Episode 16: Healing when your spouse has had an affair

How can you hope to heal when your spouse has been unfaithful? This week on The Confident Marriage Podcast, we show you that it is, in fact, possible to heal after an affair and walk you through the healing process. Infidelity is one of the hardest things a husband or wife can go through. The pain is intense and this episode focuses on the spouse who has been cheated on. We tell you what to expect, what’s normal, share our personal experience, and share practical tips and actions you can take to navigate the aftermath in a healthy way. It’s another heavy episode, but so very important to your marriage or relationship. Please join us on a journey of healing from broken trust, betrayal, and infidelity. 

Episode Transcript

This is the confident marriage podcast. And I'm your host, Jessica. And I'm your host, Sean, thank you all for joining us today. This is episode two of the unfaithful series. Yes. I'm faithful healing. When your spouse has had an affair. Now last week, we talked about what an affair is and what causes them and some of the things that go on in regards to them, but this week, honey, why don't you tell us what we're going to be talking about?

This week, we're going to be talking about how to heal when you have discovered an affair in your marriage, whether it's an emotional affair, a physical affair, or as we discussed in the last episode, there are many ways that someone can have an affair. And so this episode is dedicated to those who are hurting, um, because of their spouses choices and decisions.

So yeah, not just from an affair, but any kind of breach of trust. Really? Exactly. Yeah. So it's going to be a heavy episode, but we're excited to bring all this wonderful stuff to you. I have eight pages of notes, so we're going to try and get it all to you in a very understandable and concise way. But at times we might have to rush through some of it because your time is precious to us.

And just, we know this has been a heavy subject matter. It's going to get tough. For the next two weeks again, but just bear with us because this stuff is super, super important for your marriage and any relationship you're in. And I promise you, if you can get through this with us, you'll benefit from it.

And we also promise that we'll start off the new year's lighter. Yes. We're going to get to that in just a second. So just a couple of things before we get started, don't forget that you can hear us on any podcast app, just search our name. If you just happen to not find us, send me an email and we will make sure we get on that app.

You can like and follow us on Facebook at the confident marriage podcast, Twitter, the C Marin show and Instagram at confident marriage. Don't forget to sign up for the newsletters on our website and get first dibs on the podcast. The podcast that drop, excuse me in can't talk today. And you get the podcast on Monday and then go public on Tuesday so I can get to know all our exclusive news first and my new column.

And his new column, I'll be doing my first article on our newsletter this week. I'm excited about that. That's some big news, speaking of news. So we have been flirting with you guys about some great news coming in 2021, and you are about to get a big juicy piece of it. I guess you're lucky you're signed up to the newsletter.

That's right. Because if you're, if you're signed up to our newsletter, you already know. Yeah. And you heard this episode two days ago and. You, they got priority registration. So that's awesome too. Priority registration for what? For the, Oh, I have, we haven't said it yet. So do you want me to read it like a, like a TV ad guy?

Are you ready to rock your marriage? Like never before new year new marriage sound good. The confident marriage proudly presents starting in January, 2021. Phone durations, the four cornerstones of a confident marriage, honesty, intentionality, admiration, and expectations.

I can't believe you just did that out of that. Everybody's all fired up. I don't even think they heard everything you said. So now we'll read it like normal. Go ahead, honey. So it's foundations the four cornerstones of a confident marriage, honesty, intentionality, admiration, and expectations. And so like we talked about, uh, you have to have a strong foundation for anything to be built on.

As I know in what I do for a living. Because I built foundations. That's right. And so these foundations, the, these are, these are going to be the four cornerstones to give your marriage that, that strong foundation, concrete, confident foundation. Oh my God. How many concrete puns can we get in? I don't know.

Let's keep trying. There's this stuff. I'm going to go on a side note right now. There's this stuff that they have that cures the concrete faster, and it's a chemical and their motto on the bottle is chemical solutions for concrete problems that love it anyway. So this workshop is for those who are looking to grow, improve, and perfect your marriage.

In this workshop, we will present one of the four corner cornerstones each month and how they work together to create a solid foundation for a successful incompetent marriage. So you'll receive weekly assignments. Guidance tips and in-depth information on each of the facets of that month's featured cornerstone as well as personalized feedback from us here.

Hosts. Yeah. So, uh, for the first week of each of the first four months of the year, we'll be doing a podcast on one of those four cornerstones. And if you're signed up for the workshop, uh, after that episode of the podcast, you'll get your first of four weekly assignments, guidance, uh, tips, tricks. All the information on, on each one of those topics.

So it'll be one cornerstone a month, but you'll get four weeks worth of content on each cornerstone. Exactly. This is a free workshop and there is limited spots. So the deadline to register is going to be December 29th, and then we'll be kicking off our new year with you and your new marriage. So we want everybody to rock and roll for the first of the year.

So we're, we have to cut it off on the 29th. Uh, the program will start January 5th. In order to sign up, go to our website, www.thecompetentmarriage.com. And there will be a button there on the home page that says sign up for the foundation's four cornerstones of confidence, marriage workshop. And so this isn't going to be just.

Generic content, uh, cookie cutter stuff. We have a way integrated into the program to where there's going to be personalized feedback if you want it, if you want it. So you'll be able to submit your work and your worksheets for personal feedback. And Sean and I will, uh, read through what you sent us and your questions and your concerns.

And then we will send you a video. Where we personally address, we personally address you. One-on-one so this is a workshop that a lot of people, this is created by Sean and I, this is all our content. This is all our stuff. This is all of the things that we have learned and experienced. But a lot of people, when they create something like this, they charge for it.

We're not charging you for it. So we, we are all about helping you in your marriage and your life. So I hope you guys join. It's going to be lots of fun. Yeah. Sign up please. Yeah. So I think that's it for all the announcements and it's time to get started. I'm ready. I'm ready. All right. Like I said, in the last episode, make sure you get a pen and paper and you take notes.

You're going to need the notes and you're not gonna be able to remember everything at one time and a little bit of a disclaimer, this is our opinion. This is what we've experienced. This is what works for us. Everybody is their own person and different things work for them. So take what works for you.

Leave the rest, do highly consider everything that we're saying though, because we have a lot of experience in this. Yep. So healing, when your partner has had an affair, there are so much things that we need to focus on so much that needs to be done so much hurt and pain. It's really, really hard to keep track of everything that's going on with your mind, with your emotions in your relationship when this has happened.

I think. The title for the last episode that we had was perfect feeling like your marriage is in a hurricane because you're going to feel like everything around you is spinning. And like we said before, this is a three-part series. So this one we're going to focus on healing for the person who has been cheated on right next week.

We're going to talk about if you were the one that did the cheating, how you can get some healing because they need healing too. Yeah. This is going to be a hard one for me, as I've said many times, because this was me with Sean and I, and a lot of things that we went through. I think that the next one, the next series healing, when you have had an affair is going to be the one that's hardest for Sean.

And he's probably going to speak more on that one than I am. And like we said, also it goes for any kind of break in trust, not just a cheating affair or a sexual affair. Yeah. The first point I want to get to in the first thing I want to talk about is, and I spoke about it a little bit on the last episode is not to make any decisions right now.

