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LoginWelcome to Affair Recovery’s Harboring Hope Notification List. As we mentioned in the email, we want the Notification List to be more connected than our Newsletter subscription. We want to know you. We want to serve you. This means we want to hear from you! (Not on the Harboring Hope...
I’ll never forget when the leaders of the organization I worked for during my affair practically bribed Samantha to divorce me when it all came out. Some of these executives, if you will, were friends of mine for about 10 years who had been through all kinds of life experiences together,...
Many, who fall, including myself, will confess to eventually feeling like a slave to the affair partner or addiction. Before we know it, what once was an adrenaline filled endeavor, full of excitement and dark, thrilling passion, eventually becomes slavery. The elation and electricity of it all...
This week, I thought I’d take a moment out of Jesus’s life and share a unique perspective. Even if you’re not a Christian, or perhaps even angry at God for what you’re dealing with, I get it. I most certainly do. But I hope you’ll keep reading as I think there are some good points in here to...
Early on in recovery it was ugly. Everything seemed like it was my fault. No matter what happened it would eventually be tied to the fact that I had an affair. It was a painful way to live. Looking back even my wife Samantha would tell you that most things ended up being my fault. It wasn’t...
Quite often when I talk to couples in crisis due to infidelity, one of their paramount questions is, can it ever be the same again?
Honestly, my answer is a frank, but delicate, NO, it will never be the same again.
But I immediately follow up with, “But why would you want to go back...
"I can't make you NOT have another affair. If you're going to cheat, you're going to cheat."
About a year or so into recovery, Samantha very calmly told me those words in Rick's office. I immediately saw Rick's eyes light up, followed by a gentle smile that showed Rick was very pleased...
A toxic response mechanism in recovery will always be defensiveness. Defensiveness communicates to the betrayed spouse that we don't "get it", are not sorry or empathetic over what we've done and that we're just not safe in general.
Just recently Samantha and I had a significant...
If there was one issue that was probably one of most difficult issues for me to overcome personally, it was shame. I was truly ashamed of what I had done and how I had hurt both Samantha and so many other lives. There was, however, a bit of a time release to my shame though and you'll probably...
It's been several years since my affair was disclosed and life took a turn for what felt like the end. Almost every time Rick writes an article it hits me in one way or another. This newest one was no exception. The fact is, time doesn't permit me to share the enormous litany of reasons why, if...
Not too long ago, Samantha and I were having an incredibly difficult time. If you're on this site, and have gone through this nightmare which necessitates recovery, when I say an incredibly difficult time,' I know you know what I mean. I felt like I just couldn't win and couldn't gain any ground...
Not too long ago, I was talking with a therapist who explained to me what it means for a couple to relapse. I was immediately thrown for a bit of a loop when I heard him say that even the betrayed spouse can relapse. It basically boils down to not doing what both spouses did early on in their...
Rick’s newest article once again, kicked me right in the teeth. Let me quote from it briefly, and if you’d like to read the whole thing, you can go here to read it:
(...
Looking back upon my affair, and the justification of my affair, I can now see how blind I was. It’s neither an excuse nor a justification, as I did what I did and it’s no one’s fault by my own. But I was blind to so much, and in hindsight I can see just how that blindness fueled my actions and...
My affair was both emotional and physical. When asked which was worse, I'm not really sure what Samantha would leverage as the worst side of it. It was highly sexually charged, but we also communicated and worked together every day and the emotional component was off the chart.
It...
