Transcript:
What Are The 7 Stages of Affair Recovery?
Hello and welcome to how to recover from an affair. I am Morgan Robinson, here with my husband Brad and today, we are going to outline the 7 stages of affair recovery that we’ve developed. Brad, talk to our listeners about how these stages work.
Brad: Okay Morgan. Affair recovery is a process, so working through these stages is a process and each stage must be successfully dealt with in order to heal, you can’t skip a stage.
Morgan: Hmm hmm...
Brad: With that being said, the working through the stages, it may be simultaneously dealt with. So when you're dealing with one stage, you may also be simultaneously dealing with another stage as well.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: And what we did is just put on paper what couples do, to help them know there is a roadmap to healing and a way to recover from this. And Morgan, I want to go ahead and start with the most important – all these are important, but probably the most important stage to healing and this stage right here is the engine that creates the change, that allows the couple to work through this affair recovery process. And that is turning the negative cycle into the positive cycle.
Let me explain that. Honesty, that's vital to recovery from an affair, but it's not the greatest hindrance to healing from an affair. The negative cycle is typically the greatest hindrance to a couple recovering from an affair. Negative cycles, those are the fights and disagreements that couples experience when recovering from an affair. If you're not consciously aware of the negative cycle and what you are contributing to it, it will be difficult to avoid it.
Negative cycles take different forms. They can involve arguments or they can involve emotional distance. Couples can argue or just try to sweep things under the carpet. You know you are in a negative cycle when you and your spouse are stuck in a rut and you find it very difficult to get out of it.
Morgan: Right because you don't feel close.
Brad: You don't feel close. You're doing things to either try to make things better and that can involve the arguing, trying to get things better or sometimes people do something different. They just sweep things under the rug, the carpet as a way to make things better.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: And that's actually a different type of negative cycle.
Morgan: It's counterproductive.
Brad: It's very counterproductive and it keeps people distant. And Morgan – yeah?
Morgan: And it keeps people from feeling like they can be honest because like you're saying honesty is vital, but that negative cycle keeps people from feeling like they can be honest without repercussion.
Brad: Hmm hmm. Well here's the thing too, you know you're going to hear from all kinds of sources how important honesty is and honesty is vital. And it's – I would say it's probably the second thing you need, but people overlook the negative cycle.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: Because with this negative cycle, you can't move forward. You can't move forward through the other stages. You can't reach the last stage that we're going to talk about today; post-traumatic growth. You can't really have a marriage stronger than it was before, that was better than it was before, more intimate and closer if you don't deal with the negative cycle. And that negative cycle can be the fighting or it can just be the distance, avoiding each other. And so...
Morgan: Right, not talking at all.
Brad: Not talking at all. And here's – Morgan, I want to say this before we go on to the next step, the next stage in the affair recovery model that we have, it's the negative cycle, how we get out – here, the negative cycle is the engine that creates change in the recovery process. It helps you move forward in the recovery process and this cycle is fueled, the fuel of the change, the fuel of what creates change as you work through the negative cycle is primary emotion. And we are going to discuss that more in this affair recovery program, but primary emotion – basically primary emotion is the core emotion that we experience, things like hurt, sadness, fear, feeling unworthy. It's in sharing that, in feeling that and sharing that with our spouse, that is what helps us begin to get out of the negative cycles along with being aware of what we are contributing to it and it helps us begin to deal with these relationship injuries...
Morgan: And move into the positive cycle.
Brad: And yes exactly and we move into the positive cycle. Our bond is deeper with each other. We feel closer with each other. And as we share these primary emotions, we are deepening our bond with each other because we begin to share our fears of getting closer.
Morgan: Right and sharing those deep emotional, those emotions underneath, the secondary emotions, that moves us out of the negative cycle and into a positive cycle where we are able to move close to each other like you're saying, right?
Brad: Yeah. And what couples often do is they may be feeling hurt and they may be feeling sad and afraid and unworthy and they may even share that kind of stuff, but it comes from a place of frustration, it comes from a place of anger and the listener isn't really able to grasp the meaning.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: And when that message, that primary core emotion of hurt, sadness, fear, feeling unworthy is shared without the frustration, without the anger, without the resentment being present, just the pure openness of that, the vulnerability even, when that is shared, the listener, the person you are sharing that to, your spouse – as you're working through this affair, when they hear that, they're going to want to be there for you. They're going to want to stop doing what they're doing that hurts you and what causes you to want to distance from them. It's going to help you let down your guard and it's going to help you guys both have a marriage that you haven't had before. Your marriage will be stronger and it's going to help you deal with this huge relationship injury, this infidelity or infidelities that have occurred and it's going to make your bond deeper. And we go into that in this affair recovery program that you have.
