Ep 11: Crisis Management, How to Keep It Together When Everything's Falling Apart After The Affair

Brad:

We can really only focus on one thing at a time. And if we let our thoughts run control of us, it's going to control our mood as well. We're going to be stuck in sadness, grief, and hurt. And it's going to be sure it'll always be there until it's completely dealt with. And I'm not saying don't deal with it. I'm just saying at times you got to get to work or times you got to take care of the kids. And these are ways to regain control of yourself.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad and Morgan Robinson, where we talk about healing from affairs, infidelity, trust, and cheating in your relationship from the perspective of a professional marriage therapist and a fair recovery expert. If you are wanting to heal your marriage, this podcast is for you. And we're on episode 11 where we're talking about ways to manage the crisis and specifically with this question of how do I keep my world from falling apart after the affair? So that's really important. And quickly, before we move on, I want to remind you to go to healing broken trust.com/episode 11. That's episode and the number 11 to really get the downloads, actually to get the free downloads that we have there for you and gain a better perspective on how to work through this process. All right, so that's Healing Broken trust.com/episode 11. Download those free resources and let's get started. Welcome back. You're listening to Brad and Morgan Robinson, and we are talking about how to recover from an affair. Today we're talking about ways to help you manage the crisis after your spouse's affair, and there's four things we're talking about today, intrusive thoughts, thoughts stopping journaling, and managing depression. Brad, do you want to get us started?

Brad:

Yeah. Many times after an affairs discovered, obviously it's very traumatic, it's very hurtful. Part of, and we've talked about before, this is very, because it is so traumatic, you have a difficult time with obsessive thoughts. And so how you handle those intrusive thoughts, those obsessive thoughts, I want to share a couple things with our listeners on how to do that. Pretty much in almost every case I've worked with on a fair recovery. The spouse or partner who's been betrayed has had obsessive intrusive thoughts. Most of them have also reported a hard time managing the flood of thoughts that came to them. There is a guy named Larry Smith. He's an author and leading the expert on post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. He's developed a few tools to help individuals deal with intrusive thoughts instead of having to turn to drugs or other harmful coping mechanisms to relieve that pain. And one of the things that he's developed is really grounding your body.

Brad:

And

Brad:

Let me explain this, grounding yourself and grounding your body. Grounding yourself means doing things that bring you back to the present. Instead of focusing on the past and letting your mind into the affair, you're focused on the here and now, you're learning and practicing. This will help you gain a sense of control over intrusive thoughts from the past. And it frees you from worrying about the affair happening again. And there are multiple ways to do this, and one of those is grounding your body with grounding your body. You're noticing what your body is doing without passing judgment on what your body feels like. So for example, if your breathing is shallow and rapid, or if your stomach is in knot, you focus on the breathing slowly and evenly, especially if you are hyperventilating.

Brad:

You

Brad:

Want to touch the fabric of your clothes or an object close to you and focus on what it feels like. Part of grounding your body is to stomp your feet or push them down, or you could rub your elbow or wiggle your toes. Tensing and releasing different muscle groups is another effective way to ground your body.

Brad:

And

Brad:

So you're getting more in touch with what's happening. You're not passing judgment on it, and you're paying attention to it,

Morgan:

And

Brad:

It actually helps you feel better,

Morgan:

Right? Because oftentimes you can drift, your mind can wander, and you can feel your body getting tense and tightening up. But if you say, oh, I'm going there again, and you start to come to the present moment and feel your body in the now, then you're starting to slow your breathing and you're starting to really relax, and it's going to take you away from the stress and those intrusive thoughts. Is that the idea?

Brad:

That's the idea. And that will help with the intrusive

Morgan:

Thoughts.

Brad:

Another way to help with the intrusive thoughts is, and I know what I just said, on grounding yourself, grounding your body. That sounds bizarre. Try it. Just try it and see and do it for a little bit and see what kind of results you get.

Morgan:

And if you feel awkward doing it on your own, maybe go to a yoga class or a breathing class and just practice relaxing. Maybe even get a CD with relaxing music

Brad:

On how to relax, and that'll be very helpful.

Morgan:

Very helpful.

Brad:

Another way to handle intrusive thoughts is what's called thought stopping.

And with this, what you do is you just tell yourself, stop it. I'm not going to think about this. Stop again. This will be probably difficult in the beginning, the immediate aftermath because you're still very much a crisis. But as time goes on and as you get better, you can start choosing what your thoughts are going to be with thought stopping. You want to basically tell yourself, stop it. Then select half predetermined thoughts that you're already going to choose. You can have scripture verses on a note card. You can have lines of poetry. You can have your goals written down. You can have affirmations written down. You want to have something predetermined that is going to make you feel better and that you can say to yourself, instead of having these wild thoughts control your mind, you can just say these things out loud to yourself. And it can be a prayer that's written down or a prayer book that you have, and you can just read it out loud and it'll help you start controlling your thoughts and regain mastery over 'em. And it's not controlling you.

Morgan:

Right. And it's helpful to say it out loud as well. Very helpful. Say, Nope, stop. I'm not going to, Nope. I'm not going to think of that. Stop now and think on the things you want.

Brad:

Yeah, because we can really only focus on one thing at a time, and if we let our thoughts run control of us, it's going to control our mood as well. We're going to be stuck in sadness, grief, and hurt. And it's going to be sure it'll always be there until it's completely dealt with. And I'm not saying don't deal with it. I'm just saying at times, you got to go to work or times you got to take care of the kids. And these are ways to regain control of yourself.

Morgan:

Yes.

Brad:

And so thought stomping is very helpful. Handling those intrusive thoughts with the grounding yourself and grounding your body, that's also helpful.

Morgan:

Right.

Brad:

And another helpful way, Morgan, do you want to share that with us? Sure.

Morgan:

Yes.

Brad:

This is

Morgan:

Journaling. Journaling. Journaling is very helpful. I personally enjoy journaling, but there's a social psychologist, Dr. James Pennebaker's, and he did research that identified two traits of individuals who cope well along the journey to recovery, an outlet for their feelings and a mindset about the trauma that fosters closure and clarity. So he talks about that, and he believes journaling can help with that. Dr. Pennebaker found that those who confided their emotional wounds in writing experienced dips in their mood as they were writing, but ultimately felt significantly happier and less anxious than the students who did not spend time journaling.

Brad:

And he did a study with one of his classes and he had his students do that.

Morgan:

Oh, true. Yes, yes. So journaling reportedly gave the students and the people that he worked with increased clarity about their trauma and brought them to a place where they could think about it more easily. And the exercise also improved function and participant's immune systems, which is amazing. Dr. Pennebaker concluded that confiding helps individuals confront, understand, and mentally organize the trauma, lessening its damaging effects. So that's pretty amazing. And I think if you're putting those feelings and thoughts onto paper, it's almost taking it off your shoulders. And I could imagine that would help your immune system.

Brad:

It really does. It's

Morgan:

Amazing.

Brad:

And Morgan, there's some different ways that journaling can become more effective. When you do begin to journal,

Brad:

You

Brad:

Really want to remove distractions. It's important to locate a fairly secluded space where your focus won't be impeded by people noises or other distracting stimuli.

Morgan:

And you want to be consistent. Consistent is consistency is very important. And I remember Dr. Pennebaker recommends journaling for 15 to 30 minutes on four to five consecutive days.

Brad:

And that's really important. And just being consistent with it because it'll help you. Sure, you might feel a little worse when you're riding, but when you're going to feel better because you're dealing with it, you're not putting the pain away, you're not putting the trauma away,

Morgan:

You're stuffing, you're not stuffing it. Yeah,

Brad:

You're not stuffing it. Sometimes moving past this is like hugging a cactus. I tell people, you go out and lost in the desert and you've got a terrible sunburn on you and you're dehydrated and you meet a person that lives in the desert, and this person is not wearing very much clothes. They look like they, they're also skin burned, but it's not destroying them. It's not peeling, it's not painful. And they told you how they got better. They said, see that cactus over there? I went over there and hugged it. I helped my skin, it healed my skin, and I no longer felt dehydrated, and I can survive in this desert. And in a way, that's what this is like. We're hugging a cactus when we're journaling, when we're dealing with the affair, when we're talking about it with our spouse is it feels horrible when we're doing it. And you got to squeeze that cactus tight. You got to wrap your arms around it, and you got to bear hug it, and it's penetrates your skin and it's already sunburned and you're dehydrated. But when you're doing that, it has healing energy and has healing properties to it.

And that's what we're doing. And lo and behold, you get better. You start feeling better. And that's what fair recovery is in a lot of ways. You're hugging a cactus,

Morgan:

And I really like the next thing. Inspiration, beginning with the traumatic event can spur the flow of writing as long as it's not a topic that's so upsetting that it becomes a distraction. Sometimes you can use a journal that has topics to write on. I'm sure there are a lot of helpful journals out there.

Brad:

And Morgan, that brings up the idea of being honest. This is your journal. It's a wonderful outlet to address topics you often think about but are too uncomfortable to admit to yourself or too embarrassed to discuss out loud writing can sometimes help you make sense of your feelings and therefore deal with your trauma in a way that conversation or internalizing simply cannot do.

And you're writing for yourself. And so it's important that this is also very private. It's important to write with no one's thoughts, opinions, or approval in mind, but your own in order to ensure total honesty. And some of this, because there is heightened emotion there when you're writing about something as difficult and painful as an affair is, even though you may feel strong emotion for a short period after journaling, most people do report having felt a sense of relief and peace as the long-term effects of journaling. Most people report feeling sense of peace as the long-term effect of journaling.

Morgan:

Right? And so having a clean slate, this is a valuable opportunity to cleanse your mind of worries. And many have experienced relief from insomnia by journaling before they go to sleep, which is really nice. Kind of gets all those crowded thoughts off your head, off your plate. However, journaling can sometimes trigger painful thoughts like you're talking about, and reminders. So it's important to use discretion and feel free to stop journaling at any time if it becomes too difficult. Just

Brad:

That's important.

