Survivors' Blog

The first time I remember knowing I didn’t belong to the group was in fifth grade. Alyssa Packson was on the twirling team and head of the student council. Teachers doted on her because she made straight A’s, and the other girls worshiped her—she already had a boyfriend, which, at eleven automatically made her the coolest girl in class. Two of my close friends were part of her inner circle, so I heard plenty of Alyssa-stories through them. I listened intently when they mentioned she’d be passing out invitations for her end-of-year party. The next day, Alyssa and her posse strode out the metal doors to the recess yard. Her followers had doubled in size, and they moved across the field like an amoeba—one shifting organism—as she handed out pink folded invitations. My friend mouthed, “Come here!” and motioned for me to join the group that had begun forming a circle. But as I stepped closer, Alyssa turned toward me. Her lips curved into her gorgeous smile as she said in a sing-song voice, “Uh-uh, no, Rachel…you’re not in the group. Sorry.” She turned her back and pulled the circle inward, leaving me motionless on the outside. What We Carry Into the Circle I hadn’t thought about that childhood memory in decades, but it came back with surprising force when I considered joining a partner group. It wasn’t just the image of eleven-year-old Rachel awkwardly shuffling her feet in the dirt behind that circle of girls. It was also the feeling that came back. The hollowed-out space in my stomach. The racing heartbeat. The words that wouldn’t budge from my mouth. That old fear of not belonging was still alive in my body. Part of me felt ridiculous tracing my hesitation back to a pink invitation on a playground. That moment certainly wasn’t the sharpest rejection of my life. And yet, I had joined countless circles since then–church groups, mom groups, sports teams, book clubs, study groups, even other recovery spaces. I knew how groups worked and how to find my seat. But this group–this one with women who knew the sound of their world cracking–terrified me. I was emotionally raw, my skin thin from everything that had happened in my marriage. I couldn’t risk watching another circle close in front of me. Not this time. My husband carried a different fear, though. His years in the military had given him a kind of belonging I couldn’t fully understand. For him, it wasn’t a fear of being rejected—it was a fear of being exposed. “You know I don’t like my business being blasted out to a room full of strangers,” he told me, “Plus, I already feel enough shame as it is. I don’t need any more thrown at me.” When it came to stepping into a group, there was a lot at stake for both of us. For me—another potential closed circle. For him—vulnerability that could cost him. The Search for Safety As we looked for places to heal, my husband and I quickly realized that not every group is a safe place to land. There were groups that, quite frankly, did more harm than good. I remember sitting in a space where I left feeling smaller than when I walked in–where stories were compared like a scorecard and advice rushed in before any connection had been built. In those rooms, “fixing” replaced listening, and I felt that old fifth-grade part of me standing on the outside. But then, we found the spaces that were different. When my husband’s therapist encouraged him to join a specific men’s infidelity group, he reluctantly said yes. Week after week, he sat in a circle of men who told the raw truth about their lives. Some wept, some sat expressionless, but the collective honesty disarmed him. He discovered that the more he listened, the less the room felt like a firing squad and more like a mirror. He was finally allowing himself to be known, and in being known, the shame began to lose its grip. For me, belonging grew quietly during my Harboring Hope group, beginning with the way our facilitator invited us to connect on the online wall before the weekly calls started. We shared a little about ourselves–our hobbies, our children, and the parts of our lives that existed outside the betrayal. During our first meeting, we were each invited to give a five-minute overview of our story and what had brought us there. At the start of every call, we also revisited the group agreements: no interrupting, no fixing, and no cross-talk. Those commitments helped create safety and shaped the tone of the group. When it was my turn to share my story, my voice shook as I spoke. But as the words came out, no one rushed to correct my story or offer advice. The group simply listened. I shouldn’t have been surprised–we had all agreed to offer that kind of space to one another–but when it was extended to me, it meant more than I expected. Something in me settled. The circle wasn’t closing on me. It was widening. And when the circle stays open, the heavy burdens we carry–like the fear of rejection and exposure–begin to lose their power. Shame loosens. Comparison quiets. We remember we aren’t walking this path alone. And sometimes, that’s where the real healing happens. If you’ve been navigating recovery on your own–or if previous group experiences haven't felt safe–consider programs like Harboring Hope, Hope for Healing, and EMS Online. These are designed to create the kind of trauma-informed spaces where circles widen instead of close.

