Survivors Blog: 

Samuel

At the EMS Weekend we attended, Rick talked about the unfaithful spouse being “selfish with their shame.” It’s an interesting concept, which essentially refers the unfaithful spouse continually making it about them instead of the ones they’ve hurt or betrayed. It’s continuing to wallow in their shame, or continuing to focus on what their choices have cost themselves, and not their spouse. It’s being more concerned with how much of a failure they may appear to themselves and to you, than how concerned they truly are with how hard of a time you, the betrayed spouse, is having due to their choices. To say it’s dysfunctional is an understatement. Shame is that way: self-absorbent. It makes the issue about me and not the ones who are suffering. Shame says, “I AM something bad.” Grief, conviction, or as some may call Godly sorrow, says “I’ve done something bad.” There’s a world of difference between the two, and until we can be unselfish with our shame, I’m not sure we’ll ever be free, or much worse, ever help our spouse (or victims) get free. Shame in many ways contributes to narcissism and continues to engulf the unfaithful spouse in ways that seem or appear as though they are humble, contrite, or sorry for their choices. The problem is that as long as we are focused on ourselves we can never be free and never help those we’ve hurt get free. We also make it next to impossible for our betrayed spouse to forgive us as we don’t appear safe at all. Shame does all it can to get us to focus on our own pain, our own feelings, and our own struggles. One of the most freeing things that happened to me was when I was able to see how self-absorbed I truly was.  I wasn’t able to focus on what Samantha was dealing with, and her pain and her triggers and her reminders, as I was overwhelmed with my own pain. I don’t mean to justify the plight of those overwhelmed with shame, however I do mean to give context. It really is a tough, if not excruciating, place to be. It’s a bit of a vice grip to be honest. We’re faced with great loss, our double life has become exposed, we feel like a complete failure, and we have no idea how to get out of the mess we are in. This mess by the way, is a mess that WE have created. Much worse, we’ve justified our affair time and time again, blamed you for it internally in order to keep it going, and now we’re torn as we can’t really see clearly now at all. We’re lost, and the only constant in our life is deception and in many ways, we have no clue how to act normal and be honest. Everyone but our affair partner is our enemy, and we’re not sure how to come out of the clouds and find truth. In short, we’re a mess, and until we get help, we will continue to be a wrecking ball that picks up speed.  The only thing that could be worse, the only person that could be in worse shape, would be the one’s we’ve hurt and betrayed. The one’s we’ve lied to, deceived, blamed, and now violated by our choice to cheat, are the only ones more in pain than we are, and when we see you reveal any of that pain, we immediately think of ourselves more than we empathize with you. We have no idea how to get free, and we truly have no clue how to help you heal. Quite frankly, we’re even more lost on how to help ourselves, regardless of what we say. I don’t mean to leave you lost and in pain, but I will leave you with what helped me: an expert. At an EMS Weekend, the lights came on for me in a way that I had never known before. To this day, one of my strengths NOW is to allow Samantha to emote about life, kids, financial issues, and identify with what SHE is feeling first. There is hope friends, there truly is. 

I grew up in a very rough part of the inner city. Being raised by a single mom with no dad around, I was forced to become pretty tough for a variety of reasons. It wasn’t uncommon to have shootings by our house and surrounding areas, and we had our house broken into several times growing up. My success in sports in high school, college and professionally was in many ways due to my refusal to quit and raw aggression which was evident in the way I approached the game. I’ve quit very few things in my life. There is however, a huge difference between giving up and surrendering. One of the biggest challenges in our recovery was me learning to surrender. Realizing I just couldn’t control how fast Samantha forgave me or got over her pain took what seemed like an eternity to understand and absorb and ultimately surrender to. Like many of you betrayed spouses, it’s impossible to control your spouse. You can’t make them get it or come clean or break free. They have to want to get help, or get healthy, as you choose to support them in their recovery. No amount of begging, prodding, commanding, yelling or screaming will make them get it any faster. You cannot control them, their choices, or where their heart is. I wish you could, and I wish I could have controlled Samantha’s timeline to healing. But that was me wanting to be in control all over again, and that was part of the problem of both my theology and personality. I wasn’t able to then, and I’m not able to now. What I was able to do, which changed my life and I hope changes yours, was surrender to the fact that the only person I could change (and barely change at that) was myself. The truth is, if we really get honest with ourselves, we can barely change ourselves. We need a third party to change us and move in our lives to produce conflict with who we are. It’s this conflict with who we are which spills over into hope and produces courage to go forward, allowing our lives to be remolded, both for the unfaithful AND betrayed.   I finally realized one day that I couldn’t do anything to make Samantha want to have sex with me again, or forgive me or stop flooding. I could only do all I could to get healthy myself, while learning how to better handle her struggles. I had little to no other choices and the quicker I realized that the better off I, and my kids, and ultimately Samantha would be. 

I know this question reverberates through the minds of many who are trying to heal, and I must say I too asked myself that same question early on in recovery. To give you an idea of the furnace Samantha and I were stuck in (and I know yours may be worse), we had lost everything but our kids, our cars, and one friend who decided to stick around though it seemed like hundreds left us. We were in a new city, and shortly after moving to the new city, my best friend (and only true friend, yep, the one who stuck around in the previous line) decided to move to another state to plant a church. The only other friends we knew here in Austin were Samantha’s friends, and they hated me and wanted nothing to do with me. I was in a new career in sales, which only flourishes with relationships already in place, and I had none. It seemed each week like Samantha and I blew up and blew apart further and further. To this day I carry a Holiday Inn Express hotel key in my wallet to remind me of the nightmares we lived through and how many times Samantha asked me to leave because she needed space. Each week someone new would read about my story on the internet, and email my job or call my cell or do all sorts of nonsense which only exacerbated the pain and loneliness and shame I was enveloped in. There just seemed to be no relief or end in sight. The only person I wanted to cry with and talk to and open up to was in more pain than I was and we had no clue how to help each other. Was it all going to be worth it? Was it going to somehow turn around? Would there be any joy, or any relief in sight at all one day? Were we really gaining any ground or just spinning our wheels, hurting each other more? The truth is, yes, it would be worth it, but some days just hurt like hell. Nothing made it easier and nothing made it fun, but if I wanted to see my marriage restored, I knew I couldn’t quit. I hit a fork in the road time and time again. Early on, I was doing it for the kids. They were my principle motivation, but after we found Rick and Affair Recovery, we found momentum and we found tools we needed. It would get easier, but it wouldn’t get faster. Though the motivation wasn’t perfect on the front end, it was enough to get us into some expert help to build on what was beneath the surface. It was worth it. It really was. I’d do it all again, and if it had to be even harder than it was then, to have what we have now, I’d do it again and again and again (the recovery, not the infidelity, mind you). The problem is, when we are in the middle of the struggle, stuck in the in-between, we can’t see what lies beyond the present confusion, gridlock and overall agony we are in. To find a vision or hope for what can be when what is sucks amazingly, will just about kill every impatient bone in your body. It’s hard to come home sometimes. It’s even harder to stay home. I know for a fact it’s incredibly harder to even allow us to come home if you’re the betrayed. The truth is, right now, it seems like it’s not worth it. But we live in a society which expects instant gratification, or instant forgiveness and reconciliation. In recovery like this, it just does not happen. If it does, many times it’s not real, and the pain and the anger and the shame will come back quicker than you expect, and only reinforce just how unhealed you both truly are. The power is in the process and you absolutely must trust the process, when the process is administered by someone who is a professional and has gone through this themselves and seen restoration to their marriage. I’d like to recommend a few things for those of you who are pondering whether or not it’s worth it: 1.  Find someone who has actually come out on the other side and has seen restoration and ask them questions. Consider me a friend and if you’d like to email me and ask me some questions you can do so at [email protected]. I’d be happy to help in any way I can. 2.  Get into an expert recovery program like you’ll find here on the site. Don’t be naive enough to think you can do it on your own. Please forgive my bluntness, but you can’t do it on your own, and one type of professional help or pastoral counsel does not fit all. You can’t find healing in your own power and understanding. I’ve seen far too many people quit not because of the infidelity or addiction per se, but because of being exhausted of trying to solve a cancer-like problem with a craigslist solution. It’s just the truth from personal experience. 3.  If you’re struggling with anger and hostility, find an outlet. Maybe running, or maybe kickboxing. Maybe journaling. But you’ve got to get it out of you. For me, I would meet with Rick about once a week or every two weeks and vent, and then say “OK Rick, let me have it. Kick my butt, but help me understand this.” I also took up riding Motocross, and it was a wonderful outlet to my anger and frustration. Make sure the person you choose to talk to is safe, of the same sex, objective, and will give you honest truth that is everyone’s best interest not just your own. You know they are safe when they tell you how wrong you are. 4.  Realize if you keep going back to your affair partner or addiction for solace and understanding, you’ll never get healthy and quite frankly, it’s not worth it. It’s NOT worth it if you’ll keep wavering between two people who will both suffer immensely due to your decisions and inability to live a life of honesty, openness, and truth. 

