Survivors Blog: 

Samuel

Everyone loves a comeback. The problem with comebacks is that they are hard as heck to pull off. Anything worth having is worth working for, and I’ve learned the things that matter most usually are hardest and require the most grace to pull off. Just yesterday an old staff member of mine reached out to tell me how moved he was to see pictures of my kids and our family stable, strong, and healed. It encouraged him about life, marriage, recovery and even God’s grace. It’s not come easy but small moments like that make it all worth it. Adversity exposes what’s inside of us. If you want to save your marriage after infidelity or addiction, we will come face to face with some serious darkness inside of each of us, both betrayed and unfaithful. Some betrayed spouses may flinch at this notion, but if you’ll indulge me for a bit, I’ll come back to that. Adversity in many ways makes us who we are.  The adversity we have to overcome marks us, shapes us, and helps forge our identity in life. Yes, even the adversity that we create for our own life out of stupid, selfish choices. In many ways we are at war with ourselves, but we take it out on our spouse and our surroundings, when we should be warring with ourselves to find hope and meaning in our story.  As either you or you and your spouse push forward towards recovery and potential restoration, the adversity you will face both internally and externally will usually be off the chart. The darkness I had to confront inside of me was overwhelming to say the least. Yet, Samantha in her own right had to confront the darkness inside of her. The desire for vengeance, the hatred she felt towards me and the affair partner (who was one of her closest friends) and the way she was treated not just by me but my so many so called ‘close friends’ when it all came out. Her own desire for me to suffer and for my life to be wrecked by my choices had to be addressed. Her own pain was blinding her in many ways and only the right process was able to help her find forgiveness for me. I deserved anything she threw at me, physically or verbally, yet she was able to resist the desire to make me pay for very long at all. We all have our darkness. We all have our shame. In many ways, we can see adversity as abandonment, when in reality the adversity we are having to confront is not some form of divine abandonment or cosmic futility: it is part of the process of seeing our lives changed and enriched and seeing our marriages transformed. Whether your marriage makes a comeback or not, I’m quite sure YOU need to make your own comeback first. The deepest meaning of your life in many ways will come through the adversity you have the courage to confront and forge right through. Don’t give up today. You’re finding more of you through all of this. 

"We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful.” I was reading this morning and thinking of so many of you. Day after day I talk to many who are in such crisis and confusion. Finding hope at this new ‘ground zero’ can feel impossible sometimes. Yet, in the somber moments of our struggle, we have to ask if we truly believe the pain we are experiencing is purposeful. If we believe it’s not, our hope diminishes and we circle the drain of despair and perceived pointlessness to our recovery and even our lives. However, if we believe this pain and this uncertainty actually has a purpose then we must find that purpose. When we believe and understand that this chaos does in fact have a purpose, we can relieve some of the pressure to know the future and hold on passionately to the understanding that even if we don’t understand, there is a purpose, there is a task at hand. We may not know what the purpose is, but as I’ve learned and written so often, some things will make more sense in retrospect than when you’re actually going through them. Not all of you who read my writings subscribe to a Christian faith or world view. I get that. I take no issue with that whatsoever. I’d simply like to ask you to ponder whether or not you believe this pain is purposeful? I’d invite you to stop looking at your spouse as the revealer or carrier of your purpose and look elsewhere. You can’t simply look in your pain for purpose. You’ll need to investigate what you believe about life and about faith to find purpose for your pain. I hope and pray you’ll arrive at a realistic view of your pain which will spill over into a deeper understanding that your pain has purpose in it. It’s inherently transformational, meaning God never wastes our sorrows and always has purpose in our pain. We don’t know what it is, yet we can trust and draw near to the person who has allowed this pain. Knowing this truth creates a hunger and desperation for intimacy with that being, that God, that master potter. I pray today that you’ll draw near enough to find some hope today that there is purpose to your life and to your situation and to your own personal recovery. 

When we undermine ourselves, we end up being angry at ourselves for not doing what we said we would. It launches us into anger and, at times, a temporary self-hatred. Time after time betrayed spouses will feel an even greater sense of anger towards themselves as they feel like their unfaithful spouse is deceiving them yet again.   The fact is you don’t know what you don’t know. You’ll need help to know whether or not it is safe to reengage with your spouse. Quite honestly, sometimes it’s great and much needed to be vulnerable or even physically intimate with your spouse even while in crisis, yet in other situations, it’s one of the worst things you can do. You’ll need a trail guide for sure. Timing and context to the particulars of your situation is everything. For example: If your unfaithful spouse is pursuing sexual reconnection, but is showing no signs of ending it with the affair partner and no signs of doing any recovery work, reengaging with them sexually is a colossal mistake. They will typically not feel any urgency to end things with their affair partner or their dysfunction, nor will they feel any urgency to seek out help. Attempting to woo them back in this situation will prove heartbreaking to the betrayed spouse as they are not engaged in your relationship. In this case, you would be undermining yourself as well as any urgency within the unfaithful spouse to seek out change or help. Alternatively, if your spouse is truly working towards recovery and showing significant signs of dedication to recovery work and getting help, reconnecting sexually could be a great exercise in reestablishing intimacy and reconnection. If the betrayed spouse is emotionally ready, it may prove to be a very rewarding and mutually fulfilling experience, and may help the unfaithful spouse understand that there is hope. Sexual intimacy is about reestablishing connection and intimacy within your marriage. Undermining yourself in some ways comes from not knowing what is in your spouse’s heart. When you are afraid of undermining yourself, many times it’s due to unhealed and perhaps even untapped emotions and wounds internally. When tapped into, those wounds produce an incredible amount of anger and hostility which usually are secondary emotions. The primary emotion tends to be hurt and violation. We rage to protect ourselves and to fight back. In this situation and trauma, who wouldn’t? What we really need is healing for the pain and the hurt we feel inside. If an unfaithful is unwilling to participate in the healing of their betrayed spouse as well as themselves, the betrayed spouse may need to consider pulling away and not allowing yourself to be vulnerable any longer. Without an effort to establish safety, you may be undermining not only yourself, but the entire process of recovery for your marriage. Remember the goal is progress, not perfection, and even the smallest of victories count. Every recovery will have a two-steps-forward-one-step-back feeling to it sometimes, but the goal is just to keep working towards those forward steps.

I often hear a betrayed spouse talk about allowing their spouse to come back home, or being intimate with their unfaithful spouse, or having a good weekend, and suddenly things go south. Just the other day a woman was discussing with me that she feels like she is undermining herself when she is nice to her previously unfaithful husband. It’s even more apparent when an unfaithful tries to describe his betrayed spouse’s behavior. “It’s like she turns on a dime,” they’ll say. “We’ll have a great week, then it’s like she hates me all over again.” Much more, they’ll discuss how things were great and romantic, and the next morning the anger returns, and it’s even worse than before. It may not make sense to the unfaithful spouse, but the fear of undermining oneself is a legitimate and understandable fear for a betrayed spouse. They’ve been wounded so deeply, they are afraid to let their guard down. At the same time however, no one wants to live a life completely walled-off from intimacy and joy. How do you stay true to yourself? You’ve been hurt so badly but you don’t want to stay stuck in that pain - what can you do? The voices are endless that say “You can’t trust them again, they need to suffer. He or she is taking advantage of you.” However, vengeance is not yours to take. You can’t make them pay enough to get it anyway, and you’ll most likely damage yourself while you’re handing out this vengeance. Keep in mind, pain that isn’t transformed is always transmitted to others we love, not just our unfaithful spouse. The truth is, many times it takes far more courage to give restoration a chance than to simply say the infidelity is a deal breaker and we’re done. Everyone has an opinion of what they will do when infidelity happens, until it actually happens. All bets are off when it does happen and now there is a life built together, with kids, romance, a sea of memories and often times decades of time spent together. You don’t just walk away. It’s not easy to simply white knuckle it and forge ahead. In fact, I don’t recommend it. If you’re a betrayed, more than ever you’ll need help to wade through the changing emotions you experience every hour, let alone each day. Undermining yourself is not the verbiage I would use to describe the situation at its core. I would rather ask you, what do you feel like you need to do? If you’re going to give restoration a chance, I would ask you to get help first to decide what steps you need to take. Perhaps being intimate with your spouse is OK, or maybe it shouldn’t be done at all until recovery is being pursued. Maybe you need to separate so you’re not taken advantage of, or perhaps having him sleep in the guest room is enough of a boundary. The simple, but painful truth is, it’s not as easy as a unilateral application of truths from a book, or another’s situation to just apply to your own. You need expert help to know what is truly genuine kindness and love and what is codependency and opening yourself up to be taken advantage of again. 

