Survivors' Blog

A few years ago, we did a “Barriers to Communication” Survey. We were overwhelmed by the response, leaving us with scads of information for future articles and program development. The #1 barrier to communication identified by couples impacted by infidelity was stonewalling, followed by anger. While anger comes as no surprise given the devastation created by betrayal, I didn’t expect stonewalling to come in first (and by quite a majority too). Stonewalling is a total refusal to listen to, respond to or accept influence from your mate. If ever there was a time communication is critical, it’s during the crisis of infidelity. Stonewalling doesn’t necessarily end at refusal to speak or listen to your mate; it can also be listening with contempt or total distain. If you’re dealing with a ‘Stonewaller,’ you’ve probably heard statements like the following:   “Leave me alone” “I don’t want to hear it” “I don’t want to hear what you think/feel anymore” “Go talk to someone who cares” “Do whatever you want” “We’ve talked about this enough already, I’m done talking” At Affair Recovery we stress the need to have rational conversations verses flooded conversations. For that to occur, safety in communication is essential. The subjective realities and opinions of both parties are necessary if shared meaning is ever to be developed. As humans we all want to feel we matter to our mate, that they care about us and that they are going to be there for us. Stonewalling shuts off the critical conversations necessary to reestablish the foundations of relationship. As I write this I can only imagine how some might say that they don’t care about their mate’s perspective, but that attitude only shows contempt. According to Gottman’s research​1, contempt is the number one indicator of couples heading toward divorce. Gottman talks about this in the video at the end of the article. For couples to reconnect they have to feel they matter to their mate. Good decisions require both parties contribute to the collective pool of meaning. Failure to do so smothers recovery. That being said, it’s easy to see why stonewalling generates such a barrier to communication. If stonewalling is a problem in your relationship, see if you can identify the root of your response from the following list: 1.  Emotional flooding: When conversations become unsafe our fight or flight response is triggered. For those who tend to flee, stonewalling is the response of choice. In these situations stonewalling becomes a method of self-soothing as the person floods. It’s almost as if they stick their fingers in their ears, shutting the other person out in hopes of calming down. These individuals tend to be like turtles who withdraw into their shells. If however they’re married to a partner who also floods but whose natural response is to fight, then the couple become a bit like a turtle and a shark. The turtle withdraws into its shell while the shark is on the outside screaming “come out of there!” Both are deprived of what they need to heal. 2.  Keeping the peace: Sometimes people stonewall because they feel it’s just not worth the conflict if they speak up. It’s easier to remain silent than to speak up and add their perspective to the pool of knowledge. While this approach might promote short-term peace, it is a death knell in the coffin of marriage. Intimacy is the ability to be naked and not ashamed. It’s a willingness to speak up and share your perspective. Without your contribution to the conversation the best decision can never be reached. Two thirds of the time intimacy in marriage creates short-term instability rather than peace, but in the long run it creates a powerful bond. You can never be loved unconditionally as long as you only conditionally allow your mate to know you. 3.  Aggression: Pain that is not transformed will be transmitted and at times stonewalling is the vehicle for transmitting that pain. Either spouse can use stonewalling as a way to deny their mate another chance. This is especially effective if their mate is remorseful for what they’ve done and is asking for a second chance. The most effective way to inflict pain in this situation is to deny their attempts at reconciliation. Aggression can also be played out through stonewalling by refusing to even respond to your spouse’s anger or pain. It’s a destructive approach to attempt to rush restoration efforts through aggressive tactics or by attempting to hurry a spouse into forgiveness or trusting them again. Sadly, this is where many a bridge is burned through aggressive comments like “you just need to get over it.” 4.  Defensiveness: At times the conflict seems so overwhelming that the only solution seems to be responding with anger or shutting it out through stonewalling. They fail to see that there are other responses such as assertiveness or emotional regulation. It’s absolutely vital to have some diffusing mechanisms in place to help prevent each potentially fragile discussion from turning into a slug fest of rage. 5.  Shame/humiliation: The pain generated by shame or humiliation can also be a catalyst for stonewalling. Talking about the subject is far too painful so they respond with silence in hopes of shutting down the conversation. For the unfaithful, shame not only grows, but flourishes in dark places and its only medicine is to bring it to the light in a redemptive way. When shame is discussed in a way that is restorative, it paves the way to disarm its momentum which can then foster not only open communication, but also healing for both spouses. 6.  Frustration: Frequently frustration drives stonewalling. While it may block their goal of resolution it seems preferable to speaking without being heard or believed. Feeling misunderstood and unheard leaves people feeling unloved with little motivation for speaking up and sharing their reality. This situation is frequently created when the hurt spouse continually asks the same questions over and over. The unfaithful spouse must understand that the reason their mate continually asks the same questions is because they want to believe you, but it just doesn’t make sense. They keep asking the same question in hopes that they can understand. For the hurt spouse, stonewalling creates fear. If our survey repealed anything, it was that stonewalling on the part of the unfaithful spouse continues to generate suspicion in the hurt spouse that there’s more going on that they still don’t know everything. Stonewalling in the betrayed spouse creates hopelessness and a belief that things can never be worked out, so why try anyway. If stonewalling is a problem in your communication, begin by first identifying why you or your mate stonewall. Next week we’ll discuss ways to remove the barrier of stonewalling. At our EMS Weekend, we start the entire weekend with a session entitled “Barriers to Recovery.” Stonewalling doesn’t have to be the end of your communication, marriage or restoration process. It’s not as hopeless as it seems my friends.     1Gottman PhD, John. Why Marriages Succeed or Fail…and How You Can Make Yours Last. New York: First Fireside Edition registered trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc., 1995. Print.