Webster’s dictionary defines frustration as a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs. I have to tell you, as impatient as I am, and as wired as I am to control, I have experienced incredible frustration; not only in recovery, but in life in general. Even when I was young, I can remember extreme times of frustration and the sense of paralysis I felt at not being able to get the outcome I perceived to be best for me. Anyone else see the glaring pride there? Quite frankly, I’m easily frustrated in life even now and I have to be careful for this particular season I’m in right now. One thing that helps me is perspective. When I see things in a long term perspective, or from God’s perspective, it helps me to understand why I am so frustrated, or why I’m so upset that I’m not able to control the situation. When I try and control people or circumstances, I relapse in my behavior and understanding. Often times in recovery, if there is one universal feeling that many experience, it’s pure, unadulterated frustration. I knew it well with Samantha. I was frustrated at her inability to get over the triggers. I was frustrated at her inability to connect sexually, or why she couldn’t see that my affair was birthed out of unmet needs (so I adamantly thought, anyway, before getting healthy). I was frustrated at myself, as I wasn’t able to make the changes I wanted to make fast enough. Ultimately, I was frustrated and mad at God for not doing what I wanted him to do, when I wanted him to do it. I feel for any of you who are deeply frustrated with your mate and/or your circumstances. Regardless of what side you are on, it’s so easy to get frustrated and our hurts, our pains, our trauma and our fears exacerbate the entire feeling and process. It reduces us to feeling paralyzed and hopeless. But there is hope. Where there is willingness, there is always hope. For starters, if you’re frustrated today, I encourage you to take a step back and itemize what you are truly frustrated about. Get it out of your head and on to paper and then see it from another angle altogether. It will also help to get your mind around what it truly is you’re frustrated about. Perhaps it will reveal an imaginary timeline you created, assuming certain outcomes if you or your spouse continues down the path you’re walking. Keep in mind, that potential timeline may not even happen. It might be from your own pride or impatience. Once you get it out, I’d encourage you to consider the possibility that perhaps you don’t know what’s best for yourself. I’ve just lost a few of you, I know. For those of you who stuck around, I did say that. Maybe YOU don’t know what is best for you. Perhaps there is a bigger plan that you’re unaware of. Maybe what is seemingly bad and terrible right now is actually what you NEED. God the Father frequently gives us what we need instead of what we want. We aren’t great at fixing us. We really aren’t. We are exceptional at thinking we know what we need and self-diagnosing; but more times than not, we fail miserably at diagnosing ourselves, our situation, and our spouse. It’s just pure truth that has been birthed out of my own life, after countless times of assuming I know what is best, only to realize how stupid I was being and how short sighted I had become. For example, when my affair became public, it hurt multitudes. None more so than Samantha, and I’d have told you it was the worst thing that could have happened to us. Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to us and to me, and in the best timing. The man I’d be now, the human wrecking ball I’d still be, the lives I’d have hurt, the lives that would have been even more damaged would be more than I could count. The dysfunction in our marriage, the hurt and pain and bitterness in Samantha’s heart, would be diabolical. I’ll never forget when Rick once told me, very directly I might add, “Stop judging your life right now and live it. Get the help you can get, do what you need to do, use patience, and stop judging what may be the best thing for you right now. Maybe you need to be tight on money for humility. Maybe you need to have difficulty so you can be purified to get the pride out of you. Maybe what you hate is what you need.” I’ll share more later, but perhaps you too need to hear this today?

More times than I care to admit, I see couples falter and squabble over whether or not to save the marriage, and I think that is putting the cart way before the horse. Early on, the fight shouldn’t be whether or not to save the marriage. The fight should be over whether or not we are going to commit to the process. Through the process you will eventually decide on whether or not to save the marriage or go separate ways. Trying to grind it out on your own is guaranteed disaster. Or getting help from someone who has never gone through it before who can’t understand either side with any significance, professionalism or expertise is also going to guarantee frustration. If there was one hang up Samantha and I had when we first started out in our recovery, it was that we didn’t understand we needed to be faithful to the process. The process hurts. The process is tough. The process will wear you both out for sure. But it’s a process. It’s designed to get at what needs to be gotten after (as we say in Texas). If it’s not “gotten after” it will for sure, one day, get after you. From personal experience, I assure you this is the case. Early on, one must commit to the process. That process is not staying or going in the marriage, per se. It’s not deciding right now what we must do ultimately, but committing to a process, however long. This involves getting the right help to decide what we are going to do to ensure little to no regrets (although in life, I have learned there will always be regrets and the best we can hope to do is minimize them with all our might). If we can commit to the process and THEN make a decision, it will help alleviate the trauma and pain of the decision-making process and ensures you are committing to getting healthy first and foremost. Some just don’t want to get healthy, and I will give you that. But many do, and just don’t know how to get there. A proven process is the right next step to decide what is best for you, your spouse, kids, and all other valid concerns regarding the marriage. Once Samantha and I committed to the process and allowed the process to begin to work, we gained momentum and understanding in a way that changed our daily interaction by as much as 50%. We also began to shift our expectations of the entire process. We realized Samantha needed time to go through her grieving and hurting, and I needed time to get reprogrammed in terms of shame, guilt, grief and pride. (And honestly, my pride took longer to understand than almost anything.) It wasn’t going to be easy, but we finally knew it was part of what needed to happen and we were no longer surprised by it. We understood it. We embraced it. We allowed it to work and bring clarity and healing throughout the timeline we gave. Samantha gave it a year to see if I would do what Rick said I needed to do and put into practice the lifestyle changes that needed to happen. Within 8 months she would tell me that she never thought I could change the way I had changed, and that she wanted to remain married to me. Watching me begin to “get it” and implementing what I was learning through the process helped give her security and understanding. She felt safe, and was changing in her own right as well. That is part of what the process is meant to deliver if restoration is possible.

Often times, when confronted with discovery or the early beginnings of recovery, many think they will be dealing with this infidelity the rest of their lives. The unfaithful believes and fears they will be a doormat and reminded of their failings and shortcomings the rest of the marriage, and sees little hope to stay dedicated. The betrayed wonders if they can ever trust their mate again, and fears they will have to resort to all sorts of tracking devices, accountability measures and the like. They also wonder if it’s really worth it to make someone want to be with them in the first place. On the front end of recovery, the darkness is far more prevalent than light. It’s almost impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We create a tunnel that is so long, so dark, and has vast amounts of opportunities to take another course at any time and assume that because that is what we feel it must be truth. It concerns me when I hear couples who are too dark in the early beginning allowing their pain, hurt, and growing resentment override their ability to see there is truly hope and there can be a wonderfully restored and redeemed marriage. Alternatively though, I’m also always concerned when I hear a spouse say things aren’t that bad and we’ll be fine and we just need to do this…..It’s typically a sign that the pain and the reality of it all probably hasn’t set in just yet. The middle of the road is a bit more palatable. It’s going to hurt like hell at times, on both sides. It’s going to be very unpredictable and very confusing at times. You’ll feel like you’re at opposite sides of the world communicatively.  You’ll feel like one day you want to be with your spouse, the next day you’ll want to say “And you wonder why I had an affair……you just don’t get it….” It gets western, as Rick says. But if you get the right kind of help, and if you have an expert involved, you will not deal with this the rest of your lives. We don’t. It’s been 8 years and only a handful of people know about the affair, and quite honestly sometimes we laugh and joke about what stupid people we both were at times. Samantha realizes so much about her behavior, and I realize so much about my own lust, selfishness and stupidity.   Sure, the affair partner’s name is hardly mentioned, but at times, her name has been said and no one had an aneurism. Samantha didn’t shoot me and tell me to get out. We’ve healed and we’ve accepted what happened and embraced today. There are untouchables and things we don’t talk about, but that is out of respect for Samantha and me, and not for fear someone’s head would be blown off if it was addressed or talked about. Don’t get me wrong, we do live differently. Samantha does trust me, but in a much different way.  She’ll never trust me blindly ever again. And I don’t want her to. But she’s not checking up on me. She’s not following me around. I live openly and have a few new lifestyle habits I have adopted in my life for my own protection and for Samantha’s security, but I’m happy to embrace them and utilize them in my everyday life. We’re not “there” yet and haven’t “arrived” yet, and aren’t perfect at any level. But what we deal with is normal, everyday marriage struggles. One day, you too will find healing and a new sense of momentum where you are no longer living under the shadow of infidelity and betrayal. If things are challenging right now, it’s normal. Probably more normal than you think. When it becomes abnormal is when you are trying to do this on your own, utilizing a recovery approach that is not specialized and not infidelity-specific. At that point, as a friend I would highly encourage you to consider changing your approach. Even then, there will be difficult days but you will be moving systematically through a proven process towards recovery and restoration. It’s not impossible my friend. It’s not the rest of your lives.  Get the right kind of help. I can tell you, if you don’t get the right kind of help and if you don’t take appropriate action, you may be dealing with this for the rest of your lives. No one wants that. If you’re not sure where you fit, and wonder about your recovery timeline and wonder if you are where you should or should not be, get an evaluation from the team. Call Affair Recovery to get help and understand if you are where you should be or if you need to do something different.

If you don’t believe in God or any sort of divine plan, you may not grab hold of this post too tightly.  That’s OK, and I hope you keep reading. You still may see some things in a new light. At the very least, I hope you can see there just may be available grace to your recovery that you’re not truly aware of yet. I lived in a secret for over two years. A public personality, alleged to be of superb moral character, only to be exposed literally overnight, disappointing a large sea of people. Relationships Samantha and I had built for over 12 years were seemingly gone and dissolved in an instant. To this day, I’m still somewhat amazed by how rapidly we were isolated.   When I was about 27 years old, I began to pastor and speak at several churches across the state.  While doing some fundraising, I came across a gentleman in his late 50’s who was a very high profile leader in one of the largest Christian denominations in the country who heard me speak and had nothing but affirming and encouraging words to say. He went on to mention that I reminded him of a certain pastor who once held crusades and, though he wasn’t Billy Graham, was gifted in his own right. Everyone at the table knew who he was talking about. He even expressed a desire to mentor me in my gifting and speaking. But he had one warning. He said “Though you remind me of this person, do not turn out like him.” I was stunned and obviously said “Well, what did he do?” He looked me right in the eye and said, “He cheated on his wife and lost everything.” I laughingly excused such behavior. At 27, I assure you I had no desire to cheat on Samantha at any level. But here I was, 10 years later and every friend, every pastor, every employee, every accountability partner I had, vanished. I literally had nowhere to turn. It was just a week after discovery, and I was suicidal. (This was months before we would eventually come to meet Rick Reynolds and his team.) At this point we met with two therapists who were clueless on how to help and described me as the worst case they’d ever seen; almost sociopathic.   Hopeless, broke, and suicidal, I was in my back yard praying late into the evening. I remembered the story of the gentleman who I had heard was just like me. He had cheated and lost everything.  Say what you will about what voice it was, but I felt the urge to call him and see if he’d talk to me. Somehow a stranger who I had never met seemed like a comforting friend I could talk to who wouldn’t shame me, hate me, or yell at me. Then again, who knew where this man was mentally, emotionally or spiritually.  Thanks to the internet, I found his name and reached out immediately. I had to trick his secretary into giving me his personal email address, but no matter what she was not giving me his phone number. I emailed him and shared who I was and the story behind me reaching out, and he agreed to talk to me on the phone. That same day we spent an hour on the phone and low and behold, yes, he’d lost everything. Except his wife. And his faith. And his calling. Within a few days, Samantha and I would drive three states away to be with them and spend time with them. With a church of several thousand, and a staff too big to count, they opened up their home to us and began to mentor us. They were absolutely instrumental in our early recovery and were the very voices that kept us from separating early on and from believing the therapists who said I was “the worst they had ever seen and Samantha was best to divorce me and move on.” To this day they are great friends and an example of what we did not see coming…but God did. Isn’t it funny, yet comforting, that some 10 or 12 years before my fall, the Lord knew to plant that name in my mind? To know He saw it coming and knew it was going to happen, yet still loved me and cared enough for me to give me a plan, is awe inspiring. To know he had provision for Samantha and I to find hope, moves me in ways I find hard to describe. I hope today you’ll realize you too are not alone. You too have provision for your recovery. You too have a plan available for healing, even if you don’t see it now. It’s not a guarantee your spouse will cooperate, but it is good solid comfort that there is hope for you too. There is a God who loves you and cares for you and will meet you right in the middle of your pain.

