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

Brad:

An apology and a verbal commitment isn't enough.

Morgan:

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

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And that's the affair partner.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

One foot in, one foot out,

Brad:

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

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Yeah,

Morgan:

You want to start with the first one?

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

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

Morgan:

There's no

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Versus

Morgan:

I'm doing it for the kids or whatever.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Not call me ever again.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

The betrayer,

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

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

Morgan:

Work out of the office, office,

Brad:

Home office. He was able to work from

Morgan:

Home.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Flip a switch and go back,

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Yeah, go ahead, Morgan.

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So they're going to hold you to it.

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Oh, that's

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Right? What we did was wrong

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Ep 10: Why People Cheat, What Makes A Cheater?, What Leads To Infidelity? Why Did This Happen To You?

Brad:

Affairs happened when someone closes a door to their spouse and they open a door to someone else. I'm no longer communicating with you because this negative cycle has beat me up where I'm not asking for my wants and needs.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad and Morgan Robinson, where we talk about healing from affairs and fidelity trust and cheating in your relationship. If you're wanting to heal your marriage, this podcast is for you. We're on episode 10. We're talking about why do people cheat, why do they cheat? And I think that this one is pretty straightforward. But before we get started, I want to remind you to go to healing broken trust.com/episode 10. That's healing broken trust.com/episode, the number 10, episode 10, and download those free resources that will really help you to walk through this process to truly heal from what you're going through right now. So let's jump into episode 10 and learn why people cheat on our show. We've talked about the different types of affairs, but there is still this looming question of why do people cheat? So Brad, you want to begin to answer this question for our listeners?

Brad:

Yeah, Morgan, people cheat. There's three primary reasons why people cheat. The first two are not that common, and the third is extremely common. The first reason is sometimes people cheat because they're sex addicts. They have a compulsive tendency to act out. And like all addictions, it's negative impact on the addict and on family members increases as the disorder progresses. And what I mean by that, as people get deeper into this, it gets worse and worse over time. The addict usually has to intensify the addictive behavior to achieve the same results. And let me explain that. When somebody has an addiction, it doesn't satisfy what you start out doing in the beginning, typically doesn't satisfy those urges. So somebody can start with pornography and self-pleasure. A lot of people can stay there who are addicts, but most people will begin to escalate into other things where they start acting out with other people, they start going to prostitutes, they start seeing escorts, they start acting it out. And so over time, the addict will intensify their addictive behavior to achieve the same results. And that's where some affairs come from.

Morgan:

So that fantasy must then become a reality to further satisfy that addiction.

Brad:

And if you think about it, they've been basically viewing pornography. They've been viewing and breaking down mental barriers that most people have to an affair.

Brad:

They're

Brad:

Actually mentally rehearsing an affair when they're viewing pornography. Another thing that's going on is the other type of people who have affairs are the philanders. And I would say that's more an attitude than anything else. And this attitude says there may be something, this attitude of flander, they believe that cheating is okay for them to do. It's something that guys or girls do, and it's more of a rationalization. Okay, just as long as you don't get caught. Sometimes this attitude says there's no way a man or woman is supposed to be monogamous.

Morgan:

It's a myth, right?

Brad:

Yeah, it's a myth. You can't be monogamous,

Morgan:

Which is not true. It's not accurate at all. But they believe that.

Brad:

And this kind of attitude can lead to serial cheating and very flirting behavior, especially when their spouse isn't around. The attitude of the philander says there is nothing wrong with it. They may rationalize what they're doing or saying to themselves, as long as I'm not having sex with them or intercourse with them, it's okay. So kissing is okay. Spending time with them is okay. Sharing intimate parts of my life is okay because I'm not doing X, Y, or Z with them. And of course, they may even believe sex is okay too. Just don't get caught. And I've had different people tell me before that they viewed having an affair as a rite of passage. And it's something that men do as a part of growing up, as a part of maturing their certain

Morgan:

Rites of passages,

Brad:

Certain rites of passage.

Morgan:

And that's what we see in TV and movies all the time. Oh, you're a virgin. That's supposed to be some kind of bad thing.

Brad:

But there's people like that. There's attitudes that affect someone to have an affair, and we're going to get into that in a little bit later. But most individuals I work with, I would describe them as someone who's burnt out in their marriage.

Morgan:

So that's the third category.

Brad:

That's the third category.

Morgan:

Most people fit into the third

Brad:

Category, and we're going to spend most of our time talking about that. But these are people who are burnt out and there are attitudes that affect somebody having an affair. And there's those outside influences, family and friends. Have they had an affair? Have your mom and dad had an affair? If they have, you're more likely to have an affair yourself or coworkers cheating. What are coworkers attitudes about infidelity? What was your family's attitude about infidelity, your friend's attitudes about infidelity and pornography? Like we mentioned earlier, when you're viewing pornography, you are mentally rehearsing an affair. Those are outside influences that affect somebody, make it easier for somebody to cheat. Romance novels. Reading that, you're also mentally rehearsing having an affair. A lot of our entertainment, a lot of movies, a lot of different cultural things that we have, they really do not support the idea of monogamy. And they make infidelity attractive. They make it funny, they make it make it okay, a normal part

Morgan:

Of. So society is what they're telling us, which is not true

Brad:

When you're exactly right about that. So those are attitudes. Those are cultural things. Those are outside influences that make it, that can be associated with family, friends, coworkers, viewing pornography, reading, romance novels or entertainment. Even celebrity culture, it makes it easier for somebody to cheat.

I would even say even certain types of jobs make it easier for people to cheat, especially if you travel for a living, you're in certain professions where it's just easier to cheat. And so affairs really start Morgan here, and I want to get into the root of why people cheat. It really starts with the negative cycle that a couple is in. Most couples I would say are not happy if they're having an affair. The exception with that may be the philanders or the sex addicts. I would say almost everybody else, if they're in this burnt out category, they're not happily married. If they're cheating, I wouldn't classify that as a good marriage. And let me explain the negative cycles, because this is where infidelity starts. There are three kinds of negative cycles. There are the first kinds, the most common kind, and this is a negative cycle where the person who's having the affair is a distancer. They are somebody who is more withdrawn, not very emotionally expressive, typically in the relationship. They avoid. They avoid, and they may not start that way in the relationship though they may get to that place because they feel like they don't matter to their spouse.

Morgan:

They don't know how to ask for wants and needs.

Brad:

They don't know how to get. And so they may get to that point with their spouse. So they may not start that at that place of being a er. They may start at a place of being a pursuer

And a pursuer, and you can go through and listen to our recordings on that. We've talked about that before. So go listen to that. Who are pursuers and who are distancers. But pursuers are the ones who fear being abandoned, fear, rejection. They want to be close. And if they don't get it, they'll escalate their attempts for attention and connection into things like blaming, criticizing, demanding, and distancers are people who will kind of shut down emotionally. They will shut down because they don't think engaging with somebody who's upset with them is going to be that productive. And so that's where negative cycles typically start. And that's the most basic kind. And the person who cheats is a distancer. They're the one distancing from connection

Morgan:

To the relationship and their spouse, right?

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

They're more invested in the affair or other things than they are in the relationship at that point, wouldn't you say? Or is that kind of later on?

Brad:

That's later on. But that's true. But that would happen later on. They become more interested in that for right now before the affair even starts. And you can have a pursuer who becomes a distancer. You can have a pursuer who also gets burnt out because they don't feel like they're getting through and they start shutting down emotionally, and then they have their own affairs. So that's where affairs start is that you have a negative cycle. Couples get into, and we've talked about how to get out of negative cycles, we've discussed that. Go listen to that. And so that's where a fair start. Morgan and every relationship has a negative cycle. And that first one, that's the pursuer. Distancer is the most common type of negative cycle. Then there's a negative cycle where couples are basically fighting all the time.

Morgan:

So they're pursuing, pursuing attack. Attack.

Brad:

Yeah. Well, the one who's been distancing feels like they're getting attacked by the pursuer because the pursuer is like, I'm not getting through to you. So they're

Morgan:

Blaming,

Brad:

Criticizing, demanding. It escalates. Then the distancer feels like they're getting their back against the wall, so they'll attack back. But they're primarily a distancer, and so they're just attacking back,

Morgan:

Can't put baby in a corner, right?

Brad:

Yeah. And they may be getting resentful as well. And so that's the second type. Then the third type is really what I would consider a void avoid. And these can be looked at as two different types of situations, but basically what they do is they avoid each other and they can avoid each other. They don't like conflict, they don't like stirring things up. And that can be both of them. So the pursuer, even though they want that connection, they're not really criticizing or blaming because they don't like conflict. So they're stuffing what their feelings are.

Morgan:

And

Brad:

Then the er, they're stuffing what their feelings are and what's going on with them.

Morgan:

And sometimes they think, oh, everything's okay. There's no argument.

Brad:

Well, exactly. They think they're in a strong marriage. And I got to tell you, a lot of people have affairs in this kind of situation

Morgan:

Where one pushing stuffing and they're really not being honest about how they feel.

Brad:

Well, even in the avoid, avoid situation, a lot of people have affairs in that. And then the other type of avoid, avoid affair is an affair where the person who was the original pursuer gets burned out, like I mentioned a moment ago, and they're avoiding, they're distancing, and you have the ER as well. And sometimes the one who was the original pursuer, like I said, they'll get burned out and they'll distance. Then the one who was the original ER will see, oh my gosh, they're pulling away from me. I don't like this much distance between us. Then they can become the pursuer.

Morgan:

So they sort of switch roles.

Brad:

Yeah, they'll switch roles. But basically I'm saying all that to say, well not spend a lot of time on that just to say this. That's where fares start. They start with a negative cycle because a couple does not feel close and people can say they have a good marriage and still have an affair. And I would say for the most part, that's probably hogwash unless there was a sex addiction affair or a flander is affair. And the people who are most likely to say that were probably people who were the avoid, avoid. Well, we never fought,

Morgan:

So we must have had a good relationship, but they weren't close to each other emotionally, they just assumed all relationships were like that. Typically,

Brad:

Yeah, we're good because we don't fight. They may have good communication skills, but they're not really talking about anything

Morgan:

Of significance, of

Brad:

Significance, emotional, their relationship and their feelings. They may be great at communicating about picking up the kids and planning their retirement and things like that, but not what's going on between them as a couple,

Morgan:

That deep emotional intimacy.

Brad:

And so affairs start with the negative cycle. Morgan, this leads into a progression of things that happen. And this doesn't necessarily happen in any chronological order necessarily. These things that I'm discussing, negative cycles create the affairs. Affairs start with a negative cycle, and that leads to the person who's having the affair, who ends up having the affair, feeling like they're burned out, they're tired, they feel beat up by the negative cycle, they end up feeling like they're not good enough for their spouse and because they're tired, because they're burned out, because they're beat up by the negative cycle. They don't ask for their wants and needs.

Morgan:

And I think it's very interesting to point out that you say they're beat up by their negative cycle. A lot of people think well beat up by my spouse, but no, it's beat up by that negative cycle. It's what's happening between you that's wearing you out.

Brad:

What's happening between you that's wearing you out's that negative cycle. And so the spouse will end up not asking for wants and needs. They stop reaching out, they stop communicating. And what happens is resentment develops. Sometimes they're really angry with their spouse, just resentment develops. And that's really important because from there they start feeling alone. They start feeling sad and depressed, they start feeling numb. And what's really happening, Morgan, is they're caring less about their marriage or their relationship and their easy fruit for an affair. And so there's these different things that happen because people get beat up by the negative cycle, resentment develops, start feeling alone, start feeling sad and depressed, start feeling numb, and they're starting to care less about maintaining that marriage, maintaining that relationship and their easy fruit for an affair. And the other thing that can happen is they're closed off to their spouse emotionally and they may be seeking connection elsewhere. So sometimes people are easy fruit for somebody else to initiate with

Brad:

Them,

Brad:

But at times people could be resentful enough where they're going to go initiate with somebody else.

Morgan:

Wow.

Brad:

And so that happens as well

Morgan:

And they begin to rationalize, is that right? Rationalize this connection with a friend who is just a friend or just a

Brad:

Coworker. And Morgan, what's happening is if Affairs happened when someone closes a door to their spouse and they open a door to someone else, I'm no longer communicating with you

Because this negative cycle is beating me up or I'm not asking for my wants and needs. What happens is closing a door to their spouse and they're opening a door to someone else, and then they're going to share with them. Contact can be made with the affair partner and sometimes they've been friends with the affair partner all along. So when the betrayer gets involved or the involved spouse gets involved in the affair, it's typically somebody they've known for a while. It's generally not somebody they just met. It's not a one night stand type of thing. Typically it can be though, but they have contact with the affair partner. It's somebody that they may have known all along and the affair makes 'em feel good about themselves.

Morgan:

If there's depression, it lifts the depression.

Brad:

If they've been depressed, they've been feeling alone, they haven't felt attractive. If they haven't been having sex with their spouse and they get this attention from somebody else, they begin to feel good about themselves. They like how they feel. And Morgan talked about before in understanding why affairs happened like we've talked about before in finding meaning. The question to ask to understand why this particular affair happened is to ask how were you different? And that's generally how people feel about themselves. How did you feel about yourself? How were you different? How did you feel differently? How were you different as a person

Morgan:

While the affair was happening,

Brad:

While the affair was happening? What did you like about yourself?

Those are all things for people to consider to talk about because that's generally what's going on. And so far we have a fair start with a negative cycle that leads people to feeling burnt out, tired or feel beat up by that negative cycle. They don't feel like they're good enough for their spouse anymore in a sense. They may already feel rejected by their spouse, maybe even abandoned by their spouse. At times, people do feel that way, and that happens more often than you would think. So they no longer ask for once and needs. There's resentment there. They start feeling alone, they're sad, they're depressed, they feel numb, and then they start caring less about the marriage. Those are the things that can happen in any order that get people to start caring less about their marriage or relationship, and they're easy fruit for an affair

Brad:

To

Brad:

Be picked off or to initiate their own, and they have contact with the affair partner who may be somebody they've known all along. It may not be somebody new, and what can happen from there is they develop feelings for the affair partner or they can fall into limerence,

Morgan:

Which

Brad:

Is a romantic love, love addiction, obsessive love infatuation,

Morgan:

But it's not based on a reality.

