Survivors' Blog

I've been reading about something called 'neural plasticity' in Emily Nagoski's book, Come As You Are – a book often recommended by Rick to learn about women's sexuality. In the midst of this seemingly endless period of 'recovery,' I really needed to read something positive and hopeful and validating. How could a book discussing women's sexuality and brain science be uplifting? When we find ourselves stuck in the slog of trying to change another's attitude about one's unfaithful spouse – when one has waited many months to see any change of heart in the unfaithful, it can get pretty discouraging. Then I read a book that describes what science has found to be true in humans: when we act a certain way long enough, the neural connections in our brains actually change. They adapt to our new way of behaving, and that behavior not only becomes tolerable, it becomes instinctive. In other words, it would be uncomfortable, if not impossible, to return to the old ways. For example, suppose I am given community service hours at a homeless shelter to make meals – at first I go because I've been told to do so under duress. My human brain allows me to 'fake it until I make it'. Eventually, I will come to not only tolerate cooking meals, I will enjoy and want to continue cooking meals for the homeless. The action itself will become its own reward and my brain structure – my neurons – will reconfigure to support this newfound habit. Reconfiguring our brain for healthy behaviors is not a quick fix. It won't happen overnight. But it WILL happen if we continue the healthy behavior. I believe this is why so many 12-step sponsors require acts of service from their sponsees. The sponsor gives his sponsee a helpful, healthy task which the sponsee is told to do no matter how he feels. I have heard many stories shared by those in recovery that demonstrates the positive effects of rewiring their brains. Bottom line? They learn to do better. They heal. How wonderful and hopeful is that? We can change the way we act and so can our spouse. We can change for the better. The key is A-C-T-I-O-N, regardless of feelings. Rinse and repeat. Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski.

This past month, I had the opportunity to take a two-week trip traveling through Germany, Poland, Austria, the Alps, and the Czech Republic with my oldest daughter. Although I have journeyed to three of the other continents, I had never been to Europe. It was an educational trip, full of history about Jewish culture, the Nazi regime, and World War II. Growing up, I had an appreciation for history but never had great teachers on the subject. Because of this, I left for the trip excited, yet apprehensive and unsure of what I was to encounter. This would also be the longest period of time that my family would be separated, including my husband and I. I'm happy to say that we survived, and I think we are better for it. Since we got back, I have been asked numerous times what I learned or what I was enlightened on during the trip. I am still absorbing and processing much of what we saw and experienced, but one very basic idea keeps playing out in my mind – restoring the wreckage – especially since my husband and I are in the middle of another "Disclosure Day" anniversary. If you have ever been to any of the cities in Europe that were in the heart of World War II, the first thing that you'll notice is the cities' conditions. You could always tell if a building had existed prior to WWII because of its appearance–shrapnel, bullet holes, or destruction was evident on the mortar pillars and sides of many of these structures. This was the immediate evidence to know that the building was built before the war. Contrasted next to one of these very old buildings might be a beautiful, untarnished, new one. This mixture of beaten and blemished, next to unscathed and modern, was everywhere. There was a clear divide between what was then and what is now. How true is this for each of our own lives? There is simply life before discovery and life after discovery. We, as a couple, will never be able to recover or go back to the way life was before my infidelity. My choices left us in rubble; some things are frankly, ruined.Names, places, and dates involving my affairs exist in a very painful way. Although we are healing, there is a painful twinge that pierces our chests when we triggered by these reminders. Like the bullet holes in the buildings, I suspect they will always be there. They grow more faint with time, but nevertheless, they are continuously there and serve as a reminder of the devastation. In other ways, now that we are two years out, I can see evidence of the newness from rebuilding our marriage. Restoration can occur. It has been a slow and tedious process, but the amount of debris that's been removed has been incredible, including my own dysfunction. While on our European trip, one of the most relevant questions for each sight or city was what percentage of this place was destroyed during WWII? I find that question pertinent to our recoveries as well. Obviously, every couple's situation is different, but the magnitude of our marriage's destruction was