“Flirting is fun and usually begins in innocence. It’s a hard habit to break, even after marriage. Yet it causes jealousy. Worse, it puts us into situations we never intended to fall into, and it creates misunderstandings that can lead to infidelity” (Jerry Jenkins).

We’d like to address an important issue in this week’s message — the issue of emotional infidelity and flirting with someone other than your spouse. There’s no way we can adequately give it the attention it needs in the space of one marriage message but we’d like to at least scratch the surface and share with you some things to think about that you may have never thought of before.

This subject was sparked by a program we viewed on the Dr Phil program on December 5, 2002 entitled: “You’re Not the Person I Married.” We’d like to share some of the dialogue from that program because we found it to be insightful. In it, Dr Phil was talking with couples who married before really knowing one another—who after the wedding discovered some things about their spouse that they didn’t think they could live with.

The last couple (Joe and Karmen) that he met with was battling with the issue of his flirtations with other women and the emotional affairs he later developed with several of them. To Joe, it was all innocent —just fun, because as he said, “there was no sex involved.” But Karmen didn’t view it that way; she felt hurt and betrayed.

They set up that segment of the program showing a tape of both Joe and Karmen explaining their “sides” on the issue. Karmen said,

“I was in love with Joe, and he swore that he’d be faithful to me when we got married. Joe’s been involved with several women over the years, and he says they’re just emotional affairs, but they bother me just the same. I’m suspicious of everything that Joe says to me, and I’m constantly checking up on him.”

To that Joe responds,

“I never thought I would really be able to give up the attention I want from other women. The flirtations with women I have, they’re just romantic. There’s no sex involved.” And “when I tell the truth” (to Karmen when questioned by her) she”gets hurt, so I sometimes have to lie to save her feelings. To be honest, I never thought we’d be married as long as we are now. I think the kids right now have a lot to do with us still being together.”

They then, show a segment where Karmen’s sitting with her son who was crying telling his mom “it’s all my fault” for the problems they’re having. After the video, Dr Phil asks, “Joe, you just saw the toll this has taken on your son. So how much fun is that flirting now?” to which Joe replied, “It’s not fun at all.”

Karmen said,

“He didn’t know that was going to be on there, but I wanted him to see how bad he’s hurting our son without him even realizing it. My son came to me and said, ‘It’s my fault Dad’s unhappy with life because Dad told me he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us and he’s unhappy being here.’ I said, ‘Joel, he was trying to let you know how much he loves you; that even though he’s not happy with himself, he’s here for you, that he loves you.’ But, of course, my son didn’t take it that way.”

Dr Phil addressing Joe, said,

“You say, ‘I got married, knowing I wouldn’t want to give up the affection of other women. I’m having emotional affairs, but nothing physical.’ You know, just color me cynical, but I don’t believe that. I’m not saying you are or you aren’t —I have no evidence. I can’t prove one way or the other—all I know is what you say, and just one guy to another, I don’t believe that for a split second. But—that’s your position. And then you go say this to your children? Do you feel any responsibility to the health and welfare of this family as it relates to your choices?”

Joe replied, “I never knew my choices would really affect the family the way they have. I have, in the past, thought sometimes, it’s better we should just split up, however.” Dr Phil said, “Well, that’s one option, that’s true, to just say, ‘You know, I’ll just go—and y’all make your own way.’ Joe then admitted, “You know, I like what I have. You know, I love Karmen; I love the kids. I don’t want to give that up either.”

When Dr Phil asked Karmen if she felt betrayed by these emotional affairs, she said, “They hurt just the same as if he was out having a physical affair.” Dr. McGraw said, “Well, you are betrayed” and then turned to Joe and asked him if it truly was a betrayal to which Joe affirmed that they were.

Phil then said to him, “Because let me tell you, anytime you turn away from instead of towards your partner to meet emotional needs, physical needs, needs that are appropriate to a committed, intimate relationship, that’s a betrayal. So you have these needs, and you’re turning away from your wife to meet those needs. What do you expect her to do about that?”

