Nachträglichkeit, Apres-coup, Afterwardsness a Freudian term used to describe a repressed trauma which replays  itself in the future. A deferred action from childhood into aduthood.

The trauma gets pushed down: but bubbles away in the heat of unconscious atrophy: ready to boil over unsuspecting into a future present. Romantic Affairs A Case Study here can typically be seen in this way. The first relationship is deemed as inadequate to meeting emotional needs so another new relationship is started to meet the first relationship’s deficiences.

After the biological attraction wears off in any relationship: you might see that all our relationships are made with our wounds. Not what is healed / resolved. It is a way of the psyche trying to repair the wounds of the past: we hope to be rescued by the relationship. It’s the opposite. The relationship uses the other human to expose our wounds.

If you accept the idea that relationships are a way of healing our wounds by being attracted by them: the affair becomes less. What is the second relationship going to be able to resolve that the first one didn’t as we are the  same person?

Modern relationships challenge the notion of one important relationship. But the idea can still be applied. We are trying to resolve our wounds by relating.

Depending on your point of view therapy doesn’t heal anything. It makes us aware of our wounds: not to stop having affairs. It doesn’t avoid the mess & chaos of living. It is the mess and chaos that gives illumination to who we are & where we were hurt. It attempts to put meaning to our actions which we cannot understand.
It is a way of suffering well. To suffer authentically takes less energy: to do other things we enjoy.

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