Ep 86 - When the Unfaithful Sees the Affair Partner in a Positive Light

Transcript:

Morgan (00:03):

Hi, welcome to Healing Broken Trust for Brad and Morgan Robinson, and we have a great show for you today. Actually, we have a listener question that we want to discuss today. The listener says, "My husband said that the only thing that he feels bad about his two-year affair is hurting me. He's not sorry that he found happiness with his affair partner. And I really want to reconcile, but if he will always see his affair partner in a good light, I cannot reconcile." So they would appreciate any insight. And one of the biggest emotional roadblocks to healing broken trust after an affair is something that's known as affair nostalgia. And when the unfaithful partner still holds the affair in a positive light, that can be really hard. So we're going to talk about that, Brad.

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Brad (00:53):

Yeah. And that's basically what a fair nostalgia is. It's when the unfaithful partner is held in a positive light. People will talk about, "It meant so much to me. It was so great. I love it. " They're not really communicating any sort of remorse or regret. They're not portraying that they're sorry. Maybe I'm sorry I got caught, but they're not really warm or empathetic, that kind of thing.

Morgan (01:21):

They don't regret. It's almost like they don't have any regret for having the affair.

Brad (01:24):

Yeah. And an example of this could ... There's a lot of different examples of this. One is like the listener question. The affair has been over. He had this two-year affair. It's over, but they're not really even sorry. That could be one because they're still idolizing the affair. Another could be like anytime they talk about the affair partner, they talk about how beautiful the person was or handsome they were. It's like, "Man, this person was so handsome, so beautiful." And it's like, "Oh my gosh, just cut me in a million pieces. I don't need to hear that.

Morgan (01:56):

" Yeah. I'm trying to reconcile.

Brad (01:57):

Yeah. And messages like that, what they create is they really cause people to feel like, "Okay, how serious are you about us?" Because the core need for somebody who's been betrayed is they want to feel chosen after being betrayed. It's like, "Okay, I was replaced. Now I need to know that I'm chosen." And when affair and nostalgia is there, where people have this kind of rosy picture of the affair, that can really make reconciliation hard for the betrayed because healing requires that both of us get on the same page. We got to get the truth out there. I need to know you're sorry, and I need to see a real desire to rebuild something new together with us and not just repair the damage that happened for appearance's sake about what other people think. It's got to be about us and we've got to really roll up our sleeves.

Morgan (02:53):

Well, it also seems very clear and obvious that you can't have a mind for two people, right? It's a heart for two people. It's me only because I'm your beloved. So yeah, it's absolutely a challenge that's hard.

Brad (03:08):

Yeah. Well, that's a good point because when somebody, they're communicating that they're emotionally split. When somebody who's having an affair only feels bad about hurting their spouse, but they don't regret the investment that it took away from their marriage and their family and into the affair, they can be emotionally split. And then that makes it harder to give those things that are needed back into the marriage after the affair.

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(03:34):

Usually what people will say who've been injured is they're going to say something like, "You know what? I'm not asking that much. I think this is reasonable what I'm asking for. If reconciliation is going to work, you have to be willing to do these things for me. I need you to take full responsibility. Don't be defensive. I need you to show empathy and remorse, not just for the pain that you caused me, but for the choices that you made. And I need you to let go of idealizing this affair partner." And what that means is I need you to work through those unresolved fantasies or unmet emotional needs that fuel this affair. And I need you to also reinvest emotionally back into our marriage and do that wholeheartedly, not just stay married on paper, but really rebuild something special.

New Speaker (04:17):

That's right.

Brad (04:18):

And this is kind of what else they would say for somebody who's been injured and on the receiving end of that kind of persistent rejection, because that's the other thing, Morgan, that's a part of this, is when the affair happened and then they kind of have a fair nostalgia, it's still rejecting. And so until that happens, somebody who's betrayed in this scenario is going to feel like reconciliation is going to be really hard for them. Even if they desire it and want it, they're going to get stuck in this painful negative cycle of doubt because they feel like, okay, you're still emotionally attached somehow, some way to the affair partner, and that does not create the safety I need.

New Speaker (04:55):

No. Right.

Brad (04:57):

So far we're talking about this from the perspective of the person who was betrayed. We're going to get a little bit, and we're going to explain that a little bit more, but then we're going to get deeper into the perspective of the person who has been unfaithful in how they see this and view this.

New Speaker (05:13):

Yeah.

Brad (05:13):

Do you want to get into kind of how the person who's been betrayed

Morgan (05:19):

Feels? Yeah, absolutely. So the first point would be, the person has strong feelings and really wants a relationship. So the would be lover, the person who likes someone, who doesn't like them back, right? And in a sense, this can go kind of two ways, right? You've got the elements of limerance, right? When someone is kind of pining over the affair partner or what the affair gave to them, they almost have this idealized view of that relationship and of that person. And so they don't have kind of probably a real look at that relationship because it's not true love. It's not real love. It's kind of an idealized perspective of the relationship. And so, but also the person wants, they want the other person to like them back and to choose them.

Brad (06:17):

Yeah. Ultimately they want to be chosen. Both people. Yeah. The affair, when you're in the affair, you're showing you're choosing the other person, you're not choosing me. And part of what people need after they've been betrayed is, "I need to know that you're choosing me for me, not for kids or money or other reasons." You're really here for me. And that's kind of what Morgan is saying is like, "I want this relationship to work, but I need to know that you're choosing me for me. " They want to be pursued. That's right. They see the effort that was put into the affair. They want to see that applied back to them. They want to be pursued as well. And so part of what they can feel is they feel like sad a lot and heartbroken. They feel embarrassed like, "Why am I still wanting this when you don't?

(07:02):

Is something wrong with me? " And then they obviously are going to feel angry about this because it's unfair. It's not what they signed up for. And then they're confused because they don't know what to do next. There's not these ... Nobody really knows what to do in these situations. Everybody thinks they know what they're going to do until it happens to them. And once it happens to us, it's like all bets are off. It's like,

(07:26):

"Okay, we're going to divorce if you ever cheat on me. "

Morgan (07:29):

Right. I hear that so many times.

Brad (07:31):

But when it happens, people don't really know how to work through that and approach that because it's so difficult. And back to your point that you made earlier, Morgan, is there's strong feelings that the person who's been betrayed has, they still want the relationship. The irony is they still want it. Yes, many times they do, but they also are afraid of the person. "I love you, but I'm also angry with you or I need you close by, but when you get close, they push you away. "It gets very confusing for the person who had the affair and that can fuel the affair and nostalgia because, gosh, I'm trying, but it looks like everything I'm doing is just leading to an argument all the time. And so it's like when we don't get along, it makes the affairs seem like it was greener pastures. Even though this person may have had their issues, maybe they weren't that great of a catch.

(08:28):

Yeah, it is something that's unfortunate and I shouldn't have done, but when we don't get along, that's when my nostalgia for the affair partner grows worse. I want that more.

Morgan (08:40):

Yeah. And it does take time for the remnants of the affair and all of that to be put away completely, right? So oftentimes a person has been in this limerance or this outside relationship for quite some time, right? So they've built up all of this kind of world inside of themselves, inside their mind, in their life, like this whole other world, right? And so they're having to dismantle that, right? And it has to be dismantled completely. And so there's going to be those remnants before they completely and fully reinvest in the relationship sometimes. So when you're hearing them say," Oh, the affair was wonderful or that person was wonderful. They shouldn't be saying that because that's detrimental, that's damaging, but when you're hearing that, but they're still with you and they're still wanting to work on the relationship, that's probably the remnants of that affair that is still being dismantled and put away and it does take some time, unfortunately, and it can be very painful,

Brad (09:49):

But

Morgan (09:50):

It's necessary work.

Brad (09:52):

Yeah. Yeah. And Morgan, part of what they can do, the person who's betrayed in these situations where

New Speaker (09:59):

Their

Brad (09:59):

Spouse who had the affair has this affair nostalgia is they tend to think about us. So they're looking for little subtle clues. They're looking for signs like, okay, they were warm today, they smiled at me today, we made love, they were planning a trip. They're looking for little things and they're reading between the lines because they're looking for hope. They want hope that you are thinking of me, that you have changed your mind about this other person.

Morgan (10:29):

Oh yes, from the betrayed partners perspective. Yeah.

Brad (10:32):

Yeah. They want these things, so they replay it. What can happen though is it leads to anxiety and fear. So they look for reassurance. So it bubbles up inside of them where they have all this anxiety and fear, this pressure is mounting inside of them and what can happen is that they then can approach their spouse in a critical way, demanding way, blaming way, which is understandable because it's like, "Okay, you had this affair, you've hurt me, you've destroyed me and now I'm supposed to be a doormat and just like tolerate this.

New Speaker (11:07):

"

Brad (11:08):

So all this boils up inside of them and it's hard to talk about these things in a vulnerable way where they can get reassurance and get clarity, but because they do it in a more critical, blaming, demanding way, that causes the person who had the affair to pull back

New Speaker (11:24):

And

Brad (11:25):

Then it causes them to like, "Oh my gosh, this is overwhelming. We can't make it. See, I knew you wouldn't forgive me.

New Speaker (11:31):

"

Brad (11:31):

And kind of can feed into underlying issues that they had prior to the affair

Morgan (11:36):

Happening,

Brad (11:36):

If there were any. And if that happens, that really causes them to, that can feed that affair and nostalgia. If we don't get along, that can feed this affair and nostalgia. So that's really scary. Yeah,

Morgan (11:51):

That's important.

Brad (11:52):

And it's not saying that to shame anybody or blame anybody, but it's good to be aware of these patterns that may be there.

Morgan (11:59):

Right, because it's almost like a mental, emotional escape, right? The affair is often an escape for someone, an emotional escape, escape from depression, escape from stress, escape from whatever it might have been that was difficult or challenging. And so when things naturally in a loving working relationship, a marriage, oftentimes when things don't look so relaxed, it can be a tendency, a habit, right? Because most of this is a habit, a habitual response, right? And so they go back to that habitual response of exiting emotionally, exiting mentally, and that takes them to kind of the romanticized version of that relationship. And so anyways-

Brad (12:52):

Yeah, Morgan, kind of like piggyback off on that, part of what the betrayed will do in the situation is to try to talk more,

(12:59):

Reach out more, spend time together. They're looking for reassurance. Obviously, we all want it in this kind of situation. They're going to ask for another chance, why not? Maybe they get really angry and say, "Screw it. We're done. No more." Those kinds of ... Maybe they want it, and then they kind of draw a line and say, "I don't want it. " And then they take that back. They withdraw the boundary when it seems like, "Okay, I'm not getting what I want. " They try to really keep the person close even when it can hurt really bad and then-

Morgan (13:27):

And we're still talking about the betrayed partner.

Brad (13:29):

Yeah, the betrayed partner can do those

Morgan (13:29):

Things.

Brad (13:31):

And part of what makes this hard is that there isn't a really clear rule book on how to act or what to say or what to do. So we feel really lost in these situations. And then if other people know about it, like what's going on, like we're separated or the affairs happened, but they're not really owning up to it after they've betrayed us. It's embarrassing. And this kind of feeds into people what people need who've been betrayed is they need clear answers. They need time, they need support, they need ways to heal their self-esteem and feelings after this. And again, like we've talked about before, they really need the betrayer to become a healer, that kind of thing.

Morgan (14:09):

Morgan,

Brad (14:10):

Do you want to get into part of what people who've been unfaithful in these scenarios think? Oh,

Morgan (14:15):

Sure. Kind

Brad (14:15):

Of the scenario, people who have a fair nostalgia after being unfaithful think.

Morgan (14:19):

So if they have a fair nostalgia, right, and they're thinking about this other person and they're kind of pining after that person, what they're wanting is they want the other person really to stop hoping for romance and they want things to feel normal again, right? So we got to get back to that pattern of normal, but positive, right? We talk about negative cycles a lot.

Brad (14:41):

Yeah. And Morgan, that's a really key insight you just said, because they're not saying, "I want in the relationship with us, our marriage, with you. " They're just saying, "Let's not put too much pressure on restarting our sexual relationship, or let's not put too much pressure into us being this perfect couple. I just want us to be good friends, or I want us to just get along. I want us to just not fight. I just want to get to first base before we start having all this emotional investment."

(15:12):

So sometimes they'll come at it like that. And like we've talked about before, the more intentional somebody was with an affair, like they were like, "I'm intentionally going to go cheat. I'm intentionally going to have an affair." Usually people like that are not as remorseful. They have more justifications for doing what they're doing. And so for them, they usually felt like, I'm speaking generally, but usually when somebody feels like a victim, like I was hurt first, I was injured in some key way before I had this affair, they use that as a justification for acting out. I've got this hurt and this injury so they can be more reluctant to enter back into the marriage. They're not as sorry, they're more reluctant and those injuries and hurts sometimes do have to be addressed for them to reenter back into the marriage because ideally we want the person who is unfaithful to be able to be a healer, but if they have been injured, sometimes we have to address those hurts.

(16:09):

Sometimes they are like, "You know what? I don't trust you even though I had this affair and I know you don't trust me now, but I don't trust you either."

(16:17):

So sometimes you have to kind of be graceful on both sides to address that. So I think that's important what you're saying.

Morgan (16:22):

That is very important that I can trust that you'll respond graciously, that you'll give me time to reinvest back in and as I dismantle all of the things that I've been doing or thinking and feeling for the last however long. So that's really important. So how they feel inside, right? So if the portrayer or the unfaithful spouse, they often feel guilty, right? They do feel guilty because they know that they've hurt you, right? As the listener or the viewer was saying, their spouse, their husband feels bad about how the affair hurt them. So they do love their spouse, they do love the listener, they still feel guilty, but then it's that nostalgia piece, right?

Brad (17:07):

Well, and I think it's a good point you're raising because they do feel guilt, but the guilt is usually the only reason they're still trying. And that's what the betrayed picks up on is like, you're only doing this out of guilt You feel all this towards your affair partner, the guilt is keeping the unfaithful party still in the marriage trying, but it's out of guilt and then the person who's betrayed picks up on that and

Morgan (17:31):

It's not

Brad (17:32):

Helping. No,

Morgan (17:33):

No, no.

Brad (17:33):

Because they're not sensing like, "I need you to pursue me. I need you to put that same effort into this. "

Morgan (17:38):

Or that you're fully invested in them. And like we're saying though, that takes a little bit of time as they dismantle what they've had. And so to try to be patient with that, because that does compound the hurt. I know it compounds the hurt tremendously when you hear those things,

(17:58):

But it does not mean that they can't love you or that things can't be fully invested or that they cannot, or that it's not a sign that it's hopeless, right? Because very often people, they'll reenter the relationship or they'll start the healing process, the healing journey for the kids, because they feel guilty, all of those things, that's how they start sometimes. It's how healing starts sometimes, right? But it does end up where you want it to be generally. It just will take time. And so trying to be patient with that. So if the person keeps trying, they might feel annoyed or trapped because they're still trying, but you need things, the person who's been betrayed, you need them to respond appropriately, you need all of these things. And so they might feel annoyed, they might feel trapped. And it's kind of that problem that we have, that negative cycle where we're sort of butting heads in the process of healing, but know that it's not the end of everything.

(19:05):

It doesn't mean that there's not hope.

Brad (19:07):

Yeah. And part of what people who've been unfaithful in this situation will think where they have an affair nostalgia is they will tend to downplay

(19:15):

Their own actions and the consequences of what they've done. They'll look at it like, "Well, yeah, I had an affair." Or they tend to downplay it. There's a lot of different ways they do that, but the key idea is to downplay it. They tend to minimize it. They tend to emphasize their own hurt. They get defensive. All the things that none of it's reassuring, unfortunately, but they tend to downplay it. And part of what they tend to do is they try to maybe let their spouse down gently. They're going to like, "Hey, it's not you, it's me, maybe we've been broken a while, you said a year ago you wanted a divorce before I started this affair, like our kids are older, nobody's going to be upset with us if we divorce." So they're trying to kind of avoid conflict and they even will start avoiding their spouse more because it's just like it's awkward and it does lead to conflict and these arguments and fights and then maybe they develop their own set of rules like, "Don't text me, don't harass me, don't follow me, don't hold me accountable." They start putting down these firm boundaries to the betrayed

(20:25):

Because the betrayed is like, I need-

Morgan (20:27):

Needing these things,

Brad (20:28):

Actually. Well, I need stuff from you, of course,

Morgan (20:30):

Because

Brad (20:31):

My trust is broken, but when somebody who is unfaithful, they may be like, "No, I'm not reachable. You can't reach me. Nope, can't do this. I can't do that. " They're not going to give. And there's a lot of different ways they can do that. Maybe they move out, maybe they get a no number, maybe they're like, "Maybe I'll stay in the other bedroom, but I'm not going to give to the marriage." They just set their own rules. Those kinds of things, when we're supposed to be quote unquote healing, actually can make situations, not worse necessarily, but they create new injuries, more injuries and hurts that have to be worked through because the core is I want to be chosen. And really part of this too is the unfaithful partner also needs to know they can be chosen. You can look over what I've done, you can forgive what I've done, those kinds of things- You can heal from what I've done.

(21:24):

Yeah, you can heal from what I've done. And the more we kind of get caught into this negative cycle that we're talking about today, like how we're trying to present both perspectives on this, how we get caught in that negative cycle, the more we get caught in that those differences that we're presenting,

(21:40):

The more both partners lose hope that anything can change. And there are some clear strategies that can be done in this situation. If you are the person who's been betrayed, you're really going to have to work on the trauma that's here. You're going to have to work on the trauma, you've been betrayed, you're going to have to ... We have resources available that we can help you with. We've created a whole program that can help you with this kind of trauma. You're not hopeless if this is where you're at. In fact, I would consider you normal if this is where you're at. This is a very normal healing situation. So Morgan and I today are not talking about this like, "Oh my gosh, these people are lost and hopeless."

Morgan (22:20):

No, not at all.

Brad (22:20):

No, this is actually normal. It's like you take your car into a body shop and it's like, "Oh my gosh, it's totaled." To them, that's what they're used to working on, not fender benders. We're the same way. If you're a mess and you feel like, "Ali, we suck, you're coming to the right place. We can help you. " So you got to get help with that trauma, you got to get help with those emotional injuries, and you really got to get clear on what reconciliation means to you, like choosing us. And it's like maybe like what Morgan said, like maybe we do start because of our kids or because it's maybe more practical, so to speak, but we are willing and we want to borrow hope to get to that really great relationship that we can be, that maybe we've had in the past. We want to get back to that.

Morgan (23:13):

Right. And again, often I'll hear that while people will say, "I just want to go back to the way we were. I want to go back to normal." And I think what people are really trying to say is, "I just want to heal from this and not have to feel these terrible feelings again." But it's really important to realize that we're not going to go back to the way things were, right? We're not going back to how it was because we'll just arrive to where we are today. Again, it'll just happen. Again, we don't want that, right? That is not the goal. The goal is to have a new marriage, to have a new relationship, to have something fresh and new. And it's going to take some time and it's going to be a windy road. It's not a straight path, right? It's going to have to sometimes require some give and take, right?

(23:58):

So if the betrayer, the unfaithful partner, the partner who stepped out of the relationship, if they are putting up their own boundaries and they're saying to you, "I am not ready to fully invest in the relationship. I'm still thinking and pining over the affair and what it gave to me. " We have to listen to that, but we also have to realize that that's sometimes part of the healing journey, right? Where they're dismantling this, but the more they begin to invest in the marriage, the more they begin to invest in the relationship, even just not moving out, right? The better it will be, right? It'll turn the corner with help. You can't just say, "Oh, I forgive you, " and then continue forward the way you are. Forgiveness alone does not solve the problems, right? We've got to be able to do something completely different, and that's where we step in, right?

(24:55):

That's where the experts step in to help you to do that. But yeah, it's a winding road. It's not a straight and narrow path.

Brad (25:04):

Yeah, exactly. Part of what you can do if you've been betrayed is set a boundary. I'm open to rebuilding if you're fully choosing us. If you're still attached to the affair, I have to step back to protect myself. You can say that without being angry or mean or spiteful. And that's important. But it's important to be able to use our voice to protect ourself.

New Speaker (25:22):

And

Brad (25:23):

Then it's okay to also ask for true remorse. Not, I'm sorry that you feel that way, or I'm sorry that you got hurt, but it's okay to expect true remorse. And if you've been unfaithful in this situation, it's a really good idea to figure out what you want and get clear on why you want. If you're choosing to reconcile, to get clear on why you're choosing to reconcile, write down all the whys. If the more wise you give yourself for accomplishing a goal, the more things that you can write on a sheet of paper on why you want this specific thing, the more motivated you will be. If the affair only gave you like, "I felt good. I felt this intoxication. I felt this infatuation, but that doesn't give you anything else." That's not a strong enough why. So get clear on why you want your marriage and come up with as many reasons as you can to help you get motivated to reconcile.

(26:28):

And then to ultimately be able to be the person you need to be for your marriage, you're going to have to starve out the affair partner. Part of that means you're going to have to not work with them anymore. Also, starving out the affair partner means not looking them up on social media, not ending your relationship with them, but it also means you're going to have to stop idealizing them.

(26:50):

Part of what causes illuminance to grow and this feeling of infatuation to grow is we look at them in a positive light and usually if an affair hasn't gone on that long, and I'm kind of using air quotes on like that long,

(27:07):

It's not a set amount of time for everybody, but usually in the beginning, we tend to see only the positives in the person. And when we are focused only on the positives of that person, we tend to see them, it tends to feed into that affair nostalgia. They had these good qualities, I felt alive, I felt this, I felt that. And when we feed into that, when we only see the positives and we idealize them, I don't see any negatives, it's going to be harder for us to look at that as a regrettable event. We're going to look at that as like, "Man, that was so good. Gosh, I wish I had done a better job of maybe hiding it. " Maybe that we don't go to that extreme, but what we need to do is kind of look at this and we really have to stop idealizing the person.

(27:57):

So on another sheet of paper, so the first sheet, we have 20 reasons why I'm choosing my marriage, like why I want this. The other sheet of paper, we have 20 bad qualities of the affair partner and then we let ourselves think about those things because the more we can think about that and call attention to that, we stop idealizing it. We stop looking at it as a good thing.

Morgan (28:19):

That's right. Yeah. I think the image that comes to my mind is, if you're trying to starve out a tumor,

(28:25):

Trying to starve out a tumor, you've got to cut the blood supply that goes to that tumor that continues to pump it with nutrients in life or you got to starve it off, put that stent in, block off the blood supply and kill that tumor so that the rest of the body can grow and thrive and function. And that tumor is just a blood sucking leech literally, literally, and it gives you nothing. It's just there and it'll be dead weight until you cut it out and then the rest of the body can thrive. And that rest of the body is your marriage, it's your relationship, it's your family, it's your identity, it's who you are. And that's provided that both partners and the relationship are of course thriving and doing their best to heal and can continue forward better than ever, right? So that's the goal.

(29:14):

And anything else you'd like to add to that or anything? No. Okay. Well, we're so thankful that you're here. We're thankful to serve you, to listen with you and to talk with you about these things. If you are struggling to heal Broken Trust, we are here to help you. You can find us at healingbrokentrust.com. We have programs, therapy, workshops, all of the things to help you. It's a holistic approach, a full approach to healing

(29:45):

The trauma, the marriage, the infidelity to wrap it up, to heal it and to move forward stronger than ever before. So you have a thought?

Brad (29:54):

Yeah. I was just going to say we would love to meet you guys, to meet

Morgan (29:57):

You in person.

Brad (29:58):

Part of what we all offer as opposed to couples therapy or marriage counseling is our programs are very structured. We focus on the key result areas. We focus on those 20% of things that give you the 80% of the results so you can work through this in max quickest time possible and you can do this. Absolutely. We know what we're doing. You need help. Let us help you. And you guys can do this. Absolutely. You can work through this.

Morgan (30:27):

Have you been wondering how to break free from the affair once and for all? Now's the time to take back your life, your emotions, find happiness, joy, and fulfillment with your marriage. Healingbrokentrust.com is the place where you can find resources to take the healing journey to the next level. You'll find incredible resources for every stage of your fair recovery journey. Connect with our team of qualified affair recovery therapists who stay current with the ever growing, ever changing a fair recovery research that's available to help you heal whererever you are in the process. Take our home study course focused on helping you communicate and express yourself in a way that gets you what you want. You can also book an incredible one-on-one intensive retreat where instead of dragging out the pain over months or years, you can condense the time it takes to heal in just a matter of days using scientifically proven methods that work to help couples lower their guard, let go of the fear, melt the anger, and experience each other at a deep emotional level you may have never experienced before.

(31:37):

So what are you waiting for? Go to healingbrokentrust.com, but don't take our word for it. Read the client letters and listen to the reviews on the healingbrokentrust.com website. So go to healingbrokentrust.com and we'll talk to you soon.

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Ep 8: Did They Really End The Affair? Is It Really Over? Why Is It Important To End The Affair The Right Way? How to Cut Off The Affair Parter For Good This Time.

Brad:

An apology and a verbal commitment isn't enough.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad Morgan Robinson. This is a podcast where we talk about healing from affairs, infidelity, trust, and cheating in your relationship. So if you're wanting to heal your marriage after any of these things, this is the podcast for you. And in episode eight, we're talking about how do you cut off the affair partner. So it's really important obviously, to cut off the affair partner, but one thing we want to remind you is we have free resources to help you through this process. If you go to healing broken trust.com/episode eight, that's episode the number eight, you can download our free resources there to help you through this process. So if you're in this position where you're struggling to cut off the affair partner, you might want to go back to episode four where we talk about how to fall out of love with the affair partner. That's really important. Episode two is also a really good one where we talk about limerence as well. So go back to those. Those can really help you if you are struggling to kind of cut off the affair. So that's really important. But with that, let's get started.

Today we're talking about how to end an affair. It seems clear to many of us that we can't have an affair partner in our marriage relationship in a relationship. But why is it that you can't gloss over this important step of cutting off the affair,

Brad:

Brad? Well, there's several reasons why some of 'em are quite obvious, but many times when people do have an affair, they think an apology is enough. They think that I've apologized, I've made a verbal commitment that should be good enough, and it's really not. And there's several reasons why an apology and a verbal commitment isn't enough. A verbal commitment to your spouse isn't enough. Part of that is because your spouse is terrified that this is going to happen again. I hear constantly from everybody who's been betrayed, they always say, how do I know this won't happen again? And if you don't cut this person out of your life in the right way, you're not creating safety for your marriage to go on for your marriage to heal. And so number, well, there's several different reasons why it's important to cut off the affair partner. I'm just going to go through a couple of them. I think the first is, is it sends the wrong message to your spouse and the affair partner still, he never told me it was over or she never told me it was over. So are they just busy right now or

Morgan:

Yeah, I guess I can just check up with them week.

Brad:

I'll check up with 'em later. Yeah, maybe they're just busy. We didn't talk every day anyway, so they're going to contact you again later.

Morgan:

And that's the affair partner.

