I hadn’t considered Infidelity PTSD prior to doing some thinking through issues related to infidelity. The longer I’ve worked with couples dealing with infidelity, the more I realized “They are TRAUMATIZED! This is PTSD stuff!”
You also may not have considered the connection between the two of them before either. There’s a relationship between them on several levels.
First, when infidelity hits you, i hits you with the force of a traumatic event. It is traumatic to you. You and your world suddenly changed with the news.
You may find yourself feeling shell-shocked and disoriented in its aftermath, either as the cheater or the non-cheating spouse. For the cheater, the infidelity episode may have ‘surprised you’ or startled you to the point where you really can’t believe that this is happening to you.
You may feel like you are in ‘robot mode’ and just going through the motions of something that is ‘out of control’. Others may comment on you having a blank look on your face.
Although you may have fantasized about cheating, when it happened, you may find yourself shocked by what happened. The shock may be strong enough to where you don’t recall some aspects of the infidelity or even the whole episode.
For the non-cheating spouse, your world has been rocked, and not in a good way. The world changing news that you were cheated on is something that you struggle with getting your head around.
You find yourself feeling lost and confused as you struggle in dealing with the situation. It’s hard believing what just happened and coming up with a way to deal with it.
There may even be denial on your part as you find it shocking to believe that this could be happening to you. This often includes a sense of things being unreal or “Like you are in a movie”.
You find yourself asking “How could this happen to me?”, “Is this really happening?” and others associated with questioning the realness of what is happening in your life.
You struggle with disorientation regarding time, along with feeling emotionally numbed out. Your world changed when you found out about the affair.
Your unable to move on beyond the day and time you found out. Some of those in your situation refer to this as “D-Day”. The similarities to military PTSD are more than co-incidental.
It’s as if time stops. Your world suddenly screeches to a stand still.
They share many similarities. You may even find your mind re-playing the events over and over in your head as you try to get a handle on it. You re-experience the pain each time it replays.
So the Infidelity PTSD symptoms are found in both the cheater and resolute (non-cheating) spouse. It’s not something limited to one spouse or the other.
These symptoms don’t happen with all couples. They happen enough that you need to be aware of it. So if it is happening to you, you’ll know what is going on with your head and heart.
If you have experienced early life traumas, you may find yourself more vulnerable to severe traumatic reactions. It’s as if something inside sends the message “Here we go again”, yet this time, you find yourself stuck.
Although there’s a shock on discovering the affair, there are some of you who find yourself unable to calm down after the initial shock. When you’re unable to soothe yourself or calm down, you are in ‘Trauma Mode”.
Recognize that the recurrent recollection of the event, recurrent distressing dreams, emotional sensitivity, difficulty with recall, feeling of detachment, thinking that the world is at an end, difficulty thinking, difficulty sleeping, being ‘on guard’, and exaggerated startle responses are due to your reactions to the event and part of Infidelity PTSD (I prefer using the term Affair Trauma).
You may even want to calm down, but find yourself unable to. You’re unable to turn off the alarm. It’s as if the alarm continues going off and all your attempts at silencing it failed.
When you realize that this is part of the trauma, you can dismiss being called a liar, paranoid, crazy or some other malicious label that others used in judging you and your response rather than understanding it.
There may be some good reasons for your reactions, whether you are the cheater or the resolute spouse. Infidelity PTSD (Affair Trauma) is real and needs to be dealt with.
The video on “Overcoming Affair Trauma” addresses the issues associated with being stuck in emotional shock for an extended time. You’ll learn what is happening to you and what to do about it. You don’t have to stay stuck in a state of being shell shocked by the affair.
Best Regards,
Jeff
