The plain and simple truth is that “Affairs make you crazy!” No matter what the cause.
The toxic mix of emotions, logic, passion and their effects will make you crazy. With your mind and your heart telling you different things, taking you in different directions, it will change your world. When you’re surrounded by the emotional chaos, it effects you.
Affairs will not only make you crazy, they will make the extended family crazy as well. You can tell yourself that it’s something just between spouses.
When you’re dealing with a potential home wrecking and marriage destroying act like an affair, the extended family are impacted. You all know how crazy your family members can make you feel. When you throw an affair into the mix, it becomes even more intense.
An affair often brings out the worst in extended family members. If they were controlling, conniving, sneaky or abrasive before, when an affair is added, these qualities intensify.
In some cases, they’re doing everything they can to keep the two of you together, in other cases, they may take up your situation and lash out at the cheater or lover with all they have.
When things get really out of hand, they try splitting the two of you up. They may claim that they are doing it because they ‘love you’ and care about you.
Whatever dormant conflicts and loyalty issues were in the extended family, they’ll come to the surface with an affair. When extended family are faced with an affair, any unfinished business related to people entering or leaving the family ‘blow up’.
This is due to the affair reminding them of similar issues that they have faced before. However they did or did not deal with those issues will also return. So whatever pathology was there, now comes out again.
Extended family can also provide support during this chaotic time. It may surprise you where the support comes from. Affairs bring out both the chaos and hope. The real crazy-making aspect is that you cannot predict or control how they will react. Your issues will bleed over and become their issues.
This was the kind of hassles and frustration that made me start seeking out some ways of dealing with the crisis that affairs bring. I cover them in my video “Getting Past the Affair Crisis“.
You want relief and some ways of making sense of the chaos that surrounds you without become enemies of your spouse or family.
Best Regards,
Jeff