Brave, beautiful, warrior. I shared with you previously how I was inspired by my daughter's choice of the three silver tiles. I talked about “being brave” and how I was able to resist the urge to be fearful, and chose to be brave. I also shared about the call I answered to rise up and be a warrior, to choose how I would respond to a trigger. Today, ladies, I want to tell you something that may be hard to hear. You are beautiful. If you are here reading this blog you know how difficult it is to feel beautiful after having found out about your husband's infidelity. But, his choices do not define who you are. Nor do they determine if you are beautiful or not. I was challenged to look at myself through a different lens. And I want to challenge you in the same way. I will admit, after 5 children in seven years, sure…my body wasn’t what it used to be. But really, was it simply outward appearance that drew my husband’s attention to another woman? I’m not proud of this, but perhaps you can relate — I tracked down this woman on social media. And then I asked myself, “Really? You pursued her over me?” This challenged me to look at the much bigger picture. I paused to consider — what were some of the other issues going on? I was able to see that he was feeling unsatisfied in his career. He felt like there was never enough time in the day to do the things he wanted to do. There were a slew of other things. And now, years later, I have even more things I can add to that list. For your situation — are there issues with addiction - pornography, alcohol, drugs? Is there a history of past abuse: emotional, physical, or sexual? All of these things and more may be at play in the “why” of the affair. Looking back now, hindsight is 20/20. But then, I was able to at least recognize a couple of issues that were going on - it wasn’t simply about my outward appearance. It's so easy to feel beautiful at the beginning of our love story, those early days of falling in love and feeling like all is good and right with the world. It's easy to feel beautiful when you're held near and dear to your husband's heart and when you're looked at with adoration. I want to remind you, as I had to remind myself, that you are beautiful, with or without your husband’s love or affection. We so often see ourselves through the eyes of man. But there is one greater than a man who looks at me, and you, and says, “You are beautiful. I have created you. You are my chosen one. You are my daughter and I love you.” God in heaven, Creator of the Universe, He Himself looks at me and sees the beauty that is inherent in who He has created me to be. But I am human. And I am hurt. And my perspective gets skewed. And so I need to return again and again to the fount of Living Water. I had to immerse myself in the Truth of God’s Word. Daily. You see, the thing is, there are a lot of things about me that fall short — I lose my temper with my kids, I get aggravated at the person in the checkout in front of me, etc, etc, etc. And yet, despite that — whether I see my beauty or not — is not what it's about. It's about taking hold of God's abundant grace and fully leaning into THAT. I don't measure up, and WILL NEVER measure up. And that’s okay. That's why Jesus came. So, the question becomes more about “Do I have the faith to take God at His word. Will I trust Him? Or will I rely on my perception of how others see me?” This is where being vulnerable with other women is so important. Let them into your thoughts. They can help redirect you to the truth of who you are — and it is not dependent on how a man sees you. You are a wife, a partner, a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor. You are so much more than you may think. There are many things that can “make” us beautiful in others' eyes. And yet, just simply WHO you are — you are a woman who is made in the image of God — is enough. HE declares your worth. HE is the only One who has the authority to even issue that statement. And He does. YOU, dear woman, hurt and broken, God looks at you and loves you. He longs to draw you close to His heart, and hold you near. He whispers to your tender, fragile heart, “I have redeemed you, I have called you by name. I love you, you are Mine.” So, please, when you look at yourself in the mirror - know that you are seen, valued, and honored by the Maker of the Universe. He declares you as beautiful. The question is — will you believe what your Creator says about you? Or will you believe the lies that have surfaced in light of the infidelity. Hold fast to the truth.

