll die. Hunger insures we don't go too long with needed food. It is a good passion that does help us to survive. But each good passion can be overdone, abused, to the point it becomes destructive rather than positive. Someone who overeats can cause diverse health problems and leave their families/loved ones without a father, mother, or friend before their time. If the passion of hunger is not managed, it can become a bad passion.

The trick, of course, is if a passion already has a pull on you, you don't tend to stop and consider the consequences, evaluate whether it is going to negatively affect you and/or others, and make a decision on whether to do it based on that evaluation. Why? Because here is a truth one needs to be aware of:

Passions motivate you to act. Reason lays the groundwork to support actions through the passions.

Reason doesn't motivate you to act. Reason can stir the passions within you to motivate you to act, but of itself, it is helpless to override one's passions. The stronger a passion is, the less that contradictory reasoning will be at reversing that passion and influencing a change of actions. This is exactly why someone who has become passionate about an affair relationship is not affected by some very logical and rational reasons to not go that route. Instead, they tend to use their reasoning to support what their passions are demanding to have.

However, reason is not helpless when coupled with the spiritual power I mentioned in the last article, and attempting to manipulate the passions through your mind, so that they change course. This is done by learning to feed the right wolf, the right passions. It is easiest to do this at the beginning of a passion's pull on you, but can be done at any stage. The following are tactics you can use to feed the right wolf.

1. Confession

If not to a priest or pastor, find a trustworthy friend who can hold you accountable. Tell them the story around the passions you are struggling with. By confessing it to someone you can talk to, you gain support and help in dealing with it. Confession is the first step toward conquering the passions. Once it is no longer your dark little secret, you are no longer emotionally blackmailed by it and have more freedom to fight against it.

2. Fasting

Based on Genesis 2, the first sin was a failure to fast from eating the fruit of a particular tree. God had told Adam not to eat from one tree. Yet, when push came to shove, he ate from it. When God questioned him on it, the first recorded instance of blameshifting occurs:

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Gen 3:12 KJV)

When it comes to food, we're pretty spoiled.

The passion of hunger is a foundational passion. If we fail to control that one, we will not be able to control any of them. Many of us rarely tell ourselves no with food unless we're already stuffed or can't afford it. Usually the only people who say no than those two are people losing weight, and we know how many tend to fail at that. But if you can tell yourself no to eating a food, simply because you've decided that for a period of time you are not going to eat something, it provides support for saying no to yourself in other situations, like when someone lights your fire.

It is best to have someone else help you establish a regular rule of fasting. If not your religious community, become accountable to a trusted friend. Start off small and work your way up. Maybe you'll decide to fast from meat on Fridays. Then later, for a whole week. Then later, maybe you'll join others in doing so for the Lenten season, or other group fasting periods.

3. Align Your Will with Your Mind

The will tends to be highly influenced by your passions. But it is possible to just say no with your will and mean it. Our problem is we're really good at knowing we need to say no, so we say it, but don't mean it.

Let your no be no.

Shortly after Lenita started her second physical affair, she could see where it was headed and she knew she needed to break it off. So she met her affair partner at the gym and they sat in her car. She told him this had to end. Despite that declaration, within minutes they were hugging and kissing, and it didn't stop, obviously, or I'd not be writing this blog right now. Why was her no not no?

Surprise! Our passions lie to us.

 They convince our brain that we have to obtain this feeling if we are to survive. We become convinced if we pass this up, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives and be miserable. The truth? You'll live, you'll enjoy life. Even more so because that passion didn't win in getting you to do something destructive to yourself and those you love.

You'll have more respect for yourself because you were driven by compassion instead of passion.

Paul stated it this way:

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Gal 5:16-17 KJV)

This is where the key from the last article comes into play. He can help us align our will with the mind and not according to our passions.

But how do we access that power? By being drill-sergeant strict with ourselves.

You see, Lenita's no was not followed up by the corresponding actions. If she was serious about her no, she would have immediately requested he leave her car and to not contact her again, or approach her in the gym. If he didn't immediately respond, she would have stepped out of her car until he left. But she failed to say no with her actions. Why? Because she had not aligned her will with her mind, it was still influenced by her passion for him. Consequently, her words said no, but her actions said yes.

