Ep 24: How To Move On So The Affair Doesn't Define Your Life, Strategies for Overcoming the Mental Battle

Jim:

At some point you have to deal with things. If not, they just build and build and build the inevitable with the divorce. I mean, we were going to get divorced 14 months ago. If we'd have found you, I wouldn't be here where I'm at right now.

Morgan:

Have you been wondering how to break free from the affair once and for all? Now's the time to take back your life, your emotions, find happiness, joy, and fulfillment with your marriage. Healing Broken trust.com is the place where you can find resources to take the healing journey to the next level. You'll find incredible resources for every stage of your fair recovery journey. Connect with our team of qualified Affair recovery therapists who stay current with the ever-growing, ever-changing affair recovery research that's available to help you heal wherever you are in the process. Take our home study course focused on helping you communicate and express yourself in a way that gets you what you want. You can also book an incredible one-on-one intensive retreat where instead of dragging out the pain over months or years, you can condense the time it takes to heal in just a matter of days.

Using scientifically proven methods that work to help couples lower their guard, let go of the fear, melt the anger, and experience each other at a deep emotional level you may have never experienced before. So what are you waiting for? Go to Healing Broken trust.com. But don't take our word for it. Read the client letters and listen to the reviews on the Healing Broken trust.com website. At the end of this episode, you'll hear directly from a couple whose relationship was transformed because they worked with Brad. So go to Healing Brook and trust.com and we'll talk to you soon. Hello and welcome to Healing Brook and Trust podcast with your hosts, Brad and Morgan Robinson. We are excited to be here with you to help you heal your relationship after infidelity. So Brad, what are we talking about today?

Brad:

Well, we're going to talk about post-traumatic growth, what that is, what it looks like, and how to attain it. And honestly, Morgan, I'm really excited to be talking about this. This is probably one of my top two favorite subjects in the fair recovery discussions, and we haven't even got to the second one yet. And so we've been talking about all these things. The thing that I love probably even more than this, is bonding events, which we haven't talke d about in any of our podcasts yet.

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So I don't know what podcast number we're on, we're in our twenties, but here we are really getting to some stuff that's some of my favorite topics to talk about.

Morgan:

Oh, yeah.

Brad:

So I'm really happy about that

Morgan:

For couples to bond and go through those change events.

Brad:

And we will talk about that later. We haven't, like we said in our very first podcast that this was a radio show that we had done and we'd edit it into a podcast format. But this is our first live recorded, recorded podcast because some of those recordings are actually three, maybe almost four years old by now.

Morgan:

That's right.

Brad:

And so it's really exciting just to kind of bring you guys new information, just different things that we haven't talked about before. And since that time, post-traumatic growth and binding events are two of my most favorite topics that we didn't even record anything on when we had the radio show.

Morgan:

Yeah. Because research and the training and all the information and the knowledge just gets better and better and better experience. Oh, yeah.

Brad:

But yeah, it's a lot of fun. And with post-traumatic growth, this is what that really is. It's been defined as a positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or traumatic event. So it's this positive change that you experience as a result of major pain, of major setbacks. And what's really important with this Morgan is to understand that the normal response for human beings when they face trauma and crisis and pain isn't to go under, but actually to become better. And the usual response is resilience and growth, not defeat in the face of adversity. And so sometimes that's our normal response is to have that to go under, but we can rise above it, and that's the normal response. There's things that we can help ourselves experience post-traumatic growth quicker. So we don't have to go through all this up and down roller coaster ride, but we can get there much quicker. And that's really what this whole thing's about is getting there. So it's not something that rarely happens. It's something that it's not unusual for people to bounce back from infidelity. And to be honest with you, when two people are in my office and they want to make it work, I'm surprised when they don't make it work

When they really want to make it work. And the one who had the affair has cut off the affair and they're being honest, and the one who got betrayed is scared to trust, but they're willing to trust and willing to let their guard down again. I think people always work through those situations.

Morgan:

And

Brad:

So I'm surprised if somebody doesn't work through it when you're willing to put it into work and what it takes.

Morgan:

Yeah. So what you're saying is the norm for couples who experience infidelity that you've worked with is to rebuild with a stronger wood, to grow with deeper roots, to build on rock instead of on sand that they're gaining that closeness, they're gaining that security with each other that they've maybe never experienced before. And so infidelity was just that catalyst that caused them to reach deeper, to grow stronger as a couple.

Brad:

Absolutely.

Morgan:

And as individuals, I imagine.

Brad:

Yeah. Well, the thing is people are tempted to throw in the towel, but when they don't, they resurrect with something greater.

Morgan:

Absolutely.

Brad:

They rise from the ashes with some scars of course, but also new confidence in their marriage and in themselves that they could literally overcome anything as a couple.

Morgan:

Absolutely.

Brad:

Which is a great place to be. Sometimes betrayal causes people to really recognize what matters in life, what matters to them spiritually, what their marriage matters to 'em. Time with my kids being a better parent matters to me. People have a wake up call with these kinds of things.

Morgan:

It kind of can pull you out of being selfish too. A little bit more selfless

Brad:

At the end. Yeah. Well, for both spouses, instead of letting little things waste their time, they found ways to spend more time with each other, and they realize that they lose their spouse, they'll lost everything. As a result, there's a new appreciation for their spouse.

Morgan:

Yeah, absolutely. And so really this is a milestone that a couple should shoot for that's entirely within their reach. As you've mentioned. And we've mentioned in this podcast, creating secure emotional bonds is really the best method for preventing an affair. And it's also the best intervention for repairing your bond after betrayal. And so this post-traumatic growth is really something that you can achieve.

Brad:

Well, and let me say this too, part of those securing emotional bonds, and we're going to talk about this later and really listen for that because it's one podcast you don't want to miss. It's one episode you don't want to miss. I think honestly, it's probably going to be the most important topic that we discuss because it's really going to talk about how to really gain lasting healing long-term, being transparent. Those are early steps that you have to have so you can get out of the discovery phase and get into the trust building phase of a relationship. So you got to be transparent and you got to be honest and open, but that alone doesn't cause people to truly heal. And what people need to heal is they need to go to the depth of their vulnerability and just be emotionally naked and say, here I am with all my blemishes here. I am emotionally naked with you. Do you still want me? Do you still like me?

Morgan:

And then for their spouse to be able to respond to

Brad:

That in

Morgan:

A loving, healing, caring

Brad:

Way. And that's what brings about the true change. And there's different three different areas that takes place in, and a lot of people find it very hard to do on their own. So we always recommend working with a marriage counselor. We've got two locations in Oklahoma. You're welcome to fly out and visit with us or visit our therapist in Oklahoma City, the team out there. These are folks that are trained in how to help couples work through this.

Morgan:

And of course, you can find out more information@healingbrokentrust.com for that, but we're not trying to sell you on that

Brad:

Ground. No, not at all. But I want you guys to be aware of that because there is something that's kind of a next level deeper that I'm shocked that nobody really talks about. Some of the bestselling books on infidelity. Nobody really talks about that. And so in fact, we haven't talked about it so far.

Morgan:

Right. Going to coming to visit us. Yeah. Bonding events. Yeah.

Brad:

Well, I'm talking about bonding events

Morgan:

Too. Oh, bonding events.

Brad:

Yeah. But post-traumatic growth isn't something that's rare. It's actually very frequent, but it isn't something that happens on its own. So we have to work with

Morgan:

It.

Brad:

We must put ourselves in a position to bounce back from adversity. We must do the right things to rise from this crisis. And that's what this podcast has always been about. It's about giving you the necessary tools to bounce back and experience post-traumatic growth.

Morgan:

Absolutely. And so many times, the door to growth in life is also the same path that's marked with suffering. So we kind have to go through the fire to be refined. In some ways, pain is what causes us to change and change for the better. It's always kind of uncomfortable to make that change, but that's how we make the change is going through it,

Morgan:

Not

Morgan:

Trying to avoid it when we start to get depressed or we get anxious or we get angry if we push away the change or the Yeah,

Brad:

Absolutely.

Morgan:

The feelings.

Brad:

Yeah. You got to ask yourself, what am I supposed to learn from this?

How can this make me a better person? I always, I may be getting ahead of myself, but I always like to ask myself, how can I not let this suffering go to waste? How can I capitalize on this? And we were just talking about that this morning with something else completely different, but just something in our lives. We're going to go through this experience again. What can we learn from it? Let's reflect on this and discuss it and write down our conclusions so that we don't make the same mistakes again. And you have to do that to experience post-traumatic growth because it's not always automatic. It's normal to experience it, and you can experience it even if you're in hell right now, but you got to work with it to get there. It's not something that happens on its own. And so something that I learned that helped me build resilience, and when I'm facing adversity, it's oftentimes, I'll think back to the story of Joseph in the Bible.