Brad:

Yeah, that's the affair partner thinking that you don't send, it sends a message to your spouse. I'm not really serious about rebuilding this. I'm not really serious about building this back. And that's

Morgan:

One foot in, one foot out,

Brad:

And that's a dangerous place to be. So like I said earlier, ending the affair, it's vital to creating safety for the injured spouse, the betrayed spouse. They need to know this won't happen again. And that's a big step towards creating that safety. Also, ending the affair is vital to ending your own ambiguity about if you want to stay or not. Many people I've worked with who have been still had contact with the affair partner, whether they worked with them or didn't work with them, but had contact with them, they stayed in that period of ambiguity. We discussed where they were kind of, I don't know if I want to be here, if I want to be out. And so what happened is, is they really guilt developed and a lot of shame developed. And then they felt like, well, you don't deserve me. I'm not a good person. And that's because they've still kept this relationship up, whether the affair was going on or not, they still had some relationship with the affair partner

And they felt guilty about that and they wanted in their marriage because they felt guilty about it themselves. And so they had this overwhelming guilt, I'm not a good person. You don't deserve me, am not good enough for you. And that's the betrayer saying this. And sometimes that comes from them having an ongoing relationship with the affair partner. Maybe it's morphed into a friendship and even that is not healthy. And so that keeps them as time goes on, just feeling like I'm not good enough. I can't do this. You don't deserve me. And in that's really because in part they haven't ended the affair

Morgan:

And they're saying, you don't deserve me. You don't deserve what I'm doing to you. It's not so much you don't deserve me.

Brad:

No, it's not like that at all. Yeah. It's like it's really coming from a place of shame. I'm a bad person

Morgan:

And I've done so many bad things to you. I've

Brad:

Heard even in their spouse is saying, I forgive you. I want to be with you. It comes from that and that happens. And then the other is obviously you can't rebuild trust. I still see you with this person. I still see them emailing you stuff related to work or this or that. And some of you listening to this are just probably flabbergasted thinking, oh my gosh, this happens. Some people, they try to minimize the affair. And

Morgan:

So because rather it disappear than actually handle it or deal with it.

Brad:

Yeah, actually handle it or deal with it. And so there's things like that. There are things like that that happen that have to be clearly dealt with, and we're going to get into that in a second. But you have to cut off the affair so that you as a couple, you and your spouse can move forward in the healing process, rebuild your relationship. And here's the kicker. The involved spouse must cut off all intimate relations with the affair partner. And occasionally people work with the affair partner and they find themselves, you work with this person. So you have to. And in situations like that where you work with them, it's hard to get away. It's hard to get away. But here's one of the things too though, is if that's the situation you're in, you everything, you must not discuss anything personal with them. And you must do

Morgan:

Everything you can to get away from them if you possibly can.

Brad:

Yeah, I would recommend that everything, but you got to keep it business if that's it. And you need to let your spouse know what's going on, they're going to be asking you probably, but you need to let 'em know. And so with that, Morgan, let's get into

Morgan:

The rules for separating from the affair partner, how to do it basically.

Brad:

Yeah,

Morgan:

You want to start with the first one?

Brad:

Yeah. The first is allow the betrayed spouse to participate in the severance. And here's why that's important. Allowing the betrayed spouse to have a say in how it is done will help that person find closure as well. Also because the affair involved secrecy, this moment of truth is refreshing. It's important to remember and reinforce that couples are team.

Brad:

Here's the kicker with this though, is I have seen people, they come into my office and say, I ended the affair, but their spouse didn't participate in the severance. They have no idea.

And this person may have, and here's the thing, when you're in an affair, obviously you're lying. You're being dishonest about what's happening, what's going on, and your spouse doesn't know what to believe. And so anything that you say or do, if you say anything like, oh, I did it already, or I told her this or that or told him this or that, they don't know.

Morgan:

There's no

Brad:

Way them knowing. And the idea with this is one of the things is it creates safety. So you really need to let them participate in this. That doesn't mean that they need to write the email for you. That doesn't mean they need to do it for you. That just means if you're going to do it over the phone, you need to do it yourself. Call them over the phone and use your own words and talk to 'em. Your spouse doesn't need to say, oh, John says it's over, so quit calling him. That's not going to work. That doesn't create any safety for them, and it doesn't send the clear message to the affair partner that it's over. And so you have to do it.

Morgan:

They just might be on the other line maybe listening in or standing there, or they might say, well, you really need to tell 'em like this instead of that, because to me, this sounds more like you're cutting it off

Brad:

Versus

Morgan:

I'm doing it for the kids or whatever.

Brad:

Yeah, exactly. The second one is make it a clear absolute severance. And so as, as the person who had the affair, there are plenty of ways or a number of ways to separate from the affair partner. And when you do this, you should not leave any glimmer of hope that you are still open to an affair. You have to show them, look, I'm not interested in you. I love my spouse. I want to be with my spouse. I'm doing this because I want to be there

Morgan:

And what we were doing is wrong and I will not be doing it ever again with you or anyone else.

Brad:

And so you have to have this certainty. I am certain about this, and that's expressed through tone of voice, body language and your word choice, the choice of words that you use. Do

Morgan:

Not call me ever again.

Brad:

Yeah, I am done. Do not call me again. I love my wife, I love my husband. And so it has to be with clear severance. And here's why this is so important, why you have to make this clear, why it has to come from the person who had the affair is many times as affairs grow and mature, these things can last not just months, but sometimes a couple of years, sometimes even longer than that. And people feel like they're genuinely in love with this other person. And you may be done, but that other person isn't done yet. And

Morgan:

The betrayer,

Brad:

Well, the affair partner, they're not done yet. And so you have to let them know, look, we are done. There's no us anymore. There's no future. All the things that we talked about, us leaving our spouses to be with each other, that's not going to happen anymore. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be with you. You have to get to that level, not necessarily being cruel. You want to do, be short of being cruel, but you want to be forceful. You want to let 'em know that you're certain about you being

Morgan:

Done. And that leads us to the third one. Do not be cordial or kind when severing the relationship. This should not be a friendly conversation. You don't want to be cruel, but we believe the colder and more absolute the better. In fact, it's cruel to the fair partner if there's even a glimmer of hope that this will ever happen again. So more importantly, it's crucial. Obviously, more importantly, it's crucial to the betrayed spouse, your spouse. So they're not led to believe that unfaithfulness will occur at any point in the future. So yeah, you don't want to be like, well, I don't want to hurt your feelings and I don't want you to feel bad, so good luck to you. No, I'm sorry. This is not ever happening again, right? So don't call me.

Brad:

Yeah. And yeah, it needs to be very, very black and white. I'm done to the point, you're not kind. You're not friendly when you do this. And if you have to work with a person, maybe you're professional, but you're not kind and friendly. You're not sitting around the water cooler anymore. You're not going on lunch breaks,

Morgan:

Obviously, right? You're changing habits. Changing patterns too.

Brad:

Yeah. You're not sending any mixed signals. Sometimes people when just being kind, sometimes that can be interpreted as being flirty or that you have an interest. And so you have to be really, really careful. You're not just being kind that can send the message. I'm still open to you that can send the message of being flirty, that kind of thing. I'm interested. You can't do that. Now when you end this, the fourth part of this is when you do this, you're doing it for love. It's important not to tell the affair partner. The relationship is ending. Our affair is ending for the kids

Brad:

Because of my kids or because I want them to grow up with mom and dad together or because of the commitment you made or out of duty to the family, things like that. Instead, it needs to be because you are emphasizing the love you feel for your spouse,

Morgan:

Right? So definitely it's about you and your spouse that you love your spouse, you want to reconnect with your spouse and that there's no room at all for them in any of that. It's not because they're making me or anything

Brad:

Like that. And also you could emphasize that, look, this was a complete and total mistake. Also using specific language such as Never contact me again. I do not want to talk to you, or I do not want any sort of intimate relationship with you ever again. Things like that, phrases like that. You never contact me again. I don't want to talk to you again. I don't want any sort of intimate relationship or contact,

Brad:

Things Like that. It sends a clear message that I am done

Morgan:

And repeat yourself. You have to stand your ground. Sometimes they might try to remind you of what this or that send you a text or something, got to hold your ground there and you've got to include your spouse. So if they ever did contact you again, maybe next week or next month, next year, whatever, you're completely open and honest. We've talked about that being very honest and forthright.

Brad:

And Morgan, you're right. I would say, I don't know what the exact percentages are, but I would say there is a good chance that the affair partner is going to contact you again after you try this. And it's more testing for them. This was an affair as well. This was, or a relationship as well. And maybe they loved you, and so there's a good chance that they're going to try to contact you again. If that happens, you have to let your spouse know about it. Because what will happen is your spouse is probably going to find out, and if you don't tell 'em you're going to be in deeper water and the walls are going to go up, it's going to be harder to rebuild. This going to be less trust, transparency and honesty are the best, especially with this.

Morgan:

So it's like doing the opposite of what you're doing in the secrecy of,

Brad:

Oh yeah, that's a great way to look at it. You're really doing the opposite of how you were in the affair. In the affair. You were very secretive. You were very conniving. You were very dishonest. There was no transparency. Now that you're in a rebuilding phase, you have to be transparent. You have to shine light in the darkness. You have to be honest. You have to expose these secrets that rebuilds this. Now, part of this though is this other person needs to get it. No, in certain terms, you are done. And it has to come from a place of I love my wife. I am with this person. I love my husband. I am choosing to be with him. You are a mistake. And that's where it needs to come from. And here's the other thing I want to emphasize. This is at some point there is a good chance that the affair partner is going to try to make contact. Again, be transparent, be honest. It may cause a ripple effect just because your spouse is going to feel like, gosh, this person's really obsessed with my spouse. But either way, they're probably going to find out and it's going to help rebuild trust because you're bringing that information to them. They're going to see that you're trying, that. You're being honest and transparent. And so that's really important.

Morgan:

And it's just very important to also realize sometimes the out affair partner does seek you out. Sometimes they do have a part to play in this whole affair, and

Brad:

Yeah, they do. And let me share a story. Morgan,

We had a couple by the time they came in, maybe it was about 18 months into the affair, and this was somebody who had moved out, separated, moved out back in several times when I had worked with them, they had gotten to a place where the affair was ended, the marriage was being rebuilt. They both felt like they were really moving better, and the husband worked with her, but I was able to only see her briefly, and he was able to, he had a job where he could do certain things and work out of the office. And one day he had

Morgan:

Work out of the office, office,

Brad:

Home office. He was able to work from

Morgan:

Home.

Brad:

And what I meant to say is he wasn't always in the office, so he was able to work from home. He was doing that. And one day he had to go into the office and he saw this woman and just kind of made eye contact with her, just saw her and then he's back into it again. And then they spent 18 months of trying to get to this place of ending it. And just seeing her one time caused him to

Morgan:

Flip a switch and go back,

Brad:

Flip a switch and go back. Oh, man. And we talked about Limerence before, and I'll just briefly describe it this way. Limerence is, it's kind of romantic love, but more of an addiction to a person where they're like an object and it's an obsession. And that's kind of how he felt about this woman. And he was trying to end. It did really well. The marriage was working moving forward. They were growing together. Trust was being rebuilt. He encounters this, and then they're back into that whole cat and mouse scam again, and it's really devastating. So you have to take this seriously.

Brad:

You don't know where you think you might be. Look, you think you're strong enough to do this, but you're probably not really strong. You weren't strong enough to keep an affair from happening the first time. I know right now this is an emotional place for you. There's a lot of guilt as the betrayer, but you got to really take this seriously. You can't minimize this, and you've got to be very, very careful, and you can't underestimate just where that other person's at. So you have to take this seriously that I've got to end this. I've got to have clear boundaries. I've got to know in certain terms, let them know from my heart that I want to be with my spouse because I love them and I do not want to be with you. You are a mistake.

Morgan:

And it's kind of like going back just a tad bit about limerence. It's like an addiction, very much like an alcoholic. You can't just have one beer all of a sudden that takes you back to your addiction. So it's very important to realize that some, maybe you may have to just cut it off completely depends on you. But the fifth one, right? That's what we're on.

Brad:

Yeah, go ahead, Morgan.

Morgan:

It's don't look back. So basically don't look back. It's important to make a clean break. Sympathizing with the affair partner, trying to soften the significance of the conversation or implying any possibility of a future friendship confuses the affair partner, and it will open the door to more trouble. If your spouse is involved in helping you cut this off, they're going to hear this tone of voice. They're going to hear what you're saying. They're going to hear how you're

Brad:

Saying. They're going to hear what we're telling you to do,

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So they're going to hold you to it.

Morgan:

And that's good because it's helpful. It's going to help you. It's going to help your relationship. It's going to really ultimately do what's best for you in the future. And it's natural for a previously involved spouse to want to check up on the affair partner. But it's important to resist the temptation because a lot of times these relationships, they weren't just fly by night. I mean, these are things that happen over a long period of time sometimes, and so sometimes you want to check up on that person.

Brad:

Yeah. Well, yeah, everybody's curious. You're curious about people that you dated in the past and things like that, but here's the kicker. You had an affair with this Person.

Brad:

Yeah, you had an affair with this person. This is, if you're listening to this and you're working through this, you know how this can destroy your marriage very, very quickly. You don't look back. Block this person on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, other social media. Get this person completely out of your life. It's worth it. Yeah, it's not worth it, and you don't know what it can do. That person again, but it's hurting your spouse as well. You don't know if it's going to trigger something in you where you want to go be with that person again, but it's also not helping rebuild trust for your spouse. The next principle is there should be complete openness and honesty from now on. There should be no more secrecy between the two spouses, between you and your spouse as the betrayer. You must decide to volunteer any communication that may happen between you and your affair partner before being asked to do so.

