Last blog I posed a thought life challenge I've heard many betrayed express. Was my life 'real'? I don't know what to believe. What was real and what wasn't? To say that my life had not been what I thought it was would be quite an understatement. Real in every way to me, yet I was in fact controlled via the withholding of vital information to believe I was safe and in the gentle care of a loving, faithful spouse.
I won't pretend to say my thoughts on this are true for anyone but myself, but you may find threads of similarity with my feelings.
Life history matters. Our days are the only commodity we have. I view the time I spend as precious and irreplaceable. I chose to spend the majority of my adult life with the man I promised a lifetime. I chose to invest in his dreams, his ability to reach for them, his happiness. It is truly my life calling to uphold and add to the lives of...
For the unfaithful spouse, there will come a point in your recovery where you will begin your grief process. It will likely not happen at the same time or in the same way as your spouse, and it should not come as a surprise to us.
Grief is the vehicle in which we carry our pain. For betrayed spouses, grief begins immediately; they are bombarded and overwhelmed by the shock waves of finding out that their spouse has cheated on them. They are in horrendous pain, and the grief starts on day one.
For most unfaithful, the grief will look different because it is delayed. It is delayed, because while we are acting out in our affairs, we are not feeling genuine feelings. We are in pain avoidance and pretend mode and there are no "real" feelings in an affair. It is not until an unfaithful spouse can start to slow down,...
Samuel shares four key points that the unfaithful can utilize to win back their betrayed spouse's heart.
Samuel helps both spouses understand the need to survive before they can move on to the next season of repair work.
When it comes to God, one of the most beautiful things about Him is also what I find most fascinating about Him --- He simply won't change. He doesn't budge and He is who He says He is. Yesterday, today, forever.
God does not keep office hours or change His mind on a matter. He won't get bored and He sure isn't fickle. His compassion will never end. He will never tire of hearing or listening to our broken hearts.
For all of us trying to sort out the mess of our lives created by infidelity, change is perhaps the most difficult thing to absorb and comprehend. None of our lives will ever be the same. I don't know about you, but it has been really painful to accept that the landscape of each of our lives is forever altered. Our marriages no longer look or feel the same. If your spouse is still with...
Samuel discusses how to prioritize our own individual healing while discussing a major struggle couples in recovery face.
Today Samuel shares five keys to personal and marital recovery work.
Hope Rising 2019 is a one-day event for betrayed spouses to be inspired with hope, practical strategies and resources as they navigate healing from infidelity. Gather with other betrayed spouses as experts, past participants, and author Shelley Martinkus speak truth into what it’s like to heal from infidelity. Find new life with a community who truly "gets it."
Shelley Martinkus, 2019's Hope Rising Keynote Speaker, would like to extend a personal invitation to YOU:
Shelley Martinkus's world changed forever when she found out about her husband's sexual addiction. God used Jason's betrayal as a catalyst for Shelley to take ownership of her own life and start to mend all the broken pieces she saw staring back at her. Shelley and Jason are now 15 years into their journey and she likes to say that her...
How did you have the good fortune to come across Affair Recovery?
I found AR while I scoured the internet for help. Post D-day, I did what I have always done when there is a crisis in my family---research.
To be fair, first I cried.
I cried and cried and cried. I simply could not believe my husband could do such a thing; the person who was one half of the golden couple of our college. One half of the couple all our friends envied. The guy our female friends called such a wonderful husband. "He's so affectionate. He washes dishes! He is so nice to us. He likes all the stuff you like. He's so handsome. He's so funny." Yes—he is. He is also deeply wounded by life.
Perhaps God intervened in a special protective way molding our human nature when he made man from the mud and woman from man's rib. He made us to deny atrocity. We deny the truth when the truth is simply too painful to handle.
During...
Today I am going to share the biggest mistake that I made since my last affair, and how it almost cost me everything. It was, in my opinion, even worse than my infidelity. That mistake was my inability to reach full disclosure the first time. For six weeks, I held on to secrets about my behavior and I continued to lie about what I had done.
Our world started crumbling down on our wedding anniversary two years ago. Every single detail of the disclosure process is awful, but it really stinks when your D-Day is also your wedding anniversary. That was the day I admitted to my husband that I had been unfaithful to him and I had developed feelings for someone else. But I omitted any other details. In my delusional mind, I somehow at the time was convinced that an emotional affair sounded "better", so I withheld details about the...
