Robert Weiss
For most people affected by serial sexual or romantic infidelity of a spouse, it’s not so much the extramarital sex or affair itself that causes the deepest pain. What hurts committed partners the most is that their trust and belief in the person closest to them has been shattered.
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The trauma evoked by profound relationship betrayal typically manifests in one or more of the following ways:
- Emotional lability (excessive emotional reactions and frequent mood shifts) – recurrent tearfulness, quick shifts from rage to sadness to hope and back again
- Hypervigilence that can manifest in self-protective behaviors like doing “detective work” (checking bills, wallets, computer files, phone apps, browser histories, etc.)
- Attempting to combine a series of unrelated events in order to predict future betrayal
- Being labile and easily triggered (think PTSD) into anxiety, rage, or fear by any hint that the betrayal might be repeated or ongoing – trigger examples include: the spouse comes home late, turns off the computer quickly, or looks “too long” at an attractive person
- Sleeplessness, nightmares, difficulty focusing on the day-to-day
- Obsessing about the trauma – struggling to focus, being distracted, depressed, etc.
- Avoiding thinking about or discussing the trauma (a common reaction to a traumatic experience)
- Isolation
- Intrusive fantasy images or thoughts about the betrayal
In part, the trauma of infidelity stems from the fact that while the cheater has obviously known about his or her extracurricular sexual behavior all along and may actually feel some relief once the truth is on the table, a betrayed partner is all too often blindsided by this information.
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Adding insult to injury, it’s not just anyone who caused this pain, loss, and hurt. The agony experienced by betrayed spouses – their reactivity – is amplified by the fact that they’ve been cheated on by the person they had most counted upon to “have their back.” Think what it would be like to have your best friend – the person you live, sleep, and have sex with, the one who co-parents your children and with whom you share your most intimate self, your finances, your world – suddenly become someone coldly unknown to you. The person who carries with them the most profound emotional and concrete significance in your past, present, and future has just taken a sharp implement and ripped apart your emotional world (and often that of your family) with lies, manipulation, and a seeming lack of concern about your emotional and physical wellbeing! No wonder the effects of this kind of betrayal can last for a year or more.
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Just as a betrayed spouse is not wrong to stay in a relationship and attempt to repair it, he or she is also not wrong to end it. Perhaps, for betrayed spouses, what is ultimately more important than whether they choose to stay or go is how they go about growing beyond this loss.
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This article warrants a full read; I've focused here on the selections that helped me recognize that what might have otherwise seemed like absurdly out-of-proportion reactions to an unfortunately common kind of betrayal were exceedingly normal reactions to the trauma of a trust violation.
Emotional lability? Yep. Hypervigilence? Yep. Misconstruing innocent events as evidence of new betrayals? Yep. Easily triggered? Sleeplessness and nightmares? Obsessiveness? Intrusive thoughts? Yep, yep, yep, yep.
And not only was this the most traumatic experience in my life - it was caused by the person I rely on for support, strength, love.
I remember looking at my husband and feeling like I had no idea who he was. I've known him, intimately, for almost fourteen years - nearly half of my life. We talked about everything. We fought and listened and reconciled. We made each other laugh. I was so proud of him. I was sometimes ashamed of him. I loved him deeply. I knew him better than I knew any other person in this world. And I had no idea what he was capable of, no idea who he was. I remember looking at him, and saying that I had no idea who he was. And he insisted, desperately, that I did - that I knew him.
And I replied that no, I didn't. The man I had known and loved - the man, I now realize, that I had created in my head - would not have been capable of the sought-out, intentional, extended affairs my husband had been having. That man, that marriage, was gone. It feels like a death, like a murder (or, more accurately, manslaughter, as he never intended to kill the marriage, but . . .).
If we stay married, it won't be about rebuilding what we had. It will be a second marriage, albeit to the same legal person; it will be something new and different. Less innocent. More honest.
I now know my husband better - I know about the dark places he hid from everyone, from me, from himself. I know now he is capable of things I still can't fathom, and I know he can't always be the person I want him to be. I can still admire him. I can still be disappointed in him. I can still love him. I still might know him better than any other person in the world.
But I now know, viscerally, that I'll never fully know him. The only people we can fully know are those we create - and those people aren't real.
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