Defining forgiveness is difficult at best, especially when it comes to infidelity. I find it more useful to begin by defining what forgiveness is NOT. In recovery, we encourage both individuals and couples to focus on good strong progress, not perfection, even in the area of forgiveness. Each of our courses provide a proven pathway to freeing yourself from bitterness and resentment. Forgiveness, or forgiving infidelity, is NOT based on the other person’s contrition, sorrow or repentance: While reconciliation may be based on another’s contrition, sorrow or repentance, forgiveness is a gift you give yourself which sets you free from the hurtful actions of others. It has little to do with the other person because it’s an internal matter. It is an act that releases that person’s hold on you for the wrongs committed against you. To choose not to forgive leaves you forever a victim. Forgiveness takes the power back and creates momentum for your own recovery. Forgiveness does NOT mean reconciliation: It is possible to forgive someone and release the resentment and bitterness you have toward them without reconciling. While forgiveness in marriage after infidelity is not based on the other person’s repentance, reconciliation IS most definitely based on their empathy, sorrow, repentance and their ability to be safe. If the person who wounded you does not take personal responsibility for what they’ve done, is not willing to make restitution, and won’t take steps to assure it doesn’t happen again, then reconciliation may not even be wise. Forgiveness in marriage after betrayal is NOT forgetting: It would be “Divine” if we were capable of forgetting, but I’m not sure it would be safe. As humans we forgive, but the reminders of what happened remain. To pretend the offense never occurred would minimize the gift of forgiveness. The intrusion of past offenses into our present day reality does not mean we haven’t forgiven. Rather, as humans we tend to forgive and remember. With forgiveness after infidelity there is no longer a need to punish or to extract payment from that person for their offenses against others or us. Forgiveness allows us to leave the wounds of our past and move forward, but we do so with lessons learned from our past. Forgiveness after an affair is NOT condoning or making light of their behavior: If it were possible to just excuse what the other person had done, there would be no need for forgiveness. To forgive someone his or her wrongs against you in no way minimizes the magnitude of the offense. The very fact that forgiving infidelity is necessary accentuates the reality that an injury occurred. If the party that injured us fails to see the seriousness of the offense then we feel trivialized and unimportant. Forgiveness is NOT ignoring what happened: Far too often people want to skip over the injuries perpetrated against them to avoid looking at the damage. Pretending an offense never occurred places seeds of bitterness in fertile soil. Not until we’ve explored the true and palatable cost can we forgive the debt that is incurred. Forgiveness is NOT a one-time event, especially when it comes to forgiving infidelity: Frequently people will think something’s wrong because they continue to struggle with the betrayal committed by their mate. While we may choose to forgive, the consequences of those actions can continue to rock our lives. Each time an additional consequence occurs it also has to be released. Each time you understand more of what happened you still have to deal with the pain of that consequence regardless of whether you forgave them for their actions. Each time an intrusive thought robs your peace it becomes another consequence to deal with and release. The shock waves created by infidelity can continue to roll through time for a number of years, though the amount and intensity will lesson as you heal. Each additional consequence has to be released or resentment and bitterness could take hold. Continuing forgiveness is key to healing after an affair. Forgiveness does NOT mean permission to go and do the same thing over and over: If someone were to view forgiveness as permission to repeat the same hurtful actions then that individual isn’t safe for a relationship. They would be someone who takes no responsibility for their actions. Additionally, if a person’s motivation for not repeating an offense is based on your lack of forgiveness, you are put in the place of having to take personal responsibility for their behavior and safety in the relationship for the remainder of the relationship. It's impossible for forgiveness to occur if the extramarital relationship hasn’t ended completely. If you were a merchant and a customer ran up a debt that you chose to write off, it would be impossible to write that debt off if the customer continued to rack up debt despite your efforts. It would be impossible to determine what it would take to write it off. I hope exploring what forgiveness is NOT, has helped to clarify questions you might have about both what forgiving infidelity is and how to forgive. Betrayal is something others do to you, but bitterness is something you do to yourself. For the sake of healing, I hope that a better understanding of forgiveness allows you the opportunity for personal freedom. It’s important to remember however, that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation and that it is a process that takes time. While I have a personal bias toward reconciliation I recognize it’s dependent on the actions and attitudes of both parties. If you're interested in exploring whether reconciliation is even possible, consider attending our in-person EMS Weekend. It will help both of you, better understand what it will take to reconcile and move forward as an individual or as a couple regardless of the state of your marriage. Before you make decisions that will mostly likely change you and your family’s history, please give some thought to finding clarity and peace in your story first. 

