One of the most common things that most women find themselves doing after an affair is comparing themselves to the other woman. You may find negative and disempowering thoughts running through your head all day long. “I wonder if she is better looking than me.” “I am sure that she is younger and in better shape than me.” “I’ve become boring no wonder he strayed.” Do any of these thoughts sound familiar?
Imagine what you are doing the tremendous load you are carrying right now. Not only are you dealing with the fallout after an affair you know find yourself over run with these negative thoughts. The cruelest part about it is these negative thoughts about you are actually coming from you and you did absolutely nothing wrong.
Repairing Your Damaged Self Esteem after an Affair
When your outer world is in turmoil having these range of negative emotions just adds to the questions that you already have about your husband, your marriage, and even yourself as a person. Self-doubt is a normal emotion to go through after you find out your husband had an affair, but when those little voices of self-doubt become screaming voices of self-doubt you are starting to head down the dangerous road of killing your self-esteem.
The amount of things damaged after an affair can often times are too many to count but two of the most damaging are the loss of trust in your marriage and the direct blow to your self-esteem. So not only do you have to deal with the fact that your husband decided to go outside of your marriage you also begin to question your own self-image.
Having to work through the fallout of your husband’s affair will lead you to question everything that you previously took for granted. It really does make you question everything in your life that you once considered to be a truth.
Control Your Inner Voice
It is human nature to focus on the things that bring up pain in life; it seems to me that more people spend more time avoiding pain than pursuing happiness. The fallout of your husband’s affair has left you in understandable whirlwind of emotions with a plethora of negative thoughts running through your mind all day long.
It is important that you are consciously aware of the inner conversation running through your head on a daily basis. The best way to do that is to keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings. You have enough going on right now without becoming your own worst enemy, managing your inner voice will help make sure you don’t add to the damage of your husband’s affair.
Forget the Other Woman
Almost as soon as you found out that your husband had an affair you probably started comparing yourself to her either directly or indirectly. You need to challenge the thoughts that are running through your head. Your husband’s actions don’t define you in any manner.
As you have built this woman up to be some type of super woman in your head there is one thing you should keep in mind. If this woman was the perfect angel that you are making her out to be she wouldn’t be involved with someone’s husband.
It is never a good move to try and build your self-esteem by tearing down someone else down so when you find yourself in instances where you are comparing yourself to the other woman you can adjust your thought process a little bit to help you deal with it.
Do you find yourself comparing your looks to her looks? If you don’t know what the woman looks like then adjust your mind’s eye view of what you think she looks like. Paint the picture any way you need it to look in order for you to stop comparing yourself to her.
Focus On Your Good Qualities
Finding out that your spouse has had affair does damage to your self-esteem. In order to stop comparing yourself to the other woman it’s time to start being your own best friend again. If you need a kick start get out a pen and piece of paper and make a list of your good qualities. Are you patient? Do you have a good heart? What is your favorite physical quality? If writing your list wasn’t enough to get you believing what is on the paper spend some time going over them in your head every time that you find your thoughts of the other woman running through your head.
The repeating of your list will almost become your mantra of self-affirmations. Self-affirmations can help you heal your self-esteem and help you stop comparing yourself to the other woman after an affair.
