Survivors' Blog

God knows that the mended heart will be much more stunning and substantially stronger than the unscathed soul. Sharon Jaynes, author I have never put much stock in New Year’s resolutions, and have even rolled my eyes at people claiming “words” for the upcoming year. It seemed artificial to me. However, now that I find myself in a reality that I really want to change, it seems perhaps assigning a word may provide a targeted reminder of where I want to be. So, since I have already done a lot of work on myself and in our marriage, my word for this New Year is RECLAIM. I intend to reclaim not just places and scenarios associated with my husband’s affair, but also friendships, activities, and doing things for myself - and being able to actually feel like I deserve to do them. Betrayal has caused me to isolate and to feel unworthy, in every possible way. Even self-care and “fun” feels foreign and ill-fitting now, like I no longer am a person who can make claims to normal or pleasant things. As though now I am just supposed to live in darkness, and no longer am I entitled to expect anything from life. No, thank you. That’s not ok anymore. It has been my world for a season, but I can’t stay there. I won’t stay there. That is no longer ok with me, and I will not allow my husband’s betrayal to define my life. Only God can define me, and He did not betray me. God has always valued me, even when my husband treated me as though I had no value. Reclaiming is not an easy task. I know I need to be intentional. I need to reclaim our physical intimacy, our friends, places, and activities. I need to reclaim my place in this world and in this marriage. I need to reclaim my life. This is my work to do. I know that. But part of me says, why should I? I shouldn’t have to reclaim anything, it should have been mine all along. This is true of course, but doesn’t change the fact that I have to deal with the reality I have been given. If I want my life back, I have to reclaim it. As much as “justice” would make it his responsibility to fix what he broke, he cannot do this for me. I resent having to do this. I fear having to do this. I struggle to believe I deserve to do this. I really wonder if I can do this. My brain says, “Yes, of course you deserve good things, and you can and will reclaim your life!” But the quiet and persistent inner voice scoffs and whispers, “Yeah right, you will never get there. You will always just be someone who wasn’t even worthy of faithfulness, so don’t even bother.” That voice has been my constant companion over the last couple years, but it is not my friend. That voice is a true frenemy, pretending to offer insight with my best interests at heart, but strategically setting me up to fail and perpetuate this purgatory of self-doubt and insecurity. No more. I am done following the frenemy’s lead. I am moving forward - I deserve to have more, to feel more, to be more. I will reach out and rejoin the land of the living. My friends don’t know about the infidelity, but they do know I have been a recluse and have not been myself in a long time. Reinstating that element of normalcy amidst all that is no longer normal will help me feel real. I will approach my days as though I deserve to be happy. Will I automatically just feel happy then? No, of course not. But I am raising my expectations. They have been so low thus far they have not allowed room for anything more. Even if I only manage to achieve improvement some of the time, it would still be worth doing, wouldn't it? I am reclaiming ME. Not the betrayed wife. Me. What does that look like? I don’t really know. I have centered my identity around “wife” for so long that I have long lost sight of me as a person. In terms of practical aspects, I will also reclaim the physical places I have been avoiding. Why should I live in fear of places they went together? Why should my world become smaller because of their choices? These are just places. What happened there was not honoring God. I will not make a monument to something that never should have happened. I will stand in those places with my chin up and take them back. My world will grow bigger and I will become more free. Dr. John Haney told me the more I avoid something because it is "theirs" (a location, activity, date, season, or whatever) the more power I allow it to have. Betrayal and deception made me powerless over my own life by creating a false reality. I’m definitely done with that. Are you? Going forward, I am not okay with having places that limit my life. I always wondered when I would know I was ready, and I have definitely felt it lately, like it won’t swallow me up. How will you know if/when you should reclaim something? You have to wait until you are ready; it can't be forced. I wanted to just get it all over with right after D-day, but knew deep down I wasn’t ready and it could backfire. I assumed I would never feel any more prepared and wanted to just muscle through it, but I’m glad it never panned out because I can feel how much more ready I am now, at a place I wasn’t sure I would ever be. My husband doesn’t really understand my need to reclaim these things, but he will do whatever it takes if it helps me. Not everyone needs this; if you don’t, that’s great (and I really wish I was more like you!) But if you do, you do. We don’t all need to handle it the same way. Understanding and honoring our individual journeys is, in and of itself, empowering. We are not all the same, nor do we need to be. Betrayal can make us question whether or not we can trust ourselves. Our judgment can feel tattered after having been fooled, so we might even have to reclaim trusting our own feelings. I am in trauma therapy (which I highly recommend). This is very hard work, more than anyone not going through this could possibly imagine. My therapist encourages me to start talking to myself in a way that I am planning to regain what I have lost, not just hoping. I am there now, ready for that shift. I will speak more firmly to myself to reclaim what has been lost and speak as if hope is possible. I am allowed to feel like I am special to my husband, and I have permission to be happy. Someone please remind me of all this tomorrow when I am in a puddle on the floor. A horrible unjustice about infidelity is what we, as betrayed partners, make it mean about ourselves. Yes, our spouse made choices that were hurtful, but the things we tell ourselves about what it means about us often does far more damage. I’ll talk more about that some other time, but for now, I have to decide, who do I really want to be? That's a harder question than you would think. My life for the last several decades has been focused on being a wife and mother. I need to be a whole person. Who do you want to be? At some point we have to force ourselves to start living, even if we don't feel like it. I have sat on the sidelines of my own life for too long, feeling like nothing more than collateral damage of other people’s choices. I might not feel the motivation toward personal growth every day, but even if I feel it for five minutes once a week, I have to seize it and start there. What do you want to reclaim? Share your thoughts in a comment below and we’ll search for the beauty from ashes together. John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” I want to invite all who have been betrayed to our Annual Hope Rising Conferences - on Demand, and gain momentum, strength, and community on your journey to wholeness. Watch Now!

