Last week, I was in Houston. While there, I stopped by a bakery called “We’re Dough”. While talking the the manager about his bakery, it sounded like “weird-o”.
There was something unsettling about using “weird-o” in conversation. The incident left me considering how spouses feel, when they are referred to as being ‘weird’.
Have you ever asked yourself , “Am I weird?” The likelihood is that you have. You may wonder if you’re normal. You may have gone so far as to ask “How weird am I?”
This is especially a matter of concern after discovering the affair and making those initial efforts at talking about it with your spouse.
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 survey in search of an answer to the question “Am I weird?”
You may be one of those searching for an answer to the question. In the aftermath of the affair, your spouse may have even said that you’re ‘weird’ and you believed what they told you.
It left you feeling uneasy and unsure of your value. That unsettled feeling inspired you to search through the surveys and statistics on infidelity. You want to know if you are ‘normal’ in some way.
When affairs happen, you’re being rejected and devalued. Those are unpleasant feelings that no one wants to experience.
In an attempt to push away those sensations, and the questions your spouse raises, you start comparing yourself to others. When they tell you that you’re weird, it sends you on a search to find out ‘How?’ This search may even include looking at the statistics or worse yet, comparing yourself to the lover.
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 satisfy your questions or your curiosity. When you’re hurting emotionally, you need answers that address your emotions.
Seeking intellectual answers to emotional hurts never works. Heart problems call for heart solutions and head problems call for 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 is always something else to beat yourself up about.
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.
Download the video and start making progress on moving past the self-doubt that comes with being told you’re weird.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
7 Responses
Yes indeed. It’s called gaslighting. A terrible experience. Your cheating spouse tells you you’re crazy, overthinking, overreacting to nothing. You know you’re not. But to be reasonable you seek outside objective evidence or data to reassure. It crushes the soul that they could and would manipulate you like that.
Untold,
Thank you for writing. The gaslighting is truly terrible. It inflicts scars at the time it happens and another scar as you begin doubting yourself. It truly is the hurt that keeps on hurting.
This is one hurt that time alone doesn’t heal. It takes work at detoxifying all those poisonous statements made over the years. You are always more vulnerable to what your spouse says than others. When your spouse uses that special bond for inflicting damage, it leaves haunting scars for years.
Seeking that outside objective evidence or data disproves the facts of what they said, yet it takes further work in soothing the emotional damage inflicted. It truly crushes the soul that someone so close to you could say something like that.
Jeff
Very well put Jeff. Exactly how I have felt for years trying to reconcile. Many thanks for your continued writings on this very difficult topic of infidelity.
Untold,
Thank you. I am glad that you recognize the ‘difficulty’ associated with writing on infidelity. There are some days I feel overwhelmed with the issues surrounding the topic and the extent of the problems.
Jeff
Adultery is abuse. Destroys ones sense of self. Makes one doubt every aspect of themselves. Not so sure one can truly get past the devaluation. They did this knowing what it would do to you….. and they did not care!
Anonymous,
Thank you for commenting. Adultery is abuse on many levels. In my mind it’s also a form of theft. The cheater steals affections and time that belong to you and give them to someone else. They also end up stealing your self-confidence and damaging the security of your marriage.
The devaluation is intense. Getting past the devaluation requires some re-inventing, forgiveness and supernatural strength. The devaluing leaves a big scar.
In my mind, when there is no caring about how it impacted you, it makes the whole things cold and heartless. Whether or not the cheater meant for it to come across as revenge, it certainly comes across that way.
Best Regards,
Jeff
Anonymous,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Infidelity is very destructive on many levels. The betrayal leaves some big scars that are slow in healing.