The rage will come. No matter how ‘nice’ or ‘decent’ a person you are, the feelings of rage eventually come.
In the early days after discovering the affair, you may not be able to tell the difference between anger, hurt and rage. Rage has a way of blurring all those differences. There’s a reason people use the term ‘blind rage’.
The rage often starts as a hurt that metastasized into a full-blown rage.
Rage is when you HATE everything associated with the cheater. Anything that reminds you of the cheater is hated.
Anyone who mentions the cheater becomes a target for your wrath. When it hits, you want all the reminders erased. You can no longer see the good in anything the cheater has done.
You only want to lash out, releasing all your pent up frustrations, hurt and anger.
You want to scream as every muscle in your body tenses up. All that pent up tension wants to be unleashed.
When the rage hits, what will you do?
When it occurs in potentially dangerous situations like when you are driving or around crowds, you’ll want to get somewhere safe before unleashing.
Driving recklessly fast or putting yourself is never a good idea. The idea is even worse when your spouse or children are in the car with you.
Unleashing on others is never a good idea.
It’s also not good using repetitive hitting motions. Those repetitive motions often aggravate the rage, making it last longer. You may need to exercise or engage in some physical exertion lowering muscle tension.
Once the tension lowers, your head is clear enough to deal with whatever triggered the rage episode.
Reduce tension BEFORE dealing with the trigger. If you try taking care of the trigger prior to reducing tension, you may find yourself emotionally ‘exploding’ on people you never intended to.
Exploding on what or who triggered the rage also clouds the reasons for the rage and your ability to solve problems.
There’s a reason why I made self-care one of the first topics addressed in the downloadable “Affair Recovery Workshop”. You need ways of regaining self-control. You need help in recovering yourself.
The workshop guides you in getting yourself back together and THEN working on other issues related to the affair. Getting the affair recovery tasks in the wrong order leads to longer recovery and unnecessary pain.
Best Regards,
Jeff