Morgan:

Oh, that's

Brad:

Key. Yeah, that's really important. That includes text messages, face-to-face interaction, emails or anything else. It is important to avoid any communication with your affair partner, but if or when communication inevitably happens, the betrayer must be quick to share it with his or her spouse. Do not underestimate how helpful this will be if you do this. This will quickly help you guys rebuild things, and so don't underestimate how helpful that can be.

Morgan:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Just being completely open and honest, man, it goes so far, so far. So yes, definitely volunteer that information before you're asked. But what about the next one? Right? We talked about maintaining a safe place, Brad, what is that? How do you maintain a safe place?

Brad:

Well, this is where the hurting spouse, the spouse, he's been betrayed, enters the process. It is very important for betrayed spouses to create an environment that encourages complete honesty. This means that when the spouse comes to them and tells them about communication with the affair partner

Brad:

It's crucial to maintain composure. So as a spouse who's been betrayed, you have to help them feel safe to talk about this because most betrayers don't want to talk about this because they feel like they already feel guilty enough and they don't want to make you hurt anymore.

Brad:

So if you are overreacting, you may be reacting, but your spouse will feel like you're overreacting. This is hurting you. I don't see the point of answering these questions. It's just making it worse. You have to help them feel safe in a sense to be able to talk to you

Morgan:

So that when or if they do get communication from a fair partner, that they know that if they're going to come to you, that you're going to not blow up. You're going to receive it with grace. You may not feel comfortable, but thanking them. Hey, thanks for being open. Thanks for being honest. I appreciate you coming and telling me this. It makes me feel a lot more secure. It makes me feel like you we're really going to make it

And you really can make it, and you really will if you are open and honest and cut that person off. And however they ended up with that story you just told about the guy who went back to work after working from home and just one look at that person kind of sent 'em back to their addiction. I mean, if he were to have just turned around, maybe even got out of there as soon as he could and went home to his wife and said, Hey, I accidentally looked at her. We were in the hallway. This happened, this happened. And your spouse can be that source of healing and can be a safe place.

Brad:

And one of the things with this is those kinds of things grow because they're secret. It just adds fuel to the fire. But one of the things to realize is this is a necessary step that has to be done. You have to cut off this person and the betrayer has to do it. It's best if the betrayed spouse is a part of this process. They're able to listen in and it's best if you say, I'm doing it out of love. You're not being kind or cordial.

Brad:

You're being short of being cruel. You're letting them know you were a mistake. I love my wife. I love my husband. I'm going to be with them. You are a mistake. I don't want to talk to you again.

Morgan:

Right? What we did was wrong

Brad:

And you're done. There's no need to reminisce about the past. Say we had good times, things like that. You're not doing yourself any favors. In fact, what you're doing is you're leaving the door open that you're open,

Morgan:

And what we're really doing here, what we need to do is we need to break the pattern of secrecy and lies. We take a giant step in the direction of healing and turn towards your spouse because they're really going to help you. And if you are the betrayed spouse, you got to help your spouse feel comfortable. It's hard, it's uncomfortable, it's painful, but it's definitely, I mean, when your spouse is coming and turning and doing the opposite and being honest with you, it's really a step in the right direction and healing will come and the pain will subside over time, you say. Yeah,

Brad:

It'll get better. Thanks for listening to Healing Trust. If you like this episode, you can always get our show notes and more details and links to the resources we discussed@healingbrokentrust.com. Also, as long as you're online, head on over to healing broken trust.com/retreat for details on an upcoming one-on-one retreat with me. If you like us, please subscribe and leave a review for us on iTunes. As always, everything discussed on this podcast is either my opinion or Morgan's opinion. It's not to be taken as relationship advice because I'm not your therapist, nor have I considered your personal situation as your therapist. This podcast is for your entertainment and education only, and I really do hope you've enjoyed it. See you Until next time.

Ep 12: Should I Stay Or Go? What To Do When You're Not Sure You Want To Save The Relationship. The One Thing Holding You Back From Progress.

Brad:

How will the children suffer from a breakup of your marriage?

Morgan:

Yeah, those

Brad:

Are good because it would be a disaster scenario. And I'm a product of a broken home. My father cheated on my mother and they were divorced. It was a disaster after that. And so you need to think about the kids as well.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad and Morgan Robinson, where we talk about healing from affairs and fidelity trust and cheating in your relationship from the perspective of a professional marriage therapist and a fair recovery expert. If you're wanting to heal your marriage, this podcast is for you. And we're officially on episode number 12 and we're talking about should I stay or should I go? And that's a really important question because people really struggle with that. Should I stay? Should I go, should I work on this? Should I not? Is it going to work? Can we fix this? So we're going to talk about this in episode 12, and I want to encourage you to go over to healing broken trust.com/episode 12. That's Healing broken trust.com/episode and the number 12, and download those free resources so that you can get some help. Really, we want to help you through this process and it's a great way to expedite healing and to help you through this process. So go to healing broken trust.com/episode 12. And let's get started.

Brad:

You're listening to How to Recover From An Affair with Brad and Morgan Robinson. I'm Brad Robinson.

Morgan:

And I'm Morgan Robinson. And today we're talking about handling the ambiguous feelings and questions about staying or leaving after infidelity in the relationship. This is a very important topic and basically the emotional storm that occurs after betrayed spouses find out about the affair causes a very intense emotional disorientation. And we strongly recommend that couples wait six to 12 weeks after discovering the affair before they decide that they're completely done with their mate. One of the common feelings after learning about an affair is shock. After that period, reality begins to set in allowing plenty of time to make the decision, ensures that the decision will be easier to live with. Right, Brad?

Brad:

Yeah, and Morgan, that's why we asked for couples and individuals who've been affected by this to really give themselves six to 12 weeks before they decide they're done. And Morgan, there's a couple that I've worked with where then they've been married for 20 years. The wife had an emotional affair with a boyfriend that she met from high school. This was somebody that she met on Facebook. And for this couple and almost all couples after an affair, there is this period of questioning if they want to stay married or divorced. And that period can take several days or several months.

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

And it can make it harder to heal when you're stuck in this place of uncertainty. Do I want to be here or not? And that's really important because the longer somebody's uncertain about wanting to stay or heal, it's harder for them to be a supporter and a nurturer for their spouse because they're still stuck on themselves. They haven't made the full commitment recommitment back into the marriage. And so the spouse who's been betrayed is really wavering

Morgan:

Right back and forth. And during this time, emotions are all over the map. They're emotions like anger, guilt, disgust, shame, humiliation and fear because emotions are heightened and will eventually subside. Our advice is to not make any major life decisions right now while the ability to think clearly and rationalize as compromised, including the decision to leave. Most people who decide to leave after an affair without trying to work things out first will later, usually later regret not trying to sort through the mess.

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

So both Go ahead.

Brad:

Yeah, you're right, Morgan. Because they regret not trying the effort. It's the what if we could have made it

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

I'll never know. So I'm in favor of trying to make it work.

Morgan:

Yeah, absolutely. And you have to consider too, if you're not willing to at least heal from what happened, a lot of times you bring that baggage into the next relationship. If you do decide to get remarried again.

Morgan:

Yeah, you

Morgan:

Can. You really don't. If you haven't worked through those problems, you can really cause more problems in the next relationship. But those who do try to work on the marriage and if they later divorce, rarely regret trying to work on the marriage, they don't regret it. A lot of times because of what I just said, you are healing as a person, as an individual, as well as the relationship

Brad:

They find sane and trying to work on the marriage, brought them closure

Morgan:

And

Brad:

Help them have peace of mind about leaving.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

And so Morgan, my advice to couples is to make the effort to work this out while they have the opportunity instead of facing regret in the future. And several months ago, I had a worked with a couple who'd been married for 10 years. The husband was a high level executive in his company who did a lot of traveling.

Morgan:

His

Brad:

Wife was suspicious, discovered the affair. He initially lied about the affair, blowing it off as just a friend. When they came to see me, they both were debating about whether to continue the marriage or end it. My advice to them is the same advice I'm giving to our listeners. He wanted to try to make it work, and he followed my advice very well, but she felt like she would be better off without him and let him know she didn't want to continue the marriage. That was the last I saw of them. And this is a woman who felt like God was telling her who need to leave him because I'm going to give you a ministry to help other women who've experienced this. Well, how come she couldn't have a ministry? That was one where they reconciled

Morgan:

And there was healing involved

Brad:

And healing and not just, well, I'm going to be done

Morgan:

Because

Brad:

I don't financially need you. So the wife later called her office and said that her husband had left her for the other woman.

Morgan:

Right? I spoke with her that day, I remember,

Brad:

But isn't what happened at all. He wanted to try to fix the marriage and repair it because of the strong emotions associated with this. She decided she was done without really trying to salvage what was left of their marriage. When she called, she was filled with regret because she didn't take the time to make a well-thought out decision that she could live with.

Morgan:

That was a really sad day. I remember that. So like this client, the initial reaction of many people is to say the marriage is over after affair is discovered, but calling it quits, that's a bit premature and shortsighted in a lot of ways, and most people do work it out. But putting effort into saving the marriage and being a loving, supportive partner can really help spouses feel like they gave their marriage the best chance they could. And once they start seeing improvement and feeling like their marriage is moving ahead in a positive way, their commitment will likely increase. So a lot of people just can't see the forest from the trees in the beginning.

Brad:

And Morgan something, and this is really important for those of you listening, when you are discussing the future of the marriage, if you're spending time talking with friends, you want to talk to friends and family who are friends of the marriage. And by that term, I mean people who are pro-marriage are objective, who realize there's two sides to every

Brad:

Story.

Brad:

It's really funny if you listen to somebody, we had this happen recently with us where somebody was talking to, and it's not even about a relationship issue as a couple. It was just somebody, we knew both of them, and they were talking to us about a work situation they were in, and one person was talking to us about it and made the other person sound horrible. And then you hear the other person talk about it, you get more of a well-rounded picture of the whole thing. There's two sides to every story. And you need to talk. If you're going to talk to anybody, you want to talk to people who know that there's two sides to every story who have a well-rounded perspective on things,

Morgan:

And they're pro your relationship and pro-marriage.

Brad:

Yeah. And they want to see you guys work out. And so unfortunately though a few people understand how affairs work and how they occur and how to heal from

Morgan:

One.

Brad:

And so friends and family members can express strong reactions and opinions about what the couple should do with the affair. So they're going to really let you know.

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So those reactions can affect your decision making. But we encourage you to remember that you are the only one who's going to live with the outcome of this decision, and therefore the decision is yours alone.

Morgan:

Exactly. Exactly. And during this six to 12 week period of ambiguity where you're not sure should you stay, should you go, what should you do? Another helpful step is to read as much as you can about affairs and the process. Listen to our recordings and read and learn about how to heal from an affair. You never know what one idea or key piece of information will impact your perspective. So keep that in

Brad:

Mind. That's good advice,

Morgan:

Morgan.

Brad:

Now I want to give our listeners some different questions that they need to work through and ask themselves. And so as you're listening to this, you may want to pull out a pad of paper and a pen. Write these down, think on paper and

Morgan:

Try not to be driving at the moment.

Brad:

And you can re-listen to this over and over again and just try to sort this out. The clearer this is, the better this decision you'll be able to work with and live with. And so here's something that you need to consider and questions you need to ask yourself. You really want to see the future. You want to speculate what the future will be like for you without your spouse. So what will life be like without this person? What's going to happen in the immediate future, five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now without this person in my life? So look down the road as far as you can and speculate what it would be like without your spouse.

Morgan:

How would your life be different?

Brad:

How would your children's lives be different?

Morgan:

How would your current friendships be different?

Brad:

How would you manage family events separately?

Morgan:

How would the following be different for you in the future? How would having fun be different? How would religion or spiritual connections be different? How would activities, interests, or hobbies you share, how would that be different personal goals and dreams? What would change about those? How would those be different?

Brad:

And you also want to look at the past. You don't want to let current emotions keep you from seeing your past objectively. And what can happen is when things are a little bit more negative, 51% negative, people will rewrite their relationship history and see it more negative

Morgan:

Kind of through these negative sunglasses.

Brad:

Yeah, these negative glasses. And so you need to ask yourself, what do you remember about the good times you shared with your partner?

Morgan:

What would you miss about your marriage?

Brad:

What do you value about you and your partner as a couple?

Morgan:

What is your marriage like at its best? And at its worst,

Brad:

What particular qualities of your partner do you value?

Morgan:

What positive qualities does your partner bring out in you?

Brad:

Have you and your spouse struggled together to get to this place in your life?

Morgan:

What are the qualities you don't care for in your partner? And about the marriage? What did you contribute? And what ways did you two work as a team or not work as a team?

Brad:

What negative impact does divorcing have on your spouse? What negative impact does the divorce have on you? What negative impact does divorce have on your family, on your work, on your friends, et cetera,

Morgan:

Right? And putting your hurt aside, trying to set that aside for a moment. What are the reasons for staying with your spouse?

Brad:

Look past the affair. Do you love your spouse? And again, it's normal to not like or even despise the person after they've had an affair,

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

But do you love your spouse?

Morgan:

Right? At a fundamental level, do you like your spouse as a person, even before the affair? Did you like your spouse? When did you like your spouse the most? Try to reimagine your wedding day. Try to go back to that place when you were really the closest.

Brad:

Are you and your spouse somewhat compatible?

Morgan:

Exactly. And the fourth one, are you willing to work on the marriage? Are you willing to work on it?

Brad:

And are you willing to work towards forgiveness for what may have been done to injure your spouse?

Morgan:

Are you willing to understand what vulnerabilities may have been present for an affair to even happen? Right?

Brad:

Yeah. And Morgan, something that's really important with this is we're talking about compatibility. Do you love them? Many people will say, I love them, but I'm not in love with them. And what you need to understand if that's how you feel is an affair, is a tremendous opportunity for growth. Sure, there's a lot of remorse, pain, shame, chaos, but it's tremendous opportunity for growth. It's that you are working on marriage number two, you are in round two of your marriage.

