In the aftermath of an affair, there is the deep seated desire to punish. Sometimes, this desire is directed at the paramour and sometimes at your spouse.
You feel hurt and something inside of you wants to inflict that hurt on others. This is partly out of a sense of justice, partly cartharsis and partly communication.
When you are hurt by an affair, you want a way of evening out the hurt. You want others to hurt the way you hurt. When you are unsure who caused the hurt, it leaves you holding the pain.
There’s also a cathartic aspect. You want a way of releasing your pains and anxieties. In punishing someone you hope that you’ll find relief. Unleashing the unpleasant emotions is a way of getting rid of them.
The desire to punish is also a form of communication. Through your actions, you communicate what you’re feeling. In this case, it’s a deep hurt. There are times when the pain is something you can’t put into words. It’s only by showing others what you feel that you can express it.
One of the more difficult things to sort out is what’s behind this desire to punish. Is it a need to right the wrongs done? If that is the case, punishment will not make things better.
You mind may tell you it’s a way of even-ing things out. This is taking justice into your own hands. It gives you a temporary sense of power, yet if you ‘unleash’ on someone, it rarely brings the relief you hoped for.
When you do punish someone, a nagging question is ‘how much is enough?’. Do you unleash until the feeling is gone, or until they cry out or beg for mercy?
Since the desire to punish is so strong, it is not easily tempered or restrained. It’s hard restraining yourself once you begin punishing.
There’s a reason for affair violence being called ‘crimes of passion’. The deep feelings are personal and painful.
Your spouse may have had a fantasy about the affair, while you have one about punishment. Punishment is dangerous in that it brings a quick release, but doesn’t settle anything.
You’ll likely find yourself having to go back to punishing repeatedly, since you didn’t deal with the root issues.
Is it to make your spouse pay? Making them pay will certainly not make them want to be near you or draw closer to you.
Is it about wanting to get even with the paramour? Getting back at the paramour may make you feel better, but it doesn’t remove your spouses role in what happened. Choices were made. Typically there were choices made all the way around. Punishment doesn’t change the choices.
Such questions, when through through will help you to regain your focus, since anger has a way of distracting us and blinding us to what we really want and need. So, before you take off and punish someone, take a moment and consider whether or not it will help to bring healing to the situation.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey
