Adultery 150x150 How you can avoid emotional adulteryThere are occasions when you come across the opposite sex; you feel some kind of chemistry and a desire to go for it. In a situation like that, when you find yourself connecting with another person who starts becoming a substitute for your marital partner in even the smallest way, you have started travelling on a dangerous road. The problem is not the thought that you have developed about the other person. Rather, what you are doing to avoid such thought, which when poorly handled can become reality and destroy your marriage.

What you need to learn and use effectively is how to shield yourself from thoughts about the opposite sex that are harmful to your marriage. There are some proven rules or principles many have found helpful. These are:

1. Know your boundaries. It is important to know your weak points. You should put fences around your heart and protect the sacred ground that is reserved only for your spouse. The rule for every couple is to share our deepest feelings, needs, and difficulties only with each other and not with friends of the opposite sex.

2. Realize the power of the eyes. There are situations where you find someone attractive such that you can’t take your eyes of them or the person is deliberately seeking your attention by posing for you. Your eyes are the “windows of your soul.” Close the blind down if you sense someone is pausing a little too long in front of those windows. It’s true that good eye contact is necessary for fruitful communication, but there is a deep type of look that must be reserved for only one person: your mate.

Frankly, its always not to trust yourself. Some women may think you are insecure because you do not hold eye contact too long, but that’s not it at all. You should not trust your humanity. You must have seen what has happened to others, and you should know it could happen to you.

3. Beware of isolation and concealment. One strategy of the enemy is to isolate you from your spouse, by tempting you to keep secrets from your mate. You and your partner should realize the danger of concealment in your marriage. You should work hard at bringing things out into the open and discussing them. Your closets should be empty.

4. Extinguish any chemical reactions that may have begun. A friendship with the opposite sex that is beginning to meet needs your partner should be meeting must be ended quickly. A simple rule of chemistry is this: To stop a chemical reaction, remove one of the elements. It may be painful or embarrassing at first, but it is not as painful as suffering the results of temptation that has given birth to sin.

Ruth Senter wrote an article for Partnership Magazine entitled simply, “Rick.” It was an incredibly honest examination of a godly wife’s encounter and ensuing friendship with a Christian man she met in a graduate class. Her struggle and godly response to this temptation were graphically etched in a letter that ended that relationship. She wrote,
“Friendship is always going somewhere unless it’s dead. You and I both know where ours is going. When a relationship threatens the stability of commitments we’ve made to the people we value the most, it can no longer be.”

5. Ask God to remind you how important it is to fear Him. The fear of God should turn you from many a temptation. It would be one thing if another person learned you had compromised your vows, but it’s quite another thing to realize that God’s throne would have a knowledge of your disloyalty to your partner faster than the speed of light.

It has been said that a “secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven.” Your Heavenly Father and your earthly father are there right now. The thought of hurting them should keep you pure.