I remember watching as my dad drove away that day, this time for good.

I couldn’t make sense of the situation. “Was it my fault, why is dad leaving?”

I was fortunate that my dad remained in my life but the pain of the split, and what was to come, no one should experience.

My mom remarried an awful abusive man who who had two sons.

I was too young to understand the infidelities my father had committed and didn’t understand why I was tormented by my step family.

But somewhere deep inside I resolved to let no one else experience the sort of pain I endured as a young kid.

We all have choices. My choice was to seek healing as a result of my parent’s divorce. I didn’t want anyone to suffer the way I did. So I became a marriage therapist.

We can either make the most of what life has given us or do nothing and stay confused and afraid of doing the wrong thing.

It was that life experience that led me to search for a way to make a difference in the lives of families all over Oklahoma and now the world.

Today we have the best reviewed couples therapy practice in the midwest. You can learn more about it here.

But before I became known for couples counseling and before Marriage Solutions even existed we actually had some pretty interesting twists and turns that we share in this blog.

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Are You Motivated To Work On Your Relationship?

Maybe you have kids and you worry that if you don’t do something to heal your marriage that your son or daughter will end up being raised by someone who abuses them? Maybe you’ve heard of the Cinderella Effect and it terrifies you.
But maybe they won’t be abused…because there are many wonderful step parents out there. Morgan's dad adopted her and he was wonderful. Maybe you are one of those awesome adoptive or step parents but you could use some help blending your family.
Maybe it’s just the thought that you won’t be able to be with your baby through out their daily life. Does the possibility of loosing that relationship kill you a little inside?
Maybe you just don’t want your marriage to fail, you probably didn’t get married thinking, “Awesome in a couple of years this relationship will fail and I will have to start over again, yippy!”

How Has Divorce Impacted Your Life?

Tell us your story in the comments below.

Featured

3 Reasons Why Married People Cheat

Infidelity isn’t always about sex. Marital infidelity isn’t always about falling in love with someone else. Sometimes it’s about escape. Sometimes it’s about belief. And sometimes, it’s about a system that broke down long before anyone noticed it was cracking.

In most cases, affairs fall into one of three buckets:

How to Talk About an Affair Without Destroying Your Relationship: 18 Expert Tips to Heal Trust

What most couples don’t realize is it’s not just what you say to each other that determines whether you heal from an affair. It’s how you say it. The tone. The timing. The way your voice either builds a bridge or burns one.

Because talking about an affair isn’t just difficult—it’s dangerous. Done the wrong way, it digs the trench deeper. But done right, it can be the exact moment everything begins to shift. That’s why you need structure—rules that hold both people in the conversation long enough for honesty to land.

How to End an Affair (The Right Way)

What most people don’t realize: ending the affair is not a one-time conversation. It’s not a polite text or a quiet fade-out. It’s a process. And like any high-stakes process, it needs a structure. Otherwise, good intentions collapse under old habits, and healing never gets off the ground.

14 Shocking Reasons Unfaithful Spouses Fail to Heal After an Affair – And How to Fix It

So why do so many betrayers struggle to step into the role their relationship needs most? The answers aren’t always obvious, but they’re vital. Below are 14 of the most common reasons healing gets stuck—not because the betrayer doesn’t care, but because they’re caught in habits, fears, and beliefs that quietly sabotage the recovery process.

The Most Overlooked Secret to Healing After an Affair: Why the Betrayer Must Become the Healer

In stories where recovery succeeds—not just survival, but deep healing—the stories always show the same thing: the betrayer steps in, not out. They take on the hard labor of honesty, of sitting still in the discomfort they created, and showing up emotionally even when they'd rather disappear. It’s not an apology tour. It’s a transformation.

Because here’s what doesn’t work: secrecy, distance, defensiveness. You can’t rebuild trust with half-truths and closed doors. You can’t create safety while still holding onto the affair partner like a backup plan. This isn’t just about comforting the betrayed. It’s about stabilizing the foundation of the relationship—rewiring the emotional circuitry.

10 Traits That Separate Unfaithful Spouses Who Save their Marriage from Those Who Destroy It

For a marriage to recover after an affair, the betrayer must take active steps to become a healer. When they take full responsibility and support their partner’s recovery, healing happens much faster.

This isn’t about perfection—it’s about posture. The way the betrayer shows up after the affair tells the injured partner everything they need to know about the future. Will this relationship be a place of refuge or another arena for pain? The answers aren’t in what the betrayer says once, but in how they behave again and again when it matters most. Here are the 10 Characteristics of a Betrayer Who Supports Healing

Why Cutting Off the Affair Partner is Critical -The One Step You Can’t Skip to Rebuild Trust After Infidelity

At the center of every story of real recovery is this hard, unavoidable truth: the affair has to end. Not fade out. Not get ghosted into silence. Ended. Decisively. Transparently. With evidence. Because without that closure, healing isn’t just hard—it’s impossible.

Passion Fades: What Real Love Looks Like in Relationships After the Fire

Some couples never get to experience the deeper forms of love—not because they don’t want to, but because they bail before love has a chance to mature. They know how to fall in love, how to flirt, how to feel the rush of eros or the fun of ludus. But the moment love asks for something more—sacrifice, vulnerability, accountability—they flinch. They equate tension with incompatibility, struggle with failure, and instead of leaning in, they opt out. What they don’t realize is that love, real love, doesn’t fully reveal itself until after the first crisis.

Types of Love in a Relationship: The Ancient Secret That Could Save Your Marriage After Infidelity

The truth is, not all love is the same. What we call "love" can take many forms—some thrilling, some steady, some selfless. And if you're trying to rebuild a relationship after it’s been shaken or shattered, understanding what kind of love brought you together—and what kind can help you heal—is essential. That’s where the ancient Greeks can help. They had seven words for love. Seven different kinds of connection, each with its own strengths, limits, and role in a relationship.

Let’s begin with the kind of love that most relationships start with—the passionate, magnetic pull that feels like fate…

Betrayed? Why You Love, Hate, and Can’t Let Go of the Unfaithful Spouse

In the wake of infidelity, people don’t behave the way you’d expect them to. They’re caught between opposing emotional states that, on paper, shouldn’t be able to coexist. And yet they do.

Below are 15 common emotional splits betrayed partners experience after infidelity.

Facing The Pain Of Divorce

Are You Motivated To Work On Your Relationship?

How Has Divorce Impacted Your Life?

Brad and Morgan

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