My wife, Samantha, was not going to sit and wait to see if I pursued recovery. I guess it’s better said that she’d wait and see how I handled myself early on in discovery and the beginning stages of recovery, and see if I was really serious about saving our marriage. If I wasn’t, she would end things.   She really wasn’t sure if I still wanted to be with my affair partner, regardless of what I said to her. She actually wasn’t even able to believe that I truly wanted to be with her, considering the last two years of my behavior. After over two years of serious emotional and physical contact and living a double life, there was no reason to believe me at all. Unfortunately, many times a betrayed spouse will wait and see how the unfaithful responds, then take action either way. I’m not a therapist, but when asked this question yesterday, I felt led to write something about it. The fact is, as unfaithful spouses, we usually don’t change because we want to. We usually don’t break things off with our affair partner because we want to. And, though not all of us are this way, many of us won’t get help because we want to. We’ll get help, give in to an EMS Weekend or online course, or begin actually working on recovery because you make us have to. We realize there will be loss if we don’t. Whether that be the loss of time with our kids, loss of time with you, loss of assets, loss of a potential second chance, or loss of the life we live now in the case of divorce-it’s loss we fear. I would say to give us time to figure it out only empowers the affair, and empowers the darkness we are living in. Some might say it enables our dysfunction and selfishness. To give us time and just let us decide where we want to be only envelops us in our fear of taking action either way. We have our affair partner clamoring for us and telling us anything and everything to not lose us, then we have you (and maybe the kids) looking to us for clarity and for us to “do the right thing,” but we have no idea what the right thing is. It’s complicated. The right thing for whom? For you and the kids? Or for me? And our consciences are so seared and so dysfunctional we can rationalize any decision that benefits us to be a good one. We are not healthy. We are not sober. We are a wrecking ball.  We need to have a line drawn most of the time. We need an ultimatum most of the time. We quite frequently need to know that you are not playing games and maybe for once in our lives (and maybe yours too) we don’t get to have things the way we want it. We’ll probably get mad. We’ll probably try all our other tactics of manipulation, bullying, distancing and whatever else you can think up in our inebriated state. We may even go back to our affair partner and complain about you, to them. But ultimately, we’ll more than likely come back and acquiesce and say, “OK, let’s get help. Let’s do ________.” If we don’t come back and do that, and if we don’t come to the point of wanting to get help even when we stand to lose you and/or the kids, or whatever there is for us to lose, fortunately for you (the betrayed) you’ve pushed this situation to the point of where you get to make a choice. The choice you should make and need to make, even in the face of grave uncertainty. The choice to do what you need to do for you and all parties involved, which is to further your own healing and put an end to the insanity of this nightmare. You’ve stood up for yourself, and made a statement that you’re not under my control and you are worth devotion, love, and fidelity. You have protected yourself and though things may not turn out the way you wanted them to, you are taking ownership of your part and getting help and moving on with taking care of you. What this end-choice is will look different for every situation. Maybe you just focus on your own healing and pray that change in you will produce change elsewhere (while distancing yourself from an unhealthy atmosphere at home if applicable). Maybe the unfaithful is removed from the house and the children. I don’t know what the choice will look like for you, but don’t be afraid to make it. The waiting game never works.

My recent posts on the detox process have stirred many who have reached out privately.  Having said that, I think we’ll continue on this topic and see where it goes.  Though complicated, I hope there is some insight which comes from my own experiences and observations.  Someone asked me why I write. Besides Rick asking me to, I simply said, “To give voice to the hurt and pain I caused by my terrible decisions and hope that somehow God can use my mess to help heal others and make sense out of what they may be going through right now.” It’s very common for a betrayed spouse, when walking through their spouse’s detoxing phase, to place expectations upon them.  I think it’s a critical mistake to put unreasonable expectations upon someone who is unhealthy, self-deceived, (self-deluded even) and completely walking in darkness.  To ask them to make decisions which would be loving and respectful when they have already acted in a completely unloving and disrespectful way for so long is unrealistic.  Quite frankly, many times their reasoning faculties are jaded, distorted and not firing properly at all (to put it mildly).  They may agree to the expectations in some cases, but walking them out will many times be next to impossible, depending on how deep they are into the affair or compulsive behavior.  Without the intervention of expert help and care to help open their eyes and bring them to clarity, some unfaithful spouses will simply run over you and your expectations and requirements.  It may be from an inability to make connections with what their choices are doing to you, or it may be due to their outright anger and hostility at you for not meeting their needs (which, though unfair, only adds fuel to their sordid justification of the affair).  But one thing I’ve seen too much of and experienced too much of in my own life is they will not act out of integrity and devotion for you when they are still caught up in the affair and have no plan on how to walk this thing out.  They have lived a significant amount of time in hiding, a double life, and now to expect them to act rationally and compassionately when they are caught up in this emotional entanglement is just unrealistic. The pain associated with this is nothing short of tortuous I’m sure.  To know your partner is comparing you or refusing to take action which will show love and devotion, all the while knowing what they are doing is hurting you is almost sociopathic.  However, my submission to you is many times they genuinely have no clue how much they are hurting you or what their choices are doing to you. They have disconnected from their moral guidance system.  For more info and insight on that, please refer to Rick’s exceptional article on Justification and Blame found here:  http://affairrecovery.com/newsletter/founder/affair-dehumanization-and-blame The unfaithful have had to take several points of action to justify their affair to themselves.  To think they will snap out of it, or be able to connect with what they are doing to you mentally and emotionally is guaranteed disappointment. Just look at what they have had to do to disconnect from the pain they initially felt when they cheated or acted out the first time. When we detox from expectations of our spouse, we create the opportunity for greater freedom. It doesn’t mean we release them from responsibility, but we release them from our expectations of them acting rightly, righteously or compassionately.  When we take action and get qualified, expert care that, we can then place rational, reasonable expectations of what is proper behavior for your specific situation. What are those you may say?  That’s where someone on Rick’s team, or Rick himself, or an EMS Weekend can help create safe and reasonable expectations that your spouse needs to act upon.  If they refuse to act upon them and refuse to take action in correspondence with what they have been taught and instructed, it’s at that point a betrayed spouse needs to begin to take specific action to enforce consequences and pull away.  If they do not pull away or bring into the situation some series of consequences or negative impact to their spouse’s unwillingness to abide by boundaries, your spouse has no reason to change. This behavior ultimately shows an unwillingness to heal and a refusal to cooperate by the unfaithful. At that point, I believe a betrayed spouse must begin to pull away and pursue their own recovery.  Oddly enough, it’s usually at that point of pulling away which I’ve seen unfaithful spouses actually start to come around, sober up and begin to cooperate.

I’ll never forget talking to a friend of mine early on in recovery, and I said to him candidly, “I’m still thinking about my affair partner all the time.”  Having gone through it before, he very pointedly, but graciously said to me “Samuel, if you said you weren’t thinking about her, I’d call you a liar.”  It’s part of the ripping away.  He went on to say “It takes time and it takes consistency, and doing exactly what you’re doing:  being open with another man about what you’re dealing with.” Fact is my friends, and I know a ton of you are betrayed spouses, that if your spouse says they are not thinking about their affair partner (when it was a long affair, over a consistent period of time and they have broken it off fairly recently) then they probably are lying.  It’s not a guarantee, but it’s very likely they are afraid to tell you they are detoxing.  Don’t be offended by this.  It’s normal, and Samantha and I almost never talked about it early on. I think she knew I had to be feeling some sort of sadness, but allowed me to deal with it differently than her pounding me about it. Samantha did however ask me if I loved my affair partner.  I remember the conversation as if it was just yesterday.  I did love my affair partner, but had no idea what was truly going on.  I loved the fantasy of the life with the affair partner.  I loved how the affair partner made me feel about myself and life in general. I loved the idea of always being wanted, always being celebrated and admired.  I loved these almost imaginary aspects of my affair partner yes; but did I love my affair partner the way I loved Samantha? No. I truly didn’t, but at that time I was nowhere near healthy enough to totally grasp the difference, and your spouse may be there too. It just might be too early on to understand that concept, quite honestly.  If you’re a betrayed spouse, you may have to draw some very clear lines and stay consistent with the tough love approach to get them to understand they can detox, but there must be forward progress.  Not perfection, but progress.  I was on my phone so often with my affair partner and texted with her so often it was ridiculous.  Driving to work every day, I would constantly look at my phone out of habit, and believe me no one was calling me now.  It was tough, but didn’t last longer than a month or so.  It was more out of habit than any sort of anticipation or longing for my affair partner to reach out.  The detox continued, and I was breaking away.  I had two friends I could reach out to and talk to on this level.  If your unfaithful spouse who is trying to detox doesn’t have another same sex figure to talk to and vent to, it could be dangerous.  They need someone who they can be safe with and vulnerable with, who is pro-restoration and has only the best interest of your marriage and your spouse in mind.  Anything short of that can be even more problematic as I know many of you have experienced before.  If they need an avenue to experience this sort of support from other same-sex supporters, I’d highly recommend Hope for Healing. Tough love may be the way to go to help draw some clear lines and let your spouse know that the time for bearing fruit in their recovery is NOW.  As you’re patient with your spouse and allow them to break away and grieve, they should simultaneously be open to getting healthy and getting insight on what you need, what the marriage needs, and what recovery needs if it’s going to be developing in your life.  Detoxing is gruesome friends.  I actually hate writing about it, as it is difficult to relive some things, but I think it’s the right thing to write on for today.  I only hope it’s been helpful for you both.

