Audio Transcript:
Welcome to Healing Broken Trust podcast. I'm Morgan Robinson.
And I am Brad Robinson.
And we are excited to bring another episode to you. I know it's been a while. A lot has happened since our last episode. One of the biggest things that is happening is we are expecting our second child in two weeks.
Yes, yes.
So, we are super pumped. We have a little girl on the way. So, we're sorry that it's been such a long time, but we have some really great content for you today.
But before we jump into the content, I want to share with you, many of you have reached out asking about the free tools that go along with this podcast, and we still have those tools available to you, I've just relocated them. If you go to join.smartcouplesacademy.com, you'll see the Healing Broken Trust quick start guide there, and when you click on it, if you want the whole thing, yes, there is a fee. But if you want the free downloads, just click preview next to each of the episodes. And when you click preview, you'll be able to download the free content that is associated with each episode.
So, click preview.
Yeah, so click preview. Preview should actually say download, but it doesn't. It's just the way the program is. You have to click preview, and that's where your free content is. But Brad, you have some great things to say about why, right?
Yeah.
Can you tell us about that?
Well, I guess before we get into this, it's good to be back.
Yes.
It's good to be talking with you guys.
Yeah.
I'm a little nervous, because we haven't recorded an episode in a while. In fact, we did record one five or six weeks ago, and I said, no, that's not good enough.
Right.
We've had other episodes where I'm like, nah, let's not do them. And so, let's not put that up there. No, but I've got a lot of things I want to talk to you guys about, and we're gonna try to come to you guys hopefully once a month. I know I've said things before like, "Hey, we're gonna-"
Yeah, we try, but then we get pregnant-
Well yeah, we're pregnant and we're exhausted. Our son had ... we had to travel a lot for seeing a specialist for him.
That's right. Yeah, he had to have surgery, so we had to take some time away.
Yeah, and of course working on the book, working on other things, working on our practice, meeting you guys in person, working with you virtually. It's really been awesome. Honestly, you guys are great. Very flattering to meet you.
So what we're talking about today, I think this is really interesting. I'm interested by this, so I hope you guys like it.
Okay, Morgan, as we get into this, there are four main points that I want to get into, and the first is no explanation for why the affair occurred can satisfy the newly traumatized person. One of the frequent questions that people have after an affair is why did you do this. You know, why, why, why?
Right.
That's a very common, that's a very standard question. It's unusual if nobody ever asks that. However, when a person is traumatized, they're in a state of shock, a state of disbelief, and there's really no explanation that can satisfy the hurt, especially when it's fresh.
That's right. Early in the trauma when they just discovered it.
Yeah, when they just discovered it. However, obviously that can linger. It may go on for months. It may even go on for a couple years. So, there's a lot of factors that go into people's ability to believe the why, accept the why, and it's primarily about feeling secure.
So that kind of goes into number two, though. So, enough healing has to take place for people to understand why. So there has to be enough individual healing. You know, maybe I need to see a trauma therapist who can help me with the trauma. Maybe I need to see somebody who does EMDR. And I say maybe. Really, I strongly believe and think everybody needs to see an individual therapist who specializes in EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or another trauma method. EMDR is a very common, it's very easy to find a therapist who uses EMDR who takes insurance. It's very easy to find somebody who specializes in that who can be helpful.
But a lot of people, there's other methods that people can use. But EMDR is-
The one that we trust.
Yeah, well, yeah. There's good research behind it, it's proven to be effective, and you're very likely to find somebody in your neck of the woods. But talk therapy alone is not enough. You want to go somebody who's marriage friendly. Because when you go and you talk about your marriage, you're obviously going to be talking about a very terrible event that occurred. You're also going to be talking about other events that have occurred in your marriage, in the negative cycle. We describe our spouse in the negative cycle. We don't describe them ... We're going there to solve problems, so we're going to talk about problems. We're not giving necessarily a full picture of our whole relationship or our whole marriage.
So sometimes therapists can come away thinking like oh my gosh, you're married to-
A narcissist.