Remember the first time I heard about that? I think I might've been a teenager, maybe heard it when I was younger, but I remember hearing the story of Joseph in the Bible where he gets sold into slavery by his brothers. They grew tired of him. He was kind of a prideful young man. He was his dad's favorite. And his dad let everybody know about it. And he ends up in Egypt after spending time on their prison, he becomes a high ranking member of their government. And it's at that point, he sees his brothers again, who betrayed him. There was a famine that caused many people to starve in that region. And Joseph was in charge of managing the food supplies. And close to the end of Joseph life, he was in a position to kill his brothers, but he did something remarkable. Instead, he forgave his brothers.

And this is what he said. I think this is one of the most profound things written in the whole Bible. He said, this is what Joseph said to his brothers, when you sold me into slavery, you meant it evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today from the famine that occurred. And so I think that's really important. Like Joseph was saying, if we could bring that into maybe more modern vernacular, he was saying, you guys meant it for evil. What you intended to do was to kill me or murder me, or just get you out of your life or hurt me, hurt me beyond repair. And sometimes that's what people do when they betray their spouses. It's the deepest wound I think people can go through. And I've talked about how I've had people who've been shot at before. I've had people who've gone through all kinds of ridiculous situations who've consistently said being betrayed by their spouse was the worst thing they ever went through. So anyway, but what this is saying is you meant it for evil, but God meant it to bring about greater good.

I think that's a key reason that we suffer. I'm not a theologian, and obviously there's people listening with different beliefs than us. We respect those beliefs

Morgan:

Absolutely

Brad:

Or no beliefs at all. And that's fine too. But you have to have a belief that life is happening for you, not against you. And you have to believe that things are working for good and they're moving you towards your goals even when it feels like a setback. You have to really believe that

Morgan:

Absolutely.

Brad:

Because if you do post-traumatic growth is going to be easier. One of the wrong conclusions to make is to close your heart up after you get betrayed

Naturally. You're not going to trust your spouse. Sometimes people do the most hellacious things when they betray their spouse involved in so much deception. That's going to be normal to not trust your spouse. Again, I'm not saying be an idiot and just blindly trust your spouse. Again, use your own common sense. But what I'm trying to say is if don't kind of assign the whole world as cursed, cursed or broken or fallen, or you can't trust anybody else again, when I got betrayed before I met Morgan, I had learned the wrong lesson from that betrayal. I had said, you know what? I put all my eggs in one basket. I don't need to ever really give my heart to someone ever again completely. I need to kind of keep a little bit back for myself. I learned the wrong lesson in that. And it's only later that after kind of doing this for a living that I kind realized, you know what?

There's still a part of me that kind of held back and I got to recognize that. But that was a wrong lesson to learn. And so people oftentimes learn lessons like that. I think that's the wrong lesson to learn. So anyway, you've got to have this belief no matter what your spiritual values are or your beliefs are, you've got to come to the place where you realize life is happening for me to move me towards my goals. And it's happening to make me better and to bring about good in my life and good in the lives of others.

Morgan:

So I am going to take this opportunity to, while I'm hurting, yes I'm hurting, but I'm going to take this opportunity to grow and to find the silver lining, no matter how hard. And if you have the days where you don't feel like there's anything good, don't worry. It takes some effort. It takes some time. If you have a terrible, terrible day, just take it. Okay, it's just a terrible day. Tomorrow will be better. And you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in some ways emotionally and just say, you know what? This is a bad day. It's going to be a bad day today. That's okay.

Brad:

And it's okay to have bad days. Yes, that's normal. Absolutely. And let me say this, Morgan, because we're not talking about wishful thinking or

Morgan:

Shoving down

Brad:

Feelings or shoving down feelings or denying reality or things like that. What we're talking about is it's more of a choice. I'm choosing to look at things this way and believe that eventually good's going to come out of this. Because when I got betrayed, I did not see any good coming out of that. I had put on about 30 pounds in 10 months. I did not see how anything positive was going to come out of this. At that point in my life during marriage counseling, obviously I wasn't helping couples yet, but I didn't even see how I can see God's hand now in it. I mean, look what I do now for a living. I am an international expert on betrayal and helping people work through it. But if I didn't have that experience and didn't really know what it felt like myself, I think I would severely lack a lot of the compassion, empathy, empathy of what it's like because it just, part of you dies when you guys are stuff like that. And it took me a while fully to get that back. I was arrogant. I didn't go do therapy. I needed to, I was worried about what they were going to tell me that somehow I had, it was based in my childhood because your parents' divorced. That's why this bothers you so much. And so I was worried about what the therapist would think of me that I didn't go get the help that I needed.

And a lot of people do that, but this is definitely an appropriate time to go get help. This is almost like a personal nine 11 or a personal terrorist attack. This is something that nobody would question you if you went to therapy after a terrorist attack. The people in nine 11 and how godawful and terrible that was, nobody looks at them and says, you're weak for going to talk to somebody

Or you're weak to go get help. But this is the same thing. You're not weak to go talk to a therapist. You're not weak to go see a marriage counselor. It's a totally appropriate time to do it. And so go, because part of therapy is part of how you get to that post-traumatic growth. And so I'm getting a little off our notes, so lemme get back to our notes. But one of the things that typically people have to have to achieve to achieve post-traumatic growth is really develop their spiritual roots. So you got to develop your spiritual roots, whatever they are, because that sometimes enables us to see a larger picture. It allows us to see a grander plan. My mother, she had cancer, it just came back this past maybe 18 months, and she tripped and fell in the shower and hurt herself, hurt herself pretty bad. But she went to the doctor. She's approaching 70. So she went to the doctor, got it checked out, and it turns out they did some scans. And it turns out the cancer, the breast cancer that she had 10 years ago had maybe nine or 10 years ago had returned and it actually had spread to her lungs.

Morgan:

And they wouldn't have known that had she not fallen in the shower

Brad:

And herself had she not fallen in the shower herself and kind of bruised the rib herself. And so that's kind of a microcosm, that's obviously not maybe your story, your story is my spouse has cheated on me or I've cheated on my spouse and I might've done it multiple times or they might've done it to me multiple times. But you've got to believe that there's something greater working on your behalf. God, he's working on your behalf to bring about good. And so my mother gets it checked out and they're able to give her some drugs and they're making a lot of really good advances with cancer now. But if she hadn't found that if she didn't trip and fall, she might be dead right now.

Morgan:

Yeah, that's very

Brad:

True. And we just had our first child. That would've been

Morgan:

Really sad.

Brad:

It would've been terrible.

Morgan:

And so you may be at home thinking, oh my gosh, I can't believe they caught me cheating. Or they caught me in the sly. Or they saw these text messages and it's very embarrassing and it's very hurtful. And you may be thinking, oh my gosh, my life is over. But if you talk to someone on the other side of the healing process, they'd say, well, thank God that they found these text messages. I wish I had told them myself, but thank God they found this because now I have this weight lifted off of me can actually start rebuilding the marriage. They're actually, so it doesn't seem like it's this wonderful gift, but in the end, yeah,

Brad:

Absolutely. And you got to have a long-term perspective with this because for several years I did not even see what's the plan with me getting betrayed. And not everybody who gets portrayed is going to turn out to be a marriage counselor, but you have to have another's focus to get off Tony Robbins. I like that guy. He says that the root of your suffering is that you're too focused on yourself. So go out and help other people. I think a lot of suffering happens to actually help us love better. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors ourself. I think a lot of suffering happens because it's really meant to make us more compassionate and empathetic

Morgan:

And

Brad:

Love other people more.

Morgan:

And what does depression, it's anger turn inwards. Well, if we can pull out of ourself and we can go and look at other people, maybe you start focusing on your kids. How are they feeling during this time focusing on maybe volunteering or getting out there and loving others like Brad is saying, it can really do a lot to pull you out of the depression. So that's one idea.

