The 180 Strategies

Discovering an affair leaves a betrayed spouse or partner with intense feelings of trauma, destroys the self-esteem and leaves a person lost in what is the next step. When I discovered my girlfriend stepping out on our relationship after five years I felt like I did everything wrong and wished I was able to access the resources to aid in recovery that are available today. A concept that I have become very familiar with is the concept of 180. The concept of 180 was introduced by Michelle Wiener Davis, author of Divorce Busting. I have seen this concept tried and promoted on several infidelity recovery websites by those victimized by infidelity. These concepts seem to really assist those struggling with any direction after the grief and anger following an affair is discovered.

These strategies are beneficial for those struggling with a partner who continues to engage in an affair after being discovered or with a partner who is stuck in affair fog and claims to be unsure of whether they want to reconcile the long term relationship. I liken these strategies to the fake it until you make strategies but with clear concise behaviors to implement. The 180 strategies empower the betrayed partner and give the wandering partner the appearance that the betrayed partner is going to wait around for the wandering partner to make a decision on what they want in a long term relationship and that the betrayed partner may have some decisions to make regarding the relationship as well. The 180 strategies allow a betrayed partner to detach from the emotionally distraught situation versus clutching the leg of a wandering partner begging them to please stay and choose them over the affair partner.

Another serendipitous result of 180 is the betrayed partner begins to focus on themselves and not allowing the affair or the wandering partner to control the life of the betrayed partner. Frequent fighting and inability to control emotions after discovering an affair make any serious work regarding reconciliation difficult. Affairs often turn the betrayed partners into codependent individuals that cater to the needs of the wandering partner in an attempt to win them back by being nice or giving in to the wandering partner’s wishes. The detachment through 180 allows the betrayed partner time and space with themselves to think clearly about the fallout of the affair versus the manipulation and blame shifting that often accompanies an affairs from a wandering partner. The 180 concepts assist the betrayed partner in protecting themselves when their instincts are insisting that they react, to explode with anger, to reason with the wandering partner and lash out at the culprits in the affair. The 180 brings focus and strength through a well planned guideline to assist a struggling betrayed partner.

The 180 Strategies

1. Don’t pursue reason, chase, beg, plead or implore.

2. No frequent phone calls.

3. Don’t point out “good points” in marriage.

4. Don’t follow her/him around the house.

5. Don’t encourage or initiate discussion about the future.

6. Don’t ask for help from the family members of your wandering partner.

7. Don’t ask for reassurances.

8. Don’t buy or give gifts.

9. Don’t schedule dates together.

10. Don’t keep saying, “I Love You!” Because if you really think about it, he/she is, at this particular moment, not very loveable.

11. Do more than act as if you are moving on with your life; begin moving on with your life!

12. Be cheerful, strong, outgoing and independent.

13. Don’t sit around waiting on your spouse – get busy, do things, go out with friends, enjoy old hobbies, find new ones! But stay busy!

14. When home with your spouse, (if you usually start the conversation) be scarce or short on words. Don’t push any issue, no matter how much you want to!

15. If you’re in the habit of asking your spouse his/her whereabouts, ASK NOTHING. Seem totally uninterested.

16. Your partner needs to believe that you have awakened to the fact that “they (the wayward partner)” are serious concerning their assertions as to the future (or lack there of) of your marriage. Thus, you are you are moving on with your life…without them!

17. Don’t be nasty, angry or even cold – Just pull yourself back.  Don’t always be so available…for anything!  Your spouse will notice.  More important, he/she will notice that you’re missing.

18. No matter what you are feeling TODAY, only show your spouse happiness and contentment.  Make yourself be someone they would want to be around, not a moody, needy, pathetic individual but a self-assured individual secure in the knowledge that they have value.

19. All questions about the marriage should be put on hold, until your spouse wants to talk about it (which may not be for quite a while). Initiate no such conversation!

20. Do not allow yourself to lose your temper.  No yelling, screaming or name calling EVER.  No show of temper!  Be cool, act cool; be in control of the only thing you can control.  YOURSELF!

21. Don’t be overly enthusiastic.

22. Do not argue when they tell you how they feel (it only makes their feelings stronger).  In fact, refuse to argue at all!

23. Be patient and learn to not only listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you.  Hear what it is that they are saying!  Listen and then listen some more!

24. Learn to back off, keep your mouth shut and walk away when you want to speak out, no matter what the provocation.  No one ever got themselves into trouble by just not saying anything.

25. Take care of you.  Exercise, sleep, laugh & focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil.

26. Be strong, confident and learn to speak softly.

27. Know that if you can do this 180, your smallest CONSISTENT action will be noticed far more than any words you can say or write.

