Intimacy avoidance remains one of the most challenging aspects of both short-term and long-term recovery from an affair. Whether four months into repair work or four years in, the couple that remains impinged by intimacy avoidance struggles to gain any lasting momentum at all. Without a strategic, infidelity-specific plan to address both the infidelity and the intimacy avoidance, ultimate failure remains a potential and quite tangible outcome for the relationship. The good news is, intimacy avoidance can be addressed, managed, and healed while the overall cause for infidelity in the relationship can be additionally treated. For many, understanding the cause of infidelity remains a unicorn that is seldom found, discussed or remedied. With expert help from both survivors and multi-certified experts, these challenges no longer present the...
Part 1: The Darkness that Nearly Swallowed Me Up Part 2: Finding My Way Out Of The Dark
Warning - this post is about self-harm and suicidal thoughts and may be intense or triggering. If you need help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, available 24 hours, at 800-273-8255 or https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.
If you are reading this, you fully understand there is nothing quite like the feeling of unravelling after D-day. I felt that too. After the numbness and disorientation subsided, the searing pain was constant. There was no reprieve. Day and night, this obliterating pain and confusion was derailing...
"Will my marriage or relationship ever be the same again?" This is one of the most common questions when a couple enters a therapist's office, wondering if they can actually survive infidelity. There are no easy answers, but there is tangible hope when the right guidance and pathways are provided to couples in crisis. While infidelity is extremely traumatic for a marriage, it doesn't have to be the end, or figuratively cremate the relationship while the couple makes mistake after mistake wondering why nothing is working. It is vital that both partners are willing to do the work to heal, from either their own mistakes, or the mistakes of their spouse. "This is your problem... so you are going to do the work and I'm not doing anything" speaks to the pain of the betrayed, but does not remedy the palatable trauma lurking in the heart and mind of...
Harboring Hope Registration Opens Soon!
In the fall of 1980, I took a course on problem solving at the University of Denver. At the time, I found it difficult to believe there was enough material to teach about this subject to warrant a three-hour course. In hindsight, however, it was one of...
Psalm 139:14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.
I have always considered myself a fairly even-keeled person. I am normally logical and practical. My kids (all boys) commented over the years that they thought it was weird to...
"Can a marriage recover from an affair" is one of the most popular questions we are asked at affairrecovery.com. The answer is a resounding YES, if both parties are willing to do the work and commit to the process. Today, Alumnus Samuel shares practical and refreshing insight into answering that question, and how to do it. Rebuilding a marriage that has been ransacked by infidelity or addiction is no easy task, but it IS possible, when both parties have a proven blueprint for their own individual work, as well as that of the relationship. Upon early repair efforts, couples can become frustrated, angry and slip into a tangible hopelessness. Enter outside advisors who've never been through infidelity before, or well-meaning friends and family who often give unsolicited, unproved advice, and it's a recipe for disaster. After an affair, couples...
The call came at 2:13 in the morning,
"Can you come get me?" It was one of my best friends.
"Where are you?" He gave me the address, which was in one of the most dangerous parts of Austin. "Where's your car?" I asked.
"I've been out using...
Finding the courage to keep going after your own world has been rocked by infidelity or addiction is one of the most excruciating processes an adult can find themselves in. Discovering there are not only survivors of infidelity, but those who have come out on the other side healed, forgiven, and restored, can bring hope and courage to others forging through the challenging seasons of early recovery. While not impossible to heal, our feelings often betray us and leave us feeling defeated against what feels like insurmountable circumstances at times. "Everyone has a plan 'till they're punched in the face" is a quote you'll hear from Samuel in today's video blog. It's safe to say that infidelity is likely one of the toughest punches in life to take. But take heart; there are ways through the tunnels of darkness that can be taken by those early...
Cover more ground faster with the life-changing experience of EMS Weekend for couples.
This isn't another light-and-fluffy program that only scratches the surface of your pain. The EMS Weekend Experience is a safe space for you and your partner to start putting the pieces of your life back together, transform your trauma and begin healing from infidelity. Skeptical about the effectiveness of this experience? Don't be! Backed by a slew of previous participant testimonials, EMS Weekend delivers results month after month...
Shame: A Pervasive Cancer of the Soul Shame: Beginning to Break Free
Facing my shame that has plagued me my whole life has been eye-opening for me. I am learning that past trauma that I had left unattended to created a place in my psyche for the pervasive destruction of shame to take hold, wreaking havoc on me and my marriage. I understand now that avoiding and ignoring my strong negative feelings did not make me strong or brave. My husband, like me, had no idea that my shame was the culprit for much of our disconnection through the years. I always felt guarded and unable to access a true sense of connection with my husband. I didn't let him truly see me, and kept secrets from him for years. Shame did not make me betray him, but it festered in me unattended, where I stuffed it down with my...
What Type of Affair Was It?
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