Brad:

Yeah, that's not based on a reality,

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

It's based on a fantasy,

Morgan:

But

Brad:

Then they can develop feelings for that person and the affair will be going on. It's happening once the affair is discovered. It can make it difficult for some people to end the affair once they've been caught once they've been found out, but that's the general framework of why people have an affair. A lot of clients have discussed this with people who've been involved in an affair, and I would say the overwhelming majority of people who've cheated, have cheated because of what we talked about just a moment ago, feeling burned out or tired, beat up by the negative cycle, and they even feel beat up by the negative cycle of avoid, avoid because they don't think they matter anymore to their spouse. They feel like they're not good enough. They feel like they're not wanted anymore. They have real concerns about it, and so they go through this progression, this stage of feeling like they can't communicate, they can't share. Their spouse isn't there for them. They're no longer dependable. I can't go to them. They're going to be angry with me. They're going to be upset somehow. I don't make them happy.

Morgan:

Somehow I'll fall short or I'll fail or I won't measure up to their expectations,

Brad:

And part of this is so they go through this serious of progression, this psychology of betrayal. They'll go through the psychology of this mindset of someone who cheats. They'll develop, they'll have contact with the affair partner. The affair will start, feelings will develop for the affair partner. The affair will happen and will be happening. Then once the affair is made known,

Morgan:

Because it always will eventually,

Brad:

Yeah, typically it's more often than not, it's made known. Then Morgan, once it's made known for some people, 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? We'll keep talking about this. Thank you for listening today. Yes, have a wonderful week guys. 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@healingbrokentrust.com. Also, as long as you're online, head on over to healing broken trust.com/retreat for details on an upcoming one-on-one retreat with me. If you like us, please subscribe and leave a review for us on iTunes. As always, everything discussed on this podcast is either my opinion or Morgan's opinion and is not to be taken as relationship advice because I'm not your therapist, nor have I considered your personal situation as your therapist. This podcast is for your entertainment and education only, and I really do hope you've enjoyed it. See you Until next time.

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Yeah, those

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

So both Go ahead.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Morgan:

Yeah, you

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And

Brad:

Help them have peace of mind about leaving.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

His

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And there was healing involved

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Because

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

Story.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

One.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Mind. That's good advice,

Morgan:

Morgan.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Try not to be driving at the moment.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

How would your life be different?

Brad:

How would your children's lives be different?

Morgan:

How would your current friendships be different?

Brad:

How would you manage family events separately?

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Kind of through these negative sunglasses.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

What would you miss about your marriage?

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

What particular qualities of your partner do you value?

Morgan:

What positive qualities does your partner bring out in you?

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

But do you love your spouse?

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Are you and your spouse somewhat compatible?

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

You're

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Right? By the choices that you make.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Exactly?

Brad:

Have they cheated before?

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

Does your spouse understand your pain from this?

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Is your spouse genuinely remorseful for the affair?

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

That's important.

Morgan:

That's very important. Being honest and open.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

If you were to split for good,

Morgan:

Describe

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Those are pretty

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

You can, well, you can create intimacy.

Morgan:

True.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

To a fantasy

Brad:

To reality to fantasy.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

You're often fantasy, world fantasy land,

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Yeah, they don't experience that.

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

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

Brad:

Without,

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Brad:

Secret right

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

They're not even conscious of them.

Morgan:

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

Brad:

Yeah. Do they want children?

Morgan:

That's one.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Could they respect that person, that

Brad:

Person as a stepparent?

Morgan:

Exactly.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Exactly. Exactly. So

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Right. Considering living with that.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

What

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Brad:

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

Brad:

Exactly.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

They built their house on sand.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Absolutely. Research shows that,

Brad:

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

Brad:

Your divorce.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And to look at things objectively,

Brad:

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

Morgan:

More so than any other type of affair.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Yep. Absolutely.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

It was kind of an exit.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

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

Brad:

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

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

Morgan:

Kind of your blatant lies.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Go,

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Do I know what honesty looks like on your face?

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

It was kind of an exit.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Kind of re-engage.

Brad:

Yeah, and that has

Morgan:

Happened a lot.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

That

Brad:

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

Morgan:

And to discuss the affair.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Hopeless, really stuck in that negative cycle too.

Brad:

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

Brad:

That's

Brad:

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

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

Morgan:

About wants and needs.

Brad:

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

Morgan:

They begin to care less about the marriage.

Brad:

They begin to care less about maintaining that relationship for emotional

Morgan:

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

Brad:

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

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

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

Ep 17: Can I forget the affair and put it behind me?, Our past and this present betrayal, How do I handle the intrusive thoughts?

Speaker 1:

You'll see as people go on, and if they don't deal with the betrayal, this anger's there. And this is usually the betrayed person. If it's a woman, and I'm not being sexist, but they become more critical, if it's a guy, they become more critical. And that will be probably what ends up really hurting the marriage after. I mean, obviously the affair did, but they didn't deal with the affair when it happened. And so they may go years and then that person just has a chip on their shoulder. They're very bitter, and that bitterness, that criticalness, that anger, that angry response to things, really kind of causes the rest of the marriage to continue towards Destruction road. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

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 relationship after infidelity. This podcast is for you and we're officially on episode number 17, how to handle the Crazy Emotional Roller Coaster. It's a four-part series on trauma, and if you haven't already, go back to episode 15 and 16. Make sure to download and listen to those. It would also be helpful to listen to episode one where we talk about the seven stages of the affair recovery process so that you can really understand where this section comes in the grand scheme of things. So you can kind of put it into perspective why we're talking about trauma and why it's so important. Alright, so before I forget, let's go to healing broken trust.com/episode 17. Okay. It's important to go and download those free resources that we have for you because they're really going to help you through this process and really help you to make the most out of what you're learning in these podcasts. So go to healing broken trust.com/episode 17. That's the number 17. Download those free resources and let's get started.

We'll start today's show with a listener question. And the question is, I have been struggling with my spouse's affair for a year now. I just can't stop thinking about it and I have nightmares. I still feel like it happened yesterday. How do I know when I need to seek individual counseling?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a great question. How do you know after betrayal when you need individual counseling? I would say if you feel like you did the first month or the first two months, six months out, you need individual help. And what I mean by that is you need to get help individually. What may be happening is you may have unresolved grief or trauma from things in the past. It may be times you felt abandoned by a parent or other betrayals. Different things in the past can really keep us in a holding pattern when dealing with trauma. And it makes it harder because when people experience trauma, what happens is, is it changes how they view themselves. And so if you've experienced trauma in the past with a parent rejecting you or sexual abuse or another deep personal wound, it changes how you view yourself. And then when you have your spouse betray you or a person betray you that you're dating or married to it just reconfirms that I hear so many times from people, I never thought my spouse would cheat on me. My parents rejected me, my family wasn't there for me, but I always thought they would be there for me. And then when that happens, that just reinforces all this negative stuff that that person believes about themselves. And one of the things that limits the trauma recovery aspect of this is when you have had previous wounds and previous hurts that haven't been fully healed yet, and then you're betrayed. It really hinders the affair recovery process for that person individually.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So it sounds like this person, like you're saying, is struggling with symptoms of post-traumatic stress or PTSD. We've explained in the last show what is PTSD, but Brad, will you explain the symptoms of PTSD?

