Sharing with Others
It's one of the biggest regrets people have in recovery: how they handled telling their kids, family and friends about the affair. Carrying the secret and shame can feel like a toxic weight, but telling the wrong person can create more trauma for all parties involved. In Episode 3, our expert therapists guide you through this complex question: Who should I talk to about the affair? We help you discern what to do with that toxic weight and provide a pre-planned strategy based on trust and responsibility to get the support you need. Get help dealing with kids' responses and learn how to get support without feeling isolated or causing further damage.
What type of affair was it?
Free Surviving Infidelity Bootcamp
How do you get support when you can't share your story?
I am a betrayed husband. I had two D days one year apart. It's been just over 6 years from D day 2 when the final pieces were revealed. My wife and I attended Harboring Hope, Hope for Healing, and we did EMSO online together. We are "mostly" healed and have a great marriage today. I still deal with the scars and with triggers from time to time but fewer and further between. But when this first happened, the hardest thing for me in the recovery process and dealing with PTSD is that, because my wife and I decided to save the marriage, I couldn't tell our story to anyone. After all, if I told someone, then they would know what my wife had done and would likely judge her because they haven't gone through it themselves. I wanted desparately to find another Christian man that had been through this and healed from it, someone with "skin" on them that I could talk to when I'm struggling. I went to a male counselor, but I could tell that he didn't "get it." He was no help. Affair Recovery was great and I definitely know that it was what got us through recovery, but those were all voices over the phone and no one that I could really become friends with. So I suffered in a vacuum with only some family members knowing what I had gone through. How on earth do you connect with a "live" person that could help you through this when you cannot tell your story? I don't want anyone judging my wife and she obviously doesn't want others to know what she did. On the flip side, we would like to use our story and recovery to help others but how do we find out other couples that have gone through this? If you go through infedility and divorce, then you can easily talk to others. But if you are a couple that goes through it and remains married, it's impossible to find other couples that would need our help. We spoke to our pastor and told him our story and that we would be willing to help others, but he said that there is no place in the church for something like this and that door closed. We can definitely connect with others remotely through organizations like AR, but how do we find people in our day to day life that we can tell? I want to know that my incredibly hard journey of recovery can help others. But I just don't know where to begin.
Wow. I hear your heart in
In reply to How do you get support when you can't share your story? by hugomomo
Wow. I hear your heart in that. Thank you for being here and being so open.The choice of who to tell is a hard one and not one to be taken lightly. It's true that sharing openly may bring judgement, but it could also bring immense hope.
After my husband's first affair, I suffered mostly in silence. I shared with two close friends who prayed for me and offered me all the love they could muster, but ultimately, having not been through it themselves, they couldn't offer me the support I needed. They didn't understand, which meant that their level of empathy could only go so far. For over four years, I trudged along. I listened when people praised my husband or talked about how we had such a great marriage, each time feeling like it was a dagger in my heart. I was trying to heal, but what I learned is that Satan has power in secrets. In my life, the secrets I was keeping to protect my husband's reputation were drowning me. I was held hostage by fear.
So, after his second affair, one of the first things I told him is that I would not keep this secret anymore. I needed to live in authenticity. I needed to be fully known - only then can you be fully loved. I wasn't spitefully trying to "out" him or bring him shame. The truth is that he had done that himself through his own actions and it wasn't my responsibility to protect his image. In fact, in order for him to be fully loved, he needed to be fully known as well. As long as we were hiding, Satan could whisper lies to us like, "They won't accept you if they knew what you've done," or "They'll never respect you if they knew you stayed with the person who cheated on you." Neither of us could have any confidence in our relationships because to some extent, we were putting on an act.
Now, that doesn't mean we told everyone in our lives or shouted our story from the highest rooftop. But we did stop shying away from telling people and intsead started looking and praying for opportunities to be honest, trusting that God would use our story for HIS glory. After all, that's the whole point. The fact that we are still married is an incredible testimony of God's redemptive power. We laid our mess at His feet and He somehow made something beautiful out of it. That's worth sharing.
Thank you so much for your
In reply to Wow. I hear your heart in by Lea_AR
Thank you so much for your reply. It is a huge encouragement to me! You are so on point regarding Satan whispering those lies to us. And I agree 100% with what you said in the last paragraph. That's what I want so much for us and our story as well. I want people to know about the work He did in us to restore our marriage. I want to use our story to help others and give God the glory. We just need to start praying about that like you and your husband did...that God would bring us those opportunities. And make the decision to not shy away from being honest. I thank you so much again, for your response. God spoke to me through you! Bless you!
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