When we say no, our passions start working to wiggle their way back to a yes. They will work like the devil to keep even the smallest foot in the door. To let your no be no, you have to decide to firmly close the door. How?

By doing two things. Identify the boundaries that amount to squeezing a foot in the door for that passion. They tend to feel innocent, but you know where it will lead. List them out on paper if need be.

Then convince yourself that you will now be strict with yourself about those boundaries. Tell yourself you don't care how much you'll feel like you want it, no matter how much begging your emotions will do to cross this one innocent boundary, agree within yourself that nothing will move you to do that, no matter how bad you want to. Divorce the will from the passion. When you get ultra strict with yourself, refusing to allow emotions to influence your behavior, you can start starving the bad wolf.

4. Distractions

The above is preparatory work. But what happens in the midst of temptation to give in? There is a rule that monks have been taught in overcoming the slavery to passions, especially those of a sexual nature.

Frontal assaults on the passions rarely work. Instead, they end up feeding the passions.

Why? Because the more attention you give a passion, the stronger it becomes. A drunk doesn't conquer alcoholism by visiting bars on a regular basis. He does it by avoiding alcohol, by not thinking about it. So it is for overcoming a temptation. The more you think about it, even to focus on not giving in, the harder it becomes to avoid giving in. Because giving a passion your attention feeds it.

Instead, when tempting thoughts come to cross boundariess you know would lead to a bad place, do these or varations on these ways of distracting yourself so as not to think about it.

Use pain. Lenita was instructed by our priest to wear a rubber band around her wrist. When she found herself thinking negative thoughts, focusing on the affair, thinking about her affair partners, she was to snap the rubber band to distract her mind from those thoughts with the sting of pain. For her, it was highly effective.

Use music. Collect some uplifting songs on your portable music player. When tempting thoughts arrive, listen to the music to distract your mind. Sing along with it if possible.

Use prayer. Or if not religious, a saying you can repeat over and over. For Christians, an old short prayer known as the Jesus Prayer can be repeated as many times as necessary until the temptation passes: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Or the shorter version, "Lord, have mercy." Most religions would have similar prayers/meditations. If you are not religious, a saying like "Que sara, sara," "Whatever will be, will be" can be used.

Use work or a hobby. Keeping your mind busy and your body working avoids a passion from getting a strong hold on your attention. This is one of the reasons why monks will stay busy either working or praying, for hours. Too much idleness leads to focusing on the passions. Invest yourself in a productive hobby or volunteer to help someone rather that sitting around thinking about what your body is saying it really wants to do.

Use your friends. Especially those you've made yourself accountable to. When temptation arrives, ignore it by calling a friend, or anyone really, and focus on them. If you have an online support group, go there and spill it all on a forum rather than on your mind.

In effect, when a bad passion attacks, you defeat it by ignoring it. Remind yourself that you don't care how much you want something, that desire is a lie, then use one of the above methods of distraction to turn your attention away from the passion, and starve it to death. Over a period of time, you'll begin to realize you didn't need that passion to live, because you've been hardly thinking about it and life is still great. Even better than before.

When we are afflicted with a passion, sometimes we slip and fall to it.

Often when that happens, we'll feel like we're back at square one, and feel like giving up because we don't seem to be overcoming it.

That is the wrong way to think of it. Rather, think of it more like you're working to beat your last record. If one time you last three days before you allow yourself to think about the affair partner, stop. Use the methods above, and see how far you can get this time. If you go a week, that's some success. As you continue to pick yourself up, and go again, the passion will get weaker and weaker as you ignore it for longer and longer. Then at some point it will dawn on you that its been months since you've given your affair partner a second thought.

Then as we train ourselves on how to say no and mean it, it will provide us freedom from the slavery to our passions. We learn to control them instead of them controlling us.

The Passions in Christianity

When you throw the two words--Christianity and passions--together, many people will get varied images. Victorian morality, contradictory, hypocrisy, legalistic, Manichean (oh, okay, maybe not too many on that one), among others. To put it mildly, there is a checkered past on how to understand it and deal with it. But it has not always been so.

Indeed, a proper understanding of passion from a Biblical perspective will unlock the first and major means of managing the passions in a productive manner that is beneficial to all involved. Including when the passion of lust drives a spouse to cheat.

Before we go further, however, if you've not read the first article in this series, The Fire of Passion, I highly recommend you do so before reading this one. This article assumes the context presented there in understanding what the passions are.

