For many wives, workplace sexual integrity carries a twofold concern. First and most obvious is your fidelity to your marriage vows and her heart. She is concerned with whether or not you’ll continue to hurt her. If your acting out was in any way tied to the workplace, this fear will increase exponentially. If it was pornography on a work computer, she’ll wonder what you are doing when you’re online at work. This would be a great reason to add an Internet filter to your corporate machine.
I understand for some men this isn’t realistic because they work for organizations with huge information technology (IT) departments and a certain amount of bureaucracy. It is also difficult to monitor your Internet usage if you work for a defense contractor. It can be awkward to ask for an exception and even detrimental to submit such a request, giving IT a reason to check your browser history. Some discernment is required in these situations.
If you had an emotional or physical affair with someone at work, your wife’s fear of further infidelity is going to be piqued on a number of fronts. Your wife will assume that every woman at the office—not just the person or people you had affairs with—is fair game for you. Why would she think otherwise?
Your wife’s second concern about your workplace is her own sense of security. This will be exponentially higher if she is a stay-at-home mom or an empty nester who was a stay-at-home mom or if she chose a career path based on passion not pay. At the moment, she depends on you for financial support. It’s scary for a woman to look at the possibility of being forced back to work (maybe again) because of your unemployability.
I have a client couple now facing this situation. The wife is trying to get a job because her husband has acted out with pornography at work again. She feels compelled to find a position and is very resentful about it. She would rather be a secure, stay-at-home mom, perhaps taking on some side work as she feels inclined, raising their daughter and probably having a second child. Instead, she has to figure out how she’ll afford life for her and her daughter apart from her husband. She can hardly bear to live with the stress and anxiety of waiting for him to come home saying he was fired. This situation is not unique; it happens all the time, and it only adds to the difficulty of relational restoration and trust building.
Husbands, please understand that your wife’s anxiety increases in certain professional scenarios. If you are a teacher, her anxiety will be heightened because it could be extremely difficult for you to secure a new position if you are fired from your teaching position for sexual misconduct. Her fears also will be heightened if you live in a small town where a tarnished reputation can prevent you from getting hired. There’s fear if you work in a health-care environment where patient contact can be an issue. The list goes on and on. You must take your wife’s sense of security very seriously.
Boundaries at work become incredibly important now. If you’ve had poor boundaries, this is going to feel like an uphill struggle as you implement them. But it is imperative, going forward, that very clear lines be drawn around where, when, and how you interact with women at work. Because the work environment can change our persona, we have to be diligent in preserving our sense of authenticity and self. Your new self must be careful with boundaries, intentional with words, and conscientious about how interactions can affect your wife’s heart.
Let’s begin with physical touch in the workplace: there can’t be any! The only appropriate physical touch is a handshake. If, for some reason, at your work there is a culture of hugs, pats on the back, or shoulder massages, you will need to go against the grain and stop. Your hands do not belong on anyone at work. Nor do theirs on you. If you know a particular female coworker is a touchy-feely person, keep your distance. Mind you, if that coworker touches your arm while explaining something to you, and your wife asks if you touched another woman today, your response should be yes. To say otherwise would be to lie.
Your wife’s question: Was there any physical contact with another woman at work today?
Your answer: Yes, but I did not initiate or reciprocate. She touched my arm while explaining something. So I pulled away and took a step back to be sure it wouldn’t happen again.
Believe me, you don’t want to have this conversation with your wife. So make it easy on both of you and keep your distance from other people. This goes for personal one-on-one interactions as well as any in the cafeteria or at corporate functions.
With regard to one-on-one interactions with female coworkers, you would do well to eliminate or greatly reduce these. A conversation that requires a closed door should also have an open blind or window. If that’s not possible, find a conference room with these options. A closed-door conversation with no visibility is a recipe for disaster and destroys your Lego sculpture of trustworthiness.
Do not have meals alone with a woman from work. Do not stay late to work on a project with another woman alone. Avoid getting in an elevator when it will only be you and another woman. No, I’m not kidding! I once got off an elevator on the wrong floor and waited for the next one because a woman had gotten on with me. I had promised Shelley I wouldn’t be alone with another woman in any situation.
If you make sales calls and your clients are women, figure out a way to perform your job without one-on-one interactions that require you to be alone with a woman. If you can’t, you might need to find another job.
The same goes for corporate functions. In meetings, it is crucial that you are mindful of where you sit. Sit across from women as much as possible, not next to them. Try not to make eye contact except when talking to them directly, as the meeting demands. Don’t have hallway conversations where you’ll be directly engaged with women. At bigger events, like annual sales meetings, protect your personal space. Some of these get-togethers are notorious for a raucous time where boundaries easily get crossed. Remember, you cannot afford this. Being a part of it will withdraw all the currency from your trust-building account.