“Mom…where are you going? Hello? Mom!” My nine-year-old’s voice jolted me out of a trance. I blinked at the road ahead and realized I’d taken two wrong turns and found myself on the other side of the lake. Again. It was the third time that week I’d driven somewhere other than my intended destination. I tried to laugh it off. “Just exploring our new neighborhood!” I said, my voice pitched higher than usual. In the rearview mirror, her worried eyes met mine. She knew I was lying. Tears pooled behind the oversized sunglasses I’d started wearing everywhere. They had become my mask—shielding my daughters from mascara-streaked cheeks and the deep, dark circles that came from too many sleepless nights. I was trying so hard to hold it together for them. But even my ability to drive without losing my way had vanished overnight. My hands clung to the steering wheel, knuckles white, but my mind was nowhere in the car. Scene by scene, word by word, I replayed the weeks leading up to the night my husband sat across from me on the sofa and said, “Okay, you really want to know? Here it is…” I knew things would never be the same. In the days and weeks that followed, a hard truth settled in: I had lost more than my marriage. Simple routines I once did without thinking—reading, cooking, driving—now felt impossible. My thoughts scattered. Sleep disappeared. My stomach churned in constant revolt. Parenting became something I performed on autopilot, terrified my pain might spill onto my girls. My world had gone dim. Laughter no longer came easily. Even my connection with God, once my lifeline, felt distant, muffled beneath resentment and confusion. Betrayal hadn’t just fractured my marriage. It was as if it had walked through my life and emptied every room, leaving echoes of what once was. This was betrayal trauma — but it was also more. It was grief. The Practice of Naming One quiet Saturday morning, a few months later, I sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee and a candle flickering beside me. The house was still, the sun just beginning to edge through the curtains. I’d recently heard someone say, “Healing begins in the naming”, and I’d been thinking about it ever since. Part of me wanted to keep the losses buried. I was afraid that if I named them, they’d grow stronger—that the grief would pull me under and I’d never find my way out. But the silence was heavy, and I was too tired to keep carrying it. So I opened my journal and wrote a single question at the top of the page: What have I lost? At first, my losses centered on my marriage. I wrote, My best friend. The laughter that once filled our kitchen. Conversations I thought were honest. Feeling safe with him. Then the losses shifted inward: Feeling safe in my own skin. Believing I was enough. Trusting my instincts. And then more surprising griefs came: A full night’s sleep. The energy to play and be silly with my girls. Taco Tuesdays and movie nights. The sound of my own laugh. The more I wrote, the more losses spilled out of me. With each line, I was surprised by how far they reached—and yet, something inside me loosened. My breath came easier, as if naming them made more space within me. Naming the losses wasn’t intensifying the pain as I had feared. It was giving the pain a place to go. The words settled safely onto the page, and somehow I sensed that they were being held—not just by the paper and ink, but by something greater than me. Held, Not Fixed As I kept noticing and naming the losses in the weeks ahead, I discovered something I hadn’t expected: healing wasn’t happening because everything was fixed or repaired. The losses weren’t being reversed. Healing was happening each time I allowed myself to be fully honest about all that I had lost—and realistic that there were still losses waiting to surface. Nothing about my circumstances changed right away. I still felt the deep ache of everything that was gone. But like unclenching a fist I hadn’t realized was tight, something in me released. What I thought would amplify my grief was actually making space for healing. What I feared would drown me became the very act that allowed me to surface for air. Naming my losses became a kind of prayer for me—a way of saying, Here it is. This is what hurts. And whether you imagine that release being met by God, by a Higher Power, or simply by your own compassion, the point is the same: You don’t have to hold it all alone. An Invitation If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of losses, can I offer you a small step? Name one thing you’ve lost. Just one. Not to dwell there. Not to fix it. But to bring it into the light. You don’t have to hold it alone. You are already being held.

Jen is our newest Survivors' Blog writer and staff member for Affair Recovery. She is a woman who has lived the journey from betrayal to a restored marriage and knows what it takes to find solid ground again. She and her husband have spent years leading marriage groups in her church and she is incredibly passionate about helping couples trade their self-protective walls for real, honest connection. We hope her story inspires courage and ultimately healing in your recovery journey. ~Rick Reynolds, LCSW The news article popped into my email and immediately my stomach roiled. Free solo No ropes 101 stories …a massive spire? He has a family. A wife and two young children. Why would anyone risk a fall from that height? With one misstep, one missed hand grab, one crazy gust of wind, he would lose everything. And his family would lose him. I tuned in to watch Alex Honnold free solo Taipei 101, not because I am a climbing enthusiast or an adrenaline junkie, but because I wanted to see how his wife processed this kind of risk. I couldn’t fathom being anything other than angry. As I watched, I realized I wasn’t angry for her. I was angry at him. How can I be mad at someone I don’t even know? Whose decisions have exactly zero impact on my own life? But as I got quiet, I realized I was viewing this whole situation not as a climbing enthusiast scaling a building, but as a husband not choosing his wife. And I have been a wife whose husband chose risk over me. I viewed Alex’s adventure as risky, selfish — something done for the rush and the title and it reminded me of all the times that my husband chose porn — also something