When launching out into recovery, one must have an anchor.  The chaos and the confusion of it all can be overwhelming and exasperating.  Not all days are tumultuous, but early on I’m willing to bet you’ll have more chaotic and depressing days, than comforting and reassuring days.  Even now, several years later, I have a few rock solid anchors in my life to help keep me attached, grounded and safe for all the important relationships in my life.What anchors do you have in your life?  Are there any right now?If you're early on in recovery, unfortunately your affair partner or addiction may have been your anchor. It's what kept you sane, and kept you from imploding on your spouse, family or difficulty in life.My affair partner in many ways was an anchor.  The problem was, it was a false anchor that could never ultimately give what I needed, as our dysfunction played off of one another, and the affair proved to be a false sense of hope and security.  Like many of you, or your spouse, what was once an anchor is now a temptation to resist and remain free from.  This will probably require a detox phase.    The detox phase is incredibly painful for both the unfaithful spouse and betrayed spouse, as the betrayed spouse knows the unfaithful spouse is going through such a bewildering period of time.  It hurts like all hell to be honest.  To know your spouse misses someone intensely, who really should never have been in their lives in the first place is about as gut wrenching as one can imagine.  To know you’re compared to another, and don’t measure up to their fantasy, ministers so much rejection, insecurity and hopelessness, it’s hard to put into words.  Looking back now, I see that the comparisons were unfair, unrealistic and based upon self-deception more than they were based upon real life truth.  As I’ve said time and time again, real life can just never compete with fantasy.  And affairs my friends, are based upon fantasy life and not real, true, everyday life with problems, bills, pressures, confusions and unmet needs. The detox phase is a must. Like breaking free from a drug, it is absolutely essential.  If done right, and if pushed through strategically, it can help pave the way to the next season of reconnection with your spouse.  As a drug addict needs to be free from a drug, many times a spouse needs to be free from the affair partner and it will take more than just “time” to see this happen.  It will take time, plus expertise to help translate what is real and what is fantasy and it will also take a consistent curriculum to help prevent relapse. If your spouse has been involved in an affair for any length of time with the same person, almost assuredly there will be a detox phase.  Though excruciating for both parties, it is a must if there is going to be healing and eventual reconciliation.

To borrow from both AA and the Twelve Steps, as well as Richard Rohr’s take on it, here is a fabulous quote which resonates with me and my own life:  “Our troubles are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves; and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he or she does not think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us!”Several years ago, mid-affair, my life was about me; how everyone was to relate to me, how Samantha was to please me, and how my own little world had me at the center of it. Even while serving others, somehow it very easily became about me. I was sick. Sick and unable to see how lost I was.I’m truly in awe at how easy it is to become self-deceived and to allow our self-will, as Rohr said, “to run riot.” We’re naturally bent towards self-absorption, but we can also be very ‘functioning’ addicts who know how to put on a pretty face or hide our addiction to life being all about us.In recovery from infidelity, I’d like to encourage you betrayed spouses to know in your heart that many unfaithful are far sicker and self-deceived than they will admit to. They probably won’t admit, I mean genuinely admit with sincere brokenness and comprehension of their utter selfishness, till they get the right kind of help. And even if they do it will take a while. With respect to your personal situation, every struggle is different, but as they pursue recovery, more and more they’ll look back and see that it was all about them.That’s why I’m amazed at times when I meet someone in the midst of crisis (due to infidelity or addiction) and they think a mere devotional or a simple book will be the key. Those steps are wonderful and great icing on the cake of recovery. But my friends, the type of self-deception and pure dysfunction which allows us to justify our affair(s) or addiction is deep seeded. If the unfaithful is going to get healthy, it will require more than just a book and a couple counseling sessions.  If they are as unhealthy as I was, they’ll unfortunately be able to deceive their way through the counseling sessions anyway. If you’re here, you’ve probably experienced this level of dysfunction, or are living it as we speak.I wish it wasn’t this hard.  But this is where the unfaithful has a chance to own up to just how deceived they were (or are). It’s an opportunity to own up to the fact that affairs are not because our spouse will not have enough sex with us. They are not because our spouse is more focused on the kids, life in general, or career than they are our own needs.To go a step further, our affair or addiction is not due to feeling unloved, ignored or rejected by our spouse. Those issues may make it easier to have an affair and may create an environment where we are incredibly vulnerable for temptation and moral failure, but are by no means the cause of an affair.We have an affair because we’re not courageous enough or healthy enough or “present” enough to get our marriage help. We choose the easier way out. We choose the epitome of selfishness. We choose to not confront our situation or our spouse or our lifestyle. Much worse, we deceive ourselves into thinking this is our only option. There is always a better option my friend.I hope you’ll get help today. I hope you’ll be courageous enough to consider letting your spouse know that you and your marriage need help instead. Let the codependency and the self-deception come to an end today.

am·biv·a·lence--the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someoneAmbivalence can also be defined as ‘being of two minds.’ Or in a general sense, “I want to, but I don’t want to.”In recovery, ambivalence can be a very common denominator for the unfaithful. It’s not always there, but when it is it’s altogether excruciating for the betrayed. An unfaithful spouse may not want to talk about their deep-seated ambivalence, for fear of being hammered upon or ‘shamed’ if they were to disclose it. But it’s there. Deep in the inner resources of their heart and mind, it’s there, trying to eat away at their resolve and their hope.I certainly didn’t want to talk about my ambivalence with Samantha when my affair became public, but it was part of the process.Here’s a quote from one of Rick’s articles which may shed some light on ambivalence:“Since you don’t know what you want, you may find that your motivations to leave and to stay fluctuate each day. Typically, when someone doesn’t know whether to stay or go after an affair, it’s because they are ambivalent about the marriage itself. Half of you wants to stay and half of you wants to leave. Since both desires are so strong, they cancel each other out, and you don’t know what to do. You may discover that if your mate is pushing you to stay, then you want to leave and if they are pushing you to leave, then you want to stay. In that sense, you might tend to be reactive to your mate’s desires rather than actively pursuing your own future.”Since I’m writing to both an unfaithful and betrayed audience, in many ways ambivalence can be a cancer which eats away at both sides of the marriage. It’s been said the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, or in this case ambivalence.I’m not a therapist or counselor, but someone who has been through it themselves and I can only speak from personal experience. Ambivalence from the unfaithful will ultimately torture your spouse. It gives them little hope of a future together, even seems to control them, never allowing them to be too happy that you’re possibly wanting to work on the marriage, or too sad that you are in fact leaving. It’s ultimately manipulation in its purest form as we get to have it our way and we’re calling the shots. I’ve seen it many times do its work and it’s tortuous to the other party.Rick goes on to say these words to the unfaithful:“To use your infidelity (or in this case, ambivalence) as an excuse to exit a marriage – especially since you were the one who was unfaithful – seems to display a lack of integrity. Your spouse at least deserves a chance to hear what you have been unhappy about, and a chance to work on the marriage. You should be totally open with your mate regarding what has happened so that your mate will be free to make their own decisions. Be careful not to try to control or manipulate them by the control of information.”When we’re ambivalent about saving our marriage, there’s always a reason. It may be complicated, and it may be very deep within our hearts, but it’s there. Sometimes it’s the fact that we are detoxing from our affair partner, and we’re wallowing in pity, guilt and self-absorption. Often times, we’re torn: wondering if we’ll be missing out on the life we so desperately want and dreamed about, if we stay with our spouse.While complicated, it’s not impossible, and there is both hope and help to heal.If you’re a betrayed spouse, I highly recommend an article Rick wrote called “How To Get Your Mate To Cooperate.”If you’re an unfaithful spouse, I’d like to invite you to consider that you are most likely torturing your spouse by remaining ambivalent. To continue to waver between two living, breathing people who deserve fidelity, is selfish, self-seeking, and dysfunctional. I was there. I know that hurts, but it’s the truth. Now is the time to take action, and at the very least, start the process of getting expert care to arrive at a decision. Now is the time to get the help you so desperately need to discover how you got here, and begin to take steps toward a decision in an agreed upon timeframe. To not give your spouse and yourself that chance is to act contrary to love. Whenever we are not walking in love, we fail miserably. Except this time, it’s not a failed business or a lost opportunity; it’s failing people we care about deeply.