Morgan:

You're

Brad:

Working on this and you can rebuild it. Marriage number one is dead.

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So you guys have a say in both of you, rebuilding this from the ground up, changing things. And that's important. So it's not like, okay, I don't love this person. Now I got to go back to 'em. Right? You can change how you feel towards this person,

Morgan:

Right? By the choices that you make.

Brad:

You can regain your feelings for them if you are the one who had the affair or if you're the one who's been betrayed. And so that's really important to understand that.

Morgan:

Yeah, don't let temporary and present emotion keep you from working on this because romance can be rebuilt. Questions for the injured spouse to ask. Here's some questions for the injured spouse. The first one is ask yourself whether this affair is part of something larger such as a pattern of lying and cheating in your spouse, right?

Brad:

That's important to look at the larger pattern. What kind of pattern is here

Morgan:

Exactly?

Brad:

Have they cheated before?

Morgan:

Right? Can you trust your spouse to tell you the truth about other things?

Brad:

Can you depend on and trust your spouse for other things?

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

Does your spouse understand your pain from this?

Morgan:

Right? They may not initially be understanding, but feel like you are overreacting possibly. But if they are listening to this and they're listening to what we have to say and they're reading about it, they'll start to understand better the trauma and the emotions surrounding an affair. But is your spouse willing to help you heal and move forward?

Brad:

Is your spouse willing to be part of the solution and moving the marriage forward?

Morgan:

Is your spouse genuinely remorseful for the affair?

Brad:

Is your spouse willing to learn from this and implement what he or she is learning?

Morgan:

And the next one is your spouse willing to acknowledge attractions to the opposite sex as normal and willing to discuss these temptations in the future.

Brad:

That's important.

Morgan:

That's very important. Being honest and open.

Brad:

Is your spouse willing to make a commitment to honesty about everything pertaining to your relationship? Does that even seem reasonable to you, them being completely honest about everything pertaining to the relationship?

Morgan:

And something to think about is that changes like these don't happen overnight, but is there a general movement in this direction? For the previous questions two through eight, are they moving in that direction?

Brad:

If you were to split for good,

Morgan:

Describe

Brad:

The disaster scenario that could follow. How will the children suffer from a breakup of your marriage? Yeah,

Morgan:

Those are pretty

Brad:

Good. It would be a disaster scenario. And I'm a product of a broken home. My father cheated on my mother and they were divorced. It was a disaster after that. And so you'd need to think about the kids as well.

Morgan:

So if you ever wondered why Brad got into this field now, anyways, so we were talking about questions for the injured spouse to ask, and now we've got questions for the involved spouse

Brad:

To ask the spouse who had the affair. These are questions that you need to ask yourself. And when you're deciding if you should stay or go, it's important to understand that you do not want to make a decision because you are comparing an exciting, illicit passionate affair with a stable relationship.

Morgan:

One thing we talk about too is that you can bring that passion and excitement into your marriage. Once it's healed,

Brad:

You can, well, you can create intimacy.

Morgan:

True.

Brad:

It's kind of like comparing, well, do I want, you can't live in Disney World. You just can't. You can go visit it, but you can't live in it. And sometimes that's what people want do is they want to bring Disney World home with them and have their whole world be Disney World. Your whole life be Disney World. And that's what you're doing when you're saying, when you're comparing a normal relationship, your normal marriage, this

Morgan:

To a fantasy

Brad:

To reality to fantasy.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

You're often fantasy, world fantasy land,

Morgan:

And only 3% of people who do marry their fair partner are able to have a long-term marriage. That's a small percentage.

Brad:

3%. Yeah. It's a very small percentage of people who do marry their affair partner that's able to have a long-term marriage. And the reason for that is, is because they struggle to trust each other. The affair partner won't be able to trust them because you left your

Morgan:

Marriage, you left your marriage. Why not do the, you're

Brad:

Pledging to remain faithful when you showed that person you could not be faithful and you're not going to be able to trust them and you're leaving them because there's these illicit, passionate, romantic feelings that don't last. That's not normal. They

Morgan:

Subside right? In a cornerstone of a relationship, a solid marriage is trust.

Brad:

It's trust. It's dependability. But those feelings are fleeting. They're there to help you attach to a person. They're not there to build a relationship. In fact, most people who do marry never experience that kind of relationship. They experience more of a companionship type relationship. They don't experience this fantasy,

Morgan:

Fairytale, fantasy fairytale type thing. Barbie's dream house.

Brad:

Yeah, they don't experience that.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

And so basically questions you need to ask if you've had the affair, if you need to stay or go, here's the first question you need to ask. You need to see yourself married or in a long-term relationship with the affair partner, picture yourself, married or in a long-term relationship with this person. And ask yourself, what would the future look like for you as a couple, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now

Brad:

Without,

Brad:

And you need to look at this Morgan, without the feelings being there, the passionate feelings, they're not going to be there. What other characteristics does this person have? What negative characteristics do they have?

Morgan:

Right? You're going to have bills, you're going to have mortgage, you're going to have children, possibly. You're going to have all of those stressors. What would that be like?

Brad:

Morgan, and I want to emphasize this because typically people do not look at the negative in a person when they're having an exciting, illicit passionate affair.

Brad:

Secret right

Brad:

Affair. When they're obsessed with a person, they're not looking at their negative qualities.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

They're not even conscious of them.

Morgan:

So the next question would be, does he or she want to have children if he or she already has children, does he or she want to start a new family in the future? Do your life dreams add up? Do they match up what you want? Do they want,

Brad:

Yeah. Do they want children?

Morgan:

That's one.

Brad:

How difficult would it be for you and your fair partner to raise each other's kids together?

Morgan:

Right. Blended families. They have their own challenges. They do. How would your children handle and incorporate into their family the person who broke up their family? That's interesting.

Brad:

Yeah. You need to consider how that's going to impact. So how would your children handle and incorporate?

Morgan:

Could they respect that person, that

Brad:

Person as a stepparent?

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

That's going to be, yeah. And we've known people like that personally outside of counseling who've experienced that. So what were the things that you found attractive about the affair partner? If these traits were to become magnified, would you still find them desirable? For example, if how your fair partner is always social butterfly, imagine what it would be like to be with someone who was always flirting.

Morgan:

Exactly. Exactly. So

Brad:

You need to ask yourself, would these qualities be magnified that you like? And you need to also look at their negative qualities and ask yourself, what if these became magnified?

Morgan:

Right. Considering living with that.

Brad:

Yeah, because it will, like we mentioned earlier, Morgan, like you said earlier, you wear these glasses of romantic love, of obsessive love where you feel addicted to this person, infatuated with this person. You don't see their negative qualities, their average qualities are even heightened, and all you see is this good stuff. So

Morgan:

Right. And the second one that we want to talk about is what will it be like when the fantasy or infatuation of an illicit affair week wears off 10 years from now? What would it be like after that? Like you're saying, magnifying these common traits that you are seeing as positive Now, how could they be switched or flipped?

Brad:

Would you divorce your spouse even if the relationship with the affair partner doesn't work out?

Morgan:

Think about the future 10 to 20 years from now. Where do you want to be living? How do you want to spend your time? What activities give you pleasure? What makes you happy right now in the past? And how would that affect your future?

Brad:

What happens to the dreams of growing old together with your spouse? What did you plan on you two doing during that time?

Morgan:

What

Brad:

Did you plan on this retirement period? What happened to those dreams that you had with your spouse?

Morgan:

If you were to end your marriage for good, describe the disaster scenario that could follow. What would it look like with your kids, with your feelings, with your finances? What would happen? What would it look like?

Brad:

And you also need to give yourself an honest assessment of how the children would suffer from the disillusion of your marriage. And Morgan, I just want to state in my opinion about this, I would never leave my spouse to be with a fair partner.

Morgan:

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Brad:

Well, not just you, but I'm saying for our listeners, knowing what I know, if I were in that situation, I would never leave to go be with that other person because it doesn't work. The people I've worked with who've met because of an affair, they're the hardest couples to work with. They don't trust each other. It's like constant fighting and bickering. It's very difficult. They don't have the fundamental foundation of security and trust that you need to have to make a relationship grow.

Brad:

Exactly.

Brad:

They're lacking it, and they don't last long. They just don't. And they're a pain in the butt to work with.

Morgan:

They built their house on sand.

Brad:

And so what you need to know is, and this is something else people need to realize, Morgan, is that being securely connected with your mate, it's the best protection and form of healing after an affair.

Morgan:

Absolutely. Research shows that,

Brad:

Yeah, that's from research, but so being connected emotionally, it helps you heal from an affair and it can help you being connected and emotionally even during this UNC times of uncertainty can help you heal. And if your spouse is leaning out of the marriage, you may want to listen to what we did on the show that we did on how to manage that time. If your spouse is wanting to leave, things that you need to be aware of and things that you can do to help that help stop

Brad:

Your divorce.

Brad:

Yeah, and let me say this though too. People who get caught up in the liran affair, which we've talked about as well, they can complicate how the betrayer feels about ending the affair. Obviously this can make it a difficult period of uncertainty about the future of the marriage. So go look at our information on RIN and RIN Affairs because that can also affect your ability to recover from an affair

Morgan:

And to look at things objectively,

Brad:

Look at things objectively and know if you want to stay or go. And many times, the betrayer, if they're caught up in Limerence, they're very stuck in determining if they want to stay or go

Morgan:

More so than any other type of affair.

Brad:

Yeah, they're very wishy-washy. I don't know if I want to be here. I don't know if I want to stay or go. Sometimes they'll leave. They'll come back. And so you need to look at our information that we've developed on Lime limerence and Limerent Affairs.

Morgan:

Yep. Absolutely.

Brad:

Thank you for listening to How to Recover from an Affair. I'm Brad Robinson.

Morgan:

And I'm Morgan Robinson. You have a wonderful week.

Brad:

Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Healing Broken Trust. If you like this episode, you can always get our show notes and more details and links to the resources we discussed at healingbrokentrust.com. Also, as long as you're online, head on over to healing broken trust.com/retreat for details on an upcoming one-on-one retreat with me. If you like us, please subscribe and leave a review for us on iTunes. As always, everything discussed on this podcast is either my opinion or Morgan's opinion and is not to be taken as relationship advice because I'm not your therapist, nor have I considered your personal situation as your therapist. This podcast is for your entertainment and education only, and I really do hope you've enjoyed it. See you Until next time.

Ep 13: What Will Make Them Stay, Leave, or Want Me Again? Stuck In Ambiguity, Feeling Confused?

Brad:

I've seen people who've had an affair who were very ambiguous and planning on leaving. They were totally burned out, and they were having an affair because they were done with the marriage and pretty much ready to go.

Morgan:

It was kind of an exit.

Brad:

Yeah, they were exiting the marriage, but one of the reasons they stayed in the marriage was because they had kids, but there was no emotional connection. And what helped them get the emotional connection back is when they saw the one that they had hurt, saw how much they really loved them and wanted to make it work.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad and Morgan Robinson, where we talk about healing from affairs, infidelity, trust, and cheating in your relationship from the perspective of a professional marriage therapist and a fair recovery expert if you're wanting to heal your marriage. This is the podcast for you, and we're on episode number 13, and we're talking about factors that influence ambiguity or ambiguous feelings, and we're going to talk from the perspective or the question of what keeps me feeling so confused. Now, this is an important episode, but I want you to also know that you really need to go and listen to episode 12 that's really talking about should I stay or should I go? So download episode 12, and it's a good idea to listen to episode 12 before you listen to episode 13, which is the one we're about to play.

So do that. Make sure to listen to episode 12 and then come and listen to episode 13. And I want you also to remember that you have free resources waiting for you on the internet at your disposal, at the fingertips, at your fingertips. If you'll just go to healing broken trust.com/episode 13. That's Healing broken trust.com/episode 13. That's the number 13. Grab those downloads and you can also on that website, healing Broken trust.com. You can leave us a voicemail as well. Just go on there, leave us a voicemail, let us know if these resources are helping you. Let us know what you think about the podcast. Obviously go to iTunes and leave us a review if you love it and tell your friends about it and leave us a voicemail on our website as well. So don't forget to download your free resources, healing broken trust.com/episode 13. Let's get started.

Brad:

Almost every couple, there's a period of ambiguity, that uncertainty that they go through. Are we going to stay together or are we going to be done? I want to spend a few moments just talking about this, the things that most affect ambiguity, and I would say on this, it's really the factors that influence uncertainty for a spouse to choose to stay in. Factors that affect a spouse who's going to leave. I want to just go over these because they can help save your marriage, help you guys work through this a little bit more on what the spouse who had the affair is thinking and the spouse who was betrayed, what they're considering,

And these are things that I hear by no means is this list exhaustive. I've got 20 different things here. There could easily be 40 things, but I just want to go through this. One of the things that's really important for injured spouses that affects if they want to stay or go is the amount of deception involved by the one who had the affair, the amount of deception that they used to cover their tracks. Were you lying to me face to face? I've kind of felt like something was a little off. Did you lie to your spouse when this was happening? That's going to affect their ability to trust in their ambiguity,

Morgan:

Kind of your blatant lies.

Brad:

Yeah. Do they approach you? I feel like you may be cheating. Is everything okay between

Morgan:

Us? Oh, no. No, not at all.

Brad:

Yeah, not at all. I love you. No, I'm happily married. We're okay. A couple months later, you find out that they have been cheating. That's going to affect your, should we stay or go?