Some people think that if you walk away, it might get better. It may be some kind of magical thing. It'll make you feel better. Some kind of a punishment for the affair. And often we tell our friends and family about what's going on with us, because we need someone to talk to. That's not always a good idea.

When you walk away from your spouse, after they have had an affair on you, there is so much more to it than that. It's your life, it's your family. It's your finances. It's your children. It's your home. It's it's everything. So now you're not just dealing with the affair, but now you're dealing with the divorce and everything that goes with the divorce, which is insanely difficult.

I can't. I can't even begin to explain what a divorce is like. I've, I've been through one and it's a horrible place to be in. It's a horrible thing to go through and it's all encompassing. I changes your whole life in ways that you wouldn't even have imagined. So making decisions right now on whether you're going to stay or whether you're going to go, now's not the time you need to spend some time doing some healing, which we're gonna do.

Yeah. You don't need to make any decisions right now, no matter how many else might. No matter how many other people might try to influence them nervous because of the live video too. No matter how many other people might try to influence you one way or the other, uh, it's a terrible time to make a decision.

You've got so many emotions going on. You're not going to be able to make a rational choice. And you don't really know at that point, whether you want to work it out or not, and every situation is going to be different. And the people, especially people that are close to you, aren't necessarily going to give you unbiased advice.

Right? Right. Well, and your emotions in that moment, you're, it's so raw. It's an open wound and it's like an open wound that after it heals, it's still going to hurt. It's not going to hurt as much. And so when you make a decision, when the wound is raw, when it's open and it's just bleeding, like your bandaid, I think on the live video, it just, it's not the time to make the decisions you need some time to heal into, to think.

And when we're talking about other people. Your friends, your family, they love you. They care about you. They don't want you hurt. They don't want to see you in pain. And so though their advice isn't necessarily bad advice. When people start pressuring you to make a decision, well, what are you going to do?

Are you going to stay? Are you going to go? You don't have to give them an answer. I said that on the last episode, you it's okay to say you don't know right now. And you should say, I don't know right now, I need to think I need to figure this out because. It's not their life. It's not their family. It's not their children.

It's not their home. As I said, they're not the ones that are going to have to walk through that. They're not the ones that are going to have to experience the pain and the suffering and the financial tears of a divorce on top of an affair. That's a lot for one person to take on. Again. One of my biggest biggest things here in healing is stick to a therapist, stick to one friend that you can trust to keep your secrets.

Don't make any decisions right now. That's essentially one of the biggest factors as we move forward in, in healing from the effects. And I think as we go through the material we go through and you start practicing some of the things we're going to talk about, you're going to get to a place. Where you'll be able to make the right decision because we're not advocating staying.

If it's not the right choice for you and we're not advocating, leaving, if it's not the right choice for you, we just want you to be able to make a healthy decision for yourself because we recognize that every situation is different. You know, often, sometimes it feels like they deserve it and they don't deserve you.

And while that is entirely true, You're going to end up hurting worse over it. So it's not payback and it's not teaching them a lesson to leave and it's not going to somehow cut the amount of damage and pain and hurt you're in to, to divorce. So keep that in mind. So I, I, and I come from a medical background and I'm going to give two examples.

So if you get hit by a car and you're severely injured and you're lying on the ground in front of that car injured, If they pick you up and take you away from that situation. Yeah. You're going to be out of the situation, but it's not going to take the pain away from the injury. You've. Got it. So it's still gonna be there.

So thinking that rightly so that you need to get out of that situation in one way, shape or form, but you need to get out of that situation into a place where you can get help just leaving the situation. Isn't going to take away the pain per se. And I don't want people to have that illusion, right? No, you explained it beautifully then another one, all those a little more grotesque is, you know, if you have a.

If you have a horrible injury to your arm and you're in the pain of that moment and the doctors are pressuring you into making a decision. It might be real easy in that moment to say, cut the arm off. You know, thinking that the pain will go away, but what happens a week later, when you really wish you would have tried to save your arm, because now you have no arm.

So making a decision in the moment like that. So the other thing that I'm going to touch on, and this is a huge one, and we're going to spend a lot of time on this one in this episode. Uh, depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, any kind of impact of the emotional and mental health is very, very, very normal.

When you have discovered an affair, whether you were told or you found out you're not going crazy, you're not losing your mind. It's all very, very normal to feel. Fill all these and to fill them on different scales too, from very, very minor to not at all, all the way up to the point where sometimes you wonder if you need to be institutionalized, these things can be very, and then anywhere across the board on any given day or moment, even, I mean, some moments you could be perfectly fine.

And then all of a sudden you're flooded and you are in the worst state you've been in, in your entire life and you don't know what's happening all normal, huge ups and downs. Even though they're normal, they shouldn't be ignored if they are impacting your life in any way. If you feel like you need professional help, if they're so bad that it's making it hard for you to function on a daily basis, you really, really need to seek help.

You need to seek a therapist because this is a trauma. And we're going to talk about PTSD in just a moment, but it is a trauma. And if it's starting to impact you in, in horrendous ways, you need to seek help. One of the things that I highly recommend, I didn't do. I wish I would have done it was EMDR for someone who specializes in EMDR.

It is amazing. I just, I really wish I would have done it. And I don't know why I didn't. It's mainly made for people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, which you can have from discovering an affair. So what it does is it, um, retrains your brain and your thinking processes and kind of helps you deal with this triggers in the anxiety and the depression that come along with it.

So look for a therapist that specializes in EMDR and then even better. Someone who specializes in affairs and EMDR, they are definitely out there. Do your due diligence when you're looking for a therapist, because, uh, it does, it really does need to be done by someone who's qualified and well-trained and has experience in it.

Yes. You know, and a lot of people, when they get into an affair, they don't realize the damage that they're doing to another human being. It doesn't seem, it seems like, you know, it was just sex or it was just talking or it was just this, or it was just that they don't really realize what it could really do to another person's mental and emotional health.

I mean, you could really damage someone, but we will get into that on the next episode. So don't think that you're exaggerating here or not. PTSD is also very, very common when you have discovered an affair in your marriage. And it happens because you have this bond, you have this connection, you have this idea and this life that you're living with your spouse.

And then all of a sudden it's like someone pulls the rug out from underneath you and you just fall flat on your back and your head hits the ground. And you're just completely like. Blindsided by it all. You have no idea what hit you. That's the same thing that happens when someone is out to war and they come home with PTSD.

It's the same thing that happens when someone has been physically assaulted or their life has been threatened. And they've had a gun up to their head. The same thing happens in the brain. It might sound ridiculous to some, but it's very normal to suffer from PTSD after this limits. And a lot of people who haven't experienced it.

Or thinking. Yeah. Depression, of course, anxiety, but PTSD come on, but not, not to be like in your face about it, but that shit is real. Yeah. It really is. It does trauma to your brain. Yeah. And people will tell you you're crazy. And it happened with us with the breaches of trust that we had and people were telling just that she was crazy and she was overreacting and, and it's.

