Affair Recovery

It’s a common understanding; we just don’t want to talk about what makes us feel uncomfortable or ashamed. We certainly don’t want to talk about our failures, unless we’ve experienced a great deal of healing for those failures. Early on in our recovery, I made the mistake of saying to Samantha several times “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s start over, move on, and save us!”

What a great heart’s intent right? Who wouldn’t love that? Sounds sincere enough right?

What I thought I was conveying was “I want to be with you, and I’m willing to work on the marriage at all costs.” But what I was conveying was, as long as we don’t talk about the affair or how I failed and I am ready to get healthy (as long as we talk about you and not me) and here we go, off to the next...

I’ll never forget a lunch I was having with a couple who eventually became like mentors to Samantha and I.  Samantha wasn’t there but I was venting a bit and talking to them very openly about my anger and bitterness and unmet needs which I felt led to the affair in the first place. 

They listened and graciously I might add.  I say graciously, as the fact is, I’m not quite sure how they stomached my deception and lunacy.  But finally, he had had enough add said, “Samuel, are you done yet?”

Laughingly I said, “Oh, yes, I’m sorry” and chuckled. 

It was at this moment that he led me by the hand and took me to the proverbial woodshed of sobriety and awareness of what an idiot (to put it lightly) I was...

If there is one thing we have learned through this mess that we have to keep going back to each year, it’s the concept of prioritization. No, this is not going to be a self-help post, or a menial approach to six steps to peace, etc. etc. It’s more about seeing the world and seeing the situation through the right lens of prioritization.

Let’s face it. My affair, and possibly yours, happened due in large part to me making everything else, and everyone else, a priority except my spouse. Work came first, people’s needs came first, my affair partner came first, and even my kids came first. Samantha was dead last in terms of genuine concern, focus and attentiveness. My boss and his family even had priority over her in many ways.

When we allow life to get...

Along the road of recovery there will be immense frustration. Frustration at your spouse, frustration at circumstances, and hopefully, yes I said hopefully, frustration at even yourself.

I hate to be a downer but if you think recovery and the pursuit of restoration is always this joyous, redemptive season of renewed love and compassion, I'm sorry but it's far from that. If you also think you can go back to business as usual, friend, you are sadly mistaken. You and your spouse have just experienced great turmoil and destruction, and life doesn't just pick up and move right back on. (side note: life doesn't bow down to a desire to recovery either. Kids still fight, bills still come, sickness still happens, and peripheral drama amongst loved ones, family and work all...

Many, who fall, including myself, will confess to eventually feeling like a slave to the affair partner or addiction. Before we know it, what once was an adrenaline filled endeavor, full of excitement and dark, thrilling passion, eventually becomes slavery. The elation and electricity of it all, fades, then slowly but surely turns to dread, regret, and sometimes even disdain. Disdain for ourselves, the affair partner and even our spouse.  

As we continue in our duplicity, the shame and condemnation become overwhelming and we find it seemingly impossible to break out of the pattern we’ve created. Quite honestly, we walk right into where we end up. Somewhere along the way of life, we made a group of small, seemingly unimportant decisions, which slowly but every so surely...

Early on in recovery it was ugly. Everything seemed like it was my fault. No matter what happened it would eventually be tied to the fact that I had an affair. It was a painful way to live. Looking back even my wife Samantha would tell you that most things ended up being my fault. It wasn’t accurate but Samantha was in so much pain, and flooding so quickly, it was hard not to put it all on me.

If we were going to heal it was going to have to be that way for a short time. Let’s just be honest: I had a two year affair. The fact that I had to go through some emotional pain and hurt and even some ‘shaming’ from my Samantha, is not that big of a deal when you consider the bigger picture. If we are going to compare which sin is worse, I will win every time. When I talk to spouses who...

"I can't make you NOT have another affair. If you're going to cheat, you're going to cheat."

About a year or so into recovery, Samantha very calmly told me those words in Rick's office. I immediately saw Rick's eyes light up, followed by a gentle smile that showed Rick was very pleased with the new insight Samantha had arrived at.

It was a significant moment for her, to realize she needed to let go, trust God and even trust me (in developing levels of progression) that if I was ever going to have another affair, she in her own power couldn't prevent it.

After all, I was a great liar. If I want to, I still can be.

The difference is - I don't want to.

And I don't have to.