Triggers can be excruciating. They can steal away your quality of life. Triggers position unresolved emotions and unforgiveness to annihilate any situation which should be enjoyable or at the very least organic.Without taking anything away from the pain of triggers experienced by betrayed spouses, I want to make it known that unfaithful spouses suffer from triggers as well, albeit at our own hands.Just last week, Samantha did something that triggered me in a way that was both alarming and infuriating. I had to remove myself from the situation to get my feelings in check for fear that I would lash out.In the blink of an eye I was transported back to long forgotten feelings of rejection, insecurity and a deep desire to feel affirmed.  My anger at my perceived rejection, which at one time was a huge source of justification for my affair, was center stage and I was stunned at some of the things I was thinking and feeling.I decided it was time to think very clearly about my emotional state. It was a time to forgive on a deeper level.You see, forgiveness has layers. Several layers. The healing of infidelity is never just a one-time choice to forgive. We are human beings who store layers and layers of memories and feelings and reactionary emotions which cannot be addressed or undone in one simple thought or choice of forgiveness. I believe in miracles. I have experienced true actual miracles. So has Samantha. Our marriage is a miracle, 18 years later.But today, what I speak to is the normal grind of recovery that so many of us have had to walk through, both betrayed and unfaithful. Some days it’s electrifying. Some days, it’s just a grind of hashing through fields of emotion with nothing but a machete.We can all get triggered. We can all find ourselves smack dab in the middle of fresh emotions which can lead us astray, or fresh into the arms of forgiveness and mercy. You mean, I the unfaithful spouse, needed to forgive Samantha, the betrayed?You’re absolutely right I did. Numerous times. Just the other day, as the story above paints. Samantha would own that as well. She did in fact, reject me.  She placed unreal expectations on me. Of course none of this justified my betrayal (though it was convenient to blame my affair on all of this). I still had to identify what inner turmoil I was feeling so I could turn around and fight for my marriage knowing exactly what demons I was fighting.When we are triggered we have a choice. To forgive or to forge ahead in our bitterness, self-righteousness and absolute blindness.I hope and pray you choose to forgive today. I hope and pray you choose to understand what you truly are feeling, dissect it and then forgive it all, down to the innermost, smallest level of anger, hurt and pain.It will free you to love deeper and truer, as well as cause you to react differently when triggered…..I had some forgiving to do, and perhaps you do today as well? 

Triggers are typically associated with the betrayed spouse. Research shows that early in recovery, the betrayed spouse encounters between 75 and 110 different reminders of the affair every day. They can be incapacitating and overpowering, making it almost impossible for hurt spouses to reclaim any stable ground. Samantha encountered thousands of reminders, and the courage and perseverance it took to press through them was monumental. The good news is they do dissipate over time and they can be diffused when you get the right kind of help. (Harboring Hope was a great asset for Samantha.) Unfaithful spouse, when you are aware of your mate encountering a reminder, choose humility and own the moment as an immediate first step. Something that worked for me was to actually go to Samantha (not retreat, which was one of my biggest obstacles) and approach her saying something like “Listen, I know that was probably a huge reminder to you. I’m so sorry it was and I’m so sorry that you even have reminders. It’s my fault and I’m forever sorry for that. You have these reminders due to my choices and I’ll do all I can to help you with them. They are my fault, not yours.” Then I would reinforce my love for her and my desire to be only with her.  Often times she was too angry and hurt to even talk, but when she did open up and allow for a moment to talk, I was able to share those thoughts. Yet, here’s an example of a reminder.   One day Samantha read an email from a business client I was trying to close. I wrote something that was simply incorrect word choice. Samantha stumbled upon it and read only a few words and became incredibly upset. My response (when she cooled down) was, “Honey, you can read any and all of my email. I don’t have any feelings for her at all, and it wasn’t the best use of words. If you’d like to call her, email her, or have me contact her or not even try to have her business, I’m fine with that. I’ll do whatever you want or need me to do. The goal is not her business, but saving our family.” Though she was triggered and upset for a few hours, she would later tell me my response to her reminder was one of the main factors that helped diffuse the reminder and helped her find balance again rather than letting it fester. Our response to their hurt and their pain can help dissipate the anguish and despair. How we handle it when THEY are triggered due to OUR past choices will set the course for healing or for collateral damage. What’s funny is, I started to write today about how even the unfaithful can be triggered, and the timeline associated with rejection and insecurity. Oddly enough, my own timeline seems unimportant today. Perhaps next time I’ll write about how the unfaithful can be triggered as well.

 Deciphering what was real and what was fantasy is incredibly clear….now.Back then however, in the middle of the mess, things were foggy, confusing and about as fantastical as they could be. This is a normal point of crisis and confusion for any unfaithful spouse as they face duplicity and double lives.Real life was hard. From the fights with Samantha, to constant miscommunication to the rejection I felt from her romantically and sexually. She was just never happy with me and I could never do enough.The affair however, was filled with incredible happiness, understanding and sexual fulfillment. My affair partner never rejected me, always wanted me, and almost always understood my feelings and concerns. I understood her and always seemed to have the right words to help her feel better about her life, her struggles and her pain. It just clicked.I justified my affair by complaining that home life was nothing but Samantha having babies, disappointment, rejection, stress, bills and responsibilities. You know, mature real life expectations. I was running from it all.When you’re trying to justify your actions, you’ll re-write history. You’ll do anything to make yourself feel better about the shame you feel for the hidden life you’ve developed.Time with my AP was hidden, secret, and filled with escapism.  Eventually I was hooked.Yes it was (and is) much like a drug.But for the grace of God, and our kids, there is no conceivable way I would have made it back to my marriage on my own. There just isn’t.The fact is my affair partner was a fantasy situation. No fighting, sex always working, no mood swings, no bills, no differing opinions, no real life stressors at all: just escapism in every sense of the word.How can a wife compete with that? She can’t. It’s self-deception, lust and fantasy.To think we know how to end an affair or to think we can do it on our own is even more fantastical than the affair. You need help if you’re going to end it. If your spouse is in an affair, they’ll most certainly need the right kind of help to end things and break free from the affair partner for good. Not just any help. Experienced help from people who have been there and lived through the fantasy becoming a nightmare.To think they’ll never do it again, or this time they really mean it and they’ll stop, are equally as fantastical as the affair. Research has proven relapse is almost guaranteed if they do not get help from experts who’ve been there before and know how to teach them how to take responsibility for their own recovery. You, the betrayed, cannot babysit them and keep them accountable. They need to learn how to manage their own recovery and own accountability, along with standards between you both.

I hate to fail. At anything. It ruins me, one could say. Being a performance driven individual, and growing up under a reward-driven system of affection, I’ve always been a very driven, performance based individual.An odd disconnect though, is that I had never been consumed with succeeding at marriage, but only succeeding at my traveling schedule, financial stability, investing and personal accolades.When I failed at my marriage I failed big. I’m not sure I could have failed in a bigger way than I did.When really began to grasp what I had done to my wife Samantha and so many others, it was almost incapacitating. Getting healthy meant walking through my pain at first.They say the truth will set you free, but first it will make you incredibly miserable.I’ve learned to see my failure was a gift to me and a saving grace to my marriage and my family. As Richard Rohr says often times, “Through failure, we are brought from an unconsciousness to an ever deeper consciousness and conscience.” It’s true. Through my failure, I was rescued from myself, and from an even deeper betrayal to my wife and family. It was a gift to be stopped in my tracks and rescued from the duplicity and double life.Samantha would agree, though she’d tell you she wished it would have come a different way.Though I hate failure, I had to fail to achieve the consciousness and conscience I have now.  Without the humility gained by failure, I’d never be able to escape self-centeredness and grow in true compassion.Think about it. People only come to this deeper “consciousness” by struggling with their contradictions, conflicts, inconsistencies and, unfortunately, moral failure.Though we may wish an awakening would come in a different form, it’s the moral failure that will save us from continuing as a human wrecking ball. I’m a much more ‘real’ person now who can relate to people in a whole new way. Humility is a way of life rather than something I talked about, but was thousands of miles away from. Samantha and I are able to relate and talk on a level we never even knew possible.Samantha would tell you the same truth. Though she would have traded the way it happened, she’s eternally thankful for the transformation in both our lives.  Through both our struggles, and through the pain, the hurt, the suffering, the ungodly amounts of fragility and unpredictability of it all, has come wisdom, grace and perspective. Without all the suffering we would never have been renewed.  We simply won’t change of our own accord. Let’s face it, most of the time we are too full of ourselves, or full of life’s challenges and “have to’s” to hear the need to change or transform. My old life and personality has been ruined, and I’m totally fine with that.

“You cannot heal what you do not first acknowledge.” Richard RohrThe truth of this quote still strikes me even after years of recovery.Just today I’ve had to name my struggles. Pride for one. It’s not ‘feeling insecure’ or left out or disrespected. It’s pride. When I honestly name what I’m feeling or experiencing, I can step into a personal recovery plan. This means isolating what’s really going on. It helps me see what I’m truly feeling and that my pride is just a reaction to what I am feeling. I realize I’m trying to medicate my true, inner feelings. I am feeling insecure, left out and disrespected. Those are facts. But for each of them, I can take steps of self-care once I realize the root: pride.Take for example feeling insecure. (As you can tell, I’m opening up my personal world a bit for you today). I’m feeling insecure and I hate it, so I’m now trying to prove myself. Trying to prove oneself always spirals into performance driven behavior. For me, this has already included yelling at my kids, getting angry, and feeling I need to control everything around me to make up for how out of control I feel inside.But to interrupt this spiral, I realize that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone, especially God. God loves me the way I am and loved me just as much when I bottomed out. When I created an amazing amount of emotional carnage, he didn’t love me any less. I then realize my value is not caught up in sales, meeting quotas, this that or the other. It’s in understanding my worth and acceptance is in Christ’s love for me. No one or nothing else defines my value. It frees me to realize I don’t have to be secure but can rest in Christ’s love, and I find freedom to do the best I can. Not because I have to, but I get to and want to. Whatever the results are, I can trust in him and not rely upon my own efforts. My past has shown me when I try to control things and when I feel like I’m not doing enough, people (including my family) become speed bumps and I run them over as fast as I can.I hope this little taste of my own life will help you realize one important thing: you have to name what you’re struggling with if you’re going to deal with it and get free. That may mean addiction to some of you. That may mean pride or insecurity to others. It may even mean feeling violated. But if you can name it and call it what it is, you can then take concrete steps to getting free.