It was real. It was real. And it wasn't until I, I sought the right help and the right resources that I found out that it is a huge problem. And so it's like in the fifties, how they didn't really understand or realize, or think that smoking around children was that big of a deal or while you were pregnant.

And so everybody's like, yeah, go ahead and do it. We don't see the problem. And then over time they start to find out, Oh, Crap. You don't want to smoke when you're pregnant, you don't want to smoke around children. The same thing's happening with PTSD and affairs. It was always thought that it was typically women.

They're crazy. They're insane. They're losing their mind and you know, just all this social labeling about them. And now that they're actually doing the research, they're fighting, Oh my God. The amount of the emotional and mental damage that happens to a person from this is tremendous. And I could go on for days on this.

Um, because I've learned so much about it. And then my schooling to become a therapist has just really opened my mind even more into it, but it's not talked about it as much in society, but it really is in the psychological and the therapist community. Right. It's out there and it's known, but it's not really discussed.

And it's that whole society has that whole pre-formulated belief that they like to present through movies and pop culture and everything. It's the same with porn, you know, it's ivory guy, does it. It's no big deal and it really does have some effects on the brain. And it's real crazy to me, the disconnect between the scientific community and the professional community and how all this stuff is well known and well talked about.

And then in population in general, it's not really well, that's probably why a lot of affairs happen is people don't know. So some signs that you're suffering from PTSD. Uh, repeated interest of thoughts, just constantly thinking about the same things over and over. You can't stop it, unstable emotional irregulations.

So you're just constantly all over the place. One minute, you're happy. The next minute you're crying. The next minute. You're sad, which is normal when you're going through something like that. But when it it's becoming a problem and it's all consistent than you, you might be suffering from PTSD out of body experiences.

That's where. You kind of feel like you're, you're in your body and you're, you're living your life yet. You're not really there physically or mentally experiencing it, but you, you know, what's happening. So out of body experiences, altering the plane, feeling numb and not really knowing what reality is, like, just kind of questioning your reality.

And is this, did this really happen? Is this really real? Am I here right now? Obsessive looking for clues and information on the affair. As I called it last episode, dr. Spy. So when you are obsessive, really looking for more information on the affair and needing to regain any kind of self-worth feeling, any kind of feeling of being needed or wanted looking for affirmation everywhere that you go just constantly questioning yourself and then any kind of confusion or disorientation.

So those are all signs of PTSD and things that you really need to be aware of. And you need to seek a mental health professional for next is being prepared to discover things for quite a while. Most often things don't come all out at once. It's usually the trickle effect. And even though this is the most damaging part of the discovery phase, and it continues to create more trauma and damage.

The person who is trickling the information, the one who had the affair, they don't know that this is the most damaging part. They usually don't find out about this till after they you've done work on the marriage. And later on, just know that that's going to be normal and that not that's going to be normal.

Know that that is normal. That's something that happens quite often. People don't usually come all out with it all of a sudden at once. For a lot of reasons because of fear, because of anxiety thinking that you won't find out more. So there's no need to tell you more and as wrong as it is. Sometimes they do it to try to protect you or even themself, or the both of you.

This can feel like there are just more and more lies coming out and it's just never going to stop. And when are they going to start being honest? And it can even cause you to wonder how much do you still not know and how much are they still hiding? And I don't know that I'm ever going to be able to trust them again after just slew of lies.

Keep coming out. You can and you will, it doesn't make this okay. But understanding and accepting that this is a normal part of the whole discovery and that your spouse isn't exempt from the typical person, that this is how it happens really helps you not only prepare yourself for this to happen, but it also helps you cope with it as it's happening and understanding what's going on around you.

And I just wanted to say that was a huge mistake that I made huge, huge mistake that I made not coming out with everything in the beginning and trickling things out. And it did a lot more damage than, than what I did, I guess you would say, and just don't make the same mistake I did. It was the worst way possible to trickle things out.

Uh, you know, I love band-aids rip off the bandaid. Just rip off the band-aid. Yeah, because it'll be so much less damaging. We still, we still experienced the after effects of the damage from that, just the track, just the trickling out. And we are going to be talking to the one who had an affair next week on this, and really encourage them and explain why it's going to be so important to just have it all out.

Um, but for right now, and if your spouse isn't onboard right now on fixing the marriage or. And doing their part, really knowing this and being aware of it, like expecting it just really helps the blow that happens every time it does. The next thing is questions about the affair. It can really lead to more trauma and more emotional and internal damage.

So last week I kind of talked about questions to ask yourself before you asked the question and I'm going to go a little bit in depth with that. You need to, before you ask the question, you need to ask yourself, do I have to know this? Do I need to know this? And is knowing this going to hurt me? Or is it going to help me?

Now there's gonna probably be a point where you're just going to want to know everything, period. Whether it hurts or helps or anything, it's going to be an intense need coming from inside you that control the irrational process of being in a place of hurt. Yeah, but you're going to want to, you're going to want to force it just like a drug addict in the throes of their addiction wants that next fix.

Even though they know it's going to hurt him. Right. And, and that is very true. That's exactly what it feels like. You feel like you have to know and you will do anything and everything to get that answer. It's just like that because it is a behavior that's built on the addiction, chemicals and wiring of the brain.

So just know that. So when you ask yourself that question, I want you to think about a couple of things. I want you to try as much as you possibly can. If not completely, please stay away from comparison questions. You don't need her spouse to compare you because as hard as it is to accept and understand.

They were also a human being with their perks and their flaws. There were good things about them. And there were bad things about sweaty clarify, just in case there's any confusion. What would be an example of a comparison question? So a comparison question was, was she more attractive than me or was he better than me in bed?

Something like that. Yeah. Those are comparison questions. Did you love them more? Did you do more for them? Those are all questions you need to stay away from. Those are not the kind of questions that I say. When you need to ask, you need to ask. That's not what I'm talking about. Those are the kinds of things you need to stay away from, please.

Stay away from details about the affair. Now, when I talk about this, what I'm talking about is what positions were you guys intimate? In? What rooms did you perform? Any kind of oral sex on them? Like anything in regards to details about the actual events that took place? Stay away from those are not questions that are going to help you.

They're going to hurt you. That's those are not the kinds of questions you need to be asking. Well, I guess that comes down to like, if you're planning on repairing the relationship, is any of that really going to matter? Or is it just going to hurt you to know? And then if you're not planning on repairing the racial relationship, does any of that even matter?

No, it doesn't. So then what's left. Jessica, what can I ask about you? Tell me if I need to ask and I need to ask a hundred times and ask, what do I ask about. And everything is going to be different. Every person's going to be different. There's going to be people who don't need to know anything, don't care to know anything.

And they're going to be people that want to know a little more detail and it's not going to have the same. So it's, it's hard to figure out and it's hard to sort through, and it's all, it's all relative to the situation and the people involved too. But go ahead. Sorry. It's okay. So the questions you should be asking, the questions that are okay to ask is when you need to clear up those times that they were gone.

So you are working through the marriage and all of a sudden you remember, Oh my gosh, you know, he was gone that night and he said he was with his friends and I stayed home with the kids and I couldn't get ahold of him. That was he with her that night. Was she with him that night? Those are the questions, questions, like how, how did you keep in contact with them?