Morgan:

Keep in touch with yourself.

Brad:

Yeah, that's important. You don't want to squeeze that cactus too strong, but it's still going to help you capitalizing. It's important to supplement journaling with therapy. It does not replace the value, the valuable help of a trained professional counselor.

Morgan:

Right? That's important.

Brad:

Yeah. It's not a supplement supplements. It's not a replacement. And another thing you need to do with this is take action. If journaling has helped you identify an unhealthy influence or pattern in your life, take steps to confront this issue in a healthy, productive way to incite positive change in your life.

Morgan:

And that's one thing that a counselor can do as well, help you to take those steps and to iron out what to do next. And another is finding closure. Journaling is an excellent way to close a chapter of the past and move forward with peace and clarity. Dr. Pennebaker says that as a rule, if a person can express their feelings about the past and see the events in a different light, he or she will mentally rehearse it less often, so it'll be less intrusive.

Brad:

And that's important, Morgan. It does help you find closure. I want to share a story real quick with a couple I've worked with. This is a situation where the wife was betrayed and the husband wanted to leave and she began to journal. And I'm really proud of her because I've seen a lot of people lose her Cool in that type of situation. And she said what helped her not lose her cool was she began to journal. She began to write. Instead of venting to other people and doing all that and trying to get ahold of him, she began to journal. And that really helped her just get this out of her system. So this journaling, it's very valuable.

Morgan:

And something that we've mentioned in the past that some people find very helpful is they might write it down on paper and take it out in the backyard and burn it or dig it in the fireplace and have a, let's get rid of this, these feelings, bonfire

Brad:

And Morgan, that's important. I'm glad you're bringing that up because people when they do journal and you really want to destroy it after you write it and you can destroy it by burning it, tying it to a balloon and watching it float away, that's a

Morgan:

Good one.

Brad:

And there's a psychological effect where it's getting lifted off your shoulders, you're beginning to feel better. And with journaling, you can also write prayers out to God. You can also write that person who's betrayed you a letter. You can write the affair, partner a letter, but don't send those types of letters. I had somebody that one time journaled and she said, those letters you're supposed to write, but not send 'em to anybody while I did.

Morgan:

Oh gosh.

Brad:

And all this, it was really bad because they had, shortly after that, there was a family wedding and this was a family member, and it really kind caused a big stink and a big fuss. You're going to say some things that you need to be very honest about. These are not the type of things that you need to give to somebody or let somebody else see. So after you write it, I think it's best to destroy it. I've also journaled, and I've used this just sometimes with daily stress, and I left it on the kitchen table every time I walked by it in the kitchen table for a week. I was just annoyed. I just saw it and it triggered where I got really annoyed. So if you do this and you really should, you need to destroy it or put it in a place that nobody can find it, and good ways to destroy, it's to burn it, cut it up, flush it down the toilet, or tie it to a balloon and watch it float away. And there's a psychological effect where you're seeing it go and you feel released, and it does help you feel better.

And maybe those feelings will come back, maybe be less intense, keep journaling again. It's going to help you with that. And so that's really important. You need to at least try journaling a few times before you just roll it out completely.

Morgan:

Good points.

Brad:

Morgan, the other topic I want to discuss today, and this is very helpful, is depression. After someone's betrayed, there can be a lot of depression, obviously, and for most people there is significant amounts of depression and also depression can lead to somebody having an affair. Sometimes the betrayer was depressed,

Maybe not major depression, but at least a mild depression. We've seen that quite a lot. Yeah, we have. And here's how depression can play out in your relationship. The depressed partner will typically withdraw out of the relationship because they're depressed. The other person, the non-depressed partner, will feel frustrated and powerless to make a difference. And they will respond usually with frustration and criticism, which makes the depression worse. And depression can feed the negative cycle in that relationship. So if you're depressed, the more critical you become or the more you'll withdraw. And many depressed people want to change their surroundings, and that sometimes means leaving the marriage. And depression is common right before an affair. It's a precursor to an affair. And so people who are depressed tend to be critical and irritable or they're withdrawn and they shut down. And how if you're married to someone who has depression, the most common way that that spouse is described is they're lazy. That's the best description that's given of them.

Morgan:

And sometimes we've heard where people, they sometimes seek an antidote to their depression because their mood is so low and the chemicals are so low. Sometimes an affair can pull them out of that depression for a temporary time.

Brad:

Yeah, exactly. Limerence depressed, you meet somebody, it feels good because

Morgan:

Those chemicals

Brad:

That

Morgan:

Are released in the brain, it kind

Brad:

Of exactly

Morgan:

Takes away the depression for a time. So they become somewhat addicted to it sometimes.

Brad:

Yeah, exactly. There's also, now, if you're depressed or if your spouse is depressed, you need to know that being critical and judgmental makes it harder for your spouse or partner to recover. And 50 to 70% of all mothers suffer from postpartum depression. Wow, that's a high number there. Yeah. That's really high depression. It disrupts sleep and sexual desire. And many times conflict is simply caused because one of the spouses is depressed, they're critical, they're irritable or they're withdrawn. And so also there are, when someone is depressed, they have a hard time expressing their needs. They have a hard time accepting anything

Morgan:

From

Brad:

Their partner, and that's really important.

Morgan:

That is right. And so kind of the symptoms of depression, a few of them are difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions. Persistent sadness, anxiety or feelings of emptiness, persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that just don't ease with treatment. Fatigue and decreased energy, feelings of guilt, worthlessness or helplessness, feelings of hopelessness and or pessimism. Sometimes people say they have insomnia or early morning wakefulness or issues with excessive sleeping. There's irritability and restlessness like you had talked about, loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex overeating and appetite loss. And of course, we're not diagnosing anyone. These are just some symptoms that people who are depressed, they do experience.

Brad:

And if you're depressed, obviously getting help for that is really important. And it's important to remember that depression is common. If you have it, you're not weak, you're human, and it's treatable.

Morgan:

There's different types of depression, so there are some that need medication and some that Some are just situational, right?

Brad:

Yeah. And exactly. And part of this is getting help. Depression is common, is treatable. Here's some things that you can do that may be helpful. One of those is professional help. If you're depressed and it's causing you to have an affair, you may need professional help. If you're also depressed after your partner's affair and that depression isn't lifting, you may need professional

Brad:

Help.

Brad:

And so here's some things that you can do. One of those is just taking a warm bath. Warm water helps with depression.

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

That's important.

Morgan:

Yeah.

Brad:

Physical activity. You need to get moving. You need to go to the gym, even going with your spouse or a friend going, walking. But physical activity will help with depression, and that's huge.

Morgan:

We talked about journaling as well,

Brad:

Right? Yeah. Journaling will help with depression and finding ways of connecting with your spouse. If you can do that around physical activity, that's great. If your spouse is too depressed and they don't want to walk with you, give them the room to have that ability to say, no, I don't want to walk right now.

Morgan:

And don't believe that always. It's personal. Depression is not really personal typically.

Brad:

And that's what people typically, they feel like, gosh, why are you upset? Why are you this way? I can't shake you out of this many times. What

Morgan:

Did I do wrong?

Brad:

Yeah, what did I do wrong? Cause you always blah, blah, blah. You always acted this way. And the non-depressed spouse will feel like it's personal when really it's not. They're really stuck in a very depressive state. And so what's really neat is how getting a pet can help people who are depressed feel better. Many times people who are depressed connect better with animals and with people. So getting a pet is helpful.

Morgan:

Interesting. Yeah. Accepting appreciation and giving appreciation back to your spouse. This can be hard. You need to practice small things. Often express appreciation after appreciation at least one time a day or the first week. So expressing appreciation.

Brad:

Appreciation is important.

Morgan:

It's very helpful

Brad:

Because if you're depressed, you're typically critical of yourself and you have negative thoughts. And so hearing somebody else appreciate you, it's really important. Another thing is just check in with each other. Ask how each other's days are going. Discuss how events are going. Listen, don't judge. Don't try to give advice and fix. Just listen. And also, Morgan, I like what you said about appreciating, but another thing is encourage your spouse to have dreams and to follow them. Encourage them to have goals. And because depressed spouses typically don't feel like they're entitled to have any dreams, depressed, people often don't feel like they can voice their dreams because they don't feel like they deserve to have any dreams.

Morgan:

Gosh.

Brad:

And so encourage your spouse to follow their dreams and to have 'em and have fun together. You need to go out and have fun together. You're trying to go on it and have a good time. Don't be cranky and mean. Don't run the mood.

Morgan:

Try not to at

Brad:

Least. But yeah, go out and have fun together. That's really important.

Morgan:

Get around friends and family are supportive and connect with them. Getting around anyone will help you. You can't be isolated. It just adds to the depression.

Brad:

And Morgan, that's really good advice because most of the time depression follows a feeling of loss and isolation. So if you can get around people that'll help.

Morgan:

And it's a deep introspection that is negative.

Brad:

Exactly.

Morgan:

So set priorities and simplify tasks to reduce the stress, make it simple and just make time for activities you enjoy. Get about eight hours of sleep a night, so enough sleep can help, but don't get too much sleep. Try to get out of bed, eat more healthy foods and take vitamin D. That can be very helpful.

Brad:

Yeah, Morgan, you're right about that. With getting eight hours of sleep a night, this is really interesting. The lack of sleep is the basis of all mood disorders.

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

And they did some studies on this. If you go 30 days without eight hours every night, if you go 30 days without eight hours of sleep every night, that could trigger major depression. And they've done studies on this where if you don't have any stimulants like energy drinks or caffeine and you got six hours of sleep for 30 days, most people would be very depressed. But of course in our culture, we're taking caffeine and stimulants and coffee and different things like that, energy drinks. So we're not seeing, we may not have that quite that impact, but if you didn't have any of that, you would be. And so it's really important just to take that, to get enough sleep. 60 minutes did a special some years ago, or they did a topic on lack of sleep, a show on lack of sleep. And what they discovered was, what they reported was if you go six days without eight hours of sleep, if you get six hours of sleep or seven hours, you're in a pre-diabetic state. That's right. If you only go a week, and they did lab rats where if they didn't get sleep for a week, it killed them.

