The True Definition of Love and Its Role In Surviving An Affair

Thank you for your content! It has been a major part of my recovery from addictions and compulsions that turned me into the human wrecking ball you referenced.
For a long time, I was deceived. I was dangerous. And I was desperate to control what I was powerless over... something that made my life and the lives around me unmanageable.
I am a sex, love, and fantasy addict and a recovering co-dependent.
A woman addicted to written pornography since age 12. At the time, I was a child escaping a terrifying and toxic reality... terrifying and toxic adults who I loved, hated, needed, and depended on. I escaped that home... but the strategies I used to escape to a sense of safety became a prison of patterns that kept me stuck.
I was obsessed with the "true love" portrayed in smut. I chased the highs of flirting and crushes, while quickly tiring of relationships once they required something of me. I wanted so badly to love and to be loved... but I had no idea how to love someone well.
I honestly don't know if I'm 100% sober yet. That's probably the grace of God, showing me the recovery I need just for today. If I could fathom the depths of my addictions, the far-reaching implications, and the full road to recovery... I would break. But for the past 1,020 days, I have found more freedom that I ever thought possible.
Not the freedom portrayed in the books I read voraciously to escape real-life demands and responsibilities. Not the freedom I thought I found being "the real me" online. Not the freedom in sneaking, hiding, lying, living a double-life. There was no freedom in the prison of my patterns...

The truth is setting me free.
The truth is that I am powerless over my addictions. If I think I have an ounce of control over what has controlled me for years... I'm lying to myself. If I could control this, I wouldn't be an addict! But I can now be transparent with and accountable to others for the first time in my life. On a daily basis, I can surrender all the beliefs that lead to compulsive behaviors. I can work with others who have been there, done that, and have found recovery on the other side. I can chase sobriety with the same intensity I chased my drug and high of choice.
Today, I have a new sense of engagement in my life... It's not just happening to me, or a baseline I'm using as a springboard for escape.
I'm living my own life for the first time.
I can now breathe when my husband casually picks up my phone, because I have nothing to hide. I can't speak to his story, his recovery... but only thank God every day we're still together. Still trying. That he's willing to courageously carry the pain I can't take back. He's no longer an idol on a pedestal, but he is a hero. And he tells me, "I really like the you that you're becoming." That is love.

Addicts are not bad people trying to be good. We are sick people trying to get well.
When I was at my rock bottom, my sickness nearly killed me.
Since then, I have had to learn to give myself some of the love I wanted so badly to give to others, and for others to give to me. The article here sums it up perfectly. "Love is the practice of screwing up, circling back, making amends, giving up the right to be right, and then trying again and again and again..." And I can offer that love to the scared, sad child-version of me who is learning to trust that adult-me won't abuse and abandon her anymore. Only God as I understand God can give me the strength and courage to work my life out from the inside out. To reparent myself and make amends with others while staying focused on my own recovery, instead of trying to "help" everyone else.

Just for today, I am sober and healing. I am recovering and free.

And this program, this content is medicine.

Thank you to all of you!

I cheated on my wife. After many years of a healthy marriage, I strayed from her with another woman. I carried on my betrayal for 2 years. I never ended the adulterous relationship, but instead took the queue from the other woman when she finally rejected me. I hid the secret from my family for nearly 10 years before finally revealing the truth after being asked by my wife. For 10 years I’ve harbored guilt, remorse, sadness, and regret for what I had done. Understandably, my wife is angry, confused, embarrassed, devastated, and broken-hearted. I’ve grown over the last 10 years and do not feel that I’m that same selfish man that threw his family away all those years ago. Nothing I say can undo my horrendous actions, but I so desperately want to show my wife the love I’m capable of after 10 years of reflection and introspection. Please help me understand her pain so so I can help her process this devastation.

The article this week is spot on, my wife confessed the affair Jul 2021. she eventually disclosed the sexual affair lasted 6.5 years, she has owned it though to be fair there were circumstances that helped the affair to occur, me not being here due to a job and the POS was her personal trainer, he's also a certified life coach etc... he played her and they had way too much together time due to the personal training (yes, he was and still is married and I'm sure my wife wasn't the first). This has / is the most difficult journey I have ever gone through and I have been through many traumatic situations in life since I was 3 years old. Regardless, healing through love I believe is the only way to truly heal and thank you for the words of encouragement. PS, if you sensed a note of my anger toward the POS, yes you sensed correctly and I don't anticipate that going away anytime soon, he's the antithesis of what a real men is! Lastly "We love God because he first loved us".

