Emotional Trauma Recovery: 7 Ways I Protected Myself after Her Affair
Emotional Trauma Recovery.
Three words you never anticipated reading when you and your partner melted into each other’s arms (an eternity ago, right?)
Hello everyone this is Orlando again, the owner of this site.
I decided to start something new. I will create a journal of random thoughts that I wish to post about. I’ll do my best to accomplish this more frequently.
These posts will be more raw. Not quite as much research as some of my longer posts.
Today’s first journal post revolves around how to shield yourself from more pain after D-day (the day you discovered your spouse cheated on you and could no longer trust their loyalty).
That’s the same day the three words Emotional Trauma Recovery took root in your new life moving forward.
The #1 Key to Emotional Trauma Recovery after You’ve Been Cheated On
Ironically the key resembles an actual key- the key to your own car.
How did you feel when you found out your wife/husband slept with someone else? Or in my case when my wife abandoned me and moved in with a strange guy in another city.
Helpless.
That’s how.
When your life feels out of control you feel helpless. When you let someone else drive you don’t always end up where you want to go.
And that is the key to survive the affair trauma experience. Take care of yourself, drive your own car. Tend to repairing your feelings first. If you aren’t feeling right, you won’t function well.
For me writing these blogs posts helped me gain control. Sharing with others how I fought through the pain and avoided spiraling downward became my number one form of therapy for my own emotional trauma recovery from her affair.
I knew that beyond providing new ways to understand infidelity and marriage controversy from my own experience of being cheated on I could also share the other side of affairs since I once cheated on my first wife and stayed with a married woman for 6 years. I understand both mindsets well- the cheater and cheated on.
I even wrote my own book the “Top Cheating Spouse Report: Former Cheater Unlocks His 50+ Secrets Your Husband/Wife Wishes You Didn’t Ever Know About How to Catch Them in Their Lies“ .
You can download the book if you’d like to read it.
Before I give you my tips how I avoided more emotional pain let’s start with a question.
How would you answer this poll below?
7 Ways to Protect Yourself from Additional Unnecessary Emotional Pain After an Affair
Some of these tips pertain to your emotional recovery others prevent (or at least limit) more pain in the future, but they all pertain to the key I mentioned above- to take care of your own needs.
1. No more excuses, benefits of doubt
Many of you reading this post (or any of my posts) arrived here because you genuinely are a good person and because of that you probably are the chaser in the relationship not the chasee.
This also means you tend to be a caring person too. Caring people love to justify other people’s poor choices. Stop! She cheated. Do you know how many stop signs you must run past in order to sneak around to participate in second life?
He cheated once. This either raises a red flag or a character flaw or he just slipped up this one time. Either way you will need time to yourself to consider what you want for your next chapter in life (stay of leave).
2. Turn into a human-lie detector
Part of not making excuses for your disloyal spouse and to stop thinking so trustworthy is to improve your lie spotting abilities, develop “liar radar”. When they lie an alarm beeps.
Acquire some human-lie detector skills by reading books about body language like What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People
3. Hamburger or just ketchup?
Got you to look, didn’t I? Never rely on someone else for happiness. Even if she never cheated and life was grand right now no one persons makes your life good, they just make it better.
He should be the ketchup on your hamburger not the hamburger to your ketchup. Your spouse’s highest potential is to make your life “taste” better, but if she fails you by cheating and the ultimate result is separation then you must function without her.
Ask yourself this: are you emotionally dependent?
4. Revisit your passions
My road to emotional trauma recovery led me to writing this blog. Writing and teaching are some of my passions. For me I can even write about my other passions like wine tasting, traveling, languages, etc.
This website served as a launching pad to the next chapter in my life during my midlife divorce recovery from my cheating, ex-wife. I seek to become a professional blogger one day. If you like to write maybe you would consider blogging about your passion.
5. Step to the balcony
In one of my favorite negotiating books “Getting Past No” by William Ury he discusses a technique to avoid blowing up and worsening negotiation situations: “Step to the Balcony”. William references the movie “The Godfather”. The technique means to step away before you get more upset and say something you can’t take back.
This may seem unfair since you would get upset due to your spouse causing the pain. You should be able to say whatever comes to your mind, right? If you want any chance to keep to reconnect and not feel more pain than you already do, filter your thoughts first before you say them out loud.
If you haven’t already read my book “Infidelity Survival Guide: 10 Emergency Tips to Survive Week One“. Then download a free copy.
6. Find your “happy places”
I tend to find lots of time for myself while I still recover from her affair. It’s allowed me to refocus on my passions and achieving my dreams. One of my favorite things to do is seek new places to work on my blog here throughout the city whether it’s in a lounge at the top floor of a tall building overlooking the city, a new coffee shop, a fancy hotel lobby or a wine bar.
Everyone has favorite places that make them happy. Find new ones around town. Keep things fresh. Even if you just stop there for 20 minutes on the way home from work from time to time. You owe it to yourself.
Where are your “happy places”?
7. It’s not you. They’re the broken ones
Ultimately you must not blame yourself for their mistake. Trust me as a former cheater. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to sneak around. You have to really drop the ball in the relationship.
A person that cheats loses sight of the big picture why they got married in the first place. They stop thinking rationally (or thinking at all). Why would you avoid relationship problems by jumping in another relationship (a secret one at that)?!
Not beating myself saved me a lot of heartache.
I thank Dr. Huizenga, an online infidelity and marriage therapist for that. He shared these free ebooks with tips how to stop blaming myself for her affair so I could avoid more unnecessary emotional pain. I can honestly say without Dr Huizenga’s advice I would have suffered more.
If you’d like you can download the free white paper and short course that helped me too.
I Need Your Opinion
What has helped you so far during your emotional trauma recovery from your spouse’s affair to avoid more pain?
(Leave your comment at the bottom of this page below the “Related Articles” section).
