This week's video is addressed to wayward men, but the abuse associated with infidelity isn't gender or role specific. Infidelity can elicit both physical abuse and emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is when one person tries to make another person responsible for their emotional regulation or well-being in a manner that is detrimental to the other. Or when a person treats or exposes another person to behaviors that may result in psychological trauma. The attachment rupture created by betrayal destroys any sense of psychological safety. Whether you are the wayward spouse or the betrayed spouse, the tendency is to move into self-protect mode rather than relational mode. As mentioned in the video, abusive behaviors can be intentional or unintentional, but the damage done is the same regardless of intent. My goal in this article is to briefly discuss abusive behavior in hopes of helping you identify harmful behaviors and move toward treating others with dignity and respect.

In the video, I discuss several types of damaging behaviors utilized by men to guard their secret life such as:

• Gaslighting: Causing your mate to question their competence and even their basic perceptual experiences by telling them they're seeing things. (By the way, a difference in opinions isn't gaslighting.)
• Shifting the focus from your bad choices by making your mate's response the problem.
• Pushing away feelings of guilt and shame by demeaning, shaming, or humiliating their mate.
• Denial. Pure, outright, untruthful denial.

These behaviors are normally present prior to discovery.

The discovery of a betrayal, however, makes nonviolent behavior challenging for all parties and if, in response, we become emotionally abusive or are emotionally abused, then all parties are damaged. We humiliate ourselves and others. Our basic desire for love and respect is eroded by this damaging behavior.

It's understandable why violence seems to be the natural response to betrayal. As James Gilligan, former director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system and author of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, observes, "I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this 'loss of face.' . . . The purpose of violence is to diminish the intensity of shame and replace it as far as possible with its opposite, pride, thus preventing the individual from being overwhelmed by the feeling of shame."

Physical violence and physical abuse are potentially criminal. Society has created laws making that behavior unacceptable. I believe we are keenly aware that physical violence is unacceptable. Yet when we are being self-protective or reacting out of pain, we can make emotional violence acceptable, acting without regard to how we're impacting another human being. The end result is we slowly destroy our personal dignity and erode the foundation of our relationship. This is especially true if, while growing up, authority figures modeled that behavior or treated us without regard to how they were making us feel.

Here are behaviors associated with emotional abuse:

• Controlling through finances.
• Dictating who they can and cannot see.
• Using anger to intimidate.
• Threatening a person's safety.
• Humiliating, shaming, or demeaning a person.
• Threating to destroy the relationship with children or family as a way to manipulate or control.
• Extreme jealousy, accusations, and paranoia.
• Ridicule.
• Manipulating by making the relationship contingent on them accepting your conditions.
• Refusing to allow a person to spend time alone.
• Telling someone what they are feeling or thinking.
• Instilling self-doubt and worthlessness.
• Gaslighting making a person question their reality or competence.
• Constant criticism.

More beguiling signs of abuse are:

• Blame rather than working on self-improvement.
• Regarding the other person as inferior.
• Judging a person's perspective without trying to understand it.,
• Frequent sarcasm.
• Telling the other person how to feel in an attempt to be "helpful."

This list is in no way exhaustive, I've barely begun to cover the issue of emotional abuse. However, I hope it can serve as a starting point for this discussion. Our goal at Affair Recovery is to help couples and individuals impacted by infidelity to find extraordinary lives of meaning and purpose. This doesn't happen when emotional abuse is present.

If this is an issue you struggle with, whether it's being emotionally violent or your mate exhibiting these behaviors, you must begin by deciding it's unacceptable. Accepting there's a problem is the first step. Take advantage of the AR courses such as EMS Weekend, Harboring Hope, or Hope for Healing. Community can be an amazing support in changing behavior, but it's important to join the right community. You need support from people who know what you are going through. Don't hesitate to get professional help. Make it your goal to live a nonviolent life toward others and yourself.