Brad:
And really what's happening, and this is something that needs to be really understood by everybody listening is a fair recovery is really trauma recovery. And what I mean by trauma recovery is when people experience betrayal, what they are experiencing many times is symptoms of depression, but also symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
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 are wanting to save your relationship after infidelity, this is the podcast for you. And we're officially on podcast number 15 where we're talking about trauma. And specifically with this question of am I experiencing trauma? What does it look like? I'll tell you what, it'll be a really good idea to go back to episode one and revisit the seven stages of a fair recovery process that we talk about in episode one to really prepare you for this episode. But one thing you can do and that I recommend doing is also going to healing broken trust.com/episode 15. That's the number 15 to download your free resources. They're really going to help you through this process, really help you to understand where you are. Are you experiencing trauma? What does it look like? How does it play out in real life and every day situations? And so again, that's healing Broken trust.com/episode 15. Download those resources and let's get started.
And we've been talking about the stages of recovery, so do you want to remind the listeners about the stages of a fair
Brad:
Recovery? Yeah, just a quick recap. The stages of a fair recovery, there's the moment of discovery. In that moment of discovery, there's ambiguity, uncertainty. If we want to continue on, there's trauma. That's what we're going to talk about today, meaning trying to understand why this happened, what's going on, and then ultimately forgiveness. And simultaneously what's going on is there needs to be care, caring behavior, compassion that is expressed between both spouses, the betrayer and the injured spouse.
Morgan:
Yeah, and the whole process, it's not linear, correct?
Brad:
No,
Morgan:
It's kind of circular. Sometimes you'll come in the discovery, you'll start right at the discovery process and you might move through it quicker or move to bounce around to the
Brad:
Different, yeah, you kind of move around. So it's not a linear process, but it is a process that people can work through. And the most important ingredient is really carrying and compassion. It needs to be there for both people to be able to recover from this. We had an email. Do you want to go ahead and jump into that?
Morgan:
Sure. Let's talk about the email. We have a question from a listener, and here it is. I learned about my wife's affair with her coworker two months ago. She has since stopped seeing this person and is trying to help me heal, but I still can't seem to stop thinking about her with him. I feel obsessed with knowing what happened. My wife is becoming tired of answering the same questions over and over, and I feel worried that she will leave me just because my obsession with knowing what's happened. I feel like I'm going crazy. Why do I feel this way?
Brad:
Well, I'm glad that person emailed because that's what we're talking about today, that question. Am I crazy? What's wrong with me? How come I can't get over this? That is a very, very important question. And really what's happening, and this is something that needs to be really understood by everybody listening is a fair recovery is really trauma recovery. And what I mean by trauma recovery is when people experience betrayal, what they are experiencing many times is symptoms of depression, but also symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. And I'm not diagnosing anybody with anything. I'm just saying this is generally what happens. Very large number of people are experiencing obsessive thoughts, rage, nightmares, anxiety, the inability to sleep, all these different things that they're experiencing, and it makes 'em feel nuts. They can't quit thinking about it no matter how hard they try to move on. Can't. Nobody's crazy when they're experiencing these things after a betrayal. Very normal. And both people need to understand this. The betrayer needs to understand this. One of the things that happens in a fair recovery is the spouse who's been betrayed is very obsessed about this, and so they want to talk about it. Talking about it for them helps 'em find relief, helps 'em understand it. It helps them begin to piece the puzzle together and they actually find relief.
And the betrayer feels like, gosh, talking about this is I'm only hurting you more. Why do you want to know about all this, yada, yada, yada? I'm only hurting you. But for the injured spouse, it's actually the only relief they find from it are some of the only relief. One of the things that's real important about this that people need to understand is people who've been betrayed are not crazy. You're not crazy. It's very normal. When I experienced betrayal, I experienced a lot of the same things that we're going to talk about today. In a sense, it's very predictable. Even for a lot of people, an affair is the most devastating experience that they'll have. I had a guy that was in Iraq say he would rather be shot at again in Iraq than to experience his wife cheating on him again. Wow, that's
Morgan:
Strong.
Brad:
But here's the catch with this. And I've had somebody else say, I would rather I've had a woman say that her husband's affair was worse than losing a child. And those are very strong statements that are made and not everybody feels those ways would say the same thing those people said, but this pain ranks up there with the death of a spouse, parent, a child. Some people have even said it's worse. And some of you that are listening to this who've experienced this, know what I'm talking about. The betrayer doesn't understand this. They just want it to be over quickly and it's not over quickly, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done. People can heal from it though I'm not saying you can't, but it just takes time. The first 90 days is the longest period of time, but people can't heal from it.