28. Do not be openly desperate or needy even when you are hurting more than ever and are feeling totally desperate and needy.

29. Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse.  It’s not always about you!  More to the point, at present they just don’t care.

30. Do not believe any of what you hear them say and less than 50% of what you see.  Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives and do so in the most strident tones imaginable.  Try to remember that they are also hurting and afraid.  Try to remember that they know what they are doing is wrong and so they will say anything they can to justify their behavior.

31. Do not give up no matter how dark it is or how bad you feel.  It “ain’t over till it’s over!”

32. Do not backslide from your hard-earned changes. Remain consistent!  It is the consistency of action and attitude that delivers the message.

33. When expressing your dissatisfaction with the actions of the wayward party, never be judgmental, critical or express moral outrage. Always explain that your dissatisfaction is due to the pain that the acts being committed are causing you as a person.  This is the kind of behavior that will cause you to be a much more attractive and mysterious individual.  Further it SHOWS that you are NOT afraid to move on with your life.  Still more important, it will burst their positive little bubble; the one in which they believe that they can always come back to you in case things don’t work out with the affair partner.

I cannot stress enough how I wished I knew these strategies when I was going through my situation involving my cheating girlfriend. I was not confident in what I was doing after discovery of her infidelity and I was placing the focus on everyone but myself. The 180 is intended to give the betrayed partner a game plan for yourself. The 180 prepares you with appropriate boundaries, rules and expectations. The wandering partner may or may not adapt or notice the changes in a betrayed partner using the 180. Often the wandering partner responds quite quickly to the change in attitude of the betrayed partner. It is important to stick to these concepts even if you notice the wandering partner acquiescing to the changes. The 180 is a tool to assist the betrayed partner not to change and convince a wandering partner to willingly come back. The 180 has little to do with the wandering partner but about self empowerment.

The goal of those who use 180 would likely be reunification but in the process is to improve the attitude and behaviors of the betrayed partner, to become happier, promote hope that they will get through the ugly process that results from an affair and reduce the feelings of desperation. This is about you not the wandering partner.

Be careful about stating you forgive a cheater too early. Give yourself time and work at reconciliation if you choose to.

The Mind of a Cheater

Every so often someone who has been affected by infidelity asks me what are cheaters thinking when they cheat? No matter how smart people think they are more times than not most affairs will be discovered and the impending fallout from such an event will occur. I compare the mind of a cheater to that of an alcoholic or a person with addiction issues. The cheaters mind is seldom thinking about addressing the consequences of their actions and is often fixated with the high that accompanies an affair. As a result the cheater cares little of how they are hurting themselves, their families or other people. A cheater is a person who is only interested in getting what they want and cares very little about who the hurt when it comes to getting what they want. Cheating is a picture of self-absorption and narcissism at its finest. The cheater often makes excuses for the affair justifying the actions they are currently displaying. Cheaters often live in a reality of their own called affair fog where they have serious breaks from what their lives are or were since engaging in an affair. As an affair takes place cheaters weave a web of lies, deceit and meander a river of deception in such a manner that they themselves begin to believe their own falsehoods. As the affair begins to peak the cheater selectively interprets the wondrous aspects of the affair and the affair partner. At the same time the cheater paints a portrait of torment they had to endure in the long term relationship partner. As the cheater attempts to reconcile these two dualities there is little wonder why cheaters completely abandon long term partners emotionally and physically while gazing longingly at the affair partner on their perceived pedestals.

 

In short, the mind of a cheater is one of complete narcissism, selfishness and self protection that they must begin to fabricate the reality of their marriages or relationships to meet and rationalize the current utopia of the affair. To make sense of a current affair the cheater must blur the lines of reality to sell their behavior to family, friends and others in their social circle. To rationalize their behavior of infidelity, the cheater usually fabricates the relationship of the long term spouse or partner believing that the relationship was flawed; they were persecuted, being held back by an overbearing partner and anointing themselves to near sainthood status for even staying in the relationship. The cheaters mind becomes more of a substitute alibi to their behavior filled with justifications and excuse explanations in order to come to terms with their negative behaviors they have caused others and often themselves. Their mind deletes the actual history of their past relationships and recreates a version that is filled with despotism, cruelty and hardships no one person should have to endure. This is usually the result of a very skewed viewpoint. After justifying this relationship the cheater begins assigning negative attributes to the long term partner. The failures of the relationship are overemphasized; things that bothered the cheater are ascribed as intolerable and even behaviors that never existed are assigned to the cheaters long term partner. In the mind of the cheater it was only until the cheater found their affair partner that they realized how poorly they were being treated. Any attempts by family, friends, and long term partners to discuss the frailty of their thinking are met with opposition, irritation and thoughts of being bullied by those around them by infringing on their current happiness. 