It’s a difficult thing to write that you must minimize your business travel. When this subject comes up with a husband who is trying to build trust, he resists almost every time. But I’m a realist, not a kill-joy. Business travel and trust building don’t go together.
If you travel professionally, your process of trust building with your wife is exponentially inhibited. It may even be impossible to completely restore trust if you regularly have to travel. Let’s address this topic from three angles.
First, for many wives (especially those who have the sole responsibility for children and maintaining the household), your travel is a burden even under the best circumstances. They have to work double duty. If you have small children, your wife has to work overtime to get meals ready, clean up, give baths, follow the bedtime routine, shop for groceries, and more. If you have teenagers, your wife has to work overtime with extracurricular schedules, sleepovers, parties, school, homework, and church activities. The very fact that you’re gone, albeit a day trip or a week-long trip, is a burden on the whole family.
If you pile your trust violation on top of all that, it feels like insult added to injury. Not only do you get to mess around and have this selfish double life, but you get to go on trips and enjoy time away from your real responsibilities. That’s how your wife often sees it!
Even though business trips usually are packed with busyness and it’s not a vacation, that is no consolation to your wife. Traveling for work usually only adds the fuel of animosity to an already raging fire.
Second, travel usually triggers a memory for your wife. This is especially true if you acted out while traveling. Many guys report that they won’t act out in their hometown, but when they’re out of town, they’ll visit strip clubs, call escorts, look at porn, or spend time with a mistress. If that is your story, you need to know that even the thought of your traveling incites deep fear as well as anger in your spouse. If you have to go to a city where you previously had an affair, even the name of that city will draw worry and hatred from your wife.
Anyone who was an accomplice or a co-conspirator is dangerous too. If you went to a strip club with a particular coworker and that coworker is going to be on the next business trip with you, you’ve already lost trust. Your wife can’t trust you or him and especially not the two of you together! Likewise, if you are heading for a guys’ trip and one of your buddies is a known womanizer or lacks integrity, you’ve lost trust by being around him at all. It’s assumed that birds of a feather flock together—especially dodo birds.
Third, travel hinders trust building because you are completely unaccountable. Your spouse cannot be sure of who sat beside you on the plane or in a meeting or at a business dinner. She cannot be sure what you did or didn’t say to whoever was sitting beside you. She can’t be sure that you are where you say you are. She can’t be sure you don’t have a coworker covering for you and lying on your behalf. Traveling without your wife is not good. It leaves too many gaps where doubt and fear can creep into her mind and damage the work you’re doing.
I strongly suggest you not travel. If your job requires it, think about getting a different job. Yes, I mean it.
If you have an annual guys’ trip planned, cancel it. While it sounds drastic, I believe wholeheartedly that God will honor your decision to prioritize restoration of your marriage above your career and your own happiness. And I believe your wife will honor that too. If you want to build trust more quickly, be in town and at home every night.
It was nearly two years to the day after my disclosure before I traveled alone again. Now I travel regularly as part of my ministry, and with Shelley’s trust restored in me, there is little angst, fear, or insecurity about it in our relationship.
If you decide not traveling isn’t feasible for you, here are some guidelines for travel that may help:
• Begin by sitting down with your wife and talking her through the entirety of your trip in advance. Include all the details. Print out an itinerary of events along with who you expect to be in attendance at the events and where they will take place.
• Be clear on your boundaries for conversations at meetings, dinners, and downtimes. Set expectations for what you’ll do during your free time (see the previous chapter).
• Commit to texting or calling at regular intervals: when you get to the airport, just before takeoff, upon landing, upon arrival at the client site or hotel. If you are staying overnight somewhere, give details about your hotel and include your room number. Call home from the hotel room telephone so your wife can confirm your whereabouts, or have her call the hotel room so you can answer it to confirm.
• Always be reachable by phone (see chapter 18 for more information on this).
• Ask the hotel to block all adult channels to the television in your room.
• Commit to abstain from alcohol during the trip, especially if it was a part of your acting-out behavior.
You have to go above and beyond to create as much safety and security as possible for your wife. Anything less and you’re delaying the healing process.
INSIGHT FROM STEPHEN ARTERBURN
Be Responsible
Perhaps the most valuable thing you can continue to do, the thing that is within your power to do, no matter what, is to act responsible and become a responsible person: continue meeting expectations and doing what you say you will do. This also means refusing to blame or shame others.
This position of responsibility gives you and your wife security that the future is predictable when it comes to integrity and purity. Your life becomes a beacon for doing the right thing. It is showing that the tough path is often the right path, and you are looking for what is right and no longer what is easy or feels good.
Becoming a responsible human being by making responsible decisions every day and living in responsible ways will strengthen your bond, restore her trust, and secure your relationship and your future.