Morgan:
Yeah, the first 90 days is the most difficult, where the pain is raw and it's just so fresh and so many questions need to be answered. Yeah,
Brad:
It's really the crisis period. And that's usually when the symptoms of PTSD are at their highest.
Morgan:
So we were talking about trauma. How long does it take to recover from trauma?
Brad:
Well, it's dependent upon different factors, but the average couple, if everything goes right, it's about two years. There are some things that hinder people from recovering the way they need. And I just kind of want to go over this real quick.
Morgan:
Let me ask you real quick, by saying two years to recover, do you mean they need to be in counseling for two years or does that mean
Brad:
No, usually to be honest, and this is what couples need to understand is usually couples do really, really well in marriage counseling. It's actually quite rare for couples who come in because of an affair not to do well, usually if they're there, they both want it to work, they want to work through it, they just don't know how. It's extremely confusing. It is a nightmare. It's a rollercoaster. They don't know how they think they're crazy. The person who had the affair, what's wrong with them? What's wrong with me? Why did I do this? So it's kind of a myth that you're doomed. So most people actually do better than other couples that come into marriage counseling, believe it or not. But the trauma aspect of this is what takes a while to heal because it's that fundamental trust, that foundation of the relationship and it's been damaged. And so some of the things that can hinder that make this a longer process, I'll go over this real quick. There are a few primary ideas. The first is they live in a fantasy. They feel the fantasy of being in love with the affair partner. The fantasy they had with the affair partner was one that didn't have the baggage of a long-term committed relationship.
Morgan:
That's something you typically term as limerence, correct?
Brad:
Yeah. I'd call that limerence. And limerence is basically a feeling of romantic love. The best way to describe it is you're really addicted to somebody else. You're obsessed with that person. It's really commonly called the first stage of falling in love that people have when they're dating. All you can do is think about them. And so that's when people have an affair. That's sometimes what's happened, and this is where people actually leave their spouse to be with the affair partner. They're experiencing limerence that's really matured and fully grown.
Morgan:
And you typically say that when they leave their spouse for that person, that's when the fantasy kind of bubble is burst
Brad:
Typically? Yeah, yeah. Usually people who leave their spouse to be with that other person, they have the highest divorce rates when they marry their affair partner because the fantasy's over.
So the first thing is the person still feels the fantasy of being in love with the affair partner. They don't have the baggage because it's so new. It's so fresh. They're not experiencing the day-to-day responsibilities or the day-to-day realities of a long-term relationship. There's no baggage. The betrayer is free to focus solely on the relationship with the affair partner. A common example of this, it's not just limited to people like this, but you see this especially with people who have young children, especially dads at home. If you got a dad, the mom is staying at home, taking care of the kids. Dad may feel ignored when he's at home. There's noise, there's crying. It feels like he doesn't have any time to himself, but when he is with his affair partner, he feels like he can be himself and not have any of the responsibilities of raising a family. His affair will be an escape from reality, a fantasy he can be engaged in,
Morgan:
Engaged with that person, or maybe it lacked engagement with their spouse.
Brad:
And so when he's with his wife, there's financial struggles. Maybe he feels left out because children are getting more attention and with his affair partner, he feels like he did when he was a younger man free from the responsibilities of raising a family and basically he's living in a fantasy world. This is totally fantasy.
Morgan:
So we're talking about what hinders the trauma recovery process, and you've talked about limerence. What else
Brad:
Hinders that? One of the things that's important to know with this is something that for most couples, I would say nine out of 10 who are dealing with an affair, maybe eight out of 10. It's a very predictable process. This is what you got to do. I wouldn't say it's necessarily paint by the numbers, but you can really see great success. And so it's really just lack of knowledge. If you don't know what you're doing, if you listen to the girls at the getting your at the salon or the guys at the gym or whoever, it's really going to hurt you bad. Even in really listening to people who, and not even people like that, but just people who don't even know what they're talking about
Morgan:
And aren't pro your relationship.
Brad:
You need people who are your marriage who want you guys to make it, want your relationship to make it. You need that kind of help. But one of the things, and this is so important, I want to really highlight this. The greatest predictor in overcoming trauma is having somebody there for you to help you through it. There's no better person to help you through this than the person who's had the affair. Now, the injured spouse will tell you, yeah, I know that's true, but the betrayer, what you need to know as the betrayer is you are the best person to help your spouse heal your love, your care, your attention, your honesty about what's happened is really what your spouse needs to begin to heal. If they feel like they have that from you, you guys are going to be okay. If your spouse feels like you're not being honest, the odds aren't too good.
