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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am in desperate need of some support and advice. In the past 24 hours, I found out that my new DH has been unfaithful to me, engaging in a physical/emotional fling with one woman and online flirtations with others before we were married. I am in shock, that lucid, unfeeling state where you can't exactly feel emotion. I have no idea whether I should stay or go.

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What you describe isn't "lucid" at all -- rather the exact opposite.[/quote]

What OP describes to me is that "dissociative" state that many victims of trauma go through.  In the past 5-10 years, the psychological literature has come to see infidelity as having a kind of traumatic effect.  Many psychologists treat victims of infidelity as if they had some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Dissociation, numbness, feelings of unreality, shock, hyper vigilance, withdrawal from friends, activities, flashbacks, ruminative thinking, all are classic signs of trauma.

Infidelity, like other major traumas, causes a break in a main cultural concept of safety -- we are raised to think that "family" is our safe place, the place that we can count on safety and assistance.  When an incident causes a person to realize that our concept of a basic underlying tenet of societal organization isn't actually true, it can be very traumatic.  Typically, the victim of trauma really needs assistance thinking thru the incident and re-framing their concept of the way the world works. [/quote]

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