Was it through your phone? Was it through email? Like those questions for the situation and. How it progressed and the things that they did to, to have the affair are the questions that you should be knowing. And you should be asking because those are going to be important for you as we move through a daily routine and keeping things, uh, normal and regular, which is as normal as it can be.

And I'm going to go into that. But. Getting to know how they did it is important. And you do need to know that, and those are things that you need to be working through. And how about some really healthy questions? Like. What was, or wasn't I doing that led you to feel like you needed to seek something elsewhere or what was going on in your head and what were were, or weren't you doing in our marriage that caused you to feel like you needed to go some elsewhere?

And those are some questions that can get to the core. If you can have a really Frank and honest and tough discussion about it. Those types of questions so that you can get to the root of the problem and maybe fix that so that nothing like that ever happens again, should you decide to proceed in the relationship, right.

And that doesn't excuse what they did and their reasons for having the affair might not be healthy and might not be right. And even though they, they say, well, I feel like I wasn't getting enough intimacy from you. And that's why I did it while that's an unhealthy answer. And they, they weren't doing their part in the marriage to fix that.

Doesn't mean that you can't discuss it and know about it so that you can still address the problem, even if the problem is they're thinking in the way that they're expecting the marriage to be. If that makes sense, you got to get honest about these things. And here's a little foreshadowing as to what we were talking about earlier, but you know, that's one of the cornerstones of a healthy, confident marriage is that brutal honesty.

And it's going to hurt sometimes, but how are you going to fix the problem if it's not out there in the open. Exactly the next thing that I want you to be on lookout for. Oh, one more thing before we move on. I'm sorry. If you've committed the adultery, if you've committed the breach in trust, if you've committed the affair, uh, don't use any of what we just said as an excuse, not to answer your partner or spouse's questions.

Yes. Well, we'll talk about that then. That's okay. I just, I don't want people to, well, they said that you don't need to know everything. So I don't know. That's not, it's not what we're saying. Okay. Now go ahead. Sorry. So be aware of gaslighting. Gaslighting is a very, very dangerous thing and often it's an unintentional.

People don't know that they're doing it, but it is incredibly traumatizing, manipulative. It's, it's awful. It's something that can lead to some of the, um, emotional problems that those who have been cheated on have like PTSD and anxiety and depression. Gaslighting is when someone tries to convince you that something, you know, to be true is not an example of this would be.

I saw a picture on your phone of this woman, who is she? And they try to say what picture there's no picture there. See, look at my phone. It's not there. That's an example of gaslighting, anything that's trying to make you alter what you know, to be true. Even if you feel it, if you feel hurt and someone says you're not hurt, you're, you're angry, but you're not hurt.

It's not that bad. That's gaslighting all those techniques where they try to make you believe something that isn't true is called gaslighting toxic behavior. So what you do to combat that is you stop the conversation. Immediately you say, I am not going to talk about this right now. Yes. You call it out.

You are gaslighting me right now and I will not allow you to do it. You stop the conversation and you walk away and don't allow someone to guess at you and call them out when they're guests letting you. And they'll try to Gaslight you again, just walk away. And again, that was. A problem that we've run into and still run into from time to time.

And it w like just said it, it can be unintentional. And I know that one way it still happens for us is we could be out walking somewhere and she'll turn to me and say, what were you looking at over there? Oh, I didn't look over there. Well, I just saw you look over there. No, I didn't look over there, but see, she saw me look somewhere.

And even though I might not have even been aware that I looked over there, I need to at least acknowledge that what she saw was real. And I can say, I didn't realize I looked over there. I was looking at the tree or I don't even know. I must have heard a sound and it caused me to turn my head. But when I say I didn't look over there, even though she just saw me look over there, it's telling her that what she saw wasn't real.

And it's a form of gaslighting. And I'm not intending to do it, but I've learned to, I've learned to not, I still do it, but I've learned to try to answer her in a healthy way that acknowledges what she saw. Yeah. You know, just also try to stay away from labels, calling them a narcissist, a cheater, a liar, any kind of put down.

I know that you're hurting and you want to hurt them back. But the worst thing you can do for your spouse, Yourself and your children is to put them down and start labeling them. If you really think that there is something going on with them mentally or emotionally, you need to ask them to see a psychiatrist or a therapist and get that diagnosed.

It is not your place to label them or give them a diagnosis. You, and one of the things about narcissism is that quite honestly, all of us have narcissistic traits. And there's only a few ways that you can actually diagnose a narcissist, but that has to be done through a medical professional. And you can read all these articles.

Well, the way you identify a narcissist is that they are incapable of having compassion or empathy. That also is not entirely true. Stay away from people who try to label someone. Like that and stay away from those articles and stay away from those labels. Because while someone can be a narcissist and have some form of compassion, empathy, there are other traits that they have that would label them a clinical nurses.

So just to stay away from the diagnoses and the labels, and that goes the other way around too. Don't call, you know, if you're the one who's committed, the adultery don't. Don't say, well, you're being a victim or you just can't let anything go or, Oh, just get over it or anything like that. Just stay away from any kind of labels or telling the other person how to feel.

Yes, there are people, they have a right to feel the way they feel. It doesn't mean that it's anything more than their feelings, but they still have a right to feel that way. Exactly. Which leads me to no revenge affairs or any kind of revenge against your partner. I explained this on the last episode, there is, is so much hurt, so much anger.

You feel like you're worth nothing. You're not sexy enough. You're not beautiful enough. You're not handsome enough. You're not smart enough. You're not good enough. And you need that kind of affirmation. You need to know that if your spouse leaves that you still got it and you can get someone else. You need to know that you are lovable and you can be loved.

All these things are normal feelings, and it seems like such a good idea to get out there and get that confirmation or get back at them. It never is a good idea. It ends up leaving you feeling, feeling so empty and so much more destroyed. So revenge of any kind, especially the revenge affairs. Don't go down that road.

No. And we've even recently spoken to people who were the ones that committed the affair. And one of the things I always say is if you are the one that cheated, it's going to do nothing but hurt you. And if you want to go out and cheat for revenges sake, it's not going to do anything other than hurt everyone around you.

And. That includes yourself. That's more yourself than anybody else. Right. And we've spoken to people who've done the cheating and the pain that they're going through is heartbreaking. Yeah. Even though they were the one that did it. Yeah. There's ones who, who have the affair, then we're going to get into this next.

And the next episode, they. Have so much guilt and shame and self sabotaging behaviors and anger and frustration and sadness and depression inside themselves. Even if they're not showing that on the outside, we're going to get into that. But. Just don't do it because then you're going to have to deal with the after math of those feelings on yourself.

Yeah. If you've been cheated on you're going to be going through enough and having enough to heal from you don't need that on top of it. No matter how enticing it may be in the moment. Right? Just like the divorce just don't add to it. Right. Don't cut off your arm. They can save the arm if you want it saved.

