Survivors' Blog

Welcome to Affair Recovery's Harboring Hope Monthly Drawing. We want to know you. We want to serve you. This means we want to hear from you! The first step is telling us what we can do for you. Please tell us why you’d like to take Harboring Hope. If you made a comment prior to a previous registration period, that comment is still good for your entry. Remember, submit a comment of 500 words or less about why you'd like to take the Harboring Hope course. Remember, it's a random drawing so your entry won't be based on merit or on your situation. Comments will be moderated by AR staff. Drawings will be held monthly. If you'd like more information, you can also read our official rules. The winner for June 2026 was "Christy G." with the entry "I have been married for...." Congrats, Christy G.! The winner for May 2026 was "Sonia" with the entry "Beginning Hope" Congrats, Sonia! The winner for April 2026 was "Katie001" with the entry "9 month on it's still so painful" Congrats, Katie! The winner for March 20026 was "SweatyYetiNZ" with the entry "Help from a world away". Congrats, SweatyYetiNZ! The winner for Feb. 2026 was "JudyAnn9" with the entry "I see no hope..." Congrats, JudyAnn9! The winner for January 2026 was "SFKP" with the entry "While Again". Congrats, SFKP! The winner for December 2025 was "Ken15" with the entry "Just passed 1 year mark". Congrats, Ken! The winner for November 2025 was "Marianna" with the entry "Navigating Recovery". Congrats, Marianna! The winner for October 2025 was "Michelle" with the entry "Help" Congrats, Michelle The winner for September 2025 was "Anji" with the entry "My reality has been shattered" Congrats, Anji

Editor's Note: For the unfaithful spouse, the cycle of lying often begins long before the infidelity itself. In today's post, an unfaithful spouse shares her personal journey of untangling a lifetime of deception, facing her deepest fears of rejection, and doing the agonizing—but necessary—work of pulling the truth into the light. "Liar." "Cheater." Just reading those words probably makes your stomach drop. I know the feeling. It’s a sickening, heavy sensation that makes you want to bury your head and hide. When you are the one wearing those labels, the spiral of shame can feel like drowning. You don't have the strength to face the reality of your brokenness without also knowing that redemption is possible. If you are an unfaithful spouse, I know where you are sitting. And I know you have to accept the possibility for change and repentance, or that shame will swallow you whole. So, how did we get here? Swimming in the Water of Deception It’s hard to look back on my life and pinpoint the exact moment I started choosing lies over the truth. Like water is to a fish, dishonesty was just something I lived with. That might sound strange to some, but a better way to explain it is that I was always living with fear. I was terrified that the truth was inherently ugly. I didn't see much repentance, acceptance, or forgiveness in my family of origin, so I learned early on to protect myself. I remember being in first grade. I had a harsh, strict teacher who clicked her heels when she walked—she was the opposite of warm and nurturing. One day, out of pure boredom, I started doodling on the corner of my desk with a pencil. When my teacher caught me, I was immediately sent to the office. She wrote a note for me to give to my parents and assigned me to write "I WILL NOT WRITE ON MY DESK" 100 times. It took me almost a week to hand that note to my parents. I was terrified, and I hated my teacher for exposing me. To cope, I justified it. What’s the big deal? I can erase it. It’s just pencil. Justification became my defense mechanism of choice. My deeply defensive heart didn't start with infidelity; it started in first grade. Why We Choose the Lie Is this sin and shame inherent to my nature? Partly, yes. There is a deeply selfish, stubborn part of me that wants to point the finger and avoid responsibility. Lying is wrong, and anyone who has ever been betrayed can testify to how thoroughly deception destroys a relationship. But here is the hard truth about the unfaithful heart: being told I was wrong was never a good motivator for me to change. In fact, it only deepened my resolve to bury and hide the guilt I felt. What I desperately needed—but felt I didn't deserve—was acceptance and understanding. When I finally began to understand that my lying came from a place of deep-seated fear, the lights came on. I was terrified of conflict, afraid of losing people, and paralyzed by the thought of losing acceptance. Deep down, I wanted to be honest, but I never figured out how to do it—until Affair Recovery. It was just easier to lie. Or so I thought. The Cost of Hiding I told myself my lies were keeping me safe. In reality, my lying kept me distant, unavailable, and hollow. Yes, my dishonesty devastated my husband and almost cost us our marriage, but it also completely crippled my own ability to be intimate. Rehabilitation is possible. I am living proof of it. But it requires walking through the fire. Telling my husband the entire, unfiltered truth about my infidelity and my past was the most difficult thing I have ever done. Working with a counselor to uncover those childhood defense mechanisms felt like pulling a rope of thorns and needles out of my chest, through my throat, and into the open air. It was agonizing. But it was necessary. What is not spoken, cannot be healed. Choose Honesty If you are the betrayed spouse reading this: you did not deserve to be lied to. On behalf of every unfaithful person out there, including me, we had no right to transfer our junk, our fear, and our shame onto you. But if you are the liar reading this: choose reform. Stop justifying the pencil on the desk. Stop letting the fear of rejection dictate your life. Dig deep and figure out the sickness and the root of your deception. Do I still get the urge to lie today? Sometimes. I'll catch myself wanting to exaggerate or omit a detail to avoid a perceived rejection from my husband. But I aim to push through and share it anyway. And that icky, heavy feeling in my chest? It always disappears the second the truth is spoken. You can breathe again. But first, you have to choose honesty. Are you looking to understand the why behind your affair? Our course, Hope for Healing, is designed to help you answer this question and find the healing you need in order to move forward and find freedom.

