Today’s email is directed more at the betrayer than the betrayed. Although many betrayers aren’t initially hurting bad enough to seek help, some are. When you’re hurting bad enough to finally start doing something about the affair, there’s a time you ask yourself “How could I be so stupid?”
Assuming you’re being totally honest in posing that question, it deserves answering. In asking the question, you’re starting the process of coming to your senses and moving out of the affair fog. This is part of waking up to what happened that occurs on coming out of the affair fog. Just in posing the question, your mind is realizing that you weren’t thinking. Acting stupid means you aren’t thinking through things and considering the consequences of your actions.
At the time of the affair, your mind was on automatic pilot or in ‘passive mode’. It was just reacting to your surroundings without actively considering what’s going on. This amounts to your brain being asleep at the wheel rather than staying alert to dangers. This condition exists when you’re tired, under the influence of substances, hungry, feeling deficient, alone or emotionally aroused. In each of these conditions, your brain is not fully engaged and thinking through things.
When several of these conditions exist at the same time, it can overwhelm you. When overwhelmed, your body assumes that the automatic pilot or ‘passive’ function will be able to handle the situation. A brain in ‘passive’ functioning is a brain at risk. The Affair Fog keeps your brain in that passive mode. It keeps you from thinking and engaging at any level beyond action-reaction types of interactions.
It’s not that you’re stupid, you brain wasn’t fully engaged and considering consequences. It took a short-cut that ended up creating problems. In order to fully understand why you made the decision to have an affair, it’s important to explore the underlying issues that led to your passive mode and disengaged thinking. Were you feeling unfulfilled in your relationship? Did you crave excitement or attention? Were there unresolved conflicts between you and your partner?
Getting your brain back to ‘normal’ is part of the affair recovery process. In the video “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery“, I address how you can start the recovery process. You must order your copy of the video today to start turning things around. You don’t have to keep your brain in the non-thinking way of doing things any longer. You’re not stupid, you just don’t know what to do.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