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay. Because that's something we haven't talked about really yet. There's different symptoms, there's intrusive thoughts, there's nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, there's rage, anger, irritability, and difficulty concentrating or remembering things. There's hypervigilance, there's an exaggerated startle response, there's avoidance and numbing, and that's about it. Lemme just kind of start with that first one. I said intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts can take the form of many different forms like memories, images, perceptions about other people's behavior, and they're painful and they're so painful enough that betrayed spouses will often feel like they're reliving the discovery of the affair all over again. These intrusive thoughts, incite feelings of fear and vulnerability. They will incite rage, sadness, disgust, and sometimes guilt individuals are the most vulnerable to intrusive thoughts when they're trying to relax and their guards are down. Sometimes a trigger that reminds them of the affair will start the intrusive thoughts.

Speaker 2:

We will talk about triggers here in a little bit.

Speaker 1:

There's also obsessive thoughts and obsessive thoughts are different and in obtrusive thoughts in this way, obsessive thoughts are people trying to figure it out, the story of the affair, what happened? The details in their mind is just racing, trying to put everything together. It's almost like that person's creating a mental scrapbook of the affair.

And you just know the details, you know the timeline, and the more that you can know, the better you can heal and make sense of this. And there's unanswered questions. That's something that we all do when we're betrayed and we think about it. I had obsessive thoughts about when I was betrayed, probably felt like a hundred percent of the time, but it was probably closer to 80 to 90% of the time. And then there's nightmares that's basically experiencing some form of betrayal in the nightmare. Flashbacks are visual. Re-experience can involve sensations, behaviors, emotions. They can last from seconds to hours. Sometimes when people have flashbacks that last for days that can happen. There's usually a little bit more trauma there than just the affair. And here's, this is important for people to know. Flashbacks are commonly triggered by insomnia, fatigue, stress, and drugs. Symptoms of PTSD that we've been talking about. You need to take care of yourself physically. You need to get into physical rest and make sure you're not super stressed out.

Speaker 2:

And Brad, we have a question. How do we overcome intrusive thoughts? How do we overcome that?

Speaker 1:

Well, to be honest with you, the best way that I know how is really deal with the, don't avoid the affair, really deal with it. And that may mean journaling. What I mean by journaling is writing down the story, what feelings, letters that you want to write, but you're not sending this when you journal. You're only journaling for yourself. Then the other thing is doing a technique called thought stopping, which is basically you get these thoughts in your head and you choose to deliberately dwell on something else. There's a psychological principle, we can only think about one thing at a time, and so what we do is I'm not going to, this comes into my mind. I'm going to choose not to think about it right now. I'm going to choose to think about X, Y, and Z and what you may need to do if this is where you're at in the recovery, keep a note card or note cards with predetermined thoughts on it that you want to consciously dwell upon.

It could be poetry, it could be scripture, it could be something in the news, something that keep you distracted from that. And as you go throughout your day, it will become more second nature to reject these thoughts, handle these thoughts as they come up. But you don't, let me caution you though. You don't want to stay in a place where you're constantly not thinking about the affair. There has to be a balance where as time goes on, you can't do this. In the beginning it's, it's almost impossible. There has to be a balance where you, as time goes on, you're able to get some space between you and this, and you're able to control the thoughts at that time. You can kind of think about other things. It doesn't have as much control over you, but you don't want to live in total avoidance of it either. Then it's going to always be there. So you want to get to a place where you can eventually, you're dealing with it, but you have control over when you deal with it, and it's not just completely controlling your day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I remember just laying in bed and thinking and not being able to turn it off and just when

Speaker 1:

You were betrayed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just laying there and just going over and over and over and over. Just these thoughts and 3:00 AM have to get up. I can't sleep. And you go in the living room and you just write and write. I mean, I come away with 10 pages just writing, and it's sometimes random, but it's intrusive and it's very difficult to stop.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. There are other symptoms of P-T-S-D-I want to get into, and again, I'm not diagnosing anybody who's been betrayed with this, but this is a common theme and common pattern of individuals who have been betrayed. They experience symptoms of PTSD, and that's what we're talking about right now. They have difficulty sleeping. Sometimes sleep is characterized by twitching, moving. Sometimes you just wake up with nightmares. We talked about that. Then there's rage, anger, irritability. This is more evident in the form of smashing things, heated, arguing, extreme behavior, screaming intensely, criticizing others and demonstrating the lack of patience. Having unresolved anger can quickly tire someone out. This anger can be mixed with shame, frustration, betrayal, or other uncomfortable emotions that lead to moodiness and explosions of pent up anger. Speaking of anger, usually this is a very common with people who've been betrayed. It's almost like they have an undercurrent of anger just below the surface and they can kind of just snap at any minute and little things set 'em off and you'll see as people go on, and if they don't deal with the betrayal, this anger is there and this is usually the betrayed person.

If it's a woman, and I'm not being sexist, but they become more critical. If it's a guy, they become more critical and that will be probably what ends up really hurting the marriage after. I mean, obviously the affair did, but they didn't deal with the affair when it happened, and so they may go years and then that person just has a chip on their shoulder. They're very bitter, and that bitterness, that criticalness, that anger, that angry response to things, really kind of causes the rest of the marriage to continue towards

Speaker 3:

Destruction.

Speaker 1:

Then this is important for people who've been betrayed, and this can last for months afterwards, difficulty concentrating or remembering things that occurs when the injured spouse is battling for control over intrusive thoughts about the affair. You spend a lot of time trying to block this out of your mind. Then you later have difficulty remembering or concentrating.

Speaker 2:

It's really interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Another common symptom is what I would call hypervigilance. This is where the injured spouse will be on guard against intrusive memories of the affair. Usually many betrayed people or spouses are very cautious to ensure that the affair doesn't happen again. So many spouses after being betrayed are very sensitive

Speaker 2:

To

Speaker 1:

Being lied called human lie detectors. They have a way of knowing if what they're hearing about the affair makes sense to them. So some of the ways that hypervigilance is demonstrated is they feel vulnerable or fearful that the affair will happen again, and they look for ways to ensure it won't happen. They act overprotective or over controlling of the spouse who had the affair, and they really have difficulty feeling calm.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's just really, I mean, just not being able to calm down. I mean, I can imagine that that would be,

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's very hard. And just a mental picture of somebody who's been betrayed. Think of somebody who's just gotten out of prison or jail. They cannot sit still. They're jumpy. They are

Speaker 2:

Fidgety, maybe

Speaker 1:

Fidgety, always looking over their shoulder,

Speaker 2:

Worried all the

Speaker 1:

Time, worried that somebody's going to come up and maybe stab him in the back or come and attack him or

Speaker 2:

That

Speaker 1:

Kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's really interesting, something that you mentioned in their book. In the book, just a nervous system response. It's almost like it's like, oh a

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're kind of jumpy, twitchy, and part of that is actually the next symptom. It's exaggerated startle response. That's a fancy way of saying the injured spouse is very easily frightened. They have a sensitive nervous system which will overreact to thoughts about the affair.

