Last night we were attending church. If you are not a church goer, no judgement here. The number of times I set foot inside a church before I turned 25 was few and far between. Church can be such a healing place for many, yet such a triggering place for others. Throughout my own life I have seen so many good things done by the church. I have also witnessed the very worst of humanity inside the supposed church walls. However, I still believe in the church simply because I choose...
The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, A puzzle that no one can figure out. But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, Not as they pretend to be. Jeremiah 17:9-10
Roots: Part 1
Remember those shallow roots we are...
But blessed is the one who trusts in Me alone; the Eternal will be his confidence. He is like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots beside the stream. It does not fear the heat or even drought. Its leaves stay green and its fruit is dependable, no matter what it faces. Jeremiah 17:7-8
We live on...
To betrayed spouses everywhere: other than the obvious apology that is owed to you for the injustice thrown upon you due to infidelity, I have yet another confession to offer to you.
I am embarrassed to say how deep my fears, insecurities and shame have reached. For much of my recovery (for most of the first year anyway), I have been afraid of you. I have feared your pain, your emotion, your comments and your rawness of emotion. I know...
Two years ago, I had my first d day. Wow, how my life has changed since. I find myself fighting darkness again lately. Perhaps it's the anniversary, perhaps its fatigue, perhaps it's a little bit of a lot of things… so I write to clear my head. This blog is simply the ramblings of a betrayed man in the weeds.
We recently moved. Some events in my working life late last year instigated a domino effect that resulted in my...
One of the things I have found to be true about the walk of recovery from infidelity, is the longer I walk, the less I know. And the less I know, the more I feel.
The feeling that has overwhelmed me of late is one of pretty intense sadness. It seems I feel sorrow in every bone and fiber within me. I feel it deeply, and it feels like a dam around my heart that can break loose at any moment. When I look at my...
Today I wanted to share something that happened in my office that was incredibly moving to me. At work, we get to see people of all ages and ailments. Whatever your profession is, have you ever had a moment when someone walks in your door and you quickly realize (even though you are the so called professional) that you are the one about to learn?
This morning, that was me. An 84 year old woman I had been helping came in. Her daughter usually drives her, because she...
When I hear the words liar or cheater, I get a yucky and icky feeling in my stomach. I do not have the strength to face the realization that all of us are broken, without also knowing all people are able to choose humility and redemption. If I don't accept the possibility for change and repentance, I will drown in a spiral of shame.
It is hard to look back on my life and admit or pinpoint when I started telling lies instead of the truth. Like water is to a fish, it is something I have always lived with. That might sound strange to some, but perhaps a better way to explain would be to say that I have always lived with fear. Fear and anxiety that the truth is often an ugly thing, and I didn't see much repentance, acceptance, or forgiveness in my family of origin.
I do recall...
Chances are if you are reading this, you are waiting for something. I remember early on in our recovery from my infidelity, it seemed that I was waiting mostly for some sort of relief from the circumstances I had created. I was lost in a complete shame spiral, and I wanted relief! I wanted the pain to go away. I have to admit now, I also was so ready for my husband to not be in pain anymore. I humbly can't even say I was healthy enough that I wanted healing for us. I only wanted relief.
When we first...
If you are reading this and your affair has been discovered, chances are you don't know where to turn, where to go, or have any idea what will come of your life.
You might feel like your life is over. Humiliation probably doesn't begin to scratch the surface of what you are feeling. You are now exposed for who you really are. You are a cheater. You are a liar. And you are a sham. There is nowhere to hide and it is time to face what you have done. You probably don't like what you see in the mirror...
I am writing this as I sit on a flight to a sunny destination with my husband; the same man who has courageously fought to give our marriage another chance.
So much has changed in our lives over the past few years. We have aged. We have toughened. We are different now. The innocence we once had is gone.
Yet many things about us remain strangely familiar: our quirks and idiosyncrasies. One example of this, is that we are not...
When you begin sorting out the mess of infidelity, life gets complicated. As an unfaithful female, I started to question all interaction I had with the opposite sex following D day. I honestly considered at one point, that it might be easiest to just convert myself into a nun so I could avoid men for the rest of my life. If that is what would make me safe, I would do it!
Some of the questions we wrestled with early on were: Can I work with men?...
I was reading through many of my journal entries during the first year after discovery. I have several journals that are stuffed with scribbles, thoughts, and pages of raw and bloodied emotion. As I thumb through the hundreds of pages, I can see the narrative of God slowly eradicating my shame. When it came to my betrayed husband though, the theme of my writing seemed to revolve around a feeling of...
If there was a scale of emotions, I think it's safe to say we all prefer to be somewhere right in the middle; somewhere between 65 and 75 degrees. . . not too hot, not too cold.
If your story and recovery has looked anything like ours, then you've probably realized that you and your mate's emotions can go way off the charts. We have been on roller coasters of highs and lows. We've experienced days where there seems to be no love or hope left at all. Days where frozen is an understatement...
As a real estate and small business attorney, I have always been drawn to the processes that emerge during real estate and business deals. Emotions run high at the hope of future opportunity in the early stages. As particulars are investigated, uncertainties become clearer and some risks become calculable. There is always a gap between what is known and what can only be projected. Ultimately, the constraints of resources and time merge to force a decision. It is in that moment that instincts prevail and the process becomes poetic. It is also in that moment that the uneasy feelings of uncertainty...
