“I never imagined I’d end up betrayed by my partner,” said Liz. “In my mind, infidelity was something that happened to other couples. Ones who didn’t communicate, or those who didn’t have anything in common. I was so wrong.”
Liz and Ollie had been married for sixteen years when she discovered Ollie was having an affair.
“Something I also never imagined,” she went on, “was that I’d end up obsessed with the person my husband had an affair with. This obsession feels awful, totally awful. And yet, somehow, I can’t seem to stop. It’s like I’ve lost control of my brain.”
The emotional fallout of an affair is massive. And for many, it consists of feelings and behaviors that they never could have predicted — quite often, uncharacteristic behavior. This blog focuses on what happens when painful curiosity about the affair partner turns into excruciating, ongoing obsession. I’ll use Liz’s situation to shed light on this issue.
Asking why is normal and natural
Part of the reason humans have survived and thrived is that the human mind naturally asks why in so many cases. That’s especially true when painful things happen, and because the mind wants to try and prevent a repeat experience in the future. Why did this happen? is sometimes mere curiosity, and sometimes, in the instance of unpleasant events it’s the mind’s way of analyzing something with the hope that it won’t happen again.
Consequently, some of the preoccupation with the details of your partner’s affair is to be expected. The problem occurs when the quest for details becomes an obsession and when you feel like you cannot control it — that it’s a bigger problem. It can be beneficial to learn why this happens so that you can make sense of the conscious and unconscious motivations behind this intense preoccupation that you feel is steering you.
As Liz said:“I feel blindsided by how consumed I am over this person, someone I shouldn’t even care about or want anything to do with. Yet I’m stalking them on social media, driving by their workplace and their house. Why am I doing this to myself?”
Four explanations for being obsessed with the affair partner
Of course not everyone who has been betrayed will experience a painful obsession with the person their partner cheated with, and among those who do, not all will see themselves in each of the reasons for the obsession I’m going to discuss. Still, it can be helpful to gain insight and perspective about why the mind would do something that seemingly makes you feel worse during an already emotionally traumatic and grueling time.
So let’s explore some of the reasons for this obsessive thought pattern after the discovery of infidelity in a relationship. Keep in mind this list is not exhaustive, and it’s also important to note that no single person’s handling of the fallout from an affair is exactly like any others, which means that you may see yourself in some of what follows, or you may not see yourself in these examples. Healing from infidelity is some of the most personal work couples can possibly do, and there’s no one right way to do it.
It’s also important to clarify what’s being referred to when “obsession” is discussed. Obsession is when you feel consumed by the subject, when you feel you don’t have any control or sense of agency or choice to end the overwhelming thoughts and feelings of being consumed against your will.
Curiosity after a betrayal is a very common reaction. In the trauma state of mind, for some, there is a level of vigilant focus on what happened; an attempt to make sense of it, is to be expected. However, there is a line that for some people gets crossed where the curiosity and vigilance becomes all-consuming . . . the vigilance turns to obsession.
We’ll continue to use Liz’s situation as illustrative as we explore the reasons for this type of obsession.
1) Curiosity motivated by the desire to repair the relationship
“If I can understand the allure of this person,” said Liz, “or rather, if I can discover what Ollie had with her that he didn’t think he could find with me, then I can discover what went wrong in the relationship. And that means I have a chance of fixing it.”
On the surface, it seems that this kind of curiosity can be good for the relationship. However, it is based on a faulty premise: that one of the reasons for the infidelity was that the relationship and/or the betrayed partner are lacking something that the unfaithful partner needed to find outside the relationship. While there are cases when this is true, this premise is a pervasive myth about cheating.
In Liz’s case, the conscious motivation to heal the marriage was what she was most in touch with at first, but as the curiosity morphed into an obsession, something much more destructive was at play. She began comparing herself to the affair partner, and she found herself coming up short. “From what I could see on social media,” Liz recalled, “she was younger, fitter, and prettier. More interesting, too.”
Most of us know that social media causes us to compare our insides to other people’s outsides, and therefore we shouldn’t assume that the happy smiles reflect a kind of ongoing nirvana in others. Liz said she knew that, but she couldn’t apply it to the affair partner. “In this case, I didn’t see social media as superficial or not telling the whole story. When I poured over every post and picture of hers, I thought I was seeing the truth of her and her life, and I couldn’t measure up.”
2) Insecurity-driven curiosity
“If I can find flaws in my husband’s affair partner,” Liz said, “then maybe I have a shot about feeling better about myself. Because one of the many things I wasn’t prepared for on this side of the affair is how bad I feel about myself. Cast-aside, unwanted. And I’m sure stalking this person on social media and negatively comparing myself to them is making me feel even worse, to the point where I have moments of thinking, ‘Why wouldn’t he cheat on me with this dazzling person? I’m boring in comparison . . .’”
The cruel, ironic twist about insecurity-driven curiosity is that the drive behind it is the desire to feel better about yourself through discovering something unappealing about the affair partner, but in essence, the sheer act of attaching yourself to that person’s social media feed and seeing the curated, carefully selected slice of life they choose to share with the world is likely to deepen the insecurity rather than alleviate it. Since most people do not post embarrassing facts about themselves online, the betrayed partner remains unlikely to unearth any negative traits to feed the “if only I can find flaws in them” appetite. And truly, spending so much time and energy and focus trying to do that causes the wounded individual to de-prioritize themselves in a real way as they place the affair partner at the forefront of their consciousness. Healing from the immense betrayal of infidelity requires a lot of self-care, self-kindness, and self-compassion. In short, it requires the betrayed partner to prioritize themselves in meaningful ways. That prioritization can be difficult or impossible if there is more attention given to the affair partner, even if that attention was initially motivated by a wish to feel better.
