As you go through recovery from the affair, there are many items that you and your spouse struggle to see from the other person’s perspective. Neither of you is stupid, yet there are some areas where understanding is a struggle.
One of those areas is how an affair is an attack on you. When you tell them that you feel attacked by the affair, they react with claims about how they never meant to hurt you or that it wasn’t about you. But, if you think about the affair itself, it’s pretty clear that it was an attack. It was a choice to have sex with someone other than you. It was a choice to keep secrets from you. It was a choice to devote time, energy, and emotions to someone other than you. All of those choices were made without your input. Each of them is a violation of the solemn vow they made to love, honor and cherish you above all others.
Their response defends what they did more than understand what you’re telling them. The idea that what they did was an attack doesn’t register in their brain. They are too stuck in their selfishness to see how what they did was an attack.
They don’t get that what happened was an attack.
Let me reassure you that the affair was an attack on you. It invaded a private area of your life.
The lover stole something that rightfully belongs to you. The cheater may claim that they have say-so over their own body, but that control was surrendered at the wedding.
It’s only natural that you take an invasion of personal space personally. Sure, the cheater never intended for it to be a personal attack. There’s a HUGE difference between intentions and what actually happened. Like a shot that goes wild, they may not have aimed at you, but it certainly hit you.
The affair attacked the security of your marriage. The affair attacked your peace of mind. The affair stole into your brain and fantasies.
Attacks come in many forms, from gaslighting to choking and manhandling. Threats are also forms of attacks.
When you’ve been attacked, it matters little whether it was intended or unintended, whether it was direct or indirect. Once you’ve been attacked, you take it personally.
That personal wound keeps you from connecting with your spouse as you did. Like all wounds, it needs care and healing. That healing starts when you give yourself permission to heal.
One way of giving yourself permission to heal is getting the help you need. In my video “Getting Past the Affair Crisis”, I address ways of getting your started with the healing of your wounding.
Arguing over the intentions only leads to more attacks and more wounding. Instead of keeping the cycle of hurting and blaming going, now is a good time for starting your healing.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
