MOTIVATION:Ashley Thaba IN our television episode titled Affair proofing your marriage, a question was asked: “Practically for men, we are driven by what we see. What happens when you see something else other than that which you have?” Below is our answer as it appears in our marriage workbook and on the television show. First of all, we advise you flee temptation. No one is too strong to resist if you keep putting yourself in tempting situations! Don’t play with fire! To do this, the best thing is to talk very openly about what boundaries you both are comfortable with. Some people don’t mind if their spouse goes out to a meal with a person of the opposite sex. Others would be livid! Another person won’t mind if you chat with a friend of the opposite sex on the phone. Another might feel uncomfortable. The boundaries are for the two of you to come up with. They need to be clear and defined so that if you are doing that thing that your spouse is not comfortable with, a warning bell goes off in your mind that you are entering a danger zone, and you need to flee. Another tactic we use is unique and we realise it won’t work for everyone but it works well for us. I (Percy-my husband) sometimes look at a girl and before I know it my mind is wandering to places it shouldn’t! I actually do not want it to start thinking impure thoughts, but it just happens. I have found that if I tell Ashley what I am thinking, it frees me. It is no longer my dirty little secret and exposing it makes it lose its appeal. Something about shining light into darkness always dispels it. It also holds me accountable if we are together and the lady comes, because now I will really watch my actions because I have already told my wife I am physically attracted to that lady.That provides extra accountability for me to watch my actions. I am able to do this with Ashley because she is an extremely secure woman who understands I am not telling her this to make her jealous or angry, but rather because I want her help in fighting these temptations. Additionally, Ashley and I both understand that temptation will come and we don’t fault the other for being human. The thoughts are normal. Whether we choose to perpetually dwell on them and eventually act on them is when the problems start. As long as you are honest with yourself and with your spouse, that temptation is not going to get a foothold to destroy your marriage. Let’s make this more practical. I am a computer engineer/project manager by profession. That means I have to put bids/tenders in a lot of projects to get work. There was a season where I kept being paired with this one lady at work. Due to the fact that we frequently had to read over documents on the computer to work together to turn in proposals, that left us sitting closely and looking at the same computer screen together. Honestly, the lady was not as beautiful as Ashley. I didn’t have any friendship with her outside of work, but just the close proximity made me start thinking thoughts that I knew were not healthy. Add that to the fact that