 

The cheater will try to rally their social circle to attempt to get others to see the errors of their long term partner, to accept his or her excuses for cheating and gain approval of the affair partner and the cheaters behavior. All of these excuses, blaming and justification are an introspection of guilt that the cheater is attempting to resolve. Few individuals are able to look inward and except responsibility early on in an affair and instinctively lambast their long term partners through misconceptions of their own thinking and constitute new unrealistic thought patterns. The attention of the affair partner completely blinds any thoughts of reality or rational thinking. The constant positive reinforcement from the affair partner becomes addictive for the cheater and it becomes near impossible early after the discovery of an affair to rid themselves of the affair partner and the feelings they receive from their affair partner. The cheater begins to form an us versus them attitude between the affair partner, the cheater against the rest of the world. Most thoughts that enter the cheaters mind are selective filtered to form the world view around them in a manner they want to see it.

 

Once a person has decided to engage in an affair it is usually too late in finding reality. Affairs begin in the mind and are filled with positive thoughts, attitudes, and addictive feelings that are purposely filtered to form a preconceived perception that does not actually exist. Once affairs begin their new life is filled with self-absorption, self-centeredness that are chock full of positive affirmations and feelings which are so difficult to turn off. Those that attempt to turn off these feelings or impede them are often met with anger, outrage and self-serving vengeance. Some choose to live in this fantasy at others expense while attempting to have a relationship with more than one individual. We call these people cheaters and they will have their cake and eat too if given the opportunity.

Responding To a Cheating Fiancé

Most individuals view marriage as a serious commitment. The period of time from dating until the wedding day is research material for fiancés and dating partners to determine whether or not the person they are dating is worth a potential lifetime investment. Some people make it through the process to become spouses others are unable to make it into potential lifelong partners and are necessarily discarded. Making a commitment in front of family and friends brings serious expectations of the future. Many of us naively believe that marriage will be easy, wonderful and will last until our very last breath. Some ignore very serious red flags, warning signs and obvious evidence that perhaps they are marrying a person they should not be. Even signs as serious as infidelity are often put aside, forgiven or dealt with in order to traverse the aisles of a planned wedding day but should a betrayed fiancé go ahead with a wedding given a partners cheating?

All too many people play the forgive and forget game to stumble down the aisle with resentment hoping a beautiful wedding day will patch the holes that are left gaping in the trust of their relationship resulting from infidelity. Simply making it to the wedding seldom actually patches the holes left from the betrayal before the wedding day and will not change what has previously occurred. I find that cheaters often remember that they were forgiven years ago and appear to believe the same will happen in subsequent instances when cheating is discovered in the future. A betrayed partner took him back before the better or for worse exchanges what is so different after the vows are exchanged? Cheating fiancés really have no reason to change if they are forgiven and more times than not find themselves unraveled in future cheating situations.

After a marriage has taken place it becomes a bit more difficult to end a relationship. The process of divorce is stressful, embarrassing and full of feelings of failure. Many betrayed individuals look back with the glasses of hindsight wishing they had taken the opportunity to save themselves for a second gouging of infidelity from a cheater before their wedding day and ran from their fiancées. A marriage that begins with a loss of trust really does not have much of a chance to succeed. Difficult situations in marriages bring back the old memories of cheating that really never completely go away. Nights out with friends while you are at home keep a person reflecting and wondering exactly what is taking place on these evening given a cheaters past misdeeds. Instead of hypnotizing yourself with the mantra that the cheater has changed and is different, it makes much more sense to find a person that does not cause such anxiety provoking memories from the past.

It makes much more sense in my opinion to just cut all loses if children are not involved if a person shows their true character before the wedding date. Breaking off an engagement is much less stressful than a divorce, with children and assets. Leaving town for a business trip or family visits are much easier with a person whom you have never known to be unfaithful than a person who has proven they are capable of cheating. It is difficult to look beyond the pain we are currently in at times and individuals fear loneliness, change and starting over that accompany a break up.

Maybe some people are more gifted than me at forgiveness. I honestly found it impossible to forget, I had to learn that I had self respect and collect it again and I am happier because of it. A person that cheats on their fiancée is actually presenting them the gift by cheating before the wedding. It is an opportunity to run from these selfish narcissists and find someone more suitable for you. It is better to find out before a wedding than after with several kids, property, finances, etc. Take the gift of your freedom and invest it in a person worth sharing your goals and expectations. I find that when a person displays who they are to go ahead and believe them, not their meaningless words.