Brad:

And so let me get back to our notes. I'm getting off a little bit, but so the people who are able to bounce back and experience post-traumatic growth, they're able to see the good that has been produced by their suffering. They may not be able to see it right away because of the pain and the trauma of the betrayal is too great, but they know that they are suffering because it's for the greater good and unseen forces are working on their behalf. As crazy as it sounds, when I experienced setbacks or failure, and I don't do this always as quickly as I would like, but something I have tried to make it a habit of is to say to myself over and over again, this is good because it allows me to see my options. Because you can get stuck in a negative situation and just see

Morgan:

It all

Brad:

Crumbling. Well, you just see you're focused on the failure

And what you're focused on. It's going to determine your attitude and the mood you're in. And again, sometimes some hurts are just so big. And most people who get betrayed, I would probably say 99.9% of them are not able to do what I just mentioned. So if you can't do that, that's okay. One of you may be listening can do that. We've got a lot of people listening to us all over the world. And so if you can't do that, that's okay. But try to get to that point eventually where you can say, you know what? This has been a good thing for us. This has been a good thing for me. Even if it's kind of tearing your family apart, you've got to see the good in this situation, focus on the good. But you also have to, and we haven't discussed, I think I did, but you've got to talk to somebody about this stuff to really get the full effect of post-traumatic growth. You've got to do work on yourself. And that's something that I've had to do to work through hurts. I've experienced

Morgan:

Mine. Me as well.

Brad:

Yeah. Morgan, you've had to do that.

Morgan:

And even if in the beginning, this is good. I woke up this morning, this is good. I've gotten up out bed this morning. I am on my feet this morning. I'm eating breakfast. Yes, this is good. Even the small things start with the small things. I'm not crying this very moment. This is good thinking about those moment by moment situations because life may not feel good, but you woke up this morning, so that's good.

Brad:

Yeah. Morgan, something that we talk about often is when we're going through something bad, obviously this is good, but it's that idea of let's not let this suffering go to waste. What can we learn from this? Let's talk about it. Let's write down our conclusions. Let's type it up so that I'll keep it and kind of be able to reflect on it and go back to it because it's like, what am I supposed to learn out of this? What is God trying to help me through this?

Morgan:

And what you meditate on most of the time is what you kind of bring about in your day. So renewing your mind with some truth is really

Brad:

Helpful. Yeah, absolutely. But I think an attitude like that lends itself to post-traumatic

Morgan:

Growth. Absolutely. So we're not trying to offer up cliches, but things like what we're talking about here have really helped us. And so actually was over a year ago that we had went on vacation with your dad and

Brad:

A couple of years ago. That's right. It was a few years.

Morgan:

Oh dear Lord. Has it been that long time? My goodness. Time flies. And we took him along because he was getting older and we wanted to make some memories before he passed. And the first day on the trip he shared with us that he had bladder cancer. He was,

Brad:

Well, he started to pee blood.

Morgan:

That's right.

Brad:

And he showed me his urine. And this is a little disgusting. It's gross, but it looked like pink lemonade. You could see flesh coming through his urine and it looked like part of the lemonade. And so obviously our vacation after that

Morgan:

Wasn't very relaxing.

Brad:

It wasn't very relaxing at all. And my dad at that age was 74, went through two rounds of chemo and they didn't think he was going to make it. I really thought my dad was going to die. And so he eventually had to have his bladder removed. And that whole process lasted about a year. Very scary for us. I didn't want to let the suffering go to waste. So I took this as an opportunity to grow from it, and I wanted to learn something from this. And what I learned from that was I need to have an active and healthy lifestyle myself. I went up to where he was getting chemo at, and everybody in there was overweight that day. And I guess, and I'm not a cancer expert, but from my understanding is that most individuals who tend to get cancer tend to be more overweight and obese. And so it made me really take my health as a priority. My dad had been at Green Beret Special Forces, and I was a few years older than him by the time he had gotten out. But I was in a completely different physical shape than him. And this is him at 74 overweight, and this is me and

Morgan:

His age back when he got out of Green

Brad:

Parade. Yeah, yeah. He's like tip top shape, physically fit. And I'm like, catch potato. Don't really do anything physically. But that led me to changing my habits, and it resulted in me losing 35 pounds

Morgan:

Because thinking, oh my gosh, he was way in better shape when he was my age. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I'm only going to get worse if I let it go down path.

Brad:

If I don't do anything. There has to be an intervention.

And that was a good experience for my dad, helped him grow spiritually in a way that he never had before. It's good experience for me, health-wise in some ways was a good thing for our relationship. I got to talk to him about things I probably would never would've talked to him about, but it gave me a new perspective in life. It made me want to be here for my own kids. It was a wake up call. Those are some examples in my own life with my dad, the whole thing that I became becoming a marriage counselor working with infidelity, I don't think this podcast would be here had I not gotten betrayed. I wouldn't have been fascinated by betrayal.

Morgan:

This is really interesting. As you're talking about your story, it might be good for me to share a piece of my story. I was also betrayed a while back, and I've had to think and think through, well, how did I gain any post-traumatic growth from that? But I do realize now that sure, I experienced a lot of shame, a lot of personal shame. And I remember my self-esteem just was shot. It was in the toilet. But looking back now, I think, you know what? I dumped him. I broke up with him even though he had cheated on me, and I didn't realize that I walked out that day when he got angry and whatever. So at that moment, I was able to stand up for myself in a way that I hadn't been able to stand up for myself before. And so I didn't realize it at that time.

I didn't see that there was some kind of strength there that I was learning and gaining. But many years later, which is now, I can look back and say, you know what? I learned to put my foot down and value myself in a way that I hadn't really valued myself. And so you can maybe say that that's a post-traumatic growth experience. I mean, I had a lot of growing to do after that, but that was the first step to me saying, you know what? I'm not going to accept this. I'm not going to accept being treated like this.

Brad:

Well, it's going to be the first time that you really recognized that to stand up for your needs and assert yourself in that way.

Morgan:

Absolutely.

Brad:

And have healthy boundaries.

Morgan:

And of course, we weren't married. It was a dating relationship. So I know that just dumping someone is not necessarily the easiest or the right choice for everyone.

Brad:

Yeah, you were right.

Morgan:

You

Brad:

Were much younger than you are now. Much,

Morgan:

Yes. Different situation,

Brad:

Different stage of life. You probably weren't as attached as you would be to somebody that you're married

Morgan:

To. I didn't have children with the person. It wasn't anything like that. So I don't suggest people to just drop 'em and walk out the door. Not your situation all the time. Maybe you may be a different situation. But the point that is, you can stand up for yourself and stand up for what you need and stand up for your self-worth and stand up for what matters to you, which is your health, emotional health, physical health, mental health, and say, you know what? I'm not going to accept this. And if you want this relationship to work, if you want this to work, I'm going to put my foot down and say, we need counseling. I need this. I need that. Because sometimes people just don't know how to do that. Maybe you're like me. Maybe this is a moment for you to step up and start deciding what you want and need in the relationship and asking for it. And again, you might need help to do that.

Brad:

Yeah. I mean, don't go this alone. I mean, I think our podcast is fantastic. I think what we talk about is stuff. I really believe in support, and it's going

Morgan:

To help

Brad:

You

Morgan:

Even if you are in counseling and go to our website. We have resources

Brad:

There. Yeah, we got great stuff. It's really stuff that we spend a lot of time putting our heart and soul into. It's great. But I'm just saying that to illustrate the importance of going and talking with somebody who knows your situation, who's familiar with betrayal, how to heal from infidelity, who can work with you guys as a couple, if that's an option for you, go do that. That's so important.

Morgan:

And that's how post-traumatic growth comes about in the long run, right?

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

So I know this is something just I'm sure is on a ticker tape going through your mind, but some of you might be thinking, Brad, you're nuts. Morgan. You're nuts. You don't know my situation. The person who betrayed me should be executed. I mean, sometimes you just might be really angry, and I totally understand.

Brad:

Well, and sometimes people who betray their spouses are really bad people. They can be really, but that's not everybody.

Morgan:

Yeah, that's not.

Brad:

And sometimes we feel like they're a psychopath. They're not really a psychopath. We're just hurting. Yeah, we're just hurting. Or they're narcissistic and they're not really a narcissist. But the thing is, this post-traumatic growth stuff works regardless of your situation. It's a belief. It's an attitude

Morgan:

Whether you stay together or not, whatever.

Brad:

But if you do stay together, it's something that will make your relationship stronger. It's really having one of those strong marriages and where you feel emotionally safe and secure with each other.

Morgan:

So let's get to this kind of in a nutshell, what does it take to get to post-traumatic growth, Brad?