Recently, I started to view my infidelity through the lens of entitlement. Coming to the WHY of my affair has taken a lot of reflection that seemed right at the time, as I uncovered layer after layer of my numerous character flaws. Nothing ever sat well with me as to truly why I did what I did, though until one morning a thought hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that I cheated on my husband not because I was broken, but because I felt I had the right to. I felt entitled to it. When I told my therapist about my revelation, she was hesitant to accept it. And I get why. In my day-to-day life, I do not interact with the world through a sense of entitlement. I don't expect to be treated differently from others because I think I am somehow special or better. I don't try to get away with not following the rules of acceptable social interactions. I am a law-abiding citizen. So, why did I do the exact opposite of these behaviors in my most personal and intimate relationship? To explore this topic further, I read a book by Dr. John Townsend called The Entitlement Cure. In it, I learned that entitlement is self-focused and blocks empathy... in a relationship, "the entitled person feels good and lives badly, while those around him/her feel bad," but live their lives better. After reading this book, the can of worms had been opened. I started to see that I have a sense of "toxic entitlement," and that it has permeated my 27-year marriage in how I treat my husband and in how I expect him to treat me. For me, it starts with the core belief that I should be judged on my intentions, not my actions. I start to feel exempt from responsibility for my actions, and focus solely on the morality of my intentions. I break promises and commitments to my husband because I fail to see that the follow-through is what is most important. I fail to understand why my husband feels alienated and angry at my lack of integrity within our marriage. When he doesn't agree with my distorted beliefs, I accuse him of being controlling, unaccepting and judgmental. I feel misunderstood, because his needs and expectations do not align with the view I hold of myself. I need him to see me as I do, to keep my fragile sense of self stable. Meanwhile, he feels dismissed and helpless in my cycle of self-centered excuses and rationalizations. We are at odds, because we are trying to relate to each other from two very different realities in the marriage. Relating this to my infidelity, my sense of entitlement gave me permission. I was able to act out and not think about the effects on my husband. As hard as this is to write, the truth is that his feelings never factored into my decision to be or not be unfaithful. I thought of myself as different or special enough that I could do what I wanted and somehow not be held accountable. Through a sense of entitlement, I could painlessly weave together the disconnection between how I positively viewed myself and my actual harmful actions. In my mind, I should have been able to act the way I wanted and, regardless of the consequences, not have to change my self-image. I was deluded, destroying any chance I had of being authentic in my marriage and sustaining my husband's trust. I needed to change. Through Affair Recovery, I have learned to identify and understand many of my past traumas, and how never addressing them led to a broken person with a broken view of reality. All my brokenness only made me more likely to cheat, but the final decision to act out was because I thought that I was special. Many people are broken and don't cheat, and most people know when they are about to cross a line that conflicts with their integrity. Understanding this dangerous sense of entitlement has been the puzzle piece that I have needed to truly enact change in myself and in my marriage. In my current work on healing entitlement, saying "I was wrong" has been unbelievably powerful. Realizing that everyone is wrong and a failure, at some point, has helped me to admit my failures and to take responsibility for them. I have had to shift my perception of relational reality away from one fueled by self-centeredness, to one that is fueled by compassion and empathy. We all are born with empathy, but to me, empathy is like a muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it. Honing my empathy skills and fighting to stay connected to my husband, no matter what relationship demon rears its ugly head, are crucial in my fight against the entitlement that has wreaked havoc on my marriage. Working on past issues that nurtured my sense of entitlement is also helpful. In my family of origin, I wasn't required to be diligent when things got tough and was often rewarded regardless of effort. Consequences for my actions were never concrete, and I grew up thinking that sometimes, 2 + 2 could equal 5. But at the end of the day, no matter where it came from, I chose entitlement and all the destruction that it caused. Now, I am learning to align my choices with having integrity and living in the truth. I am learning that I must accept myself, live humbly and take responsibility to make the necessary changes in my life that will lead me out of the self-absorbed trap called toxic entitlement. Harboring Hope registration opens monthly. Subscribe to be notified. Harboring Hope is our online course for betrayed spouses to heal after infidelity. It often sells out within a few short hours. Don't miss it! Subscribe to Registration Notifications!

Hello, I wish we weren't meeting this way. I am sorry and I want to (spiritually) meet you right where you are. I want to encourage you today. I want to tell you who I was before my affair and I want to tell you who I am now. The person I am today, the one writing you this letter, was revealed to me during the darkest time of my life, through lots of prayer, daily trials and deep healing through healthy relationships. I am writing this at the request of one of the amazing women in my AR group, who shaped many of my prayers and thoughts and routines during our course. Those elements helped heal my heart one day at a time. I couldn't see it then, and you may be feeling the same, but you will. Before my affair, I was a believer in God, but I did not know God nor did I understand the impact He could (and would) have in my life. I also didn't know what I didn't know. I could only focus on the flaws of others. I couldn't see my own flaws, and certainly couldn't acknowledge them if someone else brought them to my attention. I was loving, but only if my "conditions" were met. I treated people well who treated me well. I justified how I treated others based on their behavior toward me. Over time, I could justify just about anything coming from my mouth or in my decisions. If someone hurt me, I would harden my heart and hurt them back. I judged others and was prideful. I was vain, oh so vain. When I wasn't getting the attention I so needed from others, I was miserable, and I made people around me miserable. I looked for things to fill the emptiness in me and blamed others when I didn't get my selfish (and regular) needs met. Did I know any of this at the time? No. I also didn't know at the time, when I was where you might be now, that there was a bigger plan. A rescue plan. God rescued me (from my old self) and has provided great healing and love in my heart through this journey. He has enabled me to reach out to others who might be right where I was a while ago. I won't tell you just yet the length of time "a while ago" was, because when I used to read others' testimonies, my heart would sink when I read how long their journey was from D-Day to healing. I wasn't in a place where I could even see past another day, so reading and hearing of others' "hope" stories and their how many years it took, made me sick and even more hopeless. The reality is, that life in the aftermath of an affair IS unknown day-to-day. It's chaotic and fragile and sickening and you don't know what the next day will bring. You can't even prepare, because each day brings new triggers and craziness, and new turns on the rollercoaster ride. I have been there, my friend. I feel your heart right now, I do. Keep reading. With much regret this is now part of my story. I needed saving from myself. I don't want to go into lengthy detail about my affair because you know that this letter will be 10 pages longer and I want to focus on what happened after my affair. From what you read above; I was bound to get caught up in a terrible choice. I was bound to justify it so I couldn't in any way be found at fault, and so I could avoid looking at myself in the mirror, at all costs. I betrayed my husband of (then) 9 years and hurt him very badly. My choices changed everything about our family (I have two boys who were 2 and 5), and life as we knew it would be different forever. Even worse than my betrayal, I blamed my husband for my actions and was living in a fantasy (a place outside of reality) for about 4 months after D-Day. I did and said EVERYTHING on the list of things "not to do" after an affair. That's when God found me and where He started to heal all the broken places in me and in my heart. Only God knew what this process would look like, but I had to put my trust in Him every day and trust He would sustain me during this season. It does get better, and HE CAN redeem this. Please read on. A while after my affair, I had so much shame and guilt over what I had done (and had justified doing). I knew I had lost a part of myself, but it was a part of someone I didn't even know anymore. To this day, I don't know how, but I started watching online sermons (by Matt Chandler in Flower Mound, TX) about forgiveness. I knew I needed some hopeful messages in my misery. I felt shameful and sorry for what I had done, yet I still couldn't fully grasp the gravity of my actions. It would hurt to go there and I would retreat inside. I felt emptiness and