There are many emotions that can motivate us into action (or freeze us into inaction). Passion, love, righteousness, morals, strong beliefs, and commitment can be powerful motivators. Fear, anger, hate, and spite can be equally powerful, though don’t always serve a noble purpose. When trying to heal yourself and your spouse from infidelity or a breach of trust, you must draw on positive, pure motives such as love, commitment, and responsibility. Negative, unhealthy emotions can prove to be strong barriers to the healing process that is your responsibility to foster and grow if you were the cause of the hurt. One of the most insidious and detrimental is shame. Shame is a close relative of guilt and leads to other unhealthy emotions such as fear, anger, and denial. Guilt is not necessarily a bad thing, it is recognizing that you did something that was wrong or crossed a boundary. Shame, however, is a belief that you, as a person, are bad or not good enough. It is an indictment of self. It can be paralyzing and leads to other negative emotions such as inadequacy. The difference between shame and guilt is the difference between “I am a terrible person” and “I did a terrible thing”. One view allows healing and growth, but the other locks you into a stagnant cycle that prevents both of those things, the two things that are vital to moving past infidelity. I like to call this the “Shame Cycle”.
Once locked in this cycle, it becomes a self-feeding loop. The negative behavior causes stress because of regret and shame, which leads to operating out of fear. The negative behavior can be a physical or emotional affair, pornography use, lying, substance abuse, etc. This then puts you under stress and triggers the “fight or flight” response. You then have a genuine physiological and psychological (mental AND physical) need to not feel that way and you go to that behavior that gives you instant gratification or allows you to avoid that feeling. Your mind tricks you into thinking that these unhealthy behaviors-especially addictive behaviors-will take away the stress you are feeling. This allows you to indulge in an unhealthy coping mechanism-denial. Unfortunately, subconsciously, you are funneled into the black hole of guilt, more shame, regret, emotional pain, and self-loathing. This, of course, leads you to operate out of fear, which leads to more stress, and so on it goes, unendingly. It feeds upon itself like a snake eating it’s own tail until you self-destruct. This cycle MUST be broken if healing is to take place and the hurting is to stop. Instead of avoiding to falsely feel relief from the stress, you can CHOOSE to be honest and to bring the unhealthy behavior into the light. When something is out in the open, it sparks the ability to stop the behavior. Being honest with your partner also has the effects of building trust, emotional intimacy, and connection. It frees you from the cycle, which can no longer feed itself on fear and negativity. It also gives real, tangible, lasting relief from the stress of denial, fear, regret, and shame. It is not easy to break the cycle. It is easier to stay in a place of denial, but there can be no healing or growth that way. It all starts and ends with honesty!
Want more? Listen to the episode “Healing Your Spouse and Yourself After You Have Had an Affair”