Affair Recovery

Recently my family and I went on a two week vacation, picking up a travel trailer along the way and journeying across 4 or 5 different states. The trailer is a bit of a beast, I think at least 24 feet long. My SUV pulls it, but not very well and the gas mileage is something to marvel at (in an expensive, almost regretful way). My oldest wanted to see Vegas and Jodi wanted to see The Grand Canyon again, so we decided The Grand Canyon would be our last stop before we headed home to Texas.

I had no idea what kind of drive was ahead of me. The drive there was easy, in fact too easy, and now I was pulling a trailer with (at the very least) a 50 gallon water tank that was completely full.

Having so much fun in Vegas, I thought the drive to The Grand Canyon would be...

This was one of the great truths I have learned through the recovery process from my affair. My choice to have an affair ripped my wife’s heart in two and almost destroyed our 25 year marriage.

I used to fixate on the fact that I had ruined what I believed had been a good record. I no longer could boast as a superior husband, father, or even human being. I had cheated on my wife and I was now considered lower than pond scum. No longer could my wife or my children be able to say at my funeral, “he was a good man and faithful husband.” I had destroyed any chances of receiving a eulogy that would compel all those present to say to my grieving widow, “Jack was such a wonderful man. Knowing him has changed my life. My greatest regret is that I didn’t know him better.”

Yeah...

I was recently sharing with a woman some of the pain that I had gone through after discovering my husband’s betrayal. She asked me if we were together now. When I told her we were, her next question was, “How did you know you were safe to let him back in?”

I knew exactly what she meant. She wasn’t asking me when I let him back into our home after our separation. She was asking me when I was able to trust him with my heart. Somewhere deep inside all of us we understand the truth about our hearts. They are our most treasured possessions, and because of that we instinctively guard them.

As I thought about how to reply to her question, I realized that the answer was going to be a difficult one. That season in my life was so messy and complicated. Trying to pin-point exactly...

When I was around 9 years old I had to have my Appendix removed. It had not burst but it was very close. I remember well the extreme pain before the surgery. Debilitating, double-you-over pain. After the surgery I remember I was still in quite a bit of pain. I did not want to cough because the coughing stretched the surgery site. Over the next days, weeks and years the wound healed. I no longer have pain but occasionally if I stretch just the wrong way I can feel twinges at the site of the scar. The experience is now part of my past. I can’t change it or pretend it didn’t happen. It’s just another piece in the puzzle of my life.

As I have been involved over the past few years with Harboring Hope and EMS programs, one common thing I see is couples or individuals trying to sweep...

When it all came out, to say my life was rocked was an understatement. Due to the public nature of my position and affair(s), many lives were altered forever. I knew little about life at that point, but I knew I wanted my kids, my family, and I wanted life to be what it once was.

It would never be again. (At least not the way it was before and truth be told, I’m glad it’s not what it once was)

As I started down the long road to recovery with Samantha, it was frustratingly apparent that I was NOT in control. This realization hurt like all hell, as I’m a control freak. Whether it was my professional position, or during college and professional baseball, or almost every other thing in life, I had learned how to “will it so” in my own strength, power and tenacity.

...

Lately I have had many pose the question, “Do you think my spouse, who’s been unfaithful, can fall back in love with me again?”

It’s interesting that the betrayed spouse is asking this question, as they know their betrayer is distant and has allowed their heart to either temporarily or ultimately beat for another. With most affairs eventually and completely blowing up, many wonder if the damage can be restored and the carnage repaired.

The answer is a resounding YES, from personal experience.

Not only from a clinical perspective is it possible, but from a personal, experiential perspective, it is possible for our hearts to beat with passion, romance, and joy for our spouse whom we’ve betrayed, and possibly even fallen out of love with.

Upon D-Day (the...

I believe I was in middle school when I first began noticing “SAFE PLACE” signs around town. I remember asking Mom what they were about. She explained that they were posted on buildings where a person could go if they were in trouble and in need of a safe place to find help. About fifteen years later, after I discovered my husband Wayne’s betrayals, I found myself in need of a safe place. Not a physical one with a black and yellow sign out front, but an emotional one where I could be real without fear of judgment or unsolicited advice.

