Obsessing Over Your Husband’s Affair? How do you know if you’re obsessing over your husband’s affair? If thinking about your husband’s affair is interfering with your normal level of functioning (i.e. can’t concentrate at work, can’t sleep due to racing thoughts, irritable, etc) you are obsessing. Processing information about the affair whether it was discovered or disclosed is normal and does help. Detective work (wanting facts) is not as helpful as Investigative work (getting meaning and motive). When done properly with a therapist who specializes in affair recovery obsessing can turn into newfound insight about your husband’s betrayal and your what you both need to do for moving forward.
Obsessing Over Your Husband’s Affair?
I have several wives who are exerting much, if not all, of their waking hours trying to get details about their husband’s affair/s. They look at bank statements, cell phone logs, emails, GPS car trackers, etc. This detective work makes for exhausting days and are not productive as it fuels the already the negative emotions. I explain they cannot control anything their husband’s do. They can only control their own behavior. With all their energy wrapped up in getting details they take away time that could be used for their own wellness. I encourage wives to concentrate on themselves. I understand getting details can help with timelines, and like a missing piece to the puzzle, can validate the insecurities they felt when their intuition told them so. Developing a self care plan that includes reducing your own suffering is beneficial to the moving forward process. Time can heal the pain of infidelity as you learn to forgive, but you will never forget. In the meantime, concentrate on helping yourself with resilience, distress tolerance, relaxing, self-soothing, and getting the perspective needed so you can put in action the tools acquired for successful affair recovery. Talking about the affair is appropriate to find meaning and motives for cheating. We do that in affair recovery. After that, going on and on with questions that were already answered is counterproductive.
A partner obsessing about the details of the affair can be annoying yet hurtful if you are the Affair Partner (the person who had the affair), you continue to feel the pain you created for the Hurt Partner. Hearing about the affair over and over again can become tiresome and the Affair Partner can become weary and discouraged that the relationship is unable to move on. While the Affair Partner is remorseful and is willing to do anything to repair the relationship, listening to the details about the affair over and over again is counterproductive.
The best course of action is to process your emotions and learn ways to appropriately cope. Feeling the frustration and anger by going over and over the details of the affair is not helpful. Affair Recovery is. If you find yourself not being able to help yourself talking to a therapist can help you get some perspective about what you are doing.
Affair recovery is essential to rebuilding trust and commitment.
For more information on affair recovery please contact me at (858) 735-1139.
