SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

WS here on the forum are honest to admit that their A was like an addiction. They tried to break free but could not. And when they did, they often go back to the AP.
What makes affairs more addictive than other romantic relationships? Why the "fog/limerance" in an A and not in other dating relationships?
I would love to hear the opinions of both BS and WS

Hi- I have lots of thoughts!

First, not all affairs have limerance/addiction. It depends on both individual conditions and type of affair. Mine did and was pretty text book. I have researched this to death in my efforts to understand myself. I never want to go through it again.There are a number of contributing factors.

Individual factors - they are often people who have other obsessive behaviors in their history. Good examples would be
-they have had many unrequited love situations
-people with some sort sort neuro-divergence such as ADHD, OCD, etc
- clearer addictions. Overeating, gambling, alcohol, etc
-history of depression, poor coping skills, unresolved trauma, currently experiencing some sort of existential crisis, etc

So, someone like this starts the affair typically as a form of escapism. Like a drug addict the beginning starts with a clear decision to do something they know they shouldn’t. It feels good because of the distraction it has created. So you can’t blame the addiction for your affair. However once it’s there, it’s difficult to recover.

In a short period of time the combination of the validation and getting to pretend to be someone you are not creates big doses of dopamine. At the same time the elicit nature of the affair adds adrenaline to the cocktail.

Because often the ws was feeling low before the AP came on the scene they find themselves obsessing about them because you went from very low to very high immediately. The AP soon became all I could focus on. I wanted to live immersed in this fantasy because real life was painful and I wasn’t willing to do the things that would have made it less so.

Running parallel to this is self adulation. What could I say next to make myself seem funnier, more interesting, etc. what could I wear to make me seem Younger and sexier? And it all keeps escalating every time you hit a home run and got validation over it.

I didn’t really see him, I saw a projection of who I wanted him to be. The reason for that was because how does someone who isn’t terrific make you feel more Special than your spouse? So you unconsciously made everything they did seem terrific. If you recognized he wasn’t great then the validation wouldn’t mean as much. So you unconsciously program yourself to see every little speck of good you could find and magnify it or assign meaning to it that it didn’t really exist.

At the same time, you know it’s wrong. So you start justifying. You devalue and dehumanize your spouse. You can’t be the bad guy in your story. It’s not like you realize that’s what you are doing. It’s more like a drug addict doing what is needed to get their next fix.

So I will put it to you this way: Did you have to steal from Grandma to buy drugs ? Aw well, grandma isn’t very nice sometimes. Any interaction you then have with grandma you are magnifying the bad parts. Because your behavior has changed grandma is reacting to you differently so you are getting more of a list of complaints about her going.

Down deep you kind of still know grandma is good so that makes you feel worse so better take another hit.

You do truly develop a chemical dependency. There is actual withdrawal when the affair is over. It was the lowest point in my entire life. Was it because this person was a catch? No not at all. Before it had gone far I literally knew my husband was way better. I just pushed the thoughts aside. It’s because of the adrenaline/dopamine hits I was getting.I was unknowingly conditioning and programming myself.

In this forum you will notice that most people who do this:
- picked someone extremely inappropriate and usually far less of a person than their spouse. It doesn’t even make sense they would be madly in love with this person.
-got overly involved at record speed. I had the affair for two months but claimed I was madly in love with him and he must be my soul mate
-if you had asked me any questions about them I would have some amazing answer. But then if you were to follow up by then asking "How do you know this about them, what evidence do you have?" Crickets. I was astounded at how many things I attributed to my affair partner that I had no idea later was true, or why I even thought it. It’s because the whole thing was a made up story for my escapist fantasy world. And as I was writing it all in my head it would escalate like any addiction.

Honestly everything was made up. I was playing a role. I had a signed him a role. I had given my husband a role. And as things were created in my head it was a false cure for a middle aged, depressed woman who had been sleepwalking through life for quite a while before this.

I eventually was treated for OCD. I started running and eating better to try and get new sources for dopamine hits, I had to find a way to fill the bigger hole I created for myself during this period of time. I spent months undoing the brain washing and mental gymnastics I had imposed in myself.

Dr Frank Pittman wrote a lot about this process more eloquently than I could. Even Wikipedia has some good info about this.

