How affairs change your brain (formerly The Neurobiology of Affairs)

Neurobiology and Attachments

What happens in your brain when you grow attached to others?

As researchers continue expanding what is known about neurological development, behavioral scientists are revisiting the theories regarding attachment. This includes studying the brain and how it changes when we attach ourselves to others. It also includes how relationships change your brain and thinking.

Researchers (such as Louis Colozino, and Daniel Goleman) looking into how the brain and nervous system operate are finding that as you develop attachments, you also experience changes in both how your brain thinks and how it is wired or connected together. The brain literally changes with each new relationship. It changes in how its wired and how you think.

Each relationship has the potential to re-wire the connections and how you think. This articles reviews the current understanding of neurobiology and how it relates to human relationships in the area of affairs. What these researchers are finding have many implications for human attachments, including infidelity and what goes on in the brain with those attachments.

The Neurobiology of Adult Attachments

On reaching maturity, the size of your brain becomes fixed, yet the establishing of connections and wiring continues. Your brain doesn’t grow, but it continues changing the connections inside it. Besides changing the connections some of them are sped up and others are slowed down.

Your brain is finished growing, yet the connections within it continue configuring and re-configuring in many new ways. When people grow smarter, your brain does not grow larger. Instead, your wiring gets a make-over. Your brain is constantly rewiring itself in adjusting to changes that it experiences.

With each new relationship, connections form between neurons in your brain. Although the changes may be subtle, with each new relationship we experience, the structure and thinking of our brain changes through the new connections and networks formed. Some relationships form strong connections and some are weak connections.

Understanding how these attachments (or connections) develop provides clearer understanding of relationships and what underlies relationship choices.

As adults, you’ve learned how to fit into your environment. You have also learned how to get along with other people. When you encounter someone with whom you feel a strong connection with, you may find yourself seeking out that person.

Since the nervous system continues making connections, if the new person you encountered has any similarities to people or experiences in the past, they are immediately wired into that early life network and make a stronger connection.

By the time your are an adult, the wiring and re-wiring of your brain occurs unconsciously, so connections may be established that you are not fully conscious of. You’ll find that you’re attracted to people that have similar patterns to those persons you encountered earlier in your life.

When you encounter individuals that have been wired into some of those early life connections, you may feel a stronger connection with that person.The more the connections, the stronger the attachment that forms.

Since the material is stored on an unconscious level, you’re not aware of what’s driving your attraction. When someone asks you “What attracted you to _________. Since the connections were established in a manner outside of normal awareness, you will answer ‘I don’t know’, and be telling the truth.

What does this mean?

It means you are drawn and attracted to other people. You will find that you are more strongly attracted to some people than others. The power or ‘magnetism’ which draws you to them operates outside our awareness. We only know that we feel drawn to them. Part of what attracts you to them is their similarity to people you are familiar with.

Once you feel attracted, you are more vulnerable to being re-programmed as well. People who you feel strongly attracted to also have more influence in re-programming you.

When you see other people and begin interacting with them, there is also re-programming going on in your brain and theirs. Whatever actions occur within eye shot of someone else starts a triggering reaction in the other people around them.

They trigger responses in you and you trigger responses in them. Typically these action and reactions occur on an ongoing basis with each person you meet. Those you interact with more often will have a greater impact than those we seldom interact with.

When two people intentionally ‘tune in’ to each other, things change. The action and reaction programming occurs in each of our interactions. When those interactions are with people we are attracted to, the programming becomes more powerful and influential

In the event that another person in the room begins tuning into those action-reaction pattern, things begin to change. They move from actions and reactions to changing each others mood and mind. The two persons begin modifying each others mental and physiological states.

When the modifications involve arousal, the two parties feel more attracted to each other. This poses the potential problems. The first problem is that the two people are trying to influence each others behavior.

They’ve moved beyond just changing behavior to changing each other’s thinking and emotional state. When people joke about ‘attitude adjustments’ or ; “I’ll make him change his mind” they are accurately stating what is going on.

When the change in mood and thinking reaches high levels, the increased stimulation is often interpreted as ‘arousal’ When aroused, the parties may comment that they feel attracted to the other person.

The more sensory systems (visual, auditory, sensation, olfactory, etc.) aroused, the greater the sensation of arousal. This means that the more you can stimulate all the sensory systems, the greater the likelihood of getting the person aroused.

When the modifications are those of a repulsive nature they feel repelled by the other person. Whether the stimulation is arousal or repulsive type, the two persons have modified each others behaviors.

With these connections being processed on an unconscious level, the person may be a loss of words to explain what is happening or why it is occurring regarding the connection they encounter. They only know that they’re drawn to or repulsed by that person. In many ways, the early life experiences work behind the scenes influencing present relationships.

When establishing connections with others, as happens in affairs, the initial connection is established through eye contact. As eye contact continues, the intensity of the connection between them strengthens. The longer the connection persists, the greater the attachment, since the neurons begin firing and re-configuring.

With the neural re-programming, they feel more attuned’ to the other person. This ‘attunement’ is more than just feeling like they connect’. Science is finding that the physiology of the two persons making the connection begin changing and attuning as well.

Although flirting may be considered a sport’ for entertainment, when it is accompanied by prolonged eye contact, the two people flirting begin neural re-configuring and connecting with each other.

The more attuned the two people become, the greater the danger of an affair. They will begin to view the other person as getting them’ better than their spouse does. When your spouse comments that their lover ‘understands’ them, they’re actually saying, that their lover focuses attention on them. That  the lover is more attuned to them, than you as the spouse are.

Since your attachment preferences change after five years, your marriage relationship needs adjustments. Not making adjustments means you  run the risk of potential attachment to others. In years past, people joked about the seven-year itch. What research is showing is that it is more like five years.

The brain changes with affairs. With that in mind, recovery from an affair means changing your brain as well. You can change it, you can change your marriage. The Affair Recovery Workshop takes these principles and puts them to work for you in changing your brain and your marriage.

Best Regards,

Jeff