So they really need to feel like you're on their side, that you're trying to be there for them. One of the things that keeps people from being the healer and that really keeps people stuck in the trauma is while they were having the affair, the betrayer was living in a fantasy. Like we said earlier, they're living in a fantasy world, but what's happened is they're creating an unfair picture of their spouse. So they're with this affair partner, my God, this is amazing on cloud nine, they're in love, they're happy, they're no responsibilities, no realities in the picture yet. And so they're looking at their spouse and they're comparing their fair partner with their spouse and they're thinking, gosh, look at all these negative qualities that my spouse has all this, all that. It's really an unfair comparison. So in my experience, it does take time for involved spouses to let their feelings about the affair partner fade from their mind. But once they do, the faults of the fair partner usually outweigh the faults of the spouse. The longer a betrayer is ambivalent about being the healer his or her spouse needs, the more the injured spouse's insecurities in craziness will only increase craziness. But if the betrayer meets the betrayed spouse with compassion, it will help him or her to regain their composure back again.
Morgan:
And really that's a lot of patience because they will ask the same questions over and over
Brad:
Ist
Morgan:
That correct?
Brad:
Yeah.
Morgan:
Usually until they can really process the answer that you're giving and really process the information for themselves until they can start really fully understanding. Is that
Brad:
Correct? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. The idea with this is is that our greatest predictor in overcoming any trauma is having somebody there. For us, what's so necessary about affair recovery is we need the person who had the affair to turn around and say, I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to try to do whatever it takes. I'm going to be here. I'm going to have compassion. I'm going to be patient. I'm going to answer these questions. I'm going to be honest. When we have that, we're going to be okay. And we are really not recovering from trauma until we have that
Morgan:
Brad. People, they often feel very hopeless and you're giving them a lot of hope. So we're talking about hope and the recovery process and trauma. Tell us what they need to know about the rest of the recovering from trauma.
Brad:
Now, this is the single most important idea I want our listeners to get today is the greatest predictor of success in overcoming any kind of trauma isn't what the trauma is per se. It's not being shot at in Iraq. It's not going over a roadside bomb. It's not experiencing war, it's not being sexually abused. And PTSD basically means a deep personal wound. So that could be sexual abuse, it could be experiencing a riot
Morgan:
In
Brad:
A third world country. It could be anything that's a deep personal wound. The greatest predictor of this though is having somebody there for us that we can call upon for support. Having somebody that we can turn to and in a fair recovery, having the betrayer be there for you, turning towards you saying, yeah, I'm going to do whatever it takes. That's what helps people heal. So it's not really what came before necessarily. Not every affair is equal. There is a lot of pain. If we have that ingredient, we're going to be okay, and that's really the major thing that we need is betrayer to become
Morgan:
The healer,
Brad:
To become the healer, and we can overcome this trauma. That takes time though, even when they're really there though, I don't want people listening to say, gosh, we'd be so much further along if they only just did this or just did that. You want to be really careful as the injured spouse, not to police the betrayer in the sense of being critical, condemning, nagging, blaming. You want to be very careful not to do any of those things
Morgan:
Because you want to encourage them to be the healer.
Brad:
Yeah, you want 'em to encourage to be the healer because what they're thinking is, gosh, this person's such a drag. They're nagging.
Morgan:
Maybe I'm doing more harm than good by talking about this,
Brad:
And so it's kind of a catch 22, and so you want to be really careful. Let them know you appreciate everything that you're receiving, that you're getting, and you're only going to get more when you do that. So you want to be really careful, but you want to help them be educated on everything,
Morgan:
And that's really hard because in the moment of that pain and everything, it's very easy to say, gosh, they don't deserve any praise because they've been so horrible to me.
Brad:
And that's true. People feel like that and they feel like they usually early on in the process, early on in the process, I don't want to give a definite time, but definitely within the first three months, usually that's when they feel that way. The other thing is this is what can hinder people from being the healer, and I see this a lot. In fact, I see this more than the first two that we talked about. Still being caught up in the fantasy element is really the betrayer feels a lot of shame. They feel really stupid about having an affair and just the fact that they feel stupid or shame or guilty about this and there's a certain level of guilt that's healthy, but when it turns into shame, I'm a bad person, I'm stupid. All this stuff keeps you self-consumed about the affair. It keeps you focused on yourself because you
Morgan:
Feel you have to do something to fix yourself first.