Yes. And if you decide, you want to cut off later, you can get that fucker off. Don't cut off your arm. That's not what we're advocating now. All right. Next thing, no stocking, no watch checking everything. This can become a really unhealthy habit that leads to almost like an addictive feeling where you constantly feel like you want to need to check their phone.

You need to check where they've been. You want to show up where they are. All these things are really unhealthy for you. And if you have small children at home for them and for your spouse and it robs you of your pride, don't do it as much as that thing inside us says, I need to know. I want to know I can't be okay until I know that they're doing what they're supposed to, or that there's nothing on his phone.

It, it doesn't fulfill you the way that you think it's going to, and it becomes a habitual habit. So this is something that I experienced when Sean and I were going through the worst of our times. And there were a lot of lies. And every day when he came home from work for a couple of months, I was checking his phone and checking this and that, and, you know, don't do it.

I mean, it becomes all consuming and it is. Becomes very much an addiction. And so this is another area where look, you're going to want to, you're going to feel an overwhelming need to check, uh, either to F you know, to justify yourself and finding more. And, and, and so you're able to say, see, I knew there was more, or, and to be able to try to quell that feeling inside you to know, Oh, there isn't anything, but it's not going to do either of those things.

And. There is a healthy way to get both of you through this that will actually build trust. And it's called accountability. And if you're the one who's done the cheating and you're keeping yourself accountable, your spouse will eventually not feel the need to do any of this because they're going to know all those things.

And I will get into that in a little more in depth in our newsletter, in my article. Yes. And also on the next episode, we're going to talk about accountability on their behalf. So you don't feel like you need to be doing this and they're going to be doing it on their own. So there's one thing for you to rest assure about.

And you know, when you look at that phone or you check up on them, you, the, you think it's going to help. And then you're in the moment. You're like, well, I didn't find anything now. Well, maybe, maybe they deleted it or, or while they're doing what they're supposed to be right now, but it's just always going to be a reason to keep checking.

So don't do that. Yeah. Or you're going to find something and then you're going to be like, well, you didn't tell me why didn't you tell me? And it, maybe it didn't give them the chance to do that. Or maybe it things aren't being dealt with in a healthy. In a healthy way anyway. Yeah. And your partner isn't really that committed, but you'll find all that out given time without having to put yourself through hell.

And like I said, it's, it's your partner's responsibility to help heal you through this. And if they're doing their part, right. And again, I'm going to. I'm going to be going into this a little more in depth on the next episode, and definitely sign up to our newsletter. So you can read what I write about accountability, because we've had a lot of experience with it.

Good and bad, and it can be one of the most healing processes and it can be a way for you to help. Heal your partner through this and in a way, bring you closer together and build that trust back up. Yeah. This is going to be a big one for those who have had an affair, this is going to be huge, but, and also know that this doesn't mean that you trust them.

This doesn't mean that you believe them. This doesn't mean that you're giving them a chance. Free ride to do what they want. This is for you. And this is for your sanity, and this is for your healing and for healing your marriage. And again, next week, we're going to go into accountability and transparency and all of that.

So just know I've got your back, we're going to cover it. Just don't do it that way. It's not, it's not going to help you heal to try to keep them accountable. Right? If they keep themselves accountable, it's going to heal both of you. Right? The other way, doesn't heal anyone in it hurts. The way that we're going to talk about it next week is going to be trauma, honestly, healing.

And in my article, in the newsletter, yes. And the other piece of this that we're also going to get into next week, just trust in the process. You guys, if there's lies out there, you're going to discover them. And one of the things that I have always said, and I still say to this day, if there's so much as one little lie I find out about, I know that there's more.

And the reason is, is because people don't just lie a little bit here and there. If they're lying, they're lying. So just trust the process, trust that if there are lies, you're going to find out about them and you don't need to find out about all of them to know that there's lies and you know that to be true.

So just trust it, trust yourself, trust the process and let all that time and energy go. Don't get into it. So also know that it's not your fault. It's not the marriages fault. It was a choice that they made, it had nothing to do with you. The way that you look the way that you are your personality, there's nothing wrong with you.

It's not that you're good or bad enough in bed. It's none of those things. This happened because of a choice that they made, because some, because of something that they were lacking inside themselves. And when we talk about working on the marriage and when you stop working on the marriage and things like this happen, it's not because necessarily that there were issues that need to be resolved.

Although it was, let me steer you in that direction. There might've been something wrong with the marriage in their eyes, and that's what led them to do it. That doesn't mean that there was something wrong with the marriage. There was something wrong with the way that they were thinking there was something wrong with what they were expecting.

There was something wrong with what they were wanting or they weren't expressing it to get it. So. When you're constantly working on the marriage and working on yourself and you're being open and honest, when you're talking about these things, you're able to work through them and you're able to figure out where the problem is, whether it's with their thinking or really with something, with a marriage or where there isn't an issue.

And maybe you need to bring in a third party person to help you through it. Because for an example is, well, I wasn't getting enough intimacy from you. Well, If they hadn't expressed that she and you guys hadn't discussed it in a constructive way to repair that. There's another side of it too. Why did he feel?

Or she felt like they needed more intimacy. What was going on with them. So you see what I mean? There's more to it than just that never, ever blame yourself. It is so easy to start feeling like there was something wrong with you that they got from someone else. That's almost never what it's about. Yeah, I'd speak directly to the person that's been cheated on and to tell them it, the affair didn't happen because you're unworthy as a person or because there's anything wrong with you.

There may have been things you were doing wrong in the marriage. But the reason that the person committed an affair is because there was something wrong with them. They didn't deal with those problems in a healthy way. And maybe both of you weren't dealing with any underlying problems in a healthy way, but having an affair is not the healthy answer for those kinds of situations.

And they didn't have an affair because you're a terrible person or you're unworthy of their love, or you didn't compare to the person. They had an affair with. They had an affair because they made a bad choice. And dealt with problems in a bad way. Right. And it also doesn't mean that they didn't love you or that they were falling out of love with you, just because someone has an affair, doesn't automatically mean that they didn't love you.

And that sounds crazy. I mean, if they loved me, how could they do that to me? It's not also because they want to change of a relationship or someone different or wanting a new life with someone. It's more about the feeling of being desired or the lust, or just the day in and day out life of the kids and work and everyday stuff.

It's not your fault. And it's not because they don't love, you know, there are going to be times that someone's going to say, I'm not in love with you anymore. I take that almost with a grain of salt because you don't just stop loving someone. What they really mean most of the time is that the marriage has just kind of collapsed and they don't feel love, but love isn't a feeling love is a choice you make.

And sometimes you're going to have that wonderful feeling with it. And sometimes you're not. So as much as you want to scream and yell and how dare you say that you love me. In your heart. Just try to allow that in. If that's what they're trying to tell you, that they do still love you. And it wasn't because they didn't love you on a note with that whole falling out of love thing.

Love really is a choice. Your feelings are going to come and go, but you got to choose to love someone. And that goes for the good and the bad and the hard and the easy your feelings changed from day to day. That love is always there. If you make that choice, right? Exactly. Make sure that you stay in a place where you can be trusted yourself.