wanted all of the mess to go away. Life was awful for us. My husband raged and threatened; no one slept or ate well. I was barely functional at work. I can't believe I wasn't fired actually. Nothing worked. My affair affected every aspect of my/our life. I got off of Facebook and all social media, and was banned by my husband to ever set foot inside a gym or fitness facility ever again. And with a change in my husband's career, we sold our house and moved cities. I had no comforts and no counterfeit joy to dose me with the much-needed affirmation or escape I craved and had gotten so used to. I had no one, except the husband who hated me and two kids whose life he had convinced me I had ruined. In my darkest time, only God was there. Shortly after our move, I found a church in our new city, started attending regularly, and joined a women's small group. Filled with shame, I kept my rottenness to myself. I just tried to enjoy the connection to loving women, which God knew I needed at this time. God revealed areas of brokenness in me and big wounds (gaping, oozing wounds) in those conversations and prayers. Around this time, I found the AR Hope for Healing course and that gave me a little bit of hope. I was desperately in need of hope. Up to this point, my husband did not seek any help and things were worse than ever between us. I saw a Christian counselor (still do) who, despite my sin and shame, gave me hope and reminders of God's love. So much was revealed of the things I kept hidden in dark corners. I was so angry. Let me say it again. I was SO ANGRY. I could write another letter just on the destruction caused by my anger. It ruled everything. Every decision I made, everything in my heart, the words I used. I had so much pain from my past and so much resentment for the neglect and wounds in my marriage. I later would realize that I had to heal from those things, whether they would be acknowledged by the wounding parties or not. So, when I started AR, it was about one-year post D-Day. I was still angry, resentful, and carried so much discontentment and brokenness. I needed hope and I needed healing. I was living in a toxic home, with no love, no forgiveness; only anger, shaming, blaming, threats and chaos. I was always on the chopping block and living under a microscope. I could do nothing right in the eyes of my betrayed husband. I had no right to express feelings and no leg to stand on when I would ask for space, or lower volume conversations or peace in our home. My husband would find me in the house at any hour of the day (I work from home) or night and yell and rage and whittle me down until he felt relief. If there was any evidence of healing and growth, he would dismantle it, discredit it and disable any platform I was using for hope. He forbade my parents from our home. He said horrible things about God and reminded me often that the punishment for my sin is death. He would say things like "Those women in church would never hug your neck if they knew what you did." It was HARD TO HEAL, though I wanted to, so badly. The above scenario is real life for an unfaithful wife after an affair. At least real life when the betrayed spouse is a hurting, angry husband. Nothing prepared me for the reality that THIS is what I would have to overcome. But IT IS. This is what the broken pieces look like after an affair. But I can also tell you what healing looks like. And you can have a testimony one day, too. When I started the AR course, I did the homework and participated in the calls, but I could not relate to the message in the videos about being empathetic to the betrayed spouse. Spoken from a man's perspective, and hearing Rick's empathy in his wife's pain and owning the burden he caused her was just not relatable to me. Again, nothing equipped me for what my reality was. Luckily, others in my group had similar circumstances to mine and we could talk it through. Others had better situations where they could describe their empathy and compassion for their hurting husband. Those conversations allowed for healing to begin. I saw that I was holding on to my pride and still needing my husband to admit his wrongs and do the work to forgive me. Yes, he treated me badly and refused to get any outside help for his trauma and pain (that I caused); but I started realizing that healing was only going to come when I would surrender my husband and my marriage and let God work on my heart. What that looked like for me... I stopped ping-ponging in response to my husband's actions. I stopped needing to defend myself when I felt like my husband was rewriting history. God knew my heart and knew what really happened, that's what mattered. When the subject matter and blame kept repeating, I was able to keep my mouth shut and not respond nor let his words get to me. The anger faded. The pain of things in our marriage was there, but the need to hurt back or defend myself was gone. I know my husband needed to be heard. He was telling the same story over and over again. I had apologized for two years and done A LOT of changing, but I could never hear him or meet him in his pain. Over time, I started listening without shame. I had given that shame to God because I didn't want to carry it anymore. I was healing because of that. I started putting healthy boundaries in place. We started to have better conversations, where two people could be heard. Even after our course ended, I kept in touch daily with my AR group. We prayed for each other and still shared in a safe space. I read Susie Larson's Daily Blessings every day for a year. I started my mornings stating what I was grateful for, before getting out of bed. I started praying for my husband and his healing (apart from me). I joined one, then two, ministries at my church to serve others and keep the focus off of myself. I no longer focused on the hole I dug for myself and I chose to move forward and heal with God's help. One of my ministries is set up to walk with people through their time of grief (in any crisis). I can listen and love them where they are. The old version of me was fading and the new one was forming. I started asking God to reveal ways for me to love my husband again. After my betrayal and his behavior in response to my betrayal, we had nothing left. We were together only because neither of us wanted to sacrifice and split time with our boys. I was healing and wanted to move forward; he wasn't there. God started providing ways for me to see my husband's pain. I could see not only the pain that I caused, but pain from the past that he was carrying. God gave me compassion for him in ways I didn't think were possible. Something neither of us ever gave to each other in our marriage, was sympathy and compassion for one another. And yet, here it was, in the midst of the mess. Every time I would see something in my husband that I wanted him to change, I would pray for God to help me accept him the way he was and to change my heart. The old version of me could never pray this, so I know that is real change only God can bring. God sustained me in the dark season after my affair. He also revealed many areas where I needed to change. He healed parts of my heart that were broken before my marriage, and allowed me to acknowledge what I had brought into the marriage and ask for forgiveness for those things. After 3 years, I asked my husband to move out of our home. I needed a solid boundary where healing could occur and where I could have peace to heal and have any hope left for reconciliation. It was not going to happen with us stuck in the same cycle. I was healing; he was not. That was 5 months ago. We are 3.5 years post D-Day. God equipped me during that time to stand strong and seek ONLY Him. I have learned to lean on Him when things are difficult, and when I realize things about myself that still need work, I ask for His help. The process is still going on, but I look back now and see how far God has carried me. My husband and I have had more healing and productive conversations in the last 5 months than we have had in 5 years. We have conversations about the future. We have joyful conversations about our early years and the kids when they were babies, without reeling from the pain of my affair. I can freely pray for him and I am living peacefully in healing and wholeness and can testify to God's love for me each day. I still do not know the outcome or the future of my marriage. I am okay with that. God has healed my heart and led me to trust Him for each day that comes. I pray this same peace over you, my friend. Please trust the process. Please ask God to sustain you while you are painfully reaping the consequences of bad choices. Please ask Him to heal you and your spouse and acknowledge that the healing process looks different for both partners. Trust Him to carry you through this darkness. I promise there is light and healing and wholeness. One day at a time. In Hope for Healing, Nicole Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. EMS Online Registration Opens Tomorrow, February 9 at Noon CT! Our Emergency Marital Seminar Online, better known as EMSO, isn't a one-size-fits-all program for couples. Over decades of experience exclusively in the field of infidelity, our methodology has been honed to better serve couples as they address the betrayal, reconnect as partners and restore their lives. "Affair Recovery's EMS Online course literally saved our marriage from divorce. We had tried other professionals, which only led us to more pain in our marriage. It was a relief to find someone who understood our pain. It was comforting to know that others were feeling and thinking the same thoughts as us. We were not alone on this journey. Our marriage has been enriched by the valuable lessons we have learned through EMS Online." - K., Alabama. Spots fill up quickly, so don't wait to register! Learn more and register for EMSO using the button below. Register For EMS Online!

