In this section, we focus on how to cope with the long-term reactions and the crises that continue to erupt for weeks and even months afterward.
I couldn’t go to movies or listen to love songs. Everything became a reminder of how I had been betrayed.
Post-traumatic reactions can last for days, months, and even years. Although not all traumas are the same, the symptoms of trauma are recognizably consistent.
Traumatized partners who are recovering from an unthinkable betrayal by a loved one have an obsessive need to hear the story in its most intricate details. Their hypervigilance about monitoring their environment and watching their partner with scrutinizing eyes comes from the realistic fear of further wounding.
Flashbacks are triggered by minimal cues that echo the moment of their personal devastation. Coping strategies require a balance between validating these reactions and trying to contain and manage them.
Post-traumatic reactions are particularly severe when they result from the betrayal of important relationships. The betrayal of a close relationship has long-lasting effects that make recovery difficult.
One of the ironies of healing from infidelity is that the perpetrator must become the healer. This means that betrayed partners are vulnerable because the person they are most likely to turn to in times of trouble is precisely the source of danger.
On the other hand, involved partners sometimes find it hard to stay engaged with their spouses when they know that they are the source of such intense pain.
For as long as the first year after revelation, the betrayed partner may have distressing mental, physical, and emotional swings. You may be thinking that you are doing everything right: You’re talking more often, and the affair has ended. Why aren’t you over these feelings? It’s normal to be having these traumatic reactions and they will diminish, but only gradually.
First, their frequency will decline; second, how long they last will decline.
The intensity of the symptoms is the last thing to go, so it can feel as if you are backsliding despite other signs of progress.
Post-traumatic reactions cluster into three categories: intrusion, constriction, and hyperarousal. These reactions are formally diagnosed as a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) if the threat was physical or life-threatening and if these symptoms last longer than one month. However, betrayed partners whose psychological safety is threatened by infidelity commonly display these same clusters of symptoms, and the symptoms can occur over a long period of time.