Hello. My name is Candace. I have something to share with you today that was submitted to Affair Recovery by an EMS Online participant just about one year ago. It’s a piece about the secret life and timely death of her husband’s cell phone.
In this post I am going to read what she wrote and then I am going to share some pro tips to help create...
Healing from betrayal trauma isn’t just about moving beyond triggers and reminders, it also requires changing how you see the world. Betrayed partners feel like life has been stolen from them and darkness is their only friend. Positive emotions such as joy and hope — even the feeling of being alive — can evaporate in the blink of an eye! Healing from this altered perception of life is hard and requires rewiring your brain. You must fight the negative...
Hi. My name's Karen Baker, and I'm the graduate counseling intern at Crossroad Counseling Associates, being supervised by Rick Reynolds. Experiencing betrayal trauma is incredibly jarring. Your whole system becomes dysregulated and flooded at a moment's notice. In this video, I'm going to lead you through a short, guided meditation to help you come back to...
Hi, my name is Karen Baker. I’m the graduate counseling intern for Crossroad Counseling Associates, supervised by Rick Reynolds. In this video, I will teach you several different diaphragmatic breathing exercises that you can use to emotionally regulate and tone your Vagus Nerve.
Your breath is the first place to connect with your body,...
When discussing the future of the marriage, the concept of recommitting eventually takes center stage. I'm reminded of a folk tale about a chicken and a pig trying to decide what each should bring to a big party they're throwing. The chicken says he'd be happy to bring some eggs for the party, and he suggests the pig bring some bacon.
"That's not quite fair," the pig responded,...
Hi. My name is Karen Baker, and I'm the graduate counseling intern for Crossroad Counseling Associates, being supervised by Rick Reynolds. Experiencing infertility is an incredibly jarring experience, and that's why we call it betrayal trauma. In a previous video, I discussed why and how we become dysregulated, as well as the importance of...
In this episode Rodney and Angela share the profound change they experienced following his D-Day on March 8th, 2014. Amidst the death of the old, a new marriage and new hearts emerged. They share how they navigated this journey with gratitude and grace. Through transparency and healing, they discovered the power of God's promise to restore and uplift...
We define infidelity as the keeping of secrets; it's a breach of trust that can lead to the collapse of even the strongest relationships. Infidelity is a complex issue with many underlying causes, and it creates a cascade of inter- and intra-relational turmoil. The most common and difficult elements for the betrayed spouse to work through are any kind of lie and deception that the wayward partners tell themselves and their partner about their behavior...
Hello, Kristin S. here. If you're watching this video, it means that you've experienced infidelity in some way in your life. You've either discovered that your partner has cheated on you, or maybe you have been unfaithful to your partner.
No matter which side of this equation that you're on, it's likely that you can appreciate how entirely lonely this...
“If I get pregnant, I’ll just have an abortion.” When asked if she was safe
Threatening to have me arrested for child abuse
Using kids’ social media accounts to contact and stalk men
Sleeping with a man she met two hours earlier on Facebook….. unprotected
Setting up dating apps while in the parking lot waiting for our therapy appointment
Wearing different clothes and hairstyles
Sneaking off to the bathroom to text APs while at Disneyland with the family...
This week's video is addressed to wayward men, but the abuse associated with infidelity isn't gender or role specific. Infidelity can elicit both physical abuse and emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is when one person tries to make another person responsible for their emotional regulation or well-being in a manner that is detrimental to the other. Or when a person treats or exposes another person to behaviors that may result in...
Hello. This is Kristin. As an unfaithful spouse, one may argue that the shame I experienced post affair was expected, while unhelpful to my healing. One would expect that I would be feeling shame, guilt after what happened. I had betrayed the trust of my spouse, of my family, my friends, and maybe most importantly, myself. This type...
Steve just filed for divorce from his wife Stacey. The reason listed on the decree was “adultery”. They had been married for 7 years and recently Steve had discovered that Stacey had secretly been seeing an old boyfriend. His life was shattered. The pain was overwhelming. He only wanted to forget and move on with his life.
Of course, no one would fault Steve for his choice. Even the Bible would justify his decision. He was free to go and marry again.
Hi. My name is Karen, and I am the graduate counseling intern at Crossroad Counseling Associates. My work is supervised by Rick Reynolds, and I am in the home stretch of my master's program. I've learned so much this past year and had the opportunity to co-facilitate several Harboring Hope Groups. Today, I am delighted to share some information with you on a topic I am deeply passionate about and teach many of my own clients:...
Hello. My name is Candace. Let's spend some time talking today about answering questions. Post D-Day. I know some of you just broke out into a cold sweat. In this post, I will address both the unfaithful and the betrayed when it comes to answering questions. I'll be discussing a few key rules to follow to keep things constructive versus leading to greater...
