Thanks for your post, Samuel, & to the others for sharing experiences. My wife had an affair 37 years ago & I still experience many triggers that set me back for an evening, a morning, a day, or several days. Most of the triggers are from movies & TV series, where adultery seems to pop out at so many turns of the plot. I myself have taken to vetting video options in advance in order to avoid my getting triggered. A factor in my continuing sensitivity is that my wife denied the full extent of the affair for many years, & then, when I stumbled on the truth, got hysterical in an effort to avoid dealing with it. This led to dissociation on my part. It was only less than a year ago that I insisted that we go into the truth fully. I'm resensitized to all the issues, hence the power of the triggers. My PhD counselor notes that only a small part of our brain is aware of the passage of time, so it's not surprising that triggers make us feel like the trauma was yesterday, even though it might have been 6 months ago, or 5 years ago – or 37 years ago!
Triggers
Thanks for your post, Samuel, & to the others for sharing experiences. My wife had an affair 37 years ago & I still experience many triggers that set me back for an evening, a morning, a day, or several days. Most of the triggers are from movies & TV series, where adultery seems to pop out at so many turns of the plot. I myself have taken to vetting video options in advance in order to avoid my getting triggered. A factor in my continuing sensitivity is that my wife denied the full extent of the affair for many years, & then, when I stumbled on the truth, got hysterical in an effort to avoid dealing with it. This led to dissociation on my part. It was only less than a year ago that I insisted that we go into the truth fully. I'm resensitized to all the issues, hence the power of the triggers. My PhD counselor notes that only a small part of our brain is aware of the passage of time, so it's not surprising that triggers make us feel like the trauma was yesterday, even though it might have been 6 months ago, or 5 years ago – or 37 years ago!