Speaker 2:

It's what they call the nervous system override, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. This often manifests itself as jumping flinching or tensing up when someone appears suddenly.

Speaker 2:

I wonder if that's because of just in the discovery phase, it's so shocking. It's like that major shock just freaked you out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, but here's the thing. You are trying to ensure this doesn't happen again, and so you're using all your adrenaline, and that's the other thing with this exaggerated startle response. You have a sensitized nervous system and you have elevated stress hormones in the blood. You have an elevated heart rate even when you're resting, you have hyperventilation, you have tight chest or stomach, you can have lightheadedness, sweating and tingling, cold and sweaty hands, and this is all just having been betrayed. I want to unsure this doesn't happen again, and it's that fear of it happening that sends you into that exaggerated startle response.

Speaker 4:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

And so that's common. Here's the other thing, and this is also really common. There's avoidance and numbing. This is part of symptoms of betrayal because the intrusive fonts and arousal that follow an affair are so unpleasant. The injured spouse will desperately try to avoid all reminders of the affair. Sometimes they refuse to talk about it. This isn't everybody. This is something that really occurs a lot with the betrayer, but sometimes you get spouses like this, they might block out from their mind the thoughts, images or feelings surrounding the affair along with the activities, places, people or personal items that bring up that incite thoughts, that bring up these thoughts about the affair. Some injured spouses become house bound after an affair and attempts to avoid fearful encounters with those who have knowledge of the affair. Sometimes injured spouses turn to drugs or drown themselves in their work to avoid these painful feelings while others simply shut down all feelings to avoid the pain of the affair. And then others will live in a fantasy world trying to go on with their life like nothing bad has happened. If

Speaker 2:

They don't want to talk about it. How do you encourage them to talk about the affair?

Speaker 1:

Well, here's the thing. Part of affair recovery, it's trauma recovery avoidance is usually something that occurs early on during, I would say even during the shock phase. But if people don't want to talk about it, I can't make 'em talk about it. And so it's part of a affair recovery is really helping the injured spouse let go, forgive, rebuilding the marriage and the communication, the breakdown, helping the betrayer become more emotionally expressive and being able to ask for what they want to need. And so if they don't want to, and it's about 7% of the population who's been betrayed when they have been betrayed that doesn't want to talk about it. So this is a small group, but they often feel it. They often at times desire it, but there's a fear there.

Speaker 2:

If they're numbing that pain, if they're avoiding that pain, then they're also having to numb and stop feeling even the good feelings. So all of those things are tied together. But do we want to go ahead and talk about the triggers?

Speaker 1:

Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Well, there are different things that can trigger a trauma response in the portrayed spouse and kind of transport them back to those painful feelings. Will you talk to the listeners about the different triggers and what they are?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just briefly on how the mind works, let me say this. This is why the triggers are so, there's so many of 'em. There's 12 different categories.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's a lot.

Speaker 1:

And it's because the way the mind works when we go throughout something in our life, my drive to the radio station today, nothing traumatic has happened. I'm going to forget about it. Nothing unusual happened today, but if there was a deadly car wreck or even a fender bender, just that getting my adrenaline pumping, I'm going to remember it more than I would other

Speaker 3:

Events. Interesting.

Speaker 1:

And so what happens is when we experience trauma or deep personal wounds, these life hurts because we do go into avoidance and numbing because it is painful to deal with. What happens is, is our mind will experience disassociation. Let me explain it this way. Normal memories, we're able to just file away logically and just our mind's filing cabinets, but with painful memories, hurtful memories, what we'll do is we tend to avoid it and not deal with it, not really get closure on it, not really heal from it. And so what happens is our mind will remind us that there's unfinished business here. And so that's why we experience flashbacks. That's why we experience all these different things and those symptoms of PTSD that we talked about, and these are triggers that trigger you to thinking about the affair again. And these are things that activate memories of the affair

Speaker 2:

That maybe haven't been dealt with. Is that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Okay. Well, showing you that the affair hasn't been completely dealt with yet. Some of these are things that can cause betrayed spouses that haven't flashback of the affair activate memories of the affair, the first to site, obviously seeing someone who looks like the affair partner will do it, seeing the location where the affair took place, seeing visual reminders of the affair that will do it, and that occasionally I'll get people who will still see or view things that are reminders of the affair. Occasionally, they may still see that person, maybe it's a member of the family or they go to the same church or things like that, and that keeps that person stuck when they're still around that person who was a part of that betrayal and they see the affair partner or just see reminders of the affair. So you really, in my opinion, you need to get rid of that kind of stuff. You need to take some steps to not have that constant reminder because it keeps triggering you to think about the affair. The other thing is sounds, hearing the affair partner's name, hearing other people talk about an affair on TV or in movies or overhearing conversations between coworkers or friends, things like that. Just hearing certain

Speaker 2:

Things. And when you talk about site, getting rid of things that, I mean, obviously you don't want to burn down a building, but if you have a little like a sock or an object that reminds you of that person or whatnot, maybe when it's a good idea to go out in the backyard and have a bonfire or bury it,

Speaker 1:

Just getting ready to send these reminders, reminders so you can go on and sometimes maybe you've done work, but because you have these reminders, it keeps you stuck there.

Speaker 3:

The

Speaker 1:

Third trigger to thinking about affairs is smell. I know this is really interesting because smells can trigger memories. So smelling the perfume or clone of the affair partner smelling maybe even the smell of when you discovered or perfume this person was wearing as they were trying to get themselves more grooming themselves to be more attractive to the affair partner, they no longer wear it or they wear it all the time now.

Speaker 2:

Or you walk through the department store and oh my gosh, you smell it. And

Speaker 1:

It's like, yeah. So I know that's a little different, but I think it's interesting. The other is even taste, I know that's kind of silly, but eating food that was consumed around the time you were betrayed or even food that your spouse had with the affair partner.

So taste can do it. Just these reminders during this time. Body sensations of movement, tension or body positions, let me explain that better. Being sick can cause betrayed spouses to feel a flashback if they were sick when the affair was happening or when they discovered the affair or touched sensations. Being touched in certain ways can trigger intrusive memories. Injured spouses envisioning their spouse touching the affair partner while they're touching you can cause them to feel triggers of the affair. Feeling physical pain can also remind injured spouses of the emotional pain they have been enduring. And so there's other things I could add to this list that I'm going through. As far as examples of each section, significant dates are holidays is number six. The anniversary of the affair is very hard. The day the children left home holidays that are typically family events. Christmas is hard. Valentine's Day is hard. Those events are going to be hard. Anniversaries, holidays are going to be difficult. Family get togethers may be difficult, stressful events. And arousals. Number seven, the symptoms of PTSD and arousal can definitely trigger memories of the affair just being stressed, being tired, fatigued,

Speaker 2:

Definitely take care of yourself like what I

Speaker 1:

Was saying. Yeah, you got to take care of yourself. Eight, feeling strong emotions can trigger you to thinking about the affair. And here's what I mean by that. Heightened emotions can trigger a flashback even when they were caused by completely unrelated factors. Lemme give you an example of this. When you feel strong emotions, some people feel like they can't even be happy because they feel like being happy reminds them of the affair. And what I mean is somebody had a great day at work, they just closed a cell. They did fantastic. Their boss was praising them and they felt really good about themselves. And what could have happened with somebody is they later discover their spouse's affair and they're floating on cloud nine, and then they get this worst news possible. So every time they feel happy, it's just a reminder of that.

