let’s talk with Teresa | How To Choose An Empowering Response Over A Reaction

I talk with my clients regularly about the very good and beneficial pause that begins to emerge in our nervous system as betrayed partners navigate relationships in a new way. I remember the steady and secure feeling of responding to situations where I used to simply react.

I remember some of my recovery moments when I was in a difficult situation: I had told myself I was “being the bigger person;” and that it was noble to “make peace at all costs.” A moment, event, day, and sometimes even an entire week could be hijacked in an instant; there was no limit to the unseen damage caused by living a life reacting to others’ wants and needs while often being out of touch with my own. Looking back, I understand where I was coming from and can hold compassion for myself and what I was hoping to achieve.

AND

I can celebrate today as I know how to live out a good and beneficial pause when navigating the easiest and most challenging relationship dynamics!

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

-Viktor Frankl

REACTIVITY HIJACKS CHOICE

The dynamic in a relationship where shame and secrets exist is toxic. There is often significant reactivity if your spouse guards their shame and secrets. Likewise, you, considering betrayal or infidelity, also experience significant reactivity.

It is a dysfunctional dance that seems helpful in the early stages. Your spouse holds back secrets to spare you the devastation of knowing about their secret relationships or behaviors that would surely hurt you. Shame also tells them that you may well leave if the truth is known – and they fear that. You may sense distance, sadness, agitation, or any number of reactions from your spouse and want to improve the relationship. You then may react in ways that go against your values.

Reacting is behavior that is a direct result of someone or something else. This place is unpredictable and often out of your control—this reactivity, when repeated day in and day out, becomes a habitual relationship pattern. You may even question who you have become. Betrayed partners often tell me that they do not recognize themselves.

“Any mental activity repeated often will form a relatively inflexible
sequence of neural firing in the brain- that is, a habit.
Once habits are formed,
only new habits can replace them.”

-Steven Stosny, PhD

RESPONDING CREATES CHOICE

Becoming aware of the reactive habits that have become a regular part of navigating relationships and finding the space between the pressures and emotions of others and your response to them is powerful. This space creates an opportunity to consider choices. When you respond with a choice that aligns with your values, you create safety and stability within yourself. This pause may spare you and others that you love and care about collateral damage from your anger regarding betrayal. Living out your values is a choice that you can always make, and it honors who you want to be.

Imagine being upset with your spouse. Whether you internalize the anger and try to bite your tongue to avoid more arguing or retaliation from your spouse OR you externalize the anger and give them a piece of your mind. The anger typically carries with you, often long after the impact moment with your spouse has passed. Do you catch yourself being shorter with your children, distancing from friends or family you would typically spend time with, or snapping at co-workers or strangers? There is collateral damage when your anger at your spouse and the betrayal spill over into innocent others.

If this sounds all too familiar to you as you navigate betrayal trauma and you want to figure out what you value most and choose a response over simply reacting to the chaos of betrayal and addiction, we have counselors who will walk with you through this process. Call or email us today to begin your journey to discover the empowering pause to choose and respond over simply reacting.

Stonsy, Steven, PhD. Living and Loving after Betrayal : How to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Deceit, Infidelity, and Chronic Resentment. (n.d.). New Harbinger Publications.