Morgan:

Right? Right. They're going to go back to that moment. Another one would be if it was witnessed by the injured spouse as it actually happened, as it physically happened, if they saw you with them, if they saw it, that could really influence their ambiguous feelings as to whether they should stay or go or if it should even remain intact. So witnessing the event is a big one.

Brad:

And Morgan, that's very important. If you actually physically saw what was happening between the two people, that's going to affect you. And what I'm talking about specifically is sex. If you saw them having sex, that's going to affect, if you want to stay or

Morgan:

Go,

Brad:

How much the injured spouse feels like they're being lied to, how much honesty is they're there. That's really what I'm talking about. Are you being honest with me?

Morgan:

Do I know what honesty looks like on your face?

Brad:

Yeah. How can I read you? How can I trust you? Are you being honest with me right now?

Morgan:

Another one would be what the marriage was like before the affair. Was there a negative cycle that was happening before you even discovered this or before it even led to an affair? Right. Brad? That's a big one. That

Brad:

Is super important. Morgan. Along with that is the uncertainty of the spouse who's been betrayed if it will happen again, or do they know? What kind of reassurance do they have of will it happen again? As long as that is a huge question in their mind, they're going to be uncertain about st staying or going,

Morgan:

Especially if this wasn't the first time they discovered that you had cheated. That's a big deal. The other one, the sincerity, the seventh one, the sincerity and remorse of the involved spouse will determine the level of uncertainty about the future of the injured spouse.

Brad:

Yeah, Morgan, that's a very good one. Being sincere. How sincere, how remorseful are they? Do they care about me? And that really goes both ways. Sometimes I've worked with people who had an affair, and I want to really make this really an exclamation point with what I'm trying to say here. I've seen people who've had an affair who were very ambiguous planning on leaving. They were totally burned out, and they were having an affair because they were done with the marriage and pretty much ready to go.

Morgan:

It was kind of an exit.

Brad:

Yeah, they were exiting the marriage, but one of the reasons they stayed in the marriage was because they had kids, but there was no emotional connection. And what helped them get the emotional connection back is when they saw the one that they had hurt, saw how much they really loved them and wanted to make it work. So when the person who had the affair saw the one they betrayed, really care for them after their affair was made known, that is what helped them choose to stay in the marriage,

Morgan:

Kind of re-engage.

Brad:

Yeah, and that has

Morgan:

Happened a lot.

Brad:

Yeah, believe it. That has happened a lot. And so yeah, that sincerity and remorse, just knowing you're cared for, that's really what that is saying. I care about you and you have to show your sincerity and remorse. There's no shortcuts with that. More than another thing is, has the one who's been betrayed, the injured spouse, been betrayed before in a previous relationship

Morgan:

That would really put someone on edge, definitely a human lie detector at that point. It's happened to me before. How can I trust that? It's not going to happen with you. And if you're doing that, if you're betraying me, it's not as much of a surprise. I think the next one, the attitudes of family and friends who know about the affair. What are their attitudes? Are they encouraging you to try to work out your relationship or just encouraging you to leave?

Brad:

Yeah. Are they friendly towards your marriage? That can be a key one. Does the injured spouse have children with the betrayer?

Morgan:

That

Brad:

Affects uncertainty because we're getting low on time. I'm going to sort through some of these religious views about divorce and remarriage. That's important. How much has a negative cycle affected the couple's ability to discuss it, the affair, or even feel close? So there's a negative cycle that happens before the affair, and obviously there's a negative cycle that affects a couple's ability to recover

Morgan:

And to discuss the affair.

Brad:

And if the injured spouse feels like they're too old to meet someone new, they'll be more inclined to work things out. That's also a factor. Another factor is for the injured spouse, is the betrayer getting help if they're a sex addict or a flander, are they getting help for this? Am I seeing some real changes inside of them? If as long as there's a huge question mark around sex addiction or the morality or the values or the lifestyle of the philander, as long as there's not any progression, there's no help, visible help being made or changes being made, people are going to be a little bit more uncertain about staying after they've been betrayed.

Morgan:

Right, right. That makes sense. What about the involved spouse?

Brad:

Yeah, Morgan, the involved spouse, there's a few things for them as well that affect that level of ambiguity that's in them, that uncertainty about seeing and working it out. Number one, I would say is the quality of the marriage before the affair. That's super important. How do I know that things will be different? And many times they want to leave because they don't know that how deep was their feelings for the affair partner or how deep are they currently for the affair partner?

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

Some people get stuck in that limerence, which we've talked about. How long and how deep was the relationship with the affair partner? How long did this affair go on? How deep did it get? And I would even include with that is how much fighting has gone on since the affair was discovered? That's an important part of choosing to work it out because people can really feel helpless and very

Morgan:

Hopeless, really stuck in that negative cycle too.

Brad:

Other factors that go with this is does the betrayer have kids with their spouse at home? Does the betrayer have their own kids with their spouse who they cheated on?

Brad:

That's

Brad:

Going to make them more likely to want to work it out? Religious views about divorcing remarriage and if the involved spouse feels like they, and here's, and this is also important, Morgan, if the involved spouse feels like they're too old to meet someone new, they'll be more inclined to work things out.

And Morgan, this is so important for both, is both people need to know that they're cared about, that their spouse does love them, that they really are cared about. That's significant towards working this out towards ambiguity. But those are some factors that influence ambiguity. And we've discussed the psychology of the betrayer, the mindset of someone who's having an affair, the thought process where they're at in the marriage, faires do not happen almost in a bubble. Yeah. Well, most of the time in a healthy marriage, in a good marriage, sometimes people mistakenly think they're in a good marriage because there's not any conflict. We have good communication, but they're not really communicating

Morgan:

About wants and needs.

Brad:

Yeah. Well, they're not really emotionally engaged with each other. They're really good roommates maybe, and people want to know that they're desired and wanted and really cared for. And when that's uncertain, that's when affairs happen. When that's uncertain in a person's mind, they're more likely to cheat.

Morgan:

They begin to care less about the marriage.

Brad:

They begin to care less about maintaining that relationship for emotional

Morgan:

Reasons, and that usually happens over time. Wouldn't you agree or could it be?

Brad:

It can. It depends. Okay. But it varies.

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

Well, thank you. You've been listening to How to Recover From An Affair with Brad and Morgan Robinson. Have a great week guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to Healing Broken Trust. If you like this episode, you can always get our show notes and more details and links to the resources we discussed at healingbrokentrust.com. Also, as long as you're online, head on over to healing broken trust.com/retreat for details on an upcoming one-on-one retreat with me. If you like us, please subscribe and leave a review for us on iTunes. As always, everything discussed on this podcast is either my opinion or Morgan's opinion. It is not to be taken as relationship advice because I'm not your therapist, nor have I considered your personal situation as your therapist. This podcast is for your entertainment and education only, and I really do hope you've enjoyed it. See you Until next time.

Ep 39: Should I Leave For The Affair Partner?

Transcript:

Morgan:

Hey, let's get away to a beautiful location for a destination retreat that will transform your relationship. This opportunity is unlike anything you've done before. Two days with Brad will give your relationship the boost it needs. Then enjoy the beautiful scenery. Go to healingbrokentrust.com for more information. Do it soon, because time is limited.

Brad:

How do I know you're going to do the same to me? You grew up with them, you created this life with them, they have this level of significance and attachment meaning to you. I don't have any of that with you. Granted, you feel like I'm your soul mate, but how do I know the tables aren't going to turn on me once you stop feeling that way?

Morgan:

Hey guys, welcome to the show. I'm Morgan Robinson here with Brad, my handsome husband.

Brad:

Hidey ho, everybody.

Morgan:

Hello, and before we get started we want to say, we have some amazing destination retreats available. Actually, we have filled our calendar in June and July for destination retreats, so we don't have anything available for June or July, but we do have a destination retreat available for August 30 and 31, that's a Wednesday and Thursday, so if you want to get away from your problems, where they are, no matter where you are, and come to a beautiful sunny destination, really get a new lease on life ...

Brad:

To maybe Cancun or Florida, to get away.

Morgan:

Yeah, then you can book a destination retreat over the phone, you can give us a call at 918-281-6060 and book that destination retreat today while it's still available, and you can check us out on the web at healingbrokentrust.com. We hope to see you soon.

Morgan:

There are some destination retreats available further out, but also we have retreats available in our Tulsa office, so you can come to Tulsa and do a retreat in the office, we just don't have any getaway retreats in June and July available at this point in time.

Morgan:

Let's go ahead and get started. We've had several people over the years, and we have lots of people who call us and talk with us and say "My spouse has left for the other person, or they want to leave," and we sometimes hear from that spouse who says, you know, "I want to leave, I'm thinking about leaving for the affair partner," and they say, "Well, I don't know if counseling will work," or they might be afraid that they won't ever be happy in their marriage or in their present relationship as they are or would be in the affair.

Morgan:

Today we're gonna talk about that, why not just leave for the affair partner? So Brad, do you want to talk a little bit about what the research says?

Brad:

Sure, yeah, sure. We can talk about the research, Morgan, talk about my experience in working with couples on this issue.

Morgan:

Absolutely.

Brad:

And Morgan, let me just briefly say this: this is a hard topic for me to talk about because I always try to be fair to everybody.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

And this one, it's hard to talk about because the reality of the situation is pretty bleak. The statistics are really stacked against people who go and try to be with the affair partner. I just don't want anybody to think I'm being unfair by describing my experience of working with couples with this and by delivering statistics, but this is something that we encounter a lot, and I've helped people work through.

Brad:

Our listeners, they only know us through this podcast, so we're really trying to be fair, and part of that fairness is kinda accurately reporting what we experience in doing this and what the research shows.

Morgan:

Exactly. Right.

Brad:

So, why not leave? Why stay, basically? And I think, like you said, there's research on this. One of the pieces of research shows that only a small number of people who left their spouse to go marry their affair partner are still married.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

There's only a small number of people that are still married after five years who started their marriage as an affair.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

Five years later, are still married.

Morgan:

And I was really surprised to hear that actually, a small percentage leaves. So, as someone who's experienced betrayal I think many believe that the betrayer will just leave for the affair partner, but you're saying that it's actually a small percentage that actually leave. Why is that?

Brad:

Why is it a small percentage that actually leave and not a larger percentage?

Morgan:

Yeah, yeah, like everybody.

Brad:

First of all, a lot of people know that an affair is impractical. They aren't really in love with the affair partner. Maybe there's certain things that they enjoy from the affair, but they're not truly in love with the affair partner. Not everybody feels like they're married to the wrong person, in that the affair partner's their soul mate. The people who tend to think that the affair partner's their soul mate and get really stuck on that limerence, they're the ones that are going to be thinking about leaving to go be with the affair partner.

Brad:

So, not every affair is that way, so not everybody who has an affair is just automatically thinking "Hey, I want to go be with this person." Some people know that they can see the reality of the situation, say this isn't gonna be pretty. They're able to see the pain of what the separation will bring, from their spouse. They're able to see ... and honestly, they're even able to see the pain of what it will be like to be with the affair partner.

Brad:

In the biggest reason why people don't leave, they also know the significance that their spouse has, and that their family has, on their lives. A lot of people see their spouse as somebody they had children with, that they became an adult with, that they grew up with.

Morgan:

They have history with.

Brad:

They have history with them.

Morgan:

Yeah.

Brad:

Their spouse is a good person, but there's also this inherent distrust towards somebody that they've had an affair with, so most people don't leave, because the affair partner's not really what they want, so they don't leave. But the people who do leave tend to be people that have gotten caught in limerence, which is something that we've talked about in a previous episode for you guys to listen to. One of the very first ones, we talk about limerence and how to fall out of love.

Morgan:

I think any other we'd term it is lovesickness, and that sort of thing. So, and that leads me to this other question. There's two basic trust issues. If they don't have one, then they have the other, and sometimes they have both, so you want to talk about what those are?

Brad:

Yeah. The two trust issues that people have when they've left their spouse and decided to marry or be with their affair partner, the first is ... and sometimes they have both, but if they didn't, if they don't have one they definitely got the other, and this is usually what brings them into marriage counseling. But the first is, you left your family, you left your children to be with me.

Morgan:

All of your friends who divided up.

Brad:

Yeah, your friends are divided up, you left ...

Morgan:

Sometimes your job, where you live-

Brad:

Your job, you left your family to be with me. It seems like your spouse is a nice person, it didn't seem like your marriage was that bad. How do I know you're not gonna do the same to me? You grew up with them. You created this life with them. They have this level of significance and attachment meaning to you. How do I know that ... I don't have any of that with you. I've only known you for a brief period, and our relationship has had to be secret the whole time. How do I know you're not gonna do that to me?

Brad:

I'm not as important to you, in attachment significance, as they are. Granted you feel like I'm your soul mate, but how do I know the tables aren't gonna turn on me once you stop feeling that way?

Morgan:

Or if I'm honest with you.

Brad:

Yeah, and Morgan, the other thing is, this really creates a lot of distress, too. Not a lot of people make a clean break, to leave their spouse and then go be with the affair partner. It's not like "Okay, you discovered the affair, now I'm leaving this weekend to go be with them." It's pretty messy, and so a lot of people go be with the affair partner, then come back home. They live this double life.

Brad:

Maybe the spouse doesn't know what's going on. The spouse rarely knows the full details. The affair partner often doesn't really know the full details. If they both talk, they're both gonna end up feeling betrayed, because they're gonna realize, hey, this person is lying to both of us. They're "betraying" both of us.

Brad:

People don't really ever make a clean getaway, clean break, and go with the affair partner, and so what happens is that's just gonna make it more difficult to have a healthy relationship.

Brad:

And then the other thing, Morgan, that makes these relationships hard, this is another issue that brings people in, usually one of them has cheated on the other. That's why they're coming to see me again.