Morgan:

So

Brad:

Sleep is really important to our health. We don't know a whole lot about it, but we do know that the basis of mood disorders is really a lack of sleep. And so getting enough sleep is really important.

Morgan:

So don't medicate yourself with caffeine. That's a big problem.

Brad:

And getting enough sleep and really eating, like you mentioned, healthy foods, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, taking vitamin E, like you said,

Morgan:

They talk about St. John's wart as well for depression. That's very helpful.

Brad:

Fish oil, St. John's Wart, those are some things. If medication isn't something you want to do, those are natural alternatives. And again, set goals for yourself. Someone once said, happiness is the pursuit of a goal moving forward, having something that you're working towards, it creates those positive endorphins. You're feeling happy working towards a goal, and again, get professional help

Morgan:

And having a secure base with one that you love, your spouse really helps. If you guys can work together, you can really defeat depression. There's a lot that you can do.

Brad:

And Morgan, let me say this, we're out of time, but let me say this. One of the most important things that you can do with depression is to get treatment. Part of what we're talking about is overcoming trauma. I heard this from someone, I can't give our listeners who said this, but they were talking about how effective treating trauma is. They said it's 10 times more effective if you go to individual therapy than if you just take medication for it.

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

And so get individual help. If you have it, it's not going to go away on its own. You're not weak. Everybody has dealt with it at some point in their life. It's understandable that you're going to have depression after an affair, get help for it.

Morgan:

And couples counseling is also very helpful for relieving depression,

Brad:

Of course. And in fact, that's one of the best ways to relieve depression

Morgan:

Because how much better would it be to have your spouse there hearing where you're coming from, hearing what's happening for you, so that when you leave the counselor's office, you have someone there to work it out with you to be there as a support system. It's huge. In some ways, it can be just as helpful, if not more helpful than individual counseling because you do have a partner there to work through with you.

Brad:

Yeah, exactly. 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. 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 14: Romantic Love After Infidelity: Is It Possible To Have Romance Again? How Should We Handle Romance After They Cheated? Ways To Get The Romance Back.

Brad:

There's literally hundreds of things, thousands of things that you can do. It's just changing up the routine, doing new and different things. Obviously having children, they're great blessing, but don't let children and not having a babysitter keep you from doing new and exciting things and spicing up the romance that you guys have.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad and Morgan Robinson, where we talk about healing from affairs, infidelity, trust, and cheating in your relationship from the perspective of a professional marriage therapist and fair recovery expert. If you're wanting to heal your marriage, this podcast is for you, and we're officially on episode number 14 where we're talking about how do we rekindle romantic love after infidelity, and that's a very important question. So before I move on, I want to remind you that you can go to healing broken trust.com/episode 14, that's the number 14, and download your free resources to go along with this episode. It's going to really help you in expediting your change, so go to healing Broken trust.com/episode 14. And now let's go to our radio show recording of how to rekindle romantic love.

Brad:

Morgan, I want to move on to how to rekindle romantic love when it's lost. This is kind of related to a listener question that we had, so that's why I wanted to get into this.

Morgan:

Do you want me to read the question?

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

So a person wrote in and they said, I've been listening to you talk about falling out of love. I've been married to my spouse for 20 years. I would like to know how to fall back into love with my spouse.

Brad:

Okay, that's a great question. Part of this listener is really, it's doing these things that we talked about last week on the show on how to fall out of love and thank you for contacting us, but there's also, even if you're married and you're not an affair on how to develop romantic love, well, this comes from Helen Fisher, her book, why We Love came out in 2004, and she's an anthropologist who has studied the brain and she has discovered that, and it's really simple. She has discovered that when we do new, exciting and different activities with our spouse, those exciting experiences enhances feelings of attraction, and so this is very important when we do new, exciting different experiences together. New and different is the key here.

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

It enhances feelings of attraction, so when you do something with your spouse, that gives you a feeling of danger, it stimulates adrenaline, as Helen Fisher pointed out, makes us feel closer and more romantic with our spouse. So doing new, exciting and different activities elevates the level of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is the chemical associated with romantic love, and research has pointed out that couples who do exciting general pumping activities as compared to less stimulating who do more normal activities

Morgan:

Get stuck

Brad:

In ways. Yeah, the routine, so people who do more adrenaline, exciting activities, they have increased feelings and more intense feelings of romantic love than those who just get stuck in their routines

Morgan:

And happiness. General happiness.

Brad:

Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you point that out. They have more just a general happiness, and so this can work even if you're the only one trying to work on the marriage. I had a lady come in occasionally. We see individuals who come in and we're happy with anybody who wants to work on the marriage. She was the only one that was able to, she took her husband to an exciting event and he had an affair and he was ready to leave. This helped them just spark that romantic love again and helped him to make up his mind that he wanted to stay. It doesn't have to be things that are expensive. It could be just trying a different restaurant, different part of town. It doesn't have to be things expensive,

Morgan:

Going to a new duck pond, which is something we like to do.

Brad:

Yeah, we like to go to duck ponds and feed the ducks bread in town. It's just simple. If you go to a gas station and get bread, it's four bucks. You learn that just so you know, just you know, if you go get a grocery store, it's cheaper, but it doesn't have to be expensive. When you're doing these new, exciting, different activities, it elevates the level of dopamine in your brain. Dopamine is the chemical associated with romantic love, and research is pointed out that couples who do that are happier, so this can work if you're the only one trying to work on the relationship, invite your spouse to join you in something risky and exciting. Maybe travel overnight or travel out of the country. Go bungee jumping, river rafting. Even trying a new restaurant doesn't have to be these big crazy things. Doesn't have, it doesn't have to be that at all. It could be just, let's try instead of watching tv, let's get out the board game. Doing something at the last minute, like going to a sports game or going to the movies at the last minute or swimming after the sun goes down.

Morgan:

Oh, that's fun.

Brad:

It's important to understand that anything rousing and unusual has the potential to trigger romantic love. Anything that gives you a feeling of new different that works. Anything that releases adrenaline that's exciting,

Brad:

Maybe

Brad:

A little bit dangerous, that also releases that, and that's also Morgan. Why when people are first in love, when people first meet, there's so much in love because everything's new and different and they go on dates. It's new experiences, new things that are different, and that's why also people usually when they're on vacation, they report that's probably their best times together.

Morgan:

It takes me back to our first date. It really does. Thinking about

Brad:

That,

Morgan:

Yeah,

Brad:

I remember that. It was supposed to last an hour and a half and it lasted 10 hours.

Morgan:

We

Brad:

Had a lot of fun.

Morgan:

We had a lot of random funness, so that was great,

Brad:

And so here's some other ideas. These are just ideas, just a handful. If you see something on the side of the road that's interesting, just pull off and go explore. You don't have anywhere to be, just go look at it. Going to the gun range together. Oh, that's fun. That's different and exciting.

Morgan:

Love to do that.

Brad:

Just dangerous. Swimming in the backyard at night. We talked about that, taking a last minute trip somewhere, and instead of going to a normal movie and a dinner, maybe just watching a movie in the backyard. Create your own little projector. Yeah,

Morgan:

Put a sheet

Brad:

Up. Put a sheet up. Yeah. There's literally hundreds of things, thousands of things that you can do. It's just changing up the routine, doing new and different things. Obviously having children, they're great blessing, but don't let children and not having a babysitter keep you from doing new and exciting things and spicing up the romance that you guys have.

Morgan:

Right?

Brad:

Part of this is if your spouse is falling out of love with you, let me say this, you don't necessarily have to intentionally be to fall back in love with you. What I mean is if you want them to fall in love with you, do not try to be overtly romantic.

Don't go have a candlelight dinner to music plane and try to create romance that way. Create romantic feeling, that romantic love feeling by just doing new and exciting things that it's a little bit more, it's not as in your face, it's not as obvious that you're trying to do that, but it's funner as well. So if you try to do something, you have these. It's more, I worked with a couple where the husband had fallen out of love and the wife was trying to recreate romantic love, and what this does is if you focus on, he was no longer in love with her.

Brad:

He

Brad:

Didn't want to be married to her. She was trying to get him to love her back, and so she wanted to take him to romantic dinner, and all that does is if you take somebody to romantic dinner that doesn't love you and that's wanting to leave you and you take 'em to romantic dinner, all they're thinking about is how much they don't love you anymore

Morgan:

During this

Brad:

Romantic. Yeah, it drives 'em nuts because they're thinking, I don't love this person.

Morgan:

Why are we at this romantic

Brad:

Dinner? Why are we here? I don't feel this way, and it actually pushes 'em further away. But if you do something new, different, unusual, it will help them recreate that romantic love, reconnect and reconnect. But if you try to do it more obvious like that, all they're thinking is, I don't feel this way towards you, and it actually pushes 'em further away. You take 'em somewhere that's different, new and exciting. Focus on that. Don't focus on trying to be romantic. If you focus on what's new, exciting and different, you're going to create romantic love as a

Morgan:

Byproduct.

Brad:

As a byproduct, but if you focus on getting romantic love and getting your spouse to love you back only by doing what are conventional romantic things, they're not going to love you back. In fact, and you tell 'em, you love me, do you love me back? You tell 'em things like that, you're just pushing 'em away

Morgan:

And they're going to say no.

Brad:

Yeah,

Morgan:

And that's going to work. That's going to feel worse.

