It’s Monday. Many people hate Mondays with an intensity. Fortunately, I’m not one of them. I suspect many people hate Monday since they are reminded of responsibilities and duties. They have to ‘get to work’. Getting to work stirs up many feelings.
When you find yourself facing responsibilities without being inspired, it can be a form of drudgery. It may also trigger some angry feelings. Those angry feelings is what I want to bring to your attention.
Last week an article came out from a writer in Australia addressing the pain of infidelity. The article claims that betrayed wives are not crazy, but are instead so angry that they go to extremes in their payback behavior.
This is one of the many controversies about affairs. Is the spurned spouse crazy or angry when they go to extremes in their behavior?
If it’s anger, then when the spurned spouse wrecks cars, smashes things with baseball bats, or engages in some other extreme behavior, the damage done is an indication of the pain. In my own life, after an enraged stalker arranged for an arsonist to set fire to our business, I immediately contacted the lawyer who was protecting her. Rather than hold her accountable for her outrageous actions, or the damage she caused, he calmly dismissed what she had done, stating “She’s just angry”.
Anger takes you to extremes, especially when it comes to affairs. An affair is a personal attack. When you’re attacked in a personal way, your emotions and reactions are intense. There is no, “Don’t take this personal” type of hiding what’s happened. It was ‘personal’ in a way that is more personal than others. It was a rejection, and there are personal and intense reactions to that. Those reactions include anger, rage, jealousy, revenge and insecurity.
Even Biblical references to the reaction of a spurned spouse to an affair talks about how intense those reactions can be. In Proverbs 6:32-35, the verses talk about how such a spouse will not spare (e.g. have mercy), regard any ransom, nor rest contentedly nor be pacified or bought off with gifts.
For someone to be so mad to where there is no pacifying, mercy or rest, it’s pretty extreme. You can call it anger, but with the description, it sounds to me like they are ‘losing it’. Not losing it in terms of going full blown mental illness, but instead a moment of madness.
The choice of the word ‘madness’ in describing both intense anger and mentally losing it is not by accident.
Although the intense emotions show no mercy, the reality of legal limits, awareness of long term consequences and the long arm of the law are often the only things keeping such episodes under control.
I have known some spouses that use affairs with the intention of ‘triggering’ their spouse so that the intense reactions are on display. Once they’ve been triggered, the cheater assumes the position of “You expect me to live with a crazy person like that?” In such cases, the triggering gives them an excuse for the affair and evidence they can use against them for divorce and custody purposes.
Handling those intense feelings isn’t easy. You need some additional help handling those days when the intensity of emotions are overwhelming. This is where the ‘Getting Past the Affair Crisis‘ video can help. Rather than giving into the intense anger and urges for revenge, you can instead, practice ways of soothing yourself.
You don’t have to dread Mondays and you don’t have to give yourself over to the dark side of intense angry reactions either.
Best Regards,
Jeff