The Slow Crawl Back to Life: A Two Part Series Part 1 Part 2 It is both difficult and precarious to measure growth related to something so deeply painful and personal. Even acknowledging progress produces a reflexive twinge, like somehow that diminishes the devastation I experienced. That is definitely not the case, but I think, at least for me, making sure I don't forget how bad it was is a defense mechanism to ensure I don't get hurt this way again. Also, growth is not linear and sometimes is subtle, so it can be hard to recognize. So, expanding on what I described last time, sometimes we don't notice growth when we are holding on so tightly in an effort to protect ourselves and just get through the day. Recently, I came across an email I had written about a year ago. It was illuminating and made me see very clearly that I have made significant progress since then. I still have a long road ahead of me and feel varying levels of pain every day but the contrast of my present to the words written by my past self was stark. The past version of me writing that email was crawling out of her skin with PTSD symptoms and unable to find a moment's rest. I look back at that and am so sad that I (or anyone else) had to live through something so gut wrenchingly painful for so long. This is a portion of my email, written to my therapist at the time: I don't think anyone really understands my desperation. My husband is ready to leave just to stop being a constant trigger. I am so conflicted by looking at him and touching him, with all the triggers created and the chaos in my head, battling between wanting to be near him and needing to pull away from him in pain and fear. I need him very badly but can't let myself be with him even though he is right next to me. It haunts me. It doesn't feel safe. I feel very alone. It consumes me day and night as I don't sleep more than a couple hours. I just can't stand the thought of him with his AP. I feel sick, my heart races, like I will explode. I still vomit at times from the images in my mind. I can't even imagine ever not feeling this crushing sadness. I feel like I am drowning and my sanity is at risk. I want to check in somewhere and just be put into a coma until this is over. There are still times I want to die. More than I care to admit. It is so intense, I feel no hope. I am absolutely terrified that this is my life and I can never escape it. I don't know who I am and I feel like I will be trapped in this new reality forever. I feel like a caged animal desperate to get out of this situation. Reading that was a reality check. I remember that level of desperation very well as it was my daily existence for a long time. But it isn't my reality now. I really don't think I would have appreciated the significant growth and healing in me without having re-read that. I still feel a whole lot of "stuff" that I wish I didn't, but it isn't with the intensity and desperation portrayed back then. I am calmer. I sleep better. I manage my triggers better - not by white-knuckling it, but because they are just more manageable now (mostly). I still don't appreciate having to deal with them at all, but I can see how over time and with a lot of work, this has improved. Therefore I can only project that it will continue to get better and I have a sense of patience about this process that I did not have before. Dr. John Haney once told me that fear begets fear. Meaning, if I am fearful that I will never feel any better, that fear feeds on itself to produce more fear, adding to the burden of recovery. Fear is natural of course, but it can take over and be its own battlefront, on top of the necessary work around grief, trauma, trust, forgiveness and potential reconciliation. Along the same lines, I am finding that hope begets hope. I was once hopeless. Completely devoid of hope or even caring that I didn't have any hope. But after finally experiencing some positive shifts within me, I had a tiny ray of hope. I felt if I had experienced any healing at all, even the tiniest bit, then I could draw the conclusion that I could heal some more. So the hope grew a little. That cycle continued, and while I am not where I want to be, I do have hope that I could get there. In the initial days after D-day, everything was terrible. There was no mix of positive and negative emotions. It was extremely painful, but there was no confusion about how to feel. It was pretty clear cut and straightforward. I felt terrible. I was supposed to feel terrible. I felt like I would feel horrible forever and there was really no struggle in that aspect of it, it was pretty clear. At some point along the way, I began to feel positive things about my current relationship with my husband, while still in so much pain from his affair. The full truth and subsequent pain had brought us so much closer, and I felt grateful for our new emotional intimacy and vulnerability. These were truly beautiful things that would have been phenomenal if they had happened outside of the devastation. Mixing pain with joy is confusing. In the beginning of this phase, it was easy to dismiss any positive feelings - I am not supposed to feel happy because 'this' happened and therefore this happiness I thought I might have felt for a moment is not justified, and I reject it. Positive emotions can feel foreign, like they don't apply anymore. It is further confusing to have a brief moment of laughter only to fall back into the abyss a few seconds later. Like - oh yeah, I forgot for a moment how much my life sucks. Everyone's timeline for healing is different but I actually took note of the day I made it through a whole 24 hour period without breaking down and sobbing, as it was so monumental it actually felt foreign. I got used to feeling terrible and forgot what it felt like to be happy or to smile or laugh without it being fake to placate everyone around me. Happiness and peace were just memories of feelings and they were hard to recall. Sometimes healing feels elusive, like the carrot on a stick that is continually just out of reach. As I mentioned last time, I am now in a place where I am holding pain and gratitude side by side. That is obviously better, but harder for my brain to manage. It is much more complicated and feels unnatural sometimes. Sometimes in this place, my inner thoughts argue with each other about which feeling will be allowed to come out and play, and it can be tiring. But on the days I am discouraged and hopeless about ever getting to true healing, I remind myself that back in my darkest days I also never imagined feeling like I do today. I hope you might find that encouraging. Just because healing takes a long time doesn't mean the entirety of that time will be spent where you are right now. Hope acknowledges that while what we see and feel may be excruciating right now, it will not always be this way. As the apostle Paul reminds us, "hope that is seen is not hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:24-25) The following is an encouraging blog post I came across, and wanted to share it with you all too: Choose Hope — Vaneetha Risner. "Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope." — Elizabeth Gilbert 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 for countless couples. During EMS Weekend, we won't shame the unfaithful spouse nor blame the betrayed spouse. What we will do is pair you with a small community of other couples and an expert therapist - all of whom have experienced infidelity firsthand - as well as provide comprehensive resources to help you kick-start your healing journey. Sign Up Now!

