If You Have Just Found Out
Nothing has prepared you. No doubt you are feeling that your whole world has just turned upside down. You don’t know who to turn to. You don’t want your family or friends to know how awful your partner is.
You have assumed that your partner loves you, but you cannot imagine that anyone could love you and do this to you. You want to scream.
Suddenly you turn this on yourself and feel that you should have done certain things that you knew your partner might have liked. You should have listened more or been a better sexual partner.
Meanwhile your whole psyche rises up to say, “No, this cannot be my fault.” You say to your partner, “How could you do this to me after all I have done for you. It’s not fair?”
Then you may want to blame the person who has had the stolen moments with your partner. You may want to scream at them as if they are the cause of your pain and thus excuse your partner.
You want to kick your partner out of the house or at least out of your bedroom. Yet you wonder whether this will drive your partner back into the other person’s arms.
In short, you can’t sleep, you can’t concentrate, and you can’t focus on the reality but want to deny it and say it can’t be so.
So let it be clear to you that you are having some normal reactions to a very traumatic reality that has, in fact, upended everything that you thought was true.
Click for More Articles on Extramarital Affair Recovery by Dr. Walkup
Other Resources on the Web
“The Impact of an Extramarital Affair on the Children:” From the New York Times
“Infidelity:” Statement from the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