Thank you so much for this. I’m encouraged by it. I love my wife and am committed to forgiving her. The pain is heavy but I have known for years I would not leave her if she was unfaithful. This has definitely put me to the test. But I am going to stick with her and help her find the help and healing she needs.

My unfaithful husband is working hard at doing all the right things to be loving and working to repair our marriage. He’s done H4H I’ve done HH. We both see private therapist. We’ve tried. It’s been 18 months since DDay. I just can’t get past it all. The betrayal was long lived and deep. I think we are a couple that will not be a success story. It’s all just too much for me. Sad sad sad.

I am new to posting on here, so apologies if I ramble on or this is on the wrong subject etc. My wife and I separated just over 2 months ago now, I was a terrible husband, I had multiple affairs and constantly took the love she had for me for granted. I was never happy with what I had, and what I had was a devoted wife who would have done anything for me, forgave me for all my wrongdoings over the 10 years we were married, gave me 3 beautiful children and so many experiences and memories. We had an amazing life yet I kept searching for something more. Since we have separated following her discovery of me meeting another woman..... again, we have hardly spoken, initially very angry conversations and then nothing, everything has moved so fast since that day, I moved out initially to a family members and now to a place of my own, she has filed for divorce, the arrangements for the children are still up in the air with me only getting minimal time with them, yet I cant stop thinking about her. I want nothing more than to hold her and beg for forgiveness and fight for her, but I cant talk to her let alone explain how I feel. Multiple times a day I want to send her a message asking to meet up to just talk, but I don't have the courage, because a: she clearly doesn't want to talk to me and has asked for all communication to be through the solicitor (I can hardly declare my feeling through the solicitors!!!) b: I fear rejection and I can only see it going that way, I have pushed her too far this time. I don't know what to do, there is not a minute that goes by that she isn't on my mind and I know at the moment I feel isolated and alone (due to the current lockdown situation) but I think one of the biggest things I took for granted I actually how I felt about her, I was a master of pushing feelings aside good or bad, and now I'm alone and I don't have anywhere to hide, my heart is heavy with guilt and sadness, but also the strongest of love for her, the old saying you don't know what you have lost till its gone is certainly ringing true. I know this is all the consequences to my actions and I don't deserve her in my life but I suppose what I'm asking is... do I try and make contact? There is obviously a lot more to the story then this little snippet and I know the hurt I have caused, but I don't know how to move forward.

Yes, as the betrayed spouse, I’m bearing much pain. Sometimes I think, “How can I ever survive this betrayal of my love and trust?”
What I am observing though is my unfaithful spouse in greater pain. I liken his pain to angrily backing out of the driveway and running over your child. That realization that your actions destroyed the thing you loved most and there’s no rewind button, no way to undo the tragedy.
He is a man of deep emotion, the one in the family who cries at sad movies. He was the best daddy when our kids were little and a helpful, considerate husband who adored me. He is now a broken man, loathing himself and his past actions, and wondering how he could have risked everything for something so meaningless and of little value. He says the past 4 years were a dark and lonely time, and he felt far from God, with a gaping hole in his life that he tried to fill with the attention he got from women. He didn’t love them. It wasn’t fulfilling. It left him with thoughts that dying would be preferable because he felt there was no way out of the hole he had dug for himself.
So I gather this weeping man in my arms and I tell him that he’s like Peter, who denied Christ 3 times, and wept for the pain of betraying the one he loved the most. What did Jesus do? He greeted him warmly and asked three times, “Peter, do you love me?” He offered Peter grace and 3 chances to say, “Yes Lord! You know that I love you!”
Jesus knew Peter loved him and he forgave the betrayal. I’m not Christ, admittedly it’s hard for me to offer forgiveness because of my husband’s sin, and really, only Christ can exonerate him. I CAN ask the Lord to help me to love sacrificially, to comfort and encourage my husband as we both try to heal. I know, we sometimes get the message that it’s supposed to be all about the betrayed spouse, but I have compassion for the pain my husband suffers from his poor choices.
I think our worst pain comes not from what others do to us, but from what we inflict on ourselves. That pain is preventable and we allow it, we allow ourselves to destroy the only real love that exists in our life. I see that kind of pain daily in comments and on the forum.

