Affair Recovery

Happiness only comes when you open the door to pain. You simply can't have one without the other. As a betrayed spouse, I know this all too well.

I've learned to live with what happened to me. It's become a part of my history, something profound that I went through. This brokenness has become a part of me, one that's interwoven with the fabric of my life story. This revelation is what I think they call "acceptance."

It hasn't come without truckloads of pain: messy, dark,...

Most of us who have experienced betrayal have, at least for a season, anger as our front seat driver.

But who is riding in the back seat fueling that angry driver? Fear? Frustration? Betrayal, Sadness? Loneliness?

Once I uncovered loneliness and injustice as two of my backseat driver emotions, I've discovered that loneliness and injustice was part of my childhood when I struggled to be the 'good child' as my parents were trying their best to handle a difficult son, my only sibling.

More damaging than that was my mother's very natural tendency to worry about...

"You have to trust the process."

I've heard this mantra of sorts from many research-based and well-respected betrayal recovery sources. It is the very backbone and lifeblood of expert help such as what is offered through Affair Recovery's Programs and Courses. It is so hard to do when your heart is shattered into a million fragmented pieces, and all you want, all you need, is to escape the horrendous pain. A pain like no other.

There are many necessary elements of successful recovery. Just as there are many...

Sometimes, my thoughts are punishing, my brain on fire.

Have you experienced this?

I am someone who deserves to be understood and cherished rather than criticized and improved.

It is time to arrest the process of depletion caused by the trauma I have suffered. It's time to stop ignoring my body's signals and instead allow them the authority to teach me about myself, time to keep my life as simple and quiet as possible, to allow myself comforts of the senses and small pleasures:

Before what we in the infidelity community call "D-day," my life was full—full of gratitude, challenges, and mostly good. My life was nowhere near perfect—punctuated with the losses one experiences when we are lucky enough to live long enough. I had lived a largely intact existence blessed with friends, a beautiful place to call home, and good food on my table.

As a function of my positive, benefit-of-the-doubt...

Remember Inside Out – the Disney Pixar movie where each character represents different parts of a little girl's emotions? Each emotion – or character in the film – vies for attention and control inside her mind. It's a cute idea, and one steeped in reality.

Riley Anderson is born in a small town in Minnesota. Within her mind's Headquarters, five personifications of her basic emotions — Joy,...

Three years can sometimes seem like three thousand years, and at other times, it feels like...

How did you have the good fortune to come across Affair Recovery?

I found AR while I scoured the internet for help. Post D-day, I did what I have always done when there is a crisis in my family---research.

To be fair, first I cried.

I cried and cried and cried. I simply could not believe my husband could do such a thing; the person who was one half of the golden couple of our college. One half of the couple all our friends envied. The guy our female friends called such a wonderful husband. "He's so affectionate. He washes dishes! He is so nice to us. He likes all...