I can be a yeller. You know, the parent that remains calm, cool and collected and then finally gets pushed over the edge and lets it rip? Yeah, I can blow it. I’ve done much better over the years and have found a new sense of momentum, but I wanted to share something with you I’ve learned the hard way about yelling.   The fact is, the person who yells is often times yelling at themselves; not you, not the kids, not even the guy who cut them off. We’re yelling at ourselves for doing what we’ve done. We’re yelling at ourselves for NOT doing what we know we should have done in the first place. We’re yelling because we feel out of control and our typical first instinct is to try to control things. I typically yell loudest when I feel out of control. It’s this powerlessness which makes me resort to old behaviors and old desires to try to regain control and not have to trust. I really do hate it and I really get angry at myself more and more. The problem with yelling, as with infidelity and addiction, is that it’s seductive. It feels good to yell. It feels somewhat cathartic to yell at our spouse, both unfaithful and betrayed alike. We want to be in control.  We want to control our spouse. We want to control their behavior and the outcome because we feel we know what is right and are seeing all the angles and absolutely know what things should look like.  We think we can be God and want to be Gods of our own situation. But we can’t, and we’re ultimately not in control. The best we can do is surrender and remember we’re not in control of much except our own actions, behaviors and perspective. When I pursue the right perspective, I then help diffuse my need to always be in control and bully people and have what I feel to be the “right” outcome happen all the time. With kids, with Samantha, with finances, with sports, with health, you name it: I want to be God over all these situations and I’m simply not. I’m not good enough or smart enough to know what is the ultimate best for my life or those around me. In essence I’m stuck in my humanity and in my flesh, and I feel yelling is the way to regain control. It’s a sad routine to turn to. I hope you’ll think deeply about why you’re yelling, if you often do find yourself in the throes of a yelling fit. Don’t get me wrong, there is time to yell. I’m an expert at yelling at the wrong time though. I hope you’ll consider reevaluating why you’re yelling and what outcome you’re searching for. 

Often times we’re blind to the depth of our own bitterness or resentment. It’s seductive when you’re dealing with infidelity as you should be angry, and have every right to be angry for what your spouse has done. If they’ve cheated or lived a double life, to not be angry would be alarming to anyone. Sometimes we’re unaware of just how bitter we are and that deep seeded resentment can be rather intoxicating. The only problem is, when we’re intoxicated we usually are unaware of our actions and our mannerisms and we end up only making things worse. When there are prolonged seasons of bitterness or resentment, we can also then torture both ourselves and our mates emotionally. We systematically refuse to let go of our bitterness which we perceive as justifiable. The fact is though unforgiveness is never justifiable as it only poisons our own heart, our own life and our own future opportunity at restoration. I know what it’s like to be on a road where you feel like you just can’t get off, but have no idea how. However, anger has to have a season, or a stage, or a chapter. The other side of it is, if there is constantly new information or new revelations by the unfaithful then there should be expected to be recurring chapters of anger and hostility. That’s more than understandable. Yet, once the information is finally out and on the table, the intense anger needs to have a bit of a fuse so it runs out and spills over into grief. Yesterday I alluded to the fact that there are two ways to diffuse the bitterness and resentment: perspective (the right info) and forgiveness. First, the right information. When you can get the right understanding of the affair(s) and/or compulsive behaviors you can start the process toward healing. More specifically, you need expert help. Whether it be an online course or an in person retreat, one size does not fit all. Just this morning I spoke with a woman who said ‘we tried counseling and it failed miserably.’ Sadly, unless they are an expert in infidelity, it usually does. Unless they’ve been through it and treated it at least 10 years, I’d run as far away as I could and get expert help. The right information (i.e. help) will lead to the right perspective which will lead to the right timeline of long term healing and personal restoration. Additionally, forgiveness is the best tool to diffuse the resentment. However, I missed a step in my writing yesterday. Before you can forgive, you’ll probably need to grieve first. You, as a betrayed, will need to grieve for what was lost, what was taken away and what your spouse has chosen to do. If you’re an unfaithful, you’ll need to grieve for what you’ve done to yourself and to your spouse. It will most likely be easier to grieve over what you’ve done to your spouse first, then for your own pain. It will require long seasons of concentrated thought to reconnect with empathy and awareness for how you’ve damaged your spouse. With the right help, you’ll get there but more than likely, you’ll not get there on your own. As unfaithful, we’re in too deep to launch right into grieving as we aren’t thinking clearly at all and we’re in desperate help for someone to make sense out of all of this for us. As we grieve we can then move towards forgiveness for our self and our spouse. If we don’t grieve, we usually find it incredibly hard to get to forgiveness and letting go of our anger and hostility towards our spouse. If you want to rip the rug out from underneath bitterness and resentment, allow the deep seeded anger and resentment to spill over into grieving and then finally, into forgiveness.  I’ve had to do it time and time again for what my affair cost Samantha, myself and countless other people I’ve let down. It is more than possible friends. It’s not easy, but there is a systematic timeline you’ll need from an expert's help to walk out this healing. I pray most of all today, you’d reach out for help with this timeline and get the expert insight and roadmap you need.  

Lately, I’ve talked with several people who seem to be overwhelmed with raw bitterness and resentment. Now, there are a million slogans, quotes and catch phrases on what bitterness does and what anger does and I get that. Today I’d like to keep it simple and highlight one consequence of bitterness and resentment that’s not only dangerous but imprisoning. Plain and simply put, bitterness and resentment blind us.   If we’ve been unfaithful, our bitterness at our spouse (or life), blinds us to our betrayed spouse’s emotions, triggers, consequences and struggles. We make it all about us and our resentment towards our spouse or others, for unmet needs or unmet expectations which then enable our own blindness. I learned long ago that if the person I think about most is myself, I’m in danger both in life and in marriage. As an unfaithful spouse, all of our attempts to find objectivity will crumble if we are filled with resentment and bitterness. Those two mindsets warp reality and prevent us from being able to recognize where we need to take responsibility and where we need to own up to our selfishness. Resentment enables us and fuels our justification of our affairs and our lack of empathy. We’ll never truly be able to find hope if we allow bitterness and deep seated resentment to be our guides. If you’ve been betrayed, while you have every right to be angry, you can’t hold on to bitterness or resentment as it will blind you to what choices you need to make. It will also blind your ability to be strategic with your spouse and with your situation as needed. Resentment can be extremely enabling for the betrayed as in many cases, a betrayed spouse’s strength and energy is not only depleted, but ripped away.  When the rug is pulled out from under you, and sometimes more times than once, it becomes harder and harder to find strength for the journey of recovery, let alone life. Bitterness, in a seductive way, entices the betrayed to a false sense of strength and power, when in reality it’s resentment and it eventually clouds your ability to possibly make choices which will create space for reconciliation. Bitterness will also usually prevent a betrayed spouse from seeing any sense of positive movement or direction on behalf of the unfaithful. In the battle of recovery and restoration, any progress in the right direction needs to be celebrated, especially because those small victories can feel so few and far between early on. There are two ways to infiltrate the battalion of bitterness and resentment: perspective (or simply the right information) and forgiveness. We’ll talk about both of them tomorrow in more detail, but I’d encourage you to ask yourself today, both betrayed and unfaithful, what bitterness and resentment are you holding on to? In what areas do you need to get help to begin to let go of that bitterness? What is it that you may be blind to right now in your own recovery? 

For many, including myself, remorse came over time as I came to my senses and got healthy. Immediately upon disclosure, I was sorry I got caught more than I was genuinely sorry for the damage inflicted upon my spouse. I hear lots of times that betrayed spouses are furious that there isn’t any remorse on the part of the unfaithful for their actions. They wonder how they can commit such grievous acts of betrayal and not be perpetually begging for forgiveness. It’s more normal than you would think and it’s complicated to unpack. Yet, here are a few reasons why remorse may not be there yet. They’ve been living in a dream world for quite some time. It didn’t happen overnight it won’t be fixed overnight. Clarity usually comes in stages not in an instant and unfortunately, the betrayed spouse is not usually the vehicle through which remorse occurs. The unfaithful spouse has to arrive there on his or her own or it will not be authentic.  They still feel justified in their affair. They may be angry at you and fueled by resentment, so their affair still feels as though it was justified. They feel they needed to get their needs met since you, according to them, were not in tune with what they needed. They are ambivalent and not sure where they want to be. It’s too early on in the process, and they may still be trapped by their own self-deception. Their deception and aloofness fuels the disengagement from what you’re feeling and wanting. They are incredibly selfish. Affairs are about themselves and right now, that’s all they are thinking about: what makes them happy and produces the greatest good for THEM. It’s possibly an exit affair and they are moving on. You pursuing them only makes them feel more in charge, and may in fact be enabling them. They may be on their way out and one of the best things you can do is not chase them and get healthy yourself. It may be time to protect yourself financially and emotionally.   Their self-esteem was low till they met the affair partner and now you’ve discovered their double life, so their natural instinct is anger. They’re mad at you for ruining the party and ruining their fun. Their anger then produces a sorrow for what they’ve lost, what their choices have cost themselves and even their affair partner. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the unfaithful to be initially far more concerned about the affair partner than their spouse. The truth is, remorse usually comes over time, as a byproduct of the right kind of help and expertise. It arrives in stages and if managed correctly can be a bridge to a changed life and a restored marriage. While this is not an exhaustive list of reasons why remorse may be absent, all of them can be conquered and remedied. If your spouse is showing little to no remorse, I would highly encourage you to find out why and take steps to get expert help as soon as possible. If you don’t know where to start try the First Steps Bootcamp or attend EMS Weekend.  

