Infidelity, jealousy, dependency, communication problems and couple crisis. Phone: 600440004
Infidelity
Infidelity
More and more couples go to psychology consultations for couples therapy because they find themselves in a very difficult moment in their relationship, after the fact that infidelity has occurred, due to the effectiveness it shows for overcoming and coping. of the same by the couple. As a general rule, the affected person needs explanations for what happened, but these cannot always be given or are insufficient. It is logical that the person has many difficulties to overcome the pain, since they must accept that there will not be, in the vast majority of cases, a specific, concrete or "justifiable" cause that explains what happened or also because they think about the option that their partner, before committing these acts, could have raised their possible dissatisfaction or discomfort in the relationship, which could have prevented the commission of infidelity. To overcome infidelity there are two primary objectives: acceptance of what happened, and the recovery of trust. Accepting what happened, being able to tolerate the uncertainty that it could happen again, as well as managing the negative thoughts that invade the person who has suffered the infidelity, will only be the beginning of rebuilding oneself. In turn, the person who has been unfaithful must be able to ask for and obtain forgiveness and modify behaviors and thoughts that show their partner that it will not really happen again because it lacks any sense.
Infidelity and its traumatic consequences.
The discovery of an infidelity can be a traumatic experience because it is an experience of deceit that is perceived as a lethal blow to the affective relationship that leaves a deep psychic wound, and affects the way in which the person will relate from that moment on. moment with significant others in terms of their degree of trust and distrust. People who have suffered from infidelity have an intense fear that the infidelity will happen again and they feel helpless or unable to avoid it. For this reason, they need to be continuously reassured -often by their partner- to feel the sensation that it will not happen again. At the same time, the person who has suffered infidelity, perceived as a traumatic experience, develops a state of hypervigilance, is always alert to detect the repetition of the traumatic event, which generates fatigue, lack of concentration, insomnia and nightmares that interrupt sleep. . The person cannot relax at any time and is always tense and may even suffer from panic attacks. People who have suffered infidelity deal with the traumatic experience by disconnecting from unpleasant feelings and, frequently, by consuming alcohol. The consequence is a feeling of being dead, a lack of energy, interest and motivation for life, shame of the person one is becoming and social isolation.
Causes of infidelity (according to research).
Infidelity stems from the fear of losing a partner, which represents a return to lack, since the risk of losing it is always associated with the need to seek satisfaction that is not obtained within the relationship in which found (Lewandowsky & Ackerman, 2006; Valdez Medina & Aguilar, 2012). Both sexes mention that the needs or deficiencies have been presented to them in the emotional and sentimental areas, reporting to a greater extent a lack of love and attention, fundamental aspects of the couple relationship, since according to Corbella (1996), the couple It is based on the affective union with the chosen person, which provides balance through communication, a common life project and coexistence, so when this union is not given in a favorable way, the search for a person who can cover this need for affective or emotional closeness. In this regard, Lewandowsky & Ackerman, (2006) and Valdez Medina (2009), attribute it to the search to fill a void when the primary relationship is unable to satisfy certain needs, doing so through a relationship outside of the established one. The differences by sex indicate that women resorted to infidelity because they lacked affection, they felt alone and misunderstood, which, according to Lemaire (1986), confirms that women resort to infidelity more because of the abandonment and rejection they experience. They are submitted by their partners. Based on this, it is understandable what Tordjman (1989) found when indicating that many of them commit infidelity as a way of punishing their partners through the application of revenge. In this regard, Valdez Medina & Aguilar (2012) comment that infidelity is frequently reached seeking a reassessment of their role in the relationship, demonstrating to the couple that there is someone else in their midst who can love them and give them what they need. it lacks. On the other hand, it was found that both married and single men come to infidelity because in their relationship they felt bored, confused and they lacked something new. This could be explained from the fact that it has been found that the most frequent cause of infidelity in men is the simple, natural and normal feeling of sexual or emotional annoyance or both, since by nature males of various species, including humans , present a tendency to seek sexual variety, especially after a long-term relationship (Block, 1979; Fisher, 2007). In addition to the biological propensity towards variety, infidelity is frequently reached not only for mating for reproductive purposes and for the conservation of the species, but also for trying to satisfy a purely instinctive need and to obtain the pleasure that this act provokes (Buss, 2005; Valdez-Medina 2009). For this reason, the psychosociocultural education that proposes that the couple be exclusive, puts its members in conflict, since despite being in a satisfactory relationship, both men and women who are couples may feel the need to experience novel experiences and changes. that carry the risk that either of them will resort to being unfaithful. On the other hand, in the case of the participants who returned or continued with the partner to whom they had been unfaithful, both sexes agreed that they returned with the partner because in that relationship they felt loved, stable and well. In this regard, the differences by sex indicate that women felt protected, while men felt loved, which in both cases implies acceptance, which is the basis for the relationship to last. In this sense, Valdez Medina et al. (2012), comment that for love in a couple to occur properly, it requires that it be accompanied by open acceptance with pleasure and without complaint from each of the members, that there is trust between them, and that they provide support, security and protection. , which is the basis of the reasons found regarding the recovery of couples. This last finding is interesting, since the basis of infidelity is the search for satisfiers that are not available with an established partner. However, at the same time, these results show that with the partner with whom he was unfaithful, they did not find what they expected to obtain, and they were motivated to return to the previous partner, thereby revealing that losing the initial relationship could be more expensive to maintain. Based on the above, it is important to delve into the reasons that drive men and women to commit infidelity, detecting whether it has a biological basis or more of a psychosociocultural nature, in order to better understand the origin of this behavior that is more and more regular and open in both sexes. In this sense, for future research the possibility of being able to study some other possible causes that lead both men and women to infidelity is contemplated, such as the search for personal image, hierarchy, competitiveness, for a specific hunger, for feeling loved, desired, or by a simple impulse of purely instinctive or biological origin.