The Slow Crawl Back to Life: A Two Part Series Part 1 Part 2 You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety. ~ Abraham Maslow I don't know if I have said this yet, but when I talk to you about hope and recovery, I am also talking to myself. I am still on this journey too and I get discouraged, frustrated, angry, and sad, so I am also encouraging myself as I focus my thoughts in these blogs. I hope you don't mind me tagging along for the ride. I was thinking the other day about all of this, and stopped for just a moment to take a look in the rear view mirror of recovery. Looking into the past is easy. I do that every single day and you probably do too, thinking about the "what ifs," and I wish this or that had never happened, and definitely the "what was real and what wasn't" trips down memory lane. Those are still very real parts of daily life. But that's not what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about looking back to the beginning of this recovery journey and even at where I was just a few months ago. The experts recommend being intentional about assessing progress periodically, but realistically when pain is the predominant emotion of the day that intentional reflection goes out the window as pain management takes all the energy and focus I can muster. So that's why it was so profound when I found myself thinking about this. I was on a run, listening to one of the bazillion podcasts I have saved on healing or relationships or God or life in general. I was enjoying the sun and a nice breeze and thinking about what I was going to do when I got home. Did you catch that? I was enjoying it. Actually enjoying something. Not tolerating it, managing it, or gritting my teeth to get through it. It was nice - truly. It made me pause and think. And when I gave it my full attention I could honestly say I was having a good day. Taking a moment to look back, it had been a pretty good few weeks. In hindsight, even the last couple of months had been better. Not rainbows and butterflies - but markedly better. Does that mean I had just figured out how to stop thinking about it? Nope, not at all. I still think about it all the time, pretty much all day long. I don't believe the goal is to stop thinking about it. I do anticipate that after more healing occurs I will naturally think about it less than I do now, but that is not the end goal at all, at least not for me. My goal is to somehow have this integrated into my life where I can think about it and I don't fall apart. Where I can find peace with what has happened and still be ok, and maybe even happy someday, for more than an hour at a time. It's not that I don't feel pain at the thought of my husband sharing himself with another person in ways that were supposed to be only mine. I most certainly do. That still hurts immensely and I am still on this journey too, so I can't tell you if that will ever truly go away. I guess I'll let you know on that one. However, what I am noticing is that on my better days (let's be real here, sometimes it's only minutes or maybe hours) when I think about it, it just doesn't matter as much. Now that I've said that out loud, those words hang in my throat and threaten to choke me, creating fear and confusion that I've even generated that thought. It is so hard to articulate, especially to those of you early on who are still reeling with the shock and overwhelm in the first weeks and months after discovery. For me, I find the more work we do to become closer as a couple - really gut level close - good, bad, and ugly; the more the pain moves into the background. I am not going to lie; it often comes right back to slap me in the face and mock me for what a fool I am to even try to heal from this. I have to remind myself that if I felt hope and momentary glimpses of peace yesterday, then it is possible to feel those things again, and to build on them. It is a battle of the mind, heart, and faith to be sure. I am not a fan of what my friend describes as "mental gymnastics" to trick myself into believing things are better than they are; that's just smoke and mirrors and doesn't actually accomplish anything. But there is a distinction between thought maneuvers intended to distract and sugarcoat, versus actually processing something to the point that the perspective on it is more objective, less hurtful, and overall healthier. My husband's decision to have an affair will never be ok. I will never try to convince myself it was for our greater good or somehow needed to happen. No. It never should have happened and I never should have been subjected to any of the cruel and destructive things he did, but here we are. He made all of those choices and there is no going back; there is no "undo" button. Trust me, I have tried to press it at least a million times and I just can't change our story that way. But now we can take this and use it to create something. I can be grateful for the opportunities it has provided for us to grow as people, closer to God and to each other. I can be a better person, a stronger person, and a more compassionate and empathetic person than I ever could have imagined. We can be a more connected and intentional couple, in a marriage made up of two people who have walked through fire and fought to stay in this together. We know what it's worth now, with eyes wide open. So am I still disappointed with my life, knowing my husband willingly and repeatedly chose to betray me? Yes, every day I feel disappointment. I feel it deeply in my chest as I type these words to you. I don't know if that will ever change and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But I also feel immense gratitude. I am grateful for the lessons I have learned about myself, about him, about marriage, about God, and about life. I am grateful that I am a different person in so many ways. I have so much more compassion, empathy and patience than I ever had before. I am much less judgemental and now I often view another person's bad behavior with an eye toward potential hidden trauma in their life. I am deeply grateful for the man my husband is today; I could not build a better husband if I tried. We are deeply connected in ways we may never have reached without this trauma, I don't know. But I still feel pain. I still feel discouragement. Sometimes I still feel resentment and anger too, but those are more easily managed through the lens of compassion than they were in the earlier days now that I know and understand him so well. Some days the disappointment prevails, some days the gratitude does. Most days they are intermingled and I feel them together in a weird twisted bittersweet mix. What I am discovering is that these feelings can coexist, side by side. That felt unnatural at first, as they are seemingly contradictory, but as my mind and heart expand on this journey I am more open to understanding and experiencing things than I would have been previously. This is growth, no matter how the big picture looks on a given day. I even have a recurring calendar notification on my phone that reminds me every morning that "I am healing." Some days I feel it and others not so much, but it reminds me that even when I don't feel progress, it is there. I now have happy moments, even days. I feel like "me" again. Truthfully it's still a sad version of me, but it is the real me, no longer the vacant shell of a person I had been for a long time or the raving madman that took over at times. Let's face it, it's hard to stay motivated to do all this work only to strive toward a goal of "tolerable." I still have moments when I wonder if I will ever really be OK. I don't know the answer to that and I won't sugarcoat my words and say that I do. But I do know that in the early days of recovery I never thought I would stop crying. I never thought I could sleep more than 2 hours a night. I never thought I would smile again. I definitely never thought I would laugh without faking it. And here I am. I have done all of those things and I do have good days. I never thought any of that would happen; in fact I was absolutely positive none of it would. So is "real" healing possible? I don't know yet but my own journey has shown me that things are possible that I would not have believed, so I am open to the possibility in ways I wasn't before. "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." Viktor Frankl I want to invite all who have been betrayed to our Annual Hope Rising Conferences - on Demand, and gain momentum, strength, and community on your journey to wholeness. Watch Now!

