Are you feeding your own nightmares? Although you do not like the fear, you may be doing things that actually keep your fears fed and strong. Although you say you want to be rid of them, you may be engaging in some self-defeating habits that are making things worse than they need to be.
Consider some of the ways you may be making your fears worse:
1. Constantly thinking about ‘what-if’ scenarios. When you constantly choose to play these out in your head, it trains your brain in thinking that way.
A brained trained in the ‘what-ifs’ is restless. It will keep you awake at night doing its ‘what-if’ routines. Since you trained it that way, it shouldn’t surprise you that such things happen. Your brain will do what you train it to do. It will see what you trained it to see, and think in ways that are familiar to it.
2. Some of you may be experiencing a ‘fear high’. When your body is in a fearful alarmed state, it releases neuro-chemicals. These neuro-chemicals like adrenaline, keep your body in that alarmed state for even longer periods. You are in a chemically altered state of mind.
You are chemically impaired at that point. The chemicals will change the way you deal with stimuli, the way you think, the way you breathe, along with altering your digestive system. That state of fear impacts many areas within your body besides your brain.
Since it is a high, some of you will want to stay in that chemically charged state. By complaining, being fearful and playing helpless, you trigger the chemicals. In this case, you can ‘blame the affair’, even though you are the one that turned on the trigger in this case.
3. Socially, when you stay in a state of fear, it puts you in the role of ‘victim’. While being a victim, you can play on other’s sympathies and get your needs met that way.
You can avoid responsibility by staying in the victim role. It is one thing if you feel the initial victimization, and struggle through that. When you continue playing victims months after the affair or even years, using it to avoid issues, responsibility and to gain sympathy of others, it has turned into a habitual way of life.
When ‘victimhood’ becomes a habitual way of life, you are using it to manipulate and control things. I recognize that there is a bizarre twist here, playing helpless to be the one manipulating situations, yet this counter-intuitive dynamic happens more than you may think.
4. Are you feeding your mind with fearful material? If you constantly consume news stories that trigger fear or affair stories, or sad ‘crying in your beer’ music, or adrenaline inducing heavy metal, it is no wonder that you have nightmares.
Your mind eventually takes in all the stuff that you consume, be it for better or worse. When you consume fear inducing material, that is what you get…fear. You really are what you eat, even when it comes to what you mentally consume.
These are just some of the ways you may be making your situation worse than it needs to be. If you are doing that, take action to break the cycle of victimhood.
Best Regards,
Jeff
3 Responses
I agree that we must govern our thoughts. The Bible instructs those who are believers in Christ that their thought life is key to living the life that we receive from HIS finished work to pay in full for sin …but the quality of our lives is dependent upon being not just INFORMED but to take every thought captive to the way the Word directs us to think.
In this you have demonstrated and offered help to those who have been in a state of shock due to a discovery . With all my years in walking in the Word with my Savior, with all of the things that might have been traumatic that does ‘hit’ the heart of people in this world….NOTHING I had gone through prepared me for the pain of the discovery of my husband’s double life.
I was kidnapped, raped and had a variety of things in my past which I was not unable to move on and forgive …probably because they were things done by people I had not invested so much of my love and trust in .
Even after these things I went on and continued to take to heart the things God has given us to do as believers…to study and share the Word of reconciliation that I had come to know Christ through. He told those who are His to continue to share His word which is His spirit and is life .
It is the ministry of reconciliation ….to give others the information that Jesus Christ IS the Savior …The Way , The Truth and The Life which is NOT of THIS world but is so much more …living in and through this world and beyond.
So it is that the PURPOSE of life which was before …that which Christ has given us …for the sake of souls …is still our purpose and that helps a lot to get through the pain and sorrow of infidelity and loss.
One thing that would have been useful to healing and helpful for me , to reduce triggers effects when they arrived so frequently and still from time to time come across my mind would have been a full disclosure from my husband . I have read that trickle truth is not helpful to healing and reconcilation in marriage.
I believe that though an infidel may feel some kind of regret and sorrow for having cheated …the ones that are fully transparent are those who REALLY demonstrate love and compassion for their grieving spouses. I know it must be very difficult for them to do this and perhaps that is what makes it so important to the betrayed.
The sad situation is when the infidel will not do this and it only emphasizes that they lack compassion and perhaps the courage to do so . In that case they are still demonstrating that they are more concerned about themselves than those they have harmed and their words of “apology” come across as shallow and meaningless.
For me , I keep myself IN the study of the Word and when with others I do not speak of my situation but extend for others the helps from the Word that has been my guide through life and this situation. I do not want to detract from the impact of that word in help for others …therefore I am making it through each day with some sense of being of use.