To my non-Christian readers, let me relate these thoughts if you've come this far. The following is going to be related from a Christian viewpoint, if that hasn't been obvious to you by this point. For you, I'll sum up the main point you need to take away from this article. Take the principle and apply it in your faith or agnosticism/atheism as the case may be.

Successfully managing the passions requires a power beyond ourselves.

A higher power, as Alcoholics Anonymous puts it. Or more generically still, a purpose and cause beyond yourself. It is the focus on self that feeds the passions. To reach the place of self-denial, to starve the negative passions in our lives, takes a focus, a purpose, and a motivation beyond ourselves.

For the Christian, this goes deeper than merely a focus beyond self, and includes the power to do the above and the tactics we'll discuss in the next article. We'll be exploring that in the following paragraphs, and you are welcome to read on, if for no other reason than to gain an understanding. Because I can just about promise you this will be nothing like your parent's Sunday School class.

Now back to what passions are understood to be and its solution in Christianity.

If there is one Biblical passage that sums up the Christian understanding of the passions, it is the following:

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
(Php 4:11-13 KJV)

There are three points to notice here.

1. Avoiding pleasure is not the answer. Paul states that it is not whether one is experiencing a passion or the fulfillment of a passion that trips us up. We need to know how to handle both: when we get what we want and when we don't, in a healthy way.

2. Controlling the passions through contentment is the answer. That is, a particular passion does not control us to the point we have no choice but to fulfill it. Rather, to be content is to remain unmoved by a passion. Sure, we'll feel it. But we are able to ignore it if it isn't proper to fulfill or the timing isn't right. We have the ability to say, "No" and mean it.

3. It is the energy and grace of union with the life of Jesus Christ that gives us contentment. Phil 4:13 is one of the most taken-out-of-context verses of all time. Paul is admitting that within himself he doesn't have the ability to manage and control the passions. Contentment is nigh impossible. But with Christ, he is able.

Why is that the case? It goes back to the Fall of man.

Genesis 1 is not intended to be a list of steps God took to create our world in a series, but in parallel.

Many people don't realize this, but once you look at it, it is obvious. Notice how day one speaks of light being created in general, while day four talks about creating specific lights in the sky. Then on the second day, God creates the sky and waters, and on the fifth day He creates the birds and fish that populate those environments. On the third day, God creates the land, and on the sixth day, He creates the animals that populate the land.

But that is not all that happened on the third and sixth day. On the third day, God creates the plants. On the sixth, man. This comparison is key. For as plant life is the bridge between inanimate and animate life, man is the bridge between animal life and divine life. Thus the divine life inhabits the animals and world through this link, bring it all into harmony.

The divine link in man is described in two ways.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . .
(Gen 1:26 KJV)

God created man both in His image and His likeness. In His image, because we are created to live with His life in us. In His likeness, because God infused His life in us at creation.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
(Gen 2:7 KJV)

Note the two sources of the creation of man. The dirt of this world, linking man firmly to it as are the animals who were created from the earth, that is, dirt, by God calling out for the earth to bring forth the animals. Gen 1:24 In this respect, man was created in the same way the animals were.

But unlike the animals, God breathed into man the breath of life. The word for breath is also translated spirit. In essence, God breathes His own spiritual life, and filled man with the Holy Spirit, which is His likeness.

Man was created to operate as an animal given divine life. A more intelligent animal, perhaps. But it is this divine life in man that gave him complete control over his passions which are inherent from the animal nature.

But as most know the story, that changed. Note what God tells man or Adam (same word, translators arbitrarily pick when to start calling him Adam instead of man).

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
(Gen 2:16-17 KJV)

Note what God says here: ". . . for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." God didn't say eventually. He didn't say in 900+ years. He said on the day he ate of it, Adam would die.

Yet, you know the story. Eve gets tempted, ends up having a passion for the fruit of the tree, saw that it would make her like God, and ate of it. So did Adam.

Memo to Christians: if people living in Paradise, with all they could want and need freely provided for them, with divine life coursing through their soul, can give into a passion, rationalize and justify getting what their passion wants, who are you to think you are immune? I used to think my marriage was immune to infidelity. It wasn't. Neither is yours.

Yet, Adam and Eve lived on for hundreds of years after this day. What gives?