And so that can happen. So strong emotions, and that's just one example of how that can happen. The ninth trigger for thoughts about the affair is really just thoughts. Any thought that you have of the affair after discovery can cause you to go into self-preservation mode. You may feel like your normal self and then experience a thought of the affair and become completely withdrawn or irritable. And I'll go through this real quick, we're almost out of time, but behaviors, any behavior that reminds you of the affair can cause a flashback, but behaviors can trigger flashbacks. The things your spouse did while they were involved in the affair, like being preoccupied with their appearance or accepting late night work, phone calls. So certain things that they do can kind of trigger you to think about the affair, staying, staying up late on the computer, late on the computer, text messaging, all these different factors

Speaker 2:

That they were doing while they were,

Speaker 1:

And then 11 would be out of the blue. Flashbacks can occur randomly for no logical reason and in combinations many times triggers contain several memory aspects at once. You can have a visual plus location plus date and season, such as going to the grocery store on our dark night in the winter. All those things can trigger

Speaker 2:

Perfect storm.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. And so let me say this, to wrap up our show, choosing to forget about the affair can be helpful and provide genuine relief, but continually blocking out thoughts about the affair requires enormous amounts of energy and probably leaves you feeling fatigued and irritable. As I mentioned earlier, when you numb out painful memories, you also lose pleasant and good memories as well. I had somebody tell me recently, they were actually the betrayer. They don't feel happy because they try to block out. They feel so much guilt and shame about the affair that they try to block out those negative feelings, and so they end up blocking 'em all out. It's a fact of life that betrayed spouses will have intrusive thoughts about the affair, but choosing to ignore or forget about those thoughts will only delay or prevent the healing you need because it keeps you from dealing with the trauma. Dealing with the affair until it makes sense is key for a fair recovery.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. That's a very good point. So dealing with it until it makes sense is the key to a fair recovery.

Speaker 1:

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

Ep 22: "If You Cheat On Me I’ll Leave You” And Other Things People Say That Challenge the Conversation

Brad:

You're going to have to discuss this multiple times, and this is what people think is, gosh, we've talked about this. I've already answered that question once. I've already answered it a few times, but now we're on the 20th time. You've asked that and I've answered it and I haven't changed it. Now we're on the hundredth time. Now we're in it into the hundreds of times. But here's the thing though, with this is the injured spouse. For them to overcome the trauma and really to recover from this, you do have to go through this.

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 want to save your relationship after infidelity, this podcast is for you. You've made it to episode 22 where we address the O. So important question of how do we talk about the affair. Some say it's not important to talk about the affair, that it's useless and will just make things worse, and others say you must talk about it and you can't heal without talking about it. So we're going to lay the myths to rest and talk about what really needs to happen for you to fully recover. Also, we want to hear from you and get your perspective on things. So if you want to share your thoughts or maybe you have some questions, then go on over to healing broken trust.com. Click on the tab called Weekly Calls and leave a voice message for us there. You can also download the free resources that go along with this episode@healingbrokentrust.com slash episode 22. That's episode and the number 22. And let's get started.

Brad:

This show we're talking about how to recover from an affair, the steps that need to be taken to recover the time. Basically everything that a person needs to know to work through this. We are discussing that in detail, in depth, and so you're not going to really hear this anywhere else. This is one of the big issues that people struggle with. We are here to help you guys work through this. In fact, we had an email that was sent into us that really, I think I've heard a lot from people, and I'm glad somebody sent this in. And it basically is this, Brad, how do I talk to my wife about this? She told me before I had this affair. I never want you to tell me if you've ever cheated on me. I don't want to know that because I've been betrayed by someone else before in a previous marriage.

And really to answer that question for that person, I would say most people before they're betrayed, they do not want to know any details. They would rather just not know because what I don't know is not going to hurt me. But after people know they've been betrayed and they know they've been cheated on, most people want to know in great detail about the affair. And so it's kind of different rules. Usually the person who's been betrayed, sometimes they'll say things like, I will leave you if you ever cheat on me, if you ever sleep with anybody else, I'll leave you. But after an affair, after you're really dealing with it and you're not in hypothetical situations, most people choose to stick around and try to work on it, and most people want to know about it because that's only way they find relief in healing.

In fact, only about 7% of people don't want to know anything about the affair. They don't want to talk about it. If your spouse falls into that 7% of people who don't want to know anything about it, who don't want to talk about it, you can't make them talk about it. You can't tell them anything about it. You just can't give them information. They don't want to know. And so you kind of only go as far as that injured spouse wants to know and the types of questions that they have. Hopefully that answers the listener question. Morgan, we've been talking about the ground rules on how to talk about an affair, and one of the things we said is how you talk about this, it's so much more important than really what is said. It needs to be in a climate of compassion, care, understanding. And so just to kind recap what we said is people need to schedule time to talk about this.

Morgan:

That's right. Yeah. Set aside that time and that journaling will help you to organize your thoughts and feelings so that you can make that time more productive. You talked about open limitations a little bit.

Brad:

Yeah, we talked about that a little bit last time. We're going to really get into that into detail today. The person who had the affair really needs to have a vomit session where they just get everything out and just purge. Just get it all out there, just get it all out there. And then common reaction is that people find this is not an easy process. It's like cough medicine. We talked about that. If people are talking about betrayal, they get angry, they get upset, and it's like cough medicine for both people

Morgan:

Because the medicine goes down and it's not tasty. It doesn't feel good at all.

Brad:

No, but it helps people get better.

Morgan:

The benefit is definitely seen

Brad:

Over time. And so sometimes spouses who've been betrayed, they can be very emotionally abusive, verbally abusive. And that's why we were talking about journaling as well, is just channel those emotions onto paper. And that way you're not lashing out of your spouse because they feel quite

Morgan:

Abused,

Brad:

Abused, also demotivated,

That kind of thing. The injured spouse is attacking during the discussions. You're only hurting the person who needs to be there as a healer for you. They're not going to be motivated to be there. And basically the last thing we left off with is it's important that spouse is not interrupt during the conversation. Discussing affair can get heated very quickly, and really you should try to do everything in your power not to let this happen. If you can learn just to sit and listen, not interrupt, write down questions, write down comments that you have in your journal, you're going to hear things that you may not hear. If you interrupt, you're going to hear things that you wouldn't hear if you interrupt them. And so that's what we left off is don't interrupt each other. Let the betrayer finish their thoughts, finish their sentences. If you feel like you're catching them in a lie or a white lie, really try to not interrupt them because you're not going to get all the information you need if you sit there and you pounce on them if you think you're making a mistake. And so that's kind of where we left off, Morgan. What are the other ground rules?

