Anxiety after cheating, after infidelity, yours or your partner’s, can get you easily to the situation when you’re sitting alone after a betrayal with absolutely no one to turn to.
An affair is a serious matter. Your heart tells you that it is too late. You can save yourself from further hurt by deciding to end your affair.
But your mind tells you that you want to stay with your lover and rebuild your relationship.
This is a mind trick. But it is a widespread one.
It is also the weakest spot of many victims of liaisons. This is why you must be watchful for it.
These are the main stages (or steps) of healing from infidelity and the ensuing anxiety after cheating:
- Intimacy is restored – The time after the affair comes when you think you are beginning to trust again. You want to enjoy sex with your partner again. So you look for ways on how to do that.
- Depression and isolation – After the affair is over, you will probably feel depressed and lonely. You may not want to be with other people. Because of this, you will be isolated.
- Anger – You will probably feel angry at your spouse for having an affair and putting you through the wringer. You may also start to lash out at him or her to get a reaction. Your spouse may react aggressively back but don’t expect that your relationship will improve. You will be waiting to see what your spouse has to say about all these issues.
- Acceptance – This is the stage when you can get a reaction from your spouse. You can start to talk to your spouse and talk about your feelings. He or she will likely have painful feelings to say. Still, he or she will probably hold back on telling you anything that could cause another argument.
Note: The stages are not linear. They are not even straight lines. Sometimes you pass through one step and sometimes the other. But they are all part of the same continuum.
Even though they may appear to be at different places on the continuum, they are all connected. And each stage on the continuum is different from all the others.
If you are currently having a challenging period after your spouse cheated, I hope these stages on how to recover from an affair will help you find some answers.
Anxiety after cheating. How to get over being cheated on and stay together. How not to get overtaken by the aftermath.
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For those who engage in affairs, their relationship with their affair partner is like a sanctuary for them.
It is the place that they can go to escape the daily drudgery of life.
You see, the secrecy and secretiveness are what give their relationship with the affair partner some of its mystique.
And the mysteriousness provides your relationship with them something of its own to add to the mystique. Because your relationship is secret, charm gives it its dimension.
An affair can be like a vaudeville act.
The audience is the people who are betrayed, cheated, and hurt. It is an act of defiance against the society that treats them with disdain.
They are letting the audience know that they are not just like other cheaters who don’t care about their partners and that they care too.
An affair is an act of defiance and a form of rage.
And there is an underlying sexual appeal that the audience doesn’t know about, making it so dangerous.
You see, your relationship with your affair partner is like a love triangle. Three people, you and your affair partner, are the central characters.
There is someone else, and then there is you. And that third person, who may be invisible to you, might be the love interest.
And when the third person shows up, the triangle is disrupted or even turned inside out.
More on how to end an affair without losing the happy memories, in this article (click the link and it will open a new tab in your existing browser.
An affair becomes an act of love. How to overcome cheating.
So as you move through these roles of you, the betrayer, the betrayed, the cheater, and finally the cheated, as you become more aware of the hidden factors that shape your relationships, you become more aware of the reality of love.
When the illusion of love dissolves, that is the moment when you know the secret of infidelity.
And that is the moment you know that you can let go, you can make way for love, you can break the shackles of fear, hate, pain, and disappointment.
That is the moment when you are free to be loving, to be honest, to be transparent, to be sincere, to be caring, to be supportive, to be loving, to be generous, to be forgiving, and giving love freely.
The second thing that happens is that you learn to deal with the aftermath.
That is when you come to terms with what you have done, how you have caused pain, how you are feeling, how you are feeling now, how you are feeling tomorrow, how you are feeling next week, how you are feeling next month, how you are feeling next year.
Anxiety after Infidelity. Does the guilt of cheating ever go away?
You come to terms with the aftermath because it is your reality.
And when you come to terms with it, you can start to move on; you can begin to release what you are holding onto, you can start to leave behind what you don’t want, you can start to leave behind the things that don’t mean anything to you.
And when you begin to leave behind those things, you begin to release the things that are pulling you down. And when you do this, you start to start moving upwards.
The second thing that happens is that you begin to make sense of it all. That is the hard part.
When you are struggling to make sense of it, you may blame yourself, you may obsess about why you did it, you may feel jealous about what someone else has, you may experience shame because of what you did, you may feel anger at God for allowing it to happen, you may feel resentment at others because of what they did, you may experience fear because of what others did, you may experience sadness because of what you lost, you may experience remorse because of what you’ve lost, and you may experience wanting to make things right, but without fully understanding what is going on.
This is when you can become lost, but it doesn’t mean that you aren’t moving on.
The third thing that happens is that you begin to be vigilant about it. When you are vigilant about it, you do not take your foot off the brakes. You continue to move forward, but you do not allow yourself to get caught up in the mire again.