In my previous post we talked about wandering away, over time, little by little. No one just wakes up and has an affair and ruins their life and their spouse’s life. There are reasons an affair happens, and then there are more reasons a spouse stays in an affair and refuses to quit.  Left to ourselves, void of accountability and continual connection with our spouse, I truly believe we are given to wandering, looking elsewhere for affirmation and boosts to our self-esteem. Without a plan, we’ll eventually fall prey to some sort of call for our attention from somewhere, or as many of us here know, someone.   As I alluded to, we have to be calculated in our recovery, even after an affair, if we want to not wander again. I can hear many of you already saying “wander again….you mean I have to be concerned they may do this again?” Yes. You do. You must. But not forever, if you get the right help. In no uncertain terms, relapse is possible. Some therapists say relapse is inevitable, but none of the staff at Affair Recovery believe that and I certainly do not as well. However, and this is a big however, I do believe, as does each professional staff member at Affair Recovery, if the unfaithful does not receive help from an expert who has been through infidelity before themselves, the likelihood the unfaithful will do it again rises to over a 90% certainty in the next three to seven years (as quoted by Rick Reynolds). I’m sorry it’s a punch in the gut, but the fact is, they must get the help they need if they are going to not act out again.  Here are some specifics on how to not relapse once you’re in recovery. Get the best help possible. Do not use a “one size fits all” approach, utilizing a counselor who has never been through infidelity, but is simply a ‘professional.’ Read as many articles as you can on the site. Go to an EMS Weekend, or take the EMS Online course. If you’re an unfaithful take the Hope for Healing course. You’ll need specific help to be able to heal and prevent relapse. Once you’re in recovery, attend other resources to strengthen what you’ve healed. It no longer has to be infidelity based, but more marriage based and continual support for all aspects of marriage. The mediums are endless of which you can find this help. Don’t believe that just because you are incredibly sorry NOW that it’s enough to prevent relapse in the future. The fact is, the unfaithful’s own will power and commitment wasn’t enough to prevent the affair in the first place. Now, they’ve had an affair of some sorts already, and they still want us to believe their own efforts or will power is enough to stop them from acting out again? No. It’s just not enough. More times than not, they will act out again. Life gets in the way friends. Right now you or your spouse may be as broken and as sorry as can be. However, in the next three to four years, regular life will return. Life will get in the way. Bills, work, raising kids, life pressures, health issues, you name it. If the healing and lifestyle change has not happened, all it takes is the right circumstances to create another opportunity for relapse. The quality of care you receive and the dedication you show to its implementation and life change because of it, will be the determining factors of your recovery and relapse prevention. Meaning, if the unfaithful takes the stance of “well, we did therapy and we did what we were supposed to do, it will never happen again: we’re good, let’s move on,” and doesn’t have a change to the way they live, trouble is on the horizon. Finally, if recovery has truly taken shape, the unfaithful will know they must avoid high risk situations. They will understand how to identify potentially vulnerable situations and they’ll know what to stay away from, and they will know how to communicate both openness and vulnerability to you. They will live a lifestyle of remorse and humility not just a mentality of ‘yah, in two thousand and whatever, it was a rough year. I was a jerk. But we’re healed and we’re all good. I don’t want to talk about it ever again.’ Just to clarify, a relapse doesn’t always mean the unfaithful spouse is back at the strip clubs (or whatever their struggle has been), it simply means you’re falling back into old patterns. Becoming emotionally distant, not bringing temptations to light, flirting with strangers just for fun- these are all examples of the little relapses that lead to bigger relapses. Be on watch for these behaviors, as I’m sure this tiptoe towards the line is what originally caused you to cross it. Don’t flirt with infidelity, and stick to your new life and new behaviors you learn during recovery, and you’ll be able to enjoy a more fulfilling and more intimate marriage than you ever dreamed possible. 

It’s not uncommon to hear a spouse say, “It was like they changed overnight. All of a sudden they were just different.” It happens more often than it should. We wander and cheat. Our wandering, however, doesn’t happen overnight. That’s the illusion; that the unfaithful wake up and all of a sudden we don’t want to be with our spouse anymore and we want to venture out to “greener grass.” It’s simply not true. Sure, one night stands happen all the time. Alcohol convolutes things and impairs judgment, but even in a one night stand our actions that lead up to putting ourselves in a dangerous, high risk situations are usually not in an instant but over time. It’s a slow fade when it comes to moral impairment and compromising our integrity and character. As an unfaithful, my wandering began when I let things slide, slowly but surely. Call them “seemingly unimportant decisions,” or call them the little foxes that spoil the vine, but it’s over time that we wander and implode. Here are some examples of what I did which aided my wandering away from my spouse and from my commitment to my marriage. They are not exhaustive, nor in order, but mere examples of what I did to allow the affair to happen. I allowed frustration to rule in my heart rather than a commitment to push through the resentment and inconvenience I would feel when I brought things up to Samantha. Rather than being willing to fight to get clarity, insight, and common ground, I allowed frustration to deceive me into thinking ‘she won’t care anyway.’ Or, ‘she will just push back and it’s not worth it.’ I gave up trying to understand or be understood. My affair was not her fault, but I just gave up internally when I felt normal resistance from her instead of fighting for my marriage. I didn’t take enough days off from the demands of work, business and people. I was simply too tired to work through our challenges and our difficulties. I gave my best to my staff and various meetings and not to my spouse and day by day allowed other priorities to slip in. I justified the little compromises and then justifying the bigger compromises till before I knew it, I was in way over my head and saw no way out. I believed the lie there was no way out and that I might as well keep living this way. There was a way out on day one of my affair and there was a way out of my affair the day before I was exposed. I couldn’t see it. I gave up that it was there. The deeper truth is, I didn’t like the way out I saw. I didn’t want to humble myself. I didn’t want to come clean. I liked my darkness and my double life more and had you approached me two and a half years earlier, I’d have punched you if you said I was going to make the choices I would end up making. I would have laughed at you and mocked you and called you every name in the book had you suggested I would end up doing what I had done. What seemed so ridiculous at one point, became real life to me but a year or so later.   We wander over time friends. We don’t tell our spouse about it most of the time. We internalize it and give it far more air time in our heads and hearts than we should. We get hooked privately before we ever get hooked publically. Next time I’ll share thoughts on how to avoid wandering and relapsing in recovery. 

When dealing with recovery, there are three main components which must be healed and addressed. We mistakenly think it’s just about the marriage and if we can heal the marriage, we can return to safety and security and the trauma will magically disappear. I’ve heard it a thousand times, “we need to save our marriage, it’s all about the marriage.” The problem is, there are two other primary components which must be addressed as well, or the marriage will never truly be saved or even really safe. The three facets are you, your spouse and then your marriage. So often we jump to trying to restore the marriage that each spouse does not get the recovery they need personally, thus putting the whole marriage ecosystem in jeopardy. If it’s just about saving the marriage, the darkness in me will never be addressed, confronted or healed.  If it’s just about saving the marriage, then the darkness and the trauma and the pain in my betrayed spouse will never be addressed.   How can the marriage ever be saved if one or both spouses remain in pain and trauma? It just doesn’t work. As many of you have realized, if one spouse is stuck the marriage in many ways remains stuck. It doesn’t have to be, but many times it does. My suggestion would be to get the help YOU need to gain ground in your own recovery.  While you can feel powerless to change the situation, I would encourage you to take aggressive steps towards getting yourself healthy. Notice the word aggressive. If you feel stuck, and like the marriage is stuck and your spouse won’t take action, minor adjustments may not be enough. I’m not sure what aggressive means to you, but what I do know is that if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting. Our tendency is to just calm things down and get into counseling and address the marriage. Here is where we often experience colossal failure. We are trying to save the marriage, but we haven’t addressed the root cause of the affair, or the residue in our spouse from the wrecking ball that showed up one day and devastated their entire life. This approach is destined for failure, and I know it personally. I hated addressing my own darkness. I wanted regularity. I wanted the old life back. I wanted to find some sort of consistency. Without getting the right kind of help, we never gained any ground. My hunch is it’s the same way with many of you. I would highly suggest you look for the First Steps Bootcamp launching this week. The launch day is Wednesday (tomorrow) to be exact. It’s a wonderful program for both of you, or even just one spouse to take for their own necessary healing. I hope and pray you’ll give it some thought.  

How many times has the betrayed heard this statement: “You need to get over this and move on…?” Once is enough to produce violent retribution in the mind of the betrayed I’m quite sure. To hear it time and time again is to communicate indifference, shame and to perpetuate the implication that you (the betrayed) do not matter. It further implies you do not have feelings which need to be validated or cared for and that what happened wasn’t that bad after all. But we, the unfaithful, want you to get over it for a few reasons.  They are not necessarily dignified, and these are both facetious yet delicately accurate. They are reasons and we are seldom coherent to what is really going on early on in recovery so we push for you to get over it quickly. Here are some reasons why we, the unfaithful, need you to get over it: If you don’t get over it, we’re not in control. We typically control much of life and much of the marriage and if you don’t get over it, we don’t feel in control. When we’re in control we feel empowered. It fuels our dysfunctional adrenaline.  We then are not ourselves and we then do not think straight. You not getting over it upsets the apple cart if you will and kicks against the bullying we use to make life and marriage work. If you make us talk about it, we feel shame. We don’t want to feel shame. Shame lies to us and makes us think WE are something bad, when in fact, WE are not something bad, but have done something (lots of things) bad and there is a huge difference. But we are not healthy enough and we need you to get over it so we don’t have to explore the raw and jaded darkness within our hearts, minds and souls. The more we talk about it the more we have to come to grips with the stupidity and selfishness within ourselves. Our heart rate spikes, our inner child cries and rages and we feel uncomfortable and in our selfishness, we don’t want to be uncomfortable. Life is about having a good time and just enjoying being in the present. If you don’t get over it, we have to humble ourselves and give you time to heal and we’re not about humility right now. We’ve justified this affair time and time again and you not being able to be "justified" into moving on doesn’t sit well with us. We need you to move on and move down the road as that’s what we do: we move on. We’re wrecking balls. We don’t stay and think through most of what we do as we’re living by emotion and living by craving.  So now, to have to explore why we did what we did, makes us insecure, scared and paused in our human wrecking ball tendencies. If you don’t just get over it, you empower yourself and we’re not used to that. You also take away the assumption power I have to just assume we will be OK and good to go. I’m at peace when at some level life is predictable and you’ll be here. When you don’t give me the impression that you’ll just be fine and follow my lead for the next days, weeks, months and years, then I’m uncertain and can’t assume anything. When I’m secure I’m in charge. When I’m in charge, I feel good. When you don’t stand up for yourself in terms of your feelings or reminders or triggers, I feel good and can stay on my auto-pilot which brought this whole thing up anyway: my autopilot.  My will. My needs. If you’ll just get over it, I’ll be fine and all I’m really thinking about right now is me.  