Generally speaking limerence is a chemical dependency that you condition yourself to have.and you reinforce it with the alienation of your spouse.

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Hiking Out... that is a great response. One of the best I have seen to address this subject. You explained it better than any others that I have ever seen. I enjoy reading your posts as you are a very clear and concise writer.

In a discussion several months ago with our MC, she cited a recent study that had looked at the brain chemical balances of those who were having an A and compared it with the brain chemical balance of those using drugs (heroin, cocaine, meth). The "high" that showed up after a WS had spent time (whether in person or virtual) with their AP was similar to the "high" experienced by those taking highly addictive drugs. The dopamine levels shoot through the roof on both WS and addicts when they are partaking of their substance (AP included) of choice.

Good stuff!

Please clarify further: How does this differ from the run-of-the-mill "falling in love" with a person? Any person in any "real" relationship?

Hiking Out thank you. This is such a great explanation. It shows how real life cannot compete with fantasy land. It also shows that it’s not sustainable, they have to escalate to keep the addiction fed.

Following my WW’s timeline over 14 months it continually escalated and her treatment towards me got worse. Just like a drug addict, she wasn’t reachable, no bluffing or threats were going to work.

I hit a point I was done!!! I was filing D, she knew I was done and dead serious. That’s when the fantasy land fell apart.

Hikingout,

I read your post here to my WS, we are in R. He said it eloquently put, you could not have captured it any better.

There are a ton of people who steal not for sake of necessity but for the thrill of not getting caught.

Eventually that thrill becomes addictive.

Wow, Hikingout. What you wrote really resonated with me and my experiences with my WW now EXWW. If she was to be believed (big if), then hers was a midlife crisis A. I can laugh now, but at the time, not so much. She had been reading trashy romance novels and comparing her life to the exciting lives of the female protagonists. Funny, I don't think she imagined how exciting my life as I was digging irrigation lines in our yard or shoveling the drive at 5am... but I was the villain in her romantic arc.

Even during her A, her family said she'd never cheat and risk her amazing life. When the news got out, they were very angry at her and one of my SILs gave her shit saying that I was the best husband in the family and she would have left her husband for me. Hyperbole I assume. But the point is, the AP was literally a drifter cowboy who used a well polished Schtick on lonely housewives (not kidding here). He would look at the herd and pick out the one who was getting just a little older and starting to feel a little less good about her life, and then start to work her. He had several on the go at any one time, like a salesperson. One aside note, his behavior was pathological as his W had cheated on him and left him for her AP. She abandoned him with a 3 month old boy and I assume he is bagging women in a desperate attempt to find validation. Hurt people hurt others I guess.

When my WW found out that she was just one among many (and I mean many) and that she had been played, she was furious, even physically assaulting him twice. He never reported her because that would burst his image.

She sacrificed everything for nothing and even though posts like yours explain it, sometimes I just cannot wrap my head around it. There is a small part of me that wants to ring her up and ask, "Are ya happy now you stupid shit?", but it's only a passing thought experiment. I just need to look at her and see she isn't, but again, not my monkey, not my circus.

HikingOut
Wow. Thank you so much for your response! You have no idea how helpful your responses/posts have been to me.
I just finished reading Dr. Frank Pittman’s article on psychology today "Betrayal: life after infidelity". Great article!
Thank you for your honesty, candor, and the willingness to share your story.

I can’t remember what publication, but he has another article called romantic infidelity that is fantastic too. I read it shortly after my dday and realized from it that there was some unmistakeable patterns in limerence that started to wake myself up to the fact that everything that just happened was a common psychological response someone has in an affair. And if that were true that I needed to do a deep dive in what really just happened. If you can find it, you will probably find that one helpful too. It’s many years old now.

Dr Frank Pittman wrote a lot about this process more eloquently than I could.

I've got to push back on you about this statement Hikingout; I doubt Frank Pittman was more eloquent.

DG,

Awhile back someone wrote that an affair is like endless hysterical bonding.

There is a constant risk of loss of the affair partner which drives fear, at any moment the affair can be discovered and end suddenly. This is similar to the fear that drives the hysterical bonding when a cheater is about to lose their spouse.

There is also the return to adolescence, the cheaters become teens again trying to hide their misdeeds from spouses who have become more like parent figures. Just look at all the ridiculous lies they tell like they are 12 years old or something.