Brad:

Okay. What it takes to get to post-traumatic growth is it's really a belief. It's a belief that life happens for you, not to you. It's a belief that when you suffer and you go through things, that greater good is coming out of it. It's a belief that setbacks are actually leading you towards your goals. It's worth repeating. It's a belief that life happens for you, not to you. It's a belief that when you suffer, when you go through painful things, that greater good is coming out of that. It's greater good for you, greater good for other people, but ultimately greater good. And it's a belief that setbacks, failures, pain are all moving you towards your goals in life. You have to have that kind of belief so that you can start doing the things that are necessary to overcome this kind of trauma. This is again, the hardest thing that people go through.

Morgan:

That attitude

Brad:

Shift, that attitude shift. And I want to quote, going out of this podcast, I want to quote the founder of Domino's Pizza. I'm reading his biography called Pizza Tiger. Don't ask me why I'm reading it. I know it's random. You'd be surprised by the stuff I read.

Morgan:

Yeah. He's been really loving it. He reads me well, it's a

Brad:

Great book.

Morgan:

Quotes from it all the time.

Brad:

It's a great book. What I like about the book, and it was written I think in 86, and what I like about the book, and it's random. I don't even know how popular they are anymore as a pizza chain, but the guy became a billionaire. I'm really impressed with the things that he's doing now. He's pledged to give away all of his money. He's doing it to some great causes and

Morgan:

Founder of one of the founders of Ave Maria

Brad:

University. Ave Maria University. But what's really great is his book. He's talking about all his failures and you can see ultimately

Morgan:

Unabashedly too.

Brad:

Yeah. I mean it's very transparent and very open,

But all these failures I'm getting, he's living through this and you're like, holy crap. He almost lost his company twice. He almost goes bankrupt twice. Some serious setbacks. And one of them is, his attitude on failure is really revealing, and it's what allowed him to experience post-traumatic growth. And this is what he says, and we'll close with this. He said, failure is how we learn. Failure strengthens you to find the seed of benefit that every adversity contains. Your greatest strength is to turn adversity into advantage. Every time you suffer a setback, ask yourself, how can I turn this into something good?

Morgan:

Yeah,

Brad:

It's good. So I might say that one more time. People may be driving. Failure is how we learn. Failure strengthens you to find the seed of benefit that every adversity contains. Your greatest strength is to turn adversity into advantage. Every time you suffer a setback, ask yourself, how can I turn this into something good? And that my friends is how you do post-traumatic

Morgan:

Growth. Absolutely.

Jim:

At some point you have to deal with things. If not, they just build and build and build the inevitable with the divorce. I mean, we were going to get divorced 14 months ago. If we'd have found you, I wouldn't be here where I'm at right now. I went three months. I couldn't work. I couldn't sleep. I cried every night. I was depressed. I couldn't eat. Health started going downhill. I couldn't put it in a box and let it just let God take care of it. You have to deal with your problems. You don't deny 'em.

Brad:

Jim, did you feel like the other help that you got, it was dismissive of where you were coming?

Jim:

That's the best way to explain it. Dismissive. It

Brad:

Was dismissive. It was is, are you going to cheat on me again? Oh, okay. You're not Jim. You got to be satisfied with that.

Jim:

Yeah, that's what they told me. That was one of the words. You have to be satisfied with that.

Brad:

Yeah, I've heard that before from other people.

Jim:

You

Brad:

Just got to let

Jim:

Go. You can't build trust back on that. Yeah. Because when this happens, you feel so alone. And the main thing, and this is what impressed me about you, you listened. You listened to my needs, and then we started chiseling away at those things.

Brad:

Jim, you actually felt like you were getting somewhere. This guy knows what he's talking about.

Jim:

Proactive and reactive is the best way to describe how I felt about your actions. They were proactive and you were reactive to my knees.

Brad:

Yeah. Jim, I remember the first time I met you, we met for three hours.

Jim:

Yes.

Brad:

And you really, how did that time go? That first time you met,

Jim:

It seemed like 15 minutes, but I walked into your office. It was either come to your office or go see my attorney and get the divorce paper started. I mean, I was ready to move on with my life. I'd had enough of a feeling like this every day

Brad:

And explain that what happens after an affair is made known. The person who's been betrayed many times developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It's very traumatic. That's something that happens when somebody's been raped, a victim of or survived war or battle, natural disaster, an auto accident witnessed somebody die in front of them. This is all, this happens when infidelity occurs. And what happens is it's very traumatic. There's not very many people who are skilled and that know how to help people through this who know how to give hope, who know how to paint a roadmap and who have experience in helping couples through this. And kind of what I've been talking about with Jim is, Jim is I'm the third therapist that Jim has been to, third counselor that Jim's been to and this, he went to these counselors more in the beginning of the process. Is that right, Jim?

Morgan:

Very beginning

Brad:

And now. 14 months later. Never got anywhere with it. And Jim is finally,

Jim:

He just created more questions,

Brad:

Just created more questions, more turmoil, coming closer to divorce. I want this to end. And Jim found me online and for the first time has hope and relief and knowing that it feels like things are better. Things are getting better. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there. Jim got stuck into a 14 month holding period because nobody gave him any good advice. They were dismissive of Ray. He's coming from, and basically told him just to shut up and be quiet, to go along, accept it and move on with your life. Just accept it and move on. And Jim, you found somebody who actually knew what they were talking about, knew how to deal with it, and you've done more in the last month,

Jim:

The trauma, the first thing, and you said that to begin with, we have to deal with the trauma of this that's so misdiagnosed. People don't understand the level of trauma that this creates. It affects every aspect of your life.

Brad:

Yeah. Yeah, it does. Jim, I like what you said earlier, just as far as the detail you gave. I like what you said, sleep, eating every area of my life.

Morgan:

Yeah,

Brad:

Work everything. There wasn't any, it was overwhelming.

Jim:

That's a good way to describe it. It is. It's overwhelming. I've just went through 14 months of hell through this. I've learned more about who my wife is, so I know better how to understand her and deal with issues that we have in the future. I can be more proactive towards our relationship instead of reactive to our relationship.

Brad:

Yeah. Jim, let me ask you, with what kind of help did you get along the way? Because you found out about

Jim:

Four, two months ago. Oh, we bought every book published. I've read almost every piece of information on the internet, but it's different at three o'clock in the morning with your bloodshot and tears running down your face, try to read and digest this information. It's the third person effect going on. You're still alone. You're sitting in a dark room, you're looking at a computer screen. There's no personal feelings whatsoever being transferred. Your body language, your tone sets the stage for a harmonious transaction between your patience and yourself. The first thing you told us is you're not a judge. You're not here to beat people up. You're a referee. You're here to make sure that information that we need to know gets out there without anybody's feelings getting hurt or nobody fighting.

Brad:

Yeah. I remember with your wife, I wanted to really make, drive it home, and I'm going to be fair with her.

Jim:

Yep. Yep. You did that every meeting.

Brad:

Yeah. I really wanted to let her know she's just a more timid type person, and I didn't want her to feel like she was being dominated. I want to set the stage that this is going to be a respectful process. Give me feedback. I don't want to be disrespectful either. Good marriage counseling requires that. It's

Jim:

Very important.

Brad:

And I think

Jim:

That's the misperception that people go in to counseling. The affected party is looking for vindication, like you talked about earlier. The willingness to forgive is the ability to quit punishing that person. And when you go into marriage counseling, I think all of us are looking for, Hey, this guy's going to be on my side. This person's going to be rooting for me. I got him in my corner. Let's beat her up and let's find some answers or beat him up and find some answers that didn't take place. What took place was a very comfortable place to be able to communicate very emotional things.

Brad:

Yeah. So Jim, you were thinking, this is going to be, he's going to tell me I'm right, that I have the right to leave her, that I'm this, that I'm that.

Jim:

Yeah. That's what I was looking for the first time here was you to say, yeah, Jim, you're right. Go get a divorce. That was what I prayed would come out of your mouth.

Brad:

Oh, wow. What did you find instead?

Jim:

Compassion, understanding. I don't know the word I could really want to use here. It's a harmony. We took chaos and kind of harmonized it a little bit to where we could do the tough things we needed to do. Let those emotions out, dig for what we needed. Tell the truth, be honest. Start building the trust back.

Brad:

I needed hope. I've gotten hope. I know that things are much

Jim:

Better. Oh, you didn't try to talk me out of anything You said. Let's think about this now you are going to, it's, let's think about this.