Joe replied, “Well, I know I lost her trust. And I know it will be hard to regain it. But all I can do is say I’m sorry. The feeling I was looking for was that new relationship feeling. We’ve been married 14 years, and, you know, I miss that feeling.

Dr Phil then said, “So you thought, ‘I’ll just go get it somewhere else. And I’ll let my children pick up the tab for that immaturity, I’ll let my wife pick up the tab for that immaturity, and I’ll let our family go down in flames, so I can get a rush every 30 days?’”

Joe said, “See, I never really looked at it that way. I didn’t think it affected them a lot of times, I guess really it was, ‘What they don’t know don’t hurt’.”

Dr Phil then replied, “You said, ‘When I got married, I knew I wasn’t going to give up my want for these other women. I didn’t think we would stay married very long.’ So I guess you just thought you’d just bring some kids in the world and then just kind of leave them in your wake as you went to the next conquest. ‘What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.’ Are you rethinking that as you sit here now?”

Joe said, “Oh, definitely, yes.” Dr Phil then said, “That’s a good thing because this is about wake-up calls. I’m not trying to beat you up. I’m trying to wake you up and get you to realize what you’re doing here.”

Joe acknowledged that he now saw his behavior in a different light and that he had been wrong but he wasn’t able to make a firm promise to stop for fear that if he failed he’d hurt his wife again with another “broken promise.” He did say he “wanted to” stop flirting and seeing other women.

At that point, Dr Phil said,

“Listen, I understand. Isn’t it all fun when you’re falling in love and everything is new and fresh and all that? That’s all fun just like riding a roller-coaster is great fun for some people. But the truth is, as we mature, we realize that love doesn’t get old; it just transforms.

You know, at first, you’re up all night talking and you’re doing all of this stuff and everybody gets all excited and everything. And I always hear them say, ‘Oh, we’re like soul mates. She knows me so well, she can finish my sentences.’ Then two years later, it’s, like, ‘Hey quit interrupting.’ OK? You know we get that evolution, but we label it as negative when really it’s just a change.”

“I don’t stay up all night talking to my wife because I want to go to sleep. But you know what? It may not be exactly the same; it’s better, but different. If you mature enough to allow that to happen, what you find out is—in exchange for some of the exhilaration in the unknown, you have comfort, you have security —you have a soft place to fall. And when you put effort and energy into it, you can create that exhilaration at the right time along the way.

But in the meantime, you mature into nurturing what’s there, learning to label that the same way you label the others. There’s a big difference between falling in love and being in love.”

We appreciated how Dr Phil tried to bring a wake up call to Karmen and Joe and to all married couples who feel flirtations aren’t harmful. If you’d like to read the whole transcript or order a video copy of the show go to www.drphil.com. We hope what we had to share was helpful because as Dr Frank Minirth said, “The problem with infidelity within marriage is greater than most Christians realize.”

What may seem to be innocent flirting by one person with someone other than their spouse can lead to all sorts of problems and by it, many innocent people can get hurt.

Something Jerry Jenkins said in his book, Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It (which we highly recommend) may shed some additional light onto this subject. He said,

“Because I enjoy having fun and being funny, and because my mind tends to find humor in words and unusual combinations of ideas, I could easily flirt with anyone I thought was receptive. Much flirting is funny. If someone says something flirtatious with me, my first impulse is to expand on it, play with it, see how quick and funny I can be. But I resist that. It isn’t fair. It’s mental and emotional unfaithfulness. I would be exercising a portion of my brain and soul reserved for my exclusive lover —my spouse.”

Something else Jenkins says that may be helpful on this subject is, “If you want to flirt, flirt with your wife. She may not look, feel, or sound the way she did when you first flirted with her years ago, but she still wants you to flirt with her. Try it. Wink at her across the room. Blow her a kiss no one else sees. Play footsie with her under the table. Give her a squeeze, a pinch, a tickle no one else notices.”

Then he asks the husbands, “Wouldn’t you like to be flirted with by someone who loves you, someone who can tease you about what she might do with you later and then deliver?” Try it—you may like it! We have—and it may just help you to keep the romance alive—just as it has for us in our almost 31 year old marriage.

Because of Christ,
Steve and Cindy Wright

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