Samantha realized that if I wanted to have another affair I could,...

If there was one issue that was probably one of most difficult issues for me to overcome personally, it was shame. I was truly ashamed of what I had done and how I had hurt both Samantha and so many other lives. There was, however, a bit of a time release to my shame though and you'll probably only understand this if you are an unfaithful spouse. What I mean is it didn't hit me all at once. If it did I think I would have ended it all. Were it not for my kids I think one night I would have committed suicide with all the sobriety that began to come crashing down around me. Don't worry, that's not a cry for you to feel sorry for me, it's just a bit of a window into the mind of the unfaithful.

As the days and weeks would go by, and as we began to get the right kind of help, the...

Not too long ago, Samantha and I were having an incredibly difficult time. If you're on this site, and have gone through this nightmare which necessitates recovery, when I say an incredibly difficult time,' I know you know what I mean. I felt like I just couldn't win and couldn't gain any ground. To say I was frustrated is a severe understatement.

Looking back, what I truly was feeling was hopelessness. Walking out your recovery from infidelity (or your spouse's infidelity) can seem impossible. It can also seem as though nothing you do works, no action taken produces any fruit, and no matter what road you take it just never goes the way you want it to go. It's a toxic combination of anger, bitterness and frustration and it can lead you to a place of "Why even try???"

I...

Rick’s newest article once again, kicked me right in the teeth. Let me quote from it briefly, and if you’d like to read the whole thing, you can go here to read it:

(To have an affair) “Deceive yourself into believing you’re as wonderful as your Emotional Affair Partner sees you to obtain maximum benefit from your new found relationship. Always believe the lie that they’re better than your mate and that you’d have been far better off if you’d married them. Marriage partners are the makeup mirrors of our lives. They highlight every flaw and blemish. Emotional Affair Partners are vanity mirrors. We look amazing in their eyes. Approval seeking requires we suspend reality and imagine ourselves as seen through our EAP’s eyes....

A few months ago my husband Wayne and I were laying on the hammock in the back yard enjoying a rare quiet evening together. I remember it being an unusually still evening, so much so that we could hear cars rushing by on the highway near our home. After about half an hour of relaxing and talking, the peaceful setting was disrupted by a horrible crashing sound. I was so surprised my armpits itched! (I realize this is probably an over-share, but what can I say… my armpits itch when I am scared.) My back was turned to the tree that had fallen, so I had no idea what had caused the unexpected noise. Hardly daring to breathe I whispered, “Fireworks?” Wayne shook his head no. “Pecan Tree” was all he said, but I could hear the disappointment in his voice. When we bought our land a few years...

Somewhere along the way, I remember coming to the painful yet life-changing realization that everything I wanted was here in my marriage; I just didn't see it or recognize it. It was a 'painful' realization as it only reinforced the personal shame I felt for allowing the affair to happen in the first place. Keep in mind, shame says I am something bad, when guilt, grief, or conviction simply says I've done something wrong and there is a country mile of difference between the two perspectives my friends.

I had let life, kids, marriage, ministry pressures and all sorts of less important things get in the way of taking care of what was supposed to be most important all along, and it was no one’s fault but my own.

While last week I talked about restoring and reconnecting...

If I had to pinpoint one issue of our recovery that was the most difficult to overcome, it would have to have been our sex life. My affair was highly emotional and highly sexual from the start and sharing the details with Samantha was gut wrenching for her. She was the type of spouse that didn't want to know all the intricate details of it all, but wanted to know the general truths about what went on, what we did, what we didn't do, and for how long. My situation was extremely unique as I had to give up specifics to the situation with absolute clarity as there were some individuals coming to corroborate my story the next day.

My affair had been very public, with an unfortunately large audience, and it only added to the shame and embarrassment for both Samantha and myself. If I...

A very dear friend recently shared the story of her crumbling marriage with me. She told me that her husband had come home one day and told her that he no longer felt anything toward her and was going to move out. A few weeks later he filed for divorce. My heart ached for her as she shared with me her feelings of confusion and abandonment. She said she felt used up and discarded. When her husband had originally moved out she had held onto hope for reconciliation, but with each passing day that hope got fainter as she faced the end of a part of her life that she had thought would be there forever. My heart breaks for her a little bit more every day as I watch her go through the motions of a dance she never signed up for. She had dreamed of forever, but for reasons completely out of her...