... you're married to a narcissist. You're married to Dr. Evil. You're married to the worst ... So they may unknowingly give you unhelpful advice-
Right, one-sided, biased advice-
Yeah, without the full picture. So you want to go to somebody who's marriage friendly, and they may have experience in marriage counseling themselves. And let them know when you go, hey, I'm here not to ... I'm just here to work through this trauma. I've decided I want to stay married. That's where I'm at right now, if that's where you're at, and then let them know. They'll respect your boundaries, what you want.
But we had an incident happen where there was a therapist we were referring people to, and around all at the same time, I had a few people that were seeing this person. And at the same time, this therapist was telling every single one of them, like what are you doing staying married? It's like, I quickly quit referring people to that, and they all let me know what was going on, what was happening.
And so you want somebody who's marriage friendly, who wants you to be successful. And it's always wise to say this is why I'm going to couples therapy. But enough healing has to take place for people to understand the why. We're in that state of shock, we're in that state of disbelief. That's a very early stage of trauma, but when enough healing does not take place, people struggle with that.
Yeah, they can't quite understand why, like the explanations for why you did what you did, or what happened. It's almost like it's just too much for their mind to wrap itself around.
Yeah, absolutely. And here's the other kicker, is it's a both/and proposition. I as an individual who's been betrayed and traumatized need to see someone to help me work through this, through the trauma. Just because I no longer have PTSD symptoms, doesn't mean I automatically trust you.
Right.
It doesn't automatically mean our communication's improved. It can help some of those things. It can help us heal. And maybe in a way it does help our communication, because sometimes communication suffers because there's so much emotional intensity involved, and trauma keeps us emotionally intense most of the time. It obviously depends on the person, but-
So the first one again was-
No explanation can satisfy the newly traumatized person.
Right, 'cause they're stuck in kind of this trauma state. And then the second one-
Enough healing has to take place for people to understand why.
Okay.
Let me say this though about ... 'cause I was saying it's a both/and.
Yes.
So, the individual who's been betrayed really needs to see a trauma specialist. The other is the one who's been betrayed needs to see in the betrayer their genuineness, their authenticity. Often that's described in affair recovery lingo as transparency. I need you to be honest with me. Part of what they're saying is I need to see your emotional authenticity, your emotional genuineness. I need you to let me behind your wall.
And that sounds really counterproductive for the one who had the affair, 'cause it's like, no, I need to be here for you right now. And plus, it's also a foreign experience for them. Like, I need to be here for you right now, meaning I've hurt you, I don't need to add anything to your plate. They think when they're vulnerable and letting their spouse behind their wall that they're adding to their plate.
They're actually ... sometimes they'll say I don't want to make it worse-
Giving you burdens. Yeah, I don't want to make it worse. I don't want to give you my stress or my burdens. But that's also why, how they can heal. That's a big part of why people get stuck is when you start coming to me with your burdens and you start confiding in me in your burdens, you had the affair, you cheated on me, but when you let me be your rock, I begin to feel special and loved and needed.
Yeah, and I can see how that is, but I can also see how it would be like you're taking the mystery away, because probably originally the person who had the affair is more of a mystery. You're like, oh my gosh, I thought I knew you and I don't know you now. And so if they can be authentic or transparent, meaning they're starting to talk and be more open and vulnerable, then they are probably less scary in that sense.
So yeah, you're kind of the rock, but-
Yeah, you're more predictable to them.
Yeah, predictability.
The mystery is taken away. You're more predictable to them, and most people who've had an affair would say, "Yes, I need to be your rock. I need to let you come to me. I need to help you heal from this. I need to be there," that kind of thing.
However, when you as the one who had the affair begin to go to your spouse as your rock and confide in them and share in them, that will help your spouse heal in a huge way.
It builds trust both ways I think too.
Oh yeah. Oh, of course. Yeah, it goes both ways. But when you start confiding in your spouse, and you start-
And they can let it in.