Rick’s recent article, found here: http://affairrecovery.com/newsletter/founder/infidelity-and-transition-stages-the-mystery-of-change, is brilliant, but poignant for both sides of the affair. It’s relatively easy to understand why a betrayed spouse would need to grieve.  After all, life will never be the same again, and life has been changed forever.  It’s not un-repairable, but the fact remains, understanding why the betrayed spouse would grieve is rather easily comprehensible.Grieving for the unfaithful is paramount as well.  For me, I had to grieve for what my affair did to Samantha and also what it had done to so many other people.  You may not be a public personality, but at one time I was, and in a high profile position.  My affair affected a multitude of people that have scars due to my actions, although all of them a far cry from the scars Samantha lives with.  When the enormity of what I had done hit home, I can tell you grief took me to a place I’d never been before. I also had to grieve for what my choices did to the affair partner and her family.  It was devastating indeed and to this day, I wince at the pain she and her family endured due to my actions.In a bit of a fresher way, I have had to grieve for what my life was supposed to look like, prior to my failure.  If I’m being honest, at some level, even now I’ve walked through some grief over what was lost. Eight years later, it’s pretty fresh all that was lost due to my actions, and it’s taken several midnight hour’s if you will, even more conversations with Rick, and numerous books to get back in the saddle and not think my life will never have the impact it once had.  Thinking through the grief of it all, I’ve really had to grieve for what I lost, and for what I’ve probably thrown to the wind due to my selfishness and deception. But part of moving to the next chapter of my life was, and is, through grieving:  through realizing what I’m capable of, and how I’m filled with the potential to hurt and affect so many due to my choices.Grief is what in many ways helps us to eventually let go of what was, and start to grab hold of what is ahead of Samantha and I.  Life is not over.  Life has more meaning and more beauty than it’s ever had before in my entire life, but it’s come through allowing grief to take center stage for a season. Perhaps you too need to grieve today, even if you are an unfaithful spouse.  And yes, there is a stage of grieving the loss of the affair partner and it’s real and in many cases to be expected.   (We’ll talk more about that next week).  For now though, I’d encourage you to grieve and realize that what once was, will never be again. That double life.  That duplicity.  It’s gone, in ashes, and never to be rebuilt. However, there is a time to dream again and now just may be that time.  To find a new dream if you will. To allow a new thing to be birthed inside of you, your spouse, your marriage (possibly), and maybe even for your career. I don’t know what you’ll need to grieve for, but I can assure you, grieving is the hallway through which a new dream and vision can be launched.

I’ve written on relapse before, but today I’d like to ask the question, which so many ask which is, whether or not relapse is inevitable?   I will tell you there are varying, differing opinions on it for sure and I’m not sure that I think anyone is per se the expert on relapse besides maybe Rick Reynolds. Some say it’s absolutely inevitable.  If they cheated, they will eventually cheat again, but in what degree or what stage is what is undeterminable, and the best you can do is shore up their recovery plan, and the betrayed spouse’s recovery plan, and hope for the best. Some say, no, not necessarily.  That a good, strong, recovery process is what will prevent them from falling again and there is hope of it never happening again.  All I can tell you is, from those I’ve talked to, and from my own experience, relapse is not inevitable.  It is highly likely though if you do these few things….in fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s truly inevitable if you do these things: 1.      After the initial storm of infidelity and a short recovery period, go back to the way things were.  Same habits, same response mechanisms.  Same hidden life.  Perhaps still working in a job where the affair partner works.  Or staying in the same position which mandates you need to work with the affair partner each day or week, thinking you’re strong enough to prevent it from happening again.  Lessen the intensity of recovery and accountability and allow yourself to think, it’s behind me now, I can relax again. 2.      Thinking that just because you’re in therapy, that will be enough.  From personal experience, if you’re an unfaithful spouse, or still married to one, that unfaithful spouse (as well as yourself I might add) needs a very detailed, “infidelity-specific” recovery plan which can help them understand why this happened in the first place, how to make sure if never happens again, and what the future requires for them to stay clean and free from even the opportunity at infidelity.  The strength of a recovery, or relapse prevention plan cannot be in the therapist or general therapy alone.  3.      Just depend on your own ability to figure things out and help both you your spouse, and your marriage.  Fact is, you are the one who created this mess, and you can’t figure it out or fix it on your own.  I know that’s direct and I know that’s humbling, but it’s just the facts.  To think you have the knowledge you need to prevent things from happening is just not accurate.  I tell friends all the time, I couldn’t even keep my own marriage vows…what makes me think I know what to do on my own, to stay clean and free of an affair?  I needed help from an expert.  I couldn’t prevent it from happening the first time and to think I know what I need to do is downright arrogant and a display of great self-deception.     4.       Finally, just think you can’t do this again, you’ll never do it again, and that you’re strong enough to prevent it from happening on your own.  It’s a guarantee you’ll do it again.  Just trusting in your own strength and wisdom, thinking you’re strong enough on your own to prevent the situation from happening again, is just not enough.  It doesn’t take into the account the beast within, or the beast outside you at your job, in your company, etc etc.   It doesn’t take into account the fact that we’re given to deception and that we can’t see all that might be coming our way or how we are falling back into old habits.  We’re given to deception and we’re given to just getting by, even if we start out by being intentional.  Finally, though I’ve never fully relapsed, I have fallen prey to old habits and old habit patterns which can very easily give way to full and total relapse.   From pornography, to minimal flirtation, to working extra hours, I’ve struggled with these things, but when those things have started to take root, I’ve used my specific recovery tools which have prevented me from relapsing.  From talkng to Samantha, to talking to Rick, to staying open and accountable with my group of 4 men who know everything about me.  I just have too many checks and balances to relapse without certain things falling apart sooner than later.   The strength is not in me, but in the tools, measures, and open relationships I’ve installed.  I hope you or your spouse will do the same.

Many times during our discussions early on in the recovery process, even after we met Rick by the way, anger was a normal part of our lives.  We were smart to never let it fully unleash in front of the kids who were pretty young at the time, but it was there:  simmering….waiting for a chance to manifest. It wasn’t uncommon for me to get angry when Samantha wanted to talk about it.  I didn’t always show it, but internally, I was about to burst.  I don’t know if anger was the most definitive term, but perhaps better, more descriptive words would be short, trite and borderline uncooperative.  I genuinely felt terrible about what I did.  I felt like I was a complete failure and had let down so many, including myself.  Let’s face it; I did let down an incredibly long list of people, starting first with my wife, then a litany of other caring individuals who suffered immensely due to my selfish choices. My anger was in many ways due to how angry I was at myself, for failing.  I was also angry at Samantha as early on, I was deceived enough to think that if she had just been a better wife I’d have never done what I did.  That if she’d been more attentive to my needs, then maybe I wouldn’t have fell for the advances of my affair partner and not have needed what she was giving me.  Like we talked about last time with regard to shame, many times I was yelling at myself, though I was yelling verbally at Samantha.  A colossal mistake indeed.  Yet, as I got healthy, and got the right kind of help, I was able to see that Samantha would never have been enough due to how self-absorbed I was and that no amount of attention or affection would have satisfied the gaping hole I had in my heart for security.  Nevertheless, I was angry at what I was having to go through, due to my own choices and I was angry that I had put myself in this position.  Looking back, one of the manliest things I could have done, (and I did start doing after I came to my senses a bit and listened to Rick) was the list below: 1.      Humble myself.  I had to realize, I had committed this great act of selfishness and the best thing I could do was take it, suffer the consequences, pray hard and draw close to God and accept what was coming my way.  I had done it, and I had to suffer the consequences.  It was NO ONE ELSE’S FAULT.  Just mine.  2.      I had to give permission to Samantha to be angry.  Not literally, as she has her own rights, but I mean in my own posture and in my own mind, I had to understand, she has the right, all rights, to be as angry as can be, and be bitter and grieve.  I had no right to be angry at her for being angry at my failure and betrayal.  I had to give her that right in my own mind, as then I couldn’t get defensive about the anger or bitterness or questions, but realize she deserves to be angry and she deserves to lash out.  I’ve betrayed her in so many ways I’ll never be able to realize and she deserves and has the right to do whatever she needs to do to heal and eventually get beyond this pain and trauma. 3.      I had to accept the fact that I had failed and that I blew it.  It was a dark moment, but I had to realize I had in fact, betrayed my wife and altered her life and thousands of others due to my choices.  Yet, as one author says, failure is an event not a person.  I had to in turn, forgive myself, and realize I still had value, and still had worth and still had purpose.  Life was not over for me.  Though I didn’t know it, or understand what was going to happen, I had to allow myself to embrace the failure and realize it was OK to go on, enjoy my kids, do my best to enjoy time with Samantha and still hate what I did.  I had to realize, no one was going to move forward for me, and though I had to grieve for what I did and what I lost due to my own choices, I still had to move on in life and pursue the next season and chapter of my future.  I hope this encourages you and gives you some perspective.  If I can clarify anything or provide any further insight, please feel free to let me know.

During the very first few weeks after disclosure, Samantha and I were dealing with a hellish situation. I can’t go much into it, but there came a time that Samantha was convinced I was lying about a few key details.  I had lived a lie for about two years now, and for the first time, I was in fact coming clean with all the details.   Somewhere along the way though, it came to critical mass and she was convinced I was not being honest about the truth regarding some pretty far off allegations and rumors.  She devised a bit of a plan to trick me into telling the truth and she set me up.  Yes she was grasping, and yes she was desperate, so looking back I don’t fault her at all.  Back then, that was a different story as I was far from healthy and even farther from thinking clearly and though I told the truth, I didn’t react well at all.  She created a scenario and I answered truthfully, and even swore on my own life and my kid’s lives (I don’t suggest that by the way unless you are certain its truth) that what I was telling her was the truth.  But it did force me to give up details about sexual situations that she didn’t want to know and probably wished she didn’t come to hear.  They didn’t make a difference in terms of healing and understanding the truth, and to this day she wishes she didn’t know about them. The details that were uncovered haunted her for years quite honestly and took a large amount of time to overcome as they were graphic, sexual and revealing.  There’s a rule in recovery I think….perhaps an unwritten rule.  A few of them actually.  One of them is called: never ask a question you’re not prepared to hear the answer to.  Samantha was desperate for details or pieces to the puzzle, but looking back, had we been under someone’s care and gotten the right kind of help early on, we probably wouldn’t have done it that way.  I know Samantha wouldn’t have. Another rule: the betrayed spouse can’t use the “Gun to their head Approach.”  What this implies is metaphorically holding a gun to his or her head saying “give me the details….give me the details…..trust me to be able to handle it…be honest, make me feel safe, give me the details I need to heal…” Then, once you know the details, you blast them, shame them, minister rejection to them and give them no hope of any understanding, compassion, forgiveness or ultimate safety to be honest and come clean.  When this approach is used, there is little to no redemptive moment to help the unfaithful spouse continue to come clean about more details or about future disclosure of feelings, emotions, or the like. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard to do this.  It’s especially hard when you, the betrayed spouse, are just coming to know the details and just finding out pieces to the puzzle.  It’s another degree of difficulty when there has been long term deception, with more and more details coming out, seemingly being what we call “drip fed” by the unfaithful. A drip here of truth, a drip there of truth; almost water torturing the betrayed spouse.  There is a better way my friends.  Get the help you need now, from the people who are qualified to help:  specialized care from those who are professionals and have gone through this before.  There is hope.