Brad:

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

Ep 15: Am I crazy? What’s wrong with me? How come I can't get over this? What to do in the first 90 days

Brad:

And really what's happening, and this is something that needs to be really understood by everybody listening is a fair recovery is really trauma recovery. And what I mean by trauma recovery is when people experience betrayal, what they are experiencing many times is symptoms of depression, but also symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad and Morgan Robinson, where we talk about healing from affairs, infidelity, trust, and cheating in your relationship from the perspective of a professional marriage therapist and a fair recovery expert. If you are wanting to save your relationship after infidelity, this is the podcast for you. And we're officially on podcast number 15 where we're talking about trauma. And specifically with this question of am I experiencing trauma? What does it look like? I'll tell you what, it'll be a really good idea to go back to episode one and revisit the seven stages of a fair recovery process that we talk about in episode one to really prepare you for this episode. But one thing you can do and that I recommend doing is also going to healing broken trust.com/episode 15. That's the number 15 to download your free resources. They're really going to help you through this process, really help you to understand where you are. Are you experiencing trauma? What does it look like? How does it play out in real life and every day situations? And so again, that's healing Broken trust.com/episode 15. Download those resources and let's get started.

And we've been talking about the stages of recovery, so do you want to remind the listeners about the stages of a fair

Brad:

Recovery? Yeah, just a quick recap. The stages of a fair recovery, there's the moment of discovery. In that moment of discovery, there's ambiguity, uncertainty. If we want to continue on, there's trauma. That's what we're going to talk about today, meaning trying to understand why this happened, what's going on, and then ultimately forgiveness. And simultaneously what's going on is there needs to be care, caring behavior, compassion that is expressed between both spouses, the betrayer and the injured spouse.

Morgan:

Yeah, and the whole process, it's not linear, correct?

Brad:

No,

Morgan:

It's kind of circular. Sometimes you'll come in the discovery, you'll start right at the discovery process and you might move through it quicker or move to bounce around to the

Brad:

Different, yeah, you kind of move around. So it's not a linear process, but it is a process that people can work through. And the most important ingredient is really carrying and compassion. It needs to be there for both people to be able to recover from this. We had an email. Do you want to go ahead and jump into that?

Morgan:

Sure. Let's talk about the email. We have a question from a listener, and here it is. I learned about my wife's affair with her coworker two months ago. She has since stopped seeing this person and is trying to help me heal, but I still can't seem to stop thinking about her with him. I feel obsessed with knowing what happened. My wife is becoming tired of answering the same questions over and over, and I feel worried that she will leave me just because my obsession with knowing what's happened. I feel like I'm going crazy. Why do I feel this way?

Brad:

Well, I'm glad that person emailed because that's what we're talking about today, that question. Am I crazy? What's wrong with me? How come I can't get over this? That is a very, very important question. And really what's happening, and this is something that needs to be really understood by everybody listening is a fair recovery is really trauma recovery. And what I mean by trauma recovery is when people experience betrayal, what they are experiencing many times is symptoms of depression, but also symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. And I'm not diagnosing anybody with anything. I'm just saying this is generally what happens. Very large number of people are experiencing obsessive thoughts, rage, nightmares, anxiety, the inability to sleep, all these different things that they're experiencing, and it makes 'em feel nuts. They can't quit thinking about it no matter how hard they try to move on. Can't. Nobody's crazy when they're experiencing these things after a betrayal. Very normal. And both people need to understand this. The betrayer needs to understand this. One of the things that happens in a fair recovery is the spouse who's been betrayed is very obsessed about this, and so they want to talk about it. Talking about it for them helps 'em find relief, helps 'em understand it. It helps them begin to piece the puzzle together and they actually find relief.

And the betrayer feels like, gosh, talking about this is I'm only hurting you more. Why do you want to know about all this, yada, yada, yada? I'm only hurting you. But for the injured spouse, it's actually the only relief they find from it are some of the only relief. One of the things that's real important about this that people need to understand is people who've been betrayed are not crazy. You're not crazy. It's very normal. When I experienced betrayal, I experienced a lot of the same things that we're going to talk about today. In a sense, it's very predictable. Even for a lot of people, an affair is the most devastating experience that they'll have. I had a guy that was in Iraq say he would rather be shot at again in Iraq than to experience his wife cheating on him again. Wow, that's

Morgan:

Strong.

Brad:

But here's the catch with this. And I've had somebody else say, I would rather I've had a woman say that her husband's affair was worse than losing a child. And those are very strong statements that are made and not everybody feels those ways would say the same thing those people said, but this pain ranks up there with the death of a spouse, parent, a child. Some people have even said it's worse. And some of you that are listening to this who've experienced this, know what I'm talking about. The betrayer doesn't understand this. They just want it to be over quickly and it's not over quickly, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done. People can heal from it though I'm not saying you can't, but it just takes time. The first 90 days is the longest period of time, but people can't heal from it.

Morgan:

Yeah, the first 90 days is the most difficult, where the pain is raw and it's just so fresh and so many questions need to be answered. Yeah,

Brad:

It's really the crisis period. And that's usually when the symptoms of PTSD are at their highest.

Morgan:

So we were talking about trauma. How long does it take to recover from trauma?

Brad:

Well, it's dependent upon different factors, but the average couple, if everything goes right, it's about two years. There are some things that hinder people from recovering the way they need. And I just kind of want to go over this real quick.

Morgan:

Let me ask you real quick, by saying two years to recover, do you mean they need to be in counseling for two years or does that mean

Brad:

No, usually to be honest, and this is what couples need to understand is usually couples do really, really well in marriage counseling. It's actually quite rare for couples who come in because of an affair not to do well, usually if they're there, they both want it to work, they want to work through it, they just don't know how. It's extremely confusing. It is a nightmare. It's a rollercoaster. They don't know how they think they're crazy. The person who had the affair, what's wrong with them? What's wrong with me? Why did I do this? So it's kind of a myth that you're doomed. So most people actually do better than other couples that come into marriage counseling, believe it or not. But the trauma aspect of this is what takes a while to heal because it's that fundamental trust, that foundation of the relationship and it's been damaged. And so some of the things that can hinder that make this a longer process, I'll go over this real quick. There are a few primary ideas. The first is they live in a fantasy. They feel the fantasy of being in love with the affair partner. The fantasy they had with the affair partner was one that didn't have the baggage of a long-term committed relationship.

Morgan:

That's something you typically term as limerence, correct?

Brad:

Yeah. I'd call that limerence. And limerence is basically a feeling of romantic love. The best way to describe it is you're really addicted to somebody else. You're obsessed with that person. It's really commonly called the first stage of falling in love that people have when they're dating. All you can do is think about them. And so that's when people have an affair. That's sometimes what's happened, and this is where people actually leave their spouse to be with the affair partner. They're experiencing limerence that's really matured and fully grown.

Morgan:

And you typically say that when they leave their spouse for that person, that's when the fantasy kind of bubble is burst

Brad:

Typically? Yeah, yeah. Usually people who leave their spouse to be with that other person, they have the highest divorce rates when they marry their affair partner because the fantasy's over.

So the first thing is the person still feels the fantasy of being in love with the affair partner. They don't have the baggage because it's so new. It's so fresh. They're not experiencing the day-to-day responsibilities or the day-to-day realities of a long-term relationship. There's no baggage. The betrayer is free to focus solely on the relationship with the affair partner. A common example of this, it's not just limited to people like this, but you see this especially with people who have young children, especially dads at home. If you got a dad, the mom is staying at home, taking care of the kids. Dad may feel ignored when he's at home. There's noise, there's crying. It feels like he doesn't have any time to himself, but when he is with his affair partner, he feels like he can be himself and not have any of the responsibilities of raising a family. His affair will be an escape from reality, a fantasy he can be engaged in,

Morgan:

Engaged with that person, or maybe it lacked engagement with their spouse.

Brad:

And so when he's with his wife, there's financial struggles. Maybe he feels left out because children are getting more attention and with his affair partner, he feels like he did when he was a younger man free from the responsibilities of raising a family and basically he's living in a fantasy world. This is totally fantasy.

Morgan:

So we're talking about what hinders the trauma recovery process, and you've talked about limerence. What else

Brad:

Hinders that? One of the things that's important to know with this is something that for most couples, I would say nine out of 10 who are dealing with an affair, maybe eight out of 10. It's a very predictable process. This is what you got to do. I wouldn't say it's necessarily paint by the numbers, but you can really see great success. And so it's really just lack of knowledge. If you don't know what you're doing, if you listen to the girls at the getting your at the salon or the guys at the gym or whoever, it's really going to hurt you bad. Even in really listening to people who, and not even people like that, but just people who don't even know what they're talking about

Morgan:

And aren't pro your relationship.

Brad:

You need people who are your marriage who want you guys to make it, want your relationship to make it. You need that kind of help. But one of the things, and this is so important, I want to really highlight this. The greatest predictor in overcoming trauma is having somebody there for you to help you through it. There's no better person to help you through this than the person who's had the affair. Now, the injured spouse will tell you, yeah, I know that's true, but the betrayer, what you need to know as the betrayer is you are the best person to help your spouse heal your love, your care, your attention, your honesty about what's happened is really what your spouse needs to begin to heal. If they feel like they have that from you, you guys are going to be okay. If your spouse feels like you're not being honest, the odds aren't too good.

So they really need to feel like you're on their side, that you're trying to be there for them. One of the things that keeps people from being the healer and that really keeps people stuck in the trauma is while they were having the affair, the betrayer was living in a fantasy. Like we said earlier, they're living in a fantasy world, but what's happened is they're creating an unfair picture of their spouse. So they're with this affair partner, my God, this is amazing on cloud nine, they're in love, they're happy, they're no responsibilities, no realities in the picture yet. And so they're looking at their spouse and they're comparing their fair partner with their spouse and they're thinking, gosh, look at all these negative qualities that my spouse has all this, all that. It's really an unfair comparison. So in my experience, it does take time for involved spouses to let their feelings about the affair partner fade from their mind. But once they do, the faults of the fair partner usually outweigh the faults of the spouse. The longer a betrayer is ambivalent about being the healer his or her spouse needs, the more the injured spouse's insecurities in craziness will only increase craziness. But if the betrayer meets the betrayed spouse with compassion, it will help him or her to regain their composure back again.