The unfaithful cheat and then they have the nerve to be angry….how does that work? It sounds crazy, but upon further review it makes sense. I was angry when my affair came out. I was a lot of other things as well: numb, confused, shocked, disengaged and disconnected. My classic reasoning system was “Well, if she would have been more aware of my needs, maybe I wouldn’t have cheated.” “If I wasn’t just a fourth kid, maybe things would have been different.” Lunacy, I know. The unfaithful typically will resort to anger as a secondary emotion. We often times feel an intense amount of guilt, shame and condemnation and instead of sharing those feelings, genuinely letting down our guard, and being vulnerable, what the betrayed see is more and more anger and hostility. Here are some reasons why we’re angry: We’re angry at ourselves. Why did we do what we did? Why did we allow ourselves to get sucked into this nightmare?   We’re angry at you. Now, we’re finally coming clean or we’ve finally been caught, and we’ve stuffed down our anger at you for perceived rejection and now it’s coming out. The timing of it is horrible, but we’re maybe finally tapping into frustration we felt for years. Problem is, we should be angrier at ourselves than you, but we can’t reason through our emotions very well right now. We’re an angry, confused, mess. We’re angry at our dumb decision to stuff the frustration over the years, especially because we know that if we’d have handled it differently we’d never be here. We’re angry at the thousand chances we had to do this right and that we chose the wrong way every single time. Now we’ve blown our lives up and have no clue how we got here and how to ‘get back home.’ We’re angry at God for allowing it to happen this way. Why didn’t he intervene? Why didn’t he make things come out another way? Why this way? Why now? Why didn’t he stop us from doing what we did in the first place? We’re angry that we’re not in control and can’t make you forgive us, let us back in the house, or be bullied into quickly forgiving us. We can’t control you and usually we are able to control everything. But not this time, and not you. We’re spiraling. We’re angry you that you want to talk about the affair as it only makes us flood and reminds us of our shame and how much we hate ourselves. We’re angry because we feel powerless. What we really feel is fear, but we show it as anger instead because we feel like we have lost the ability to be genuine and can’t be vulnerable. We’re angry at what our lives have become. We never saw this coming. 

Today is the 13th anniversary of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack upon our nation’s soil. From moving pictures all over social media, to commemorative speeches and ceremonies, it’s a huge reminder of what happened 13 years ago. For those of us old enough to remember that day, we’ll truly never forget where we were, what we felt and what the nation experienced. Anniversaries are tough. The first year anniversary of D-Day of an affair is probably one of the toughest anniversaries to get through. Our first year anniversary we were doing very well. So well, in fact, that I rented us a suite at the Four Seasons downtown and we had a pretty wonderful time. I tried to do the best I could to help distract from the agony of the huge reminder August 26th is for both Samantha and me. The attempt to distract Samantha didn’t work, but she said I did receive points for trying. Part of the reason anniversaries are so tough is that it brings back all the memories, all the hard times, all the pain, and all the raw agony of the event itself. It all becomes fresh all over again. The fact that you even have an anniversary date of the horror of betrayal at all is a huge reminder. Betrayed spouses express the feeling of being stuck all over again. They talk of how the memories they thought they had a handle on come rushing back with a vengeance. The visual reminders flood their memories and their thoughts. That’s what anniversaries do. But it gets better. “Does it really?” you’re probably asking. I promise you it does. For us, it’s been nine years and I have to remind Samantha that it’s the anniversary date of our D-Day. She truly doesn’t remember anymore. Sure she knows it’s in August and yes, she knows it was about this time, but the emotions and surrounding flood of reminders no longer flood her the way they did. One year when I knew she was keenly aware of it, I used Google Maps to get pictures of every house we lived in over the last 19 years of our marriage. It took some creativity to get actual pictures, but I was able to do it. On each picture of the house, I wrote “I loved you here.” Then on the next one I wrote “I loved you more here…” and so on and so on. It was one of the best ways to counter the anniversary’s attack and she absolutely loved it. If you’re an unfaithful spouse, I know it’s a reminder for you as well. It brings everything full circle. The life you now live. The new normal for your marriage. The shame of what an idiot you may have been or the confusion of what you originally felt seems like a new friend that’s come to stay with you again for a few days. Here are a few helpful tips that help Samantha and I during anniversaries: The new emotions and reminders will subside again. Remind yourself you’re not going backwards. It’s the anniversary of a huge trauma and by nature, the emotions come back with some significant punch. Don’t worry. You’re better than you were then. You’re stronger than you were then. You’re doing better and moving past it. It’s merely an anniversary and these kind of anniversaries attack. Don’t give it the airtime it wants. Do not let yourself sink back to what you used to think, used to feel, used to want, used to believe. You’re healthier now. Don’t allow yourself to dwell on it all day and all night and convince yourself that you’re not any better. Use some aggressive self-talk and/or prayer. As you read the statements above, say them out loud, to yourself. Say them in a prayer if that helps. But you have to declare these things out loud. You have to be aggressive about them. You’ll need to stand up for yourself against the emotions and the reminders of it all. Don’t go quietly. If you lie down to the ‘temporary emotion’ of it all you’ll slip backwards. The farther backwards you go, the harder it is to regain the momentum you’ve worked so hard to gather. Do not allow its subtle voice to become a friend. It’s not a friend. It’s an attack. It’s a strange voice. Find a new way to celebrate it. If the finances are there, consider replacing the D-Day Anniversary with a new commemorative celebration. A night out? A nice hotel, massages, dinner, you name it.  A nice drive up the coast or through the valley?  As all of you know, you’ll have to be extremely sensitive to the reminders and memories your betrayed spouse has. It will need to be something new, something fresh, something out of the box, something strategic. You can do it, but it will require discretion, strategy and probably prayer! Most importantly, don’t give up. Fight back against the reminders. Whether it’s been one year or six years and even if you’re still stuck. Refuse to surrender to depression or hopelessness. Stand up for yourself and your future. Call a friend. Have a drink (but not too many). Listen to your favorite music as loud as you can in the car. Find a way to break free, your future probably depends upon it. 

Today’s post is directed towards the unfaithful. I’m certainly hopeful the betrayed will shout a big ‘Amen’ to my thoughts today, or even show this to their unfaithful spouses. Having been an unfaithful myself, believe me when I say there are no stones being thrown at you today. I’d only be throwing them at myself as well, and to go a step further, it would be completely self-righteous to lay judgment on someone who is just like me, an unfaithful. A concept that’s hard to really grasp for some is the reality that our actions (the unfaithful) at some level will determine what the future looks like.  Quite often I’ll ask a betrayed spouse this question: “Are you open to the restoration of the marriage?” The answers are all over the board, but one thing is pretty sure: most, if not all, are watching to see the actions of the unfaithful to then determine if they want to save the marriage or are even at the very least ‘open’ to the possibility of it. Yes, it’s a bit of a ‘wait and see’ approach, but who wants to open themselves up to the worst kind of violation all over again? Who wants to subject themselves to repeat cheating over the next decade?  Who wants to reengage emotionally mentally and even physically with someone who is unsafe and offers nothing more than “it’s over, move on” to base the future on? My wife Samantha was emphatic that she wanted to see how things went and then make a decision. She couldn’t give me an answer as to whether or not she wanted to save the marriage. Internally she did, but she wasn’t saying that to me for fear that I would bully her into recovery. At the onset of it all, she was merely open to it, but it was going to be the way I lived my life now, in front of her and the kids, which would help her be won over towards restoration or be led towards divorce. Now I know what you may be thinking. This isn’t about being a doormat and if you’ll simply kiss up to your hurt spouse and be a bit of a droid of some sorts, then sure, why wouldn’t they want to save the marriage. Free slavery, right? After all, they’ll just abuse me and make me pay the rest of my life for this mistake. Seldom do I find betrayed spouses that genuinely feel that vengeful for long, and even fewer in number are the spouses who want to punish their unfaithful mate after they’ve received expert help to piece through their emotions, feelings and comprehension of it all. Overall, your betrayed spouse hasn’t made it their life’s work to punish you; they just want their life back. What they’re desperately wanting to see here (and feel free to help me out and chime in below, betrayed spouses) is to see that you’re safe to give redemption and restoration a shot. How you begin to live now will give credence and indication to safety or lack thereof. How you handle therapy and discussions and how you show empathy and humility in light of the entire discovery process will pay dividends for you or against you and your potential restoration bank account. How can you expect your spouse to decide on the marriage when they don’t even know who their spouse is anymore? It’s the simple truth: how you live now and in the coming days, weeks, and months will either make your spouse feel safe and open to moving towards you or will make them pack their bags. While it’s no simple fix, and while it’s not a two-step formula in the least, it is true that as you display empathy and safety as a new-found revelation and lifestyle instead just a momentary time of clarity, will create space in your partner‘s heart to pursue restoration. 