Brad:

Yeah. Jim, with, so you were kind expecting me to be more of a judge, kind of not a referee, or not a mediator or a peaceful, not a healer. Maybe it's the right way to say it. Not as somebody who's a healer, but somebody who's

Jim:

Telling you, I was looking for a judge, jury, and an executioner

Brad:

When

Jim:

I walked in. Yep.

Brad:

Yeah. Jim, how do you feel about the blueprint of healing that we've had?

Jim:

Well, you gave us a really good path that we were going to take to start with. You sat down and explained the steps, listened to me, diagnose the issues that were the most pressing to me in the beginning and said, this is what we've got to attack first, second, and third. If we don't attack this, we can't go to two. We don't do two in the right order. We can't go to three, and we're going to deal with each one of these issues. And we did. It worked perfectly.

Brad:

So it's before, when we went to other counselors, we didn't have the order.

Jim:

There was no path. There was no process. Do it again. Let's pray about it.

Brad:

And Jim, it was even they would ask your wife, are you going to do this again? And she responded, no, I'm not. And then he

Jim:

Says, they come back and see everything's healed. God takes care of everything.

Brad:

And they expected you to be okay.

Jim:

Yeah.

Brad:

Jim, one of the things you've mentioned earlier was they expected you to Barry kind of put all these in

Jim:

The box. Yeah. Told me I need to forget about it. Forget about it. That I needed to take these negative emotions, put 'em in a box, take 'em outside, bury 'em, and just that God will take care of that. Just go on with your life now.

Brad:

Yeah. And that never got you any closure?

Jim:

No, it made things worse. Life is a wonderful thing. Get out there and live it. Going through this is an existence. It's a very miserable existence at most.

Brad:

Yeah. Yeah. And Jim, for 14 months, I wasn't able to live.

Jim:

No. I lived in a miserable existence of a life, and it was unnecessary because we didn't find the right people to help us.

Brad:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming to me, and I appreciate the help. Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I appreciate you taking the time to do this audio recording.

Jim:

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Ep 25: Brad's Favorite Topic - Events That Make Healing After An Affair Possible

Ep 26: Why Do They Lie?

Ep 27: Are Some Wounds Too Big To Heal From?

Ep 28: Hell or Highwater Detachment and Despair After An Affair

Ep 29: Childhood of the Betrayer

Transcript

Brad:

They get these message that they have to be self-reliant, it's either outright told to them or it's implied that they got to be self-reliant and they also get messages that are either told to him or hinted at that they can't ask for needs to be met. They got to bottle things up, it's almost like sometimes they got to take care of their parent instead of being able to just be open and honest about how they feel.

Morgan:

Have you been wondering how to break free from the affair once and for all? Now's the time to take back your life, your emotions, find happiness, joy, and fulfillment with your marriage. Healingbrokentrust.com is the place where you can find resources to take the healing journey to the next level. You'll find incredible resources for every stage of your affair recovery journey. Connect with our team of qualified affair recovery therapist who stay current with the ever growing, ever changing affair recovery research that's available to help you heal wherever you are in the process. Take our home study course focused on helping you communicate and express yourself in a way that gets you what you want. You can also book an incredible one on one intensive retreat where instead of dragging out the pain over months or years you can condense the time it takes to heal in just a matter of days using scientifically proven methods that work to help couples lower their guard, let go of the fear, melt the anger, and experience each other at a deep, emotional level you may have never experienced before. So what are you waiting for? Go to healingbrokentrust.com. So go to healingbrokentrust.com and we'll talk to you soon.

Morgan:

Wherever you are welcome to Healing Broken Trust podcast, we're joining you from our lovely home in the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's a Saturday afternoon during nap time and so it's just you and us for the next half hour or so. We have an interesting topic that we're about today, right Brad?

Brad:

Yeah, this is a really fascinating subject. We're talking about what does the childhood look like, the typical childhood look like of your average person who's unfaithful. So I think this is really fascinating. Of course, I'm a therapist so I'm fascinated by things like this, but I think our listeners will be fascinated by this too.

Morgan:

Yeah, I think so too. So...

Brad:

Because sometimes people get stuck on the why, they don't understand why they did it, and none of this is excuse making, but if you want to understand the psychology of the one who's unfaithful, the psychology of the betrayer this is often a good place to start.

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

But it doesn't explain everything so here's what you cannot do, you cannot say you had a crappy childhood, that's why you cheated on me. Because the one who had the affair often doesn't' feel that way. These are things that may influence them, have affected them, but they often won't say it's because of blah, blah, blah from my past is why I cheated on you. They're going to be unhappy about their relationship. But as we'll talk about this we'll see how this influenced them, whereas someone else who was unhappy, or equally unhappy who didn't experience some of these things didn't make the same choices.

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

So this is the thing that kind of influences us in some ways subconsciously it impacts us. So this isn't excuse making justifications, anything like that, but it is a way to understand where did they come from, what kind of past did they have, what's the average past look like? And I'm in a unique situation where I get meet people every day who've experienced infidelity, who've betrayed their spouse, so I'm one of the few people on the planet who kind of knows what kind of past they have, what kind of background they have. And so...

Morgan:

Yeah, you've seen so much.

Brad:

Yeah, and it's a lot of fun because you're past isn't your destiny, but if we don't really work on it, and heal wounds we may end up hurting other people.

Morgan:

Gotcha.

Brad:

So that's kind of what we're talking about.

Morgan:

That's really interesting. So speaking of one of the things that you had actually brought up, why do some people cheat or why are some people unfaithful and others are not when they have similar pasts that are bad?

Brad:

Yeah, I think part of that really depends on the type of emotional or relational resiliency they develop. A lot of folks will, at least, I don't know if this is accurate, but I think a lot of people have a very unhappy childhood, but they don't always make terrible life choices. Some people have a good childhood and they make terrible life choices, so it's not always predictive. But what really helps people is the amount of emotional support they had. It doesn't matter that you went through terrible things as a child, you immigrated from a different country, you're a refugee, or you were a victim of violence as a child, or a parent died as a child. Those things don't have to predict later behavior but oftentimes they can. But the real factor is did you have somebody there for you emotionally. So those things aren't always causes

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

To being unfaithful. What the real factor is is did they have emotional support, did they have people that they could learn on emotionally, did they have warm parents, did they have both parents who were warm. It's not just enough to really have one not with the way parenting works. You need to have both warm parents, and both parents be involved, and both parents be attentive. You may have been able to get away with dad being out of the home a lot 50 years ago because you had grandparents who were more involved throughout the whole upbringing of the children. Today parents are usually relying on themselves, you don't always have close family units. So...

Morgan:

Absolutely.

Brad:

So anyway, the big thing is really resiliency. If you've got emotional support and you've got people there for you in tough times as a child you're going to probably do better...

Morgan:

Do better.

Brad:

Relationally, because here's the thing Morgan, you can even have siblings in the same family. Just as an example, the dad is abusive, or they experienced really deep, traumatizing things, but say the mom comforts the younger sibling because the child's the baby, mom gives it maybe more attention and consideration, and the baby could be like 10 years old and then the other child's like 13. A 13 year old maybe looks a little bit more independent and the child's going through the same stressful as the 10 year old's going through, but they're getting more attention, more warmth, they're learning that they're still valuable, that they're still loved. The 13 year old who wants to be independent on their own they're still going through hell because they're not getting the same...

Morgan:

Message.

Brad:

Message, and so they're not developing that same sense of resiliency. I would say that's really the hidden things that's there.

Morgan:

Okay. So can you paint a picture of the childhood of a typically betrayer or someone who...

Brad:

Is unfaithful.

Morgan:

Is unfaithful, yes. What does it look like?

Brad:

Well I would say the typical childhood boils down to really one thing, or maybe a couple things. The theme is a childhood with cold, emotionally detached parents, inattentive parents, parents who are not just inattentive, but maybe even rejecting, their distant themselves, they're preoccupied with their own issues and problems. They love their kids just as much as I love our son, I'd give anything in the world for our son. They would give anything in the world for their children but they don't really know how to connect emotionally themselves. So you can't give a child something that you don't have yourself. Sometimes there's just this void, lack of emotional connection, this distance. So what this creates, and this is really the important thing, is it creates somebody who is out of touch with their own emotions and feelings, and they feel uncomfortable feeling vulnerable, they feel weak being vulnerable, and so they don't ever want to share that part of themselves with anybody, and they don't share it with their spouse because they don't want to share it with anybody.

