How to deal with pain and decisions when dealing with an affair

When you are in pain, it distorts the way you think, the way you solve problems and the way you deal with

emotional issues. This is especially true when it comes to an affair. The pain of an affair changes many things. You probably know that already as well.

What you may not have considered is that when you are in the midst of pain, it is not a good time to make choices, especially life changing ones. This is one of the binds of an affair. The time you are least prepared or fit when it comes to making choices is when there is a huge demand on you to make choices.

This is one reason why you may not want to take action right away after finding out about an affair. Taking immediate action may be the wrong action. Let me explain. When your decision making and thinking are distorted by pain, it is not the time to make choices. If you have to make one, make choices that allow you to delay.

This means you may want to put off writing that letter or making that post on social media, or making that phone call. When your actions can produce major ripples in your life and the lives of others, doing it in the midst of pain, is not a good idea. When choices are made during that time, they often turn into some way of relieving or reducing your pain rather than what is good for your marriage.

When you are in pain, your body and mind make the reduction of pain your priority. Any decision you commit to, choice you make, action you take or problem you solve, will be influence by the pain. When you brain is ‘on alert’, it influences every action, thought, or choice either openly or behind the scenes to reduce your pain. When your brain in ‘on alert’, it will block, keep out of awareness or avoid any activity that is not reducing your pain. Your brain may be twisting your thinking in ways you are now aware of.

Not only is the brain striving to reduce your pain, all input and output are filtered through the network of pain reducers. Since these are some of the same networks as those that generate fear, you may find yourself experiencing fearfulness, which you never felt before. Even if there is nothing that scared you, there will still be the sensations. Since your brain is logical, it may begin searching for an explanation behind the fearful feelings. It feels scared and begins looking for the source.

As your brain looks for a source for the fear sensation, it engages in a process like the game, pin the tail on the donkey. It blindly begins attaching fear to things, whether or not they were the source of the pain in the first place.

Besides the fearfulness episodes, there may also be struggles with the pain of social rejection. That rejection may be real or imagined. Since your brain does not dismiss imagined rejection from actual rejection, both register as pain by your brain.

Researchers are now confirming that your brain does not distinguish physical pain from the pain of loss or rejection (aka ‘Social Pain’) . The pain from loss or rejection are considered by your brain the same thing as physical pain.

It is not that your brain is evil or about to go ‘I Robot’ on you, it is just doing its job. It’s job is protecting you. Part of protecting you is getting you out of any pain that you are in.

Think about that for a moment. When you made choices during a time you were in pain, were they choices that helped your relationship?

The time for being decisive is when you are thinking clearly, not when your thinking is muddled. Decisiveness by its very nature takes action promptly. When the time comes for decisions, you will be able do it with greater confidence, and less second guessing, when you do not make your choices during the time of your pain.

There is also the danger of being in pain, yet either not being aware of it, or denying your pain. Remember that it is not just the cheater that has denial tendencies. In most cases, denial is a problem that both spouses are struggling with, just in different areas.

When you are ready to start making choices and want to make things work, consider the Affair Recovery Workshop for more specifics regarding what kind of choices are needed along with ‘no drama’ tools you can use to open up the communication in your relationship.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

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