Have you ever asked yourself the question, “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 to talk 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. Some may have even told you that what you did was ‘crazy’.
It left you feeling uneasy and unsure of your value. That unsettled feeling inspired you to search through the articles, 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 it 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 the 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.
Instead of focusing on trying to find a definitive answer to the question “Am I weird?“, it is important to recognize that there is no such thing as the mythical normal when it comes to human behavior. Each person’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings are unique and should not be compared or judged against others. You never seem to 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
