Dr. Linda Mintle

Blog

  • After the Admission of an Affair

    Admission of infidelity is a first step towards reconciliation.

    Dr Linda Helps – Susan was devastated. Her husband Dan was supposed to be in Cleveland on business. Instead he was seen vacationing in the Virgin Islands with a female co-worker. The betrayal took her by surprise. She couldn’t believe Dan would risk the ten-year marriage for another woman.

    Susan called a therapist. Dan admitted to the affair. He apologized profusely and cut off all contact with the other woman. The hurt and anger in Susan’s face was hard to bear. Dan hoped that by apologizing and admitting his sin that Susan would get over the affair. He felt his apology and cut off from the other woman was enough to reconcile the relationship.

    But Susan couldn’t stop thinking of the betrayal. She found herself obsessing on thoughts of the other woman. She worried Dan would be unfaithful again. She felt guilty. Dan had apologized and promised not to ever have an affair again. Dan went back to church, talked to the minister and put himself under the accountability of a men’s group. But Susan couldn’t sleep and was anxious.

    Susan sensed Dan was mad at her for not “getting over” the affair. Dan said, “Forget it ever happened. Why are you still talking about it when it’s over?” He was frustrated with her nervous anxiety whenever the phone rang late at night. He resented her constant questioning about late business meetings.

    Dan and Susan represent many couples stuck in the aftermath of an affair. They think because the affair is acknowledged, things should go back to the way they were before. They don’t recognize the traumatizing effects of the affair.

    Susan never really talked at length about her feelings regarding the infidelity. She was too afraid Dan would leave the marriage and felt vulnerable due to her financial dependence on him. All through her marriage she avoided conflict. She pretended to believe everything was great when it wasn’t.

    Dan apologized but showed little remorse. He broke the marital covenant and expected Susan to be over it much too quickly. He didn’t understand the trauma his wife experienced. The apology wasn’t enough.

    Dan needed to:

    · Share his feelings of remorse more than once
    · Allow Susan to question him and give reassurance
    · Be empathetic for the pain his actions caused Susan
    · Understand Susan’s reactions were typical
    · Learn to share his emotions including his fear that Susan may leave
    · Be patient. His wife needed time

    Susan needed to:

    · Have time to process, talk and explore her feelings more deeply
    · Understand that the injured spouse usually has post -traumatic stress like symptoms (difficulty sleeping and concentrating, hyper-vigilance and intolerance for things that brought up memories of the affair)
    · Be allowed to question Dan whenever she needed reassurance
    · Not feel guilty when she needed to talk more about what happened

    Admission of infidelity is just the first step of reconciliation. The betrayal raises complicated emotions that don’t usually fade away without additional work. A one-time apology is not enough to cover the reactions of the partner. Your partner needs to forgive but also process his/her reactions over time. The one who committed the offense needs to be patient and humble.

  • Emotional Reaction to Affairs

    What’s normal when it comes to reacting to a marital affair?

    Dr Linda Helps – Kathy had never seen a therapist before her husband announced he was having an affair with another woman. The shock of his disclosure was enormous. She repeatedly asked herself, “How could I have missed the signs and been so naïve? Have I been in denial of our marital problems?”

    Kathy didn’t consider herself prone to anxiety. However, since the disclosure, she has had several anxiety attacks. She could be doing laundry and suddenly feel short of breath. Or she might be reading a book and feel her heart pounding and palms sweat. Watching TV could send her into an agitated state, especially if the show contained reference to a marital affair. Sleep seemed to elude her. She had no appetite and was rapidly losing weight.

    Even though her husband claimed to have stopped seeing the “other” woman, Kathy felt uneasy and deeply betrayed. She found herself obsessively thinking about the other woman having intimate conversations with her husband. When she closed her eyes, she envisioned him holding her hand and caressing her.

    Kathy found herself monitoring her husband’s every movement. Little things upset her and she was highly suspicious. She couldn’t shake the mental picture of her husband in bed with another woman. Intrusive thoughts flooded her mind. Kathy felt like she was losing it. She needed to bounce all this off of a therapist to see if she was going crazy.

    When an affair has been found out, it is common to have reactions like Kathy’s. Anxiety attacks and grief-like symptoms are normal reactions to the breach of marital covenant. In many ways, the reactions of the non-involved spouse are similar to post traumatic stress symptoms for those who have been emotionally, physically and sexually abused. The reality of an affair awakens a deep sense of loss. You may feel you are going crazy. This is normal.

    Couples that deal with an extramarital affair do have higher rates of depression than couples who come to marital therapy for other reasons. 1 Some partners are even suicidal. It’s also not uncommon to hear homicidal rage towards the lover.

    Given this emotional instability and intensity, the safety of people involved must always be considered. While not all people will act out their intense feelings of betrayal and rage, the risk is there and does happen. Turn on the nightly news and you’ll get a glimpse of what betrayed people can do!

    It’s important to know that you won’t feel like this forever and that what you feel is valid given the circumstances. The intensity is strongest when the affair is found out because you realize that you have been deceived and that your marital vows were broken. The goal is to mange those feelings so that you don’t become incapacitated by them.

    · Allow yourself to feel whatever comes.

    · Don’t deny the intensity of your emotions.

    · Work with a therapist who can help you express what you feel and help you manage those feelings.

    · Pour your heart out to God. He hears your pain and promises to comfort you even in difficult times.