Brad:

They love their spouse more than anything and they really cherish their spouse, and I think this is true for almost everybody who cheats. I think there's very few people who really don't care for their spouse at all. I think I would bet money that almost everybody who has an affair really, genuinely cares about their spouse. But here's the thing I want to get to is is they feel uncomfortable being vulnerable, and expressing emotions, and vulnerability, and needs. So when they get unhappy in a relationship they don't go to their spouse and say, "I'm really unhappy, this is really unfair," because they hate conflict. So what they do, and this is all stuff they learned in childhood, so what they do is they just bury it, they keep it to themselves. What ends up happening is is they resent the heck out of their spouse and that's the justification for being unfaithful later.

Morgan:

And something I...

Brad:

They never speak up though, they never say, "Hey, this bother me."

Morgan:

Now their parents would be maybe cold, or distant, or inattentive but I imagine since their parents really do love them that can't be 100% of the time that they're inattentive or distant, it might be inattentiveness or distance surrounding certain things in life or moments in life when they need their mom or dad, but their parent wasn't able to respond and maybe ... I'd like to ask you, is that true, would that be something that you could say that maybe their parent wasn't 100% terrible or distant all the time, maybe their parent just wasn't able to respond when they needed something, or in a moment of crisis, or does it need to be all the time?

Brad:

I think that's great question. I think the biggest wounds people development are wounds of abandonment and betrayal by close loved ones. If I get betrayed by somebody that I'm not emotionally close to that hurts and I might hold resentment towards them. But if you get betrayed by somebody who's your emotional world that will keep you up at night, that will make you obsessed. It won't just put a chip on your shoulder, if it's a colleague who hurts you. That will bother you and it may even bother you for a while. But if it's your own safe haven, the person that's supposed to be there for you, if they betray you, and honestly, if you've never had anybody there before, a parent, a grandparent, mom, dad, any siblings, if you never had anybody there for you emotionally and then you get betrayed it's a lot harder thing to ever trust another person with again.

Brad:

So here's the thought process, and I want to answer your question. And help me make sure I'm answering it, but this is something I jotted down. This is how the person who has an affair thinks, and this is typical because usually the one who has an affair is the one in the relationship who's more the avoider, or the one who shares the least emotionally, they're the one who tends to be more independent, they're the fixer in the relationship. Women can fit that mold. You see a lot of guys with that. Usually a pursuer in the relationship will have an affair when they've been trying for a long time and they feel like they're not getting through to their spouse, and they'll have an affair when they start giving up on the relationship. Their affair is sometimes more about wanting to be attractive, and pretty, and somebody's interested in me.

Brad:

Sometimes it's more about that, and an avoider will have an affair for different reasons, they just don't really trust anybody, and they may not say that. An avoider can be somebody who's really happy, cheerful, outgoing, but what they're avoiding is their emotions because they're uncomfortable, it's a foreign territory for them, they don't know how to navigate it. So an avoider would say, "I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others. I find it difficult to trust them completely. It's difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being." So I'll read that again. An avoider would say, "I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others. I find it difficult to trust them completely. It's difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being." So I don't really trust you, but at the same time I'm nervous about you getting too close to me. So they're kind of an island, they really thrive on feeling independent, and not needing other people too much, but they do need other people.

Brad:

So what they do is they kind of start turning off emotions, and feelings, and withdrawing, and they shut down with there's an argument, they get quiet, they hold back, and they don't like conflict at all, and so they'll hold back these things. So what happens is over time they build a lot of resentment. Really what they're scared of is giving themselves completely over to the person and fully trusting another person, so they sometimes can have a really low commitment to a relationship. But the irony is is they're not really giving anything extra or special in the affair than what they've already given in their marriage. So even though sometimes spouses read text messages, or love letters, or whatever, they're read this and they're like, "Oh my gosh, he's given this woman all these things that he's never given me." Or he hasn't given that to me in a while. I would venture to say he's not giving her anything, he's not giving anything that he's never given before. He doesn't know how to be truly vulnerable and truly let someone in because of some of these things that we need to get into.

Morgan:

So he's not necessarily giving more to that relationship than he's given to yours because he doesn't know.

Brad:

Yep. Now he may be giving more...

Morgan:

Verbally.

Brad:

Well in this time period.

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

Like he's having an affair...

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

Obviously he's giving more that relationship than the marriage.

Morgan:

Right because he's invested in that more than he's invested in the marriage, and so he might be having sex or something with his other person but he doesn't necessarily let them into his vulnerable dark places.

Brad:

No, no, no and it may feel that way because there's love letters, flowers, pictures, sexting, different things like that. But no, they're not giving anything emotionally of themselves more. They don't suddenly become a different person and now I'm going to be vulnerable with you. Typically that's not what happens.

Brad:

So what does the typical childhood look like of someone who has an affair? What you typically see Morgan is you see parents who are consistently cool, who are consistently inattentive...

Morgan:

Oh so there's consistency to the parents behavior. So it has to be something projected over time.

Brad:

I think it could be both. Like back to your question is it big events that do it, or I think it's a pattern, a behavior that's modeled that they see. But at the same time, if the event is big enough they can lose their trust and just decide I need to learn to lean on myself.

Morgan:

Especially if the event doesn't ever find resolve. If they don't find resolve after that, or healing, or they don't fix the relationship after the big event.

Brad:

Yeah, you got to mend it. You've got to be able to restore, you've got to work through it. I would say the thing that's probably the biggest is there's events but what really does it is I think sometimes it's a combination of both to be honest with you.

Morgan:

Consistency?

Brad:

Yeah, consistency, inattentive, consistency cool, consistently rejecting, even sometimes just being angry, having a parent who is angry with you snapping at you. You learn not to open up. You learn not to open up when they're rejecting, when they're inattentive, when they're just whatever, cool. So what happens is you see this pattern of behavior from the parent's side of just being detached and not really caring about their child emotionally. But you often see because of that these events that happen where they may be the ones hurting the child in abusive ways, or exposing them to risk and harm. So it's more this parenting style that produces these other things, that create...

Morgan:

This illusive cool person who's maybe detached emotionally that then turns into someone who betrays their partner because they don't know how to connect emotionally.

Brad:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Here's the other thing, I kind of go into a child having this, it later becomes like a potential future cheater. One of them is from the parent they will send messages to the child that they will be punished If they try to seek closeness from the child. So when of the things that can happen is Morgan and I ... I think we might have talked about this on a podcast, but this just ... And I hear about stuff all the time in my office, but this is one I saw firsthand. Our son, we had to take him to the doctor and while we were in the waiting room there was a little five year old girl, big waiting room, the parents were on different sides of the waiting room, little five year old girl looking at fish I the fish tank, and I didn't see it happen but she fell on the ground, tripped and fell. She's of course crying and both of her parents were immediately like...

Morgan:

They didn't do anything.

Brad:

Well they didn't do anything, number one, but do you remember they...

Morgan:

I do.

Brad:

Both of them were saying like, I think it was more the dad, the mom kind of agreed with the dad, unless your arm is cut off...

Morgan:

Or you're bleeding to death.

Brad:

Yeah, unless your arm's cut off or you're bleeding to death quit your crying.

Morgan:

Yeah, don't cry.

Brad:

What that signals to the child is ... But here's the thing, nobody thinks back to that and says, "You know when I was five I couldn't be open." But what they learn is subconsciously, over time, they develop a mental model that becomes their blueprint for future relationships that they can't go to somebody for support. So...

Morgan:

Yeah, they can't go to their parent, that attachment figure.

Brad:

Yeah, they can't go to their parent, I'm going to get punished. So what happens when they enter into a relationship is I can't go to my girlfriend or my boyfriend I'll get punished for it. So what they do is they...

Morgan:

They hide.

Brad:

They hold it in and then they resent their spouse, or their girlfriend, or boyfriend because they're not sharing what they're really feeling and needing, and they magically assume you should know, and they're resenting the crap out of them. Then they are really unhappy in the relationship because they don't ever give themselves to someone completely they kind of get into these affairs, they can either flirt with someone else or they're really susceptible to someone flirting with them. Or when the opportunity arises, because of travel or other things, they're kind of susceptible to it. Nobody's ever going to say when they cheated it was because of this in the doctor's office when I was five.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

The girl's not going to remember that because there's going to be a crap load of other examples that she'll have. But what it is it's the pattern that develops...

Morgan:

That consistent message.

