Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Am I weird?” The likelihood is that you have. You may wonder if you are normal. In some cases, you may even concern yourself with “How weird are you?”
I talked about this question with my wife this morning. I shared with her my thought that many people obsess over infidelity statistics and the latest surveys. They’re searching for an answer to the question “Am I weird?” They want to know if somehow what they think and what they do is outside of normal.
You may be one of those searching for an answer to the question. Your spouse may have even told you that you were ‘weird’ and you believed what they told you. Being told you are ‘weird’ leaves you feeling uneasy and unsure. It’s unsettling.
When your spouse tells you that you’re weird its even more unsettling. They know you better than almost anyone else. Since they know you when they tell you that you’re weird, it has you questioning yourself.
That unsettled feeling inspired you to search through the surveys and statistics on infidelity. You want to know if you’re ‘normal’ in some way. Is your situation ‘normal’ or outside of normal?
Is the affair you’re facing a ‘typical’ affair (if there is such a thing), or is it way out there? Is the problem you or the cheater?
When affairs happen, you’re rejected and devalued. Those are unpleasant feelings that no one wants to experience. In an attempt to push away those sensations, and the questions they raise, you start comparing yourself to others.
This comes through looking at the statistics or worse yet, comparing yourself to the lover. If you can’t find out about the lover, you start comparing yourself to other people you encounter.
You look at the numbers and survey results as if looking in a mirror. You consider them in terms of ‘What does that say about me?’
One thing is says about you is that you’re looking in the wrong place. You may find answers, but those answers aren’t going to answer your questions or satisfy your curiosity. When you’re hurting emotionally, you need answers that address your emotions.
Seeking intellectual answers to emotional hurts never works.
Heart problems need heart solutions and head problems need head solutions. Confusing the two makes your recovery from an affair harder and more frustrating than it needs to be. Then again, you may be choosing wrong solutions on purpose, since you may be punishing yourself for being ‘weird’.
I suspect that one reason recovery is often delayed or drug out longer than it needs to goes back to punishment and penance. Even those are self-defeating answers to your situation.
You never seem to clearly know when you’ve punished yourself enough or when you’ve done enough penance. There’s always something else to beat yourself up about. It’s all to easy finding something ‘wrong’ about yourself.
There are plenty of commercials ready to tell you that you’re too fat, your skin is too dry, you have bad breath or a host of other symptoms. The many drug commercials now have a ‘quick’ dosing solution to whatever you think is wrong with you.
If you’re tired of applying head solutions to heart problems and weary of comparing yourself to others, the Getting You Past the Affair Crisis video starts applying emotional solutions to your emotional hurts and moving you forward through affair recovery.
Best Regards,
Jeff