Think how many affairs start with two people complaining about their spouses. There is evidence that affairs increase oxytocin in the brain which not only causes bonding to in-group people, but creates hatred of out-group people. So affairs have a double effect of simultaneous attraction to the OM/OW and repulsion from the BH/BW.

Like many addictions at times the affair addiction is lifelong, I still can't understand how my W can reguard OM1.2 as a decent person after he stole from a woman with dementia, 30 years later.

I sometimes wonder if the hatred for their spouses is lifelong as well.

hikingout, thank you for that post.

Survis,

I disagree the addiction is life long.

Studies actually show that the average length of limerence is 2 years. It can be much shorter if treated. I never even think of the AP unless the affair comes up in conversation or I am here relating something. But even then, it’s as if I am
talking about a non-entity. That part is hard to describe but it’s abstract. I don’t picture him, or dwell on him. I wasn’t addicted to him, it was the person I made up on my head.

And no I don’t think hatred for the spouse is life long. I don’t think I could honestly say I ever hated him. I can see that I was abusive and callous but I didn’t hate him.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:24 AM, Monday, August 15th]

How does the answer to your question help you?

I'm with HardKnocks - I wonder how the limerence in an A, if it's there, is any different from the limerence I felt with W2b.

I developed a crush in our 11th year of M while on a long temporary assignment. I didn't act on it, but it was very similar to how I felt about W2b at first. Limerence is limerence - but note that the person who coined the term decreed that unattainability was part of it. I eventually built a deep connection with my W, a connection that she could not have built with ow.

From the POV of my recovery, I'm pretty sure my W's thoughts and feelings were less important than her actual behavior. She thought she was in love with ow for a while, but her head was where the sun doesn't shine, so I didn't care/ She was addicted for a while, and I did care about that, because she focused energy on ow that should have been focused on herself and me.

I urge you to focus on your own recovery above all. If musing on this question helps, great. If it doesn't, I urge you to move on to something that will help.

JMO.

I was unhappy with my wife and life for many years. When I found my AF who also was unhappy with her life. I just saw a new start in life. My unhappiness turn into happiness. What I did not feel for years. It was a wonderful feeling. Like I was 18. Life was just starting again. A new relationship that was going to be everything I ever wanted.
Once again a great wonderful feeling. A feeling no one wants to lose. Never having to go back to unhappiness. Unfortunately my AF lie to me, did not want to start over. Have a child, the dog the white Pickett fence. But I still remember that feeling There a place in my heart for her. Never felt that great
It’s hard to give up the dream. Had that dream with my DW. But she destroy it. I needed to be out first I needed to have someone who really love me, to do the hard things for me.
The feeling is addicting. It’s just a great feeling.

I disagree that it’s like a normal situation like when meeting your spouse. It’s far darker, more desperate, and that notion dismisses the studies of the true addictive nature of an affair. I think Captain Roger’s described it more succinctly. It’s a chemical dependency.

Sure, when love is new you think of the other person a lot and have hope and dreams with them. You still might project some things that aren’t there, but not to the delusion point. And it’s mildly obsessive. But there are so many things that make it different. There is something about a real person that is making you giddy. But you life doesn’t fall out of complete balance.

That’s not what it was like in an affair at all. The feelings have little to do with a real person. The dopamine combines with adrenaline and a few other chemicals. It’s a powerful cocktail. It also Starts with two people with some of the characteristics that I mentioned above, so there is also an imbalance there that probably didn’t exist when many of you met your spouse. You weren’t looking for every good feeling to come from them. Not everyone in an affair has this, the addiction element falls to those who have some very specific traits.

Sure new love offers some dopamine but it’s the difference between having a few drinks versus heavy drugs. Limerence is a full in obsession with intrusive thoughts and very high highs and extremely low lows. Many become bunny boilers, others stalk for years on end. Others, like me will recognize there isn’t something right and fight an uphill battle to get it under control. But it requires many of the same remedies people who have mental health issues. It’s most closely linked to OCD.

I do agree it doesn’t maybe matter as much about thoughts versus the importance of actions. But someone with true limerence needs treatment, else this will go on in their head for years and show up in their actions.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:01 PM, Monday, August 15th]