I am hopeful that my husband and I can heal. I believe we are finally on the path to a life-sustaining and fulfilling life of love.

I think I’m one who cannot recover from the devastation of betrayal. My husbands second life is just too much to bare. I can’t believe this is my life.

Thanks rick and Dwayne for a great video.
Almost 3 years out and still struggling to feel that “love”. The video really helped me understand that I may never feel that same feeling I had for my husband before the affair and other infidelities. Probably my other blockage is his own recovery...I know I should not dictate his recovery work yet I have yet to see him dig deep into his own wounds that may have contributed to long term anger, control, lack of intimacy and ultimately affair, porn , and other infidelities such as secret masturbation our entire dating and marriage totaling about 35 years or so.
Feel like I don’t even know my husband anymore. I so want to know him But I don’t really see us progressing ...seem stuck. He does take responsibilities for his action and is trying now to be a better man: just hard for me to move forward without roots getting dug up, observed, and learning from them so he can re-enter the marriage union with much more awareness of himself.
Any helpful words of wisdom from rick, Dwayne, anyone?

We attended AR retreat three years ago. We were in Rick’s small group. Husband did not reveal any info of his affair—nothing. We have since been to a four day private retreat, 7 counselors. He has taken two polygraphs. I don’t believe for valid reasons truth is still known. Asking questions angers him and he curses and is very mean. I suffered awful verbal and emotional abuse during his affair to where I denied it, lost all self-esteem, and lost my person. Been married 51 years. We love one another still living apart. Forgiving and getting over the abuse is as hard as forgiving affair. I want to but I need him owning the abuse and realizing what pain and distrust it has caused. I feel if he owned it and had some empathy and truly was remorseful, I coukd better move forward. I’m stuck- still after over four years of trying to reconcile. Please help. - Rick or Wayne I need help!

I found this week's presentation very enlightening and very conflicting. Conflicting because, I am in the middle of the exact negative reaction to my situation. It's been 5 months since disclosure and every day I work on me. The amount of distaste and intolerance it's still Paramount in my thought process. Probably has a lot to do with childhood trauma is my conclusion. I have severe attachment distress and the infidelity along with a blind sighted dissolution of marriage proposition, has devastated my role as a human being. So that's where I am at. The idea of forgiving is in the Forefront of my thought process and it is a hurdle which is unbelievably High still at this particular time. I thought I had it and then it vanished. I work on it every day I cannot seem to grasp it. Your definition of Love touched me. I can do better. I just have to attempt to want it more and be willing to go further. This experience is priceless, but I would sell it to anyone else for the price of one penny.

It’s been 6 years since my wife was forced to confess. Not sure why I’m still here. One of the most hurtful parts is knowing she didn’t want the affair to end. These AR emails ( found in a forgotten email account ) have been helpful thanks. I will never actually recover from her selfish act!!

I've watched several of your videos. I'm having a hard time finding anything on healing from a double betrayal. My husband had an ongoing online sexual affair with my cousin. She lives close by. We were a very close family. Are there any resources for me to help me through this?

Its been a little over six months and he's done everything right from D-day on. I went thru the daily breakdowns to being able to not think about his infidelity at times. I thought I was recovering well, but the past couple of months I'm finding I don't feel anything but anger, pain...or just emptiness. I look at him and feel nothing, where before the affair, I would feel great love and emotion towards him. I don't want to divorce but I don't want to pretend for the rest of my life either. We live hours away from therapists, so that's out but we did the boot camp within a month of D-day. Amd it helped, for a bit. But now I feel like I've completely lost my faith and interest in everything. It feels like nothing is solid or real to me anymore. But i just keep pretending everything is good because he is really doing his best to be a faithful, loving partner again. Now I am the one who is possibly destroying the relationship, unbeknownst to him. I haven't told him how I've been feeling for fear of losing him. I don't know how to feel love in our marriage again.

After suffering through a 30 year marriage of countless affairs, one night stands and numerous attempts to work through them with counseling only to find myself again back at square one I have decided to separate from my husband. It’s decision grieves me but over the years I have lost myself, fallen into depression and feel hopeless. I just don’t know what else to do!