Brad:

That consistent message, and what develops is this mental model this is how relationships work. At that young of an age when that model gets developed you have no idea if this is healthy, or unhealthy, or not, you just know this is how relationships work because that's what you see in your family. You're five years old, you may just be getting to start kindergarten, you may not even be in kindergarten yet. There's a whole lot of crap that's happened yet and you're not even able to logically say this is dysfunctional. You can't even say that. But what's crazy about that is the parents who are 20-25 years older than their daughter are sending those kind of messages to her. I think, and I know, they love their child just as much as we love our son, but that child doesn't get that impression.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

They don't feel lovable, and they can't show that vulnerability because there's a new model that gets developed so what they do is they turn off emotions because they feel weak and inadequate and what they're really getting away from when they withdraw, and shut down, and are quiet, and aren't vulnerable, is they're really getting away from those feelings of feeling inadequate, that's what's really going on. It's not about always getting away from their spouse. Sometimes they don't want to create conflict, but they're really trying to get away from "I feel inadequate and I don't want to express that kind of vulnerability because I'll weak, and if you think I'm weak and not strong you won't like me very much."

Morgan:

Yeah...

Brad:

And so that's...

Morgan:

I'm not going be ... Those feeling of...

Brad:

I'm not going to be good enough.

Morgan:

Yeah, and those feelings of weakness are going to be validated, those feelings of inadequacy are basically validated by the partner. So they don't want to go there.

Brad:

Well yeah and they value peace because they feel closest to their partner or spouse when there's not conflict. Obviously you have to deal with crap in a marriage to really have a good marriage, you can't just brush stuff under the rug, you got to be open and honest.

Morgan:

And that's also why it's important that if your partner does come to you with something that's vulnerable, or that gives you a glimpse of what's really happening inside their mind, in their heart, to not swipe at them and get upset with them because it validates that fear of they're not going to accept me, I'm not going to be okay. So I think being able to look out for those things as they come, if they are vulnerable with you, to be able to see it as it comes your way, I think is really valuable, and I think that's just a tremendous thing. I know you teach people how to do that in the retreats and stuff like that.

Brad:

Yeah, because this is not set in stone. You really need therapy help because this could change, and hopefully listening to this is helpful. But this isn't set in stone, people can change out of this.

Morgan:

Right, yeah, so that's a good question that you're leading into I think. If they've had this childhood, and they've responded the way they have, and it's led them down the path of infidelity, getting to this once a cheater always a cheater, is that really possible? Can they get out of that? Can they change? Can they be different? If they identify these patterns in their life can they change? Can they become no longer someone down that path I guess?

Brad:

Yeah, that's a good question. I think they can change, I think the best way to change though is couple's therapy. You have to have that because you have to feel like you can let them into your secrets, into your vulnerability, into the deepest, and darkest, scariest place emotionally. You have to be able to let them in and you have to feel like you can trust them for you not to cheat on them.

Morgan:

You know what I think is so interesting, some of these...

Brad:

Let me finish this thought here...

Morgan:

Okay.

Brad:

Because if you don't do that you're always going to be prone to having another affair. Now your spouse, if you cheat on them, you may eventually earn their trust, work your butt off, you do all these things, they finally trust you. But for you to never stray again you have got to know that you can trust them emotionally and lean on them emotionally, and you got to feel like there's nothing holding you back. You've got to feel like yes, I can give myself completely do you, there's nothing holding me back, and you've got to feel like you can share anything with them. If you feel like there's things that you cannot share people are going to get in trouble there.

Morgan:

Because then you're starting to keep those secrets. Those secrets kind of start seeping again and then that vulnerability or that resentment can seep in again.

Brad:

I want to finish this and then I'll fly it on to the parenting that they've experienced. So the first one is parents are consistently inattentive, consistently cool, rejecting or angry in their responses to the young children. Children are met with threats of punishment for trying to get close to their parents, like that little girl in the doctor's waiting room.

Morgan:

Or they say, "Grow up. You need to stop crying." But crying for a little kid is their language, they don't have English skills, they don't know how to speak...

Brad:

Well and Morgan...

Morgan:

Like an adult.

Brad:

You bring up a good point. You bring up a good point. When earlier when we were talking about resiliency, you develop resiliency because you feel like you got somebody who has your back. The people who are probably the weakest with the least amount of resiliency are the people who have this relationship style that we're talking about because they don't ever know how to trust anybody else or fall back on someone else. People like this can be maybe great soldiers, go to Antarctica, be the sole man who goes to Mars on a one person mission to Mars because they've turned off their relationship needs and ability to...

Morgan:

That part of their brain.

Brad:

Yeah, they turn that off. But when their spouse dies, or when somebody dies, or when they're really in a crisis they break down, they suffer the worst, they never really truly recover. And the real issue is they don't let anybody in. They think the real issue is I'm just depressed, or work sucks, or this, or this, or that...

Morgan:

Which could be true, but the real issue is...

Brad:

Yeah, those things are important. But the real issue is they don't know how to really let anybody in, their defenses, they turn off their emotions. So Morgan the third thing is, and this is something we hinted at, there's violent or abusive behavior on the part of an attachment figure. An attachment figure is somebody that you trust, that you feel like you can go to in times of difficulty like a parent, grandparent, older sibling, maybe even a younger sibling, close friend of the family, but you get abused by that person. So what that tells you as a kid is man I cannot be open. I can't even go to my own dad, he's an alcoholic and he's beating the crap out of mom, and he's threatened to beat me, gets in my face, he's hit me where I've had marks, I couldn't go to school. If I can't trust dad who can I trust? And so...

Morgan:

What does that say about me as a person.

Brad:

Yeah what does that say about me if my own dad doesn't like me and he's beating the crap out of me.

Morgan:

Yeah.

Brad:

That says a lot. So that creates somebody who's got this relationship style of being able to really be where they feel really uncomfortable being close to others. They find it difficult to trust them completely. It's difficult to allow themselves to depend on someone else, and they're nervous about someone getting too close, and they find that they're in relationships where the other partner always wants them to be more open, reveal more.

Brad:

Then the last thing you hinted at. They have parents who either outright says, or hint at, that they need to be more self-reliant, more independent...

Morgan:

That's right.

Brad:

You got to be tougher, you got to stand on your own feet. Don't get me wrong, you got to do that age appropriately, but if you're doing that at an inappropriate age level. Your high school student loses his girlfriend and he's sad about that you can't just tell him sorry bud, move one, you're going to meet a girl in college. You can do that later, but you can't do that...

Morgan:

In the moment when he's hurting.

Brad:

Well yeah, you got to just comfort him and try to be there, and listen. Eventually you can say, "I went through the same thing, and that's when I met your mother, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know right now it doesn't feel that way but I'm always here and if I can talk with you about it I'm here."

Morgan:

Yeah, instead of the opposite where it's like, "Grow a pair, stop crying."

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

"Suck it up. Be a man."

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

That doesn't work, it doesn't draw them closer, it doesn't teach them how to manage their feelings, or their emotions, or their needs. They just shut down, and pull away from you, and that's how they respond to their spouse.

Brad:

Absolutely. The other thing is they get these messages that they got be self-reliant, it's either outright told to them or it's implied that they got to be self-reliant and they also get messages that are either told to them or hinted at that they can't ask for needs to be met. They got to bottle things up. It's almost like sometimes they got to take care of their parent instead of being able to just be open and honest about how they feel. One of the things that's dangerous about this Morgan, and this is not meant to make anybody feel terrible. But unless we think about these things and work on these things on ourselves, because we have that mental model we can do it to our own kids. So we have to be aware of this and think about this, and we have to really be able to provide for our own kids secure attachment.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

In relationships we always ask, "Are you there for me?" And if we feel like our caregiver is there for us we feel worth of love and will have a secure relationship style where we feel like we can be open, and honest, and totally give ourselves to somebody.

Morgan:

Yeah, and I think as I've listened to you say this it really brings to mind kids of parents who are alcoholics, who maybe were a sexual abuse survivor, incest survivor, and like I say, it's not always physical bruises, but there are emotional bruises, there's psychological bruising that happens and if you don't deal with it, if you don't handle it, if you don't heal from it, and you can't really do it alone, it's not anything you can do alone, and it's typically much better when you can heal with the one that's your spouse, the one that's your...

Brad:

Oh yeah, it's a heck of a lot better. Here's the thing Morgan, it's your spouse who's validating in confirming you, it's a deeper level of change...

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

Than individual therapy.

Morgan:

Than just individual therapy, yeah.

Brad:

Let your spouse validate in you, not a stranger who's nice, it's your own spouse.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

And that...

Morgan:

That attachment figure...

Brad:

Yeah, that attachment figure.