3) Anger-driven curiosity
There are three main psychological purposes for curiosity driven by anger, though often the reasons for the anger/curiosity are in the subconscious and not fully within the individual’s awareness.
a) Holding onto anger to avoid feeling the pain of grief
Obsessing over the affair partner — who is in a real way the living embodiment of the infidelity — can keep the betrayed partner’s anger alive so that they don’t have to feel the pain/grief of the betrayal alone. Although chronic anger is not a pleasant place to be, it can feel more empowering and less horrible than only pain and grief and hopelessness.
An obsession about this person who cheated with your partner can, at times, feel like a bit of a relief from being alone with your shock and confusion, since it provides you with someone outside of yourself to focus on. Again, this doesn’t feel good by any means, but it can feel like a step up from the loneliness and blurry lack of focus that grief alone can bring.
b) Making the choice for anger can feel self-protective, can feel like vigilance
“The anger keeps my pain alive so I don’t get lulled into a false sense of security and think I can trust my partner.”
I’ve heard this sentiment expressed by a lot of betrayed partners over the years. And it’s no wonder: one prerequisite for intimacy is vulnerability, and one prerequisite for vulnerability is trust. You must be able to deeply trust your partner in order to be vulnerable with your partner (in other words, to show your partner your true self), and you must allow yourself to be vulnerable with your partner for true intimacy to flourish.
Infidelity shatters the trust you’ve held for your partner. When a part of you may be getting ready to move toward forgiveness for your partner, another part may become panicked at that notion and will re-activate the anger inside. This is normal. And this is another example of the non-linear path of affair recovery. Acknowledging and understanding this is crucial. You don’t need to try to prematurely rush through the anger or talk yourself out of it or try to push it down; it’s there for a protective reason.
c) When the anger is turned on yourself
This type of anger is self-punishing. Many betrayed partners carry the conscious and/or unconscious belief that they’re partially responsible for the affair and therefore they don’t deserve to feel better. This feeds the inner critic that keeps feelings of guilt and shame alive. It’s quite common that betrayed partners will admit that they weren’t at fault for the affair. They can often readily say things like: “No matter what issues we had in our relationship, my partner is to blame for the unfaithfulness, not me.” But when it comes to deep woundings and their emotional fallout, we often feel with our hearts more than reason with our minds. And part of the irrationality that comes with the devastating shock of infidelity is blaming yourself for the affair.
It can feel like you’ve got an enemy within, one that won’t even let you take a full breath sometimes. This can be incredibly confusing, especially when we consider that our feelings are there for a reason, even painful feelings. Since it’s impossible to control another person — and it’s impossible to predict another’s behavior, even when we know them very well — anger pointed inward can serve to put you back in control, so to speak. Self-directed blame can assume the function of shrinking the world down to a more manageable size, even though in truth you do not deserve the blame for your partner’s infidelity. Actually no one is the blame. (That’s another blog)
Another possibility fueling the anger toward self that can accompany the obsession with the affair partner is that you may not feel safe in directing your anger toward your partner. It’s undeniable that being the victim of unfaithfulness is devastating and infuriating, and when part of you believes that the person you’re living with would not handle your anger in a mature, respectful way, the unpleasant emotions don’t simply vanish, they have to go somewhere. In this instance, the anger gets aimed at yourself, undeserving as that may be.
4) Information-gathering curiosity
“Ollie has lied so convincingly to me, for so long,” Liz recounted. “About where he was going, who he was with, why he was late getting home. And on and on. Of course I didn’t know they were lies at the time, I only know that now. But discovering he lied so often, and that I never imagined he was lying, has made me doubt everything he tells me now. Like answers to my questions about what happened between them. Like that he’s ended the affair. Like where he is when he’s not home, and who he’s with, and so on.”
I’ve worked with so many couples where the betrayed partner (understandably) does not believe what the unfaithful partner is telling them. Within the mindset of shattered trust, it’s easy to understand why the partner who’s been harmed is reluctant to take what their partner tells them at face value. And yet, the mind still seeks answers. This is why sometimes the affair partner is seen as a more accurate source of information than the relationship partner. “I figured they didn’t have a horse in the race anymore,” I’ve heard from clients. “They have no reason to lie about what did or didn’t happen. About what was or wasn’t said. Why should I expect the truth from my lying partner?”
As mentioned earlier, the emotional pain and overwhelm caused by the relationship rupture often causes the betrayed to feel out of control inside. Information is frequently seen as a means of control in many situations, not just this one. So it’s natural for the mind to seek answers, even if the details might feel excruciating to take in. “I’d rather know for sure,” Liz said, “even if knowing causes fresh heartbreak.”
If you can relate to any of the above, it’s important to note that although being obsessed with a person or a situation you wish you could just forget about may feel confusing and completely uncharacteristic to you, it’s quite common in the post-affair period, and it has a psychological purpose. Even when it feels like your mind is attacking you by clinging to something that brings you pain, ultimately your subconscious is looking for ways to protect you and help you heal. With that said, a new awareness and a fresh understanding of this complex dynamic can help you gradually take the reins from your traumatized mind — and its best efforts to help — and devise a healthier strategy for healing from infidelity.
Liz is not a real person; she is a composite representing some of the themes I’ve observed in working with many couples over the years restoring their connection after infidelity.
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Happy holidays,
Dr. Paula