intensified because I had two affairs – one emotional and one physical. If anyone will tell you they can heal on sheer willpower, I will be the first to jump up and down and yell, "NO!" Without an intense healing plan and a willingness to stick with recovery, history is doomed to repeat itself. Which brings me to my other revelation from our journey through Europe. In every city or former concentration camp, designated places were left as is – in ruins. You will find a portion of the Berlin Wall just as it was during the time of communism, full of barbed wire, trip wires, and metal spikes in the ground. In the concentration camp of Birkenau, you will find a large pile of rubble, brick and ashes that used to make up the gas chambers and crematoriums. In the Alps of Austria, there's a place that is stripped to bare ground, with only a faint outline of Adolph Hitler's foundation. There is no memorial, no recreation of the structure, and nothing new has been built over it. Each of these places are haunting and desolate. These hollow, desolate places touched me the most. As a former unfaithful partner, I know that it's important to stand in the ruins and realize that I'm capable of catastrophic destruction – to sit in the reality that lives have been forever altered by my choices. The shame is not painful because it doesn't have as much of a hold on me, but it is painful in the sense that monuments like this have to exist to protect us from further devastation. I keep the EMS Weekend room key in my wallet as a reminder. When I look at that key, I can instantly go back to how much pain we were in when we boarded our flight to go to Texas. It takes me back to the look on my husband's face when I disclosed everything I had done. When I used to see my husband's pain, I wanted to shy away and run from it. I wanted to make it go away, or at least do something to fix it. I wanted to magically be good enough and make enough new memories to erase the pain. With time, I am less inclined to do that. I just sit in it. I see it. I feel it. I let it pull at all of the places in my heart until it grows heavy – until I ache. I then mourn in the rubble. To healing, Elizabeth

We need your feedback! What is the biggest predictor of how couples will respond to the trauma of betrayal? What makes recovery more difficult for some than others? What makes some more resilient than others? Answers to questions such as these are crucial for those trying to find the most productive path for their healing. In an effort to learn more about the impact of trauma on those experiencing infidelity, Affair Recovery is conducting a survey using the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale (ACE) to determine the ongoing impact of previous trauma on individuals recovering from infidelity. If our survey shows a connection between previous childhood trauma and the trauma associated with infidelity then it may help explain one reason why recovery is more challenging for some and provide new direction for those who struggle to heal. The results of the survey will first be presented at the Hope Rising Conference, in Austin Texas on October 12, 2019. Please take our survey below: (function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgd1mfMaGTgQutc9S6ssGEE_2BVK8VbdgVyw7IwGtunOUasN.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk"); Create your own user feedback survey Problem completing the survey above? Take the survey here! What is the ACE? The ACE was developed in the 1990s and was a collaborative effort between the Center for Disease Control and Kaiser, with Robert Anda, MD, and Vincent Felitti, MD, as co–principal investigators.1 Over 17,000 people participated in the ACE study. As researchers followed participants over time they discovered that a person’s cumulative number of adverse childhood experiences has a strong, graded relationship to numerous health, social, and behavioral problems throughout the participant's lifespan. The number of ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) was strongly associated with high-risk health behaviors such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, multiple sexual partners, and severe obesity into adulthood, and correlated with health problems including depression, heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease and shortened lifespan.2 The ACE revealed that the toxic stress associated with trauma gets under our skin and impacts us over a lifetime. Instead of seeing trauma as stand-alone experiences, the ACE taught us that the impact of adverse experiences is cumulative and for our health’s sake, something to be addressed. Here are just a few examples: compared with a score of zero those who had 4 adverse childhood experiences were seven times more likely to become an alcoholic and two times more likely to develop cancer. Compared to a score of zero those with six or more adverse childhood experiences were 5 times more likely to have a suicide attempt and two times more likely to die from any of the ten leading causes of death. DON’T PANIC! If you are someone who had a difficult childhood this doesn’t mean you’re going to have problems. Some individuals demonstrate “resilience,” or the ability to overcome serious hardship while others do not. For a child, one of the most important factors in developing resilience is having at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult. That is one of the reasons Affair Recovery believes community is critical in recovery. I believe the stability provided by healed individuals helps in developing resilience even in adulthood. If you’re interested in learning more about the ACE or determining your score, click here. For additional information on this topic, Bessel van der Koke’s book The Body Keeps the Score does a great job explaining the impact of trauma as well as current treatment modalities. PLEASE HELP us in our efforts to support those in recovery by taking the survey above. Your response is invaluable. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Penguin Publishing Group, Kindle Edition), 144 Vincent J Felitti, Robert F Anda, Dale Nordenberg, David F Williamson, Alison M Spitz, Valerie Edwards, Mary P Koss, James S Marks, “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine Vol. 14, Issue 4 (May 1998): 245-58

"For what it's worth: it's never too late to be who you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over." – Eric Roth Three years can sometimes seem like three thousand years, and at other times, it feels like three seconds. The perception of time is so variable depending on its contents in our conscious experience. When I used to craft romance novels, hours seemed like minutes. I was so focused on the characters, the pacing, and the plot unfolding before me that time seemed to evaporate into my flow of invested thought. As I transferred words onto the page, the sense of something greater than myself was very powerful. As so many artists caught in the dance of doing have said before me, the creative process is fueled by that unimaginable power that permeates the world with life, energy, and mystery. Even now as I type these words, I marvel at the thoughts as they flow from my mind, translated via fingers to the keyboard. Often when I look back at my words, I ask myself, "Did I write that?" It is an inexplicable phenomena: making something that has never existed before this moment. At 2:11 p.m. on a Sunday, wind whips the trees outside in a bustling rush while Bradley Joseph plays his exquisite piano on a Pandora radio station, and Milo Yorkie is at my side. The 'real' world melts into the imagined as I allow my stream of consciousness to flow. As horrendous as the impasse of time seemed to be in the trauma of betrayal and discovery, and the agonizing days and months that followed, my mindfulness practice of presence, is at times paying off. As difficult as it is to see the runway at LAX before I arrive home from a long air journey, so too is it impossible to discern the outcome of this thing we call 'recovery'. I remember a story told by a life coach I admire concerning a client of his that lamented the fact that he was in his early forties and had never taken a dive into his first love – medicine. As a pre-med student in college, his girlfriend had gotten pregnant right before he graduated; they'd married, and delivered a beautiful baby girl. He never pursued a post-graduate degree, but lots of love and two more children followed. As the bills rolled in and the responsibilities of young fatherhood mounted, the young man found himself working as a lab technician, supporting his new family by day, and helping his wife care for their home and children at night. The years passed joyfully, but the dream of medicine still lingered beneath the surface of his smile. "By the time I finish medical school and my residency, I'll be rounding on fifty," the man bemoaned. "And what will you be doing if you don't go to medical school?" The man's face brightened. "I'll be turning fifty." Time does not heal all wounds. It does not earn you a degree or solve your problems. It's what you do with that time that matters. Making no decision is a decision, and there is potentially a huge cost to taking no action. Are you vacillating between reinvesting in your shattered relationship or leaving your marriage? Are you so wounded that you simply cannot fathom ever reestablishing intimacy, emotional or sexual, with your unfaithful partner? That's okay. That is normal. It will take as long as it takes for the clouds to part for you, and for your partner. Clarity takes its own time. The mere fact that you are reading this, indicates commitment to your own healing. Bravo. You are proactive in your forward movement. Even if you are totally blind as to the eventual outcome, you, dear friend, are moving in the right direction toward the beginning of wholeness. You will, God willing, turn 30, 40, 50, 60 even 70 regardless of your decisions now. The century mark is on the dawning horizon of your life too. How will you spend that time? Those decades that lie ahead? You are worth loving and caring. Take good care of yourself, my fellow survivor. You will add to your storehouse of wisdom and strength by minute, by hour, by day, by week, by month, by year. You are going to be OK. You have a magnificent person looking after you: Y-O-U. Christine