Affair Recovery

Many, who fall, including myself, will confess to eventually feeling like a slave to the affair partner or addiction. Before we know it, what once was an adrenaline filled endeavor, full of excitement and dark, thrilling passion, eventually becomes slavery. The elation and electricity of it all, fades, then slowly but surely turns to dread, regret, and sometimes even disdain. Disdain for ourselves, the affair partner and even our spouse.  

As we continue in our duplicity, the shame and condemnation become overwhelming and we find it seemingly impossible to break out of the pattern we’ve created. Quite honestly, we walk right into where we end up. Somewhere along the way of life, we made a group of small, seemingly unimportant decisions, which slowly but every so surely...

Early on in recovery it was ugly. Everything seemed like it was my fault. No matter what happened it would eventually be tied to the fact that I had an affair. It was a painful way to live. Looking back even my wife Samantha would tell you that most things ended up being my fault. It wasn’t accurate but Samantha was in so much pain, and flooding so quickly, it was hard not to put it all on me.

If we were going to heal it was going to have to be that way for a short time. Let’s just be honest: I had a two year affair. The fact that I had to go through some emotional pain and hurt and even some ‘shaming’ from my Samantha, is not that big of a deal when you consider the bigger picture. If we are going to compare which sin is worse, I will win every time. When I talk to spouses who...

"I can't make you NOT have another affair. If you're going to cheat, you're going to cheat."

About a year or so into recovery, Samantha very calmly told me those words in Rick's office. I immediately saw Rick's eyes light up, followed by a gentle smile that showed Rick was very pleased with the new insight Samantha had arrived at.

It was a significant moment for her, to realize she needed to let go, trust God and even trust me (in developing levels of progression) that if I was ever going to have another affair, she in her own power couldn't prevent it.

After all, I was a great liar. If I want to, I still can be.

The difference is - I don't want to.

And I don't have to.

Samantha realized that if I wanted to have another affair I could,...

If there was one issue that was probably one of most difficult issues for me to overcome personally, it was shame. I was truly ashamed of what I had done and how I had hurt both Samantha and so many other lives. There was, however, a bit of a time release to my shame though and you'll probably only understand this if you are an unfaithful spouse. What I mean is it didn't hit me all at once. If it did I think I would have ended it all. Were it not for my kids I think one night I would have committed suicide with all the sobriety that began to come crashing down around me. Don't worry, that's not a cry for you to feel sorry for me, it's just a bit of a window into the mind of the unfaithful.

As the days and weeks would go by, and as we began to get the right kind of help, the...

Not too long ago, Samantha and I were having an incredibly difficult time. If you're on this site, and have gone through this nightmare which necessitates recovery, when I say an incredibly difficult time,' I know you know what I mean. I felt like I just couldn't win and couldn't gain any ground. To say I was frustrated is a severe understatement.

Looking back, what I truly was feeling was hopelessness. Walking out your recovery from infidelity (or your spouse's infidelity) can seem impossible. It can also seem as though nothing you do works, no action taken produces any fruit, and no matter what road you take it just never goes the way you want it to go. It's a toxic combination of anger, bitterness and frustration and it can lead you to a place of "Why even try???"

I...

Rick’s newest article once again, kicked me right in the teeth. Let me quote from it briefly, and if you’d like to read the whole thing, you can go here to read it:

(To have an affair) “Deceive yourself into believing you’re as wonderful as your Emotional Affair Partner sees you to obtain maximum benefit from your new found relationship. Always believe the lie that they’re better than your mate and that you’d have been far better off if you’d married them. Marriage partners are the makeup mirrors of our lives. They highlight every flaw and blemish. Emotional Affair Partners are vanity mirrors. We look amazing in their eyes. Approval seeking requires we suspend reality and imagine ourselves as seen through our EAP’s eyes....

My affair was both emotional and physical. When asked which was worse, I'm not really sure what Samantha would leverage as the worst side of it. It was highly sexually charged, but we also communicated and worked together every day and the emotional component was off the chart.

It deepens the pain I feel for what I have put Samantha through, as it was a "double whammy," if you will, of both emotional and physical intimacy. The pain has been immense, but with the right methods and help, time, and the absolute grace of God we have healed in ways I never thought possible.

A new understanding about my past has helped me to live with a new approach. I call it "Living in Light of What I've Done." What I mean is, I understand my propensity to be, as Rick would say, a human...

