You Flooze, You Lose and Good Mourning!

You Flooze, You Lose

I’m a married lesbian in my 50s. I blew up my happy marriage by having an affair with somebody I didn’t love and wasn’t even that attracted to. Now my wife, whom I love very much, is divorcing me. Why did I cheat on her? I don’t understand my own behavior.

—Lost

There are those special people you meet who end up changing your life — though ideally not from happily married person to lonely middle-aged divorcee living in a mildewy studio.

There’s a widespread assumption that “a happy marriage is insurance against infidelity,” explained the late infidelity researcher Shirley Glass. Even she used to assume that. But, her research (and that of subsequent researchers) finds that even happily married people end up cheating — for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they want better sex or even just different sex. Sometimes they want an ego shine. And sometimes they feel something’s missing within them. But soul-searching is emotionally grubby, tedious work, so they first look for that missing something in the nearest hot person’s underpants.

It seems inexplicable (and borderline crazy) that you risked everything you care about for somebody you find kind of meh — until you look at this through the lens of “bounded rationality.” And before anybody takes a lighter to hay on a pitchfork they plan to chase me with, I’m simply offering a possible explanation for such baffling behavior; I’m not excusing cheating.

“Bounded rationality” is the late Nobel Prize-winning cognitive scientist Herbert Simon’s term for the constraints on our ability to make truly reasoned, rational decisions. These decision-making constraints include having a limited time to make a choice and limited cognitive ability, which keeps us from seeing the whole picture, with its rainbow of repercussions.

We can end up engaging in what psychologists call “framing,” a sort of selecta-vision in which we make decisions based on whichever part of the picture happens to be in mental focus at the time. (Of course, we’re more likely to focus on how fun it would be to have a little strange than how strange it would be to end up exiled to a motel when the wife finds out.)

For some people, behavior from their spouse that suggests “Ha-ha…crossed my fingers during that vows thing!” is simply a deal breaker. But say your wife still loves you and is mainly leaving because she feels she can’t trust you. (A partner who inexplicably cheats is a partner there’s no stopping from inexplicably cheating again.)

If you can explain — though not excuse! — your thinking (or nonthink) at the time, maybe your wife will agree to try couples therapy, at least for a few months. Bounded rationality aside, I suspect you’re unlikely to cheat again, and especially not on what I call “The ER Model” for bad decisions: patients muttering, “This isn’t how I thought the night would end” — just before the doctor extracts the light saber-toting action figure from a place where, no, the sun does not shine but supplemental illumination is generally unnecessary.

Good Mourning!

How long does it take to get over someone? One friend said it takes half as long as you were together, and another said it takes twice that time.

—Recently Dumped

Sometimes it takes a while to let go, but sometimes you’re so ready that you’d chase the person off your porch with a shotgun (if you had a porch or a shotgun and weren’t afraid of doing time on a weapons charge).

Your friends, with their precise breakup timetables, are confusing emotional recovery with mass transit. The reality is, people vary — like in how naturally resilient they are — and so do relationships. (Some are long over before they’re formally retired.)

Sadness after a breakup can feel like the pointless adult version of getting grounded indefinitely. However, as I’ve written in previous columns, psychiatrist and evolutionary psychologist Randolph Nesse explains that sadness appears to be “adaptive” — meaning that it has useful functions. For example, the “disengagement” from motivation that accompanies sadness gives us time to process what happened, possibly helping us learn from our mistakes instead of inviting them back in for an eggnog.

Accordingly, a way to heal emotionally is to find meaning within your mistakes — figuring out what you might have seen or done differently, which tells you what you should probably do differently in the future. In other words, think of the sadness holding you down not as your hostage-taker but as your helper. Deliberately using it that way might even help you curb the impatience that leads some to start dating before they’re actually ready. Sure, on a first date, it’s good to give a guy the sense that you’re passionate and emotionally present, but probably not by sobbing uncontrollably when he asks whether you want a latte.

(c)2017, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail AdviceAmy@aol.com (advicegoddess.com). Weekly radio show: blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon

Order Amy Alkon’s book, “Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck” (St. Martin’s Press, June 3, 2014).