It’s important if you are wanting to let go of the thoughts and get past them, that you follow the sequence I laid out in order. Taking a pick and choose approach will only bring you more confusion and heartache.
You’ll likely find that each step is progressively more challenging. When you obsess, there’s a reason for it. There are things about those events that you keep replaying that are important.
There are unmet needs that keep you on that topic.
Although I hadn’t said this earlier, it’s important to not interrogate the cheater for excessive details. If you interrogate them for excessive details, YOU’ll have more trouble with your thoughts.
The more details you know about the affair, the harder time you’ll have letting go of the thoughts.
The more details you have, the more work YOU have to do in overcoming those issues.
If you want to interrogate them and get all the details, thinking that somehow knowing more about it will help you, go ahead. What you’ll find in most cases is that you now have more headaches, and more torment than you had before.
The next step is to ‘consider what you feel when you have the obsessive thoughts’. Is it fear, hurt, anger, sadness, betrayal or something else?
The more clarity you gain on what those emotions and feelings are, the more specific the solution will be. Those feelings are giving you clues as to what your needs are and what direction to take.
If you’re not clear, it takes longer to sort through things. If the primary emotion is anger, you need to do more work.
Since anger is largely a secondary emotion, it is used to cover up what the real ‘root’ concern is. So if anger is the predominant emotion, do some more sorting through things, or allow some time for the emotions to settle more and then attempt this.
If you want to understand more about trust and how to rebuild it, you will want to obtain a copy of my video on the topic. It goes into greater depth than what I can address in this format. Access to that video along with the others on communication, affair relapse and affair trauma are available to you as part of membership in the support community at Restored Lifestyle.
I put together the material on trust based on how the majority of you responding to the website’s survey identified trust as the main issue.
Best Regards,
Jeff