The truth is they did die that day. The divine life departed from them, for if it had stayed, they would have been physically destroyed. But spiritually, Adam and Eve died that very day. They lost the divine life that they were created to contain.

The result, as the Church Fathers commonly write, is Adam and Eve are left with their animal life. The power to control the animalistic passions diminished with the passing of divine life. They lost the power to control them as before the Fall. Like the animals, we are more often controlled by them than us, them.

This points to what we mentioned in the last article. Just because one has a passion, a desire for something, doesn't mean it needs to be fulfilled in order to "be who you are created to be." Our current passion-dominated lives are not how God created us to be. Our passions don't dictate who we are. Rather, it is a tool to be used for our and others' benefits. In our fallen state, we tend to be driven to live according to our passions. This is not who we were created to be. It is an unnatural fallen existence that will, unchecked, eventually kill us.

The only solution to this dilemma is to unite your animal life to the divine life found through Jesus Christ.

The route to obtaining this life in evident through Scripture:

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. . . . For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(Joh 3:5, 16 KJV)

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. . . . For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
(Rom 6:3-4, 8 KJV)

It is the Spirit who makes alive; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
(Joh 6:63 EMTV)

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
(Joh 6:54 KJV)

To summarize, if we unite to Him in faith, that is believing in Him, trusting Him, and obeying Him; if we are baptized into the likeness of His death and raised to new life in Him, known as being born again; and partake of Him in the Lord's Supper, our soul will be filled with His Spirit, His divine life as we were created to exist. The only difference between us and Adam is we still live in a fallen world. But thanks to Christ, we no longer need be controlled by the animal-like passions. We no longer need to live as fallen people, even in this fallen world.

With His life in us, we now have the ability to feed the right passion:

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
(Gal 5:16 KJV)

 In the last article, we will investigate the tools we can use to walk in the Spirit--the practical tactics we can use to manage the passions using contentment. Naturally, to do that, you first have to have His Spirit, full of His life, breathed into you once again. It gives you the power and ability to operate the tools effectively. Without it, your chances of effectively controlling the passions are greatly reduced.

The Fire of Passion

One's passions fuel the fire of most affairs. The typical scenario is a spouse crosses seemingly innocent boundaries with someone of the opposite sex (or same sex in the case of homosexual relationships), something sparks between them, emotional bonds are created on some level, and the desire for each other ignites. Or I should say, the desire for the feelings the other person is producing in you ignite.

Even in those who intentionally seek out affairs, the action is based upon some driving desire, whether lust or wanting to feel like a stud/attractive. When a guy pays a prostitute, it is because he enjoys, wants, has to have the sexual feelings that experience provides.

Take away passion, and an overwhelming majority of affairs would never happen.

Likewise, this destroys many attempts at rebuilding from an affair. Often the unfaithful spouse will say they want to save their marriage, but they have difficulties letting go of their affair partner. The passions for him are often raging when it is discovered, and the unfaithful spouse finds it difficult to shut that down. Holding to no-contact with one's affair partner is in most cases the hardest part of rebuilding that an unfaithful spouse will deal with. Why? Because passions have to die over a period of not being fed. Unfortunately, we can't easily switch them off.

Learning how to manage one's passions and let the bad ones die a slow and painful death is necessary both for preventing an affair in the first place, and preventing a re-occurrence later, as well as equipping you with more self-control in other areas of your life.

Therefore, not only do unfaithful spouses rebuilding their marriage benefit from this, but also hurt spouses--who, believe it or not, are more suceptible to having affairs of their own after being cheated on,--the affair partner, and spouses who are as of yet untouched by an affair.

To that end, the next series of articles will deal with what the passions are, how they operate, and tactics to managing them in your life, especially as it relates to rebuilding from infidelity.

What Is a Passion?

In English, the word refers to two main concepts. One, "an intense desire or enthusiasm for something." Two, "the suffering and death of Jesus." The word, derived from the Greek and Latin, means "to suffer."

How does desire and suffering relate to each other?

When you have a strong and barely controllable emotion or desire, you are suffering until that desire is satisfied or the desire dissipates. Most unfaithful spouses can verify that feeling in relation to their affair partner. It is the feeling of suffering a lack which drives an individual to fulfill it so as to quench and end the suffering. It is the suffering aspect that defines what passion is.

