Despite the initial thrill of an affair, cheating can negatively affect the cheater emotionally. It's common for them to feel anxiety, guilt, shame, worry, regret, confusion, embarrassment, and self-loathing when they contemplate how their actions impact those they love and why they cheated in the first place.
Grief, brain changes, behaviors down the road, and mental health conditions such as anxiety, chronic stress, and depression can result. Some families have been able to move past infidelity with time and therapy. To move on, this takes active work on both partners to work on the root cause of the infidelity.
Limerence Causes Regret When A Spouse Cheats On You
Chemistry and body chemicals are firing during an affair, creating a euphoric feeling. Once the meetings have ended, this euphoria is followed by agony and regret. Your spouse feels remorse for their actions and the harm they are causing you mentally and emotionally.
If your girlfriend is cheating, she'll likely start to pull away. She may feel uncomfortable acting like a couple in public. Notice if she suddenly starts pulling away when you try to hold her hand, hug her, or give her a kiss. It might be a sign that she's cheating.
The physical signs of cheating are the most obvious. This includes spending more time with friends and less with you, avoiding sex, having a random or significantly changed schedule, and changes in their appearance.
Signs of emotional cheating
You confide in the other person about the intimate details of your relationship troubles. You've become more detached and emotionally disconnected from your partner. You think about the other person all the time. You are less intimate with your partner.
Things that can trigger flashbacks include spending time with your partner who cheated, romantic sounds, love stories, not hearing from your partner and sometimes they can just come out of the blue when you least expect it. Being betrayed by a loved one can often be traumatic.
One of the signs she's just pretending to love you is that she keeps trying to change you. She wants to change the way you dress, the way you talk, how you present yourself, or even what you like to do in your free time. You might even be starting to feel like her DIY project.
Both sexes forgive similarly
Despite experiencing the different types of infidelity differently, men and women are about equally willing to forgive their partner. And the new findings show that the degree of forgiveness is not related to the type of infidelity.
For the betrayed spouse, stages of an affair being exposed can involve everything from denial, shock, reflection, depression to finally taking an upward turn.
Although many people believe in the adage, “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” it is not necessarily true. Not every person who cheats once will cheat again. However, serial cheaters are people who seek out sexual partners on a continual, chronic pattern of infidelity.
The Progression of Infidelity
Much like the stages of grief, the stages of infidelity are not always linear. For one person, it may be micro-cheating that turns into emotional infidelity, followed by physical infidelity. For another, digital infidelity may turn into physical infidelity.
Unfortunately, there are several long-term effects of infidelity that can affect a person long after the cheating has stopped. These can be life-changing, and lead to the development of certain mental health conditions including chronic depression, anxiety, post-infidelity stress disorder, and betrayal trauma.
When do cheaters miss their ex? When they are feeling lonely. Even if she/he cheated and chose her/him, they might miss you when they are alone. They might even think of ways to reach out to you, talk to you, and find out if you are still waiting for them.
In many cases, people think their spouse is cheating on them because either they've cheated on someone in the past or are about to. Psychologists say that projection is a low-level coping skill, where people who cheat or think of cheating are likely to project the same thoughts on their partners.
An affair means you have little respect for your partner — so little, in fact, that you're happy to be indiscreet with someone else without your partner's knowledge. If you have so little respect for another human being, why are you in a long-term relationship with them?
1. How are most affairs discovered? The phone! While there are text message codes that cheating spouses use to avoid getting caught, there is no denying that mobile phones are a danger zone for adulterers.