Have you ever “Hugged a Grudge?” After an affair, continuing your fury by holding a grudge is a tempting proposition. It’s hard saying no to such a grudge even though they hurt you.
They give you a gift that just ‘keeps on hurting’, and you ‘keep on holding’ onto that pain. Although you’re hugging the grudge, you probably haven’t questioned what you’re doing and your reasons for doing so.
You may have held a grudge for so long or so intently that you don’t remember what life without a grudge was like.
As twisted as it sounds, there are payoffs to hugging the grudge.
The grudge gives you energy. It gives you a reason to get out of bed and keep going.
Although it’s a negative energy, it’s energy. That energy gives you a spark, while filling your life and thoughts with negativity.
The energy gives you motivation, yet with the negativity, your motivation focuses on doing bad things. At times the negative energy has your mind and emotions focused on hurting the cheater, even to the point of murderous thoughts or suicidal ideas.
Hurt spouses hold onto their grudge for the rest of their lives, as if it had no expiration date. The problem is that there are consequences for holding onto that much negative energy for such a long time.
Those consequences include health problems. Although it’s easy blaming the cheater for your poor health at that point, the truth is that it was your choice in hugging your grudge for such a long period of time.
The cheater may have done the initial damage, but you came along. You inflicted more damage and then held on tighter to more damage inflicting negative feelings.
The grudge gives you a sense of power. It makes you believe that by hugging it that you have control over the cheater.
You think that your hugging inflicts pain on them. You interact with the grudge as if it were a voodoo doll that inflicts pain on the person you are mad at.
All this magical thinking regarding pain is an illusion. The truth is, that the cheater is not hurting because you hug the grudge.
The cheater is not magically hurt by what you imagine or wish on them.
Truth be told, the cheater won’t feel pain until you let go of the grudge. Pain often operates on a counter-intuitive basis when it comes to affairs.
When you hurt, they don’t, when you quit hurting, they start hurting. If you do not believe me, test it out for yourself.
It operates like a see-saw, with each side increasing or decreasing in pain levels, until the issues are resolved. I call this the ‘pain see-saw’. Hugging the grudge does nothing in terms of hurting the cheater.
Hugging the grudge also gives you a sense of security. By holding onto what you had, you think you can bring it back to life.
Even though you have hugged all the life out of your relationship, by holding onto the remains in the form of the grudge, it gives you a weird sense of security.
It’s like holding onto the remains of a childhood toy, years after it was broken beyond repair. All your wishing is not going to bring the relationship back to life. You will have to let go of the grudge. Even if you take it to the toy repair shop, you will have to ‘let go’ of it, ALL OF IT.
I encourage you to let go of your grudge. I know that some of you may need to hurt a little longer for some strange masochistic reason (often a need to punish yourself enough for what happened). Letting go will mean that you have to let go of the magic, the energy and the masochistic wishes.
If you have held onto that grudge to the point you can’t let go, you are experiencing “Affair Trauma”. Your ability to calm yourself and settle down is gone at this point.
You can move past that with some help. The video, “Overcoming Affair Trauma” guides you in moving past being stuck.
Best Regards,
Jeff