The first few months after discovery, I felt anything but safe with Wayne. Looking back, it is very obvious to me what a blessing it was to be surrounded by about a half a dozen women who poured love on me during that time of such brokenness....

I just remember standing in my living room yelling at the ceiling, “What now?! What am I supposed to do now?!!” It was two days after my husband left, and I was at one of my lowest points. I literally felt like I was climbing the walls. It was somewhere in that moment when I realized I had absolutely no control over the situation.

I had disclosed my affair more than six months before and then quickly got myself in counseling, started going to weekly recovery meetings and enrolled in a twelve-step study program. I was going through all the right motions attempting to figure out where I had gone wrong, trying to feel something. In all of that, though, I now realize I was doing nothing more than trying to maintain control of the situation so my marriage could be saved. I...

Love and Respect, by Emerson Eggerichs, was such a wonderful book of clarity and insight for Samantha and I that I try and re-read it about once or twice a year. If we hit a rough spot in our marriage, I read it even more. (Let’s hope I only have to read it once this year.)

A quote I originally took issue with in Love and Respect was, “She doesn’t cause me to be the way I am, she REVEALS the way I am. If I react in an unloving way, then it reveals I still have issues going on inside me.”

I first hated that statement as I took a totally different approach to the realization that if she was this way, then I’d be that way. But what I quickly came to realize was, I was responsible for my reaction REGARDLESS of what came my way both in marriage and in life. I’m old...

It’s funny the things one thinks about when in a moment of intense pain or personal crisis. A friend once told me about the events surrounding her father’s death. He had lived with her family for several years and was an important part of their daily lives. Her young daughter had a special relationship with him and often ran into his room early in the morning so he would be awake in time to take her to school. One morning when she ran into his room she was unable to wake him. So it was through the hysterical screams and sobs of her daughter that she learned of her father’s passing. While attempting to calm her daughter she looked out the window and saw a friend passing by on her morning walk. I remember her telling me, “I don’t know what came over me. In that moment of intense loss all...

This morning while writing notes on my daily devotional, I noticed the vivid blue color of the pen I was using. A very beautiful blue color that contrasts nicely with the white paper I use. I have been using the same pen and paper for months. Why am I now just noticing this?

The metropolitan area I live in is located in a valley between two beautiful and magnificent mountain ranges. We can drive to a ski resort in the winter in 30 minutes. The Wasatch Mountains are on the east and the Oquirrh Mountains on the west. Every day I drive towards the Wasatch Mountains on the way to work. Daily the beauty and magnificence fills my windshield. Unfortunately on most days I don’t even notice the mountains. I notice the guy who cut me off. I notice the tasks I have to complete at work. I...

I recently went to a new salon to get my hair highlighted and cut. What I had envisioned as a cute, strawberry blonde highlight and cut turned out looking like blood streaks. Another trip back to the stylist proved to be even more disastrous. I walked out after the second try with brown, blonde, red, and pink stripes, all of which were so over-processed that the outer shaft of my hair was sloughing off in my hand as I drove away. By the time I got home I looked like a mangy calico cat. Needless to say there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth at my house that night. The first thing I did when I got home was get on the phone with several friends for some much needed sympathy.

A few days after my hair disaster, I was scheduled to work. I had about 12 nurses ask me at...

Several years ago my family went to the Gulf of Mexico for a weekend at the beach. As soon as we arrived we began to hear rumors of a hurricane heading in our direction. It was still a few days away, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but when we got in the water we could feel the storm brewing. What was normally a relatively laid back ocean with an occasional lazy wave here and there had turned into an angry foam. Its waves stood up twice as high as normal before they crashed back down into the water below. Then without hesitation they would raise right back up again in preparation for their next thunderous break.

As a general rule, I am a pretty laid back, easy going kind of girl. You may get an occasional wave out of me, but even then they tend to be pretty harmless...