Morgan:

That person in your life that's supposed to love you unconditionally like your parent was supposed to love you unconditionally. So I personally, I understand this at a personal level just how difficult it can be to have be the caregiver to the parent. So if that's you, I know I haven't been an unfaithful person, so you can totally not come away as an unfaithful person, and that sort of thing. But it does affect and impact your relationships with other people, and the most important relationship with your spouse, it does impact that. So it's really important to get the help, to heal this is really what I'm trying to say.

Brad:

Yes, of course. Because, Morgan, to answer your question once a cheater always a cheater, I think you're prone to do it again if you don't get the help. This is not something ... It's not even that you have to come to us, we're available, we have retreats, we work, it's what we do. We love it. But you've got to the help because if you don't, and you can't let somebody in, you're prone to repeat the past, and even when you had. People hate doing this crap but they still find themselves drug to it because they're not really working with somebody who knows how to help them.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

It's like trying to lose weight. It's like you see somebody who's obese, who's really overweight, they've done everything they can, they yo-yo diet, they're trying to break it but sometimes you got to go get outside help. Some things are just bigger than us and we got to go get help, there's no shame in that.

Morgan:

No.

Brad:

Nobody would say to somebody who's overweight, that's been yo-yo dieting for years there's any shame in going to get help with that.

Morgan:

No.

Brad:

You would encourage them to do it.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

So if you're listening to us and you are yo-yoing in your own version of a yo-yo diet in your relationship, and trying to be faithful, and trying to heal from an affair don't do it. Nobody thinks you're crazy if you go get help it's not a sign of weakness, you don't think that about anybody who's that way with their weight, why think that about yourself? Don't be naïve, don't be dumb about that.

Brad:

The other thing Morgan, I want to give a couple examples...

Morgan:

Oh yes, yeah please.

Brad:

Of childhoods. The big thing here is they are emotionally just like I said, those four things. That's the common thing. You just need one of those to really develop into an avoidant relationship style. Here's an example of some of these things that we're talking about. One of them is a parent teaching a child to lie, we don't tell mom about this, keep this a secret for me, I'm going to tell you what it is, but keep this a secret from mom. What does that child lean about relationships? That it's okay to have secrets. It's okay to not fully give yourself over to someone, so it's foolish to trust somebody. Hide things to keep the peace so that child learns that. People don't really question things that they learn from their parents, they just kind of automatically they hear it and then they act it out, they live it out...

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

And they don't question it. You eat it, you don't contemplate it.

Morgan:

They're kids.

Brad:

Yeah they're kids and it's where you start learning these relationships. So anyway, the second thing is I had a client once, I had him what his happiest childhood memory was and he said, "Christmas because that's the time of year", he said holidays actually, "because that's the time of year that I knew my mom loved me, that's the only time she ever said she loved me." So this particular person never really had just one best friend, he had a bazillion friends but he never really let anybody in on his emotional world because first he couldn't do it with mom. Then it played out into his relationship where he could never really give himself to his wife.

Morgan:

So they were just very shallow relationships.

Brad:

Yeah, yeah. An abusive dad, one that's physically abusive, that hurts mom, that's abusive towards the child. That's an alcoholic, you just learn you can't trust. There's a common theme you're not there for me, I can't trust you. I can't get my needs met through you, I've got to shut down because this is scary. We develop that template and then we use that even though our spouse isn't that way. Maybe they are, but most likely they're probably not that way. We still act like they are, we still hide, and withdraw, and don't fully give ourselves because our first example were of never giving ourselves completely. So what happens is when our spouse wanting us to be more open with them it feels very foreign to us, it feels very uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable. And most people can't do it on their own, so it's kinda ... What we talked about, therapy, going to therapy. Having a parent who's not an attachment figure but like a grandparent, you got to go to a grandparent to get your needs met, you can't even go to your own parent. Your parents are so messed up you can't even go to them but you go to go to a grandparent.

Morgan:

Or a teacher.

Brad:

Yeah or a teacher, or someone else, a coach, somebody who's been sexually abused. Just the general theme is cut off parents who aren't there. We're going to hear it from all the time people who say ... Because here's the golden question, I hear people all the time who say, "I had a great childhood." And I'll follow up with the golden question, "Well who did you go to when you were hurt, sad, or afraid? When you were lonely as a kid." "Well nobody." Or if they say they could, "Who did you go to? So you could go to somebody, who was it?" "It was probably mom that I could go to." "Well can you give me examples of when you did that." "Come to think of it I can't. Did I go to mom? I don't remember ever going to her actually. Or it never occurred to me that I could." Those are all things that are examples in this avoidant attachment style and many people who end up becoming unfaithful that's kind of the childhood that they had.

Brad:

So hopefully this has been beneficial for you guys. We don't want to lead you into any confusion or anything, so hopefully this has been beneficial. This is not destiny, this doesn't have to be this way, it doesn't have to because it's your childhood or your spouse's childhood doesn't mean it's predictive of future results in the future, but you do have to go do work on it because most likely it can be, maybe it will be. So you got to go to work on it.

Brad:

Here's just some other childhood's that ... Let me move my papers around so I can share this. Other examples of childhoods, the kind of childhood that we want is we want to be able to say, "We had a secure childhood that produces where we feel like our caregiver is there for us and we feel worthy of love because our caregiver was attentive, they were responsive to us, and they were engaged with us." So somebody that has a secure style would say, "I find it relatively easy to get close to others and I'm comfortable depending on them, and having them depend on me. I don't worry about being abandoned, or about someone getting too close. I'm very comfortable in this relationship." So people who are securely attached who are married to each other are going to be the ones who have the best relationships because they both feel comfortable being vulnerable and open.

Brad:

But, now earlier when I was talking about a pursuer who gets burned out and then they have an affair, this is typically what they're going to say. They're going to say, "I find that other," this is what an anxious partner would say, a pursuer, "They're going to say I find that others are reluctant to get close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me and won't want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner and this sometimes scares people away." So an anxious is going to say, "I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me." So they're really anxious about the state of their relationship. "I want to get very close to my partner and this sometimes scares people away." So those folks will have an affair when they start feeling like I'm not going to get my needs met in this relationship, kind of like what we talked about last time in "Hell or High water, Despair and Detachment", that they will begin to grieve that they're not going to get their relationship needs met and then they're vulnerable to an affair happening.

Morgan:

Yeah, so definitely check out that episode. It's called "Hell or High Water, Despair and Detachment," because it's really helpful to understand what happens whenever you start to burn out of the relationship and where it goes from there.

Brad:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Morgan that's it for right now. Any questions, anything else we need to look over?

Morgan:

Well I think that you've really described avoidant attachment pretty well. Can you sum it up in more of a definitive way, what in a couple of words does avoidant attachment mean?

Brad:

Avoidant attachment in a few words means I don't trust you and I'm uncomfortable getting close to you.

Morgan:

Okay, so an avoidant attachment person if they don't feel like they can...

Brad:

I don't feel like I can give all of myself to you because I don't trust you. And you may be perfect, but if I'm afraid you'll me as weak then that causes me to hold back.

Morgan:

And that holding back causes the negative cycle to spiral and it can open up vulnerabilities for them to cheat, to have an affair.

Brad:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Morgan:

Okay, and ultimately what we're saying is that their children is a big indicator of...

Brad:

This is where avoidant ... Childhood is where the avoidant detachment's created.

Morgan:

Yeah.

Brad:

You don't go from a secure attachment style all throughout childhood and then you leave home, and you're an adult, and then develop an avoidant attachment style. That typically doesn't happen. You've got to develop a lot of ... A lot of crap's got to happen for that to develop. But an avoidant attachment style in just a few words is I don't really trust you with myself, giving you all of myself, and my emotions. I prefer my independence and that's because of the way they were raised. They couldn't really trust their parents.

Morgan:

Okay, and then ultimately it boils down to if you can get help and you work on these things you don't have to go down that path, it doesn't necessarily have to be the end for you. You don't have to experience infidelity in your relationship if you can identify what's really happening emotionally and take the necessary actions. I think that's great. Thank you very much Brad for explaining this to us and I think that's the show.

Brad:

Yeah, thank you guys for listening.

Morgan:

Thank you for listening to this episode of Healing Broken Trust podcast. Are you ready to take the next step? Go to healingbrokentrust.com and schedule your one on one coaching call today. That's healingbrokentrust.com.

Ep 30: 2 Communication Sins To Avoid

Ep 31: When They Have A Baby As A Result of An Affair