No matter how well the cheaters try controlling what they did, the effects of their actions spread further and do more damage than they intended. The law of cause and effect is a big part of affairs.
In any affair, there are the cheaters and the people who suffer the aftermath. From a psychological standpoint, affairs have a snowball effect on pain and damage to everyone involved. The effects cascade down from one person to another like a boulder falling off a cliff. People feel their impact whether they realize it or not – or even exist at all.
Cheating is a selfish action. The cheater didn’t get involved with his affair partner because he had nothing better to do, but because he wanted something from the other person – sex, companionship, excitement or all of the above.
What the cheater did has a ripple effect touching everyone in connection with them. In their minds, they may think they’re in control of the information and its effect. In reality, they’re also believing a lie.
I was reminded of this on encountering a query from a reader stating “My cheating husband has ruined my mental health.” Although the cheater was the one involved in the affair, their actions impact others in ways they never imagined or considered.
Cheating damages trust and security. The cheater may be a good provider, but providing alone doesn’t provide relationship security for your marriage. A successful marriage should have emotional security. The cheater has destroyed that for you, and they can’t fix it or give back what they took from your relationship.
Cheating threatens your position as a spouse on several levels. Physically, the cheater may have brought home an unwanted STD or exposure to something that wasn’t there before. Emotionally, you may be struggling with anger, resentment and betrayal. They didn’t think about your feelings or needs before they acted on their own.
Emotionally, you now have to share the cheater with someone else. The exclusivity that you thought was in your marriage is gone. With the loss of that exclusivity, you lose your emotional security as well.
Even though the lover isn’t in your bedroom, you sense the presence of someone else in your marriage. Your spouse’s heart is no longer 100% with you.
Spiritually, the affair creates alienation. The affair changed your spouse. Whether or not the change was intentional, it impacts you as well. It leaves you with a sensation of being lost as to your relationships and identity.
Mentally, the affair leaves you wondering whether your spouse is telling you the truth. You also are never sure that they are where they told you they were going to be. You wonder how much you can believe.
Even when the cheater tells you they’re being honest, you lost the ability to sleep easy at night about what they told you.
So, after losing your emotional security, relational stability, and possible health threats, it’s no wonder that your mental health is impacted as well. The second guessing, loss of sleep and loss of relationship leaves a massive emotional scar.
You may not want to see or acknowledge that scar, but it’s there. In the video “Overcoming Affair Trauma”, I share ways of moving past those issues. You can choose to either let the affair define you or move past both the affair and its impact.
It’s no surprise that your mental health is damaged given everything that’s happened. Now you face the choice of what you’re going to do about it. I encourage you to click and download the video.
You’re now on a day to day journey. Whether or not you want to continue carrying the burden of the trauma can make that journey harder or easier.
When you move past the trauma, you can regain a sense of self and escape the fears that had you trapped.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