After my earlier post this week, I had some wonderful talks with many who are navigating through the fight for their own heart. As many have affirmed from their own journey, it’s no easy task. From underlying bitterness and resentment to blaming and even feeling justified, we have several land mines we must walk through each day in our journey towards personal healing and restoration. Not to go unmentioned, as a few indicated, we must remain passionate to care for our spouse’s heart.  It should be on the forefront of our mind and dedication. However, for this series and the immediate thoughts of today, I’d like to stay focused on our own healing. Somewhere, sometime, we ultimately must cry out to get healthy and healed and free, for me. (Yes, we hope there is a huge payout for my spouse, my children and my future, but stay with me on this emerging thought). If I’m doing it all just for my spouse, then I’ll stuff down what is really going on and look for the giant band-aid to simply save my marriage and calm things down right now. If I’m doing it all just to save the marriage, I’ll most likely not get real with my spouse or worse, refuse to get real with myself and confront the dysfunction inside of me. I have to want to get healthy for me. I remember saying to Samantha, “If I’m doing this all just to please you, I’m reverting back to codependency and just keeping you happy, rather than going deep into my soul to see repair and restoration which is what you want in the first place anyway right?” While she stood a bit confused, she could see the lights coming on inside of her and inside of me. It’s common to start the initial journey towards healing to please our spouse and save our family. However, the right recovery protocol will eventually help you find that pretty soon, the motivation must be for me. If it is not, we are going to find ourselves frustrated and unable to dissect our true needs and dysfunction. It in no way means we must marginalize our spouse, or keep our spouse out of our personal journey. It also in no way justifies that we need to go ‘find ourselves.’ Rather, it goes to the main artery of our motivations to launch out and remain in recovery. 

Life comes at you fast. Between pressures and responsibilities, obligations and duties, each day carries fluctuating odds on how long it takes to sometimes lose it. I hate to sound like a downer but lately there has been a good deal of pressure I’ve been walking through. Finding the balance to manage everything has taken some work for sure. To those struggling with the effects of infidelity, each day is a long haul. For the betrayed it’s excruciating with reminders, triggers and confusion. The task of finding hope can seem exhausting in and of itself. Rising above the roaring waves of depression to simply care for kids, go to work, or care for your self can feel like a upward trek that has no end. For the unfaithful, their journey is challenging in that it also feels endless and like they are continuously fighting uphill. Will it be this way forever? At the end of the climb, is there a life repaired and restored, or is it a new life, without their spouse and family and a plaguing reminder of how they failed? The confusion and perceived helplessness can suck the life out of you before you take your first deep breath in the morning. We often times find ourselves fighting for the heart of our spouse. It’s gut wrenching when we try and fight to care for the condition of another’s heart. Quite honestly, we can’t. With children, we do our best and try to train them, love them and care for them, but with our spouse it’s radically different. We can’t control them or always see what they are feeling or experiencing or even doing behind the scenes. It’s frustrating as all get out to try to care for their heart and be met with opposition, indifference, or worse, outright defiance and resistance. We’re left with the need to care for and fight for our own heart. What I’ve learned most recently is a deeper understanding of the nobility and necessity of fighting for the condition of my own heart in the face of an attack from life itself. My heart is my responsibility. Infidelity is traumatic and feels disabling. Nevertheless, my reaction is my choice and my approach to it is vital. Whether you’re betrayed or unfaithful, you must take up the cause of fighting for the condition of your own heart to ensure you are not imprisoned the rest of your life. Not by your spouse, or by challenges and pressures, but by the condition of your own heart which will build bars around itself if you’re not diligent to preserve its health, healing and clarity. 

Several of my friends have had their kids transition into college this fall. From a large gallery of pictures on Facebook, to parent blogs, to a multitude of tear-filled conversations, I can tell you I am not looking forward to the time when I have to do the same. I’ve already had a tough enough time with my oldest making the transition to high school, and I know I’m going to blink and he will be attending college. Transitions and interruptions to life as a whole are tough. Just yesterday I had a phone conversation with a woman who is in the public eye and whose life has been shattered by her husband’s infidelity. Her life, her husband’s life, and her family’s life will never be the same again.  To say it’s a transition is to put it lightly and to say it’s a mere interruption to life is far too cavalier of a statement when it involves this much pain. Nevertheless, for the sake of today’s post, I’d like to make the case that these high level interruptions to life are transitions in and of themselves. More specifically, life as we know it has to be interrupted for our focus to be changed. Infidelity caused me to change what I was looking at in life and what my heart and gaze were fixated upon. I had become enamored with my own wannabe celebrity status and how many people I was speaking to and how many planes I was on and who I was having dinner with each night. I lost focus on the Lord, humility, thankfulness and Samantha’s needs. As Rick would say, “I let it become about me, and I never win when it’s all about me.” I’ve come to see, not minimize, but see our lives blowing up 9 years ago as an interruption to auto pilot. Its effect was that of an atom bomb to Samantha and our lives as we knew it. On a deeper level, it caused us both to get off auto pilot and see life completely differently. I had to allow my value system to be completely rebooted and Samantha had to see our marriage rebooted. I’ll never justify my affair or imply that at some level my affair was Samantha’s fault. I’ll say that till my passing. Yet, we had both lost focus and we both had allowed ourselves to become prisoners of dysfunction, hurt and selfishness. Today, by my own choice, I have to choose to interrupt my own life to adjust, alter and reboot some things. It’s one thing to adjust when you’ve been deceived and self-absorbed, but it’s a completely different thing to adjust life when it’s not having to be done to you. You decide to do it of your own accord. It’s allowing the interruption you feel in life to be used to cause you to see things differently, see yourself differently and even see your spouse differently.  These interruptions can absolutely change the entire fabric of your personhood and understanding of life itself. I would challenge you to identify what needs to be interrupted and what needs to be shattered to pave the way for healing and personal restoration. Yes, it would have been wonderful to interrupt it on our own, but most of us unfaithful were not smart enough to make right decisions. Our lives have had to be interrupted but all hope is not lost and all potential is not decimated. Take courage today and interrupt your own habit patterns. 

Pursuing recovery after infidelity is no easy or short task. It can seem insurmountable and exhausting on any given day and reduce you to hopelessness within 1/200th of a second. From reminders to triggers to thoughts of what life could have been like, recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. I believe that when you are able to sprint, sprint like there’s no tomorrow.  When the pace slows, it’s about finding a new pace. I’ve seen over the years Samantha and I find new paces. Some were thrilling and so enjoyable; some were memorable for all the wrong reasons.  Yet, in a surreal way, there was a pace to it. As you’ll hear from both Rick and myself, as well as almost anyone who has gone through infidelity and has their head on straight, this is a long road but it isn’t impossible and doesn’t have to always be excruciating. As my previous post stated, for some it’s about a two year ordeal to find a new normal which isn’t volatile and ever changing with the feelings of the day. For others, it can be even longer due to extenuating struggles, confusion or ever appearing new information. While it is a long journey, there are things you can do to help enjoy the ride. While you cannot shorten the journey, when your spouse is helping to create more chaos or even prolonging the pain, you can take control of your own choices and do some things to help ease the pain. Here are a few I utilized when I felt like I was on a different pace than Samantha: Find one or two safe people who you can vent to who will NOT give you advice or try and tell you what to do, but will only listen and hear you out and let you get things off your chest. While you may not be sure if you’re dedicated to your spouse during this difficult season, find expert ‘infidelity-specific’ help and dedicate yourself to that program and that plan with ruthless attention to detail and commitment. Don’t take any short cuts, and don’t give up too early and don’t allow the program you’re in to become the problem.  Dive head first into the right program and curriculum and finish it. Unless of course the program is not working, not infidelity specific, or is not run by people who have actually been through it before. If that’s the case run, run, run from that source of confusion. Stop the blame game. You’re where you are because of what seems like an infinitesimal amount of reasons. But continuing to blame him, her, them, or those people will only chain you longer. You may be right in your blaming and attacking, but it doesn’t make your journey any easier. It only prolongs the pain and only deepens the hole you find yourself in each day. Stop blaming and accept and start to overcome, day by day. Take lots of walks with scenery that is comforting to you. I love the beach. There’s no place on earth like the beach for me and when I’m there, I’m centered. Find a place that centers you and spend lots of time there as best you can. Find an outlet. I struggled to find the right verbiage here, but maybe it’s working out. Perhaps it’s eating better or cleaner. Maybe it’s painting or some sort of artistic expression. Maybe it’s getting a membership to a gym where you can learn to box and beat the living crap out of a punching bag and help you have some sort of cathartic release. Sure, if you’re a male, make sure you have a male trainer, and if you’re a female, find a female trainer or workout partner. For those of us in this ever unfolding saga, that’s just common sense. If you don’t find an outlet, you’ll find yourself wanting to explode more days than not and crisis caters towards bitterness, sickness and overall frustration. You can beat it but you have to get out of yourself and out of the blanket of oppression you probably feel every day. If you have kids, love them and spoil them as best you can. With time and attention and love, be with them and be present with them every day. Do your best to shield them. Love and attention is one of the best shields you’ll find.

