You may call it ‘the wall’ when you encounter it. Calling the emotional blocking by your spouse when it comes to the affair often feels like a wall.
It’s a barrier preventing access. When ‘the wall’ is in place, the cheater becomes unresponsive and ‘shut off’ from you. There’s emotional distance and isolation.
Although it’s convenient referring to this phenomena as a wall, you may want to consider another way of looking at it. When you view it as a wall, the only option you have is to besiege it and either climb over it or knock a hole in it.
In dealing with couples, I’ve seen this phenomena. From dealing with it, I have found that instead of thinking of it as a wall (even though it feels that way), it has more in common with an emotional short circuit.
The cheater may be unavailable to you, yet with their lover, they are emotionally open and vulnerable. A wall would shut everyone out, including the lover.
With a short circuit, there are times that they are connected and times that they’re not. Gaining access to them is intermittent. They are often switching on and off, and you are often the victim of the ‘off’.
The short circuit explains more. The experience with their lover was intense, and like any intense electrical blast, it overloads the wiring circuitry.
An intense blast of energy poses threats to electrical devices. As humans, our nervous system operates like an electrical system. Intense events often lead to a type of ‘rewiring’. The old connections are still there, it is that the new connections are more intense that they override the older, weaker connections.
When you realize that the cheaters emotions have been rewired, then dealing with them becomes a matter of finding what frequency or wavelength is the key to revitalizing your connection with them. It’s not a matter of blasting through their defenses or overwhelming them, it’s a matter of finding ways of accessing them and reactivating your connections with them again.
Since you are married to them, you have had a unique relationship with a unique access to them. You may have forgotten how to access them, which may be close to the root of the problem leading to the affair.
You may have to go through some trial and error in finding ways of reigniting your connection (or finding the right frequency).
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
Dear Mr. Jeff,
My question is whether this short circuiting has anything to do with narcissism.
Bassel,
Thank you for asking your question. There is a relationship between short circuiting and narcissism, although it’s not causative or exclusive.
Many cheaters, both narcissistic and non-narcissistic use the short-circuit and the wall in dealing with matters. The difference between them is that on the other side of the wall with narcissists are many unrealistic self-centered delusions. Behind the wall, they build their own ‘private world’.
For the non-narcissist, the wall is a defense against unpleasant feelings. They may have realistic thinking, they are just blocking out unpleasant emotions and reactions.
Thank You,
Jeff