Morgan: Right and like you said, it's not necessarily steps you know that are rigid. This cycle, this positive cycle that you are creating is going to be – you're going to be doing this throughout the whole recovery process.
Brad: Yes. I'm glad you said that. You're going to be using this and you're going to want to go ahead and listen to the negative cycle information that you have when you're done with this. And we talk about how to work through the negative cycle, more information about primary emotion. We're going to talk about secondary motion and how to share that with each other. And you're going to want to use this throughout this whole recovery process.
Morgan: Right, through each step.
Brad: Yeah and you're going to want to continue to use this even after you guys have recovered from the affair. Even when you've reached our last and seventh stage of recovery, the post-traumatic growth stage, you're going to want to continue to use that.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: And so the first step in the affair recovery model that we have, is turning the negative cycle into the positive cycle.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: The first step or stage is that. The second stage is discovery and this is what most people – and let me say this Morgan about the negative cycle is – and here's the kicker with the negative cycle, if you don't deal with the negative cycle, you are healing with the rut that you guys are in that got you into the affair.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: That same basic dance, that same pattern that you guys had before that same cycle that you had before the affair, you are healing with that. So you have to deal with it.
Morgan: Or trying to heal.
Brad: But most people don't ever address that.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: And in fact, I hear very little about the negative cycle.
Morgan: That same pattern of criticizing, demanding, withdrawing, stonewalling cycle that you got into before the affair happened, is what you are using, those same ways of communicating. You're using that to try to heal from the affair and it's just not going to work, so got to change that.
Brad: Yeah, exactly. And so that's really important. Most people are familiar, most people think the affair recovery process starts with the moment of discovery, but for us, that's the second part of our affair recovery model. And so the second stage is discovery. And here's one of the key things about understanding discovery, but if you're listening to this, it's probably already too late, it's better if the one who had the affair, if they disclose the affair rather than the injured spouse discovering it. Upon impact of discovery, there is a feeling of the whole world is collapsing, that everything the betrayed spouse thought he or she knew about his or her spouse is now shattered. Betrayed spouses have just entered what is commonly experienced as shattered assumptions. They experience shattered assumptions about their spouses, themselves, the world and even God. I had one client of mine recently describe it this way: "Finding out about my husband's affair, in that second I found out, I felt like my whole world was turned upside down and everything I thought I knew about him was in now wrong."
The moment of impact typically involves many responses. The most common of which includes shock, rage, sadness and hurt. I had one man upon finding out, he tore down a wall in his house upon finding out about his wife's affair. The moment of discovery sets off a fuse of reactions that are very similar to the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder which we thoroughly discuss in this audio program.
Morgan: Right. So you may have already discovered the infidelity, you may have discovered it, but we talk about negative cycles as though you've already been in a negative cycle which led to the infidelity and now you've discovered the infidelity. And like we said, it's not a necessarily linear step-by-step process, you're going to be working through these cycles. Even though you've discovered it, you're going to be working through those cycles.
Brad: Yeah and Morgan, I do want to say this, violence is never condoned. It's never acceptable for any reason. Even if you've been betrayed, even if you walk in on your spouse with somebody else, violence is still not acceptable. Your physical safety should be your top concern.
Morgan: Right, very important.
Brad: Yeah, that's very important.
Morgan: Yeah. It doesn't give you a license to…
Brad: Be violent.
Morgan: Exactly. And so the third stage of the affair recovery process is ambiguity. It's very normal. This is where after the affair is made known, you must decide if you want to remain in the marriage or if you want to go. Deciding to stay or go will very – for different reasons for each spouse after the affair is made known; for the spouse who was involved with someone else, it will depend on how deep their connection was with their affair partner and how burned out they were in the marriage before the affair happened. For the betrayed spouse, it will largely depend on how honest the betrayer is after the affair has been discovered. So obviously, there are many other factors that influence a couple deciding to work through the affair which we cover in the audio program. And another thing that we mention as well, don't make any major life decisions in this beginning, the beginning of discovering the infidelity. Give yourself time because in your pain, you can make decisions that are just not the best for you going forward in your future. You may feel differently a few months from now, so give yourself time.
Brad: Morgan, I'm so glad you said that because that's really important. Something else that's really important Morgan is that 72% of individuals, men and women both – it's the same numbers, 72% choose to work on their marriage after the affair is made known.
Morgan: It's very important.
Brad: And that's important because I've had many people say is there something wrong with me for still being here.
Morgan: Am I just crazy for still wanting to be with him?
Brad: Am I nuts? Am I desperate? I have issues from my childhood, is that why I'm still here with him? And I'm sharing that because it's normal to work on a marriage after an affair. There's nothing wrong with you. It doesn't mean you are codependent. It doesn't mean you have some kind of childhood issues, things like that. It's normal for a person to want to work on their marriage after an affair.
Morgan: Right, it's more normal than giving up.
Brad: It's true, that's a good way to put it.
Morgan: So as you work through your feelings of uncertainty about staying or going, you both may alternate between feeling both of these options. Whether it's staying or going, you're going to alternate. One day you might feel like you want to stay, the next minute, you'll be like I'm getting out of here. And that is something that may occur multiple times a day even in the coming weeks for both of you. So just know that going back and forth between wanting to stay and wanting to go is very normal in this ambiguous time of discovering the affair.
Brad: And for many couples, that can last weeks. Some couples, it will last several months where one of them is on the fence about that.
Morgan: Right and what we've noticed that keeps the spouse who had the affair in this place of ambiguity longer is when they still have contact with the affair partner. Lingering feelings about the affair partner can perpetuate the period of ambiguity and prevent the involved spouse from being emotionally invested back into the marriage. So when that happens, it's obviously very hard to rebuild the marriage and to bring new life into the relationship. So that's important, cutting off the affair is very important.
Brad: That is huge Morgan, it's really huge. The third step in our affair recovery model is trauma and trauma basically means a deep emotional wound. And trauma and virtually every couple I've worked with, the betrayed spouse had several symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. You know, I do want to say this, not everyone I've worked with has had symptoms of PTSD, but the overwhelming majority have. Also please note that I'm not diagnosing you with that if you've been betrayed. I'm not diagnosing you with post-traumatic stress disorder just by listening to this audio program.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: Generally once a couple starts working on the affair, the first three months will be when the emotional pain is at its most intense. If working on the affair is delayed or halted completely, the feelings of pain and resentment will still be there until they are addressed.
Morgan: And that's why we talk about not making major life decisions in this first part of discovering because your pain is so intense, you don't want to make life decisions that will really change the direction of your life at this part of the recovery process.
Brad: Yeah that's true. I do want to mention this, the dishonesty will keep people stuck in the emotional pain more.
Morgan: Yes.
Brad: The emotional trauma more, so be honest with each other. Both of you being honest is very important. Also the negative cycle keeps people stuck because one of the things that you need to heal is you heal in each other's arms. You need that emotional closeness and affection to work through this. The negative cycle prevents that from happening because you are stuck in a rut, you can't reach each other and that keeps people stuck in trauma longer. Morgan, it's also worth knowing, for our listeners, it's also worth knowing that sometimes your friends, family members and unfortunately mental health professionals who don't realize how trauma works, will offer horrible advice such as "you have to let this pain go to begin to heal the marriage", "you need to put this in a box and give it to God", "you need to quit asking about the affair and focus on rebuilding the marriage".
Morgan: These are things we've heard people who come to us…
Brad: Yeah, these are direct quotes; "talking about the affair only makes it worse". All of these reactions and other reactions, those are dismissive of the pain, simply making it worse for couples to heal together.
Morgan: Right because it's trauma, you have to work through the trauma and work through the pain to really find healing.
Brad: Yeah and you may be listening to our product here, you may be listening to our audio program because you've had a bad experience with a counselor who wasn't properly trained on how to help couples recover from an affair. For about 30% of my practice, I'm the second or third, sometimes fourth or more marriage counselor that that couple has worked with. To heal the trauma, there are definite things that can be done to help recover from the trauma, from the pain of the affair and we're going to get into more of that with this audio program.
Morgan: Right. So that's a very, very important to know. And actually, the fact that they – that we are the third and fourth therapists that they come to is amazing, sometimes it's a miracle.
Brad: Well persistence, thank God for their persistence.
Morgan: Absolutely. Stay persistent. Don't give up because there is healing. Okay so the next stage in the recovery process is meaning. This step involves talking about the affair. Contrary to some opinion, you do need to talk about the affair. The point of talking about the affair is really to make the betrayed spouse feel safe and help them understand why the affair occurred. The betrayed spouse must comprehend what happened and why. Couples have my permission or our permission to talk about everything except for the off limit topics which we discuss later in our affair recovery program. It can be re-traumatizing for persons to know physical details about the affair and to witness written documentation of the feelings and emotions involved in the affair like emails. Typically, the partners who had the affair, want to suppress information because they are trying to protect their partner and maybe themselves, but the reality is that the injured spouse needs to know so much, they need to know so that they can stop obsessing, visualizing and imagining about the situation, filling in the blanks of all the things they don't know that can cause a lot of – more trauma.
So something that is absolutely crucial to help injured spouses accept and understand the why is that they must feel the betrayer is working very hard to earn their trust. They need to sense that the betrayer cares immensely and is in pain because the injured spouse is hurting. If the injured spouse does not feel cared for by the spouse who had the affair, he or she will have a hard time accepting much from the involved spouse and even harder time accepting anything further. So it's really important to feel like they are really trying in this process.
Brad: Yeah, Morgan that's important. I do want to say a couple's other things.
Morgan: Okay.
Brad: And one of these is going to be controversial. And that is if the one who has been betrayed, working through this, the affair recovery process with the meaning, in my experience, it's always easier if individuals who have been betrayed, if they have been cheated on and if they are aware of what they contributed to the climate of their marriage that maybe helped to create some vulnerabilities, they typically do much better than those who don't see any responsibility that they have in...
Morgan: The climate of the marriage.
Brad: In the climate of the marriage, that made some vulnerabilities for cheating possible.
Morgan: Right and we're not saying that you are responsible for your spouse's decisions to cheat, we are only saying that there is a climate in the relationship before the infidelity occurred…
Brad: And you are aware of your involvement in the negative cycle. I am not saying you held a gun to your spouse's head and said, "Cheat on me or I'm going to shoot your brains out." I'm not saying that, but if you can understand, if you can see your role in the climate that you played in the marriage, it will help you work through this much faster than if you don't see your role at all in the climate of the marriage, in creating the atmosphere for this to take place.
Morgan: Very important.
Brad: And that's important. The other thing is, is some people have a deeper need to know why than others. And so some of you listening are going to say well I don't have that much of a need to know...
Morgan: The details.
Brad: The details. I kind of get it, I understand. You're going to do much better than those who have to know every single detail. And it's not for me to say you can't – I'm going to tell you there are certain, like Morgan just said, there are certain things you don't want to know. We're going to get into more of that in the affair recovery program. But there are definite things that are there that some people need to know.
Morgan: Right and that's okay.
Brad: Yeah, that's okay. If that's you though, if you are a couple that – if you are the individual who's been betrayed and you have a deeper need to know why this happened, this may be a longer process for you, don't – but here's the temptation though when people get into that, is there is a temptation to get away from focusing on the negative cycle. They take their focus off the negative cycle on to the scavenger hunt for why did this happen and their whole life becomes about that. And it's really painful for me as a therapist to see people whose whole life becomes consumed with this affair and understanding why it happened and talking about it only. And so, there is a delicate balance here and it's for you as an individual to know what that is. And I would say you want to favor working on the negative cycle and dealing with that because so many times when people get caught up in the why and not knowing why, they are also caught in the negative cycle. And if you can redirect your focus on to the negative cycle and sharing those primary emotions, that will help you get unplugged with the why. And listen to the information that we have on finding why this happened, that can help you unplug this.
Morgan: Right and so that's very important. So let's move on to the next stage.
Brad: Forgiveness and we're going to – we'll be done here shortly. The next step in this affair recovery process that we've developed is forgiveness and there's two types of forgiveness. The first type of forgiveness is important because it means letting go of all the bitterness and resentment that comes from being betrayed, that's huge.
Morgan: It is.
Brad: The second type of forgiveness is – this is also important because it allows the betrayed spouse to put his or her guard aside, allows them not to be guarded with the one who betrayed them and it allows them to let that person back in, into their heart and emotional world. It allows them to be vulnerable with them. Until forgiveness happens, an injured spouse may remain cold and distant. And in this program, for both types of forgiveness, we will walk you through the process of forgiveness, not the one-time event of forgiveness. And many times people say I've forgiven you...
Morgan: Right or you've forgiven me, why do you keep bringing this up?
Brad: Yeah, but it's a process and that's really important to know that.
Morgan: Yeah, the fact that you're even here trying, shows that you are beginning to process forgiveness.
Brad: It's already started. Someone once said forgiveness is easy until you have someone to forgive.
Morgan: Right.
Brad: Forgiveness cannot really take place until the injured spouse feels like the affair is over and the pain has stopped. You can't let somebody back in until you feel like the affair is over.
Morgan: And it is safe to open up again.
Brad: Yeah, yeah and it's safe to open up again. The spouse who is involved in the affair, they've become a source of healing and the injured spouse believes it won't happen again. And we're going to discuss what forgiveness is and isn't and what is needed for forgiveness to happen more in this audio program.
Morgan: Right, which is very, very important. It's a very important stage. The next next stage is about post-traumatic growth and this would be the final stage. Once again, this is not a linear process, not every step is consecutive.
Brad: Yeah and Morgan, this is what we're working for. This is what we are building towards.
Morgan: We are building towards post-traumatic growth. And growth happens when we experience pain and loss, I mean we just naturally will grow during that. Growth is something to strive for even though not every couple achieves it. And it doesn't matter where you are in the process, you can get there. Not every couple who experiences infidelity achieves growth because it is a process and this process requires time and resilience. And some couples give up too soon which we don't like seeing.
Now there are five general areas of post-traumatic growth; change in outside relationships, experiencing close relationships with others. A part of this could be an increase in connection to others who suffer. Those also or this also means a deeper connection with your spouse. The marriage is better than it was before in this first general area of post-traumatic growth. The second is deepening one's relationship with God. Sometimes when someone experiences a deepening in their spiritual life, this means a change in their belief system, so they are growing. Third, increased sense in one's own abilities and strengths to overcome future obstacles. Commonly, people who experience post-traumatic growth will say if I live through that, I can handle anything. It's resilience.
Brad: It's a new like you mentioned, just a new confidence that's there.
Morgan: Yeah, the fourth is greater appreciation for life in general. And the fifth, an awareness that life is not over and indeed, there are new opportunities or possibilities that life has in store for you. So post-traumatic growth...
Brad: And Morgan that is important because this post-traumatic growth isn't just for the one who has been betrayed, it's for the one who had the affair. It's for both of you as individuals and it's for your marriage. Experiencing post-traumatic growth doesn't mean you'll never lose the scars from the affair, it just means your life has been profoundly better because it happened and that's important. Your life has been profoundly better because this happened to you and that's what this audio program is designed to do, is to help you get to that place.
Morgan: Right where your relationship is better than it ever has before.
Brad: And you are a better person and your life is better because this happened.
Morgan: Absolutely.
Brad: And that is possible no matter where you are at in this process. I just want to say this because we are going to be done in a second, I had a couple I worked with for several weeks and I'm usually very optimistic working with a couple, but this particular couple I was thinking if we don't have a profound change happen in the next little bit here, they're going to be done with counseling and they are going to be done with each other and we ended up getting that. And now they are fantastic. And this is a couple that had me even worried about their progress and I'm super optimistic when working with couples that they can make it work, work through this and this was one that had me thinking oh man, this couple is in trouble. And what I'm trying to say this, no matter where you are at in this process – and this was a guy that lied to his wife numerous times and had more than one affair, had multiple affairs and I was their second counselor, they didn't get anywhere else with their first counselor. You can make it, you can do this. And so, no matter where you are at, you guys can turn this around. You can reach post-traumatic growth and have a better marriage and be a better person than you were before.
Morgan: No matter how bad you feel about it, no matter how desperate the situation seems, you can turn this around. You are showing up, you are trying and you are doing your very best. There is hope. So with that, have a wonderful week. We will talk to you soon.