  • Weight Loss: Looking for the Magic Pill

    Are you searching for the magic pill that will make pounds melt away?

    Dr Linda Helps – We are a pill-popping society. When we feel bad, we take something to feel better. Americans are in love with drug solutions to anything. Pill popping is easy, convenient and doesn’t make us deal with the complicated issues of life. Temporary relief is the goal.

    This pill-popping mentality is all around us. On the one hand we tell our children and teens not to take illegal drugs or misuse medications. On the other hand, we model the opposite by popping a pill for every ache and pain. Nowhere is the quick-fix mentality more evident than when you look at weight loss products. The number of products on the market claiming to make you lose weight is staggering. I am amazed at what people will swallow to reach the thin ideal of American beauty. Billions of dollars are wasted on elusive promises to melt away pounds. We covet the magic pill and we’ll try anything in an effort to find it.

    At present there is no magic pill. We are still searching for a better understanding of the molecular biology of obesity. If we truly understood the causes of obesity we could do more than treat the symptoms. But until that happens, pharmacological solutions for obesity remain hopeful but not yet proven.

    Science continues to bring us new treatments but we need to wait for proof of their effectiveness. Remember the fenfluramine hydrochloride and dexfenfluramine hydrochloride fiascos. Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories in Philadelphia, PA., the American distributor of fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine, voluntarily withdrew these meds from the market in September 1997 at the request of the Food and Drug Administration.

    Then there was phen-fen (phentermine and fenfluramine). Obese patients were flocking to physicians for phen-fen prescriptions. They were desperate to find the right combination of drugs to make those pounds drop.

    At the height of the phen-fen popularity, I was working with an internist who studied the research of Michael Weintraub and colleagues at the University of Rochester in New York. The results indicated these medications were less than exciting in the long run. Then, national concern about possible serious side effects related to valvular heart disease surfaced. People who jumped on the phen-fen bandwagon were left wondering what damage they may have done to their physical bodies and over time, gained back most of their weight loss.

    Since that time, newer agents have been approved–sibutramine and orlistat. Again, time and research will tell if long-term results can be maintained without significant risks. The question continues to be, what amount of sustained weight loss is considered successful and worth the risks? Is a 5% reduction in weight worth the long-term effects of continued drug use?

    The search goes on as we learn more about genetic influences after the 1994 discovery of the ob gene and its protein product leptin. The hope is that pharmacology will eventually cure obesity. The wish of many is that a magic pill will be discovered and our obesity problems solved. In the meantime, keep doing the sensible things we know to do: eat healthy, exercise, and change your lifestyle. It may be awhile.

  • Is Beauty the Beast?

    Many girls struggle with body image disturbance. Parents can help correct those distortions.

    Dr Linda Helps – “I never thought about how magazines influence my feelings about my body. I look at the models and sometimes read the articles. I’m interested in fashion and want to stay in style. But lately I’ve been obsessing on different body parts. It seems no matter what I do, I don’t look like the models I see. I’ve been feeling depressed. My mom is worried because I started dieting. She says I’m not fat.”

    Many teens I see in therapy struggle with body image disturbance. Their bodies become their enemies—not good enough to win them acceptance or popularity. They falsely believe that a “killer” body is the key to love.

    Adolescence is a time girls reorganize internally while trying to conform externally. Their style has to be uniquely their own while conforming to a certain look. Girls are acutely aware of the physical appearance of other girls. Comparisons abound and are not limited to peers. The glamorized icons of pop culture set the standard. It is easy to feel less than perfect.

    Despite all the efforts of the women’s movement, girls still give others tremendous power over feelings of self-worth. Those who don’t have good self-esteem and lack self-worth are particularly susceptible to negative pressure from peers and media.

    While parents still constitute the single most important influence in the life of a teen, media influence. For many teens, media fill in the gap. For teens who don’t have strong parent connections, media become the teaching parent. Teens try to imitate attractive models whose photos have been airbrushed and computer altered. When they don’t match the glamorous photos they regularly stare at, dissatisfaction with the body results.

    Early on, girls learn the lesson that appearance matters. This message reinforced by magazines and other media is internalized and often leads to preoccupation with beauty and the perfect body. Salmons et al, (1988) conducted a school survey of children ages 11 to 13 years. Most girls worried about the shape of their stomachs and thighs. Other studies have documented the preoccupation of young girls with dieting despite the fact that they aren’t fat.

    Our culture says perfect bodies are to be worshipped. The American body has been glamorized to idol proportion. But parents can influence daughters to accept their imperfect bodies. Try these suggestions to help correct those distortions:

    · Educate your daughter about the use of computer altering, make-up, hairstylists and airbrushed photos in magazines. Teens need to know most people don’t look like those photos without a lot of extra help.

    · Compliment your daughters for things unrelated to beauty and looks.

    · Moms, don’t criticize your own body for its imperfections in front of your daughters and stop your endless dieting.

    · Help your daughter find her true identity in Christ by filling her with the Word so she finds her identity in Christ.

    · Work on the internal parts of her character development. Inner beauty goes a long way in life and doesn’t fade with age.

    · Limit exposure to unhealthy media images as much as possible.

    · Show your daughter how to maximize her physical appearance without becoming obsessive and spending hours on make-up and hair. Good grooming differs from obsessing.

    · Talk to daughters about the dangers of body image disturbance as a precursor to eating disorders.