It’s easy to find yourself hopeless and exhausted during the process of recovery. Let’s face it, this whole ordeal is a nightmare for everyone involved, none more so than the betrayed spouse obviously. Time and time again though, I find couples who are exasperated not by the infidelity per se, but the frustration of trying to heal on their own, or with a ‘one size fits all’ counseling approach. Let me be so bold to tell you that’s a recipe for disaster. With no desparaging remarks towards any counselor or pastor, rabbi, priest or layman, the fact is unless they have been through it, and are an expert, they will not get it. I say pretty boldly that Rick saved my life and saved our marriage. Yes we had to do work, and we had to plough through the process (and my darkness and dysfunction) but without an expert like him, I have no idea what life would look like. Regardless of our own unique situation, we need an accurate timeline to shoot for. I have posted one below. It’s optimal as one would hope that a couple and spouse, would shoot for this. It’s impossible for the timeline to make allotment for a spouse who refuses to try or continues to hide information, or PTSD on behalf of the betrayed, that’s why I say this is optimal and something we should hope for. Regardless, you’ll notice it’s not an overnight deal and it’s a process. Dare I say a, painful, difficult, and excruciating process at times. Please take a look at it and I hope it gives you some insight into what we should hope for. Sometimes we get it, sometimes it’s longer, but my emphatic point is, it is evolving in it’s nature. If you want to read Rick’s full article, you can find it here: https://www.affairrecovery.com/newsletter/founders/2010-03-timeline ​

When recovering from infidelity, emotional flooding will most certainly be a piece to the puzzle. When flooding arises, chaos seems to ensue. If you’ve ever flooded emotionally, you know it’s excruciating. Many describe it as an influx of almost uncontrollable emotions where flight or fight seems to rule the day and our heart rate spikes at least 20%. Attempting to curtail this flooding with a simple “get over it” or “what’s wrong with you” or “lookout, here we go again” ensures certain disaster. It will only intensify heart rates, emotional flooding and instability and the speed in which things like dishes, silverware, books, cell phones or anything else within arm’s reach is thrown by the spouse who is flooding. Flooding is real. If you’re an unfaithful, I assure you this is not an excuse for chaotic violent behavior. But imagine your worst memory. I mean the worst memory you can fathom where you felt betrayed, abandoned, raped, molested, you name it. Then play it over and over in your head. Then think of a million ways this memory can be replayed and triggered between 70 and over 100 different times a day and see how it feels. I could go on, but I’m sure you get it. When flooding occurs, the opportunity at healthy, constructive communication is gone. You or your spouse is flooding and typically, the spouse who is being flooded upon if you will, feels completely helpless. The worst thing the floodee can do if you will, is to react to the flooding and try to either one up the flooder, or try and engage them at their level. They simply won’t be able to act rationally and will not listen to rational thought. They may not think that or agree with that statement at the time, but in retrospect many admit to such overwhelming emotion. They are flooding and are in a hemisphere you cannot reach, speaking a language you cannot compete with, and are at a heart rate which is running faster than you can imagine.  So what do you do? Here are a few suggestions to handle flooding. 1.  Purchase low cost but efficient heart rate monitors. Once they get to 100 beats per minute, take a time out.  All rational and reasonable conversation is now lost and you’re probably going to say or do things depending on who you are, which you both will regret very shortly. Nothing good happens after 100 beats per minute when you’re arguing. 2.  Take a thirty minute time out immediately and go for walk, get some water, fresh air and time to simply cool down. Maybe it’s a fast walk or simply sitting on a bench and letting your heart rate calm down, your anger subside and allowing clarity to reenter the picture. Thirty minutes may not be enough and it may take an hour or two, or even later that night or in the morning.  Have a time out protocol. 3.  A time out protocol needs to be established before flooding ensues. When one spouse feels like things are out of control, they need to take a time out. There needs to be a hand gesture of some sort that will suffice for the signal. Either Samantha or I would put our hands up slowly and say “I’m taking a time out.” At that point, we agreed, we were done, right then, right there. The spouse that raises their hands is the one who leaves the room. No following the spouse who called time out. No trying to get the last word or jab in. No violating this procedure or else more trust will be lost, more damage will be done, more confidence will be lost and you will not have a safe protocol to utilize to minimize the chaos you both are probably stuck in. Here are Rick’s thoughts on what to do for 30 minutes or what to do when you start talking again: What to do during the 30 minutes: 1.  Try to find something else to focus on such as reading a book or lying down. 2.  Do not think about what you’re going to say when you come back together. 3.  Don’t obsess about how angry you feel at the other person during this time. Rather, it’s a time to cool down so the discussion later can be more productive. Upon returning to the discussion: 1.  Both people focus on what aspects of the solution will work (rather than focusing on what won’t work). 2.  Together, they choose parts of both solutions that will make both parties satisfied. 3.  Use “I” statements. Be flexible and look to compromise. Listen to see if you can understand how your mate is feeling and communicate your understanding. DON’T: 1.  Focus on “all or none” solutions 2.  Be rigid in only being open to your solution (e.g., “my way or the highway”) 3.  Criticize the other person for their idea. 4.  Eye roll or shake your head in disapproval non-verbally.

Lately Samantha and I have had several challenges to deal with. Most of them stressful and most of them fear-induced. One of the most difficult struggles has been the idea of what will happen when this particular event happens, or when this milestone happens. For those struggling with infidelity the idea of being five months down the road, or five years down the road can seem impossible. Many of you are simply trying to get through today and there is not only a spiritual precedent for such thinking but there is a recovery principle of simply living ‘one day at a time.’ I get it, believe me I do. When we are considering what we’ll have to face and what we’ll have to endure down the road (which we can’t even see sometimes), I’ve come to a great understanding of the concept of ‘future grace.’ Without getting too technical, one can define grace as: God’s empowering ability to do what you’ve been called to do and be who you’ve been called to become. When I think back upon what seems like thousands of moments of pain when my infidelity became public, the thought of ever finding hope again seemed impossible. There is one night, a few days after disclosure, I remember vividly. Samantha had left and taken the kids to get some air and clarity. I went for a drive and found myself driving for hours. I ended up going through a sobriety check point in Laguna Beach, California. When it was my time the officer asked me what I was doing out at 1am. I said I was out for a drive to clear my head. He asked several questions and was doubtful I was telling the truth. I then reached for my Bible and held it up to him and said, “Here’s my Bible. See, I am a pastor, really. I’m just really depressed.” The look on his face was astonishment. “I thought you were a pastor, why are YOU depressed?” I just looked at him and said, “Well, I’m not a pastor anymore. Life has changed,” as my voice cracked a bit. I was sure I was going to be field tested in a heartbeat due to the holes in my story. Out of mercy, he let me go and I was on my way, even more hopeless than the 15 minutes before when the conversation started. Later that night, I walked on the beach and cried and left Samantha a voice mail in tears telling her that I loved her and only her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and the kids and no one else.  I think I fell asleep on the beach for a few hours. Looking back, I wonder how I ever made it through countless days and nights like that. But it was grace. There was a grace then to help me and there will be a grace to help me when I encounter all the things that I’m having to face in what many call mid-life. This grace we need is there for us. It is inexhaustible and it takes the pressure off of the question of “How will we handle this, that or the other?” “How will we get through this?” or “How will we handle it when we hit this milestone?” There will be future grace available for you my friend.  It will be there. Take heart, future grace is available for you and for me. 2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

While doing some recent reading on the parenting of teenagers, I came across an excellent definition for the word compassion. The word compassion comes from the Latin word ‘compati’ which literally means to suffer with or suffer together. I wonder if we in recovery can’t take a lesson from this etymology and begin to lean in to the pain and hurt we have caused another? I wonder if we are truly suffering with our spouse in their pain and hurt? I can honestly say early on, I wasn’t ‘suffering with’ Samantha at all. I was self-absorbed with my own pain and what my affair had cost me and what my affair had done to my future, my family name, my position, and my destiny. I was also concerned with what I had done to my affair partner and her family. I was so disconnected with truth that I was sorry I got caught, not necessarily healthy enough to be truly compassionate or empathetic towards Samantha for the pain she was in. Like many I felt far too justified in my affair and self-righteous anger. Almost every day I find this to be true of so many other unfaithfuls. Like me, they are usually not healthy upon discovery. Whether they are caught and forced to come clean, or have their own epiphany and wakeup call and come clean on their own, they’re usually just not sober enough to connect with the brutal impact of their choices. They usually have been involved in the affair for quite some time and to think they are going to think rationally or have this quick timeline to healing and sobriety is just unrealistic. It will take time. It will take the right kind of help. It will take an expert’s help to lead the unfaithful down a road of clarity and compassion that usually comes in stages with several highs and even more lows.  Many a betrayed spouse is frustrated and even shocked at their unfaithful spouse’s ambivalence and almost sociopathic disconnection with what they have done to their spouse and family. The truth is, it’s part of their coping mechanism to keep going in life, seemingly unfazed at the trail of destruction left behind. While normal, it doesn’t have to be that way if the right help is brought into the equation and both parties are willing to pursue help and safety.  The University of Berkeley’s Science of a Meaningful life puts words to this concept in a very telling way: Compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism, though the concepts are related. While empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. Altruism, in turn, is the kind, selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion, though one can feel compassion without acting on it, and altruism isn’t always motivated by compassion. While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose. This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the “bonding hormone” oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, caregiving, and feelings of pleasure light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people. We have to ask ourselves, are we caring for those we’ve wounded? Are we “suffering with” those who are in pain and trauma? Alternatively, I will be so bold to ask you, the betrayed, are you too suffering with the spouse who is broken and condemned? Though many will say their spouse is not in fact, empathetic or compassionate in the least bit, I know that there are those who truly are in fact, overwhelmed with grief for their choices. I would ask if you are being compassionate with them in their pain and hurt? While it may seem too much to ask, the fact is, if a marriage is going to survive the pain of infidelity and one day enjoy the rich bond of restorative grace and healing, someone will have to dare to be selfless and care for the other. If the unfaithful is unbroken and continuing to display a lack of regard for others, I would highly suggest keeping your distance from them until they are safe. 

