Treating the Realization of an Affair Like a Natural Disaster

The fallout of realizing an affair can be like experiencing a natural disaster. When I work with clients who have come to me just after an affair has surfaced, this is what I tell them: It is normal to feel like your entire world is upside down. It is normal to feel like everything that used to be important needs to be put on pause. It is normal to think "all I can do right now is survive today." It is like living through an emotional natural disaster.

In a relationship where an affair has surfaced, the foundation of safety that previously existed is compromised, like when an earthquake rocks the foundation of a city. In a relationship where an affair has surfaced, even after a couple has started to reckon with the fallout and rebuild, aftershocks (new details emerging, having to have hard conversations with kids or friends) can occur, like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

The experience of realizing an affair, especially for a partner who was cheated on, means adjusting to a new reality. The initial phase of this process is so destabilizing that people may need to cancel plans, take time off of work, or even attend therapy multiple times a week to get through it. Again, the fallout mimics that of a natural disaster - everything is put on pause, and the objective is to survive.

I find it important to normalize the severity of this experience and to let people know they are not alone in feeling things so intensely. In the wake of this type of realization, it can feel like all is lost, like things will never get better, like a sense of normalcy will never be re-established. But as with a natural disaster, with the realization of an affair, it is possible to rebuild.

In some cases, over the long term, rebuilding might look like:

• Unpacking the events leading up to the affair

• De-constructing the 'why' behind the affair happening

• Working with the partner who was cheated on to explore how their trust might be re-established, slowly and over time

• Developing a working model to avoid a similar situation, through the improvement of open communication and prioritization of clarity around relational boundaries

• Pursuing couples therapy to get insight from a professional on underlying issues in the relationship

In other cases, where the relationship is "irretrievably broken" (to quote a recent explanation of divorce from Joe Jonas & Sophie Turner), individual partners may rebuild in ways such as:

• Working to accept the end of the relationship & move on

• Unpacking the circumstances that led to the affair happening

• Pursuing individual therapy to process the trauma of the event and to establish a new sense of personal safety in relationships

Over time, as is true with any other emergency, the pain of the initial impact can, and will, lessen. In the end, there will be opportunities to rebuild in ways that establish either a sense of safety in the relationship or a sense of safety outside of the relationship, with a new beginning.

Until then, it is normal to feel completely unmoored.

Accordingly, those experiencing the trauma of the realization of an affair must find ways, moment by moment, to survive, until the intensity lessens and healing becomes possible.

Highly Sensitive Creatives

High sensitivity comes with many gifts and many challenges. There is perhaps no one who is more aware of this than the creative.

Rick Rubin notes in his new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, that:

"The best artists tend to be the ones with the most sensitive antennae to draw in the energy resonating at a particular moment. Many great artists first develop sensitive antennae not to create art but to protect themselves. They have to protect themselves because everything hurts more. They feel everything more deeply."

This sentiment is echoed in the work of Dr. Elaine Aron, one of the primary researchers on the highly sensitive person (HSP). Dr. Aron says:

"Highly sensitive people are all creative by definition - because we process things so thoroughly and notice so many subtleties and emotional meanings that we can easily put two unusual things together."

Rubin & Dr. Elaine Aron both recognize high sensitivity produces a natural inclination toward the creative process. Rubin says, effectively, 'creatives become creatives in order to survive.' Dr. Aron says, effectively, 'highly sensitive people process the world in a way that is inherently creative, and thus, the correlation between high sensitivity & creativity makes sense.' Regardless of the chicken-and-egg determination of the link between high sensitivity & creativity, the continually seen relationship between these two traits has significant ramifications for those who identify with them.

Namely, those inclined to sensitivity and creativity must manage the simultaneous gifts and burdens of their inclinations. The same mechanisms that make highly sensitive people such gifted writers, artists, and performers also make highly sensitive people susceptible to experiencing high levels of emotional pain. As Dr. Aron and Rick Rubin both note, sensitivity means attunement. Highly sensitive creatives thrive when they are able to manage their attunement to the pain around them through their work or as part of their creative process.

The 'deep feelings' Rubin recognizes sensitive creatives have make for some of the most powerful & impactful art. But sensitive creatives must also manage their gifts carefully, knowing they are likely to be knocked down more easily by experiences like heartbreak, loss, and suffering. The mission, then, of a sensitive creative, is to manage the burdens of sensitivity, so that the gifts might take center stage more frequently.

Expansive Notions of Grief

I can recall when I first started to think about grief in a more expansive way. Initially, I thought grief was reserved for issues of death and loss. As I learned and experienced more, I began to understand grief as a normal response to less obvious events, such as transitions, breakups, the ending of friendships, the launching of children, etc. Now, I see grief all around me, all the time.

We tend to associate grief with things like:

• Death

• Loss

• Illness

We may also experience grief in response to:

• A divorce or breakup

• The end of a friendship

• A transition like graduating, moving, or launching children

If we let it, grief can be a unique and powerful teacher. It can illuminate the fleeting nature of what we once took for granted. It can show us, over and over, what we hold most dear. It can remind us to sit longer with what we have or move more quickly toward what we are still looking for.