“Affairs are filled with grief and loss. There is the loss of love, loss of security, loss of identity, loss of a friend and so on”
Hearing Kelvin review the various losses and the grief associated with affairs reminded me of the wide swath of damage affairs bring. The image came to mind of carpet bombing. Wide areas of your life are laid waste.
I thought to myself, “All this damage, and for what?”
Images went through my mind of cheaters trading their families and careers for a few nights of fun. Trading off a true lifetime friend for some bubbly and sparkles is not a good deal to me. I guess the poker player in me doesn’t see the thrill of the risk worth losing a sure thing.
Kelvin went on addressing how it’s important to acknowledge and accept both the emotional and intellectual aspects of losses. “Healthy grieving requires the involvement of both the emotional and intellectual parts of the losses.”
He explained how people often only deal with one part or another, which leaves the grief only half-dealt with. Half-resolved grief is unresolved grief. It still hurts.
Resolving the grief of affairs requires coming to grips with many ugly and painful things. You find yourself going through admitting and then owning what you’ve done. In some cases, it’s admitting what you didn’t do that needed doing.
Either way, the self-honesty needed in overcoming grief is harsh and unforgiving. It doesn’t accept excuses no matter how good they sound. I know that what Kelvin said was right. Acknowledging and accepting what happened along with the changes brought are essential in overcoming the grief.
When you’re filled with grief and loss, it’s hard acknowledging and accepting much of anything. You don’t even want to admit the possibility of loss and now your forced into accepting the reality of it, both intellectually and emotionally.
His reminder that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of loss are just guidelines and suggestions did take some of the performance pressure off. Knowing that, I can just grieve without measuring my progress according to some checklist of the five stages.
In going through an affair, you’ll face loss and experience grief. It doesn’t matter if your the lover, the cheater or the betrayed, each of you will go through it. Each of you lost something with the affair. Cheating the grieving is cheating yourself.
If you need some help, there is the Affair Recovery Workshop.
Best Regards,
Jeff