Just the title alone evokes a reaction inside all of us. “How dare anyone accuse me of feeling sorry for myself.” Early on, I did feel sorry for myself. I felt sorry for my affair partner, my spouse, my kids, the church, you name it. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I wallowed in it for a while, but honestly I didn’t have much time to wallow for too long as I had to move our family out of state, find help for us, find a new career and get moving to provide. Believe me, if we had a stockpile of money lying around, I’d have felt sorry for myself and not done anything for a long time.  I really did want to curl up in the fetal position and cry. It’s normal that early on when our affair or indiscretion is exposed, we feel sorry for ourselves and even hate ourselves. We genuinely feel guilty for our choices or actions. We see the pain and anger in our spouse and realize (to a certain extent) we’ve hurt them and delivered a blow to their heart and soul that is our fault. If you’re like me, you almost immediately retreat to thoughts like, “what an idiot I am” and “how stupid could I have been.” I fall back towards thoughts of “here we go again…..I just can’t do anything right.” I also find myself full of grief for what I’ve done, yet that grief doesn’t really find it’s purity till I own it to Samantha, my spouse. When I just wallow in how stupid I was, or how selfish I was yet don’t show any empathy towards her, the true victim, I am still self-absorbed. Then I’m tempted to rise up in anger and stand upon some platform that says “Yah I blew it….I’m a jerk. How are you surprised, get over it. You blow it too, you just don’t admit it out loud.” Yes. I’ve said that and felt that time and time again in the past. It’s incredibly hurtful and damaging to Samantha. It communicates no grief or empathy for what I’ve done. What I have found to be the best move for me is to own what I’ve done both to God and to my spouse.  I apologize and ask and hope she can forgive me and realize I’ve injured her. But I can’t feel sorry for myself. I have learned a mantra from over 9 years ago: “I have put myself here. I have put myself here. I did this. It’s my choice. But God, you’re here with me and promise to never forsake me. Help me Lord.” As long as we are feeling sorry for ourselves, or giving way to shame, we are still self-absorbed. We make it about us, rather than our spouse. We make it about how we feel, rather than how they, the injured victim, feels. Our spouse sees it and is put off. Here is a quote from Rick I found to be very helpful instead: Commit to address the problem. It’s not enough to just take responsibility for wounding your mate. They also need to see that you loath your behavior in the same way they do, and they need to witness action on your part to eliminate the problem. The ability to see the betrayal in the same light allows the two of you to become partners fighting against a common enemy. Efforts you make to this end serve as proof that you’re both on the same page when it comes to trying to protect the relationship. More importantly, if you are the one setting up the plan and following through, then you begin to provide the necessary ingredients for trust to grow. ----The Truth About Trust

If you’ve been on social media today, you probably know the trailer for the upcoming movie Fifty Shades of Grey has come out in a flurry of illicit excitement. I’m pretty active on social media, and to see and read the comments by so many is a bit humorous, but also frighteningly indicative of a gaping need we have inside our marriages for this sort of eroticism. For those suffering the effects of infidelity, the idea that this sort of intense sexual excitement can one day be active within the confines of marriage, especially a marriage after infidelity, can seem laughably unrealistic. I’d like to take today to share with you that it is in fact possible and available. But it takes work. After all, what’s easy isn’t usually the right road. It was easy with our affair partners to cultivate this sense of erotic intensity based upon lies, deception, lust, and perpetual newness. It wasn’t real life with bills to pay, kids to raise, pressures to perform in life and business and endless opportunities for offense and disagreement. Years ago, I too fell prey to the idea that marriage was where fun and erotic behavior went to die. It’s just not true. This message is based on cynicism and unbelief, which is more than pervasive in society’s views about marriage. Samantha and I have had incredible seasons of erotic behavior, with clean consciences and freedom even post–affair. The problem is that it takes work, creativity, planning and sometimes outside help from trusted expert sources. We think it should be easy. We think we shouldn’t have to ‘work at it’ when it just clicked with our affair partner, even though for many (though not all) we originally clicked with our spouse early on. That click we felt with our affair partners was usually a fantasy anyway and not real. The truth is, life gets in the way. It just does not cater towards healthy and exciting sexuality in marriage. An erotic marriage requires work and humility. An erotic marriage, post-infidelity, requires expert help, work, humility and a commitment on both sides to do what it takes to achieve an exciting and fulfilling sex life. It seems that in the media and over the cultural airwaves of society, we hear about more couples who do NOT enjoy exciting marital sex than those who do.  It’s very possible, but as I said before marital eroticism requires humility, openness, vulnerability and availability. These shades of necessary steps are progressive in nature and will not just happen. No one bonks you on the head and suddenly you’re incredibly passionate for your spouse. It requires a process and more understanding than you can imagine. While Samantha and I have not ‘figured it all out’ in the least, we have gained incredible ground in the fight against cynicism, deadness and apathy in marital sexuality. I hope and pray its one day the same for you. Don’t give up. It’s possible. 

In my own story, the infidelity was almost debilitating to Samantha.  Had our youngest, who was about 5 weeks old, not needed Samantha as much as he did, I’m just not sure she would have gotten out of bed most days.  Yes, my affair was gruesome and altered our lives forever.  The fact that I was intimate both emotionally and physically with my affair partner for over two years was ruthlessly difficult to hear and wrap her mind around.  I heard this quote from a therapist not too long ago and I’ve found it to be immensely true:   “Most people can forgive the infidelity….it’s the lying they can’t get over.”   What makes recovery impossible is the perpetual drip feeding of new information rather than getting it out all at once.   The “wait, there’s more” feeling not only paralyzes the betrayed spouse, but starts their recovery timeline all over again, breeds mistrust, and gives them no chance to gain any ground emotionally.  Often times it’s not only once, but again and again and again.  As recovery begins to take shape, lying will make momentum next to impossible.   Even if not outright lying, the appearance of lying can make a betrayed spouse flood like crazy.  When an unfaithful spouse comes home and recaps their day and says they had burgers for lunch, yet the spouse finds a receipt for chicken fingers, it’s the appearance of more lying.  Carelessness with details can cause more damage than you may understand.  Early on in recovery, as a couple is newly starting to build momentum, the details need to be myopically clear and accurate to help rebuild trust over the next season (which is usually a long period of time). The reminders and flooding a betrayed spouse feels is like an assault on them each time there is a question of what the unfaithful spouse did or said.  To say a betrayed spouse is then triggered when there is ‘misinformation’ is an understatement, and while it may not seem huge to the unfaithful spouse, it is.  The unfaithful spouse can take the approach of, “I just forgot what I had for lunch. It’s not like I’m cheating again or doing something illicit, I just forgot what I ate.”  I would disagree and say you were careless with your details and are not taking the approach towards building trust with enough care and concern for what your betrayed spouse is dealing with.  Their recovery must be managed by you too.  Before you freak out at that statement, every unfaithful spouse has to have an idea of how their actions will affect their mate.   To say “it’s no big deal,” when in fact, it will trigger a big deal in the mind of the betrayed, takes no account for what is going on inside the betrayed.  There is a bigger picture which must be understood.  NOTE:  This particular entry does not in any shape, fashion or form condone an approach of “see, I’m being honest now, get over my affair(s).”  That’s insidious.  Today’s entry is more for perspective and understanding the mind of a betrayed and how the unfaithful must go the extra mile to help support the other’s recovery.  