It’s a common understanding; we just don’t want to talk about what makes us feel uncomfortable or ashamed. We certainly don’t want to talk about our failures, unless we’ve experienced a great deal of healing for those failures. Early on in our recovery, I made the mistake of saying to Samantha several times “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s start over, move on, and save us!” What a great heart’s intent right? Who wouldn’t love that? Sounds sincere enough right? What I thought I was conveying was “I want to be with you, and I’m willing to work on the marriage at all costs.” But what I was conveying was, as long as we don’t talk about the affair or how I failed and I am ready to get healthy (as long as we talk about you and not me) and here we go, off to the next chapter of our lives (focusing on you and not me). Looking back, it was really quite selfish and dysfunctional. I didn’t want to talk about anything that produced in me a negative feeling or consequence. I was willing to do anything to not talk about me, or how I failed, or how I blew it, or the shame I was filled with. But I was more than willing to talk about how we could change Samantha so I would never cheat again. Yep, that was the reality of my intent. It didn’t seem like it then, but looking back, I can see ever so clearly my motives and my desire to shield me, but talk about her struggles and how to keep me home. Pretty ridiculous I know, but that’s what selfish, unhealthy, dysfunctional people do: they focus on the faults of others, not themselves. It wasn’t that I refused to get help, but I truly felt like I couldn’t open up and talk about me. I was sure that if we did, Samantha would leave and my therapist (Rick Reynolds) would give up on me. I didn’t feel safe at all and was terrified of rejection by both of them. I had become convinced that my shame was real and that I was something bad, not that I had done something bad. You see, when we are something bad, we deserve to be rejected and given up on, even thrown away when we fail. But when we simply do something bad, and make a mistake, but are worth saving and redeeming and helping, we don’t give in to shame. We rise up, take ownership of our mistakes and move forward, wiling to get all the help we can and display true empathy. I believed the lie that is perpetuated time and time again, and it’s this thought: Shame says I am something wrong. Grief, sorrow, brokenness (or as some would say Godly sorrow) says I’ve done something wrong, but am worth loving and caring for. There’s a country mile of difference between the two my friends. If your spouse, male or female, doesn’t want to talk about it, my hunch is they simply don’t know how to talk about it and are scared to death of talking about their own failures as they think they will be forsaken. They are probably so full of shame (I am something wrong) that they tend to mask their feelings by anger or blame, and even push back against their guilt and shame with anger or hostility towards you. What they need to realize is, if they do not talk about it in a safe way, in a safe place, you can never heal. It will simply stunt your growth and prohibit the betrayed spouse from understanding what happened, why it happened, and how to help protect against relapse in the future. Their decision is based more upon ignorance and confusion than it is a willingness to focus on you and not them. They probably just don’t get it (as I didn’t) until an objective third party helped me. The EMS Weekend saved my life, and my time with Rick (who had been through this before and could relate to me) helped me understand what I was truly feeling. When I was unlocked, the safe grief and contrition if you will, began to pour in like lead to my soul and it was then that empathy began to manifest towards Samantha and the list of others I hurt by my failure. I hope and pray this ministers to you and helps lead you and your spouse into the light and out of the darkness of shame.

If you were to meet me about 8 years ago, I’d tell you I was a completely different person. More importantly, my wife Samantha who is probably the best judge of what type of a person I was and am now, will tell you, she had a special cuss word for me. It’s not uncommon that we’ll have a jovial moment together in the kitchen or in bed where she’ll say I’m so glad you’re not the ******* you used to be, and I’ll reply with I’m so glad you’re not the ***** you used to be either. And we’ll laugh pretty hysterically. I know, for some of you in crisis right now, it’s a reach. But if we can get there I’m quite sure you can too.Now I don’t recommend this banter without incredible healing and restoration for both of you, or without a great deal of professional help and help from Affair Recovery’s resources.For us it works and it’s true and truer every year of recovery.I was incredibly self-absorbed and incredibly pompous as a pastor, a leader and husband. My apprehension or lack thereof regarding real life, grace, God, failure and perfection were more skewed than I care to remember. My affair ruined my reputation, my life, and hundreds of other individuals caught in the crosshairs. But in reality, it was the way I was saved from becoming what I would have ended up being more of and I thank God I was rescued the way I was. I wish it could have been another way, and I sincerely wish I was man enough to end things on my own. Yet I wasn’t and I still have consequences in my life from time to time by being a public personality who failed miserably.Nevertheless, our restoration was in institute of incredible change as Samantha has changed radically and admits to it. I also have changed and am a much different person than I once was. If you’re wondering if your spouse can change, whether betrayed or betrayer, I would shout from the roof tops a resounding YES they certainly can.But if you want to see them change, one of the most important things you can do is to get help to change yourself and your own response patterns first. Without this ownership of your own dysfunction and patterns of behavior, you’ll be hard pressed to have your own moments in the kitchen thanking them they’ve changed and are no longer who they used to be. Most don’t see change as they won’t work on themselves and own up to their own struggles first. This is why it’s so hard for the unfaithful, as wanting to change and being willing to change early on is incredibly difficult, especially when your spouse is in the middle of immense grief.  But, I assure you, it’s possible.My wife Samantha will be the first to tell you she is no longer the controlling, unhappy wife who would reject me sexually and only focus on the kids. It in no way excuses my behavior, or blames the affair on her, but she owns what she needs to own and we’re far more healthier than we’ve ever been. I owe that to God’s grace, but also to Rick and his EMS program. Without that, I’m scared to think of where we’d be and who I’d be.

I’ll never forget a lunch I was having with a couple who eventually became like mentors to Samantha and I.  Samantha wasn’t there but I was venting a bit and talking to them very openly about my anger and bitterness and unmet needs which I felt led to the affair in the first place. They listened and graciously I might add.  I say graciously, as the fact is, I’m not quite sure how they stomached my deception and lunacy.  But finally, he had had enough add said, “Samuel, are you done yet?”Laughingly I said, “Oh, yes, I’m sorry” and chuckled. It was at this moment that he led me by the hand and took me to the proverbial woodshed of sobriety and awareness of what an idiot (to put it lightly) I was being.  The one phrase I remember him saying to me, that to this day continues to echo in my heart and mind, is “Samuel, I think sometimes you have absolutely no clue what you’ve done to your wife by your choices.”I was speechless.  I was stunned.  I was caught.  Finally, someone (who had had an affair 20 years before) had finally found a way to get to me and get behind my facade and confront me in my own self-deception.Both during the affair, and for a short time after, I had always believed that I was wrong yet justified in my affair as Samantha wasn’t meeting my needs and was continuing to reject me and ignore me.  All the while, my affair partner celebrated me, cherished me, applauded me, and wanted me 24/7. Never mind the fact that Samantha was at home having babies while I counseled, traveled and spoke many times three days a week at night, and was gone for several days at a time.  Never mind also that my schedule was all about others and all about myself (while Samantha took care of the kids and was many times alone) or being comforted by the affair partner who had grown to be part of our family and identical to a nanny for our kids.  I could go on but I think you get the point of the stupidity and dysfunction of it all.I was deceived to say the least. But finally, someone who had been through it before, and seen their marriage restored, had the guts and the grace to confront me and help me see how stupid I had been and was continuing to be.  Just because the affair was out in the open, and over, didn’t mean I was healthy at all. I was still a prisoner of my own stupidity and self-deception.  It wasn’t until someone like him finally told me the truth and started the landside of truth which would slowly but surely enter my heart and mind and change me forever. I’d encourage you today, if you’re an unfaithful spouse, to find someone who you can trust, who has you and your spouse’s best interest at heart.  If you can’t find a friend like that, find a professional here at Affair Recovery, or a group leader or a course, and get some real time help which will be in the overall best interest of all parties, not just yours.  Have the courage to admit, whether betrayed or betrayer, to admit you probably have some deception lurking deep down in your heart and get the right kind of help for you, now.

Samantha prayed for years for our situation to change. Sadly, it never would till that obscure day, several years ago in August. Life would come crashing down in an instant. Life as we knew it would be radically changed not just overnight but forever. Friends, relationships, our house, income, you name it: gone overnight after being exposed.Our situation was dysfunctional at best and was riddled with deception, justification, codependency, blindness and turmoil. No different than many, if not all of you, I’m quite sure.I’ll never forget one day when Samantha was talking in Rick’s office and she began to weep and say, “I had prayed for change for years, but didn’t want it to come this way……but I’m forever grateful change has come.” True change, I guess it’s better said, true transformation requires sacrifice. It never should have been this hard to see change, but due to my own choices and darkness, I’m convinced it was harder than it needed to be. Yet, in the midst of what we were going through, change happened. It happened to me and it happened to Samantha. A change we never would have been able to find in our own strength or efforts.  My usual and obligatory disclaimer comes in right here: forever it will be my fault the affair happened. The recovery process though, post affair, was as much about Samantha’s healing and transformation as it was mine. I caused it all, and Samantha was NOT the cause of the affair, but in the healing years that followed, we both changed and we both were able to find healing.This was never the way Samantha wanted change for me and our family, but nonetheless it was the method in which absolute change happened. And it cost us almost everything except our three kids and each other. For you too today, this is probably not the way you wanted change to happen. It’s probably not the way you’d have designed it either. However, it is most definitely, without question, an opportunity to see change and true transformation for both you and your spouse. It’s the chance to reprogram and to rebuild the right way. I can’t guarantee you your spouse will be all in, or that even you will be all in, but I would encourage you to do all you can to get the right kind of help in the middle of your trauma. I’ve heard it said by the staff at Affair Recovery that the right kind of methods brings about the right kind of restoration. Yes it will most likely be expensive, and yes it will be inconvenient and more than likely without guarantee. But isn’t your life worth going forward even if it’s not going to turn out the exact way you’d like it to be?  