The first time I remember knowing I didn’t belong to the group was in fifth grade. Alyssa Packson was on the twirling team and head of the student council. Teachers doted on her because she made straight A’s, and the other girls worshiped her—she already had a boyfriend, which, at eleven automatically made her the coolest girl in class. Two of my close friends were part of her inner circle, so I heard plenty of Alyssa-stories through them. I listened intently when they mentioned she’d be passing out invitations for her end-of-year party. The next day, Alyssa and her posse strode out the metal doors to the recess yard. Her followers had doubled in size, and they moved across the field like an amoeba—one shifting organism—as she handed out pink folded invitations. My friend mouthed, “Come here!” and motioned for me to join the group that had begun forming a circle. But as I stepped closer, Alyssa turned toward me. Her lips curved into her gorgeous smile as she said in a sing-song voice, “Uh-uh, no, Rachel…you’re not in the group. Sorry.” She turned her back and pulled the circle inward, leaving me motionless on the outside. What We Carry Into the Circle I hadn’t thought about that childhood memory in decades, but it came back with surprising force when I considered joining a partner group. It wasn’t just the image of eleven-year-old Rachel awkwardly shuffling her feet in the dirt behind that circle of girls. It was also the feeling that came back. The hollowed-out space in my stomach. The racing heartbeat. The words that wouldn’t budge from my mouth. That old fear of not belonging was still alive in my body. Part of me felt ridiculous tracing my hesitation back to a pink invitation on a playground. That moment certainly wasn’t the sharpest rejection of my life. And yet, I had joined countless circles since then–church groups, mom groups, sports teams, book clubs, study groups, even other recovery spaces. I knew how groups worked and how to find my seat. But this group–this one with women who knew the sound of their world cracking–terrified me. I was emotionally raw, my skin thin from everything that had happened in my marriage. I couldn’t risk watching another circle close in front of me. Not this time. My husband carried a different fear, though. His years in the military had given him a kind of belonging I couldn’t fully understand. For him, it wasn’t a fear of being rejected—it was a fear of being exposed. “You know I don’t like my business being blasted out to a room full of strangers,” he told me, “Plus, I already feel enough shame as it is. I don’t need any more thrown at me.” When it came to stepping into a group, there was a lot at stake for both of us. For me—another potential closed circle. For him—vulnerability that could cost him. The Search for Safety As we looked for places to heal, my husband and I quickly realized that not every group is a safe place to land. There were groups that, quite frankly, did more harm than good. I remember sitting in a space where I left feeling smaller than when I walked in–where stories were compared like a scorecard and advice rushed in before any connection had been built. In those rooms, “fixing” replaced listening, and I felt that old fifth-grade part of me standing on the outside. But then, we found the spaces that were different. When my husband’s therapist encouraged him to join a specific men’s infidelity group, he reluctantly said yes. Week after week, he sat in a circle of men who told the raw truth about their lives. Some wept, some sat expressionless, but the collective honesty disarmed him. He discovered that the more he listened, the less the room felt like a firing squad and more like a mirror. He was finally allowing himself to be known, and in being known, the shame began to lose its grip. For me, belonging grew quietly during my Harboring Hope group, beginning with the way our facilitator invited us to connect on the online wall before the weekly calls started. We shared a little about ourselves–our hobbies, our children, and the parts of our lives that existed outside the betrayal. During our first meeting, we were each invited to give a five-minute overview of our story and what had brought us there. At the start of every call, we also revisited the group agreements: no interrupting, no fixing, and no cross-talk. Those commitments helped create safety and shaped the tone of the group. When it was my turn to share my story, my voice shook as I spoke. But as the words came out, no one rushed to correct my story or offer advice. The group simply listened. I shouldn’t have been surprised–we had all agreed to offer that kind of space to one another–but when it was extended to me, it meant more than I expected. Something in me settled. The circle wasn’t closing on me. It was widening. And when the circle stays open, the heavy burdens we carry–like the fear of rejection and exposure–begin to lose their power. Shame loosens. Comparison quiets. We remember we aren’t walking this path alone. And sometimes, that’s where the real healing happens. If you’ve been navigating recovery on your own–or if previous group experiences haven't felt safe–consider programs like Harboring Hope, Hope for Healing, and EMS Online. These are designed to create the kind of trauma-informed spaces where circles widen instead of close.

