Affair Recovery

When couples attempt to heal from infidelity or addiction, they're faced with many staggering truths that can make or break both their own recovery and the relationship. Today Samuel points a way through the smoke and malaise of denial and loss to clarity, courage and hope for the future.

Trusting again after infidelity is no easy task for the betrayed partner. The unfaithful can spend an enormous amount of energy doing what they think will help regain trust with the betrayed, only to find themselves frustrated, confused and in some cases angry at the realization that the betrayed still doesn't trust them. To many outside the arena of affair recovery, trusting again seems impossible, yet to those who have walked the road of healing and restoration, trust is in fact possible....

It's a question the betrayed partner finds themselves asking time and time again: Is my unfaithful partner repairable? What betrayed partner wouldn't ask this question? While every situation is different, the answer can be crucial to the hope of the betrayed and the self-esteem of the unfaithful. Today you'll hear Samuel share pointed but compassionate markers on how to tell if the unfaithful partner is repairable or not. Rest assured, for...

Determining when the unfaithful partner is safe in recovery work can be confusing, daunting and just plain overwhelming. The good news is, there are metrics one can use to determine if the unfaithful party is serious about their individual recovery work as well as their primary relationship. The affair recovery process is not only possible but essential if a couple is going to overcome infidelity or addiction. The...

Are you a betrayed partner reeling from infidelity, looking for signs to see if your unfaithful mate is taking steps to be safe? Have you ever wondered about what the markers of safety in affair recovery might look like in the first place? There are signs to look for that not only create a sense of safety between partners, but make the painful but necessary recovery process that much easier to wade through....

Early on after discovery or disclosure of infidelity, it seems normal, and even expected, that the unfaithful is overwhelmed with grief, despair, and even shame. Then, enough time transpires and they are seemingly paralyzed by these emotions and more, leaving them self-absorbed and wallowing in their own pain. The difficulty arrives when the betrayed partner begins to wonder, when will they show remorse for what they've done, and for how their choices have affected their loved ones? To...

The gift of grace to a guilty and shame-ridden soul is humbling. Once given, the receiver has the choice to cherish it and henceforth act in a way that expresses gratitude, or take advantage of it through a selfish entitlement that overlooks the sacrifice and kindness with which it was given.

The grace that my husband has given me throughout recovery has been vital to the survival of our marriage. His ability to extend chance after chance for me to get...

People who have lost a loved one often ask me, "How do you understand so much about grief?" I suppose, before I lost my dad, it looked to the world like I really didn't know much about grief. The truth is, that's because as a society we often only judge a person's grief or ability to understand grief by the losses that fit into our prescribed "big" and "normal" categories. Everything else gets brushed under the rug. There is an overall general understanding...

There I was having to answer my own question, why is my jaw hurting again? Not only have I been grinding my teeth like before, but hate has a hold on me, again. It's been some years, but not long enough. A familiar pain revealed itself, as if getting punched dead in the face.

If you've ever been hit or had an accident where your head is involved, it's a startling flash of light, temporary blindness, confusion, and undeniably searing yet numbing pain. You come to, and realize you have...

Today, we at AffairRecovery.com are excited to share with you an interview with the esteemed Dr. Robert Weiss PhD, LCSW. Dr. Weiss is the Chief Clinical Officer of Seeking Integrity LLC, offering clinical programs that provide online education and residential treatment for sex, porn, and substance/sex-addicted men and their families. A psychotherapist and addiction specialist, he has created six intimacy and addiction treatment programs in the US, Southeast Asia and for the US military. Dr. Weiss is...

Have you ever reached a point in your own recovery, or in your relationship, where you thought to yourself: is this really as good as it's going to get? Maybe you've found yourself reasonably happy, but just not fulfilled with the repair work you've done? Like many, you may have also felt like you or your relationship were making great strides, showing ongoing momentum and promise, and now you feel stuck...

If you have been impacted by infidelity, whether it happened recently or even years ago, your emotions can be all over the place. When you decide to commit to heal yourself, no matter what your spouse decides to do, there are some things you'll need to change in order to get to a healthier place mentally. Some betrayed partners feel the overwhelming need to control everything about the unfaithful, including their schedules, email or social media activity...

For that matter, what is "healed" anyway? What does it mean? What does it actually look like? I will explore this further in a future blog, as this question has perplexed and frustrated me since I learned of my husband's infidelity. More to come on that.

In the meantime, the process of healing is hard to measure. You can't take out a yardstick or step on the scale to track the progress. It's subtle and murky. Healing is slow and...

Preface: In Hope for Healing lesson 5, as a participant, I was asked to examine the difference between a prideful spirit and a broken spirit. At first, I thought maybe I had come up with the "wrong" answer because the other women in my group saw brokenness as a bad thing and a place to be ashamed of. I see brokenness as a catalyst for total transformation. Looking back on my journey through failure, disaster, and gut-wrenching pain, I came up with this definition of brokenness....