This suffering is seen clearly in hunger. When the body needs food to survive, it creates a suffering in the body we call hunger. It causes us to be driven to find food and eat. Out of the passions, it is the primary one. We deal with it daily, often multiple times a day. There is not a more base passion we experience for survival. It is one of the first things a baby does upon exiting the womb, and most likely one of the activities we'll do on the last day of our life here.

Some passions, however, take on survival need without actually being a survival need. An obvious example is someone addicted to a drug. Withdraw symptoms are the body's way of creating the suffering designed to motivate you to get more of what your body thinks it needs. But in this case it is not a real need, no matter how much you feel physically and emotionally that you need it for survival.

Because one experiences a desire, doesn't mean it is needed or beneficial to fulfill that desire.

There are many who justify their behavior by suggesting "this is just who I am, and to be fulfilled, I need to fulfill my desires." Since passions can trick the body and mind into believing it needs something that is actually destructive, obviously we cannot depend on the hedonistic approach to life to find fulfillment personally.

If we do something because our body and emotions demand it, we become slaves to them, and will be led into all sorts of destructive behaviors. Infidelity being one of the big ones. Freedom is when your body and mind say, "I have to have this," and you can say "no" and mean it with your actions.

Passions work on two levels: physical and mental.

Physically oriented passions focus on physical sensations and the body's suffering to get them. Most often seen in withdraw symptoms like fever, sweating, shakes, etc. For sexual/romantic type passions, it is more a mental longing to experience a particular feeling. The body responds by getting "horny" using chemicals. Sexual sensitivity is heightened. The least little external stimulation like a visual or mental image can fire off a physical ache to fulfill that "need."

Mentally, passions generate the emotions that motivate us into action. Because they are emotionally based rather than rationally, logic takes a back seat. Once a strong passion kicks in for something, rational arguments rarely dissuade a person from doing what their body and mind are telling them they have to get.

Passions work on two levels: addictive and being an addict.

When a person first encounters a strong passionate desire for something, an addictive quality comes into play in the person's response. The dopamine reward system triggers in the brain that this is a highly desirable experience and needs to be repeated. The higher the dopamine spike, the more desire for a repeat performance happens to the person.

That desire is passed onto the decision making areas of the brain. Initially, the brain can more easily say "no" to the desire. It has an addictive quality in that your mind is saying you want this real bad, but you still have the ability to rationally say it isn't good for you and reject it as a viable course of action, in word, thought, and deed. But not saying no in all three ways leads to eventually fulfilling the passion.

However, as the person decides, "yes, go get it," in either word, thought, and/or deed, it creates a feedback loop. The experience is repeated, the dopamine reward system sends the message to the brain that this need is critical to have. The decision making part of the brain says, "get some more," and the cycle continues.

Once that cycle has been repeated enough times, the addictive qualities of the experience create "ruts" in the brain, making it harder and harder to break free from that cycle. Such a person becomes addicted.

To break free of the addiction requires going through feelings of great loss and ignoring a desperate sense of needing what you are wanting. This often is not something a person can do with their own will power, and will need help, support, and accountability to get through the physical and emotional withdraw symptoms and to convince your body and mind that, no, you don't need this to survive.

But due to the ruts established by the addictive cycle, it is also easier for such a person to fall back into those ruts. Such a person recovering from passion-enslavement will have to establish boundaries far enough away from the ruts, more so than most who have no such addiction.

Passions Are Not All Bad

This is not to suggest that all passion is bad. There are passions that do provide for a true survival needs, like food and procreation. If we are to be moved to do beneficial activities, it will often be because we are motivated by our passion for something.

The English word compassion is made up of two Latin words: com and passio. Literally translated, the word means "with passion," or "to join together with suffering." Thereby you get the English word's meaning: to have empathy for someone who is suffering. Without passion, we are also not motivated to do good and beneficial activities for others either.

This is why I talk about managing passion, not eradicating it. We're going to have passion for something. The question is, will we use that passion to motivate us to beneficial goals and actions, or will we let our passions pull us into destructive goals and actions, leading us around like a dog on a collar?

To that end, I'm planning two more articles at least:

A Christian Understanding of the Passions

How to Manage the Passions

How have you managed or not managed your passions to keep them from ruining your life?

Next article: The Passions in Christianity