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Hey,

Is anyone familiar with any books specific to the topic of conflict Avoidance affairs and have any suggestions?

When I search online, I usually find books that go over all the types of affairs and brush the subject, but I'm hoping to find a read that specifically goes deeper into this subject.

Thanks for any advice.

[This message edited by Lovehurts777 at 9:35 PM, January 6th (Sunday)]

My wife calls her adulteries "exit affairs" while making it very clear that they were conflict avoidant in nature as well (as contradictory as that may sound, considering what extreme conflict they brought into both of our lives).

In my case, she left me and the family 2-3 times depending on what one considers "leaving", eventually returning each time, but "conflict avoidance" was largely what she claims as her motivation even though she fought and fought and fought before she'd leave each time.

That might not be exactly what you are looking for, but perhaps that cliche-ish affair type includes the why's and wherefores you are after in your questioning and searching.

[This message edited by Cephastion at 2:46 AM, January 7th (Monday)]

Cephastion - Thank you for your response. My WH has always been an ostrich with his head so far down in the sand its not even funny.

After some IC, I've realized I've also been a conflict avoider of sorts, although I always thought that I was good at talking about my problems with WH and we would always seem to get through them fine and then life would go on happily. It turns out that this whole time, I've actually been more like "I have this problem with you. You don't think ____ about me? Do you? DO YOU? Okay, I didn't think so. Yay, we're happy, seeeeee?". Because I can't stand when he's upset with me. I have to know that he's happy with me ALL the time because I'm codependent on him for my emotional needs and my own sense of self. And since he's an ostrich people pleaser, he's been happy all this time with just agreeing with whatever I say "Yes dear, of course!"... and boy he's a good actor. Like literally, he's in community theatre :).

Sooo, now 15 years into marriage we are here. Still in the same cycle. It's a blindside to me. Not him. So I'm going through the trauma of not only finding out about the affair that happened a while back when I thought we were happy, realizing he's not who I thought he was, but also now realizing I'm not who *I* thought *I* was. Crazy.

I'm trying my best now 3 months out after dday to understand my own self and fix my manipulative nature towards WH. It's still hard to try and work on myself when I'm still so upset about the affair in general, but I'm getting there?

Anywho, yeah we are probably the textbook definition of codependent conflict avoiding couple. Even the definition of a conflict avoidant affair fits us to a "T". Just would like to know more about it basically and get some insight.

Thanks again for your own insight. Good luck to you. The more I've read about Exit Affairs, yeah I can see where that would be a cry for help and a type of conflict avoidance too. The WS might think that its an exit affair or would rather call it that than try to work on the actual conflict.

I said the same thing about a conflict avoidant affair being contradictory, just yesterday. I was talking about how it's so odd to avoid conflict by inflicting the worst possible conflict into the relationship... especially if its with the intention of the BS finding out about it in order to get attention. The more I think about it, my WH might have wanted me to find out about it, since it was a friend of ours and it was in my house... it wasn't like he was trying to hide it so much. And he tried to tell me about it several times over the years, but was so afraid of losing me at that point.. but eventually he did confess, which I'm thinking was also a cry for help. Why tell me 7 years later when we seem to be happy? Because he's still not happy and I'm hiding in a cloak of fake happiness, probably. Yay, more stuff to talk about in IC this week! LOL

Anyways, I just wrote a novel and that wasn't my intention, but this topic has woken some thoughts for me this morning.

[This message edited by Lovehurts777 at 8:49 AM, January 7th (Monday)]

In our case, I was anything BUT conflict avoidant, and her adultery(ies) were so secret that she flat out left me both times and went no contact for months on end without any cited cause whatsoever except "wanting space" while swearing to remain faithful each time (which was already a boldfaced lie by the time she was promising such and swearing that such was still the case).

But yeah, welcome to the two for one special in the discovery zone where the question of "who is who you thought they were" is a question you all YOURSELF as well as the stranger you find wearing your spouse's wedding ring.

Yeah. I get that in a way. My wife and I are still figuring out some of that ourselves.

Some good books that deal with coping with a partner's affair include:

After the Affair (Janis Abrams Spring)

The Monogamy Myth (Peggy Vaughan)

Private Lies (Frank Pittman)

Not Just Friends (Shirley Glass and Jean Coppock Staeheli)

Infidelity: Why Men and Women Cheat (Kenneth Paul Rosenberg)

Most of these books include at least some discussion of the relationship between conflict avoidance and extramarital affairs.

Patterns of Infidelity and Their Treatment (Emily M. Brown) is an older book that discusses conflict avoidance in the context of extramarital affairs.