Yeah, and they let it in, but you start confiding in them, sharing with them, here's what I'm really feeling, here's my fears, here's what holds me back, here's my emotional nakedness, things like that. You start letting them in and you talk about your need for reassurance and your need to be understood. You can do that, and you're vulnerable when you do it. And you don't have a frustrated tone of voice, but you're being vulnerable. They're gonna really start feeling closer to you. The one who's betrayed is gonna feel closer to you, and they're gonna start seeing with the things that you say, your reasons why, in a new light. Things are going to start clicking for them.
And that's actually going to calm that amygdala. It's going to make them feel less traumatized so that they can start to understand the why better, that they can let the explanations in better, because you're doing that by-
Yeah, that's a good point, Morgan. It's gonna calm that part of the brain, that amygdala is that fight or flight part of the brain. It's gonna calm that because we feel secure. Part of what people are wondering is is like, am I replaceable? Am I enough? Am I good enough? You cheated on me, clearly I'm not good enough. Clearly I am replaceable.
But when you start going to them and sharing with them, what develops is feelings of security, feelings of safety. One of the best tools that people have who've been betrayed, to protect themselves, is questions. It keeps the guard up. It keeps their wall up. So the more questions they ask, it's almost like they're using that questioning in questions and why, they're using that as a way to protect themself. But when you come to them and you confide in them and you share what they think happened in the affair ... You know, like, 'cause what they're thinking happened in the affair is like, oh my goodness, this person, you just shared your guts with them. You talked about all this stuff. Sometimes that happens in affairs, but a lot of times it doesn't.
But you know, when you come and talk to me and you confide in me, I don't feel as ... I feel loved, I feel secure. You know what, I'm finding myself being able to start putting this behind me. And when that happens, I'm no longer asking these questions, because I feel that security. And really what my questions are trying to do is yes, understand it, but in even a bigger picture than that, is I'm trying to feel secure, I'm trying to feel safe. And when I know you want me and desire me, and you're letting me be your rock, I can begin to relax. And that's a key word. I can begin to relax, and I don't need my defenses anymore.
That's right.
And that primary defense again is the questioning. And so that ties into number three. Or actually, number three ... yeah, it ties into number three. I'm looking at my notes. So, the frequency of the pain that a person has after being betrayed leads to the frequency of the questions. So, the degree that a person's hurting is often the degree that they're gonna be asking questions and want to know why.
Right.
But as they feel safe, as they feel secure, that emotional intensity's gonna lessen, they're gonna feel like they can start trusting again. And part of how you do that is you lean into the marriage. You start showing your spouse that you're willing to do whatever it takes.
So that level of pain correlates directly with the number of questions?
I would say so, yes.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Yeah, and obviously there's going to be exceptions to that. In fact, I had somebody just say that recently, and I was like, you know what, that's true. I've noticed that. And so when there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of questions.
Yes.
And when there's not as much pain, the questions tend to drop off. Avoiders who have been cheated on typically ... you know, everybody has questions, but they're going to have less questions, because they're better able to compartmentalize, and so they're not going to be having a gazillion questions.
Right, so they kind of shut off that self analysis side of their mind, so they're not really-
They're just better at like getting distracted and keeping their mind off of it.
Yeah.
And that's really how you avoid, is you get distracted, basically. So, three is the frequency of the pain often leads to the frequency of the questions that are ... the number of questions being asked.
And so, EMDR can help. EMDR's not enough though. But having a strong bond where I feel like I'm being your rock, that helps diminish that pain, because it increases my feelings of security. Again, I would say you need to do both. You need to see an individual therapist for trauma, and you need to really work through the ... work as a couple on your relationship. Couples coaching, you know, we do coaching obviously. We've worked with a lot of you guys. We have a counseling practice. Marriage counseling helps recreate trust, communication, deepen the bond, repair the bond. But people still need that additional work.
And you know, often the one who had the affair needs to do some work as well. But I would not wait to start marriage counseling or coaching after you've completed individual therapy.
Oh gosh.
That is-
That's a huge mistake.
Yeah, that's a huge mistake. It's a ridiculous idea.
'Cause people will say, "Well, if you just go and fix that, then we'll get to the relationship." Or they'll say, "Oh if you just fix yourself, then the relationship will get better." But it's not-
Well, here's-
... the full picture.
