The Affair Stress & Your Health
Find a Conversation
| Wed, 09-29-2010 - 5:20pm |
Can we discuss the effects of affairs on our health? Just something to think hard about. I'm curious how others have handled the awful effects of affair stress and endings. If it made you ill, how far did it go before you recognized it and knew the affair had to end? Did ending the affair give you relief?
I don't think that during our affair we recognize what the stress is doing to us. We all know how we were so fogged in, we just didn't see anything but ourselves and xAP. About a year ago, I was in my doctor's office for a routine visit and we started discussing the lack of sleep, stress and the effects it has on us, especially as we age. I don't know about the other posters, but during the years of my affair, I slept very little. I would disappear to my home office and write emails to xAP til the wee hours of the morning. Often, after wards in bed, I would do
research for him and find information he didn't have time to chase down. I thought nothing of doing this and actually looked forward to "my time" away from DH. I was always tired. Of course what else could I expect, I was burning the candle at both ends. I was miserable and cranky, but if I recognized it, I blamed my DH for making me that way. In reality it was the stress from the affair and living on such little sleep. It's a two fold mark against us, lack of sleep and stress. And for me, the stress literally made me sick.
My doctor went on to talk to me about how stress damages our bodies. The damage then opens the doors for more health problems. I was not a little stressed during my affair, I was really, really stressed. Looking back, I recall getting colds when I never
had them before. I had awful gastro issues because I was always dealing with some drama regarding xAP and myself. I had occasional
migraines, I had never had one in my entire life! But the one thing that scared me, really scared me was my heart. xAP and I had plans to meet for a simple dinner one evening, he was in town on business. I had been planting the seeds with DH for weeks that I had a seminar at a museum I was committed to attending. Big fat lie of course. A few days before xAP showed up, I started getting worried I couldn't pull it off. The lying to my DH was killing me. I felt something awful was going to happen, so I started telling xAP I wasn't so sure I could make it. He would not take no for an answer, insisted I go through with our plans. Long story, but within days I was at my cardiologist to find out why I was
having strange fluttery pains in my chest. I was having a hard time calming myself down, I couldn't catch my breath, my fists were clinched, my arms ached. I felt so torn between xAP's demands and doing what I felt was the right thing for me. At the time I was trying to end the A, but still going through the maybe we can be friends struggle. I was ok as soon as I told xAP I definitely would not be meeting him. Amazing how relieved I felt. For the first time in a long time, I put myself, my family and my health first. Had I tried to make xAP happy, there is no telling what might have happened to me.
I look back at that and now understand what my doctor was explaining to me. The stress in our lives can kill us. EAS poster's, I know this is an ending board, but dealing with an ending is a major stress inducer. Continued stress can be a silent killer. Don't let your affair or xAP do this to you. You have
a choice. Our lives have enough everyday stress in them without the added drama of a complicated relationship. Be good to yourself, take care of you, so you can be the best you can be. Hugs and peace.

Pages
1. No sleep. Stressed induced insomnia became a pattern I have yet to break.
2. Increased drinking. Borderline alcoholism.
3. Rage and emotional instability
4. stress to the point of chest pains
and POST break up? and weight gain. whoo-hoo.
1. Dis-ordered eating - ranging from not eating for days to overeating. Lost weight, gained weight. Emotionally regulated with food
2. Increased use of pain medication as a direct result of an increase in migraines. Boarderline addiction.
3. The use of sleep aides
4. Over-sleeping and under-sleeping
5. Anxiety and paranoia
6. Breath holding has become more frequent since ending. I notice that I am missing taking breaths or shallow breathing
7. I developed an ulcer during the affair
8. I was diagnosed with dangerously low levels of iron during the affair
9. Uterine bleeding of unknown origin
10. Digestive issues
11. Started smoking for the first time in my life because he like to (thankfully, haven't touched one or have had the desire to in 7 months). Made me feel sick for about an hour afterward.
By the way - even though my H knew of my on-going affair, he was the one who cried himself sick worrying about my bleeding, and bought my multi-vitamins when I didn't care enough about myself to get better.
You are so right! Due to the stress and the lack of sleep I feel that my mental health was deteriorating. I am feeling very much depressed and I feel like I am fighting to just feel "normal" whatever that is. I forgot that feeling. I have put all my eggs in Affair basket and when that ended I felt so sad all the time. All I do is cry. I rarely smile and if I do it is not genuine. I feel so sick inside. I want me back!
While I wasn't in the A as long as some folks here were, it was long enough to start to feel some of the physical/emotional signs of stress...
1) Weight went up and down, not drastically, but enough I noticed.