Thank you for your many comments on my previous article “Withdrawing.” I’m glad it helped some of you and always thankful when people go above and beyond and take the time to offer positive, heartfelt feedback. Continuing with the conversation about communicative dysfunction, I’d like to introduce another form of faulty communication patterns called Finding the Bad Guy. Rick introduced it to us and we both were stunned when he described it, as it painted the exact picture of our communication early on. We are experts at finding the bad guy. It’s a phrase that describes when couples allow themselves to slip into a pattern of attack-defend, find out who is wrong and at fault and therefore identify the villain. If we can simply find the villain, all will be explained away, the solution will then be to fix that spouse (the villain) and we can move forward. If only. (As you can imagine the unfaithful never win at this game.) The villain will just not ever be found, as the unfaithful often times blames the betrayed for their affair, hence the villain has been found.  The betrayed answers back with identifying the villain as the unfaithful, which if he or she had never done what they had done, we’d never be in this position in the first place. The unfaithful will then fire back with “if you’d have done (or not have done) A, B, or C, I would have never cheated and we’d never have gotten to this place at all.” Round and round we go, finding the bad guy. To this day, 9 years later, Samantha and I easily slip back into finding the bad guy about various things in life. It’s a normal pattern, but although normal, it’s highly accusational and destructive. Its power lies in the feeling that we know what is right, and that we know who is wrong and it’s not us. It’s falsely empowering and will drive us to wound our partner if not curtailed and deescalated.  Personally, I’ve found its demise lies in deescalating it through a few tactical approaches: We can’t blame our spouse for what we’ve done. We’ll just never win and were labeling our spouse the villain, which is combative in nature. It empowers the cycle. We must own what we need to own. Ask yourself what you do to exacerbate your spouse? What are you doing that is causing them to lash out and protect themselves due to you labeling them the villain directly or indirectly? Focus more on what you feel. When you communicate, talk more about what you feel inside, or how you’re being flooded or triggered (even if you’re the unfaithful you can be triggered and flood). When your spouse talks about what they feel, do not argue with what they are feeling. It’s impossible. Their feelings are theirs. Allow them the freedom to feel that way and seek to understand what you may have done or said to make them feel that way. I’m quite sure you do NOT want them to feel what they are feeling, so perhaps what you said made them feel that way and own it. Apologize for it. Realize they are flooding in response to something you didn’t probably mean to do, but are flooding nonetheless. Mutually respect each other’s feelings. Even if they are the unfaithful spouse, their feelings are valid and to be respected. Wait for another, more opportune time (perhaps 30 minutes later, or a few hours later, or even the next day) to come back and readdress the issues in a much more proactive, non villain-finding way. Find a way to come together at the end. For some, a few minutes holding hands or praying for each other or for yourself with your partner there may work. If you’re not a prayer person, perhaps holding hands for a few minutes without talking, or hugging for a few minutes without talking or any sexual contact will help bring unity. I hope these help. While still a rookie at all of this, the fact is Samantha and I feel like we are experts at Finding the Bad Guy from doing it for so long. There is hope to break the cycle.

I’m a pretty outspoken individual. I was a communications major in college as well as a pretty ruthless debater at times.  I made my living with my mouth as a pastor and speaker for over 13 years so I can formulate an argument in a heartbeat usually. I would often times speak openly in front of hostile crowds in heated situations, dodging fruit, trash and even spit at times. I’m grateful for all of it. Samantha would hate to argue with me and hates confrontation. After 19 years of marriage and a ton of help from Rick and other mediums, we’ve learned a thing or two about our communication patterns and styles within our marriage.  Samantha will also attest that she is not the best communicator when it comes to her feelings and her emotions. I on the other hand will press and press and press till I get the answer of info I’m looking for. (Insert eye roll I know.) Early on in recovery, this pattern just would absolutely fail miserably. Samantha would feel attacked, or pinned in, and she would withdraw or turtle up for shelter. Nothing would make me feel like putting my hand through a wall more than Samantha withdrawing, shutting down and refusing to talk. When she would do that, and usually just when I was making a great point that I perceived as perfectly objective and spot on ‘save the day’ insightful, my anger would skyrocket. To say it was me trying to control the situation, and Samantha, would be a gross understatement.   She wanted to turtle up, hide for shelter and find a safe feeling. I wanted to hammer it out and get things clear and get back to normal life. There was the rub. She didn’t feel safe. Now, early on, her need to feel safe wasn’t exactly healthy in the way it was playing out. I had to hear her out, not react one way or the other per se, and just process what she was saying and deal with it. There was little room at all for disagreement or another perspective. It also meant I wasn’t able to say anything which as you can imagine, was relatively excruciating. I was to take a season of time, usually a few hours or afternoon, or a day in some extreme cases, and pray about what she said, process it, think it through and then come back for another peaceful, safe discussion. It was hard. But it was what she needed then. We could talk for hours about communication patterns and seasons in this recovery process of healing from infidelity and betrayal. Today though, I’d like to highlight one key element. The element of Samantha needing to feel safe. Unfaithful, if your spouse does not feel safe, all communication is almost useless and will never accomplish what you want to see happen. You’re better off taking a walk, extinguishing the intensity of the moment and waiting for a more opportune time. Betrayed, if there is never a safe time, then something is wrong and you’re possibly using the need to feel safe to punish your mate. Revenge will never, ever, ever work in recovery. Unfaithful, if you can’t simply hear your spouse out and process what they are saying, you’re simply listening so you can find another time to speak, and formulating an argument while you’re listening and that’s not only subjective, but dangerous, and attacking. (I was and am an expert in this and it only makes things worse) It will take help to not do this, especially if you’re a type A personality and used to controlling situations and discourse. Betrayed, if you don’t feel safe, I’d recommend throwing your hands up slightly in a place of surrender and saying “If you keep making me talk and keep making me engage you, you will be wounding me further. I can’t keep talking. If you push me I’ll say something hurtful or attacking: please stop.” Unfaithful, if you keep talking, God be with you as this is when the pain will only get worse and you’ll be creating even more damage for both of you to have to deal with in the next few days, weeks and possibly years. I’d encourage you to stop, take a walk and get a glass of water. You have hit critical mass and nothing good is going to come of talking anymore. You cannot win. You may win the argument, but you have lost your spouse. At the risk of going on too long, I’d simply ask you if you can identify the principles of safety that your spouse needs? If you can, identify them and practice cultivating them. If you cannot, go to your spouse and ask them to help you understand what they need to feel safe.  

I was on Twitter today, and read a comment in business which prompted a parallel question. The question is, “What is this situation making of you?” We could substitute the word situation for ‘recovery timeline,’ road to recovery, affair, addiction, or gut wrenching miserable life.. As you and I both know the substitute words are endless, and none of them seem to relieve the pain and trauma. But we can’t argue with the reality that this ‘situation’ is making something of us. We reserve the right to choose what this will make and is making of us. Years ago I sat with Rick in his little office and cried like a baby at how difficult and painful my life was. I kept saying how bad this was and how horrible life was and that everything sucked. I was in a new city, in a new career with zero clients and zero friends in Texas. I had no ministry, seemingly no future, no love, no intimacy at home and very little hope. Rick’s reply was, “How do you know this is really bad Samuel?” I wiped my eyes and said, “Because my life sucks Rick, and it’s all my fault.” His reply was, “Maybe this is really good though. Maybe things are falling into place. Maybe, just maybe, this all needs to happen so you’ll get it, and Samantha will get it, and you’ll be able to look back upon this season and understand what all this was making OF you.” I hated that conversation, but it was truth nonetheless.   I realized I had a choice to decide what the process was going to make of me. I couldn’t control Samantha, and I couldn’t control the hate mail, or the nasty phone calls, or the hurt of others, but I could control what I let this whole thing make of me. I’m not perfect, as anyone in my life will tell you. Yet, I’m nothing of what I once was. Samantha will attest to that for sure, and my life in more ways than one attests that I’m no longer who I was. It’s a good thing. Samantha is no longer who she was. This is making something of you my friend. It’s really, truly your choice what you allow it to make of you. I meet people all the time who have allowed it all to make them bitter, resentful, distrusting and challenging to even talk to.  This isn’t a simple caveat to make all of your life and all of your pain make sense, so forgive me if it comes across that way. My only intention is to hit somewhat of a tuning fork in you, like Rick did in me, which caused me to change the way I reacted to what was going on in my life through recovery. I’m still in recovery and it’s still making something of me. 

The consequences of infidelity often times will back a person into a corner where they feel forced to take matters into their own hands. It’s not uncommon for someone to react in a certain way they never knew they were capable of. The trauma and pain of it all is more than anyone has usually had to encounter in their lives and any other residue of hurt and betrayal is tapped into, forcing even hidden emotions to come to the surface. The struggle for control permeates both sides of the infidelity and either spouse may feel like they are out of control on any given day. The natural inclination is to take back the power and take back the control by any means necessary. To say it becomes combative is an understatement, and emotions are at an all-time high. To introduce forgiveness into the equation is not only controversial for some, but down right disempowering to them. It’s at this point where some betrayed spouses will use forgiveness as a tool, or a weapon, to get their spouse to take action or ultimately end things with their affair partner. I understand it, and anyone who has been though infidelity will understand the enormity of desperation on either party to get some healthy movement. The problem is, it just doesn’t work and is manipulative at best. To use forgiveness as manipulation means, “I will not get healthy myself, till you do this or that.” But why would we delay our own healing and our own well-being to try and force our spouse to act? Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves and is utilized to free our own minds, hearts and emotions from overpowering and imprisoning hurt and pain.  Why would we ask them to do something first for us, which ultimately is at our own heart’s reach, which will not only benefit ourselves, but our kids, our mental physical, emotional, and physical well-being and even our marriage? We really seek to bloody our mate and continue to punish them for their choices. At the core of our heart’s intent at this moment is vengeance and retribution which will only complicate matters, none more so than our own healing and our own well-being. To refuse to forgive until our spouse does something or makes these changes, will only backfire and keep us in our own prison. There is definitely a time for consequences and ultimatums, but not at the expense of our own recovery and not out of a manipulative approach which is rooted in vengeance and retribution.