Brad:
Yeah, you think of that, but you also feel so bad that and you see your spouse hurting them and in a sense kind of bleeding to death and you're the one who pulled the trigger. It really keeps you from being there for them the way that you need to be.
Morgan:
And I've heard you talk about it. It's like this guilt, shame, depression cycle where you just go into this deep depression sometimes where like you're saying, very self-consumed and absorbed and thinking, gosh, I did this horrible thing. There's no way out, there's no hope. And you just kind of fall into this depression.
Brad:
You fall into this depression and it really keeps you from being there for your spouse,
Morgan:
The healer that you need to be.
Brad:
And usually when people are like this, they don't like expressing their shame, their guilt, they don't like sharing these things, and you really need to express those things to the spouse that you betrayed. You need to open up emotionally. You need to share things with them. You need to let them know that you're really sorry. In fact, one of the things that can really help you be a healer is just tears, just conviction. I'm really sorry about this. I'm sad about this. And just tears can really letting your spouse know how eaten up by this you really
Morgan:
Are. We're talking about the things that hinder the healing process when it comes to trauma. We have one that betrayed their spouse. What keeps them from becoming the healer, Brad?
Brad:
Well, really lack of knowledge about the process. Sometimes there's still feelings for their affair partner and also their own guilt and shame about what they've committed. They really feel devastated by that. The other thing, we only have a few minutes left, so I want to go over something I mentioned last week. We talked about ambiguity. I want to be clear on this. This is something I wanted to discuss. The period of uncertainty. I really discouraged people from separating when they're trying to work out the marriage, people who separate to try to work on the marriage. There has been some research that's shown that there's only a 13% chance of actually reconciling after people do a trial separation, and that's because they get a newfound sense of independence, family and friends, a knowingly encourage divorce, that kind of thing. They say things, I'll just be happy. Whatever makes you happy. There is a time when separation is a good idea and that's when there's the threat of physical violence. I want that to be clear that I'm not totally against the idea of separation. I am in most cases, but I do make an exception for the threat. A physical violence. If your life is in danger or if you're getting beat up and you're finding that this isn't productive, then it's a good idea to work on this from a distance and separate
Morgan:
And it's never productive to be beat up, that's for sure. No,
Brad:
Not at all.
Morgan:
Let me just ask, how do you recognize the symptoms of trauma?
Brad:
Okay. Some of the common feelings, reactions that people have is there's intrusive memories about the affair. Feeling like their mind can't control the onslaught of questions that they're having about the affair. There's flashbacks or what I mean by that is reliving the discovery of the affair and feeling like they did the first time they heard about the affair. There's nightmares about it, trying to avoid thinking or talking about the affair, feeling emotionally numb, avoiding activities that were once enjoyed, hopelessness about the future, having problems with memory, trouble concentrating, difficulty maintaining close relationships, rage, irritability or anger, overwhelming guilt or shame, self-destructive behavior such as drinking too much, maybe even using drugs, trouble sleeping, being easily startled or frightened, hearing or seeing things that aren't there. Experiencing amnesia, forgetting all of the affair or parts of it, feeling like the affair did not really happen, as if it were a dream or covered by fog, feeling like they're outside observers, like they're watching this happen to someone else.
Morgan:
It's shock
Brad:
And of course an anxiety. So those are the symptoms and really it's a deep personal wound that people experience and the major thing to heal from this is, and we're going to get into this, it's finding meaning and it's really just understanding why this happened. Once you feel like you can understand it, then your mind can rest. You no longer need to wrestle with it and have the obsessiveness. And next time we meet, what we're going to talk about is we're going to get into a little bit more in depth on what happens to our mind, how the mind works and how really when we experience deep personal wounds like this and experience symptoms of PTSD, we will experience what is called almost in a sense disassociation, where a mind and memories kind of just separate or shatter into different pieces, and this is why people will have flashbacks, just reminders that pop out of nowhere. It means there's unresolved business. We have unfinished business that needs to be dealt with so we can heal, and then when we are completely healed from this, we will no longer have some of the disassociated features of this
Morgan:
Or the going back and returning and hashing it over, and you can kind of return to reality again and not be so zombie-like be back to the real world again and able to
Brad:
Relate. We're also talk about how you're recovering from the affair. That's good. We're talking about that too. 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.
