I know some have joined our forum in a desperate attempt to get help to salvage a marriage broken by our choices. It is a drive and obsession. It's easy to spot. Every post is relationship related with little interest in self analysis. Self flagellation and denigration are de rigueur.
I've started the countdown with how long they'll remain in our presence and then vanish either because they regain what they feared they lost or they lose. Either way, no further work is needed.
I have been very hard on this and I'm wondering if also very unfair. I've read quite a bit of Helen Fisher, the anthropologist from Rutgers. She has done some amazing work in the relationship field and attacks it from a very scientific perspective. I just came across this.
She found that losing love is an addiction in and of itself. It stimulates the same part of the brain as an addict going through withdrawals.
"The evidence is clear that the passion of romantic love is a goal-oriented motivation state, not a specific emotion," Fisher said, adding that the results showed that romantic rejection is a form of addiction, and those coping with these hurtful feelings are fighting an uphill battle against a strong survival system.
"There's a whole pathway that when you are rejected becomes activated just as it does with nicotine cravings or alcohol," Fisher says. "These areas are associated with physical pain and decision-making. If you've been rejected, you're in pain, craving this person, trying to figure out what's going on.
Fisher says that rejection causes the neurotransmitter dopamine to wash over the brain, triggering feelings of frenzied desperation that can lead to behaviors such as stalking, homicide, and suicide.
"You crave the person who dumped you," She says "You go through withdrawal, you can relapse, and cravings can be sparked months after you think you've gotten over it."
The good news is that though it may take a while, the researchers say they found that the greater the number of days since rejection, the less activity showed up in the brain area associated with attachment.
I wonder if the reason some BS's aren't able to heal is there is no number of days. Each day with an unremorseful spouse is another rejection. If the spouse themselves has become linked to that feeling of rejection as an anchor emotion no matter how remorseful they may be just their presence triggers that feeling for the BS. That anchor emotion has to be identified and replaced.
I know this is not a supported conclusion, but I'm wondering if the pain of break ups can be as much "fantasy" as affairs themselves. I use fantasy in quotes as it never was a term that resonated with me. Whether something is fantasy or reality is rather pointless if the effects are the same thing and feel all too real.
If affairs trigger chemicals wouldn't rejection do the same thing? The reason this seems so relevant is how emotionally keyed up we are right after d day, both BS's and WS's. Making decisions, choices, life altering at times, at a time least conducive to any rational thought process.
I hope that given the pain so many are in they can separate necessary work from outcomes but I'm wondering if given this dynamic if it's possible in the early stages.
Please know if you leave or are not ready yet that you can always come back and start the self exploration. The work will need to be done regardless if you want to be healthy. Cheating is never an acceptable choice.
Rejection is such a primal fear for some that I believe many feelings caused by experiencing it can be very easily confused with love, hate, on both sides, when it's the rejection itself that is the catalyst. Just my thoughts and didn't find anything that confirmed this.
I hesitated in posting this because I can understand some would think why would a WS feel any rejection from a BS when they are the cause to begin with. Because that's how rejection works. It triggers reactions that don't need to be logical to exist.
I feel the 180 and filing for divorce, while it's hopefully not done for any reason other than healthy ones, is viewed many times as a "wake up" for the WS. I would love to believe that and maybe for most it is. I fear at times it creates this exact dynamic and while it may feel good to be hung on to and chased it's not for the right reasons. I'd be a lot happier hearing "if that's what you need to do to heal I understand. I created your need to make that choice. I'm here and will be for you working on myself" than "I'll do anything to fix this no matter what".