"Did they make those horrible choices because their addiction or mental illness clouded their judgment?" "Was I too busy trying to help and support them to notice they'd stepped out of our marriage?" "Was their emotional detachment due to childhood abandonment issues or are they just unhappy in this relationship?" Does any of this sound familiar to you? When the wayward spouse has diagnosed or suspected mental health/addiction issues, the betrayed partner can find themselves feeling as though they are the one losing their mind. Even in the absence of infidelity, marriage to a spouse with mental health and/or addiction challenges can strain even the strongest of unions. Those of us who are highly invested in happily ever after, either in the Disney cultural sense or in the hard-working, dedicated, spouse-valued-as-central, are hit particularly hard after an affair. We have invested greatly in love for months, years or even decades in our marriage, and we are both assaulted and instantly stripped of our happy ending. What we have earned in spades is stolen from us in a moment. What we thought was a mutual dream becomes known as a one-sided endeavor. What we thought to be shared values are discovered to be the direct opposite. Mental illness muddies the waters of infidelity. So much of the fabric of mental illness and addiction is riddled with distorted thinking and denial of reality. These individuals, by definition, do not see reality clearly. This leaves those around them to wonder: What part of their behavior is due to the disease? What part of their behavior is plain old oppositional, self- absorbed, damaging choices? Reflecting on the 'Why' After Infidelity When you come right down to it, there is not a whole lot of difference in their "why." Whether they crossed the line once or a thousand times, or their actions stemmed from the skewed thinking inherent in mental illness, a spouse's infidelity devastates and destroys just the same no matter the "why." So what is the point of pursuing an understanding of the unhealthy thinking of mental illness? Culpability... and forgiveness. The death of a marriage is detrimental to the hearts of both spouses, especially that of the betrayed spouse. Many betrayed spouses have voiced that dying would have been easier and less painful than living through betrayal. That said, assigning "degrees" is central to the culpability of the betrayer. Was there malice and forethought, or was the perpetrator mentally unsound? In the case of mental illness and/or addiction, the wayward spouse is under the influence of distorted thinking. Most unfaithful will readily admit that their choice to betray their loved one required some pretty fancy mental gymnastics - and isn't the very essence of mental illness "distortion in right thinking?" Whether the wayward spouse is diagnosed with a mental illness or not, the road to betrayal is fraught with justifications, minimizations, distorted judgements, entitlement and the like. As the wife of an addict with a history of mental crises, however, it matters a great deal in my processing to come to terms with the realities of an unhealthy mind. In doing so, I have found it easier to understand how he arrived in a cesspool of his own creation that ultimately destroyed the marriage we had. Learning Tolerance and Acceptance As a product of distorted, unhealthy thinking and actions, our marriage was unhealthy too. It is not something I would have chosen, and it certainly is something I would never want to return to. Even in my own state of unawareness of the particulars, I knew the man I was married to was unreliable at best. I knew I shouldered the lion's share of life's responsibilities as a result. I knew this fact made me unhappy and lonely in that marriage. I sensed there was more to aspire to, I simply did not know how to get there. My spouse has had ADHD all his life. As his wife, I took on the task of learning about ADHD. I learned tolerance and acceptance not only of his behavior, but also of the behavior of my son with ADHD. I became the supportive mama-lioness/advocate for my son and, in doing so, came to understand some of "why" my husband was so unreliable and frustrating. As my counselor so astutely commented, "Seems you've been disappointed in your marriage for a very, very long time." Bingo. Understatement. As a love-trooper, I took on more than perhaps I ought to, to demonstrate through actions my love, devotion and commitment. I did everything in my power to advocate for my son in school and socially, as well as accepted my husband's reluctance to do the same. He was, after all, burdened with many of the same challenges of his own. One cannot expect good results when assigning the fox to guard the hen house. I found that to be true in theory as well as in my reality. When their ADHD progressed and addictions ensued, as well as epilepsy and bipolar symptoms, it became nearly impossible to deal with the disappointment and fear. How was I to ever sift through the causes, the "whys," when their behaviors could fall under the category of "illness?" What kind of a person condemns a sick person, even if their actions brought financial, emotional and marital ruin? Talk about being placed between the cliché of a "rock and a hard place." Learning to Count and Observe Your Blessings How does a betrayed spouse heal when the world is focusing on the illness of the betrayer? It's not an easy place to be, and I am still sorting it out myself and expect to be doing so for the rest of my life. Chronic conditions do not resolve, and, as such, require lifelong attention. The question becomes: Was it first-degree infidelity, or betrayal committed under the influence? How is a betrayed spouse to ever really know? The answer: We're not. It is impossible to ever know the heart and truth of another's decisions and behavior, especially when they're consumed by mental illness/addiction. In this scenario, we betrayed spouses are robbed of anything even close to a satisfying "why," let alone being able to feel good in allowing ourselves to release the righteous anger that accompanies such deep wounding. Yet, it is vital to do. Be angry. Grieve. You have been robbed of a dream you worked your tail off to achieve. The universe has dealt you a pretty hard hand. I am eight years in from the discovery of my spouse's financial betrayals, five years in from the sexual infidelity's D-Day, and my son's entire lifetime in from realizing he has many life-altering, life-long challenges. It is not easy. It is not fair. I will never understand it all. But it is reality, a reality I never imagined, nor deserve - and neither did they, neither do they. I have come to believe this, as Charles Dickens so aptly said: "In every life, no matter how full or empty one's purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other people's store of it." May you choose to look for the silver lining, the good in each person, and count your blessings, for they are as plentiful as the stars, should you choose to focus on them. Delight in goodness and happiness when it comes, and add to other people's store of it. This is the stuff of the twelfth step of recovery work programs, and it embodies the wisdom of the ages. I have found it to be the lantern that illuminates my path forward, and my wish is that it does the same for you. Harboring Hope registration opens Wednesday, January 19 at Noon CT. Harboring Hope is our online course for betrayed spouses to heal after infidelity. It often sells out within a few short hours. Don't miss it! Click the button below to be notified before registration opens. Subscribe to Registration Notifications!

Ambivalence - am·biv·a·lence /amˈbivələns/ (noun). The state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone, simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action, continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite), or uncertainty as to which approach to follow. The word ambivalence is often misused to mean apathy or indifference, when in fact, it actually means strong feelings in opposition to each other, not the absence of feelings. After betrayal, it is normal and expected to have all kinds of feelings. Most of them are pretty terrible as you would expect, but there are surprising feelings of love, connection, desire, bonding, and things along those lines that really can catch us off guard. It does not mean you are crazy, weak, or pathetic. It means you are normal. It is all instinctual and can be really frustrating as we seemingly lose control of ourselves and our rational thinking. "I don't want to love him, it would be easier to hate him after what he did, so why do I still feel this?" For many of us, we navigate the waters of hysterical bonding (also see this) for a while, which is the most confusing tangle of emotions I have ever experienced. Following disclosure, being angry was easy. Being sad was easy. Very unpleasant, but easy. Simple. No confusion about having those feelings. Enter hysterical bonding - the twisted scenario in which, following the revelation of betrayal, the couple feels so much closer and more connected (since the secret is now shared). The level of relational intimacy is at an all time high, and the desire for physical intimacy often follows, sometimes in an almost primal way. It is an attempt by both parties to connect and heal the wound, even without conscious understanding that is what is going on. Juxtaposed amidst the intense shock, grief, and anger, hysterical bonding with the partner who betrayed you is so confusing and can sometimes feel like