Surviving Infidelity: The Pain of Obsessive Thinking

When something traumatic such as infidelity happens our brains, being the problem solving machines that they are, look for explanations or ways to make sense out of what has happened. In its quest to find an answer your brain will keep looking and looking for more information to try to make sense of the situation.

On top of this, when you have a fear of something (e.g. your partner is still having the infidelity) our default way of processing information is to use what's known as a negative confirmation bias. Basically the negative confirmation bias sends you on a continuous hunt to find information that supports your fears.
In the jungle the negative confirmation bias works as a great survival mechanism - it keeps you on the alert for any signs of the lion that might eat you. Unfortunately, it doesn't serve you too well when you learn that your spouse had an affair because it leaves you constantly suspicious and mistrusting of almost anything ambiguous that he or she says or does.

These two factors can cause betrayed partners to obsess about the affair. You feel that if you are somehow able to put all the pieces together and make sense of it, you may begin to find some peace of mind. Not questioning or putting it behind you feels dangerous. You may even try to review the entire history of your relationship looking for clues of where things went wrong and what you may have overlooked. Or you may fixate on visual images, snippets of conversation, and puzzling memories that don't quite add up.

In an effort to make sense of it all many people find themselves asking their partner question after question after question in an effort to get to the "bottom" of what really happened.

The problem with this is that for most there never is a bottom. The answer to one question ends up raising twenty others that you hadn't thought of before. The more you know the more you need to know. This can lead to those wrenching all night conversations that you can't stop even though they do nothing but go in circles.

It becomes torture for both of you. Torture for you because you can't seem to find the answers and the more you think about it the more it hurts. You wish you could let go but just don't seem able to. And over time even the most apologetic and patient partner who has had an affair gets tired of the endless questions and can become angry and resentful.

The good news is that this is completely normal and virtually every spouse or partner who has been cheated on goes through this phase. The bad news is that if you let this take over you never will find any absolute truth or peace of mind.

Here's the damned if you do damned if you don't problem you face: until you take steps to construct a story about the affair that makes sense to you, you will be prone to obsessing. But at the same time, continually asking yourself or your partner the same questions over and over again keeps you in that endless obsessive loop. So, what are you to do?

Well, for one thing know that eventually you will be able to talk about this in a way that will bring you a sense of understanding.

However, now is not the time to talk about the infidelity in any depth. You are feeling too much shock and hurt for you to be able to really absorb anything more than the knowledge that your partner had an affair.

To be able to have the kind of talk and find the peace of mind you are looking for you first have to able to learn how to control your thoughts and your emotions. Also, a little bit of time needs to pass for the wound of the infidelity to scab over enough for you to be able to talk about it without reopening it.