Morgan:

The next one really is it's important to discuss the affair in a way that gives your spouse reassurance that you're reassuring them that the affair will not happen again. And that's the most important thing. They need to know why, of course, but they also need to know this isn't going to happen again. It's not a pattern of betrayal and maybe it has in the past, but it won't go any further. So don't avoid or deny the affair or minimize the damage or fall into denial because it will only create more distrust. And that's the biggest thing is you want to create trust. And that's going to take a lot of time. If you as a betrayer find yourself becoming defensive, say to your spouse, Hey, I know I've hurt you. I want to make this better and I'm committed to the process, but I'm feeling attacked and I think we need to take a minute and breathe.

Brad:

Yeah, and Morgan, I'm glad you said that because it's so important in this process, the betrayer needs to be able to come to the injured spouse and just share everything and get it out there. And they need to get it all out

Morgan:

There and trust the process.

Brad:

They need to trust the process. But I like what you're saying. The betrayer needs to be proactive in this. They need to be the ones initiating conversations at times. They need to be proactive. They need to be

Morgan:

Open and honest. You need to take responsibility for the actions that they took, but also help your spouse by realizing that they're hurting and stop them from spiraling downward in uncontrollable anger by going to them and being open.

Brad:

And Morgan, what I like about what you just said is you're showing that important idea of I'm willing to do whatever it takes.

Most betrayers, they want to suppress information, but if you go to them and you initiate conversations about this, you go and you're willing to talk about it. You just tell them information about it. That helps the injured spouse, since they don't have to protect themselves as much, they sense you are here to help me heal. You are here to help me. I don't need to be in a self-protective mode. I don't need to keep my walls up. And so what you're saying is really important. One of the things that's really important almost as a word of caution is if you do not talk about this, if you don't discuss the affair, this is really the best way for people to recover from this is to talk about this, to deal with it upfront, to really just almost hug a cactus in a way. You just have to really deal with it. And if people are unwilling to discuss this, it results in a much slower recovery time increases the chances of divorce,

And it creates more distress. Like I said last week, the more that the injured spouse knows, the more they feel like they're healing. You do not want to fall into the trap as the betrayer of suppressing information. You feel like you're suppressing this because of your guilt. You don't want to make your spouse feel worse, but that suppressing of the information is actually causing them to feel worse, and it's going to keep you stuck in guilt longer. And suppressing information is going to keep you stuck in the fantasy of the affair, the secret of the affair, and those secrets in that fantasy. It's going to keep you from becoming emotionally invested back into the marriage and relationship the way you need to be.

And so the more you share, the more you're deconstructing that fantasy of what the affair was, and it's bringing you more into reality. You are entering the real world, you're entering into reality again, and it's helping you lose those feelings for the affair partner. And it's helping you reconnect. In fact, what it's doing is it is helping you reconnect with your spouse, but it's bringing a new level of intimacy that hasn't been there because there's a new level of honesty. You're being more open about your feelings, you're being more open about what you need from your spouse. And so that's why this step of talking about the affairs is so important.

Morgan:

Yeah, absolutely. But also the next point that we wanted to make was betrayers will need to revisit many different aspects of the affair multiple times. We've talked about that on the show quite a few times. Those obsessive or intrusive thoughts that you keep asking the same questions because you find and learn new things each time you ask the question. But discussing how they met with the affair partner once will not accomplish. It's usually more than once, typically that they'll ask the same questions, but each time it's discussed, you'll learn something new and that'll in turn help you to recover. For many couples, it does get annoying that they have to revisit the topic again and again, but involve spouses. The betrayer must maintain their composure. You must maintain your composure and let your spouse know that you're there to help them to heal and to recover. It's a huge, it's going to make a huge difference.

Brad:

And Morgan, one of the things that you said that's real important is you're going to have to discuss this multiple times, and this is what people think is, gosh, we've talked about this. I've already answered that question once. I've already answered it a few times, but now we're on the 20th time. You've asked that and I've answered it and I haven't changed it. Now we're on the hundredth time. Now we're in it into the hundreds of times. But here's the thing though, with this is the injured spouse, for them to overcome the trauma and really to recover from this, you do have to go through this. The injured spouse, it needs to be talked about. It's wrong for professional to tell somebody, look, it's been six months, it's been a year, it's been five years. Never bring it up again. That's just absurd. And it really shows a lack of understanding of the trauma recovery process for somebody from this type of particular trauma.

Morgan:

And the time that's passed, I mean, it could be two years, three years, 20 years, but pain is still there.

Brad:

Oh, yeah. Time doesn't heal

Morgan:

Anything. It's discussing it. It's talking about, it's working through it. I mean, some healing may occur, but the full healing,

Brad:

No, not the full healing. So people need to talk about it multiple times. There's different reasons why people need to talk about this multiple times or the same question multiple times. I would say the first reason is there's shattered assumptions that the injured spouse has about the betrayer. I no longer feel like I know who you are, so they're trying to reconstruct who this person is. Part of it is I just can't believe this. This has blown my mind. It's shocking. It's shocking. So just, I can't believe they said this. They did this. You're trying to reconstruct it. Another thing is it's like watching a movie like Inception. I love that movie,

But there's different layers to that plot. But every time you watch a movie like that where you talk about an affair, you're uncovering different layers of it. You're seeing something that you haven't seen before. And the more that the injured spouse can talk about this process, it, it's actually bringing healing to them. It's helping them become more complete. And you as a spouse who's had the affair, that's part of you being a healer, is really being patient with that, showing that you're willing to do whatever it takes. And it's going to take sometimes some questions literally hundreds of times to get answered. And that is frustrating, but that's part of for the maximum healing process to take place. It's going to be several times of just asking the same questions.

Morgan:

And there's one thing that you did mention earlier in one of the points that you made about the vomit session, making sure that you get it out there, get it all out. But one thing that I think ties into this that we need to probably remind people is if you don't vomit it out and new information gets in there, wedged in there where you haven't told everything, it's almost like starting over, like you've said before in the discovery process. It's a shock. So each time you discover a new layer or a new piece of information, it's like, oh my gosh. It's like going right back to the beginning of the hurt of the pain. It's pulled up, the scab has been ripped off. So it's important to get all of that information out there, but then you're still going to have those same questions over and over. But I mean, your story is the same because it's the truth. It just needs to be understood and rethought through again, probably.

Brad:

Yeah. Yeah. Morgan, you brought up another good point too, is really with the point that you made about

Morgan:

Having a vomit session, making sure

Brad:

That it's out there because when you bring it up like this and you have a vomit session or a purge session, you just get it all out and information is discovered later. That person, sometimes they feel like, gosh, I'm just starting over, or they feel like even, what else do I not know? Yeah, what else do I not know? And it keeps them hypervigilant on the defensive or wall is up.

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So that's more of the reason for you just to get everything out at once, as much as you can get it all out there. And that way they feel safer. And sometimes couples do struggle with that where, gosh, we're in this for three months or even a year and I find out something new, or even I've had some couples, five or six years later, they find out something new and it just kind of sets some, brings 'em back down on the ladder. And that's the importance of getting it all out there. And here's the thing too, I want to say about honesty is when you're honest about this, people stick around when they feel like you're being the healer and you're being honest. People do not stick around when they feel like you're being lied to. So if you're worried about, gosh, if my spouse really knows this or if they know that they're going to leave me, chances are they're probably going to stay. As long as they feel like you're being honest with them and you're transparent with them and you're really trying to rebuild things, they leave when they feel like, I'm not getting anywhere, you're not helping me.