Morgan:

And really that's a lot of patience because they will ask the same questions over and over

Brad:

Ist

Morgan:

That correct?

Brad:

Yeah.

Morgan:

Usually until they can really process the answer that you're giving and really process the information for themselves until they can start really fully understanding. Is that

Brad:

Correct? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. The idea with this is is that our greatest predictor in overcoming any trauma is having somebody there. For us, what's so necessary about affair recovery is we need the person who had the affair to turn around and say, I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to try to do whatever it takes. I'm going to be here. I'm going to have compassion. I'm going to be patient. I'm going to answer these questions. I'm going to be honest. When we have that, we're going to be okay. And we are really not recovering from trauma until we have that

Morgan:

Brad. People, they often feel very hopeless and you're giving them a lot of hope. So we're talking about hope and the recovery process and trauma. Tell us what they need to know about the rest of the recovering from trauma.

Brad:

Now, this is the single most important idea I want our listeners to get today is the greatest predictor of success in overcoming any kind of trauma isn't what the trauma is per se. It's not being shot at in Iraq. It's not going over a roadside bomb. It's not experiencing war, it's not being sexually abused. And PTSD basically means a deep personal wound. So that could be sexual abuse, it could be experiencing a riot

Morgan:

In

Brad:

A third world country. It could be anything that's a deep personal wound. The greatest predictor of this though is having somebody there for us that we can call upon for support. Having somebody that we can turn to and in a fair recovery, having the betrayer be there for you, turning towards you saying, yeah, I'm going to do whatever it takes. That's what helps people heal. So it's not really what came before necessarily. Not every affair is equal. There is a lot of pain. If we have that ingredient, we're going to be okay, and that's really the major thing that we need is betrayer to become

Morgan:

The healer,

Brad:

To become the healer, and we can overcome this trauma. That takes time though, even when they're really there though, I don't want people listening to say, gosh, we'd be so much further along if they only just did this or just did that. You want to be really careful as the injured spouse, not to police the betrayer in the sense of being critical, condemning, nagging, blaming. You want to be very careful not to do any of those things

Morgan:

Because you want to encourage them to be the healer.

Brad:

Yeah, you want 'em to encourage to be the healer because what they're thinking is, gosh, this person's such a drag. They're nagging.

Morgan:

Maybe I'm doing more harm than good by talking about this,

Brad:

And so it's kind of a catch 22, and so you want to be really careful. Let them know you appreciate everything that you're receiving, that you're getting, and you're only going to get more when you do that. So you want to be really careful, but you want to help them be educated on everything,

Morgan:

And that's really hard because in the moment of that pain and everything, it's very easy to say, gosh, they don't deserve any praise because they've been so horrible to me.

Brad:

And that's true. People feel like that and they feel like they usually early on in the process, early on in the process, I don't want to give a definite time, but definitely within the first three months, usually that's when they feel that way. The other thing is this is what can hinder people from being the healer, and I see this a lot. In fact, I see this more than the first two that we talked about. Still being caught up in the fantasy element is really the betrayer feels a lot of shame. They feel really stupid about having an affair and just the fact that they feel stupid or shame or guilty about this and there's a certain level of guilt that's healthy, but when it turns into shame, I'm a bad person, I'm stupid. All this stuff keeps you self-consumed about the affair. It keeps you focused on yourself because you

Morgan:

Feel you have to do something to fix yourself first.

Brad:

Yeah, you think of that, but you also feel so bad that and you see your spouse hurting them and in a sense kind of bleeding to death and you're the one who pulled the trigger. It really keeps you from being there for them the way that you need to be.

Morgan:

And I've heard you talk about it. It's like this guilt, shame, depression cycle where you just go into this deep depression sometimes where like you're saying, very self-consumed and absorbed and thinking, gosh, I did this horrible thing. There's no way out, there's no hope. And you just kind of fall into this depression.

Brad:

You fall into this depression and it really keeps you from being there for your spouse,

Morgan:

The healer that you need to be.

Brad:

And usually when people are like this, they don't like expressing their shame, their guilt, they don't like sharing these things, and you really need to express those things to the spouse that you betrayed. You need to open up emotionally. You need to share things with them. You need to let them know that you're really sorry. In fact, one of the things that can really help you be a healer is just tears, just conviction. I'm really sorry about this. I'm sad about this. And just tears can really letting your spouse know how eaten up by this you really

Morgan:

Are. We're talking about the things that hinder the healing process when it comes to trauma. We have one that betrayed their spouse. What keeps them from becoming the healer, Brad?

Brad:

Well, really lack of knowledge about the process. Sometimes there's still feelings for their affair partner and also their own guilt and shame about what they've committed. They really feel devastated by that. The other thing, we only have a few minutes left, so I want to go over something I mentioned last week. We talked about ambiguity. I want to be clear on this. This is something I wanted to discuss. The period of uncertainty. I really discouraged people from separating when they're trying to work out the marriage, people who separate to try to work on the marriage. There has been some research that's shown that there's only a 13% chance of actually reconciling after people do a trial separation, and that's because they get a newfound sense of independence, family and friends, a knowingly encourage divorce, that kind of thing. They say things, I'll just be happy. Whatever makes you happy. There is a time when separation is a good idea and that's when there's the threat of physical violence. I want that to be clear that I'm not totally against the idea of separation. I am in most cases, but I do make an exception for the threat. A physical violence. If your life is in danger or if you're getting beat up and you're finding that this isn't productive, then it's a good idea to work on this from a distance and separate

Morgan:

And it's never productive to be beat up, that's for sure. No,

Brad:

Not at all.

Morgan:

Let me just ask, how do you recognize the symptoms of trauma?

Brad:

Okay. Some of the common feelings, reactions that people have is there's intrusive memories about the affair. Feeling like their mind can't control the onslaught of questions that they're having about the affair. There's flashbacks or what I mean by that is reliving the discovery of the affair and feeling like they did the first time they heard about the affair. There's nightmares about it, trying to avoid thinking or talking about the affair, feeling emotionally numb, avoiding activities that were once enjoyed, hopelessness about the future, having problems with memory, trouble concentrating, difficulty maintaining close relationships, rage, irritability or anger, overwhelming guilt or shame, self-destructive behavior such as drinking too much, maybe even using drugs, trouble sleeping, being easily startled or frightened, hearing or seeing things that aren't there. Experiencing amnesia, forgetting all of the affair or parts of it, feeling like the affair did not really happen, as if it were a dream or covered by fog, feeling like they're outside observers, like they're watching this happen to someone else.

Morgan:

It's shock

Brad:

And of course an anxiety. So those are the symptoms and really it's a deep personal wound that people experience and the major thing to heal from this is, and we're going to get into this, it's finding meaning and it's really just understanding why this happened. Once you feel like you can understand it, then your mind can rest. You no longer need to wrestle with it and have the obsessiveness. And next time we meet, what we're going to talk about is we're going to get into a little bit more in depth on what happens to our mind, how the mind works and how really when we experience deep personal wounds like this and experience symptoms of PTSD, we will experience what is called almost in a sense disassociation, where a mind and memories kind of just separate or shatter into different pieces, and this is why people will have flashbacks, just reminders that pop out of nowhere. It means there's unresolved business. We have unfinished business that needs to be dealt with so we can heal, and then when we are completely healed from this, we will no longer have some of the disassociated features of this

Morgan:

Or the going back and returning and hashing it over, and you can kind of return to reality again and not be so zombie-like be back to the real world again and able to

Brad:

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

Ep 16: How to work through anger and talk about the affair without pushing each other away?

Brad:

When I was betrayed, I thought people would tell me I was crazy or nuts and I didn't get the professional help I needed to the way I should have because I was worried about being stigmatized, felt humiliated. I felt different. In some ways, I felt like an outcast. And of course self-confidence took a blow. But injured spouses who've been betrayed know about this pain. They know about some of the symptoms. I'm going to get into that. The betrayer doesn't really understand this. They have tons of guilt. They feel very guilty about what happened. They have a lot of shame about it, and that shame actually can be counterproductive.

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 save your relationship after infidelity, this podcast is for you. And we're officially on episode number 16. We're talking about what is PTSD, what is this trauma symptom of PTSD or what is PTSD? And if you haven't already, go and download episode 15. Listen to the first part of this trauma series. It's a four part series and we're on the second part. Also, it'll really help to download and listen to episode one where we talk about the seven stages of fair recovery process because that is really going to help you as well. But also before I forget, I want to mention go to healing broken trust.com/episode 16. That is the number 16, and download your free resources. That way you can really have some help through this process and we're super excited to have that there for you. So without further ado, let's play the recording of what is PTSD. Brad, can you explain to us what is PTSD?

Brad:

That's a great question. PTSD is really a deep emotional wound. It's really a trauma. People feel like recovering from an affair is hopeless or that kind of thing, and I'm not diagnosing anybody who's been cheated on with that disorder. People have symptoms of that and to be diagnosed with that, it's definitely not by listening to a radio show. You can self-diagnose, but it's really, you need a professional would have to diagnose you with that. But there's a lot of themes and a fair recovery, and one of those is is the betrayed spouse has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and people experience that anytime they experience a deep personal wound, that trauma. And that could be when people have been raped, mugged, physically, sexually abused, even when people have been held hostage, hijacked terrorism bombings, seen somebody kill themselves, or seeing somebody die in front of you, torture, sexually assault, surviving a natural disaster.

There's a lot of different things and infidelity isn't in that category of trauma and hurt. And as I mentioned last week, and I want to give you guys hope listening to this, infidelity recovery is not, it's a very simple process, but it doesn't mean it's easy. And what I mean by that is the greatest predictor of overcoming all those different things that I just listed is really having somebody there for you. And part of infidelity recovery is getting the story out, understanding the details of what happened, but also feeling like you guys are both there for each other and that the person who had the affair can be a nurturer and a healer that's going to help you heal. That's basically what PTSD is.

