Infidelity: What It Really Is and How to Recognize It

When we talk about infidelity, the first question worth asking is: what actually happened — the event itself, or our interpretation of it? Dr. Saulitis emphasizes that people frequently confuse the two, and it is precisely this confusion that lies at the root of much of their suffering.

The Subjective Story vs. Objective Reality

A person who has been cheated on constructs a kind of inner "story" — a chain of judgments, images, and meanings. The problem is not that this story exists, but that it comes to be perceived as something objective, as a fact of the external world. The idea itself is subjective; the consequences it sets in motion are entirely real: blood pressure changes, sleep is disrupted, behaviour shifts, and a person's ability to fulfil their potential diminishes.

"The idea is subjective, but the punch in the eye is objective."

This mismatch is what makes the situation so destructive: a person lives inside a subjective story yet makes fully real decisions based on it — and suffers fully real consequences.

How the Brain Grows Into the Story

Dr. Saulitis draws attention to the mechanism of neuroplasticity: narratives absorbed through upbringing and repeated experience literally become wired into neural connections. The brain carves familiar pathways, and signals travel along them again and again, reinforcing a particular pattern of thinking. This is why a person may reproduce the same reactions to infidelity over and over — not because they are "weak," but because the neurons are simply following the path already laid down.

How to Recognize That You Are Trapped in the "Story"

The key sign is an inability to separate what actually happened from one's interpretation of it. If, when trying to lay the situation out as a logical chain of reasoning, a person "cannot follow" or cannot stop the flood of images and emotions, this signals that the subjective story has completely displaced a clear-eyed view of reality. Dr. Saulitis describes this state as close to what psychiatry calls induced — or "existential" — delusion: a belief so deeply rooted that it feels like absolute truth.

"People invent subjective stories and then live by those stories, making objective decisions on their basis."

Recognizing this state is already the first step toward leaving it behind.