What Is Decision Paralysis?

Have you decided to make the life you currently have better? Or do you, like many others, feel paralyzed and unable to take the next step? If you feel as though you're stuck, due to being unsure of what direction you should take or who you should seek help from, we understand.

The Least Productive Decision

A number of people in our recent survey identified not getting help as the least productive thing they did after discovery of an affair. But what stopped them from getting the help they needed? Doctors report that telling someone they are going to have a heart attack rarely effects a change in lifestyle. Generally that individual will wait until they've actually had the heart attack to implement change.

According to research conducted by John Gottman, most couples wait, on average, six years before seeking marriage counseling. Are we simply unaware that we need to get help?

I don't believe that's the answer.

I think a possible explanation might be what psychologists refer to as "decision paralysis".

Too Much Complexity Hurts

Making a decision between one unknown and another can leave us stuck. In fact, people tend to be driven to irrational decisions because of too much complexity.

Two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir, conducted research revealing that the mere existence of uncertainty altered how people made decisions, even when they knew the desired outcome. For instance, imagine that you're in college and you've just completed an important final exam a couple of weeks before the Christmas holidays.

You have to wait two days to get the exam results back. Meanwhile, you see an opportunity to purchase a vacation to Hawaii during the holidays at a bargain–basement price. Here are your three options: You can buy the vacation today, pass on it today, or pay a five dollar fee to lock in the price for two days allowing you to make your decision after you got your grades. What would you do? Like the students who faced this choice in the experiment, you may feel some desire to know the outcome of your exam before you decide. So Tversky and Shafir simply removed this uncertainty for two groups of participants. These groups were told up front how they did on the exam. Some students were told that they had passed the exam, and 57% of them chose to go on the trip (after all, it makes for good celebration). Other students were told that failed the exam, and 54% of them chose to go on the trip (after all, it makes for good recuperation). The majority of those who passed and those who failed wanted to go to Hawaii.

But here's the twist: the group of students who didn't know the final exam results behaved completely differently. The majority of them (61%) paid five dollars to wait for two days. Think about that! If you pass, you want to go to Hawaii. If you fail, you want to go to Hawaii. But if you don't know whether you passed or failed, you'd wait and see? This doesn't seem logical. The majority of students were going to take the trip regardless of whether they passed or failed, but they wanted to know the outcome before they made the decision, even though they already knew the decision they would make regardless of the outcome.¹

Is The Marriage Going To Make It?

The same dilemma exists for those hurt by infidelity: you don't know whether the marriage will succeed or fail (whether or not you'll pass the exam) but I bet you want a better life. If that's the case, why do we choose to wait to see what's going to happen before we take the necessary steps to heal from infidelity?

How does that make sense?

You might be thinking, "But Rick, I don't know whether or not I even want the marriage" and you're right, you don't know. But you do know that you want something better than what you have right now and doing nothing does nothing to get you out of your current frustration and overall situation.

You don't have to know the outcome before you make the decision to choose life after infidelity.

If you feel stuck I encourage you to take action. I recently spoke with a woman at EMS Weekend who had done nothing for her own recovery since discovery of the affair two and a half years prior. Although she had gone to marriage counseling, she postponed personal recovery work while she waited to see how the marriage would settle. She was frustrated and felt abandoned by her spouse. She knew she wanted new life but felt perpetually on hold. Thankfully she decided to take action at our weekend intensive. Even though she couldn’t be sure of the outcome, she moved forward and has experienced healing, restoration and overall understanding of her own recovery.

Each one of us can do the same. Our own life is always worth our recovery efforts.

Don't wait to decide what you're going to do about the marriage. Get help now from others who can provide positive support and expert therapists who can help lead you on this journey. Sign up for one of our EMS Weekends to jumpstart your healing, new life, and direction.

1. Adapted from Made to Stick, by Chip Heath, 2007