How to Handle the Pain of Infidelity
Your brain is mostly optimized to survive childhood, it's not really designed for adult relationships. Your partner occupies the place in your mind that is reserved for the person who's supposed to love you. And that place was formerly occupied by your parents.
When you were young, you relied on your parents for love, affection, and survival. If they had decided to abandon you, you might have died.
That's why you felt so much pain when you discovered infidelity in your relationship. Your brain categorizes your partner as a person whose love and devotion is a matter of life and death.
As an adult, you don't actually rely on your partner for survival, but your brain still reacts to their betrayal as if you did.
The pain you are feeling comes from a part of your brain that developed when you were very young. Because of that, the best way to respond is to practice comforting yourself the way you would comfort a young child.
Close your eyes and imagine a toddler in distress. If you were in charge of comforting that child, you would gather them up and hold them in your arms in a certain way. You would welcome their distress and you would offer them comfort and support.
If you have a memory of feeling abandoned as a child, it might help for you to picture yourself in that situation. Did you ever get lost in a grocery store, or did you get left behind at a gas station or a restaurant? If that happened to you, you can imagine coming back as an adult and comforting your younger self in that stressful situation.
Your brain doesn't have a delete function. The part of your brain that was worried about being abandoned when you were young is still there. And that's what's causing you to experience such intense pain.
You can think about your brain as if it were made up of two parts: an inner child and an inner adult. It's important to comfort your inner child, and it's just as important to strengthen your inner adult. You can do that by imagining how you will respond to your partner if they cheat on you again.
When you were a toddler, you just had to accept your parents' actions. You didn't have a choice about what family you were born into, or how your parents treated you. If your parents wanted to abandon you, they could, and there wasn't anything you could do about it other than make a fuss.
As an adult, you have a lot more power. If your partner decides to continue cheating on you, there are things you can do to make sure that you are going to be okay.
Imagine finding out one month from now that your partner has had another affair. Then fast-forward to a year from now. What kind of a life do you have? How are you taking care of yourself? Do you know how to create a rich and rewarding life for yourself, regardless of the choices your partner makes?
When you go through that exercise, you're connecting with your inner adult. You're reinforcing the part of you that knows how to take care of yourself, even in difficult circumstances.
As you continue to process the pain of infidelity, take turns connecting with your inner child and your inner adult. It may help to write down your experiences in a journal, especially your thoughts about what you will do if your partner continues to cheat. As you learn to trust yourself, you will feel a greater capacity to handle the pain of infidelity.