Morgan:

What specifically makes PTSD so hard to recover from? I mean, gosh, muggings and terrorist attacks. I mean that's big. What about a fair recovery and P ts D is so hard to recover,

Brad:

It makes this difficult to recover from?

Morgan:

Yeah,

Brad:

Well, anything I guess, and just a short way to say it is intentional human causes. They're the most difficult traumas to recover from, and that's followed by unintentional human traumas. And so recovering from an affair isn't as easy as recovering from being mugged or witnessing a riot or those kinds of things. And the simple reason for that is the injured spouse thought they knew who their spouse was, they thought they knew who the betrayer was, and the betrayer was someone who was once thought of as safe and dependable. And the pain of that affair hurts worse when injured spouses feel that the betrayer was someone who wouldn't hurt them in a million years.

Morgan:

Yeah, with bombings and things that we've experienced even recently, it's kind of like, it feels like a random act of hatred that's kind of towards everyone, not just a person that might've lost their life or lost a limb. It doesn't feel as it was a direct attack on you, specifically your spouse doing that to you, which it feels more like a direct attack on you as a person.

Brad:

And it's much, much more personal. I depended on you and you turned your back on me. I needed you abandoned me, I needed you, and you left me. And so it's much more intentional. It's somebody, it's much more personal,

Morgan:

More targeted towards

Brad:

Obviously then a freak tornado or a hurricane. Obviously those are painful and that's what makes this hard to get over it. But I don't want to sit here and talk like nobody's ever recovered from this or it's impossible. And then the reason I'm really going over this is the injured spouse knows they're an incredible amount of pain, but they feel like they're crazy. They don't understand that this actually has a name. When I was betrayed, I thought people would tell me I was crazy or nuts and I didn't get the professional help I needed to the way I should have because I was worried about being stigmatized, felt humiliated. I felt different in some ways I felt like an outcast. And of course self-confidence took a blow. But injured spouses who've been betrayed know about this pain. They know about some of the symptoms I'm going to get into. The betrayer doesn't really understand this. They have tons of guilt. They feel very guilty about what happened. They have a lot of shame about it. And that shame actually can be counterproductive. You would think the shame would help them be a healer, but it actually causes them to minimize the affair.

And it's something that we're going to get into in the future. But what happens is they don't really understand this. And a lot of people in the mental health community don't understand this. Pastors don't understand this. What will happen is, is you go to people for help. They don't understand that you have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. As the betrayed partner in this, they're going to tell you things like, well, you got to bury it. You got to let go. You got to forgive. And forgiveness ultimately is something that we want to work towards, but you can't just move past it. I wanted to get past it. If I could have, I would've. And so what I'm trying to say is this kind of pain is something that is, it's intrusive. It's intrusive, it's constant, but it's something that the betrayer needs to understand. There is a path forward, there's a way to deal with this. And telling your spouse things like, you got to get over this. You are crazy, you're nuts. And you're doing that only to minimize your own pain, but it has to be done in an environment of nurturing and healing to work past that and just telling somebody they're nuts and crazy actually causes further pain.

Morgan:

I guess my question is how do we work through our anger and talk about the affair without pushing the betrayer away?

Brad:

That's a good question. That's actually a great question. Part of this is how do you work through the pain of this without demoralizing the betrayer? So they don't think that this is impossible situation. There's a couple different things that can be done. The need to talk about the affair, the need to share details, the need to really, what I would call find meaning. What we really need is for both spouses to understand why this happened and for it to make sense to them. Sometimes the betrayer may know before the injured spouse knows, but how you talk about this in a way where both people feel respected is really to control anger outbursts as the injured spouse and having those symptoms, there's a lot of rage. Sometimes it's not even really anger, it's more rage and it's always kind of below the surface. It's always there. And as the injured spouse, you have to be careful with that because your anger is going to push that person away.

Morgan:

It's kind of counterproductive.

Brad:

Yeah, it's really, it's very counterproductive. And something that we're going to get into later is how there's personality traits of people who are betrayers. They're conflict avoiders for the most part, I would say maybe 19 out of 20 in my practice, they are conflict. They do not discussing things that are emotional nature, expressing their own emotions is difficult. Asking for what they want and need is difficult. And so you are basically with that kind of anger and rage, you are bulldozing over this person and it becomes counterproductive at that point to then try to talk to them about,

Morgan:

And you won't get the answers you really want.

Brad:

No. Yeah, well, it's not going to be productive. And so what you need to do is limit how much you talk about this in the beginning after discovery, you're going to talk about it probably hours on end.

Some couples will, some couples won't talk about it at all. But most couples I find they talk about it extensively. They do go into depth about it. And what you need to do as time goes on is try to limit your talks to this, to 15 to 30 minutes with kind of an idea. I call open limitations. Any question can be asked at any time, but you do want to shy away from sexual details, certain sexual details or just re-traumatizing. And what I mean by that is peeling the scab off and re-put salt on the wound when you do that. And then just love letters or correspondence of that type. You want to stay away from that area, but anything else is free game. The limitations part is just talking about it for 15 to 30 minutes because as people talk about this, you can get heated, you can get upset, and when you're talking about this, you need to really just limit that interaction.

Morgan:

Yeah. Because the more time that you spend talking about it, you start going in a big circle asking the same question over

Brad:

And over, especially if you're not getting any help. And that's where professional help is necessary with somebody who knows how to walk you through this. So when people run into that situation getting their spouse to talk, it's making sure you're not bulldozing over them.

The betrayer is probably somebody who doesn't like conflict. You've got to be able to talk to them in a way that helps them open up and talk about it. They normally don't want to talk about it. They don't feel like they can be forgiven. And so part of this is letting them know that you see what they're giving you, see the effort and letting them know in no uncertain terms that you guys are working towards forgiveness. And right now that may not be possible in your situation, but kind of the end goal is, I want to put this behind us, I want to put this behind me as the injured spouse and forgiveness is something that we're working towards. Forgiveness occurs in stages, we're working towards it. Maybe we haven't reached full forgiveness yet, but I want that and I need you to be here with me, you as a betrayer to help me work through this so we can reach full forgiveness. But many times betrayers will feel, gosh, there's nothing that can be done to fix this. I have done the unforgivable sin. They can't let it go. They're letting me know they can't let it go. And so what I'll encourage people to do as well is as the betrayed, as the injured spouse, really to keep a journal just for yourself to write in and express everything in there and get it all

Brad:

Out.

Brad:

That's when you can say the mean ugly, hateful things you want to say. But if you say those things that you would normally put in a journal and reserve that your spouse is going to lose all motivation, they're going to feel like, I can't really be there. We can't heal from this. And they're going to stop trying. It's really what's happening is learned helplessness. They keep butting their heads against the wall and they feel like this wall will never come down. And so they quit trying. And so as the injured spouse, you need to use the policy of open limitations, keep a journal, but also let your spouse know, I do want to forgive you. I want to work towards this. I am not happy with being this upset and I'm not trying to push you away with my anger.

Morgan:

When you are feeling these feelings that it's a natural process, it's kind of like when you are just so upset and you naturally avoid any kind of painful feelings. And so we don't want to go there so we don't talk about it or we just don't want to talk about it. So we just kind of suppress it and we avoid it and we push it back. But the natural process is to feel this pain and eventually it will subside after getting help, after talking about it, after finding meaning and finding resolve. But talking about in the same vein, learning your spouse or significant other has cheated on you is a life altering event. You talk about the injured spouse, not only feeling numb and avoiding talking about the affair, but also avoiding other situations as well because of this pain. And I mentioned significant other because before I met and married you, my handsome husband, I was cheated on by someone I dated.

I remember walking down the hall and seeing him with her and just feeling devastated. But it's not until now looking back that I realized the way I dealt with it was avoiding activities that I enjoyed and I used to participate in and avoided people, and I just avoided every social activity that I loved and I just became very depressed. And in the book, the principles of a Fair Recovery, which you and I got together and wrote, you talk about restricted range of affect. What is that? And can you kind of elaborate why is it that we avoid these situations and why is it that we just don't feel like talking about it and we kind of suppress these feelings? And how important is it to talk about this?

Brad:

Yeah, that's a good question. Part of this is, lemme back up to kind of answer your question, because the affair is so painful, it makes sense that we would try to logically numb feelings about it. Something I try to do in my office is to help couples understand you cannot numb painful memories without also numbing the good memories as well. And not just good memories from their relationship, but from their life. So the injured spouse, they try to suppress all feelings in order to numb the painful feelings from the affair. As a result, injured spouses often avoid pleasant activities, including those they once enjoyed before the discovery of the affair, maybe even things like traveling, hobbies, relaxation.

Morgan:

So they're rewriting the whole history of the relationship at that point in their mind.

Brad:

Yeah, that's what they're doing. But because they're trying to avoid, because they're in so much pain and torment thinking about the affair and the obsessive thoughts that go with it, they just want to numb out that pain. And so what they do is they numb out those painful emotions, but they numb out the good emotions. And so then they start avoiding pleasant activities they once enjoyed

Morgan:

Because maybe it reminds them of the person that they were together with or I wonder why that is.

Brad:

It could be that, but I mean it's really that simple. It's you're hurting, you go numb and then depression can build and then you slack, motivation,

Morgan:

That

Brad:

Kind of

Morgan:

Thing.

Brad:

So things such as traveling, hobbies, relaxation, finding pleasure in their kids isn't as enjoyable. So after the affair, betrayed spouse will say, I don't know how to have fun or enjoy myself anymore. So betrayed spouses commonly feel detached from other people. After going through an affair, people often assume that they are now different and that no one could possibly relate to their experience. They feel like they can't talk about this, but what happened, what the partners did for fear of judgment, they feel like keeping the secret about the affair leads them to feeling further disconnected from others. They no longer feel comfortable in social situations, and so they avoid gatherings or just don't find any pleasure in them. But the problem is the injured spouse isn't connecting with others because they don't feel like they're able to be emotionally open. And so affair recovery is difficult when the injured spouse is struggling to contain memories of the affair. And part of feeling emotionally numb is having what you just asked me about a minute ago, restricted range of affect. And that basically means the injured spouse could have trouble laughing, crying, or loving, and the injured spouse might assume she has lost the ability to feel compassionate, intimate, tender, or sexual. However, at some point, the healthy expression and experience of grief and pain must occur. So we have to have that.

