“How do I bury these ghosts that still haunt me?”

Long after the affair is over, you may still find yourself suffering its effects in the form of ghosts. Although the term “ghost” is often associated with supernatural things, when in reference to affairs, they are more akin to strong afterimages of the affair. Although you could technically call them latent manifestations of memories associated with the affair, it is often easier to just call them “ghosts.”

Like the ghosts of horror movies, the affair ghosts often bring torment with them. Affair ghosts bring memories of what happened. All it takes is a quick glance at a photograph or an offhand remark and suddenly you find yourself reliving one or all of the affair-related episodes, both real and the imagined. Even when others mention particular words, you can be triggered into reliving fears and past unpleasant experiences.

Ghosts are pretty powerful, when all it takes is the mention of a single word or picture to unleash a tidal wave of emotion. These emotional tidal waves also occur without warning, leaving you feeling vulnerable and out of control.

The topic of ghosts is something I have addressed before, yet those posts dealt with removing the items that have association with the affair. There are also the ghosts that live in your head, even after the items associated with the affair are long gone. When you are still plagued with the affair years after its occurrence, and all the objects related to it are gone, you may be dealing with affair ghosts.

These ghosts live in your head. They are part of the neural networks formed in association with the affair. When you are initially faced with news of the affair, it leaves a mark on your brain. New connections are formed in your brain that did not exist before. The new reality of there being an affair also brings a new world that you have to face.

These neural connections and the memories associated with them do not follow the rules of logic. They do not always make sense, which often frustrates your attempts at stopping them with reminders that “this is not really happening.” In your mind, both what might have happened and what actually happened often become a blur.

Although your spouse may have returned to you, that other world and other reality that was constructed in reaction to the affair still lives. Once connections are made, they cannot be unmade. Like the popular meme “What has been seen, cannot be unseen!” those mental images and connections are long-lasting.

So what can you do to bury these ghosts/images/old memories?

• First, quit replaying them. The more you activate them or return to them, the stronger the connection becomes, both in the ability to recall it and in its intensity.
• Change the meanings associated with those ghosts/images/memories. Although you cannot change those connections or events, you can change the meanings associated with them. There are a couple of ways this can be done. One is through relabeling. You can also create new associations with the old material, which are rehearsed repeatedly until they overpower the old connections. Another option is changing the significance or importance of the association. It would take a whole series of posts to explain these in depth, yet when they are done correctly, the meanings associated with those old ghosts/images/memories change.
• Intentionally create new experiences and connections with your spouse. This means the two of you will need to do new things, go new places and have new experiences. The “primacy effect” of new experiences is powerful and can be used in overpowering older connections. When people tell you to go out and make memories, you want to do just that.

Some of the things you want to avoid doing include using alcohol or drugs to cover them up. When you initially use this intervention, you may experience some temporary relief. The problem is that, rather than overpower the connections, you take the memories to deeper and deeper levels of consciousness. In other words, over time, the drugs and alcohol will not work to block things out. The memories will have been implanted into your conscious mind, and also your altered states of consciousness. In other words, the drug and alcohol option only spreads them out farther and takes them deeper into your unconscious.

Another common error to avoid is attempting to “split off” or compartmentalize those memories. This intervention is a short-term fix. As strange as it sounds, some of you may use a make-over or the creation of a new you as a way to deal with the old ghosts/images/memories. The creation of a new you is healthier than the drugs and alcohol option, yet the “old you” eventually catches up with the new you.

What all this boils down to is that the best way to “bury the ghosts” is to first make peace with them, then replace them with better things in your life. Running from them only gives them more power and influence in your life.

Best Regards,

Jeff