a loss of control or even self-betrayal. From a rational standpoint, why would I want to share myself intimately with someone who treated me with such disregard and abuse of my trust? If you have ever experienced this you know what I mean. If you are in this phase now, just know it's ok, it's normal, and there is nothing wrong with you. Over time, as the hysterical bonding subsided for us and things leveled out a bit, I experienced a phenomenon that was intensely frustrating for both of us, and without explanation or words to process it. Amidst the ongoing pain, we would have experiences of true, deep connection, that were meaningful and rewarding. We were intentional about trying new activities and taking trips to prioritize our relationship, sharing new experiences and creating new memories. In these times, we were focused solely on each other, and by all standards they should have felt safe and exclusive. Sometimes they did, at least for a while, but often, I would become overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts and reminders, escalating my fear to a point where I would spiral and withdraw, physically and emotionally. My husband would be confused and understandably frustrated, asking what happened? We were just having this nice moment and now you are angry at me? I think sometimes he thought I went out of my way to spoil good times. It was confusing and frustrating for me as well, as it made it seem like I could never relax and enjoy anything, and I started to wonder if I was subconsciously self-sabotaging our efforts. This left me feeling hopeless and angry with myself, like I was clearly just not forgiving enough and not cut out for healing. I just assumed I was a failure or not trying hard enough. And then I learned about attachment ambivalence. Attachment ambivalence refers to the innate need for relational safety and security from the very person who has taken it from us, in which our survival instinct is at war with itself. The ambivalence created by betrayal can generate unpredictable and confusing feelings and behavior. It's not unusual to vacillate between wanting to be close and wanting to run away. The need to be close is intense, but the fear caused by betrayal and deception can overpower it and cause you to pull away. Without understanding what is going on, betrayed partners can be left confused by their own contradictory thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It is a very normal response to trauma, instinctually reminding the wounded party of the offense in an effort to protect against future danger. As humans, our brains are wired for safety, sometimes at the expense of growth and healing. Humans can survive as a species without happiness but we can't survive without safety, so safety is instinctually prioritized, whether we realize it or not. As a result, our brains are often more naturally negative than positive, scanning for danger to make sure we are ok, before expanding toward more rewarding processes of connection, growth, and healing. That's why we can't just "get over it" or "put it in the past" if we haven't productively processed the situation enough to feel safe. Understanding this really helped to articulate things I was experiencing but didn't understand. It also gave me words to help explain it to my husband since we both just thought I was crazy, or being difficult at best. There were times we were having a nice day, even going away for a night or two, when I was trying my best to stay focused on us in the present, to enjoy what we were doing together. Things would be humming along reasonably well and then - boom - I would be hit with a thought that created such pain and fear I would withdraw. This happened in the blink of an eye, leaving my husband wondering what he had missed. Once I started to understand this was a normal and reflexive response, it allowed me to have some self-compassion about derailing some of our meaningful and connective moments during recovery. In a nutshell, in relaxed moments of connection, as a betrayed spouse you allow yourself to move close to the person who hurt you, but this puts you at more risk of being hurt again. You take your walls down and allow yourself to be connected. After moments of closeness, there can be an instinctive recoil due to the fear of vulnerability and the real risk of being close and unguarded with the person who betrayed you. I have experienced this many times, and it is so frustrating. Understanding this response stems from trauma and it is normal made me feel less crazy and allowed me to look at it more objectively as it was happening. (I also highly recommend this) Rick Reynolds depicts the quandary well by using the metaphor of someone reaching over and intentionally and violently breaking your arm. You are confused, shocked and in tremendous pain. How could a person you love do this so callously to hurt you? Then in the next moment the offender reaches out and asks you to trust them, promising to help you if you place your swollen, bruised, and painful broken arm in their hands so they can set the bone. Does that make any logical sense? Of course not. In that scenario, most rational people would say no way am I extending my painful broken arm toward you, you just broke it! But in infidelity recovery, that is exactly what we have to do (at some point) if we are trying to reconcile. It is very counterintuitive, so it is no wonder it does not come naturally and we revert back to guardedness over and over. This dilemma has often reminded me of that song by Sting - Fortress Around Your Heart "...It took a day to build the city We walked through its streets in the afternoon As I returned across the fields I'd known I recognized the walls that I'd once laid Had to stop in my tracks for fear Of walking on the mines I'd laid And if I built this fortress around your heart Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire Then let me build a bridge For I cannot fill the chasm And let me set the battlements on fire..." Those trenches and barbed wire were constructed around me as a result of the affair. He built them with betrayal and deception and reinforced them with each additional choice to continue to do so. The barriers protected me from allowing him to hurt me again, but now after D-day I was just supposed to take them down and open the gate? As the song references, it only took a day to build the walled city. Betrayal creates this fortress in an instant, but dismantling it is a lengthy labor of love and commitment on the part of both parties. I acknowledge it is frustrating for a truly repentant, formerly unfaithful partner to see the betrayed spouse distancing themselves over and over, but that is a protective response and a natural consequence of having been betrayed. I would never have asked to be in this defensive position, and it is agonizing and frustrating from this vantage point as well. It is not a judgment toward the unfaithful spouse, but is merely reflexive self-protection from the one person who had the singular maximum relational capacity to hurt us, and actually chose to do so. A friend of mine said the closer she grew toward her husband following his betrayal, the more threatening it felt to her. I felt that too. The closer we became, the more capacity my husband had to hurt me - again. He already demonstrated he was both capable and willing to crush me as though I had no value. So now as I see his genuine remorse and his bids for connection, I have to try to separate the two people - the betrayer and the genuinely remorseful husband. One is very dangerous and the other is comforting. It is very hard to separate when I am trying to protect myself. This is totally normal, even though it doesn't feel like it should be. It is a self-protective reflex, not a failure on your part. We trusted at some point, and were harmed by it. Rebuilding trust is scary and painstaking. Author Glen Williams wrote, "Trust is only gained when one person risks and doesn't get harmed. It grows as both people increasingly risk and don't get harmed in the process." For me, it helps to remember the words of Psalm 56:4 "In God, whose word I praise - in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?" Even if I am afraid to trust my spouse, I know I can trust God with my spouse. Putting this into practice is hard, but it is the only real guarantee in life we have. As difficult as this has been, I have grown in faith throughout this experience and maybe that was one of my personal lessons to be learned. God did not orchestrate my husband's choices, but He is certainly not going to waste them by failing to provide opportunities for us both to grow. After much work, rigorous honesty, and vulnerability between us, I do trust my husband now. I still have to fight my instinctual response toward guardedness, but I work hard every day to set the battlements on fire. I want to invite all who have been betrayed to our Annual Hope Rising Conferences - on Demand, and gain momentum, strength, and community on your journey to wholeness. Watch Now!

