In every marriage, there are two dynamics at work: actions and behaviors that are Love Kindlers and make the passion between the spouses grow, and actions and behaviors that are Love Extinguishers and usually hurt your spouse. This End of the Year Fidelity Checkup Series examines the Love Extinguishers to be sure that you are not doing the things in your marriage that leave your spouse wide open to an affair. The first Love Extinguisher in the series was “Leaving & Cleaving.” The second in the series is “Angry Explosions.” Before a spouse can start doing the things that kindle love, they need to stop doing the things that extinguish love, and one of the most common love extinguishers is not learning how to deal with anger appropriately and then speaking to your spouse in a harsh, enraged, offending, irritable way.

Married couples have an arsenal of weapons they can use against their spouse; after all they know each other deeply and have spent time together getting to know each other. Some weapons can be relatively harmless such as “joking” while saying what you really think, or “teasing” each other while slipping a in a barb or two. Other weapons can be devastating emotionally, mentally or physically, ranging from calling derogatory names, to making threats, to committing domestic violence. An excellent article entitled “What is domestic Violence?” on Examiner.com, shows what can happen when Angry Explosions get out of hand and go to the extreme.

But why would people who love each other treat the one they love like this? As with most Love Extinguishers it begins subtly enough. At first, the two are completely “in love” and they do all kinds of things naturally to kindle each others love. They marry and are think they’ll live “happily ever after” like in the movies—only real life sets in. He works long hours and when he comes home he’s tired and doesn’t want to talk like they used to—and she doesn’t admire him and see a knight in shining armor anymore. Kids come and bills. She wears sweats all day and doesn’t look nice when he’s around, and he loses his job and doesn’t help with the kids. They get frustrated with each other and start to be a little snappy. This causes pain and extinguishes the fire of love. In return often the couple will want to either hurt their spouse back or prove their spouse wrong, so then THEY commit a Love Extinguishertm. From there it is a downward spiral into verbal abuse, possibly domestic violence, and leaving your marriage WIDE OPEN to infidelity.

To see if you are leaving your marriage open to unfaithfulness due to Angry Explosions, open your heart and ask yourself, do you find yourself:

Ignoring, ridiculing, and criticizing your spouse consistently?
Manipulating your spouse’s words?
Purposely humiliating your spouse? Or calling him/her names?
Accusing or blaming your spouse so you are justified in screaming?
Making your spouse feel unwanted and unloved? Or saying right out “Who would want you?”
Threatening to leave the family destitute? Or making other threats to get what you want?
Speaking in a raised volume, forcefully, for a long time?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions, please consider speaking to a professional or contacting me directly at coachcj@affaircare.com or coming to my website at www.affaircare.com. Don’t let your marriage be vulnerable to an affair. There is hope!