2) Eating habits changed; I ate at odd times. Sometimes I could go a day or two without eating because I 'just wasn't hungry' and didn't have the energy to make food. Though 'rationally', I knew I needed to eat. I also love to cook, but by that point it just felt like a chore. I had a moment just yesterday while I was making some homemade pea-soup with some ham-hocks that my dad smoked for me - I got lost in it, the cooking and I realized it had been a long time since I'd been able to do that. Been able to find joy in it again and nourish myself properly.
3) Sleep! Oh, I blamed this on being a grad student. Sure, it's somewhat true, but when I spent all of my waking/normal daylight hours playing armchair therapist/emotional dumping ground for xAP the only time I 'gave' myself to do my work was at night, which of course meant I was up very late, then either slept in really late or got up early. Which meant not nearly enough sleep. Post-A, at least for the first bit, I over-slept constantly. I wanted to escape the pain, so I slept. Over the past month (not including these past few days of jet-lag!) I've had the most 'regular' sleeping hours I've had in a long time.
4) This is related to the sleep thing - increased coffee consumption. Big time! I was trying to finish a paper one night and I had pretty much downed a pot of coffee within a few hours. I was stressed enough with the paper, I was back in 'A limbo land', and my sleep was all messed up. I had these crazy heart palpitations and I was feeling dizzy, I thought 'this isn't worth it; this paper, this JAM, none of it'. And I went to sleep. I've cut back on coffee significantly since then.
5) Emotionally unstable, huge ups and downs. I'm normally pretty 'zen', and I think that's the one word my friends would use to describe me. But the A had me up and down like crazy, my emotions ruled me and I felt crippled by them. When xAP ended things the first go-around, I was mostly down. Really down. Then back in limbo A-land, it was back to ups and downs. Then I ended things for good, and while I have my down days (especially the first while) I'm on much more even ground than I had been. I'm feeling more like myself than I have in a long while.
6) Migraines. Both my parents get them, and I get them now and again - but I got them far more frequently while in the A. Once and awhile was bad enough, but 1 or 2 a month, no thanks! I haven't had one since the A ended though.
I agree, stress is a silent killer. It makes me sad that much of our society makes it a positive attribute the more stress we can 'take'. Just swallow it down and move on. I make an effort to try and de-stress whenever I can, meditating, or going for a walk, having a bath. Whatever, something to unwind and settle myself down. I also make an effort to get at least 8hrs of sleep a night. Yes, I could stay up later and get more work done - but getting more work done won't do me a lick of good if it makes me sick!
Grad school/life is stressful enough, thank goodness I don't have the A BS to deal with as well!
----
'It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
We have come to our real work,
And that when we no longer know which way to go,
We have begun our real journey'
- Wendell Berry
Walk n' Block. Total NC 08-13-10
'It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
We have come to our real work,
And that when we no longer know which way to go,
We have begun our real journey'
- Wendell Berry
What I think is also so sad, and profoundly telling of the addictive nature of the A/AP, is that I saw the impacts our affair was also having on my xAP's health:
1) Increased drug and alcohol use - definite addiction issues
2) Weight gain (like 30lbs)
3) Chain Smoking (he was a non-smoker)
4) Decrease physical activity
5) Mental health deteriorated
I saw this happening to someone I "loved" yet I chose to ignore it, and worse still, I minimized it when he showed concerns for his health because I was afraid he would associate 'us' with these changes. He also looked away from my health concerns while I was getting sicker and sicker. We 'needed' one another too much to actually acknowledge that we were slowly killing one another.
)-:
Gosh I totally agree with all this. The effect of living in a way that belies your morals and values is very stressful.
For me its been manifested in weight gain (great!), fatigue, insomnia, irritability and Im on anti-depressants.
I never told xAP any of that though- to him I was happy, confident Miss Sexpot.
My poor dear H though dealt with the realities, and in true style has continued to love me in spite of all that.
Iggyx
AAI
The most profound symptom I developed during my A was paranoia.
hi all,
writing from my bed right now...I'm home sick with I think strep or a nasty cold..we'll see. I never get sick like this and am attributing a lot of it to feeling so emotionally overwhelmed. (more about that in another post.) I'm just so tired. I want to sleep when I should be awake and then I tend to stay up all night and stare at the ceiling.
During my A though
• I found myself grinding my teeth in my sleep so I would start most days with a headache. Still doing that.
• Was constantly obsessing about everything so much that i felt nauseous. I think I cried almost everyday at least once for the last 6 months.
•xAp was always sick too. Im not sure if he was a "sick" person but over the last 4 years he seemed to be sick every 3 weeks or so.
Amazing how the body handles this stuff.
chechi
Pages