Brave, beautiful, warrior. I shared with you previously how I was inspired by my daughter's choice of the three silver tiles. I talked about “being brave” and how I was able to resist the urge to be fearful, and chose to be brave. I also shared about the call I answered to rise up and be a warrior, to choose how I would respond to a trigger. Today, ladies, I want to tell you something that may be hard to hear. You are beautiful. If you are here reading this blog you know how difficult it is to feel beautiful after having found out about your husband's infidelity. But, his choices do not define who you are. Nor do they determine if you are beautiful or not. I was challenged to look at myself through a different lens. And I want to challenge you in the same way. I will admit, after 5 children in seven years, sure…my body wasn’t what it used to be. But really, was it simply outward appearance that drew my husband’s attention to another woman? I’m not proud of this, but perhaps you can relate — I tracked down this woman on social media. And then I asked myself, “Really? You pursued her over me?” This challenged me to look at the much bigger picture. I paused to consider — what were some of the other issues going on? I was able to see that he was feeling unsatisfied in his career. He felt like there was never enough time in the day to do the things he wanted to do. There were a slew of other things. And now, years later, I have even more things I can add to that list. For your situation — are there issues with addiction - pornography, alcohol, drugs? Is there a history of past abuse: emotional, physical, or sexual? All of these things and more may be at play in the “why” of the affair. Looking back now, hindsight is 20/20. But then, I was able to at least recognize a couple of issues that were going on - it wasn’t simply about my outward appearance. It's so easy to feel beautiful at the beginning of our love story, those early days of falling in love and feeling like all is good and right with the world. It's easy to feel beautiful when you're held near and dear to your husband's heart and when you're looked at with adoration. I want to remind you, as I had to remind myself, that you are beautiful, with or without your husband’s love or affection. We so often see ourselves through the eyes of man. But there is one greater than a man who looks at me, and you, and says, “You are beautiful. I have created you. You are my chosen one. You are my daughter and I love you.” God in heaven, Creator of the Universe, He Himself looks at me and sees the beauty that is inherent in who He has created me to be. But I am human. And I am hurt. And my perspective gets skewed. And so I need to return again and again to the fount of Living Water. I had to immerse myself in the Truth of God’s Word. Daily. You see, the thing is, there are a lot of things about me that fall short — I lose my temper with my kids, I get aggravated at the person in the checkout in front of me, etc, etc, etc. And yet, despite that — whether I see my beauty or not — is not what it's about. It's about taking hold of God's abundant grace and fully leaning into THAT. I don't measure up, and WILL NEVER measure up. And that’s okay. That's why Jesus came. So, the question becomes more about “Do I have the faith to take God at His word. Will I trust Him? Or will I rely on my perception of how others see me?” This is where being vulnerable with other women is so important. Let them into your thoughts. They can help redirect you to the truth of who you are — and it is not dependent on how a man sees you. You are a wife, a partner, a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor. You are so much more than you may think. There are many things that can “make” us beautiful in others' eyes. And yet, just simply WHO you are — you are a woman who is made in the image of God — is enough. HE declares your worth. HE is the only One who has the authority to even issue that statement. And He does. YOU, dear woman, hurt and broken, God looks at you and loves you. He longs to draw you close to His heart, and hold you near. He whispers to your tender, fragile heart, “I have redeemed you, I have called you by name. I love you, you are Mine.” So, please, when you look at yourself in the mirror - know that you are seen, valued, and honored by the Maker of the Universe. He declares you as beautiful. The question is — will you believe what your Creator says about you? Or will you believe the lies that have surfaced in light of the infidelity. Hold fast to the truth.