At its worst, endeavoring to reconnect physically after my affair was nothing short of a cauldron of exhaustion and frustration. However, when we were able to sift through the wreckage and actually re-engage, the joy and elation and reward that would result is almost indescribable. If you too are dealing with this type of pain and in the middle of this process, believe me when I say Samantha and I have been there before and feel your pain.

Though we are not there anymore, we still remember the agonizing chore it was to communicate through the hurt. For several years now we have enjoyed a wonderfully rich sexual relationship with little to no residue of the past. We never knew it was going to be as hard as it was to reengage, till we got right in the middle of the process and...

When I talk to people who are thinking about pursuing recovery, many times they ask me if wanting to stay just for the kids is actually enough. Adamantly, I almost always agree with a resounding “YES, it is.” It may be imperfect motivation, but it’s motivation enough. It’s an impetus to get one or both spouses into specialized help, to see if the marriage can be saved. In fact, sometimes it’s the best motivation, as our feelings fail us quite often and on any given day we can feel so much differently about our spouse. It’s just not worth trusting emotion. Especially in the middle of absolute chaos and emotional trauma, to use our feelings for any sort of rudder is to everyone’s detriment. However, with our kids, short of some disappointments here and there, our concern and love for...

Upon hearing that statement from Rick one day, I about reached over hit him. I was stunned. “How Rick?” After I’ve caused so much damage and so much hurt and pain to both my wife Samantha and many other caught in the crosshairs, how can you say that this might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me?

With a whole lot more control, grace and wisdom, Rick simply replied “Think about how much more of an idiot you’d become if God didn’t reach into your life and save you from what you had created….how much more chaos and pain and hurt could have been caused if you weren’t exposed?”

He was right.

After 7 plus years, I have learned that I have indeed been rescued. The most painful, agonizing experience of my life, though caused by me and not anyone else, was the...

When it all came out, to say my life was rocked was an understatement. Due to the public nature of my position and affair(s), many lives were altered forever. I knew little about life at that point, but I knew I wanted my kids, I wanted my family, and I wanted life to be what it once was.

It would never be again. (At least not the way it was before and truth be told, I’m glad it’s not what it once was.)

As I started down the long road to recovery with Samantha, it was frustratingly apparent that I was NOT in control. This realization hurt like all hell, as I’m a control freak. Whether it was my professional position, or during college and professional baseball, or almost every other thing in life, I had learned how to “will it so” in my own strength, power and...

Francis Schaeffer wrote, “We do not want to deny ourselves. Actually we do everything we can…to put ourselves at the center of the universe. This is where we naturally want to live.”

If there was one struggle, one colossal mistake, among the myriad of smaller ones that helped lead to my affair, it was that of outright self-absorption. Somewhere along the line, life became about me and what I wanted and needed and deserved. So when my wife Samantha was having babies, and spending up to 6 months in bed during her pregnancies, vomiting more times in a day than I care to describe, my needs were sent to the back of the bus.

For a few weeks I was able to grin and bear it. Sort of put a face on it of sacrifice and humility, and look at how good of a dad and husband I...

Lately I have had many pose the question, “Do you think my spouse, who’s been unfaithful, can fall back in love with me again?”

It’s interesting that the betrayed spouse is asking this question, as they know their betrayer is distant and has allowed their heart to either temporarily or ultimately beat for another. With most affairs eventually and completely blowing up, many wonder if the damage can be restored and the carnage repaired.

The answer is a resounding YES, from personal experience.

Not only from a clinical perspective is it possible, but from a personal, experiential perspective, it is possible for our hearts to beat with passion, romance, and joy for our spouse whom we’ve betrayed, and possibly even fallen out of love with.

Upon D-Day (the...

It’s a pretty common occurrence during recovery that anger can arrive like a freight train out of nowhere. What’s even more common than anger is depression and raw hopelessness. These emotions are never triggered more than when a fight arrives due to a “reminder” or due to some sort of trigger in the betrayed spouse, or sometimes even the betrayer. When the exchange takes shape, both spouses can feel “stuck,” frustrated, or just plain exhausted. How we react in this moment can be very defining for recovery and for the humility we the betrayer have arrived at, or failed to arrive at. How we diffuse the argument, the trigger, the reminder, and the intrusive thought can be ground easily gained, or ground horribly lost. Due to our inability to be in the moment or aware of just how much...