Affair Recovery

I know this question reverberates through the minds of many who are trying to heal, and I must say I too asked myself that same question early on in recovery.

To give you an idea of the furnace Samantha and I were stuck in (and I know yours may be worse), we had lost everything but our kids, our cars, and one friend who decided to stick around though it seemed like hundreds left us. We were in a new city, and shortly after moving to the new city, my best friend (and only true friend, yep, the one who stuck around in the previous line) decided to move to another state to plant a church. The only other friends we knew here in Austin were Samantha’s friends, and they hated me and wanted nothing to do with me. I was in a new career in sales, which only flourishes with relationships...

More times than I care to admit, I see couples falter and squabble over whether or not to save the marriage, and I think that is putting the cart way before the horse.

Early on, the fight shouldn’t be whether or not to save the marriage. The fight should be over whether or not we are going to commit to the process. Through the process you will eventually decide on whether or not to save the marriage or go separate ways. Trying to grind it out on your own is guaranteed disaster. Or getting help from someone who has never gone through it before who can’t understand either side with any significance, professionalism or expertise is also going to guarantee frustration.

If there was one hang up Samantha and I had when we first started out in our recovery, it was that we didn...

If you don’t believe in God or any sort of divine plan, you may not grab hold of this post too tightly.  That’s OK, and I hope you keep reading. You still may see some things in a new light. At the very least, I hope you can see there just may be available grace to your recovery that you’re not truly aware of yet.

I lived in a secret for over two years. A public personality, alleged to be of superb moral character, only to be exposed literally overnight, disappointing a large sea of people. Relationships Samantha and I had built for over 12 years were seemingly gone and dissolved in an instant. To this day, I’m still somewhat amazed by how rapidly we were isolated.  

When I was about 27 years old, I began to pastor and speak at several churches across the...

My recent posts on the detox process have stirred many who have reached out privately.  Having said that, I think we’ll continue on this topic and see where it goes.  Though complicated, I hope there is some insight which comes from my own experiences and observations.  Someone asked me why I write. Besides Rick asking me to, I simply said, “To give voice to the hurt and pain I caused by my terrible decisions and hope that somehow God can use my mess to help heal others and make sense out of what they may be going through right now.”

It’s very common for a betrayed spouse, when walking through their spouse’s detoxing phase, to place expectations upon them.  I think it’s a critical mistake to put unreasonable expectations upon someone who is unhealthy, self-...

When launching out into recovery, one must have an anchor.  The chaos and the confusion of it all can be overwhelming and exasperating.  Not all days are tumultuous, but early on I’m willing to bet you’ll have more chaotic and depressing days, than comforting and reassuring days.  Even now, several years later, I have a few rock solid anchors in my life to help keep me attached, grounded and safe for all the important relationships in my life.

What anchors do you have in your life?  Are there any right now?

If you're early on in recovery, unfortunately your affair partner or addiction may have been your anchor. It's what kept you sane, and kept you from imploding on your spouse, family or difficulty in life.

My affair partner in...

am·biv·a·lence--the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone

Ambivalence can also be defined as ‘being of two minds.’ Or in a general sense, “I want to, but I don’t want to.”

In recovery, ambivalence can be a very common denominator for the unfaithful. It’s not always there, but when it is it’s altogether excruciating for the betrayed. An unfaithful spouse may not want to talk about their deep-seated ambivalence, for fear of being hammered upon or ‘shamed’ if they were to disclose it. But it’s there. Deep in the inner resources of their heart and mind, it’s there, trying to eat away at their resolve and their hope.

I certainly didn’t...

Triggers are typically associated with the betrayed spouse.

Research shows that early in recovery, the betrayed spouse encounters between 75 and 110 different reminders of the affair every day. They can be incapacitating and overpowering, making it almost impossible for hurt spouses to reclaim any stable ground.

Samantha encountered thousands of reminders, and the courage and perseverance it took to press through them was monumental. The good news is they do dissipate over time and they can be diffused when you get the right kind of help. (Harboring Hope was a great asset for Samantha.)

Unfaithful spouse, when you are aware of your mate encountering a reminder, choose humility and own the moment as an immediate first step. Something that worked for me was to...

