Infidelity and mental health

People usually ask me why I chose psychology. For a simple reason of being fascinated by human behaviour. Which is usually followed by what is psychology? I recall I liked how it was explained during my psychopathology class, “The study of mental processes and behaviour. A science based on evidence which can be validated by using standard scientific measures.”

If I dive into science and psychometrics, I will not stop as this is my favourite part of my work in mental and behavioural health. With that bit of background let us get into it and talk about a topic sensitive to most, infidelity.

Do you know how sometimes people think their mental health has and will always be intact? Yes, this is that article which says wrong my friend! Every now and again something will happen that will shake the limbic system off its normal functioning. This is the time when your ability to process and regulate emotions gets to be on display.

I don’t know if readers remember back in the day, on the roadside by Mama’s Fast Food; adjacent to Sefika taxi rank, there used to be street vendors who had display of pirated famo music DVDs.

I mean the DVDs were right there for one to see, regardless of how illegal the DVDs were. That is kind of what it is with infidelity. When the other partner finds out, there is no going back. The ability to process emotions will be on display, much to the delight of onlookers and passersby.

That is the sad nature of infidelity. It leads to a spiral in hormones. There is usually elevated levels of anger for the partner being cheated on.

Whereas the one who is caught cheating is likely to experience elevated levels of cortisol. This can be seen in flight responses of running away or locking themselves in a Bed and Breakfast establishment as seen by show of screenshots at one of the local businesses at Ha-Matala this week.

I wish it were that simple whereby a man marries a woman, a woman feels unfulfilled, goes seeking fun with another partner, they get caught, the married partners divorce, the woman pursues a relationship with the new-found partner, the husband heals, the end! Let us be honest with one another, it is far more complex than that.

The biggest lie we have been told is that marriage is built on love. While this might be true for some people, I find that such marriages are not without their fair share of challenges.

Therefore, marriage is built on love and other things. For example, physical intimacy, intellectuality, spirituality, finances, and others. I am not sure if readers have encountered that one friend who wants a divorce because their partner is no longer physically enticing.

Does it not make you wonder why this specific friend will be contemplating divorce when their love for their partner is rock solid? Evidently, it becomes an issue of love and other factors that complement love. Now, imagine that you are the husband being cheated on.

You catch your wife red-handed, call family members to come and behold “mohlolo.” How does this affect you? How do you begin to process those emotions of betrayal when it feels like your mental health has never been shaken by anything?

How do you keep a brave face when you will be trending on social media and being used as a meme for other people to make fun of your pain? The expectation is that you forgive and forget about it or undergo an unsolicited divorce, right?

If you are by any chance an adult reader then you know that a hundred things ought to have happened leading up to a handful of cars parked outside a guest house at Ha-Matala. You know for sure that military officials when called by the guest house owner will come to remedy the situation and step-in, then what?

I fear that as adults we are not having intentional conversations about what builds a long-lasting marriage. We underplay and make a mockery of everyday life challenges that pose threats to marriages. We shush a wife that expresses being hesitant to take her husband to friend get-togethers because his English accent is not posh enough for the standard set in the friends group.

Shush her all you want, she will find Jerry with a suit tailor-made at Alice’s shop at Tradorette complex. For those that do not know Alice, she is of Asian descent, she is a tailor whose hand is so good that she has redefined the formal look for those that identify as the Maseru elite.

Jerry will take your Mrs out to that fancy dinner with friends until they make a quick stop at a Bed and Breakfast, one with a beautiful tree line and swans in the ponds. I know you know the one I am talking about.

Ask yourself some reflective questions about infidelity. Are people sorry that they cheated or that they were caught? Would they have stopped if they were not caught? If they swore on a love that is happily ever after, how on God’s green earth does something like that even happen?

One of the therapists whose work in relationships resonates with me says, “Relationships are a patchwork of unspoken rules and roles that we begin stitching on the first date. We set out to draft boundaries — what is in and what is out. The me, the you, and the us. Do we get to go out alone or do we do everything together? Do we combine our finances? Are we expected to attend every family reunion?”

I echo Esther Perel’s views in that any form of relationship requires that you have conversations about how things are expected to happen. I repeat, we take it for granted that we meet the love of our lives, whisk each other into a happily ever after-land. All good and well until Jerry comes along, remember Jerry with the suit and tie?

It becomes a mental health issue when trust is broken, and we lack the emotional regulation to navigate through betrayal. At most, the woman will invite her friends over and the theme of the get-together will be, “Let’s sip and cry together for my ending marriage.” The man will enlist the help of ma-gang, the boys, ma-authi to go over how women are a special kind of snakes. Or it can easily be the other way round. One of the most invalidating things you will struggle with is being repeatedly told that everyone gets cheated on.

You will be told that this is not new as our mothers and fathers experienced it, and their parents before that. You will experience intrusive thoughts of what you can potentially do to the individual that your partner cheated with.

You will have a renewed view of a love that lives happily ever after. You are guaranteed to question monogamy. Your thoughts, feelings and emotions will literally take over your brain’s functionality and this is all you will think about for a decent number of weeks. This will be until the emotions resolve themselves or you undergo a full blown emotional breakdown with psychotic episodes.

Not everyone that lives with a mental disorder was born with it. Some people that are admitted in psychiatric care underwent emotional breakdown caused by infidelity. As a psychotherapist, my wish is that couples talk about these issues before they become unmanageable marital problems and/or infidelity.

Couples refrain from having these intentional conversations of, “I am bored in marriage, I am no longer physically attracted to you, I yearn for whirlwind fun in my life, I am going through a midlife crisis, I fear ageing and not having done things I still want to do, etc.” It would seem that marital infidelity is the scapegoat, the easy way out. Whatever the case may be, love is easy, staying together in a committed relationship is the hard part.

When it feels like Jerry’s cologne smells nicer than your husband’s and you are starting to like basic things about him, like his uneven hairline and chapped lips…this is the perfect time to say, “Hey honey, I think we should talk to someone like mohlabolli.”

“The idea that infidelity can happen in the absence of serious marital problems is hard to accept.”-Esther Perel.
Until Next Time!!!

‘Makamohelo Malimabe  works as a Psychotherapist. She holds a Master’s in Counseling Psychology. She has certifications in Global Health Delivery, Policy Development & Advocacy in Global Health, Leadership & Management in Health, as well as Fundamentals in Implementation Science. Her views are independent and not representative of her professional roles. She is ambitious about equitable health delivery, health policy and decolonised mental health approaches.