Ep 4: How To Fall Out Of Love With The Affair Partner
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 14: Romantic Love After Infidelity: Is It Possible To Have Romance Again? How Should We Handle Romance After They Cheated? Ways To Get The Romance Back.
Brad:
There's literally hundreds of things, thousands of things that you can do. It's just changing up the routine, doing new and different things. Obviously having children, they're great blessing, but don't let children and not having a babysitter keep you from doing new and exciting things and spicing up the romance that you guys have.
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 fair recovery expert. If you're wanting to heal your marriage, this podcast is for you, and we're officially on episode number 14 where we're talking about how do we rekindle romantic love after infidelity, and that's a very important question. So before I move on, I want to remind you that you can go to healing broken trust.com/episode 14, that's the number 14, and download your free resources to go along with this episode. It's going to really help you in expediting your change, so go to healing Broken trust.com/episode 14. And now let's go to our radio show recording of how to rekindle romantic love.
Brad:
Morgan, I want to move on to how to rekindle romantic love when it's lost. This is kind of related to a listener question that we had, so that's why I wanted to get into this.
Morgan:
Do you want me to read the question?
Brad:
Yeah.
Morgan:
So a person wrote in and they said, I've been listening to you talk about falling out of love. I've been married to my spouse for 20 years. I would like to know how to fall back into love with my spouse.
Brad:
Okay, that's a great question. Part of this listener is really, it's doing these things that we talked about last week on the show on how to fall out of love and thank you for contacting us, but there's also, even if you're married and you're not an affair on how to develop romantic love, well, this comes from Helen Fisher, her book, why We Love came out in 2004, and she's an anthropologist who has studied the brain and she has discovered that, and it's really simple. She has discovered that when we do new, exciting and different activities with our spouse, those exciting experiences enhances feelings of attraction, and so this is very important when we do new, exciting different experiences together. New and different is the key here.
Morgan:
Interesting.
Brad:
It enhances feelings of attraction, so when you do something with your spouse, that gives you a feeling of danger, it stimulates adrenaline, as Helen Fisher pointed out, makes us feel closer and more romantic with our spouse. So doing new, exciting and different activities elevates the level of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is the chemical associated with romantic love, and research has pointed out that couples who do exciting general pumping activities as compared to less stimulating who do more normal activities
Morgan:
Get stuck
Brad:
In ways. Yeah, the routine, so people who do more adrenaline, exciting activities, they have increased feelings and more intense feelings of romantic love than those who just get stuck in their routines
Morgan:
And happiness. General happiness.
Brad:
Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you point that out. They have more just a general happiness, and so this can work even if you're the only one trying to work on the marriage. I had a lady come in occasionally. We see individuals who come in and we're happy with anybody who wants to work on the marriage. She was the only one that was able to, she took her husband to an exciting event and he had an affair and he was ready to leave. This helped them just spark that romantic love again and helped him to make up his mind that he wanted to stay. It doesn't have to be things that are expensive. It could be just trying a different restaurant, different part of town. It doesn't have to be things expensive,
Morgan:
Going to a new duck pond, which is something we like to do.
Brad:
Yeah, we like to go to duck ponds and feed the ducks bread in town. It's just simple. If you go to a gas station and get bread, it's four bucks. You learn that just so you know, just you know, if you go get a grocery store, it's cheaper, but it doesn't have to be expensive. When you're doing these new, exciting, different activities, it elevates the level of dopamine in your brain. Dopamine is the chemical associated with romantic love, and research is pointed out that couples who do that are happier, so this can work if you're the only one trying to work on the relationship, invite your spouse to join you in something risky and exciting. Maybe travel overnight or travel out of the country. Go bungee jumping, river rafting. Even trying a new restaurant doesn't have to be these big crazy things. Doesn't have, it doesn't have to be that at all. It could be just, let's try instead of watching tv, let's get out the board game. Doing something at the last minute, like going to a sports game or going to the movies at the last minute or swimming after the sun goes down.