Last May was our three-year anniversary post D-day and as I anticipated, it hardly caused a ripple in my emotions. I knew the day was nearing but we were in a good place and we breezed through it without drama, triggers, or setbacks to our recovery. I believed we were finally through the worst that my husband's betrayal could throw at us. We had made it through the fire and while scarred were at last in a better, stronger, safer place. Then from out of nowhere and without warning, ambivalence hit me like a punch to the gut. It came as a shock this far into recovery. Ambivalence is normal and part of the healing process and I had a lot of it in the months before we took EMS Online. But I thought ambivalence only happened in the early stages of recovery. How could it strike me more than three years later? Ambivalence is the state of having mixed or contradictory feelings about something or someone. You're of two minds wanting to go in opposite directions. It strikes both the betrayed and unfaithful. Samuel has an excellent article titled "Ambivalence". In it he states,"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 was suddenly afflicted with the cancer of ambivalence and it was eating at the fragile stability of my trust, gnawing at my emotional well-being and chewing at the hard fought victories I had made in recovery. I didn't care if I stayed in the marriage or not. I wasn't happy. I wasn't sad. I wasn't angry. I wasn't good humored. If my husband wanted to go out to eat I didn't care one way or the other. Movie? He can choose. Sex? Whatever. I was blah, going through the motions of my day without emotion or care. I was withdrawn, only talking to my husband when necessary. I knew I should do something but couldn't figure out what and couldn't muster the energy to care enough to start. And what made it worse was that my husband totally ignored that something was going on. He wasn't oblivious. He couldn't be. He just chose not to reach out to me. It was painful. One day, several weeks into my malaise I called my mother and begged her for help. She asked me if I wanted a divorce. The answer was no. Then she told me what I already knew I had to do. I had to talk to my husband. He admitted that he knew something was wrong but didn't know how to talk to me about it. I told him that I needed his help to get through my ambivalence. I was specific in my requests. I needed him to reach out to me with more hugs, touching, and affection without it leading to sex. I required him to reassure me that he's thinking about me and needing me throughout the day with texts. I needed him to reach out to me when I'm withdrawn and keeping to myself. He tried but it only lasted a few days and my ambivalence raged on, engulfing my every waking moment and overwhelming me with its intensity. I quit reading everything related to Affair Recovery thinking that being exposed to the pain of others was adding to my problems. I tried forcing myself to be intentional in my actions towards my husband which had always worked in the past. I did a lot of self-reflection attempting to figure out where the ambivalence was coming from. I gradually began to connect with a separate incident that was happening at the same time with my ambivalence and the pieces finally came together. My husband had told me early on during recovery that one of his reasons for betrayal was that he felt a lack of intimacy in our marriage. That lack of intimacy was directly related to the fact that years ago when he gained weight it caused him to snore. He started occasionally sleeping in the spare room which eventually led to sleeping there every night. Over the years our intimacy suffered and so did our relationship. After D-day, we started sleeping together again and I bought earplugs to help me cope with the snoring. He eventually lost enough weight that the snoring rarely became a problem. But now he had gained the weight back and suddenly he's sleeping in the guest room, just like before. This is a huge trigger for me. The longer he sleeps in the guest room, the more worried I get about losing intimacy and the negative repercussion this could have for our relationship. I have mentioned my fears to my husband several times but he doesn't seem to care. If he's not concerned about our relationship, why should I be bothered? After working this out in my mind I talked to my husband again this time explaining that I believed my ambivalence may in part be coming from the fact that we're not sleeping together again. I got nowhere. I wish I could say that my husband stepped up and fulfilled my needs helping my ambivalence disappear quickly. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Was I asking too much of him? Possibly. Unrealistic and unmet expectations can be another cancer that eats at a marriage. But what I will tell you is that he hasn't used these past months as an excuse to be angry or frustrated or hateful to me. He's given me the space that I need to work through my emotions. And while he's not been supportive in the way that I had hoped he has been solidly supportive by always being there without judgment. We aren't sleeping together yet but he has finally decided to lose weight. There's progress. Not as fast as I would have liked but progress. The ambivalence has been slowly seeping away like fog as the brilliance of the sun burns it off. There are still wispy tendrils left, sneaking around in low spots, trying to wrap around and hide in dark corners of my heart. But the sun is doing its work one day at a time and I can finally see the horizon. I've learned that just because we're years down the road since D-day, that doesn't mean my or our recovery is perfect. We had become somewhat complacent but have discovered that it's important to be prepared for anything as we navigate the quagmire of recovery. If I hadn't been committed to my goal of a better, more honest, more respectful marriage I may have given up. If my husband had allowed my ambivalence to cause him to be impatient or frustrated with me he may have given up. It would have been easy for him to say it's been three years, get over it! Luckily he didn't. I recommend reading Rick's superb articles, "The Paralysis of Ambivalence: Part 1" and "Part 2". Ambivalence is normal but it doesn't have to be a deal breaker. There is hope.