Yeah, it's a horrible idea. It's a ridiculous idea. I'm sure there are circumstances where it probably works for people, but by and large I think it's one of the worst ideas people can do.
It can be a huge mistake.
Well, you're not addressing the negative cycles.
Right.
You're not addressing the communication between a couple. You're never addressing any of these deeper fears about can I trust you, are you there for me, what do I mean to you, am I important to you? You're not working on that stuff together.
That's right.
You might be dealing with underlying causes, you might be able to deal with some of the trauma, but you're not really dealing with the work as a couple.
Yeah, the dynamic between the two of you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, some people may be so ticked off that they won't start marriage counseling right away. Then maybe it's a good idea to do individual counseling. But that happens, but by and large you need to just do marriage counseling. Even if you're ticked off at your spouse, you need to get a really good couples therapist, marriage counselor, coach, and just you gotta work on this stuff. You don't need to wait on that, 'cause that will bite you in the butt.
Okay, last point. Getting the bigger picture. Understanding the bigger picture why is often much easier than understanding the smaller picture why. What I mean by that is, I guess, let me think of a good way to say this. So, understanding the bigger picture is easier.
Like okay, yes we were in a really bad season of our marriage. I can see that. So I can understand why you did this. I get that. I get I played a role in some of this as the one who got cheated on. I can see what I did. That helps me understand the why. But usually, when there's multiple betrayals ... I need to say this. When there's multiple betrayals, more infidelity, more betrayals, it happens earlier on in a relationship, there's a lot of infidelity, things like that, understanding the why is gonna be harder for people. For sex addicts, when a spouse of a sex addict has been cheated on, because there's often so much infidelity that's occurred, for them it's really hard to understand the why. Because it's like, oh my god, you slept with how many people? You've been to how many prostitutes? You spent how much money? And it's really difficult for them because they don't feel like they have much responsibility in the matter.
And that's a topic for a different day, but they don't feel like they have much responsibility in the matter. And the more that you can see what kind of role you might have played in the climate of the marriage, what you might have contributed to it, the easier it is to heal. It's easier to see the why.
And so often people will say, well what did I do? You're not gonna hurt my feelings if you tell me what I did. Tell me what I did. I need to know why. And so, understanding the bigger picture is gonna be easier than the little picture. So, okay, why did you cheat on me? Well, maybe we didn't have sex for two years. We only had sex once in the last eight years. You know, it could be something like that. And I just wanted to feel wanted. This person came onto me and I just grew so resentful, I just gave in. It could be something like that. People can typically understand that.
I really got burned out in our relationship. I felt like we were gonna divorce anyway because you were coming home and you were seeing all these things. My job got really stressful. We lost our biggest customer and I thought we were facing bankruptcy. Because of feeling previously rejected in trying to talk to about these things, I didn't feel like I could talk to you. I felt embarrassed about how I was feeling, so I didn't go to you, I went to someone else.
People can kind of understand these bigger picture why's.
Bigger picture.
But when you get into, okay, when this happened, I already knew about the affair, but then you went and did it again. Why did you do that? Sometimes people do that, ask questions like that because they don't think their spouse is being honest. So I'm asking why.
Right, why did you text him after we did X, Y, and Z.
Yeah, why did you not end it when I asked you to end it? Or when I caught you, why didn't you end it right away?
Yeah.
Like those types of why, maybe are related to I don't feel like you're being totally honest to me. And you have to be honest in this thing.
You're not being transparent. There's something missing.
Yeah. But everything we talked about earlier, I would say helps with those things. Like, this is a new word that we haven't used in a while, proximity seeking. When you go to your mate and you seek your mate out to be your rock, and almost like to be your lighthouse, to be your harbor when you're out in the storms, they feel important to you. You may not feel like you should be doing that after an affair. Like oh gosh, I shouldn't be counting on you, I really hurt you. I can't come to you for that.
But when you do that, they feel loved, secure, they feel like they can relax. It's ultimately super important.