Morgan:

And think about how light of a load you'll carry with being able to tell them everything and then getting through it and healing. I mean on your part as the betrayer as well, your conscience will thank you

Brad:

And you're going to have a lot less guilt, that kind of thing. Absolutely. There's some areas that you want to stay away from. We really advise couples to stay away from anything that makes you more obsessive. Sometimes people ask, what do I share? What kind of questions? What do I share? Do I share that I slept with this person? Do I share that on our anniversary, we did this or I did that with the affair partner?

Morgan:

How much information is too much information?

Brad:

Yeah. Well, and here's the thing, there's kind of a protocol for this. There is some things that I would strongly encourage people not to talk about that, but most of the time, whatever the injured spouse feels like they need to know. I'm okay with that. Like I said earlier, only about 7% of injured spouses have no desire for any sort of details. Two thirds want to know great details. And so the three areas are graphic, sexual details, love letters, and anything that makes the injured spouse more obsessive about the past.

Morgan:

And you want to avoid those, right? Yeah,

Brad:

You want to avoid those. And generally the obsessiveness comes from graphic sexual details and love letters

And graphic sexual details are really hard for men, especially because they'll picture their wife with another man, very visual doing certain things, and men are very visual. So it's much to overcome. And I found that people get stuck in thinking about this. Men will get stuck or even women get stuck in thinking about the sexual part because they don't have all the information. And what happens is their mind is just kind of going through all the information they know. And part of that is the sexual details because they're trying to understand what happened, why it happened. And so they're just going through all this information. And part of that's the sexual details. One of the best ways I know how for people to overcome the sexual details is really to understand the whole affair and to get all their questions answered. Because once they have everything answered, they have stopped obsessing of the unknown of the unknown, and it's just obsessing period. And that causes them to get stuck on the graphic sexual details. The other area you do not want to know is love letters. That generally is harder for women. And let me say this though, it's not just hard on women, it's hard on men too, but it's very hard to see that your spouse may be bashing you

In a letter, but praising somebody else, talking positively, someone else, giving them a nickname that you do not have, they may have a different type of relationship than you've had with your spouse. I had a guy that came in a little over a year ago. His wife had an affair last summer, and when they came in, they came in about April or March, and this was really interesting. No healing had virtually taken place because hers was an online affair with somebody in a different state, but he had all this information online and every day he looked over it, just poured over it, read everything, revisited everything. So the guy was very depressed, very obsessed, still not a lot of things made sense. And so there was no healing that took place.

Morgan:

You kind of kept him right there.

Brad:

Yeah, it kept him in the beginning of the process and nine months afterwards, he should have been in a very comfortable place, not perfect, but in a place where I definitely feel like I'm moving forward. I have hope. I know we're working through this. I've worked through a lot of the major part of this. We should have already been there. It's been nine months at ground

Morgan:

Zero,

Brad:

Nine months at a really, really bad place. You want to avoid graphic sexual details. You want to avoid love letters, text messages, emails. Unfortunately, that's how so many people find out about an affair nowadays. It's an online affair where they got kind of these text messages and smartphones and things in Facebook. That's how people find out. But you really want to try to avoid kind of bearing yourself in that and revisiting it because it's only going to keep you held hostage.

Morgan:

So one thing we have here to avoid the scenario, we recommend writing these questions down, sleep on them. Ask yourself, is this information, is it really necessary for my healing? Sometimes just writing it down will help you kind of get through those feelings, but sleep on it.

Brad:

Yeah, that's a good rule of thumb. Just give yourself some time when you get the question you want it answered right away, but give yourself some time

Morgan:

Because

Brad:

With these types of questions, they tend to be re-traumatizing. They tend to open the wound back up. They tend to pour salt on that wound and it doesn't heal. So give yourself some time. You don't need to really jump ahead into this. And I would, to be honest with you, I really encourage you not to ask questions about sexual, obviously, did you make love? Did you have sex? That kind of thing.

Morgan:

Will I need to worry

Brad:

About STDs? STDs, were they on birth control? That's fine. But things like sexual positions, lingerie you really need to avoid. And there's some more graphic questions that you could ask that I don't want to say, but you really want to avoid that because it just keeps you stuck.

Morgan:

Yeah,

Brad:

It retraumatizes you.

Morgan:

So Brad, we are going to out of time here very soon, but would you like to talk about the open limitations?

Brad:

Let say, let me just summarize the last two steps here. When discussing an affair, it's important to do what we call open limitations. Where as time goes on, you're probably talking about the affair for hours on length, especially in the early weeks. You're talking about the affair constantly. But as time goes on, that idea of open limitations is at any moment the injured spouse is able to bring up a question and it's discussed for no longer than 15 to 30 minutes. And part of that is because the longer you go on, the more that's shared, the more that's told can cause people to get angry

Morgan:

Escalation.

Brad:

And if it's not done, you get into that negative cycle of blame, withdraw, one person's blame and the other one's withdrawing. But if you do that, that tends to be the best way to do this. It's just discuss it for no more than 15 to 30 minutes and it helps people really begin to recover and you're just kind of doing it throughout your

Morgan:

Day. And if you do the journal method, like what we had talked about in the last show, if you write it down and you really think through, okay, what do I need to know? What questions do I have? You're going to make those conversations within 15 to 30 minutes. You're going to make them more productive. You're going to get somewhere instead of falling into just a big argument.

Brad:

Yeah, exactly. Just limit yourself to 15 to 30 minutes per question or part time that you discuss this, and you can talk about it really at any time. Obviously not when the kids are around, but really at any time. So the injured spouse has the freedom to ask this really at any time they feel the need to, but you're not discussing it at length. You're able to kind of resume your normal life together

Morgan:

And 30 minutes wraps up and then you're able to go and cool down and really

Brad:

Breathe. And then kind of the next thing is because the betrayer many times feels like this is hopeless, I can't help this person heal. I can't be forgiven. And I notice people when they've dealt with the affair for a long periods of time, like a year or more, they start feeling like, gosh, nothing I can do is going to have any effect on this person. And so this is where that care and compassion comes in. Is what you are doing really helps me,

Us talking about this? You don't understand how much this helps me. I appreciate this. I notice what you're doing. I notice what you're contributing, praising them for what you're getting because it's only going to help them give you more. And so that's important, and that is many times the injured spouse feels like I don't owe them anything, have a huge wall up. That is true and that needs to be worked on, but I can understand where you're coming from. I'm not saying that's necessarily true that you shouldn't try to help them, but if you give them appreciation, give them positive feedback. I notice what you're doing. These small things matter. These things that you're doing matter, they're going to have more motivation and sometimes they're just completely demoralized

Morgan:

And ultimately you will get the healing that you need as the betrayed spouse. So it's a win-win situation. One person feels like they can be open and honest and sharing, and then you also get the healing that you need, the answers that you need.

Brad:

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

Ep 26: Why Do They Lie?