done for the rush, the fantasy of adoration, the getting to feel like a “man” without having to be one in the mess of real life. From the depths of my soul, I found myself continually shouting, “Why are you risking your life? What makes you think this will be worth it? Is there anything I can say or do to convince you otherwise?” The Misdirected Climb Not unlike scaling a building without ropes, Craig’s betrayal was a high-stakes, life-altering risk, but he took this “external” risk to avoid an even riskier internal one: vulnerability. Being vulnerable is the scariest climb of all, isn’t it? To reveal our true self invites either full acceptance or total rejection — and we don't know which one we’ll get until we’re committed to the wall. I remind myself all the time that “to be fully loved, I must be fully known” but the deepest fear I have is that if someone fully knows me, they won’t love me. I will be too much or too little, too needy or too independent. For so many years in my marriage, I employed my self-protection plan — to be anything and everything anyone needed me to be. Craig’s self-protection plan was to disappear into the fantasy world of pornography. We both hid from ourselves, from each other, and from God. If we view the definition of intimacy as “into-me-see,” we didn’t have any of that. What we had were self-protective walls that served as facades of independence. The Adrenaline Mask Having childhood wounds or a fear of vulnerability isn’t an excuse for having an affair or a sex addiction. But because I know what it’s like to fear vulnerability and have used my own coping mechanisms, it helps me understand that my husband’s actions were motivated by those same fears. They are big and heavy and loud. They drown out the deeper, truer needs of intimacy and connection. What I have learned from our story of sex addiction and the stories of others is that when we engage in risky behaviors — consuming the illicit content behind the locked door, the furtive text to a co-worker, the secret hotel room — adrenaline keeps us singularly focused on the “Now.” When Craig looked at porn, he was able to shut out his past and present hurts, his disconnection with the one he first chose, and the sheer weight of living. In any type of affair or betrayal, there is this search to finally feel alive, but in actuality, it just puts people in survival mode. Whether you’re climbing without a rope or sneaking around with someone else (or a device), your nervous system is on fire. What we have mistaken for relief, passion, or true love is really “stress-induced alertness.” The War Within This was true for Craig. While he could convince himself in the moment that I wouldn’t find out or it “wasn’t that big a deal,” a part of him still knew the truth about what he was doing. This created a war within himself. His limbic system drove him toward dopamine and the escape. Meanwhile, his prefrontal cortex screamed “error messages” that he tried to ignore: This isn’t honoring. You’re hurting your wife and your kids. You’re risking your integrity. You were made for more than this. What he did to escape pain only increased it. He risked betraying me because it felt less scary than feeling exposed. This is not emotionally satisfying to those of us who have been betrayed, I know. It feels unfair that their 'fear' resulted in our 'destruction.' I sat in that unfairness for a long time. I wore my brokenness like a badge and reduced Craig to the villain until one day, after finding him engaging with porn again, I got really vulnerable with God. In His graciousness, He listened to me fling rage and bitterness at Him, at Craig, and at the fact I was stuck in this miserable place. As I curled in a heap of exhaustion, I heard a whisper: Would you like to try this my way? The Real Risk: Surrendering the Illusion Free-soloing is terrifying, but so is the work of marriage and honestly, revisiting and healing childhood trauma. In addiction or an affair, we have the illusion of control. Craig thought he was skilled enough to hide his actions and I tried to control the environment to prevent more pain. Both of us were trying to manage this mountain on our own terms and get our needs met without each other. This is what God was showing me that day: True healing for both of us required turning away from our fierce independence and carefully crafted facades. And this is the real risk — the danger of being honest. It’s the risk of turning toward each other with our fears and true needs exposed. It’s admitting that working on this marriage meant that there was very little we could actually control at all. The Gear We Didn’t Have Craig and I eventually found our way to the other side, but honestly? We did it the hard way. We didn’t have a map. We didn’t have a guide. We spent years falling, bruising ourselves, and nearly giving up because we were trying to scale this mountain with our bare hands. I deeply wish Craig and I had known about Affair Recovery when we were struggling through his addiction. We would have not floundered for as long as we did. You don’t have to. These just might be a lifeline for you. For Individual Healing: For us, recovery began with finding our own footing. Before we could heal our marriage, we had to heal the things that kept us from being vulnerable. Whether you’ve experienced the fall of betrayal or you're exhausted from climbing without a rope, you need an individual path. Joining a group of other people who have experienced betrayal or unfaithfulness reinforces that you’re not alone on this journey and hope and healing are real things. These groups are led by fellow sojourners who are passionate about the power of community and are dedicated to helping you heal your own heart first. For the Marriage: When you are ready to climb together again, EMS Weekend is designed to provide the ropes and anchors you need to navigate the hardest parts of your story. Having witnessed the transformation of couples who attend this weekend—and having read testimony after testimony of those who followed—I can tell you that this isn't just a workshop. It is a proven path to safety, vulnerability, and hope. You aren't meant to do this alone. The bravest thing any of us can do today isn't to keep climbing without a rope; it's to reach out and let a community hold the line.

