Hello Everyone!
Linda and I had a discussion the other day about something a reader said and she made the comment that the affair opens up a “can of awareness” within the betrayed.
That is, in general after infidelity the betrayed spouse notices and analyzes more their surroundings and any changes in the cheater’s demeanor and/or activities.
One reader in the forum says:
“…I think it’s only natural to be forever in a heightened state of awareness because what we all never thought would happen…happened and I took for granted that all of the blatant clues that I was receiving was just everyday life issues. I think as BS we do need to get to a point where our awareness is no longer obsessive and let our CS go about living.”
Another says:
“Because the OW was such a big part of both of our lives (as our closest friend), I’m not just aware of the times either one of us brings her up, but also of the times when we don’t. It’s interesting to be aware of those gaps — to know the places where it would be natural for my husband to mention her but he doesn’t.”
So…
How has the affair made you more aware of things?
What are you more aware of and why?
Do you find yourself over-analyzing things your spouse says or does?
How has this affected you and your relationship?
Feel free to add as much detail and/or examples as you like.
Please be sure to respond to each other in the comment section below.
Thanks so much to everyone for sharing their experiences, opinions and advice over the last 2 plus years that we have been writing this blog. The words of wisdom from those of you who have experienced infidelity in one form or another helps other readers more than you can imagine. Please keep it up!
Linda & Doug
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8 replies to "Discussion – Your Heightened Sense of Awareness After Infidelity"
How has the affair made you more aware of things?
I’m much more aware of what I say, how I say it and how it might be perceived. I’m more aware of my own needs for transparency from my H. I’m much more aware of when something is delayed anger about his affair and when it’s something that’s happening now. The latter is much more important to deal with first.
I’m more aware of my H’s interactions with women. I hate how he calls women ‘girls’ and he knows this. I think it demeans the women he works with to call them girls, like if he called the men he worked with ‘boys’ instead.
What are you more aware of and why?
I’m more aware of how easy misunderstandings can be created and develop out of all reason. I’m more aware than ever of my H’s need to be noticed, by anyone at all, it’s not just me.
I’m more aware that I pity the OW, not actively, but I can now see that she was second best as an OW, and didn’t value herself enough to not get involved with a married man. In her place, i.e. when I found out, I wouldn’t accept being part of a threesome ‘relationship’ she had to go or I did. I valued myself that much, she didn’t. It’s quite sad really.
I’m more realistic in my life and less prone to thinking that one change, like moving house, would solve everything. What helps us get along better is taking care of the small stuff each day instead. Something small bugs me? Get it out, deal with it, let it go. It’s like exercising a muscle.
I’m also more aware that when I consider myself as less pretty, less attractive, less sexual than the OW it’s because I’m still trying to blame myself for the affair. It was because I wasn’t pretty enough that my H had an affair. It makes me feel like there was something I could have done, could’ve changed myself, but it’s not like that. It wasn’t my fault that he had an affair. She could’ve been a moose. He just wanted an affair and it didn’t have anything to do with my failings – which is a harder thing to come to terms with due to the lack of control over that happening again.
Do you find yourself over-analyzing things your spouse says or does?
Oh yes. But nowadays I will try to explain what I understood by what he said and then we’ll discuss whether it’s reasonable or not.
How has this affected you and your relationship?
It makes our relationship harder work for sure, but it’s a more honest relationship and the talking more is very constructive.
Heightened Sense of Awareness following infidelity…at our house = the ‘hypers.’
‘hyper vigilance’ was what i suffered ’bouts’ of, and was supposedly not such a healthy state of being, according to my counselor. I, on the other hand, felt hypervigilance was my new mantra, involuntarily, just came with the territory of being a BS. Defined as ‘being on a heightened state of alert,’ it involved my warding off any future threats to me or my family.
Eventually, my H dubbed his new state of awareness as ‘hyper diligence, ‘ which is his heightened ability to protect me from any stupid moves, actions or words on his part mostly, but als, in general. His becoming more attentive to anything inappropriate, is his definition. His new heightened awareness didn’t kick in until much trial & error on his part, much damage incurred and my reminding him of the definition of ‘low awareness.’ And ‘oh’ could i find alot of analogies to describe low awareness!
The ‘hypers’ are alive & kicking in our lives. And that’s not such a bad thing!
(…22 months from DDay#1)
I think I am more aware than I was, but that awareness isn’t comfortable; it’s more like constant watchfulness, which is exhausting. Initially, after DDay, I went through my H’s computer — which is how I discovered a trail of evidence of his inappropriate relationships. This gave me awareness of a painful sort — of my H as he had really been over the past few years; I saw him as weak, as pathetic, as a little bit creepy. That was hard for me to get past, since that man was not attractive to me at all. In fact, in general, the sort of man who would lie to and cheat on his wife is not the sort of person I would even have been friends with in the past — I value honesty and integrity highly, and it was a shock to realize my H had given his up for so little, for something of such little worth.
I know that I still react to things he says and does quite strongly. There is still (9 mos after D-Day) a lot of lingering suspicion and wariness on my part. Why is he still here? Does he mean what he says or is this just the same sort of bullshit he churned out during the EA? While I’m able to get on with my life and function better than I could a few months ago, these questions still haunt me. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever feel able to trust him and be vulnerable again. It’s much easier to stay angry, frankly.
