Have you considered how you’d react if all the symptoms of Affair Trauma hit you at once? If those symptoms were acute, showing up overnight, you’d be concerned. Think about, headaches, muscle pains, fatigue, aching joints, sleep problems, racing heart beat, stomach pain, digestive issues, difficulty concentrating, obsessive thinking, trouble focusing on things, forgetfulness and anxiety occurring suddenly.
If those symptoms appeared overnight, you’d wonder “What have I come down with?” The sudden onset of symptoms would leave you wondering if it was something you ate, maybe a virus or some other contagion.
The problem is that when it comes to affairs, the symptoms are spread out. Since you experience them gradually, you adjust and go on. You accommodate the symptoms, thinking that what’s happening to you is a natural part of life.
Your own denial blocks out your awareness of pain. Your body is telling you something, and you may be ignoring what it’s telling you. These days, its’ easier blaming symptoms on things going on around you rather than making that cause and effect connection between what you’re feeling and the affair. Emotional pain often becomes physical pain.
You may be one of those telling yourself, ‘it will pass’ along with assuming that the symptoms will improve over time. You think that ‘time magic’ will somehow make all those things ‘go away’.
For me, given the symptoms, affairs trigger an ’emotional lyme disease’. Before you discount this assessment, some of you are well aware that more severe symptoms like neuropathy, joint pain, neck pain, and rashes have occurred in reaction to affairs as well. The stress aggravates your nervous system and all the other bodily systems connected with it. You feel it all over.
That overload of your nervous system and the many painful symptoms are similar to lyme disease or chronic fatigue syndrome.
If the symptoms slammed you all at once, you’d likely take action in dealing with the situation. By having the symptoms spread out, you delayed taking action on the affair. You know there’s a problem, you know that it is a threat to your marriage, yet put off taking action. You’re not hurting bad enough to take action yet.
Putting off action gives more times for the affair relationship to get serious. Each day, the relationship advantage is either won by you or the lover. Delays work to the lover’s advantage. Keep in mind that some cheaters assume that inactivity is giving your tacit approval to what’s going on.
If your inactivity is due to not knowing what to do, or being ashamed of what happened, get your copy of “Overcoming Affair Trauma“. Delay is deadly whether to your relationship, your love or your health.
Best Regards,
Jeff
