A reader made an inquiry regarding what happens to your brain during an affair. You are familiar with the old commercials about “this is your brain on drugs“.
Your brain on drugs is very similar to your brain during an affair. Instead of ‘getting fried’ on chemicals taken into your body, your brain is under the influence of chemicals manufactured in your body.
Even before the affair happens, the cheater fantasizes about ‘what if’. During this fantasizing, the brain begins entering a state of arousal with images while at the same time being stimulated with potent chemical cocktails of adrenaline and other stimulants.
This double stimulation of visual and chemical arousal is potent.
These internally produced stimulants are specifically custom designed for neurons in your brain. Like designer drugs for brain cells, the fantasizing produces the chemicals that begin stimulating portions of your brain.
The initial chemical buzz lasts for perhaps 15 minutes. When the cheater continues fantasizing and seeking excitement, the chemical cocktail changes.
It’s as if your mental bartender gives you something stronger in the form of dopamine. The new dopamine cocktail lasts for a considerably longer period of time.
Pleasurable sensations are enhanced, while perception of pain and awareness of logical thinking is weakened. When in this chemically altered state, moral judgment and reasoning become impaired. It is as if the switch is flipped, to where fantasy thinking circuits are turned on and logical thinking is turned off.
You really are not thinking straight at this point. Your decision making is compromised along with your ability to reason. You are not thinking in terms of consequences or cause and effect.
While in this state, the cheater is stimulated and seeking more stimulation. They want to ‘take it to the next level’. They want MORE of their brain chemically switched to the “ON” position. The brain is feeling “alive” and “turned on”. There is a new sense of ‘all systems go’. Feel good neurotransmitter chemicals are pumped into your brain.It feels like it is ‘alive and kickin’.
The brain likes being turned on and often wants to stay in that mode. It enjoys the stimulation. Your brain likes ‘life in the fast lane’ type of functioning.
Returning to reality is akin to going back to the slow lane or life in slow motion. The cheater may even refer to real life as ‘boring’ due to the slowed sensations.
While in this state, the cheater looks for someone to connect with and enhance their experience.They want to be ‘turned on again’.
They find a lover who fuels their stimulation even more. Since the lover contributed to this new ‘high’ or sensation of being ‘turned on’, they often associate the lover with ‘feeling alive’. It is not that the lover actually gives them life, the lover is in the role of a ‘drug buddy’.
The connection between the stimulation and the lover can be so strong that they think the lover is responsible for their new sensation. They forget that they were buzzing under the influence of brain chemicals prior to meeting the lover. The lover functions as an adjuvant enhancing the effects of the chemical stimulation.
Since the brain is turned on by high levels of dopamine at the same time they are with the lover, the two become associated. The brain cells firing together starts wiring those cells together. The coordinated stimulation of lover and drug creates connection between the two. The more intense the stimulation, the stronger the associative bond that is formed.
It is not by accident that dealing with a cheater is so similar to dealing with a drug addict. In both cases, their brain is wanting to be stimulated. What differs is the chemical used and the nature of the high.
In each case, the mechanisms of seeking chemical stimulation is similar. And in each case, when the euphoria wears off, they feel ‘down’ or empty and may even used terms like ‘deadened’ in describing their experience.
This whole process adds new meaning to expressions the cheater uses like “I feel dead inside”, “I need to feel alive”, “When I am with the lover, I feel more alive”. Such phrases are actually telling you about the stimulation that is happening in their brain the the down that comes from the after effects of the high stimulation.
This is a shorthand version of your brain during an affair.
This will help you understand the the cheater is NOT your enemy. What is going on in their brain is the enemy. The two of you (you and your spouse) need to work together in overcoming this cycle of brain affair stimulation.
That’s where my ‘Affair Recovery Workshop‘ product comes in. It shows you what’s needed for affair recovery including brain hacks that interrupt the new ‘affair produced’ circuits in the cheater’s brain. Those parts of the brain, like the amygdala need interventions that disrupt the newly formed connections.
Recovery is going to take more than just talk.
Best Regards,
Jeff
