About the time I think I’m near catching up on responding to questions coming in, a new one arrives. This time a reader wants to know “Can I have a mental breakdown from my spouse’s affair?“
This is a difficult question to answer, as there is no one-size-fits-all response. Everyone reacts differently to traumatic situations such as infidelity, and how an individual handles the situation can be influenced by both external factors and their own internal state of mind. For someone to ask such a question tells me that the hurt they are going through is massive. Although some of you take your spouse’s affair in stride, there are some of you who it devastates.
Recently, Sharon Osbourne admitted she attempted suicide on hearing of her husband’s affair. The affair impacts a wide range of people in many positions. I recall talking to an associate who told me about how when his best friend found out about his wife’s affair, it not only devastated him, he was never the same afterward. The associate went on to share more details about how massively his friend changed.
Whether or not his friend had a ‘mental breakdown”, I don’t know. What I do know is that you can have very intense reactions to your spouse’s affair. As part of your reaction, you can experience depressed moods, lose your joy in life, experience mental confusion, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, obsessive thinking, sleep disturbances or gastrointestinal distress. I’m not sure what the reader meant by ‘mental breakdown’.
I know that many of your mental and physical systems no longer work as they did. The extent of your reaction has a great deal to do with your level of functioning beforehand, your resiliency, and your history of surviving traumas. If you’ve been through several traumas or near-traumas in your life, your spouse’s affair quickly depletes your ability to recover. The brain chemicals responsible for helping you bounce back and cope are quickly depleted, leaving you ‘wiped out’.
You should take the opportunity to reach out for help if you feel overwhelmed by your partner’s affair. Although the affair knocks you down, you don’t have to stay there. If the affair wiped you out, or if you’ve been wiped out for more than six months, the Affair Trauma is getting the best of you. There are things you can do that move you past the affair trauma. In my video on “Overcoming Affair Trauma”, you’ll discover techniques designed to move you out of that place you’re in.
You don’t have to stay broken any longer. You can do things that get you back.
Yes, your spouse’s affair can break you down, but you don’t have to stay down. Getting better doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Getting better puts you in a place where you can work on your marriage if you want to. Getting better means you can start to heal and move forward. It’s a process that takes time, but it is possible.
One important thing to keep in mind is that everyone’s healing journey will look different. Some may find solace in therapy or support groups, while others may turn to self-care activities like exercise or journaling.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
