I know many of us have been on the journey with our Wayward Spouse, and Wayward Spouse’s on their own journey for discovering the why. Why did you cheat? Why did you look for love elsewhere? Why did you need to be desired by a platitude of women/men? Why did you run away from love?
I’ve done extensive research on trauma. This started young to understand my own complex trauma, and of course continues now with the more recent one, and in trying to understand the man I love.
One narrative is blind spots. They don’t know what they’re doing, or their trauma is so deep that their behavior is compulsive. We coin this the affair fog, compartmentalization, etc. There are lots of explanations and lots of varieties for how this is expressed. One thing that isn’t addressed is lying. We all know lying is wrong, hurtful, and goes against building our partnerships.
For long term affairs we’re dealing with prolong lies and deceit. For as long as a lie is believed by the other person, I believe it is a continued lie. So lying every day for weeks, months, years, implicitly and definitely explicitly. Not once did they stop to think “wow, how could I lie to the person I love? I should stop.”
Stop the affair, stop lying. Either one. There is no explanation for how that could have been explained by trauma.
Carrying on the lie and the affair was simply more important and chosen over the intimate bond we shared with them and the love they claimed to have for us. Colluded with another tribe, while we built for ours. And lied, and then lied about lying about it.
I think of my own childhood traumas. I do have attachment wounds, like many do. I’m not perfect. But it’s hard for me to excuse behaving in a way that would hurt someone I care about because of those traumas – over and over again. Lying and deceit are one of those things that are not dictated by trauma, unless we are taught it’s ok at a young age. We are responsible for ourselves and how we act, no matter what we’ve been through.
You do something wrong, then lie about it because you know it’s wrong. So now you’ve done two hurtful things, and this just increases.
What are your thoughts or discoveries on trauma, the why, the inexcusable, the unexplained?
Thank you xx