Morgan:

Okay, so the first one is, how do I know that you're not going to do what you did to your spouse to me, and then the other is, they come in because of more betrayal, because they're kind of in a pattern and a habit of betraying and so they betray each other.

Brad:

Yeah, one of them has ended up betraying. That's kinda the grim reality of this is, there's kinda not just two but maybe three reasons to have ... you could add more, but maybe three basic that I see is, you betray them, you've now betrayed me with an affair, and then it took you forever to leave them to be with me. How do I know I'm really important to you? So you have to ask yourself, you gotta look at this realistically, because what people do is they look at the pleasure of this. "I found my soul mate, I feel so good. When I'm away from them, I feel so unhappy and I feel this despair, and I feel depressed when I'm not with them, but when I'm with them I feel great." People focus on that, but what they don't focus on is the faults of the affair partner, they're focused on the faults of their spouse to the hilt.

Morgan:

Right, of course.

Brad:

They see that, they feel the resentment towards their spouse, but the affair partner represents greener pastures, a new opportunity. If you're gonna be fair to yourself, something you need to do for yourself as you're listening to this, is you really need to look at this as objective as you really can, because usually what people do is they focus on the pleasure of being with that person but they don't focus on the pain that's really gonna be there.

Morgan:

Right, right. So then that's kinda the next questions, is the pain of staying and the pleasure of leaving, but they aren't realistic about the pain they'll experience in the new relationship. So what sort of pain would they experience if they leave for the affair partner?

Brad:

That's a good question, Morgan. There's a lot of pain there, and the pain of leaving to be with the affair partner is, rarely are they ever truly happy.

Morgan:

Right. There's always a level of mistrust.

Brad:

Yeah. I mean, granted, there's always some Hollywood couple that you could point to. Some exception. There's gonna be some exception to everything. There's gonna be somebody that lives to be 140 years old when everyone else is dying at 70.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

There's gonna be some exception somewhere, but are you that exception?

Morgan:

Right, and it's very rare.

Brad:

It's very unlikely that you're gonna be that exception, because what the research shows is that 80% of people that divorce during an affair, because of an affair, end up regretting it.

Morgan:

Right. And I think part of the reason for that is because they just don't know that person. They don't know their faults, they don't know what they look like in the morning for real, they don't know how they respond or react in different situations and scenarios because they've only seen one side of them.

Brad:

Yeah, well, and Morgan, here's something else. Is, there's a lot of people who, some of you who aren't, who've been betrayed, you might find this surprising, but there's a lot of people who have an affair and they actually fight a lot with the affair partner. It's not uncommon for people to really fight a lot with the affair partner. Talk about-

Morgan:

Pretty normal.

Brad:

Yeah, it's actually normal for them to do that, and that creates the mistrust, that creates reasons not to be with them. People don't really always think about that pain. I've had people who plan to leave, who left, and they're like "Yeah, we fight all the time." They're like "I'm not in limerence because we fight all the time," but they still feel like this is my soul mate, they really minimize the flaws, the negative characteristics that are there. They're not really looking at it objectively, and so that's something you have to ask yourself, is like, what kind of foundation are we creating here for ourselves? If this were a business deal and we were moving forward in business and this is how it started, would you even like this person down the road? Just add in the other normal family stuff.

Brad:

You have to ask yourself, are my kids gonna like this person? Because kids typically feel betrayed too, whenever a parent leaves. So a kid will say "Why are you leaving me and Mom, or leaving me and Dad, and my brothers and sisters to go be with them and raise their kids? Why are you gonna go sleep at their house and take care of them, and you're gonna leave me here?" Kids feel betrayed, and it's very hard to get over stuff like that.

Morgan:

Right. It's hard to build a healthy, happy relationship and marriage and family.

Brad:

In general.

Morgan:

Based on that.

Brad:

Yeah, in general, but when you don't have a good foundation it's a lot harder, and part of this foundation is, people who start out as an affair and then when they do marry, their marriages are twice as likely to divorce, and so it's really something to be mindful of and aware of.

Morgan:

And it's because of that negative cycle, it's because how can you have bonding events, how can you have kinda deep understanding of the person and open yourself up to that person if you just can't know for sure that they're gonna stay with you, and I can't imagine there's any amount of "Oh, don't worry. I'll stay with you, don't worry, I love you, don't worry." You can't really speak to that if the actions haven't followed, if the track record hasn't been solid, to say the least.

Brad:

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Morgan.

Morgan:

So let's talk about, what are some things they need to look at, realistically, if they're considering leaving. What should they focus on, what are some things that they should ask themselves, maybe-

Brad:

Good question. Well, I think you have to ... like I said earlier, usually people are focused on the pain of staying with their spouse, and they're focused on the pleasure of being with the affair partner. You need to switch that if you're gonna give yourself a fair chance. You need to think about the pleasure of staying with your spouse and the pain of being with the affair partner.

Brad:

One of the things that you also need to ask yourself is, right now we're in the beginning of this relationship. We're maybe a year in, two years in, we're six months in, we're a month in. You need to ask yourself, and we're fighting right now, we're not getting along right now, we're already talking about can we trust each other. This is the honeymoon of your relationship, so you need to really be fair to yourself and ask this kind of question. You need to think long-term perspective on this.

Brad:

You need to also kinda ask yourself, where am I really watering the grass right now? Because the grass is greener where you water it, so where am I watering the grass right now? Am I watering it with the affair partner and ignoring my spouse? Am I not giving us a fair chance? Am I in limerence, because limerence ends whenever you are actually with that other person. Adversity is what creates limerence, and so if you don't remember when limerence is, limerence is a feeling of lovesickness, romantic love, obsessive love, where you really are just infatuated and head over heels for this other person because you feel wanted by them, where you find them attractive, and what people do is they feel like this is their soul mate. They're willing to give up anything for it.

Brad:

You have to really be fair to yourself, and you're fair to yourself by asking these hard questions.

Morgan:

What will my relationship with this person look like a year from now, two years from now?

Brad:

Yes. And our kids, if they have kids. What's that gonna be like with my kids? Are my kids gonna hate my guts, are they gonna resent me? Because, and again I'm in a unique position with this because of what I do, children also feel betrayed. They often don't know about what happened, because people typically are pretty good at keeping things away from the kids, but if they see mom and dad are divorcing, and kids are smart, they're gonna figure out two plus two equals four. Somebody else was involved in this. They overhear things, kids are bright. Even young kids are gonna figure stuff out.

Brad:

A year later, you're getting married to someone else, they're gonna start feeling betrayed as well, and it's gonna fracture your relationship with them.

Morgan:

Right, and then they're gonna hate, or they'll potentially hate the affair partner, who then will have a terrible relationship with your kids, and they're gonna make it hard for you, probably, to even see your kids, because they have such a terrible relationship with your kids. Your kids make their life miserable, and then what's gonna happen? It's either gonna put a rift between you and your kids, or it's gonna put a rift between you and your new partner, so consider that. You may not see your kids ever again, they may not want to come around you because of the affair partner.

Brad:

Yeah, and you may put every one of them in weekly counseling.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

You really have to think about this. You have to be fair to yourself, ask these hard questions. One of the questions you have to ask yourself is, we've been at this for a while. We've been talking about leaving our spouses and being with each other, and it's been six months and they haven't left yet. It's been a year, they haven't left. It's been three years, they haven't left. It's been three and a half years, four years, they haven't left.

Morgan:

Do they really love me?

Brad:

Do they, yeah. Are they really gonna leave to be with me? Am I really gonna leave to be with them?

Morgan:

Right. And if I did, what's that gonna look like?

Brad:

Yeah, and that goes back to, at the end of the day the spouse is always more important than the affair partner. People may feel ... they may not feel that way when they're in limerence with somebody, they may not feel like my spouse is more important, but at the end of the day, that's the case.

Morgan:

Wouldn't you want the person that you're with, wouldn't you want their full heart? Wouldn't you want all of them and not just a part of them? You know, when you love someone and you care for them, wouldn't you want their full attention? Wouldn't you want all of their love, realistically, you know, their romantic love, but you're not getting that, and you won't ever get that, which is hard for people to grasp.

Morgan:

I think sometimes they think "Oh, surely once they break it off I'll get their full attention, their full love," but will you? Will you get it? I don't know, because like you're saying, they haven't broke off their marriage yet, why not? Because it's hard, sure, but they love their spouse. There's history there.

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

There was a commitment there that was pure and was not defiled from the beginning, so you deserve it. You deserve a relationship where they chose you, they made a definitive choice to be with you from the start, and they sought you out and you did it legitimately because you owe yourself that. You don't want to be the other person, because it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel like you're winning at life. It just feels terrible to be the other person, so I don't know. Just my thought.

Brad:

Yeah, those are good thoughts, Morgan. And so part of this is ... all of our decisions throughout life are really based on one thing. We're always moving away from pain and towards pleasure, so if we want to change our behavior, change our experience, we have to think more about the pain that we experience with certain behaviors, and the pleasure of not doing certain things. That's basically how we get out of this, and hopefully this has been worth your guys' time. This came up ... and usually all my podcasts are kinda things I'm dealing with throughout the week, or the last few weeks, so I just wanted to kinda talk about this.

Morgan:

So, just to kinda clarify a little piece of what you said too, we want to switch our thinking now. So all along, we've been thinking "oh, the pain of being with our spouse. Oh, the pleasure of being with this person who makes me feel good, maybe lifts my depression," but you need to make a conscious effort to switch that pain-pleasure dichotomy, I guess. So start associating the pain with the reality of leaving for that person. Will it hurt? Yes, it will hurt, and start really marinating on the pain of leaving for the affair partner and start considering the pleasure of healing this relationship with your spouse, so that is important to say.

Brad:

Yeah, Morgan, that's great. I just wanted to say one last thing.

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

This is something that's another piece of research I came across since we recorded the limerence episode, and this is really important because when people experience limerence, they mistake that as this is a sign of who my soul mate's supposed to be.

Morgan:

Gotcha.

Brad:

You know, this is who God or the universe is telling me I need to be with. This is my soul mate, but what the research shows us is that when somebody begins a relationship with limerence, that infatuation, that lovesickness, that love addiction, that state we see them as perfect and just feel like when you're with them you feel great and when you're away you feel sad and despair ...

Morgan:

Depressed.

Brad:

Those relationships don't always end up in happy relationships, but when people marry somebody, that starts as a companionship-type relationship.

Morgan:

Gotcha.

Brad:

And so what happens is, you marry somebody as a companion, and you feel that companionship love, but then when you sometimes have an affair, what happens is you feel limerence.

Morgan:

For that other person.

Brad:

You feel stronger romantic feelings, then you begin to question your marriage, and so that's an additional piece of that limerence, and I wanted to mention before we go today.

Morgan:

Yeah, that's important. Yeah, so that's really really important. You just dropped a bomb in the middle of this ...

Brad:

And it's time to end. We gotta get going.

Morgan:

Dang it. So maybe we'll impact that a little bit more later. But thank you guys for listening, thank you for being with us today. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for making us the number one podcast for Fair Recovery on iTunes. We will talk to you next time.

Brad:

Thank you guys, bye bye.

Morgan:

Well, have you booked your retreat yet? Make sure to go to healingbrokentrust.com for more information and call 918-281-6060 to book your retreat today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Healing Broken Trust podcast. As always, this information is for education and entertainment purposes only.

Ep 42: Does the Affair Make The Betrayer Happy?

Transcript:

Brad (00:55):

You know, they see that negative cycle of avoidance emotional distance or fighting or arguing the pattern that they've had for years, that emotional RET that they've got into that is more of a deterrent than the affair partner.

Morgan (01:10):

So they're really trying to move away from pain towards pleasure instead of really totally towards pleasure. It's really away from the pain because they don't know how to connect and have that relationship. They really want hello and welcome to healing broken trust podcast. I'm Morgan Robinson, and

Brad (01:29):

I'm Brad Robinson.

Morgan (01:30):

And welcome to today's show. First, we're gonna talk about the kind of relationship the betrayer has with the affair partner what's going on in the mind of the betray during the affair, and then we're gonna talk what keeps them from recommitting or reinvesting back into their marriage. So Brad, why don't we talk about, you know, the typical affair relationship? What does the typical affair relationship

Brad (01:54):

Look like? Okay, Morgan, that's a really good question. I want to preface by saying that when I talk about this, I'm talking about which probably generally true, and not necessarily what's specifically true about every affair and every relationship that somebody has with their affair partner. And so I would just say that this is probably generally true most of the time, and this is typically what I see, but I just want to preface that because there obviously are gonna be exceptions to this. So, Morgan, the question is, is, you know, what does a typical relationship look like? I think one of the assumptions and this definitely was for me is that when somebody's in an affair, it's usually rainbows in sunshine. That's what

Morgan (02:41):

People usually think.

Brad (02:42):

Yeah. That's what people usually think. And that's honestly what I thought, like when someone's in an affair, like, you know, it's a fantasy, there are people who feel that and experience that. But I wouldn't say that's probably true for a very large portion. It's not like going to Disneyland or Disney world and having a time of your life and you just love it and you're riveted by it.

Morgan (03:03):

So it's not always limerence.

Brad (03:05):

No, it's not always limerence and it's definitely not something that is definitely rainbows and sunshine. I remember the first time I heard somebody describe how much fighting they had with their affair partner. I just was shocked by it. I couldn't

Morgan (03:19):

Believe it. That they would even stay with that person.

Brad (03:22):

Yeah. Yeah. They, I mean, there was a lot of fighting and I don't remember all the particulars, but that, that's the one thing that stood out to me. I was like, wow, there's a lot of fighting. I was just shocked by that. And so that's kind of a, and it turns out, you know, as I've learned more over the years about this, that's in some ways that's kind not common. It's not always the case, but it's, it's

Morgan (03:42):

Pretty common. The fighting and the arguing and all of that is common.