You're more transparent. You're less mysterious and scary.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it, Morgan. And here's the other kicker, is a lot of people ... Okay, maybe we were making love on a semi regular basis, or very frequently. Maybe we were affectionate. Maybe we did go on vacations. You know, I really struggle to see what I contributed to the affair. I'm really struggling to understand why. And so maybe we had some of these things that make a strong marriage. Maybe we were doing those in our marriage.
And so there's not a lot that you're giving me right now as somebody who's been injured that makes me feel secure in our relationship. And that idea of going to your mate, talking to them, being vulnerable, and talking about your own sadness, your own grief, approaching them, saying I'm open to talking about this affair. You're becoming the pursuer instead of a distancer in the relationship.
The one who had the affair?
Yeah, the one who had the affair becoming the pursuer, where you seek them out and you pursue them. You becoming a healer. Those kinds of things, you know, obviously increase our marriage, help our marriage, improve our marriage. But those kinds of things will provide a feeling of security in a way that when you're ... in a way that being affectionate won't.
Right. And let me say this too-
Because we had affection before. Just that's not reassuring because it still happened.
Oh, that's right. Yeah, so it doesn't actually fix, 'cause we had that before.
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Yeah, so that's really confusing or-
But you coming to me and sharing with me your vulnerability, we haven't had that.
That's right. That's different.
We never really had these heart to heart talks. We haven't done them in years.
Maybe we had sex, but we didn't necessarily have a heart to heart. It wasn't actually vulnerability. Yeah, I didn't get to know your heart. Yeah.
The other day, I've had people say, "Well if we both had an affair, how do we go about it?" You get into these stalemates I think, where sometimes it's just like, well who's gonna act first, right? Who's gonna act first? I had an affair, they had an affair, but this works for both people. Somebody is gonna need to step up, even if both people had an affair. It does apply.
Yeah, all these same things apply.
Yes.
Yeah, all these same things apply.
Yeah, I just wanted to make note of that.
Yeah, yeah. Morgan, those are basically the main ideas.
Okay, want to brief-
Yeah-
... briefly recap, just the punchlines?
Sure. Number one, just no explanation can really ultimately satisfy the newly traumatized person. There's so much shock and disbelief. We talked about trauma, but previous episodes ... Today I don't think I've mentioned PTSD symptoms. And so when somebody's traumatized, they're really dealing with PTSD symptoms.
That's right.
They're dealing with a very specific type of trauma called betrayal trauma that's very unique, that's very hurtful, deeply impacting a person. It's one of the worst wounds a person can experience. So, that's the first point.
The second point is enough healing has to take place for people to understand why.
That's right.
And the frequency of the pain leads to the frequency of the questions. You know, the frequency of the pain ... the intensity of the pain leads to greater frequency of questions. And then lastly, understanding the bigger picture why is much easier than the smaller picture why.
That's right.
Because I can see my role in why this happened, or I can understand the climate of our marriage, I can understand how your childhood influenced you, I can understand XYZ, some of these bigger picture things. But when I start asking more okay, why did you continue the affair after I found out? Those things can be more hurtful.
Right. Why did you text her after we had sex, or something like that.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Stuff like that.
Yeah, those are going to be harder to get to, but you can still figure them out. But everything we talked about on helping alleviate the why still applies to those things.
That's right.
And we are gonna try to do this next month, so we will see you guys, we will hear from you guys soon.
Or you'll hear from us too.
Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Maybe I was confused in what I was saying.
But even if you do want us to hear from you, you can give us a call. We are an actual physical location, and you can actually speak at least to Brad, you just need to call and make an appointment. And if you'd like to do that, you can learn more about how to do that at HealingBrokenTrust.com. Our number's there, but it's 918-281-6060 if you'd like information on how to get extra help. All right?
Yeah, thank you guys.
Have a good night, day, or anywhere in between. We'll talk to you later.
Want extra help? Now you have several options to choose from. Work with me personally through one on one coaching from anywhere in the world, or self-paced programs that we have available online. Go to HealingBrokenTrust.com for immediate access. Even if you're healing alone, we have something for you.