If you find yourself in the first few months of discovery, chances are you are enduring many mornings that you don't see the point of getting out of bed. Your world and life as you knew it are gone. Life can seem empty and cold. Looking back on our first six months after discovery, there were days it seemed like an eternity of pure hell.
Grief doesn't even begin to describe it. Like many of you, we have all endured losses. We've lost parents. We've lost jobs....
In the Bible, one of the most beloved, well known, and controversial stories is one that Jesus told of the Prodigal son.
Prodigal actually means "wasteful, reckless, irresponsible and selfish." Sounds a lot like me when I was unfaithful....
I've had the urge to write this blog for some time, but I keep finding myself putting it off. I know it will take some effort and may not flow as easily as some of the earlier ones. This process started for me when I heard a well-known quote from the famous philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard:
"Life can only be...
Early on in recovery, I was so angry at my husband for suggesting I have a love addiction. I am so ashamed to think of how prideful I can be. In my mind, a woman with a so-called love addiction had serious issues. I had a stereotype in my head that this would be a woman constantly on dating sites, wearing clothing from Victoria's Secret, or someone completely out of control. This was not me.
I was a mom for crying out loud. I drive a minivan. I carpool. I go to church. I was married. I...
Have you ever driven in really thick fog? We live near the Mississippi river, where a lot of tributaries feed into the waterway. I didn't grow up in this region (I'm a native Texan), but what I find is that certain mornings of the year, the hills and valleys surrounding our home become blanketed in a thick fog. It becomes so heavy over the roadways that in order to drive, you have to put your headlights on the low beam and drive very slow. You can't see anything. All of the curves and turns seem to sneak...
The visceral experience of being betrayed has triggered thoughts that consume my mind yet again. I haven't slept more than three hours straight in many months and the Benadryl I regularly take just leaves me feeling groggy. I only have two hours before I have to be in front of the first of many demanding clients today. My efforts to make it through the motions of my morning have been interrupted by my teenage daughter's demands. She desperately wants me to accommodate her schedule in order...
Today I am journaling about codependency because I truly hate the word. I wish someone decades ago could have come up with a nicer sounding word to fit the definition.
When I began some honest soul searching of my character flaws that led me to cheat on my husband, I began to realize that I am a poster child for codependency. Looking back on my life and choices, I have spent years outrunning being identified as “codependent” to any degree. Part of my...
Affair Recovery is making some changes to Recovery Library Memberships.
Nine years ago, our vision for the Recovery Library was to create an immense database of expert knowledge. A large part of this database stemmed from our Recovery Library Members and the questions submitted for the Expert Q...
During college, I had five very close friends. After graduating, we all moved off to separate parts of the country and began to conquer our small piece of the world. As time went on, somehow, we all wound up marrying women that got along with one another. A few summers later, we all rented a beach house together for a week just to reunite. The trip was such a success it turned into an annual ritual. One we have all kept sacred for over a decade.
The first night of our yearly reunions we would gather on the beach to catch up...
I ask myself this question a lot. I guess it's more of a fear of mine than a question. In a rational state of mind I can answer this easily: of course not. Infidelity is a choice. No one put a gun to my head and made me cross the line. No one forced me to be unfaithful. And like the source for eye color or skin tone, I don't think there is a "ruin your spouse's life by having an affair" gene.
If you've done much reading...
"Should I stay or should I go? If I go, there will be trouble. If I stay, it will be double . . ." ~The Clash
I am a child of schoolhouse rock, a product of the age in which skate parks were invented, parachute pants were high fashion, and most of the girls I wanted to date had big hair and blue eye shadow. Lucky for me I made one of those beauties my wife. Rebellion for her in our southern catholic high school (yes, I see the irony . . . especially considering we...
Today my words come from a very insecure and needy place. Insecure because I'm trying hard to use words instead of behaviors to show how I feel and what I need. This "voice" seems childlike and continues to grow because it is still somewhat unfamiliar to me. My words might sound crazy but I promise I'm not a lunatic! My psychologist refers to me in "parts" like this, so I am going to do the same here today.
The needy part of this voice is the one I am most uncomfortable with. I have always hated and detested the needy part of me so I constantly...
I drive a relatively new truck so I found it especially frustrating to pull out of the dealership repair shop only to find my "check engine" light was on. Again. This was the 4th time in a month I had gone back to the same dealership for the same repair. My witty and wise 14-year-old daughter was enjoying my frustration when she asked,
"Why do you keep going back to the bad haircut place?"
"What?" I replied confused and irritated.
We are more than a year out from discovery. Some of the days have been very slow making me wonder if progress has been made. And although we now have more good days than bad, a small internal voice still occasionally asks, am I really changing?
While you, the betrayed, are trying to heal from what we, the unfaithful, have done to you, I also know you are ultimately waiting for redemption.
There are days my husband's anxiety seems to come out of nowhere. Of course I understand the root of the...
Around age 10 or 11 they finally allowed us to steal bases in little league. This change transitioned the position of catcher from a simple filler spot that shagged stray pitches into an athletic position that saw action every play. I remember being pulled from the field and given the mitt. Game time came. A few pitches went by and a batter was on first. I found myself constantly distracted by the runner. As I anticipated his steal, the pitch would get by me. After multiple times I could hear the crowd's mumbled voices full of advice. I desperately began trying to apply everything I was...