If there is one thing we have learned through this mess that we have to keep going back to each year, it’s the concept of prioritization. No, this is not going to be a self-help post, or a menial approach to six steps to peace, etc. etc. It’s more about seeing the world and seeing the situation through the right lens of prioritization.Let’s face it. My affair, and possibly yours, happened due in large part to me making everything else, and everyone else, a priority except my spouse. Work came first, people’s needs came first, my affair partner came first, and even my kids came first. Samantha was dead last in terms of genuine concern, focus and attentiveness. My boss and his family even had priority over her in many ways.When we allow life to get in the way now days, Samantha and I have to be very intentional on doing our personal checklist. It goes like this:1.   How are we (Samantha and I) doing?2.   Everything else…….Don’t lose me in the sarcasm, but the fact is, if we’re doing OK, we can get through anything and everything.  If we’re not doing OK, all else is going to be hard and a challenge and probably make things worse. So WE need to be OK first, and if we’re not, we need to get help, and clarity, or time, or a date, or into a much needed difficult conversation maybe, and then all else will get in line, even the kids.If you want recovery to blow up in your face make something else more important than both your spouse and recovery, as it will only remind your hurt spouse of how much you’ve hurt them and violated them.  Or, if you want your betrayed spouse to give up and remain stuck, continue to make him or her 2nd priority.Or, if you want your unfaithful spouse to feel hopeless and helpless, respond to none of their efforts and continue to immerse yourself everywhere else, as eventually they will give up and give in to frustration and hopelessness.  Sure it’s their fault the affair happened, however if you both are working on saving the marriage, or if you are attempting to pursue recovery, it must be the priority right now.The fact is, our spouse must take priority in our lives and if they are not, it will reveal itself with more and more pain and hurt and keep you both stuck. What has helped us more than I can describe, is talking heart to heart with Samantha and reminding her, even 8 years later, “How are we doing?”It snaps us both back into shape and proper perspective and causes us to prioritize everything else in our life. When we do this, we are then a united front for financial matters, issues with the kids, fear of the future, or just normal everyday life with three kids.I hope you’ll try this and make it a practice in your life of recovery.If I can ever help, please let me know. 

Wikipedia defines courage as is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.There’s a school of thought that says it takes raw courage to move on from an affair and pursue life on your own without your spouse. The intimidation alone of heading out into the next chapter of your life or family without your spouse requires courage, and a willingness to stare fear in the face and move forward. This transition in life simply cannot be underscored enough.However, it takes just as much courage (and some would say more) to face infidelity or addiction, and still choose to pursue your marriage while it’s enveloped in ashes and uncertainty. While there are many cases when a spouse is unwilling to make changes, or turn from their affair partner or addiction, and the spouse must summon all their courage and unfortunately move on.Yet, there are times of incredible confusion and paralysis and every amount of courage must be utilized to stay, even if it’s under a short timeline to see if changes are made. My wife Samantha did this. She chose to be far more courageous than many told her to be, and decided to at least TRY and save the marriage. It was incredibly scary and she had little confidence to hold on to. Our motivation wasn’t perfect, as it was more for the kids initially than it was for us. But that was, and is, OK. Don't let anyone tell you they'll never change, unless they've been given a chance to change with the right kind of help.You too may have little to hold on to, and you may not know what the future will look like. In fact, if you’re reading this, I’m quite sure you have no idea what the future will look like in three months, three years, or even three days. But I encourage you today, to take courage and if possible, give it a shot. You need to know you are not a fool for giving them another shot. You’re not codependent, or dysfunctional, deceived, or unhealthy to give your spouse a shot at changing; even if it’s a third time.  You’re just not. You're probably being incredibly courageous.My wife was told all those things and more, but she decided to forgive and give us a short time to merely see if we can find healing. If we want the right kind of healing, we need the right kind of help, and it will require an investment financially, but emotionally as well. I was telling someone just yesterday that it takes far more courage to get help, and give you and your spouse a chance than it does to simply walk away, saying the affair was a deal breaker and let’s be done.Everyone has an opinion on how infidelity should be handled, and that it’s a deal breaker, until you go through it. Then opinions have a way of changing.Please understand, there are in fact, times when you must end the marriage. Whether it be physical harm or violence, an unwillingness to change or end things with the affair partner, or what have you. Then your courage must be utilized to take a stand for you. And that’s OK, and needed, and incredibly worthy of applause.Today though I’d like to encourage those of you who have no clue what the future will look like, to find the courage you need to give reconciliation a chance. I know it’s dark and I know you may even feel stupid to give him or her a chance again…..But remember, it’s far more valiant to give redemption a chance than to cut ties and end things when redemption hasn’t even been given a chance. No one else is going to live the life you are living. People can say whatever they want, but you are living the life you are living and only you will be accountable for how you live and you don't need to explain yourself to them. You only need explain your life to you, your kids (and when they hear why I'm quite sure they'll admire their parent for being willing to give reconciliation a chance) and to God.Before you celebrate the courage to end things and start anew, I’d like to invite you that have the opportunity to do so, to encourage you to try again. Right now, you just may not know what the future looks like.

Along the road of recovery there will be immense frustration. Frustration at your spouse, frustration at circumstances, and hopefully, yes I said hopefully, frustration at even yourself.I hate to be a downer but if you think recovery and the pursuit of restoration is always this joyous, redemptive season of renewed love and compassion, I'm sorry but it's far from that. If you also think you can go back to business as usual, friend, you are sadly mistaken. You and your spouse have just experienced great turmoil and destruction, and life doesn't just pick up and move right back on. (side note: life doesn't bow down to a desire to recovery either. Kids still fight, bills still come, sickness still happens, and peripheral drama amongst loved ones, family and work all still roll on.)There are days you are flying high enjoying the grace, forgiveness and cool air of redemption. However, there are days where you feel like you're walking through a desert, in 110 degree heat, with even hotter wind blowing against you, with no water in sight, and only dark voices telling you to quit, give up and throw in the towel as it's just not worth it.It's easy to get frustrated with your spouse for an innumerable amount of reasons. Them not getting it, not understanding your heart, not realizing what you truly felt and meant, not moving beyond a certain memory, etc, etc. The list is endless.But an area of frustration I hope you experience is frustration with yourself. Yes, I meant to say it, frustration with yourself.Both betrayed and betrayer, I hope you both experience frustration with your own habit patterns and response cues. This recovery road is just as much about the hurt spouse as it is the unfaithful. Yes, the unfaithful had the affair. But this situation is an opportunity for growth, transformation, and ultimate life change for both of you despite who was the betrayer.I've been more than frustrated at myself for a number of stupid things; thought patterns, choices I've made, a destructive self-image, selfishness, lust and selfishness, you name it....I have had many hopeless days about my marriage, but also about me. It's more than OK to love yourself, but if you only see the good in you, I think you may have a problem. If we're not frustrated with ourselves at times, I wonder if we are growing, or attempting to grow, or attempting to tackle some of the underlying issues which have led to the affair in the first place.Failure is proof we've tried and frustration is proof we have a vision and an idea of what we want to be like, feel like and live like and if we can't have it now we experience frustration and that's OK. It's more about HOW we handle that frustration and what we let that frustration teach us and tell us.If you're frustrated today, I'd like to invite you to take a deep breath and maybe even write down why you're frustrated. Then write down what steps you may need to take to help care for your own frustration and then think, meditate, pray, and get actual feedback and insight from someone you trust to help you deal with YOU.

I’ll never forget when the leaders of the organization I worked for during my affair practically bribed Samantha to divorce me when it all came out.  Some of these executives, if you will, were friends of mine for about 10 years who had been through all kinds of life experiences together, all to see them completely turn on me, my wife, and even my kids. They had helped dedicate and baptize my kids. They had been there with me at my greatest accomplishments. I had helped them in their greatest times and their worst times. Instead of rallying behind me, they ran away as fast as they could, considered me dead and even had personal funerals for our relationship. True story!Through a few sources I also heard they said my wife, Samantha, was “mentally off” for being willing to save our marriage and give me a second chance. Can you believe the complete audacity to mockingly label someone mentally ill for simply being willing to save their family unit, forgive an atrocity, and extend grace?Who is the mentally ill one now?True, Samantha, did in fact, have to consider the repercussions to attempting to save her marriage. Consider the gossip….consider the embarrassment just knowing your husband, in a high profile position, was cheating on her behind her back for two years. The shame of being looked upon in so many negative lights and labeled a bitter wife, a failure, this that and the other. The pain that came with looking at your family and knowing that all your closest friends for over 10 years had disappeared overnight. You can barely imagine the rumors and the outright slander that took place about me, but also, oddly and sickeningly enough, about Samantha.She took all of it and stared it in the face and said, and I quote, “I care more about how my family looks, than my reputation, and your reputation Samuel, and more than any of those *******************’s……. They’ve already shown their true colors.”Talk about no pride. Talk about a love for her kids more than a love for herself. Talk about a desire to be willing to be looked upon as mentally imbalanced all for the sake of seeing what can happen with a mere second chance.Who’s the mentally imbalanced one now?I’d say it was the ones who said their “marriage is over.”“They’ll never make it.”“She’s crazy for being willing to take him back.”It’s not a taunt but it is applause for a betrayed wife who was crazy enough, to give US, and Love, and Grace, and forgiveness, another chance.Thank you forever My Samantha.