I had made my life around my service to the Lord by way of how I had tried to learn from the scriptures those things the Lord would teach me ..and especially how to be a godly and fun wife.
As far as I can tell with much examination of my own ‘beam ‘ I did not merit the abandonment of my husband’s heart, mind and energy in terms of our relationship, our marriage and our children.
Still he went his way and went after what is now in retrospect a ‘vapor’ even as scripture defines a life spent upon one’s lusts.
For all the orgasms, fun and activities and even ‘popularity’ he may have enjoyed while playing instead of investing himself in his wife and children …he MISSED …IT…HE missed what marriage , family and life was intended by God for him to experience and bring to his family.
HE lost but …in truth he STOLE what that would have been.
Still our children and I had a wonderful life despite the lament of missing him so often. None of us had what was available to us . It is not like we yearned or coveted what was NOT available for I know we made ourselves contented with what we had thinking that was the best HE could do to share our lives with us.
But to learn that he had all of what he needed and could ever have wanted in life in so many ways others could only dream of and he tossed it aside and did not value any of it …is very sorrowful.
Even now , he has fled the household only to visit when HE finds it convenient because of work and his ‘other life’ …not divorced…not even rejected …but HE still rejects what we are and have here .
All of those who have loved him and still do are still in a state of being rejected just by knowing he COULD be with us but is unwilling to …even if he lives in an uncomfortable way alone!
This may be the most cruel way to treat people you say you love and are sorry to have hurt that I have ever heard of .
We do not expect those who are strangers to do us any good or harm ..but we certainly do not expect those ‘good people’ who we have been trusting to love us all our lives to do such things.
I have my coping skills and my purpose in my walk …my children each have their interests and purposes but this state of being a part of such an ongoing ‘relationship’ which is a constant reminder that the one person who was head of the household did not hate us but just did not care about us .
What is it that they say …’the opposite of love is not hate but indifference” ? I think it actually is a pretty good definition.
Thank you Jeff for your counsel …keep up the good work for the sake of those who are dealing with the fall out of infidelity….it is much needed in these dark days of so many ‘options’ to the immoral tastes of those who serve the lusts of the flesh without any concern or thought for those they harm.
Zaza,
I often say that “The opposite of love is control”, although in order to control there is often an atmosphere of indifference. I have seen that when love is gone, it is often replaced with control of one type or another.
The more I am aware of your situation, the more I understand your reliance on God and why it means so much to you. The level of hurt that you have experienced is immense. The forms of rejection you have been put through is numerous. What makes it worse is that your spouse seems to just keep the cycle going. It is also clear that your feelings are very strong.
Your reference to the ‘vapors’ I had not heard before. It has many ramifications. I had not considered that before. Thank you for passing that on.
Full disclosure can help with the healing process. The challenge is that some people are not able to handle full disclosure, or in some cases, the counselors can not handle full disclosure when working with that couple. Full disclosure (honesty) brings changes. It forces people to get real. The intensity of that experience can be overwhelming for some. I am reminded of a line from the movie “Joe versus the Volcano” where the main character talks about how few people there are that are actually awake. Being honest means being awake.
It is always good hearing from you.
Thank you for your reply Jeff. I am sure few are going to school to become counsellors of any kind that prepare them to deal with many of the things that befall us as we make our way through the fallen world.
Mistreatment is magnified in the lives of those raised to believe the Humanist dogma that everyone is good!
Without learning how to set up and keep boundaries is one thing …to be raised unaware of why they are necessary is another. Also people raised to be polite also becomes another difficult hurdle when offenses surpass the usual breaches.
Today’s world we have rages of every kind that rise up with little provocation and in a world where children are raised to expect that there ‘should’ never be anyone who is not a winner….the most miner ‘loss’ brought about by envy can mean the destruction of a whole society!
You have addressed this before …raising future narcissists is in my view a ship that has sailed. Yet people everywhere begin with some hope of the world becoming better …all the while the Bible , has lost a lot of people , when learning how ‘negative ‘ it’s message is on the state of the REALITY of the world as it is .
God never created it as such but just like Adam blaming God for giving him Eve ….many people will blame anything and everything upon the God who gave His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON to die for our sake.
Lack of understanding who He is , what He did and why He did it …still causes much havoc…just as the god of this world enjoys taking advantage of those who have bought his lying dogma.
The presumption that people “know’ what the Bible is all about …leads to more and more irresponsible craving for more of what other’s have and going to any length to get it.
Funny though..or more , sadly …once they get it ..it never seems to do what they thought it would …the very definition of lust and sin .
Life is indeed a vapor …a mist without substance apart from Jesus Christ…
Jas 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.