After Birdee Pruitt is publicly betrayed by her husband on national television, she takes her daughter and moves back to her small hometown. Traumatized and humiliated, she slowly begins the work of rebuilding a life she once believed was secure, all while confronting her past and the scrutiny of small-town eyes. Hope Floats portrays a woman whose hopeful outlook–not only in her marriage, but in herself—vanishes in a single moment. I can relate. After my own discovery of betrayal, hope wasn’t at the forefront of my mind–nor was it for my husband. Those early months were disorienting and tumultuous. If someone had told us to look for hope, I don’t think either one of us would have known what to look for. The world had flipped on its axis, and hope, at that point, was nowhere to be found. What Keeps Us From Hope After Betrayal Looking back, I can see what kept us from hope then. For one, hope felt fragile. It seemed risky—even a little dangerous—to hope for a future that might never happen, whether that meant our marriage recovering or eventually going our separate ways. It was hard to let myself hope when my body and nervous system had catapulted me into a state of survival. Like many betrayed partners, I reached for whatever semblance of safety I could find instead. Sometimes that looked like numbing or distraction–binge-watching shows late into the night, staying busy, or trying to control small corners of my life that still felt manageable. At other times, safety meant slowing down–taking walks, journaling, and reaching out for support. Both kinds of safety-seeking made sense at the time; they were my body’s way of trying to find solid ground. For my husband, hope was overtaken by shame. It didn’t initially come out as regret, but as defensiveness, intensity, and moments when he seemed swallowed by the reality of what had happened. As the truth settled in and the weight of his choices became undeniable, he doubted whether healing—or redemption—could ever be possible. We were both too busy treading water to notice that hope might still be there beneath the surface. All we could see was the deeper reality–that nothing about our lives could return to what it had been. We were facing a long season of uncertainty and grief, and a scope of work we couldn’t rush. But as the shock of all of this softened, small traces of hope began to appear. Once it did, hope wavered between extremes. One hour, we could see the faint possibility that something in our future might be restored, only to sink into darkness and despair an hour later. In our own ways, we both wondered: Is it foolish to hope? Is hope even possible anymore? Would there ever be a safe time to hope? There were days when it felt like we might drown under the years of pain and dysfunctional patterns between us. And yet, there was a quiet wondering if anything new–anything redeemable–could still rise from all of this. So yes, hope felt risky—and eventually we began to understand why: we were placing our hope in each other. We were letting it be defined by the other person’s words, actions, and reactions—and it was too fragile to survive there. Hope needed to become an inside job. We couldn’t outsource it to one another’s hands. It had to become a deeply lived, internal reservoir we could draw from within ourselves. Even when hope felt faint—sinking under the weight of our circumstances—we began to hold onto the belief that it might still be present, even if we couldn’t feel it yet. Hope only began to rise to the surface when we tethered ourselves to this truth: No matter what happened—whether our marriage was transformed, re-shaped, or eventually released—hope could still carry us through this journey. That was one of the harder parts of recovery for each of us. We had to learn to live without a guaranteed outcome. We had to loosen our grip on certainty and stay present in the painful, unresolved middle—trusting that hope could sustain us even when the future was unknown. What Helps Us Turn Toward Hope Again So how did hope begin to feel less risky, and more like something we allowed ourselves to grasp again? Hope first began to rise as we became more honest with ourselves—about our pain, our patterns, and what was broken. It was only then that disclosure and truth-telling could move between us. Hope emerged when we each chose to seek support. Getting help was, in itself, a hopeful act—a declaration that neither of us wanted to stay where we were. For me, hope deepened as I invested in healing my betrayal trauma and began to notice changes in my body, my rhythms, and my inner world. Not all at once, but over time. For him, hope surfaced as he confronted the pain he had buried for years and committed to doing the hard work of healing and repair. And because hope had once been woven into our faith, we began to look for it in the ordinary and sacred moments of our lives. In nature, in our daughters’ laughter, in prayer, and in the times when we felt like we could finally breathe again. Hope didn’t return loudly. It returned quietly. It floated. By the end of Hope Floats, Birdee recalls something her mother used to say: “Beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. You need to remember that when you find yourself at the beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.” Recovery often feels like living in that middle space—somewhere between grief and rebuilding, fear and courage, loss and the possibility of new life. Hope doesn’t always arrive easily, and it rarely floats smoothly to the surface. But when we give it room—gently, slowly, honestly—hope has a way of rising again.