Morgan:

Oh yeah, you

Brad:

Have to, for her to become

Morgan:

Talk about it,

Brad:

It has to be a healthy expression of grief and pain for them to become healthy and emotional individual once again. And so the injured spouse's recovery is vital for the recovery of the marriage after the affair.

Morgan:

So it's kind of like when you've discovered that your spouse has done this, you've talked about going back and forth, people go back from rage to anger, to sadness, to numbness, to just all these different feelings. So the suppressing of feelings is kind of one of those back and forth. So maybe they feel that one minute and then the next minute they feel rage. Is that kind of accurate? A back and forth

Brad:

Kind of healing comes in waves, meaning in the beginning you're an emotional rollercoaster, healing's up and down. Lemme just close a stop before we into our program. Here's the thing. Not only do injured spouses feel disconnected from other people, but they also feel disconnected from their future. They're unable to imagine or look forward to a normal happy life and relationship because they don't feel like they can have a normal life. Again. Many times they don't make plans about the future. Instead, betrayed husband probably has pessimistic expectations about what the future holds, including the affair happening. Again, this outlook is called the doomsday orientation because no matter how good life seems, the betrayed spouse believes troubles right around the corner. So that's kind of in the future. They're always like, well, this is always going to fail, this is always going to be bad. And they kind of have a pessimistic outlook. But let me say this before we finish. If injured spouses are stuck in the past, revisiting and reliving the affair with the unresolved pain, guilt, anger, grief, or fear, and trying to desperately block those feelings out, they will undoubtedly lack the energy or interest to plan for the future of the relationship. But when they try to block out the past, they block out the future as well.

Morgan:

It's a very thin wall that they put up that blocks those emotions because you talk about normal thoughts and memories, you file them away, you talk about them, you kind of work through them, and then they go into this happy place that's like a Rolodex that's filed away,

But with this emotion, this pain caused by infidelity, it's just right there. You haven't talked about it, you haven't worked through it yet, and it's just right there behind this thin wall that has these cracks in it. Right? And bits and pieces kind of word out, for lack of better words, kind of like a full glass of water where it's at the very, very top, the water's right at the top of the brim. You shake it just a little bit, the table just a little bit, and it overflows with just, and it's kind of like our feelings and our emotions. Would you,

Brad:

Yeah, I would say that's accurate. But here, let me say there's good news here. The first three months after the discovery of the affair is the hardest period. That period is when most symptoms of PTSD are at their worst, and so that's usually the hardest period for the betrayed spouse because the emotional rollercoaster is at its highest. And so for half of individuals, they're able to really see significant improvement after the first three months.

And a lot of that is really dependent upon how well the betrayer, how well they are to be supportive emotionally, be honest, be transparent, and really display the attitude of whatever it takes. That's really the big key we have to have with that. Okay. 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 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 18: Stages of Trauma Recovery - How To Get Through It Once And For All

Brad:

Working through the trauma. To be honest with you, it really depends on how well a person who had the affair is being a healer, if they're going to work, how successfully they work through the trauma, because that person who's been betrayed needs honesty, they need answers, they need closure on this and they want it resolved. But these things that we're talking about with the trauma, it keeps people stuck in a way where you can't think about anything, but that

Morgan:

You are listening to Healing Broken Trust podcast with Brad 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 is the podcast for you and we're officially on episode number 18 and we're talking about the steps that you can take to recover from trauma. Alright, so we've had this little mini four-part series of trauma. We're at the fourth part, and we're talking about how to recover from this trauma. And if you haven't already, make sure to download episodes 15, 16, and 17, which are the first three parts to this trauma series. And also episode one is really useful as well to kind of understand this in context of the seven stages of the recovery process. So make sure to do that, it'll really help you a lot.

And in addition to that, make sure you go to our website, healing broken trust.com/episode 18. That's the number 18. Download the free resources. They'll really help you to follow along and to really make the most out of this podcast so that you can really, really have the healing you deserve. So that's again, healing Broken trust.com/episode 18. Get those resources, make the most of them. Also, you can leave a message on our website as well. You can actually record an audio message. It can be totally anonymous if you want. And we do have weekly calls that you can join us on when you go and download those free resources. We offer that as an option for you to take advantage of as well. You can ask those questions live, and if you leave a message, we do make sure to answer those questions on our weekly call, and you're welcome to join us. There's a promotion that we're running on there as well that you can take advantage of. I think it's a dollar for the first month. So go to healing broken trust.com/episode 18. And let's get started. We'll start today's show with a listener question.

Okay, this question comes from a gentleman in Broken Arrow and he says, it was really helpful to learn that I'm not crazy, like I truly believed I was since I've been acting so jumpy and suspicious all the time. Instead, learning about the symptoms and triggers in the last show helped me to realize situations that I need to avoid in order to get through this. But I would really like to know how do you know you're recovering and what is the process? We've been talking about the affair recovery process as discovery, ambiguity, trauma meaning forgiveness.

Brad:

We've been talking about those

Morgan:

Stages,

Brad:

Those individual steps, but even with trauma, there's steps within trauma.

And so that's what that person's wanting to know. So let's talk about that. We've talked about trauma in terms of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. For many people, it's the most difficult thing they've ever experienced feeling like discovering their spouses betrayed. And so dealing with that injured spouse's sense of trauma, it does follow an outline. And part of that, the first part is outcry. In this period of outcry, there are strong bewildering emotions. And the injured spouse, they feel stunned, overwhelmed, and probably have a strong sense of anger that their spouse cheated and the affair partner.

And sometimes that anger is really more rage. And so there's a strong sense of anger and they feel stunned. They're overwhelmed. A lot of bewildering emotions, just people start feeling crazy. And it's just kind of this emotional rollercoaster that starts the next stage after outcry is avoidance and denial. An injured husband probably this guy probably feels numb. He has no desire, so he withdraws some people, avoids other people. During that time, the guy that emailed us, it's not uncommon for him to feel constricted emotionally. And usually you'll see people like this just stare blankly into space. Has anyone in his shoes would he probably, well, he really needs to be getting back to life as usual and engage in things that he did before he found out about the affair, things that were important to him, like work, sports, kids, household responsibilities. But after the affair I've noticed is many people report feeling like the world is gray at this time. Many people feel physically and emotionally numb. They may even find they have no desire to talk about it. There's an outcry, then there's avoidance and denial, and people just want to really avoid it. They want to withdraw and avoid other people. And part of that is because they feel so much shame about it. They feel so humiliated, they feel so really stupid, just they feel like, gosh, I've been betrayed. This has happened to me, and here you are treating me like this.

Morgan:

I'm crazy.

Brad:

Yeah, well, I'm crazy, but just the way trauma works, it's almost like one of those things you don't know until you've lived through it, until you've gone, I mean, you can read about it, you can hear me talk about it. And this is one of the things with betrayers is commonly they haven't been betrayed. And so when they're trying to help their spouse heal and be a healer and nurture or supportive, they really become dismissive. And so they get stuck and they can get stuck in this avoidance and denial stage. And so a lot of people don't want to talk about it. They'll go numb. And when you go numb, you're blacking out even the positive emotions. And we've talked about that before,

Morgan:

And we're talking about trauma recovery, and we had a question about how do you know you're recovering and what is the process?

Brad:

Well, as I was saying, the first part of this is there's an outcry. There's avoidance and denial, and then you have intrusive thoughts. Once the denial wears off, people start who've been betrayed, start experiencing intense emotions and thoughts related to the affair, and they begin to break into your awareness in your mind. Once that avoidance and denial wears off, you start thinking about the affair much, much more become like an obsession at times. And so these thoughts are accompanied by physical arousal, the strong ways of thoughts and emotions. Typically, they can wane for a time giving people a feeling of normalcy. Okay, I'm not thinking about it. I'm not obsessing about it, but I also don't have these thoughts just popping into my head.

Morgan:

Maybe elaborate a little bit on the outcry part. What does that look like? Is it yelling? I mean, you talked about rage, but are they looking for help? Are they looking to their

Brad:

Spouse? What is it? Well, I think in some ways they're stunned, they're shocked, just overwhelmed, oh my gosh, this, what are we going to do? It's almost like finding out somebody you love has cancer.

Morgan:

They're so confused and

Brad:

So yeah, you're just shocked and maybe you're upset and you cry. It's kind of a stunned feeling,

Morgan:

Kind of like the discovery process.

Brad:

But then also people just, sometimes that stun ness wears off too and they just get really angry sometimes when people feel obsessed and have intrusive thoughts, those are two different things. Obsessive is you have a hard time, just stop thinking about it yourself. You can't put it down. And then intrusive thoughts are those times you're not thinking about it. There's all these little reminders and we've talked about that. And so these intrusive thoughts will also make that person physically aroused. So our person that emailed us is probably experiencing some physical arousal in a sense. These strong waves of thoughts and emotions, they can wane for a time, give you a feeling of normalcy, but they do return. And feeling aroused is common during the very early days and weeks of affair recovery, A lot of factors that go into how long it really takes to overcome an affair. But it lingers when betrayed spouses feel uncared for by their partner, by their spouse who had the affair or when they feel like they don't understand what drove their spouse to have the affair. So it's two different things. If you don't feel like you're really cared for,

Then it can wane, or excuse me, it doesn't wane. It will continue. The intensity will continue. The intrusive thoughts will continue. And so if they don't feel cared for, they're going to continue to have intrusive and obsessive thoughts. Or if they feel like, gosh, I don't understand what drove you to have an affair. I don't understand your thought process, I don't understand why, then it's going to continue to wane.

Morgan:

And that goes into the meaning process. We'll talk about.