“Mom…where are you going? Hello? Mom!” My nine-year-old’s voice jolted me out of a trance. I blinked at the road ahead and realized I’d taken two wrong turns and found myself on the other side of the lake. Again. It was the third time that week I’d driven somewhere other than my intended destination. I tried to laugh it off. “Just exploring our new neighborhood!” I said, my voice pitched higher than usual. In the rearview mirror, her worried eyes met mine. She knew I was lying. Tears pooled behind the oversized sunglasses I’d started wearing everywhere. They had become my mask—shielding my daughters from mascara-streaked cheeks and the deep, dark circles that came from too many sleepless nights. I was trying so hard to hold it together for them. But even my ability to drive without losing my way had vanished overnight. My hands clung to the steering wheel, knuckles white, but my mind was nowhere in the car. Scene by scene, word by word, I replayed the weeks leading up to the night my husband sat across from me on the sofa and said, “Okay, you really want to know? Here it is…” I knew things would never be the same. In the days and weeks that followed, a hard truth settled in: I had lost more than my marriage. Simple routines I once did without thinking—reading, cooking, driving—now felt impossible. My thoughts scattered. Sleep disappeared. My stomach churned in constant revolt. Parenting became something I performed on autopilot, terrified my pain might spill onto my girls. My world had gone dim. Laughter no longer came easily. Even my connection with God, once my lifeline, felt distant, muffled beneath resentment and confusion. Betrayal hadn’t just fractured my marriage. It was as if it had walked through my life and emptied every room, leaving echoes of what once was. This was betrayal trauma — but it was also more. It was grief. The Practice of Naming One quiet Saturday morning, a few months later, I sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee and a candle flickering beside me. The house was still, the sun just beginning to edge through the curtains. I’d recently heard someone say, “Healing begins in the naming”, and I’d been thinking about it ever since. Part of me wanted to keep the losses buried. I was afraid that if I named them, they’d grow stronger—that the grief would pull me under and I’d never find my way out. But the silence was heavy, and I was too tired to keep carrying it. So I opened my journal and wrote a single question at the top of the page: What have I lost? At first, my losses centered on my marriage. I wrote, My best friend. The laughter that once filled our kitchen. Conversations I thought were honest. Feeling safe with him. Then the losses shifted inward: Feeling safe in my own skin. Believing I was enough. Trusting my instincts. And then more surprising griefs came: A full night’s sleep. The energy to play and be silly with my girls. Taco Tuesdays and movie nights. The sound of my own laugh. The more I wrote, the more losses spilled out of me. With each line, I was surprised by how far they reached—and yet, something inside me loosened. My breath came easier, as if naming them made more space within me. Naming the losses wasn’t intensifying the pain as I had feared. It was giving the pain a place to go. The words settled safely onto the page, and somehow I sensed that they were being held—not just by the paper and ink, but by something greater than me. Held, Not Fixed As I kept noticing and naming the losses in the weeks ahead, I discovered something I hadn’t expected: healing wasn’t happening because everything was fixed or repaired. The losses weren’t being reversed. Healing was happening each time I allowed myself to be fully honest about all that I had lost—and realistic that there were still losses waiting to surface. Nothing about my circumstances changed right away. I still felt the deep ache of everything that was gone. But like unclenching a fist I hadn’t realized was tight, something in me released. What I thought would amplify my grief was actually making space for healing. What I feared would drown me became the very act that allowed me to surface for air. Naming my losses became a kind of prayer for me—a way of saying, Here it is. This is what hurts. And whether you imagine that release being met by God, by a Higher Power, or simply by your own compassion, the point is the same: You don’t have to hold it all alone. An Invitation If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of losses, can I offer you a small step? Name one thing you’ve lost. Just one. Not to dwell there. Not to fix it. But to bring it into the light. You don’t have to hold it alone. You are already being held.