In my years of being a part of Affair Recovery I have had the privilege of mentoring numerous groups of Men through the Harboring Hope program. One of the best parts of this program discusses the 20 Most Common Mistakes of the Betrayed Spouse. Within the groups I lead, and going through this section I have learned that I currently still hold the record for committing the highest amount of the 20 mistakes in my own recovery process. In my case I committed 18 of the 20 mistakes noted.
In this 2-Part...
The discovery of infidelity severely disrupts your life. It is a violation unlike any other. Most experts who deal with infidelity say that the betrayed spouse deals with anywhere from 50 to 100 reminders and triggers per day about their spouse's infidelity. But we have a God who is far bigger than our circumstances.
Hi, my name is Rachel, and I want to talk about why letting others down and disappointing others is a necessary part of your recovery. Now, listen, I know that this seems like a silly topic, and it's not going to be relevant to all of you, but I really wanted to reach out to my sisters and my brothers who do struggle with...
The Triggers Song. Triggers - They can be anything and come from anywhere. Triggers rob us of our time, peace, and sometimes sanity. They are real and a very big deal when navigating the recovery journey of cheating/infidelity/affairs.
In this episode Rodney and Angela start by discussing triggers, how they felt them, how they managed them, how they replaced them,...
Back in the mid-eighties, I had a business fail. I guess that's not unusual in the world of business, but it was new to me. In fact, when I went down, I went down big. I lost just about everything as I desperately tried to save the business. I spent our savings, our retirement, even borrowed money, all in an attempt to hold out until the market turned.
The only problem was the market never turned, so we ran smack dab into financial ruin.
Thankfully, God was faithful. He...
During his affair, when faced with hard questions about his relationship with the AP, my husband lied. Every. Single. Time. After D-day when I asked him about that, he acknowledged he feared if he ever admitted the truth he would lose me, so he resigned to take the truth to his grave. When I asked how he could lie to my face during all those years even after the affair ended, his explanation was pretty simple. He said he knew if he played dumb and consistently denied everything, the...
Keyword definitions:
Shame: a self-perception of being unacceptable that overwhelms the nervous system when triggered by emotional distress. Shame is associated with judgment, comparison, social isolation, impaired empathy, and self-harm.
Guilt: an experience of regret or remorse...
My emotional walls went up when his affair began, and had been reinforced from all the deception and mistrust. There was no easy way to sandblast them down; instead, they were chipped away as trust was built - trust in him and trust in myself. I didn’t trust myself anymore after having “allowed” everything that happened. I felt stupid and weak for not having done more to catch him in his lies, stop the affair, and protect myself. His repeated false reassurances (more on those later) only...
View Part 1 here.
Hi, I'm Rachel, and this is part two of my series around caring for your body during your recovery from infidelity/cheating, which is an essential but often overlooked part of this journey. In the last video, I talked about the impact of stress and trauma on our bodies and how it can throw...
To fully comprehend infidelity, we must acknowledge and understand many different influential components, not the least of which is secrecy. Secrecy plays a huge role in the wayward spouse's absence of guilt when violating commitments or morals. "No blood, no foul," right? When people pursue a course of action that benefits them but harms others, they try to minimize the consequences or altogether avoid looking at the harm they've caused. If minimization...
Imagine you walk in the door to your house. You hear a noise coming from upstairs… sounds like chewing and tearing. You go to investigate and discover the source of the sound is your dog eating your brand-new shoes! You give your dog the appropriate scolding and send him on his way while you survey the damage to your kicks. Your dog gives you the saddest puppy eyes...
Let’s talk today about recovery work, what it looks like, and why it’s so darn important.
I’m going to give it to you straight…I’m going to assume if you’re reading this article or watching this video, that either you, or your partner, pulled a pin, and tossed a grenade into your life. You’re standing in the rubble, assessing the damage, wishing, hoping, praying, this...
Discovery of your spouse's affair or sexual addiction usually triggers a tidal wave of intense emotions. After the initial shock and confusion, most betrayed spouses struggle for quite some time to regain control over the turbulent emotions brought on by intrusive thoughts and reminders. In fact, Patrick Carnes, a pioneer in the treatment of sexual addiction, says that infidelity can be as traumatic as sexual assault.
When recovering from infidelity, it's important to understand how and why the experience changes our brain...
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Because the body is (at least in part) the location of our trauma—the body must also be a location of healing.
~Aundi Kolber
About a year after discovering my husband's affair, my body started to capsize under relentless waves of sickness. An illness would hit. I'd recover...
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