Oh boy, do I remember this.
I will tell you my realizations or findings and give you a couple of resources to fact check it, but the withdrawal has to run its course.
Yep, I said withdrawal. Affairs naturally have a push pull dynamic. There are all these bids to grow closer all the while neither is truly available and it causes instability in the emotions. Sometimes it even shows up in the affair itself and people will pull back and grow closer. But that latter is not needed. The lower you felt going into the affair can have some effect on the quickness of the intensity. It’s because your body wasn’t producing much endorphins/dopamine/ adrenaline and to someone who is in a long time shortage of that can cause a huge mood swing that we attribute to the ap.
What sometimes happens in an affair is this instability creates these low points. It could be from guilt, or maybe cracks in the facade, but the next moment is romantic and the release of happy chemicals in your brain will get bigger doses over time as it escalates. You become dependent on that euphoria. And when the source is gone it’s probably the lowest I ever felt in my life.
Eventually as the withdrawal lifted i realized a lot of what I missed was the affair feelings, moreso than him.
And over time I read about limerence and some articles about romantic infidelity.by dr frank Pittman. What I learned made me realize I had a predictable psychological response to an affair. It’s also how people get addicted to gambling or shopping. When you are up you are way up and when you are down it’s in the gutter. It’s an endless cycle.
So a lot of what you can do right now is try and replace the happy brain chemicals. For me, I took up running, tried to eat foods that supports good brain chemistry, tried to get sleep ( not always successful but I was prioritizing it) and trying to find other interests so I could change the channel in my head.
You see the problem is that for a while rumination about him, while painful, still gave me some of the highs. So you have to replace that unhelpful creativity with new things. That is a process and it gets easier over time.
I do not believe anymore that I loved him, nor have I thought so for a long time. Looking back, it never quite sat the way a normal relationship would. Something about it was surreal. It really objectively looked like two people who were in desperate need of validation the further away from it that I got.. We were willing to give it to get it. When I think about love, it wouldn’t have included helping each other destroy our lives and each other. There was really no concern between us when you boil down the selfishness we were dealing with.
You have been a vulnerable woman. In a lonely marriage with an alcoholic. I understand how the desperation occurs. But you should do yourself a service and start therapy. You need to dig into why you have stayed, and likely were looking for a way out. You do not even sound terrified at the prospect of telling him, so I am imagining he must not be abusive, and also that you may simply not love him anymore.
It took me two months to confess after my AP’s wife found out and we went no contact immediately. I was terrified. I debated it and even started therapy ahead of time to figure it out.
Digging your way out of these intense feelings that are being created by both the push pull and the narratives you tell yourself is a slower painful process. It will take confronting many truths.
I will tell you that what I learned about me from that point on has been a long awakening type of experience. The struggle led to so many epiphanies and lessons. There is life beyond both of these men. The greatest thing you can do is work on your greatest and most important love you will ever nurture- and that is the one you hold with yourself.
I know it’s hard to see that is the root of many of your issues, or even how it plays into this at all. But when you rise from the ashes and start actually doing it you will see what I mean. A woman who loves herself doesn’t stay trapped in a marriage like the one you describe, nor does she settle for being someone’s other woman. She knows her worth.
The funny thing that happened for me in this journey is that what I found was the person with all the keys to happiness was me all along. And for me I was able to see how I contributed to my own unhappiness and some of the dynamics I was bringing to my marriage. And the exit affair that I had was nothing but escapism, I didn’t need to exit my marriage, I needed to nurture and appreciate it and my individuality more.
I am not sure if that will happen for you because it’s hard to see what you would find redeemable in the marriage you describe. However sometimes it’s hard to tell because some of us ws tend to make things worse in our minds on our quest to justify the behaviors. It will take some sorting through to decide what’s true for you.
Anyway, read about limerance in Wikipedia. And google dr frank Pittman’s work on romantic infidelity. There is also a pinned post at the top of the forum about getting through withdrawal. Check out the healing library on the left. It’s a very lonely and hard time to get through. Teachings of Pema Chadron and Eckhardt Tolle and a bit of brene brown were things I read and listened to that helped give me a roadmap after staying lost for six months or so in the aftermath.
Oh also- they treated me for OCD, because the thoughts became unwanted and intrusive. It helped me quell the compulsive overthinking and rumination. But that took a little bit of time before we started that, and it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness as it seemingly just was gradual stages I had walked through.