You're someone who is safe to talk to. And this is going to be really important. When we talk to your spouse, who's had the affair next week. You need to stay in a place of being a safe space. What I mean by that is it's going to hurt. It's going to be hard. The discussions are going to be heavy and difficult, but you have to find a way to hold your composure and allow them the space and the time to be able to open up to you.

Because if you, if you react and act on those feelings that are going through you in those moments, It's going to shut the person down. They're only a human being. Their capacity is only so much. So if you start yelling and screaming and getting angry and, or throwing things or doing any of that unhealthy behavior, they're not going to feel like they can.

Open up to you. They're not going to feel like they can talk to you and they're going to use it. See, this is why I didn't did it. This is it's hard. It's one of the hardest things to be able to hold your composure and be a safe place for them to talk to you. But you have to, you have to learn how to do that so that you can move forward in this.

Cause that's going to be part of your healing and healing. The marriage together is just holding that composure, right? So it's all a part of the healing process. And. Obviously, if there was an affair committed or any kind of breach of trust, then honesty is a problem in your relationship. Uh, fostering that safe place to talk for both of you from both ends is going to start that healing process.

It's going to accelerate that healing process, and it's going to build that foundation so that nothing like that ever has to happen. Right. And it really, it sucks because they did this to you. It seems really unfair. And it is, but again, we're dealing with just another human being here and we have to create that safe place in this really cuts down the trickling to of the lies coming out this, once they start kind of.

Talking with you and you create that safe place. They're going to start letting you in on more and more. And so the trickling is going to happen over a shorter amount of time and happen more and outburst than they would if you didn't create that safe place. So that is really important for your healing.

Um, it really helps you learn how to control your feelings and your emotions, your reactions, which we're going to talk about very, very soon, but. No, that that's a safe place that creating that safe place is really important in speaking of love, know that you can love him through it, him or her, him, or her as I'm speaking from experience, I'm using him.

You don't want to stereotype. No, you can fight for your marriage, even though they don't want it. As long as you're doing it in a healthy way, and you're not like in their face and being, um, unhealthy about it, but you can refuse to. To say, no, I'm not going to agree to a divorce. I am going to work on myself and I'm going to work on this marriage to the best of my ability.

And however far you want to be from me, I refuse to give up on you. I believe in you. And I believe in us and you can reiterate that and you keep, you can keep doing things to make yourself healthy and open up the lines of communication to them. Even if they're not receptive, maybe one day they will be.

And seeing you fight for them. Really helpful. A lot of those feelings that cause people to astray to begin with because they see that they're loved unconditionally. They see that they're wanted, they see that they're believed in. They see that there is someone who can love them Raleigh and purely for who they are with their flaws, with their ugly.

So one of the things that I have said time and time again is even though Sean, wasn't keeping his promises to me and his vows to me. I was going to keep my promises and my vows to him. And I was going to love him through it, even though it was hard. And even though it hurt me, that was a choice I was going to make.

Was that going to be my choice tomorrow or next week or a month from now? I don't know, but for that moment, for that day, that was my choice. That's what I was going to do. And until I decided it was time for me to go, that's how I was going to love him. You can choose. And I've said this before, you don't have to go with the stereotypes you can choose.

And I'm not saying you have to do this, and I'm not saying you should do this. I'm saying it's an option. I'm throwing all options out there. You can choose to say, even though that they don't want to leave the other person and maybe they don't want to work on the marriage, you can just say, okay, I'm going to accept that this is who my spouse is right now.

This is the stage that they're in, in their life. And I'm still going to fight for my marriage. And I'm just going to come to acceptance that he's having an affair right now. She's having an affair right now and I'm still going to love them and fight for my marriage. It's okay to do that. And again, not just with affairs, but I think we've both gone through periods in our marriage where we had to stand up and say, look, I know you're acting one way and saying, Certain things, but I believe in us, I believe in the marriage and I'm going to keep fighting and I'm going to keep working on myself and I'm going to keep working on the marriage because I believe in it.

And that's come from both of us at different times. Right. And it said tremendous healing, healing powers. Exactly. Now the biggest hurdle, the biggest healing factor, the biggest thing we're going to tackle, it's going to be the most important is triggers. Well, what are triggers? Triggers are memories, uh, reliving, uh, events or things that had happened, or things that they told you they're meltdowns that are full of anxiety.

A sudden deep depression, you can get scared. Something feels unreal. Any of those kinds of negative feelings are called triggers. So it can be a person, a place, a song, a word, a situation. And emotion, anything that will put you right back into that place. And it's like, you've for the person who's experiencing it.

It's like, it's like you're in the middle of a storm of you're back in that whirlwind you're back in the hurricane and for the person who's bearing the brunt of. Someone who's triggered. It's like they are a unrelenting storm. It is incredibly difficult for the person experiencing it. And for the person who it's directed as, and dealing with those triggers, helping your partner through those triggers and trust me, I screwed this up time and time again.

Uh, it, it can be it. It is one of the most important things you can do to heal the relationship. Yeah. And we're going to go into the, your partner helping you through that in the next episode, but I told you last week, start writing down your triggers, identifying how, why they happen. What's involved. An example is one of my triggers was any time a Shawn's phone made any kind of noise or vibrated it?

That was a cause I, I, it was like reliving. Memories of the past where I didn't know that there were things going on and then being scared that it was happening again. And I get triggered and I want to go look at his phone and see what that was about. And then if I didn't know what it was, it was this obsession to figure out what it was.

So PTSD. It's a big part of triggers too, but you can have triggers and not have PTSD. So there's just an example of what a trigger is. If we went to a certain place, it was a trigger. There is a particular band that is a bit of a trigger for me. So, yeah, it could be anything. And as ridiculous as it sounds, you are not to label it.

Ridiculous. If it's a trigger, it's a trigger point blank. It's not okay now, so make sure you're identifying your triggers. Make sure you're writing them down. The situations, the who, what, where, why when all of it and don't wait until. You have all your triggers and you're not writing things down anymore to get started on the work because before you know it, something's going to happen two months down the line, that's a trigger.

You had no idea it was a trigger. So we are going to start working on it now, but keep logs of your triggers. Some ways to manage triggers is to try and stay away from any and all situations that cause you triggers. If you can. So certain movies or a particular book. Specific song a certain place, certain people, um, anything that's a trigger to you try to stay away from if you can't stay away from it, prepare yourself for it.

So let's say that his office is a trigger for you and you can't stay away from it. Prepare yourself before you go to the office to meet him for lunch. I am, this is going to be a trigger for me. This is going to be hard, and I'm going to do deep breaths, and I'm going to keep positive thoughts, and I'm not going to allow myself to obsessively.

Think about the woman he had an affair with at work and prepare yourself to give yourself a pep talk. Before you enter into that trigger, if you can, that's going to be really, really helpful. Give yourself a timeout. If you're triggered. I mean, honestly, truly timeout just I'm triggered timeout. I need a moment.

Use that time to meditate. I, I it's so cliche, but it really, really does help. There are meditation apps that are free out there. And one of my favorite one is. Oh, my gosh, what is it called? I'm going to get it for you guys, but meditation, deep breathing exercises. Yeah. We'll put the meditation insight timer.