A winning hand of victim cards would include a royal flush of blame, powerlessness, self-deception, self-pity, and fear. Hanging onto these victim cards has been a key reason that my husband and I have struggled during recovery. In fact, an Affair Recovery video I listened to recently said that the unfaithful playing the victim is the single most intolerable thing we can do in the healing process. But being a victim is an easy way for me to avoid responsibility for my actions. Being accountable is hard, uncomfortable and requires courage and vulnerability. Since I have shame and a false image to uphold, the choice is clear. When I am faced with the backlash of my actions, my go-to moves are to deny, blame, justify, minimize, and protect, protect, protect my fragile sense of self. To take accountability is terrifying, and I would rather not go there. While this way of thinking may seem like a safe win for me, it is actually a destructive, losing hand for my marriage. I played my hand one evening about 15 months into recovery. My husband and I were having a fun conversation, laughing and reminiscing, when my husband asked a seemingly innocuous question regarding what sex is like for a woman versus a man. Thinking nothing of it, I answered candidly. My answer, however, filled in a missing piece of information my husband had been seeking regarding my affair and triggered him. One moment we were happy, and then suddenly, his emotions were spiraling down. I felt instantly exposed and guilty from my accidental slip of the truth and our loss of connection. I panicked. I backpedaled (you misunderstood), I apologized for saying it wrong (so it wasn't my fault), I managed his emotions (so now you can't be upset). . . I fought the reality of the situation and ended up making it so much worse. I could have accepted that something I said hurt him, that it was no one's fault, and then tended to him in an understanding and caring way. Instead, I felt victimized by his flood of emotions and the fact that my truthful statement could have such dire and unexpected consequences. I railed at the unfairness of it all. I became indignant that he would treat me this way, that he didn't care how I felt. He was victimizing me and he ruined our good evening. What was really happening though, was that he was reliving how I had victimized him with my infidelity, and I missed this opportunity to show him empathy and help him feel safe when he was at the mercy of this unwanted pain. Find freedom and understanding with Hope for Healing for unfaithful spouses. Learn More Later, while still feeling sorry for myself, I posted on my Hope for Healing class wall. I retold the story with an added flourish of how wronged I was for speaking the truth - how being honest did not pay off like everyone says. I wanted sympathy. To cement my role as a victim even further, I continued with the "poor me" act during our next couples' counseling session. It was an award-winning victim portrayal, and our counselor suggested that my husband soften his response and change how he was expressing his pain to make it easier for ME. I really didn't do anything that bad to warrant the emotional distress that I was clearly in. Great advice I thought, but my husband didn't take it, and was even indignant and angry. "What about my feelings?" he said, "I am the wronged party here." He started to pull away in self-protection, and the new safety he had felt up to that point was severely damaged. Afterwards, because I did not take responsibility for how I acted, I was not able to reconcile with him on this topic. I did not realize that the horrible consequences from that conversation were not because I was at the mercy of honesty, but because I did not accept the reality of what was going on, leading me to fail at making it right. It was a selfish attempt to lessen my pain at his expense - a hard lesson in self deception versus the truth. As an unfaithful spouse, I am no victim. And I am never a victim of the truth. My journey through recovery has opened my eyes to how holding onto the victim cards has made my marriage go bust. I have started to realize how my victim thinking infiltrates many areas of my marriage and how it holds me back as an effective person. I now know that I have to first accept who I am to be able to take full responsibility for my actions. There can be no disconnect between me and my actions. My intentions are not actions. My accumulated actions are my being. I have also learned that for my husband to feel safe and even consider getting and staying close to me, I have to let him see me for who I am - the good and the bad - and then I have to let it go. Let go of my fear that the truth will send him running away. Let go of my perceived right to have my feelings dictate how he should feel and behave. Let go that no matter the intentions, the truth is in the actions. Maybe I couldn't have learned this any earlier in my journey, but I sure wish that I had. I have caused my husband more undue pain and have damaged the progress we have made in recovery by holding onto my victim cards. A victim can't be a healer, and I want to be a healer for my husband and be accountable for myself. I owe him that. For the first time in my life, I, as a victim, will fold. EMS Online Registration Opens Soon! Our Emergency Marital Seminar Online, better known as EMSO, isn’t a one-size-fits-all program for couples. Over decades of experience exclusively in the field of infidelity, our methodology has been honed to better serve couples as they address the betrayal, reconnect as partners and restore their lives. "Affair Recovery's EMS Online course literally saved our marriage from divorce. We had tried other professionals, which only led us to more pain in our marriage. It was a relief to find someone who understood our pain. It was comforting to know that others were feeling and thinking the same thoughts as us. We were not alone on this journey. Our marriage has been enriched by the valuable lessons we have learned through EMS Online." — K., Alabama. Click the button below and be reminded before registration opens. Subscribe to Registration Notifications!

For most of us, whether we are betrayed or unfaithful, thinking back to D-day conjures vivid images of shock and horror, feelings of shame and disbelief, and a period of suspended animation. We recall falling off the edge of the world as we knew it and into a pit of numbness and despair. I remember too. It took the breath right out of me. As painful as that experience was, looking back I have a different perspective on D-day. I see it as the day my husband finally let me in. Despite shattering my world, he finally gave us a chance to truly know each other and the potential to experience unconditional love. Prior to D-day that was not possible. He had been hiding from me, wearing a mask, keeping his secret and shutting me out. I was married to someone I did not really know. That was not fair to either of us, and would never have allowed us to be real in our marriage and realize our true potential. My D-day was probably like yours in many ways. In the morning life was normal and safe, and then we had the conversation that changed everything. Nothing was safe after that, and "normal" was a distant memory. It was just the beginning of a long and painful journey that I would never want to relive and wouldn't wish on anyone. The first anniversary of D-day was hard. All the experts agree it can be triggering and temporarily intensify feelings that make it feel like you are going backwards and are starting all over again. That is common. My goal was just to survive the day and I did, just barely, watching the clock and feeling relieved when it was over. On our 2 year D-day anniversary I wanted to feel differently. I mentally could rationalize how I wanted it to be different, and how getting the truth on D-day really was a breakthrough, but emotionally, I did not feel it at all. I forced myself to act differently in the hopes my feelings would follow, so I took a different approach and made dinner reservations. It was a genuine gesture on my part and I wanted to feel peace, but I didn’t. I was proud of myself for making the effort, and my husband was appreciative. But I really felt awful and was so disappointed that it didn’t magically change anything. Now, we are at the 3 year anniversary of D-day, and by the time you read this it will have just passed. I experienced a great deal of trauma as a result of the infidelity and the decade-long cover up that followed. I had proficiently stuffed down my fears and grief about it for a very long time prior to D-day, when my suspicions were finally validated. Once I got the truth, unraveling those years of my own repression was very difficult. I did not effectively address my trauma for most of the first 2 years following D-day, but this process takes however long it takes and I am figuring it out now. So here I am. Again I plan to make dinner reservations, and this time I actually feel it. I want to do it and am looking forward to it, not forcing it. I see it as a new lease on our lives together. This doesn’t mean everything is wonderful and there will be a musical score playing as we enter the restaurant, with flowers and small woodland creatures running about. I am still hurt and disappointed, still cry over this pretty often and deeply wish this was not my reality, but it is. This anniversary is about being real and recognizing our hard work and progress, and seeing the trail of blood, sweat, and tears (buckets of tears) leading us to this point. In my mind, this day is now a celebration of the day we became 'us'. We are no longer alone like we had been for so long, two people in a marriage but living lives in parallel, floating in and out of intimacy. Sometimes getting close, but not too close, to protect the secret. Only close enough to perceive the gap between us and then feel disappointment again that "this" was all there is. For too many years we each kept up our respective walls. His walls were to keep his secret hidden, mine to protect me from the unknown. I knew I never wanted to be fully known by him. I already felt a sense of rejection when I was only revealing part of me, so if he knew all of me he certainly would not really love me. Right? It turns out he felt much the same, certain that if I knew the entirety of what he had done, who he really was, that I would not love him and that I would probably leave. We lost many years to this. He could have lived his whole life and then died without me ever knowing the truth. We have talked about how I would have been left hanging without ever having known how much he loved me and how much he regretted his betrayal. We missed the opportunity to have this level of emotional intimacy for more than half our marriage, due to the duration of the affair and all the years that followed in which he refused to let me into his world. D-day was the day he finally decided to be brave and let me behind the curtain, despite what it could cost him. He wanted to be fully known, to see into my heart and to let me see into his. He wanted to honor me with truth, even in the face of uncertainty, shame, and fear. D-day is the day he finally showed me I mattered. Amidst the devastation and fear, we were both shocked at what we found behind that curtain. Neither of us had any idea of the deep love the other felt. Now we know. I still struggle with all that happened and fight against the sadness. Some days I win and others I lose. But I am still here, pressing on. We are planning to renew our vows someday when I am ready. I think we might use the D-day anniversary for the special date as that is the day we became real and he let me in. Despite the pain, that is more valuable and meaningful to me than any other day on the calendar. Harboring Hope registration opens soon! Subscribe to be notified. 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