Once you allow yourself to get hooked up in the mire again, you revert to the level that you were at before the affair.
But if you continue to move forward, even if you are vigilant about it, you revert to the higher level once you return to the same level.
And if you revert back to the same level, you end up having to start all over again.
You ended up starting all over again. How to get over infidelity pain.
The fourth thing that happens is that you give it some room. To give it some space, you give it some time. You let it happen. You keep moving forward without caring about what might happen because you know that nothing is lost.
When you know that nothing is lost, you can start to experience the good feelings of loving yourself.
And this is where you can begin to give yourself some space because you know that this is just a passing phase.
And over time, you can come to experience the good feelings that come from loving yourself more.
The affair really is just a passing phase. Is it?
So it really is a simple thing to give yourself some room because the affair really is just a passing phase. And the most beneficial thing to do is to try to enjoy the feelings that come from loving yourself because it really is a healing experience.
And it will give you the perspective to know that what you are experiencing is absolutely normal.
And it will provide you with the mindset to know that nothing is lost.
It is just a passing phase, but it is something that you can actually turn around and make right.
Let’s recall: the after-effects of anxiety after the infidelity of a cheating partner and/or an emotional affair could be tremendous. They could even imply panic attacks and stress disorder; counseling for couples might be the only helping healing process.
Living through anxiety without therapy after a betrayal is mentally, emotionally, and physically draining, and it could pace mental health.
There is no doubt about the fact that anxiety and betrayal go together. After an awful experience of a loved one (maybe your husband) backstabbing you, you will have to learn to forgive yourself as anxiety adds to the pain; couples therapy and couples counseling help.
How to recover from an affair. Depression after being cheated on.
You are conflicted. You know that the affair is wrong, but your heart and mind are drawn to your lover.
You are stuck and need to find yourself again. You have not yet realized your inner strength. You want to give up the affair, but somehow your mind forces you to go on.
It is such a mystery to you, your mind, and your heart. But a person can know unquestionably what they want and know that they have to go through the motions to get it.
This is the way to get out of your affairs.
You have to find your strength of character.
These are the qualities that must have been lacking in you in this situation. You will then develop an inner strength that will enable you to do whatever is necessary to save yourself from further hurt. You can survive infidelity. It is possible.
An affair will no longer be having any power over you. After a relationship, you have accepted that you can no longer control your actions.
But an affair is a serious matter and has a lasting impact on you and your partner. But a liaison does not have the same weight as if you were having one. This means that your heart will not be broken. It can do strange things.
Suppose you have already found out that your partner had an affair.
In that case, the process of how to recover is even more difficult.
It would help if you didn’t let the liaison blow up in your face because of your insecurities. This is why I have made these stages helpful. As you work through these stages, you will begin to feel better and closer to your spouse.
When to walk away after infidelity. You want to be alone.
As I mentioned, this stage is a transitional one. You will want to be alone from time to time. It is usual for this stage to last from several days to several weeks. But you don’t want to be alone for too long because you need to restore your self-esteem.
You will want to talk to your partner and vent your feelings. You will want to explore yourself emotionally and physically. You will also want to discover why this happened in your relationship.
Sometimes, you can help yourself by turning to friends for support and encouragement. You will want to share your feelings with trusted people in your life.
If you get help in any of these things, you will increase your chances of success. As you are working through this stage, you need to give yourself the space to do it without being overwhelmed.
It takes a lot of courage to go it alone.
You want your spouse to check up on you.
This is the second stage on how to recover from an affair.
During this time, you can get your spouse to check up on you.
The best route to do this is to ask them to do it.
You don’t need to beg.
You need to say: “I need you to check up on me. I’m having a tough time processing things, and I’d appreciate your help.” (more on this fascinating stuff here and here; click the links, and they will open new tabs in your pre-existing browser)
If you are feeling negative emotions and have no idea what they mean, see a therapist, and you’ll get a better view. But often, you can learn that these emotions are caused by your own thinking.
You can understand that your feelings come from what you’re doing or what you’re thinking. So, you can learn that the opposite of feeling guilty is seeing things from someone else’s point. And sometimes your doctor can help you find this out.
Maria
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PS. Please, consider my ‘wise and intelligent’ considerations cum grano salis. They are nothing else than personal opinions. I am no guru, and, unfortunately, I cannot, therefore, guarantee happiness (in wealth or marriage or couple relationship or happiness or mental health, whatever situation). If you are planning some severe consequences, see a lawyer, please; my advice or words or jokes or whatever associations couldn’t in any way or form replace a thorough qualified legal opinion; act very wisely, please.
I hope you have greatly enjoyed reading my blog post, “Anxiety After Cheating | Infidelity (Pays) Its Toll.” The images are from the “People Collection, People (3) Female (1),” and Romance by David Watson; the Instagram image is from the volume ‘Quotes ‘by the same author (I’ve got the copyright). All rights reserved.