It's insight timer. Okay. So insight timer's free. You can, favoritize the ones, they have a whole bunch of different meditations, a whole bunch of like little workshops and programs that you can do for free. And you can favoritize it. And keep going back to it. If you need to. So meditation. Deep breathing so deep breathing is three seconds of a long breath through your nose.

Let your stomach fill with air. Hold it for three seconds. Three seconds out through your mouth. All the while counting in your head. Those three seconds. We're trying to change the thinking. So in one, two, three through the nose, hold one, two, three out of the mouth, one, two, three, sounds so ridiculous. And in that moment, you're not going to want to do it, but do it because it really does help you kind of calm yourself down and just get your center again.

Cause those triggers can take you. Off on a spin for days, sometimes minutes, hours, days, those triggers can really take you somewhere else, mentally and emotionally. And you know that to be true. So we want to stop that process. We want to stop the triggers from happening. The other thing that's going to be really important for triggers in your healing is keeping a routine every single day.

You want consistency. You want to know exactly what you're doing at every given moment of every single day. And we're actually going to talk to your spouse about this on the next episode, because they're going to need to be doing the same thing because consistency and knowing what to expect and knowing what's coming next and knowing what's happening around you really helps you stay centered and.

Often anything out of the norm, anything different, any sudden change can really set off a trigger. So keeping yourself on a routine right out of routine for yourself and go by it. Every single day, I get up at six, I get ready between six and seven. I do my meditation between seven seven, like really plan your day out and stick to it.

It's really hard to do with kids. I know, but just the fact that you're keeping something consistent, even though it might vary a little bit here and there. Oh, my God tremendous help in the, in the triggers and the healing. And it doesn't sound like something that really would do that for you, but Oh my God, that consistency is something your brain and body need right now.

So yeah, I mean, look at it this way. When. When all this happened to you, it probably felt like everything was out of control and there was so much unknown in your life. And even your very life itself felt like you didn't really know it all of a sudden. So knowing what to expect and having those things happen as you expect them being in that consistent routine is going to reach when you to come back to reality a little bit, I guess, right.

And know that your world is real and what happened happened, but it doesn't mean that everything is. Out of control and you can take some control back and here's a little psychology behind it. It allows your mind and your brain to kind of reset and calm down a little bit and allow for some healing to happen, because if you're constantly getting triggered and you're constantly in a lot of pain and you're, you're, it's, it's almost like when you're sick and you don't sleep.

Right. You need the sleep when you're sick for your body to heal. That's what consistency does for your brain. It gives your brain some time to kind of just relax and regroup and heal because you're healing your brain, essentially everything you're feeling and thinking is all part of your brain. So that consistency relaxes the brain and allows you to do the other work that you need to do to heal keeping from those constant triggers.

And. Things going on here comes my medical analogy. So if you injure your back and you have a back spasm, that's really bad, you're going to be in a lot of pain. And as long as you don't do anything to calm that spasm down, you're going to remain injured. You're going to remain in pain. You have to calm that spasm down to let your body heal.

Just like if you are constantly tense and in anxiety and in turmoil from all these triggers, you're not going to be able to heal. You need to calm your brain, your body, your spirit down so that you can heal, right. Something that, um, is really, really helpful. And it sounds so silly, but you guys, this is, this is psychology.

Like one-on-one for you right here. Your sensory touch, all of our sensories are connected. And one of the most soothing things for people is the, the touch, the sensory touch. So. Here's tactile. Yes. So here's an example. We were in a therapy, one session therapy session one time, and the therapist had this pillow on the couch and I put the pillow on my lap.

And while we were in session, I found that I was petting in touching the pillow. I really loved the way that pillow felt to my hands. And it was really, really calming and serene for me. And I was really able to get through a really hard session and I didn't even know I was doing it. And now that I'm in school to be a therapist, I'm learning that this is actually.

Uh, a very powerful therapy tactic that they use. We tried to buy the pillow from the therapist and the bathroom wouldn't sell it to us. So we went, my husband took me from store to store, to store to find a pillow that I F w that was the touch was coming to me. And we finally found one. She's got a thing for pillows.

I do. I do. I love comfy. Yeah, but it could be anything. It could be a piece of clothing. It could be anything. So find something that feels really good in your hands. And when you're having a trigger. Take your object and just really feel it and touch it and close your eyes and okay. It's rough around the edges, but it's soft at the top.

It feels like it's made of like, just talk yourself through what you're feeling and touching every single aspect of it. That's super, super calming and helpful during those triggers as anxiety attacks, those moments where you're flooded and you just cannot get away from it. And it, it helps you change your thoughts.

So, uh, it switches, it reverses, it starts training your brain, not to be obsessed or to, uh, focus on the hurt and the pain and the anger. So essentially what you're doing is you're changing the way that your brain is firing off right now and the way that it's responding and reacting to things. So it's a little bit of like, um, uh, a brain manipulation tactic to get you back to a healthy place.

So you're not doing those unhealthy. Thoughts and behaviors and things. Yeah. So your brain can only do a certain number of things at one time. And if you can occupy at doing enough other things, then you'll stop. You'll be able to stop the trigger. Yeah, exactly. Another thing you can do, maybe you don't have your pillow with you or you think the pillow stupid, or you can't find anything else that you really like when you start that, uh, those thoughts or those feelings or things going on start counting the tiles on your kitchen counter.

Start counting the number of flowers that are in your house. Count the cars driving by. You can count anything. You can count your fingers over and over again. There there's so many different ways that you can stop your brain from doing what it's doing and do something else. So, and we've actually, I've actually used this when Jess was triggered pretty badly asked her to start.

Can, I can't even remember what I asked you to start counting, but it did it got her out of it. And it, it helped her come out of it a little bit. It's stopped at short circuited that response in the brain. So this is going to be really powerful in healing you, because it's your thinking and feelings that are hurting you.

Well, it's your spouse that hurt you, but it's, those are the things that you're struggling with. So you need to change your thoughts. You need to switch it. You need to stop that. Spasm. So you can, to the, exactly the other disclaimer is this. If even if you can stop the triggers, that doesn't mean everything's okay.

And you don't have to deal with what caused the triggers in the first place. You still need to go back and heal and deal with those issues. So it's like if you have COVID and you take cough medicine and stop coughing, you still need to get rid of the COVID. Why always the code, because it's what's happening right now.

So give yourself a time limit to think about things. If it comes up in your mind, you need to tell yourself, I'm not going to think about this right now. I'm doing X, Y, Z. I'm not going to think about this right now. I am playing with my kids. I will think about it later. And right now I'm just going to choose to trust the process.

Do not allow yourself to continuously think about it. You need to stop yourself and change gears. So when your time comes, okay, I'm going to think about it at five o'clock tonight and you maybe go in your bedroom, close the door. All right. I have 10 minutes to think about this. I urge you not to just sit there and think about it.

I urge you to pick up a pen and paper and write what you're thinking instead. Don't just sit there and stew on it. Write about it. It's incredibly healthy. So you gave yourself 10 minutes to think and write about it. Close the journal, walk out of your room. I'm done. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not gonna obsess on it anymore.