Brad:

Yeah, and I said to continue to wane. I mean, it'ss not going to wane and it's not going to relax. It's going to continue to stay at that pattern of intensity and obsessiveness, and it's going to make you feel like you're crazy, but you're really not. This is a normal predictable pattern that people experience after an affair, but they do feel crazy. But like I said, you're not crazy if you're experiencing this. And so many betrayed spouses, they'll experience hypervigilance during this time, and that's the feeling that causes them to snoop around and to investigate whether or not what their spouse is saying is true or not.

Morgan:

That's where he's talking about suspicion. He's very suspicious.

Brad:

And so there's outcry, avoidance and denial, intrusive thoughts. And then there is the next part of this working through the trauma. And I would say this is probably the longest period, obviously a lot of people I work with, outcry, very short avoidance and denials, very short, intrusive thoughts can be a very long period for people, especially if they're struggling with understanding why. And if they're struggling with their spouse isn't really being there as a nurturer, as a healer, as being supportive. And if they feel like their spouse is continuing to lie to 'em,

They're going to stay in that place. But working through the trauma, to be honest with you, it really depends on how well a person who had the affair is being a healer, if they're going to work, how successfully they work through the trauma. Because that person who's been betrayed needs honesty, they need answers, they need closure on this and they want it resolved. But these things that we're talking about with the trauma, it keeps people stuck in a way where you can't think about anything but that. So let's talk about working through the trauma. When people start working through the trauma, they start feeling like, okay, the time has come where I need to work on this. And they're ready to face the reality of the affair. They've experienced all these thoughts, all these feelings, they talked it through with their spouse and hopefully properly trained counselor who can help them through infidelity,

Morgan:

Which is very much different than just marriage counseling, standard marriage counseling.

Brad:

Yeah, I would say infidelity. It's absolutely different.

Morgan:

In what ways do you want to talk a little bit about,

Brad:

Yeah, I'll say this. How infidelity recovery or a fair recovery is different than marriage counseling. It falls under the banner of marriage counseling because you go to a marriage counselor for it, but it doesn't fit the mold of, I would say just

Morgan:

Communication.

Brad:

Communication, improving our sex life. And sometimes people will come to marriage counseling, oh, we had an affair, we've got to improve the marriage. And they think that's what they have to do. But really what needs to be done is the injured spouse needs to understand this. The couple needs to understand this. The person who's had the affair needs to work through issues that drove them to this.

Morgan:

But it's really important to know that you still, even with a fair recovery, you don't want to go to individual counseling to work on the marriage.

Brad:

No, that's a bad idea.

Morgan:

Even though you need to work out individual issues, the best way to do that is in marriage counseling. Correct?

Brad:

Yeah. And of course, if you go to somebody individually, they may be somebody that works with a marriage counselor, but sometimes that's a bad idea to go to somebody individually just because a lot of people don't understand infidelity. So basically you're working through the trauma, how you're working through it is you're ready to face it. There's false beliefs about yourself that you're correcting. You've grieved for the loss of the affair, you're starting to feel healthy again. A new commitment is made to the marriage with both spouses pledging to give a hundred percent to the marriage. And you're at a place where you feel like the marriage is stronger than it was before. You feel like you can finally move on. And one of the things I like to emphasize is that if couples get stuck at a stage before it's completed, then these feelings and symptoms of PTSD will continue and you just get stuck and you keep going back. But most couples who outlined what we're talking about, and this is good news, I want to emphasize this. One of the things, if couples follow what we're talking about, they're going to feel like the first three months is going to be the hardest period of time.

But that's only if they're a hundred percent honest. They're disclosing things. They're in regular therapy every week, they're getting the help they need. They're really jumping in, and both of 'em are tackling this and really trying to conquer this after three months. Not that I'm saying you're a hundred percent recovered, but the trauma aspect, you feel like it's significantly diminished. Sometimes people get stuck after a year of time. They still feel like they did when they first discovered or like they did when in the early stages.

Morgan:

And that's because both people are not both feet in being completely out there and honest.

Brad:

And there may be other factors at play, but we'll get to that in a second.

Morgan:

But you're talking about the first three months.

Brad:

So the first three months for a lot of couples is generally the crisis period

Morgan:

Where the shock is the biggest

Brad:

Shock. It's the shock, it's the outcry, it's the intrusive thoughts, and they only get to that place where they feel like not that the affair is behind them, not that it doesn't hurt, all I'm saying is that their first three months is generally the crisis period for a lot of couples. If after about six months you're still feeling how you do after maybe the first month of working on things, there may be more at play. And part of that may be the betrayer is not really being there as a healer, not really being honest, not really being who they need to be, so they're not being honest. So you can't heal. And every time there's a lie or something like that that has to be corrected or you're not being transparent, it's going to really hold back the injured spouse. But this is really important though too. Sometimes with being betrayed, what will happen is we get stuck because this is traumatic. It can activate old wounds as well. And so sometimes people who've been betrayed, you'll only know this if you are about six months in, you're not really getting anywhere and you're still feeling the same way and your spouse is being, there is a healer. They're trying to do everything right at that time. It may be a good idea to look into individual therapy. And there's some really neat breakthroughs that have occurred in helping people overcome trauma. And so do you want to find a good trauma therapist who can help you individually work through this? But I would only do that after trying to work through things as a couple first.

And that would be something that your marriage counselor could give you advice on how to find somebody who to go to. They may be working with somebody that they can refer you to.

Morgan:

What you're saying is that's after six months of both people being completely out there and completely honest and completely

Brad:

Transparent. And I want to say that's a good question because one of the things we get, a lot of times we will get people into our office who have done no work on the affair after a year, maybe two years, sometimes even five years. Then that person feels like, okay, I'm past this trauma aspect. But after having worked on it for six months, you still feel like you do it day one, you don't need to drop marriage counseling, something's probably going on. Your marriage still needs help. But what you need to do is you need to seek individual help as well for trauma. For trauma, for maybe past hurts, past abuse, past deep wounds, past hurts that you experienced from people. You need to get help for that

Morgan:

Completely unrelated even sometimes to what happened with you and your spouse, right?

Brad:

Yeah,

Morgan:

Parents or whatever.

Brad:

And let me say this, I want to get onto how people know they're recovering, and I want to get to that in a second. But so the first three months is really the crisis period. A lot of people feel like the trauma, they're not past it, but they really feel like, okay, I'm a lot better than I was

Morgan:

Progress.

Brad:

I still have some bad days. I still some dark days, but I feel like I'm a lot better. After six months, you feel like you're not getting better. You probably need to see an individual therapist, but do that only after talking with your marriage counselor about that, who's helping you work through infidelity. The first year anniversary, you should be feeling a lot better than you do, but that's going to be a rough time

For people. And also holidays are going to be rough for people. Valentine's Day, Christmas holidays, family get togethers these times that should be really important. Those are going to be rough, and it's going to take about a full two years if everything goes right for you to feel like you're past it. If there's a lot of lying in the beginning and a lot of deception going on, it's going to push you back at least six months in the affair recovery process. And so I want to get into that next question that you had Morgan on how to recover from the

Morgan:

Affair. How do you know that you're recovering? What is that process? Yeah,

Brad:

Okay. Basically how you're recovering from the affair. Number one is you can recall or dismiss the affair at will.

Brad:

And

Brad:

What I mean by that is you're no longer experiencing intrusive memories of the affair. You're no longer experiencing nightmares, flashbacks, or these triggers. So it's something you choose to think about. It's not just this random haphazard flood, flood of thoughts, an onslaught of thoughts. It's something that you choose to pick up and look at in your mind, and it's something that you choose to put down in your mind.

Morgan:

You have

Brad:

Control. You have control over it. The second is you can remember the affair with appropriately intense feelings. What I mean by that is you can look at it without getting really angry, but you can also look at it, and this is what people need to understand. You can also look at it where you're no longer detached or emotionally numb.

Morgan:

Interesting.

Brad:

And what I mean by that is that's part of that avoidance and denial. And people can live there and feel like, oh, everything's okay, because they're an avoidance in the dial.

Morgan:

They're grinning and bearing it.

Brad:

Yeah. And one of the things that happens with trauma is people feel and they feel like they're watching somebody else's life. And so the third thing that how you're recovering as an individual from the trauma aspect is you can identify feelings about the affair that you are experiencing without becoming overwhelmed. You can identify your feelings about the affair without going numb or disassociating,

Morgan:

Which is something we talked about.

Brad:

And what I mean by disassociating is tuning others out, by immersing yourself in solitary activities instead of withdrawing. So you can identify what you're feeling about the affair without becoming overwhelmed, going numb or just withdrawing

Morgan:

From going into your hide hole and not coming out.

Brad:

Yeah. And then a couple other things. You can predict feelings of depression and anxiety. That's how you know you're recovering. You can start predicting feelings of depression, anxiety coming. They may not be gone completely, but it's at least tolerable. Wow.

Morgan:

Yeah,

Brad:

And here's the other thing. You're recovering from an affair as the injured spouse when you can allow yourself to be around other people and have the emotional capacity for empathy.

Morgan:

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Brad:

So that's really important. And you're recovering when you have uncovered the meaning from the affair. And that's what our next show is going to be about. You're no longer obsessed and replay the information you have in your head. You're no longer just obsessed replaying things. It's not like a movie reel going on in your head and you've been able to accept yourself and no longer practice self blame. Many times people when they've been betrayed is they blame themselves for what's happened. And let me say this, it's important to understand that the affair recovery process for the injured spouse is different with every injured spouse. Sometimes there's other factors that go into this that make the trauma recovery portion longer. Past wounds are a factor that goes into this sexual abuse being cheated on before other relationship issues that you've had from within the marriage can make it more difficult. And are they being honest? That's something that you need to know. Are they helping you? And so those are factors that go into it. That's about it.

Morgan:

Well, that's fantastic. So much more self-aware, much more able to connect, and less hurt.

Brad:

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