The only question we hear more often than, "Why?" is, "Now what?" The journey following infidelity can feel unbearable. We know how difficult it is to find a safe place where you can get help with your delicate emotions. The following is a letter I received from a recent EMS Weekend participant. I encourage you to read it all the way through. This letter was written by a betrayed man and shares his journey from disclosure to attending EMS Weekend to what life is like now. I receive letters like this from time to time and I consider them special gifts. I hope you'll draw the same hope and encouragement from the words of this betrayed spouse. - Rick
Cover more ground faster with the life-changing experience of...
Four years ago, I discovered my husband wasn’t who I thought he was. When he left the house, he didn’t secretly fight crime or possess any cool superpowers. Instead, he had lived a double life for over a decade.
I heard my parent’s generation speak about where they were when they learned that President Kennedy had been shot. Everyone remembers where they were when the news broke about the first plane crashing into the Twin Towers.
When the D-day grenade went off in my life, I was sitting alone in my car in the parking lot of Costco. I could hear everything and nothing all at once. An internal dialogue started to surface within minutes and it wasn’t pretty. I was not only preparing to wage...
Last week, while I was running an errand, I happened to run into one of our online course group leaders. We began to discuss one of my recent articles. I'm sure the tellers had their antennas tuned all the way up since we were discussing infidelity and different ways to respond to it!
It was a fascinating conversation and one that included, "What do you say to someone who wants to confront the affair partner?"
Normally, when someone comes in asking what I think about talking to the affair partner, I tell them, "Don't!" Rarely have I seen any benefit to it. In fact, I've witnessed a great deal of harm coming out of such conversations.
What is the driving force behind the compulsion to speak to or confront the affair partner? Typically, it's to feel better, to take away a bit of our pain, or to find answers we can't seem to get out of our spouse/...
We hope it provides an example of the type of recovery work betrayed spouses do while they pursue healing.
Our society does not deal well with grief. It is the normal reaction to loss, but because our culture does not handle grief well, you may have never learned to deal with it. You may have unresolved grief from earlier losses that is compounded as you deal with this new tragic situation. It's important to realize that it is normal to feel intense grief after betrayal. Betrayal is loss. As a matter of fact, it is actually a whole list of losses.
Recognizing the losses associated with infidelity and giving yourself permission and ample time to grieve those losses are both critical to a successful recovery. This is true...
Melissa here. I wanted to take a second to share a moment I had this week, from watching the new movie Inside Out 2. For those of you who may have missed the first Inside Out movie, it's an animated depiction of a young girl, Riley, and her journey navigating her emotions, Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust and Fear.
In this second movie, Riley turns 13, hits the ever painful stage of puberty, and we get introduced to her new emotions: Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, Boredom, with an occasional visit by the emotion, Nostalgia, who simply wishes for the good old days. I know many of you wish for that, too. You wish for the good old days before, like me, you either blew up your life...
On February 26, 2010, Peggy Vaughan changed my life. Her email began with, "You may have seen these pages on my website, but if not, you might like to see that we see the issue very much alike." Peggy's book, The Monogamy Myth: A Personal Handbook for Recovering from Affairs*, was first published in 1989 and rocked the therapy world when she promoted the concept that the secrets of infidelity needed to be brought to light and processed rather than swept under the rug. Initially, that concept was strongly resisted, but as time went on, therapists begin to understand that the...
I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of watching the movie, The Princess Bride, but it is one of my favorite movies. There is nothing better than watching a movie about "true love." The Princess Bride is a story of how Westley and Buttercup overcome adversity for the sake of "true love" in order to be united in a blissful union. In one of my favorite scenes, Westley heads off to storm the castle to rescue his beloved Buttercup. Miracle Max and his wife, Valerie, yell after him,
"Have fun storming the castle boys!"
She then turns to her husband and asks, "Do you think it will work?"
"It would take a miracle," Miracle Max replies.
And so it seems with recovery after infidelity — our...
Join Rodney and Angela for an uncut heartfelt, free-flowing finale of Season 2. In this special episode, they extend their deep gratitude to everyone who made this journey possible: the dedicated crew, the supportive audience, and last but not least, each other. Reflecting on their growth and lessons learned over the past two seasons, they revisit the core of “Songs For The Soul” found in Colossians 3:16.
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts”
They encourage you to use music as a pathway to experience God’s presence...
Join other betrayed mates on the path to healing with our life-changing Harboring Hope online course and start a better, brighter chapter.
Several years ago, my friend, John, told me about a man who was struggling with forgiveness.
This man's wife had taken the two youngest of their four daughters to a friend's birthday party. Halfway through the birthday party, she received a call from their two teenage daughters saying they needed to be picked up from a high-school party that was getting out of hand. Wanting to get them out of a bad situation, she grabbed the two younger girls, loaded them into the car, and hurried over to get her older girls. She didn't waste any time on the road since she knew her teen girls would be standing at the curb,...
Hello, my name is Candace.
I was scrolling through Instagram a few days ago, and I saw this quote that said, “I feel like I’m in Season 5 of my life, and the writers are just making ridiculous stuff up to keep it interesting.” It made me think of a few random things that happened during my first season of recovery that were so poorly timed that it was almost funny.
The first one was sooo bad it made me feel like I might be on some Totally Hidden Video or "Punked" type show. Allow me to set the scene: When my...
What Type of Affair Was It?
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