Totally unrelated (file under ‘karma is a bitch’): I found out two days ago that the OW’s H has cheated on her with another woman. This affair is common knowledge in the business they all work in, so there’s public embarrassment to deal with. The woman he cheated with is my age, has three children like I do, and met him while they were both in a show in which she played a character who comes from my hometown. !!! Man. I guess the OW has learned that you do, in fact, reap what you sow. I feel deeply sorry for the kids caught up in all of this mess. But oddly I have no pity at all for the OW. 🙂
I relate to much of what the above people say. My intuitions were spot on from the get go, so the heightened awareness was not so much about my H and is EA. It was more about how he 1) treated me in the everyday and 2) how aware of himself HE WAS and of his behavior, his actions, his thought processing, his patterns of self-defeat, how these patterns link to family of origin stuff and so on.
My hyper-awareness was attuned to his awareness. I think a fundamental issue with him was a radically disjunctive sense of self, of action and consequence, and lack of empathy. Caring he was and loving at times, but there was a longterm series of disconnects.
All I am saying is that I feel that, while I do not want to be his mommy nor does he want that, I think part of my role is helping him see these patterns and patiently bring them up as he tries to reorder things he learned in the depths of his brain and person long ago. He is doing crazy hard work on this.
I trust my instincts now and feel like I will know when things go wrong and can approach him. I don’t think he’ll ever legitimately be able to say, “get off my back” “you are crazy, nothing is wrong” again. So, I guess we are both developing awareness.
I believe that I (and many other women) blow things out of proportion because often times we get an unemotional response to problems or items that are really bothersome to us. Often times we are not validated for our emotions so we feel that we have to really pour it on or really display how upset we are in order to get some kind of rise or response.
As far as being completely aware of everything since Doug’s affair I feel that it is a defense mechanism that gives us a sense of safety. If we remain alert and aware then we will see the obvious signs that we missed previously, therefore something as traumatic as the affair will not happen to us again.
I believe that the cheater has no idea how much thinking and processing we have done about the affair and the OP and how simple conversations can trigger something within us.
Linda, what you are describing sounds very similar to hypervigilance. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance Which may also explain the CS response because while it seems normal to many BS it really is out of line for most people.
I dont want to call my worst days as D-Day, a terrible time in history that can never be repeated. But for me, my hyper vigilance was tearing me apart for three months before I confronted H and OW. I knew to stop wearing my wedding rings as they meant nothing, I didn’t feel special to H, and I wanted him to see that I knew that I knew, that he wasn’t deceiving me, but that I was waiting for him to be honest enough and not a weasel, to tell me what is wrong. I took photos of his clothes, when I noticed clothes missing, I woke up in the middle of the night, to check his iphone but it was locked in his car, no keys? no phone? not hungry for dinner? no intimacy? fighting or quarrelling over stupid little things? sleeping soundly when I was upset? It was so obvious, to me, but he didn’t seem to care. The man I knew was now tough and insensitive, cruel and insulting, a perfectionist of a liar, a ‘great pretender’. Our 35 years of memories were discarded as ‘we haven’t really ever been happy’ comments. You actually dont require to be in a ‘state’ of anything, when your soul mate is breaking your heart – it is a ‘state’ of absolute pain. Its so ‘safe’ to label all these traits, all these incidents, all these scary moments, as a cheater’s actions that bring about infidelity – because it makes the cheater feel it can be explained away. It will never be explained away for the betrayed spouse. I will let my husband tell me he loves more than ever, I will let my husband tell me I am so beautiful, and I cant think of spending the rest of my life with anyone else, I will let my husband say ‘ I went off the track a bit ‘ if all this helps him feel less guilt, but I will never let my guard down again, I will never feel 100% sure of his love and devotion to me, I will never believe unconditionally. He has humiliated me, he has destroyed who I was and am, and I have to remake myself all over again, in the eyes of our adult children, in the eyes of my closest friends, all of who have also suffered as they helped me. And I have to remake myself in the eyes of my husband too, to make him see me as the person who truly loves him more than the OW, who offered him her bed, her words of love, her words to combat mine. It was truly a war of emotions, of words, of actions ( I even lowered myself to key her car, so they could bond closer as he got it fixed for her). I quit my job, my studies, I let go of my attachment to our kids, our grandkids, our friends, our neighbours, it was a huge huge shock that caused me huge pain. It has only been four months, and we seem better, but I am not sure. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t want me to be upset, he doesn’t want me to ask any delicate questions, he just wants us to go back to the way if was before he had his affair (which he cannot even say it was). Do I sound angry, do I sound bitter, do I sound unforgiving, do I sound in pain, – Yes to all of these questions – but each day will improve slowly. Hubby is happy that he is safely back to where we once were – for him. Now I have to get back to where we once were – for me.? Poor man, he doesn’t realise that place is no longer there.
Wow, I am at the water park with my daughter.she ran into a school friend, and the mother and our girls went to another part of the park while the father stayed here. I saw him on his cell and I thought “I wonder if he’s talking to his whore?” I have never had that thought before. Ughhhh.now I suspect everyone.