Really hard to do. I know it's Oh, well it's easier said than done. Um, yeah, I know. I know, but it can be done. And I know that too, so it's really just a matter of forcing yourself, just like when you're on a diet and you don't want to exercise it. You have to force yourself to do it. It's you're not gonna be like, Oh, I want to do this right now.

It's it's never like that change in life is never like that. You have to force yourself. Oh my gosh. Okay. I feel rushed because there's still a little bit more, but we're almost there. You guys, I probably should mention this earlier, but I'm going to bring it up here. Do not reach out to the person your spouse had an affair on you with.

Don't let them reach out to you. Nothing good comes of that. I can spend a whole episode explaining to you why that's a bad idea. Let's just leave it at that. Don't do it. You're going to regret it with that said you are not powerless. You are not a victim, and this didn't happen to you as Sean has once said, it just happened.

Just happened. And I know you probably want to scream and yell at me right now. Because that's how I felt when someone had said something very similar like that to me, but don't be a martyr. You have control over your reactions, your actions and your behaviors. You don't have to allow this to control you.

You can control yourself. So it's super, super important. That you don't allow yourself to remain in a space of, and it sounds really bad, but please know, I mean it, with all good intentions, do not allow yourself to stay in the space of, Oh, poor me. How could he do this to me? How could she do this to me?

How, how dare you? What have I done? Don't Oh, look at what they did to me. You're talking about the pity buddy and the pity potty don't allow you are not a victim. As long as you think that way you are not going to allow your spouse yourself, this in your spouse, the space in time and ability to heal. I know, I know it hurts.

And I know that the choices and actions and behaviors that our spouse chooses to do it all affects us. I know this. But don't allow yourself to sit in that space. You have a choice, you have power, you have control over you, which leads me to my final point. And that's focused on you. If you guys are on my social media, you hear me say this all the time and it's because it is the most important part of being in a marriage as selfish as it sounds, especially when you're going through traumas.

I'm in a marriage. What do you mean focus on me by focusing on you, you weren't focusing on your marriage, you're improving your marriage. You're bettering your marriage. Now that doesn't mean that you're all selfish and you don't do things for your marriage or for your spouse. What I mean by that, Sean and I have a saying in this house, keep your side of the street clean.

That's what I mean by focused on you. Look focusing on you. Self care is important, and if you need to take a bath with candles and. A bath bomb and relax to take away a little stress. That's one thing, but we, what we don't mean by this is spend six hours a day, putting your kids off on someone else, taking a bath and saying, well, Oh, my husband cheated on me and my wife cheated on me.

I need to be alone for all that time. Yeah, of course. There are going to be periods where you need that. But when we talk about working on yourself, we're talking about self-improvement. We're talking about working on honesty. We're talking about we're working on integrity on accountability, on healing.

And if you look, you're 50% of the marriage, so working on yourself is going to at least improve the marriage 50%. Right. I don't know if that math is correct. Yes. You are 100% correct. I'm a hundred percent correct. 50% of the time, about 40% of the things I talk about. Look, your marriage doesn't define you.

And it doesn't define who you are. And I know it feels like it does. And I know when something like this happens, it, it says something about you, but it doesn't marriage can define you to some extent, but being cheated on doesn't define you. It speaks more to the person who did the cheating than you.

Exactly. So. Give yourself your worth back. Don't let someone rip that from you. Cause it's not, there is to take it. Never, wasn't never will be whether it's your husband or your children. The only one who can judge you is you. And some might say it's God, but we, we don't. We remain open-minded here in essentially all higher powers aside.

You're the one who judges who you are. Even though it feels like your marriage should be your focus right now. And yes, that's what we're saying, but that's also done by focusing on you, let them do their part, let them work on their issues, in their things, in their part of the marriage. And you need to do your part some ways that you can do that.

Some things to look into is working on your emotional, mental, and spiritual health. That is a really, really important factor right now because you're hurting and often emotional pain can be physical too. Not many people understand what that's like to be so emotionally hurt that you're physically like literally physically in pain, but that's exactly why you got to heal your emotional wounds.

Look into a church or a religion groups get involved in things that you enjoy, or that you've always wanted to do. Use some time for you and take breaks, maybe start working out and eating healthy and losing weight. If that's something you want to do, get a makeover that goes for the guys to redo your wardrobe in who you are on the outside.

One of the things that they say in the 12 step program is fake it till you make it. So if you got to fake it for a little while and in. By all means there is science behind the way that you present yourself. And the way that you feel about your outer being is, is a direct reflection on how you feel on the inside.

It is true. Do things that make you feel good on the outside, and it's not going to fix everything. It's not going to make everything okay. But it's going to give you a little kick in your step, you know, and a little laugh and a giggle here, it'll do something and something is everything. And then look when you're, when you're making positive changes in your life.

And your spouse sees you making those positive changes. They're going to want to follow. They're going to see the things that you're doing and they're going to want to be part of that. Exactly. Exactly. Even if it seems like they don't right now, give it time and chances are that they will. And they're like, Oh, Whoa, Whoa, where are you going?

But wait, you're so far ahead of me. Hey, Hey, stop. And you're like, Nope, I'm still going. You better hurry up and catch up. Yeah. So don't lose yourself. In your spouse and in your marriage right now, meaning don't get so caught up in all that mess and, and lose who you are. You need to hold yourself down and hold your ground.

So I think that concludes this, this episode. Um, another heavy one, another heavy one, a couple of little final insights. No words that I want to throw out there is I did do a live video on vision boards. On it's on Facebook and Instagram. You're probably wondering how in the heck does that apply here? Oh, believe me.

It was one of my big, big healing things that I did. So check out that live video. I'm not so great on the live video than I am on here, so it's kind of silly, but watch it. You're going to be pretty shocked at, at how a vision board can really help you through this healing process. I go through how I used it.

During shabby night's worst times. And it's a proven thing. There's a list of books in the marriage resources tab of our website, check those out, or, you know, go back and listen to the previous episodes of confident marriage. Yes, yes. This isn't the first time we've touched on these things in different ways throughout all our episodes.

So in one form or another, something like this has come up and more, so definitely check out our other episodes. So, thanks for bearing with us through this really difficult episode. Part two of our episode, part two of our three part series, our longest, this has been our longest one yet, but join us and bear with us for one more, really tough one.

But like we said, these three may be the toughest you've ever listened to, or that we've ever done, but they will help your marriage if you've gone through something like this, not just an affair, but any kind of breach of trust. Yeah. I mean, We'll help you immensely. So once again, thank you for listening.

Don't forget to like us on Facebook and check out our website, the confident marriage.com uh, Twitter at see marriage show and Instagram at confident, confident marriage, and look out for our live videos because we've started to make that a pretty regular thing. And please, please sign up for our 2021 workshop you have until December 29th to sign up.

Sign up for our newsletter too. So you can get my words of wisdom weekly and get the podcast today early. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. All right. You guys have a fabulous week, be safe and be healthy out there.

Okay.