Brad (03:45):

Yeah. I mean, like in the beginning of an affair, obviously you're gonna have, you're gonna feel good. You're gonna feel wanted that person's gonna make you feel good and that, that sort of thing. But as the relationship progresses, it, it kind of turns into more of a, a real relationship where there's disagreements and fighting and arguing. And it's not, you know, this honeymoon type thing, it moves past that. One of the things, you know, when people are involved in an affair is that they're not really giving more to the affair emotionally of themselves to the affair partner than they do with their own spouse. It's not like they're opening a door and giving something brand new that they've never given before to their affair partner that they've never given to their spouse. Often with their spouse, they've been much more vulnerable and much more intimate, much more open than they have been with your affair partner. And the main thing they get out of the affair is just feeling good about themselves.

Morgan (04:47):

That's really interesting, Brad, that most of the time, it's about feeling good about yourself. It's not necessarily that they have this great intimacy with the affair partner. And I know we've talked a little bit about that before. Do you wanna expound upon that before we go to the next, what exactly are you talking about? What I'm talking about there is really that they're not necessarily giving more to the affair partner than they are to their spouse. We've talked about, you know, previously, you know, that the relationship is not rainbows and sunshine, that it's not, you know, this always full of love or whatever and happiness. And it sounds like to me that typically people, when they get found out or when it, when they try to turn the relationship into, when they bring the relationship out into the spotlight and it's found out, I imagine a lot of the, the mystical parts or what is it, what's a good word. The, the parts of the relationship that were secret and kind of exciting sort of dissipate because they've been found out it's, it's not as fun anymore. Do you

Brad (05:49):

Agree? Yeah, I would agree with that.

Morgan (05:51):

So what's going on in the affair that keeps them kind of there then if they're fighting and all of that, I mean, what keeps them with the affair partner?

Brad (05:59):

Well, that's a great question. I wouldn't necessarily say, you know, there's a limerence factor that we've talked about before and in limerence I'm not gonna go into all depth of limerence, but I'll just define it. Limerence is basically this feeling of infatuation or love sickness or romantic love that feel often in the beginning of a relationship that could keep people in with the affair partner. Typically when somebody experiences that they kind of feel like, man, I missed the mark. I married the wrong person. This is my soulmate. I didn't feel this with my spouse. When we got married, we had more of a companionship love. And we've, we've talked about that previously, you know what keeps them from? I'm go, just going back into their marriage. Honestly, it's gonna be something it's really gonna be their own beef or problems with that relationship. That's it's not like I'm leaving you for someone else.

Brad (06:49):

Often what people say when they're in an affair and they're unsure about recommitting back to the marriage. They're they say, I'm not necessarily gonna go leave you to be with that other person, the affair partner. Yeah. The affair partner. I might just, if we don't work out, I'm probably gonna end up on my own. It's not that I'm necessarily wanting to go be with the affair partner. It's I have problems with us and how we've been and how we've communicated and my own hurts and my own experiences with us. And so I'm not sure if I would want to be with either one of you and

Morgan (07:20):

Maybe just relationships in general, maybe they felt they felt jaded or hurt by relationships. And they've sort of become kind of numb to the idea of connecting. That might be one thing. Another might be, I've heard people say this to you, the affair partner needs me, so it's hard to just abandon them. So maybe that's one thing that keeps them with the affair. But how about we move to the next question? Sure. What kind of relationship does the betrayer have with the affair partner? We've talked a little bit about that, but do you wanna expound upon it?

Brad (07:55):

Yeah, Morgan, I would just say that they're really not typically playing on being with each other. Oftentimes when someone's involved in an affair, obviously there's gonna be people who are having an affair where they're actually planning on out, you know, but generally when there's an affair, that's not the case. They're not really wanting to do that. And there there's a percentage of people who, who do want that. And I would say it's probably a smaller percentage. The majority of folks, I would say they would prefer to stay married. They actually still care deeply about their spouse and their marriage. They just don't see an opportunity to have that again, you know, have a deeper bond with their spouse. They don't know how to get there and we'll get to that in a little bit. But typically the average affair relationship, they're not actually even planning on being with each other.

Brad (08:40):

They like how that person makes them feel. That person makes them feel good or they make them feel wanted or desired. And that's, you know, something that they haven't felt potentially for a long time with their primary relationship. So basically it's just about feeling good about themselves. Okay. Like I mentioned a second ago, you know, they honestly would prefer to stay married, but they don't see how connecting with their spouse or their primary relationship is possible, or they don't even know how, you know, then you, then you have to factor in, you know, they see that negative cycle, that's their, that negative cycle of avoidance of emotional distance or fighting or arguing, you know, just the, the pattern that they've had for years, that emotional rut that they've got into. And that's a big determinant and that more than the affair partner being sexy and attractive and desirable, being a learning that is more, more of a deterrent than the affair partner is that negative cycle.

Morgan (09:39):

So they're really trying to move away from pain in towards pleasure. Yeah. Instead of really, totally towards pleasure. It's really away from the pain because they don't know how to connect and have that relationship. They really want is that pretty accurate?

Brad (09:52):

I would say that's very accurate Morgan. They don't have, have a lot of hope that they can get their needs met in their marriage. And so that's really the primary reason. They are unsure if they want to stay together, it's not necessarily because they of how they feel for the affair partner. Obviously that happens. That comes up. That's not really what it's about all the time. And again, you know, most feel if they're not gonna be with or spouse, they don't necessarily want to be with the affair partner either. It's not like I'm leaving for greener pastures. Some do, but I would say most don't, you know, feel that way. Again, like I mentioned, the affair relationship is shockingly full of fighting, arguing a lot of mistrust distrust. What's also shocking is at the they're so easy and quick to betray each other.

Brad (10:40):

Interesting. Yeah. You know, they're often willing to betray each other and I've seen that happen a lot, Morgan, where they get at the affair partner and then they're ready to come back home, you know, be back in their primary relationship, their marriage. And then again, I would just say that individuals who have an affair really want to connect to their spouse, but they don't know how that's really what it's about. And I would even say that about limerence relationships the individuals I've had, who've successfully worked through limerence affairs. And you can learn again more about that in the li episode or the one on 10 types of affairs. And for those of you who are living it and have lived it, you know how tricky that is? I would say they deep down really do want to connect with their spouse, but they just don't know how and the negative cycle and those factors and all that goes into play.

Morgan (11:31):

So Brad, why do they hesitate on totally committing back into the relationship

Brad (11:37):

I'm gonna use clients' words, different clients' words that I've heard, and I'm gonna kind of use their language to describe this. So what would they say on why they hesitate and totally committing back into their relationship? They would say things like, I feel unworthy or unlovable all the time. I haven't felt good enough for a long time. They would also say this, and this is really important. Can I be forgiven? Will I always be on lockdown? I don't think I'll actually be good enough to make you forget is our relationship too tainted now, you know, is even coming back possible. Sometimes they would even say they feel they can't reassure their spouse because of what they're doing, because you know, they're not ending the affair. So it's like, how can I reassure you and come back? You know, there's such a hole in me.

Brad (12:26):

I know the right thing is probably come back to you and, and work on it for our sake. And it's just the right thing to do. But there's such a hole in me, left in me by our negative cycle and our pattern that I don't know if I can really stop this affair. And again, it's not that I wanna be with them because I would choose to ultimately probably not be with them anyway. But that person just makes me feel good about myself. They feel like they can't really reassure their spouse because you know, they're still doing it. It's like promising to never gamble again, as you're pulling the slot machines, you know, like, right. <Laugh> it's like, well, I can't that's, you know, I can't really tell you, give you that full reassurance that you need, that I'm gonna quit gambling. Because I'm pulling the lever right now. You know, I'm pulling the, the lever. I'm not ready to quit yet. Here's what here's what else they would say. They would say things like I don't deserve you anymore because you're making all these changes and growing and I'm a wrecking ball breaking crap up for us.

Morgan (13:27):

Wow. That's some great imagery. Really.

Brad (13:32):

I'm being that wrecking ball because if something had happens, it won't be as big of a hit I don't ask. You know? So, so basically if I'm a wrecking ball and push you away when we don't work out, because I don't have much faith that it will because I've been hurt now you're hurt. You know, I don't have this confidence that we're gonna be okay. So I'm this wrecking ball right now to push you away to actually, because I care about you to actually make it easier on you. So if you can start withdrawing too, you're not gonna get us hurt

Morgan (14:03):

By all this. The disconnect will be easier because I've just been hard on us. And if I just make myself look so ugly and terrible and awful, it'll be easy for you to let me go. And it'll be easy for the, this relationship to dissolve kind of thing.

Brad (14:18):

Absolutely. Another thing I often hear people say is I don't ask for, you know, their help because it's not right for me to ask or expect receiving that help because of what I'm doing. It's hard to tell you my needs and ask you to be there for me cuz of what I'm doing. That's not fair to you. So that's kind of, those are some things that I've heard people say before that causes them to hesitate in, you know, kind of fully recommitting.

Morgan (14:43):

That last one sounds like a lot of guilt and shame. It's like I can't ask for wants and needs cuz I'm so terrible. Oh yeah. That's how they feel.

Brad (14:50):

Well, and here's the thing, you know, to successfully re recover from an affair, it cannot be okay, I did this, I hurt you. I betrayed you. Now I've got to spend the next X number of time, years, months, whatever, kissing your butt, making it up to you like it, that just does not work long term. Like that's sometimes people talk about that. I've heard other people talk about it. It just doesn't work because you know, the end of the, at the end of the day, it's gotta be about both people being able to depend on each other emotionally, you know, people often get into an affair because they don't feel like they can fully count on their spouse to be there for them emotionally because of that negative cycle. If you, you don't have that confidence that your spouse will be there for you, it's just hard to really be vulnerable and let them in your inner world and, and count on each other. And so you have to have both people there for each other

Morgan (15:43):

Emotionally. One of the things often is that once somebody has an affair, they think, man, I screwed up so bad. I gotta really go to you and focus on you. It's wrong to talk about my needs. I see how hurtful hurt you are, you know, and maybe in the immediate crisis and the aftermath, you know, they're right. Maybe it's like, you know, maybe they're right. I just really hurt you right now. And I see your suffering. I can't ask you to be there for me, but to have a successful marriage, you have to really you think and feel and believe that you can, but you only get that through couples therapy. You're not gonna get that on your own, trying to work through this. You're just not gonna get there on your own. Like you need to get good help. You gotta, you need somebody who does emotionally focused couples therapy. Who's got training in that certification in that you want to go out with the best cuz right now your marriage needs that we're available. Okay. So we're coming to the end of our time today, but what do they feel will happen if they stay with their spouse? Cause that's another question that we, that we have

Brad (16:46):

Sure. Yeah. What they think if they, if they're, you know, if we stay together, this is what they're thinking is gonna happen. They're thinking in their head like, is my spouse gonna make me pay for this, you know, forever and ever, is this just gonna be a part of their ammo that they have, cuz they've used ammo before? Is this gonna be new ammo? You know, they're gonna say things like, it feels like I'm just going to have to prove myself to you. And that puts me back where I was in the first place before all this stuff happened. Like you didn't really trust me before. I didn't do anything wrong back then, but we weren't really connecting and feeling close. And so you were always kinda critical of me or upset with me. So it feels like I'm just gonna have to prove myself to you. And that puts me back where I was in the first place. Feel often to say things like if our mirror isn't strong, will I have to go to someone else again to get my emotional needs met. So if we don't repair and patch up what was going on and make us stronger than we were before, am I gonna do this again? And I don't wanna do this again.

Morgan (17:47):

So Brad, at this point, how do they feel about their spouse

Brad (17:51):

Morgan? Often what I hear is that they they'll say things like at the end of the day, spite of all of our problems that we've had in our relationship, you are a good person and there is love there for their spouse. And there is care for their spouse. Sometimes they'll push their spouse away again, you know, like we talked to about the wrecking ball, they'll push their spouse away during the affair so that their spouse won't get hurt so that they can live, try to have a cleaner conscience. You know, like if I push you away, if I start arguments, if I start fights, you know, we're, we're arguing and fighting. Then I can use that as justification to go have an affair. But at the end of the day, they really do believe their spouse is a good person. Them, you know that deep down they know their spouse is, you know, a good person.

Brad (18:33):

They know their spouse is an evil. That's how most people I would say I would and a word to summarize it. That's what I would say. Most people, how they view their spouse. And again, sometimes they'll try to push their spouse away while they're having an affair so that when it gets discovered, if it does, it'll be an easier impact on their spouse and then others will be kind of loving. And that's their way of trying to clean up their guilty conscience. They're trying to manage guilt either way. Like I'll push you away to manage guilt, but you know, if I can be really sweet and loving and endearing while the affair is going and you, you know, then you'll never detect it. Then I won't have to live with guilt cuz you'll never find out. And so they're both trying to manage your guilt and either strategy that they take, but they really do feel like their spouse is a good person.

Brad (19:24):

And you know, and this is what someone once said once is even if I wanted to, I can't stop loving in you overnight. Like if I didn't, if we weren't together, even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop loving you overnight. And that's what someone said when they were still seeing the affair partner. Like there's still a lot of love there. And as you guys can tell, as you're listening to this, this is complicated stuff. This is an easy stuff. And so if you guys need help, we're here go to he and broken trust do, and you can find out more information about working with us. And I appreciate you guys your time and you guys can make it. You can do this.

Morgan (20:00):

Absolutely. You can also give us a call at (918) 281-6060. You can talk to one of our client care coordinators

Speaker 3 (20:47):

As always. This information is for education and entertainment purposes only. I and.

Ep 44: Is It Okay To Snoop?