Morgan:
Oh, that's fun.
Brad:
It's important to understand that anything rousing and unusual has the potential to trigger romantic love. Anything that gives you a feeling of new different that works. Anything that releases adrenaline that's exciting,
Brad:
Maybe
Brad:
A little bit dangerous, that also releases that, and that's also Morgan. Why when people are first in love, when people first meet, there's so much in love because everything's new and different and they go on dates. It's new experiences, new things that are different, and that's why also people usually when they're on vacation, they report that's probably their best times together.
Morgan:
It takes me back to our first date. It really does. Thinking about
Brad:
That,
Morgan:
Yeah,
Brad:
I remember that. It was supposed to last an hour and a half and it lasted 10 hours.
Morgan:
We
Brad:
Had a lot of fun.
Morgan:
We had a lot of random funness, so that was great,
Brad:
And so here's some other ideas. These are just ideas, just a handful. If you see something on the side of the road that's interesting, just pull off and go explore. You don't have anywhere to be, just go look at it. Going to the gun range together. Oh, that's fun. That's different and exciting.
Morgan:
Love to do that.
Brad:
Just dangerous. Swimming in the backyard at night. We talked about that, taking a last minute trip somewhere, and instead of going to a normal movie and a dinner, maybe just watching a movie in the backyard. Create your own little projector. Yeah,
Morgan:
Put a sheet
Brad:
Up. Put a sheet up. Yeah. There's literally hundreds of things, thousands of things that you can do. It's just changing up the routine, doing new and different things. Obviously having children, they're great blessing, but don't let children and not having a babysitter keep you from doing new and exciting things and spicing up the romance that you guys have.
Morgan:
Right?
Brad:
Part of this is if your spouse is falling out of love with you, let me say this, you don't necessarily have to intentionally be to fall back in love with you. What I mean is if you want them to fall in love with you, do not try to be overtly romantic.
Don't go have a candlelight dinner to music plane and try to create romance that way. Create romantic feeling, that romantic love feeling by just doing new and exciting things that it's a little bit more, it's not as in your face, it's not as obvious that you're trying to do that, but it's funner as well. So if you try to do something, you have these. It's more, I worked with a couple where the husband had fallen out of love and the wife was trying to recreate romantic love, and what this does is if you focus on, he was no longer in love with her.
Brad:
He
Brad:
Didn't want to be married to her. She was trying to get him to love her back, and so she wanted to take him to romantic dinner, and all that does is if you take somebody to romantic dinner that doesn't love you and that's wanting to leave you and you take 'em to romantic dinner, all they're thinking about is how much they don't love you anymore
Morgan:
During this
Brad:
Romantic. Yeah, it drives 'em nuts because they're thinking, I don't love this person.
Morgan:
Why are we at this romantic
Brad:
Dinner? Why are we here? I don't feel this way, and it actually pushes 'em further away. But if you do something new, different, unusual, it will help them recreate that romantic love, reconnect and reconnect. But if you try to do it more obvious like that, all they're thinking is, I don't feel this way towards you, and it actually pushes 'em further away. You take 'em somewhere that's different, new and exciting. Focus on that. Don't focus on trying to be romantic. If you focus on what's new, exciting and different, you're going to create romantic love as a
Morgan:
Byproduct.
Brad:
As a byproduct, but if you focus on getting romantic love and getting your spouse to love you back only by doing what are conventional romantic things, they're not going to love you back. In fact, and you tell 'em, you love me, do you love me back? You tell 'em things like that, you're just pushing 'em away
Morgan:
And they're going to say no.
Brad:
Yeah,
Morgan:
And that's going to work. That's going to feel worse.
Brad:
But what you're doing is you're doing kind of normal activities, normal everyday activities, so to speak, and then they're going to discover that they love you on their own and that's the best way and that's the best way. 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.