I hate to fail. At anything. It ruins me, one could say. Being a performance driven individual, and growing up under a reward-driven system of affection, I’ve always been a very driven, performance based individual.

An odd disconnect though, is that I had never been consumed with succeeding at marriage, but only succeeding at my traveling schedule, financial stability, investing and personal accolades.

When I failed at my marriage I failed big. I’m not sure I could have failed in a bigger way than I did.

When really began to grasp what I had done to my wife Samantha and so many others, it was almost incapacitating. Getting healthy meant walking through my pain at first.

They say the truth will set you free, but first it will make you incredibly...

Rick’s recent article, found here: http://affairrecovery.com/newsletter/founder/infidelity-and-transition-stages-the-mystery-of-change, is brilliant, but poignant for both sides of the affair. It’s relatively easy to understand why a betrayed spouse would need to grieve.  After all, life will never be the same again, and life has been changed forever.  It’s not un-repairable, but the fact remains, understanding why the betrayed spouse would grieve is rather easily comprehensible.

Grieving for the unfaithful is paramount as well.  For me, I had to grieve for what my affair did to Samantha and also what it had done to so many other people.  You may not be a public personality, but at one time I was, and in a high profile position.  My...

Many times during our discussions early on in the recovery process, even after we met Rick by the way, anger was a normal part of our lives.  We were smart to never let it fully unleash in front of the kids who were pretty young at the time, but it was there:  simmering….waiting for a chance to manifest.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to get angry when Samantha wanted to talk about it.  I didn’t always show it, but internally, I was about to burst.  I don’t know if anger was the most definitive term, but perhaps better, more descriptive words would be short, trite and borderline uncooperative. 

I genuinely felt terrible about what I did.  I felt like I was a complete failure and had let down so many, including myself.  Let’s face it; I did...

It’s a common understanding; we just don’t want to talk about what makes us feel uncomfortable or ashamed. We certainly don’t want to talk about our failures, unless we’ve experienced a great deal of healing for those failures. Early on in our recovery, I made the mistake of saying to Samantha several times “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s start over, move on, and save us!”

What a great heart’s intent right? Who wouldn’t love that? Sounds sincere enough right?

What I thought I was conveying was “I want to be with you, and I’m willing to work on the marriage at all costs.” But what I was conveying was, as long as we don’t talk about the affair or how I failed and I am ready to get healthy (as long as we talk about you and not me) and here we go, off to the next...

I’ll never forget a lunch I was having with a couple who eventually became like mentors to Samantha and I.  Samantha wasn’t there but I was venting a bit and talking to them very openly about my anger and bitterness and unmet needs which I felt led to the affair in the first place. 

They listened and graciously I might add.  I say graciously, as the fact is, I’m not quite sure how they stomached my deception and lunacy.  But finally, he had had enough add said, “Samuel, are you done yet?”

Laughingly I said, “Oh, yes, I’m sorry” and chuckled. 

It was at this moment that he led me by the hand and took me to the proverbial woodshed of sobriety and awareness of what an idiot (to put it lightly) I was...

If there is one thing we have learned through this mess that we have to keep going back to each year, it’s the concept of prioritization. No, this is not going to be a self-help post, or a menial approach to six steps to peace, etc. etc. It’s more about seeing the world and seeing the situation through the right lens of prioritization.

Let’s face it. My affair, and possibly yours, happened due in large part to me making everything else, and everyone else, a priority except my spouse. Work came first, people’s needs came first, my affair partner came first, and even my kids came first. Samantha was dead last in terms of genuine concern, focus and attentiveness. My boss and his family even had priority over her in many ways.

When we allow life to get...

Along the road of recovery there will be immense frustration. Frustration at your spouse, frustration at circumstances, and hopefully, yes I said hopefully, frustration at even yourself.

I hate to be a downer but if you think recovery and the pursuit of restoration is always this joyous, redemptive season of renewed love and compassion, I'm sorry but it's far from that. If you also think you can go back to business as usual, friend, you are sadly mistaken. You and your spouse have just experienced great turmoil and destruction, and life doesn't just pick up and move right back on. (side note: life doesn't bow down to a desire to recovery either. Kids still fight, bills still come, sickness still happens, and peripheral drama amongst loved ones, family and work all...