A painful part of the post-affair recovery for you to face is the issue of ambivalence. After the affair, there often comes a time that the cheater has ambivalent feelings about their relationship with you.
They swing between love and hate. Swinging from one extreme to the other makes having a relationship with them difficult.
They swing between love and hate. Swinging from one extreme to the other makes having a relationship with them difficult.
This is a painful time for you and them. They struggle with the ambivalence, you struggle with what that may mean wondering if you are loved or hated.
For you, it’s an unpleasant time. The security of your marriage is uncertain, it is unclear where you stand in your relationship to your spouse, and the specter of affair relapse is always lurking in your mind.
When the cheater refuses talking about what they are feeling or it is a struggle getting them opening up about what is going on, it can wear you out.
For the cheater, they may find themselves struggling anywhere along the continuum from emotional confusions to ‘true’ ambivalence. True ambivalence occurs when there is a love-hate struggle going on.
You see one extreme or the other or at times, both at the same time. Being on the receiving end of the contradictory messages is confusing.
When it is true ambivalence, the cheater knows what emotions they are experiencing, yet are unsure which emotion they want to commit to.
Emotions are funny that way. A person can experience what seem to be contradictory emotions toward the same person or object.
Factual or logical thinking may tell you that there is only one ‘true’ association a person can have toward another person or object. They may think you can feel either one way or another, but not both.
If you’re a person who lives in your head, the whole topic of ambivalence will be hard to grasp. In the emotional world, contradictory emotions can exist side by side.
Ambivalence may not make sense to you. Emotions and emotional reactions don’t make sense. Since they are emotions, they follow emotional rules rather than logic.
When the cheater doesn’t talk about their emotions with you or with others, it’s confusing. When you don’t know what emotions are being experienced inside of you, it makes it even more difficult to discuss them.
In some cases the cheater may be resisting discussing and identifying emotions, while in other cases, they may be oblivious to the whole thing.
Whether the emotions are discussed, resisted or avoided, they will still be experienced. The emotional reactions can not be cheated. As strange as it sounds, there are some people that subscribe to the notion that “If I don’t discuss them, then I don’t have to deal with them”.
Rest assured, that the emotions will be experienced. As your body goes through recovery, there will be emotional reactions. The emotions are often extreme and contradictory. These emotions reflect the struggle their heart is going through.
Whether or not the cheater expresses them or can even identify what they’re feeling the effects of the emotions will be experienced. If they are used to dealing with emotions and talking about them, they will fare better than those who avoid them.
Those who make a habit of avoiding emotions may not have the experience base to navigate this part of recovery smoothly.
Even when the cheater is physically back in the home, and some of the affair related issues resolved, they may still experience ambivalent episodes. The struggle about whether or not they want to stay in a married relationship with you is real.
When you’re faced with such situations, you’ll need clear communication. At this time you need clarity rather than second guessing.
You’ll need to be able to hear the cheater out, without taking offense.
You will need to be able to guide them through their emotions, at times even allowing them to experience them rather than shutting those unpleasant emotions down.
Many of you aren’t sure where to start in doing those things or if you even have the ability to do so. Given that you were likely not taught how to listen without taking offense, or guiding people through their emotional rapids.
Rather than questioning your abilities, you can start doing something about them.
Rather than you shutting down related to not knowing where to begin or how to do it, you can instead have the kind of confidence that makes a difference. When faced with ambivalent reactions, you can tell yourself “I know what this is, and I know how to deal with it”.
This is one of the reasons why communication skills are emphasized in my direct connect method used in the Affair Recovery Workshop. Those communication skills are not limited to just helping your and your spouse discuss the affair. They’ll help you with the parts of recovery after the affair as well.
Best Regards,
Jeff
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