One of you readers wanted to know “How to handle a spouse who blows up when accused of cheating?” Anger with the emotional blow ups and outburst make dealing with the affair more emotional than it has to be.
When cheaters use blow ups, they’ve learned ways of using intimidation and manipulation in controlling their situations. They use anger as their go to tool in dealing with situations.
‘Blowing up’ gives them emotional control of the situation. You may wonder ‘how can that be?’
How can my spouse loosing control be a way of them taking emotional control? They are able to take control via fear and distraction.
By blowing up, they make the emotions associated with the accusation more intense than the affair. The accuser then shifts to their own safety and drops the matter of the affair.
Put simply, the anger allows them to turn the tables.
With the disdainful “How dare you accuse me..” the cheater changes the focus to being on you.
They were under scrutiny, but with that outburst, you are now under scrutiny.
The matter is no longer about them doing wrong, it’s about you doing wrong by daring to question them. Rather than using their position as your spouse to discuss the issue or relying on social skills, they resort to anger.
The focus turns the situation around to where you are the bad guy for questioning them rather than them doing wrong.
The blow up is their way of coping. It’s not a mature or helpful way of coping. The more primitive and immature their coping skills, the greater the likelihood that they will blow up.
Sadly, there are many spouses with poor or primitive ways of dealing with accusations. While they stay in that mode, there is little room for negotiations or discussions.
In terms of relationship dynamics, the blow up is a desperate power play. They can’t fathom that you know about their affair, they can’t handle you questioning them.
Their inability to handle the questions is a type of god complex. They really do view themselves as being the master of their own lives, choices and situations, at least related to the affair.
Exposing them or daring to accuse them is viewed by them as you daring to defy their god position. It’s not a matter of you disrespecting them, it’s a matter that you dared forcing them to face reality.
They don’t want to face the reality that you know about the affair. They don’t want you holding them accountable for their actions.
The cheater wants to ‘shut you up’. They want to grab the relationship controls and dictate what gets talked about. They want to return to their god-like position.
The cheater knows you’ll want to keep the peace more than get to the truth of what happened. They use your desire for peace against you.
You reminded them that they are human, that they’re not in control, and they don’t want to face that reality.
In terms of handling it, there are several things you can do:
1. Focus on one point at a time. Do not bombard them with multiple items. When they blow up, they are not able to focus on multiple items.
2. Make sure that when you confront them, that there is nothing between you and the door. If they become violent, you want to make sure that there is a safe escape route.
3. Stick with facts and avoid steering into emotions. When they are raging, they are attempting to shift the focus from being fact based to one based on emotions.
4. Avoid raising your voice. Present your message calmly and without raising your voice. You may have to repeat it several times.
When you repeat it, stay calm. If you raise your voice, they’ll counter your action by raising theirs.
You want to decrease the emotional intensity, not increase it. When the emotional temperature is high, it will play to their advantage.
If you’ve found this helpful, the downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop” provides other ways of dealing with affair recovery and the issues that arise. Knowing what to say along with what not to say makes a difference.
You can know ways of bringing issues up without damaging your marriage relationship in the long run. There may be more going on that just the affair.
Best Regards,
Jeff
