(Revised) Annotation 1: Losing yourself after you find you are losing your spouse

The author lists different kinds of sense of loss which the people will experience after they find their spouses have an affair.

    First is losing self-identity. They will keep thinking “I don’t know who I am anymore.” In the past, they might regard themselves as friendly, warm, humorous and capable people, but now they’ll think they have hundreds of disadvantages like jealous, sensitive, lose control easily or want to revenge all the time. Why they will have these kinds of feelings is that the anger blinds their eyes, so they cannot find the true self in their mind.

Second is losing the feeling of being cherished. The abandoned partners will regard themselves as something like trash which can be thrown away at any time. Also, they might think they are special to their spouses before, but suddenly realize they are not the only special one in their spouses’ life.

Third is losing control of mind and body. For example, although it’s really painful to think of the scenes of your spouse and his/ her lover together, they still keep emerging into your mind frequently, which will drive you crazy and affect the sleeping quality. And the distrust to your spouse often make you do something impulsive like cannot stop checking all his/her stuff like the pockets of his jackets, car, bag and so on. What’s more, some of the abandoned partners will over dieting or exercising in order to make themselves look more attractive just because they want to find their pride back in front their spouses.

Forth is losing contact with others. “Who can I trust?” The shame and self-abased always make them think that everyone is remarking about them. Therefore, they’ll be afraid to go outside and connect with people. Besides, whether telling parents and children or not will keep troubling them. Also, they will have doubt that if their friends can keep this secret. All these reasons make the abandoned partners abase themselves from the people.

Fifth is losing the will to live. It’s not surprise that people will commit suicide if he/she loses the ability to live or cannot find someone to love or being love. And this is the worst reflection to the affairs.

Once you cheat on your spouse, it means that he/she not only have to suffer the pain of losing you but also losing himself/herself. A survey shows that there are 70% of people will suffer melancholia for many years after they find their spouses having affairs. And we can see that most of the abandoned partners will think that it’s all their faults to let their spouses cheat. Therefore, we should let those who try to rationalize affairs understand the exactly pain their spouses will have and their temporary excitement might hurt their families forever.

Source:

J. A. Spring ＆ M. Spring (1998). After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful. p 16 – p 42