You don’t like being stuck, your spouse doesn’t like being stuck, and I don’t like being stuck. No one enjoys being stuck.
When you are in “Affair Survival Mode” for too long, it changes your nervous system. In a previous post, the changes that happen in the cheater’s brain have been addressed.
With “Affair Survival Mode,” there are changes as well. In the case of “Affair Survival Mode,” the change you are dealing with is a nervous system that is on “high alert,” and gets stuck there.
When you stay stuck in that status for too long, your body will start reacting, as if you are on guard against the affair (even when the affair is long gone). It keeps the pain of the affair fresh and new, even though the triggering incident was months or even years past.
Being in “Affair Survival Mode” can become a permanent state of dysregulation. Like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, your body stays in a state of dysfunction. The normal systems that regulate what you experience and keep you in the “healthy” range of reaction, with the daily ups and downs, is “out of whack.” Instead of normal ups and downs, yours are extreme.
Although the original trigger may have been the cheater’s affair, when you are in “Affair Survival Mode” for too long, there are times when you may become a trigger yourself. You may find it increasingly difficult “living in your own skin.” That phrase is more than just an expression. When you stay in this mode for too long, it begins to make you vulnerable to many diseases and dysfunctions.
What may have started as a reaction to your spouses’ affair can turn into some very serious health, weight, and functioning issues. Many of those health problems or unusual pains of yours may actually have their root in your initial reactions to the affair.
That pain in your jaw, your sleeplessness, or your high blood pressure may have some connections to the affair you have not considered.
When you have a hard time living in such a way, imaging what it is like for your spouse. If you can’t live in your own skin, how can you expect them to live with you?
In some cases, the cheater might remark “You need to let go of the affair” or “You need to just get over it.” If you have been in “Affair Survival Mode” for an extended period of time, they may be correct. “Affair Survival Mode” is the ugly counterpart to many affairs.
When it is the ugly counterpart, each of you are choosing unhealthy ways of seeking comfort—the cheater with the affair and you by going into “Affair Survival Mode.”
Both of you need to find a healthy means of self-regulation. You need a safe way to calm yourselves without resorting to dysfunctional episodes or long-term patterns. The longer you stay stuck, the harder it will be to return to life as it was before the affair. Programs like the Affair Recovery Workshop are helpful, yet if you have been in “Affair Survival Mode” for six months or longer, it is going to take some additional assistance.
In such cases, you need the self-care addressed in Module 1 of the Affair Recovery Workshop, applied in a major way by adding to it such things as grounding, expressive arts, and meditation in your self-care program. These are needed BEFORE you start working on your marriage.
If you wonder why you are still hurting, why you are still stuck in “Affair Survival Mode” and many of the affair issues are unresolved, it is because you jumped into recovery out of order. You attempted to rebuild relationships before taking care of some of the basics.
Going through recovery in the right sequence is critical to healthy recovery. That is why I use the “Affair Recovery Process,” which takes you through recovery sequentially.
Being stuck in “Affair Survival Mode” is a clear sign that things were not done in the right order.I term the Affair Survival Mode as “Affair Trauma”
Rather than spending another day suffering and wondering “Where did I go wrong?” or reliving the pain over and over, take a step to put things right with the video on “Affair Trauma“.
Best Regards,
Jeff
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