You’ve been cheated on and betrayed by your spouse or partner. You may feel angry, hurt, betrayed, lonely, insecure about yourself, and fearful of the future. Being cheated on by a spouse or partner is traumatic and can be emotionally devastating. The devastation of marital betrayal can traumatize even the strongest of people. Understandably, many betrayed spouses experience PISD.

The phrase Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder or PISD was originally coined in 2005 by a psychologist named Dennis C. Ortman, Ph.D., who published a study in the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, describing the experience of a woman who caught her husband having an affair with her best friend.

PISD is a type of anxiety disorder you may experience after finding out your spouse has betrayed and cheated on you. PISD is not an actual diagnosis, however, post-discovery of an affair, the reactions often parallel those of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In PTSD, one of the required criteria is that the person is exposed to death, the threat of death, threatened serious injury or actual/threatened sexual trauma through several different means. In an affair, while the threat may not have been to one’s physical life, it certainly was an attack and threat against the emotional well-being of the individual leading to a loss of emotional safety and security.

Your spouse who you trusted the most and expected to protect and care for you was the person who hurt you, leaving you in a state of incomprehension and shock. The reactions from such betrayal can often feel so overwhelming that one can either feel stuck and not know how to proceed, or so reactive that the decisions being made can be damaging to the self, others, and potentially your relationship if you’re hoping to reconcile your marriage.

However, unlike PTSD, post-infidelity stress disorder is not an official diagnosis recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is a manual that healthcare providers use to identify and diagnose mental health conditions.

Symptoms of Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a clinical psychologist, and professor at Yeshiva University, specializes in issues related to relationships. These are some of the symptoms of post-infidelity stress disorder (PISD), according to Dr. Romanoff:

• Anxiety: You might experience symptoms of anxiety such as chronic and persistent worry.
• Avoidance: You might try to pretend the whole thing never happened and avoid any reminders of your partner or the relationship.
• Depression: You might experience symptoms of depression such as a persistent feeling of sadness or emptiness and frequent bouts of crying.
• Hypervigilance: You may start to look for danger or threat in benign events in subsequent relationships, as a way to protect yourself from future trauma. This can cause you to have a negative view of your partner and the people they interact with.
• Insomnia: You may develop insomnia and have inconsistent sleep patterns. As a result, you may struggle to focus, and your work performance, social and family relationships, and overall functioning may be affected.
• Isolation and withdrawal: You might find yourself withdrawing from friends and family and preferring to be by yourself. You may no longer find enjoyment in activities that once pleased you.
• Numbness: While some people are filled with anger and hurt upon discovering their partner’s betrayal, other people experience numbness and feel emotionless.
• Relationship difficulties: Lack of trust can make it difficult for you to sustain future relationships, as it can cause you to mistrust your partners and pick unnecessary fights with them.
• Rumination: You may perseverate over your partner’s infidelity and have recurring thoughts about it.
• Trauma recall: You may have painful memories, flashbacks, or nightmares that cause you to relive the traumatic experience.
• Trust issues: You may have trouble trusting potential future partners given the fear or risk of betrayal.

Treating Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder

Below, Dr. Romanoff outlines some of the treatment options for post-infidelity stress disorder:

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring involves exploring your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. These tend to become rigid, fixed, and at times, irrational — and require them to be replaced with more adaptive ones. Cognitive restructuring techniques can help address your narrative of your spouse’s infidelity and expose you to it in a gradual manner so it doesn’t feel so powerful and intolerable.

Trauma-Informed Care

It is also helpful to approach post-infidelity stress disorder through the lens of trauma-informed care by working to improve your self-confidence and explore the impact of betrayal on how you might hold negative views of the world, yourself, and others.

Family Therapy

It can sometimes be helpful for you and your family to undertake family therapy together, to process and deal with the infidelity and its consequences on the various members of your family.

Medication

If you have severe symptoms, your healthcare provider may prescribe some of the following medications in addition to therapy:

• Antidepressants
• Anti-anxiety medications
• Anticonvulsants

You Need Time to Recover From Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder

Remember, you are the victim of the ultimate betrayal and marital infidelity. You need time to recover from spousal betrayal and infidelity. It’s tough going through PISD. Be patient with yourself. Give yourself time, care, and compassion to work on healing and processing your spouse’s betrayal and infidelity. You cannot change your spouse’s infidelity and betrayal no matter what you do. Accept it. It’s done and out of your control. The past is the past, but you can decide how you would like to move forward in your life physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. You will heal and move on!

Recovering from Infidelity

If you have experienced infidelity-induced trauma caused by the emotional and sexual betrayal of your spouse, there is hope! If you are a child affected by parental infidelity, there is hope! If you are a spouse who has betrayed the trust, love, and fidelity of your marriage, there is hope! We recommend that you seek support through professional counseling and therapy as well as through groups dedicated to supporting you through this traumatic journey to recovery. You are not alone and recovery and healing are possible!

Share Your Story

The CHADIE Foundation shares personal stories of spouses and children impacted by infidelity and affairs. If you have a story you would like to share and have published, please use the contact information below to share your story with The CHADIE Foundation. Our mission is to help educate everyone about the damage infidelity, affairs, and adultery cause families and how to minimize the impact.

About the CHADIE Foundation

The CHADIE Foundation (Children are Harmed by Adultery, Divorce, Infidelity, and related Emotional trauma), helps spouses, partners, and children who adultery, affairs, and infidelity have negatively impacted. To learn more about CHADIE and how you can help, please email us at support@chadie.org or visit us at CHADIE.org.