Discovery: Part 1 - How to Handle Discovery Discovery: A Four Part Series Part 1: How to Handle Discovery? Part 2: Advice for the Wayward Spouse Part 3: Guidelines for Discovery Part 4: Goals for the Betrayed Betrayed spouses, why do you really want to know what happened? Unfaithful spouses, why would you want to tell your spouse about your infidelity? Is disclosure really that important for healing your marriage after an affair? If there's no disclosure...there's no momentum. Next to putting a stop to the affair or the acting-out behavior, how couples handle discovery may be the most critical factor in recovery and ultimately surviving infidelity. If the discovery process isn't handled with both compassion and intentionality, it's likely that all attempts at restoration will either falter or become hopelessly frustrating. Couples may give up their attempts at restoration, more out of exhaustion and confusion than because of the infidelity itself. Couples in crisis often struggle to answer a litany of pivotal questions during the discovery phase. Here are just a few of the tough questions that need to be discussed early on: Why is discovery so crucial to surviving an affair? What exactly does the betrayed spouse need to know? How can couples handle the instability created by questioning? What are appropriate questions to ask? When is it time to stop asking questions? Why is it so tempting to ask the same questions over and over? My hope is to provide you with as much insight into this process as possible and to provide a framework to your recovery, despite the intense pain you are both going through. However, before beginning, I want to stress that our goal at Affair Recovery isn't just saving marriages, but also to help people find extraordinary lives of meaning and purpose. Thankfully, a common result for those who tackle this issue in the right way is a restored life and a saved marriage. Our community is living proof that infidelity can serve as a catalyst for positive growth, but if you don't change your direction, then you'll wind up where you're headed. Our hope and prayer is that you will have the courage to navigate this process in a way that brings new life and total restoration for you and, we hope, for your spouse as well. Having said that, there are many who are unable to navigate the recovery process with ease and find themselves with no choice but to endure divorce. How a couple handles divorce can absolutely ease the process of uncoupling and create space to co-parent as well as to move onto the next chapter of their lives in a healthy and whole way without deepening the layers of pain and trauma. When both spouses commit to a proven process, the outcome, while not always the desired outcome, can be healthy and safe for all parties. Why "Not Knowing" Is Paralyzing A primary barrier to couples surviving infidelity is "not knowing" what happened. As counterintuitive as it may seem, statistics clearly support that recovery is better facilitated by the unfaithful spouse answering all the betrayed spouse's questions. Those answers go a long way toward extending much-needed compassion and respect to the betrayed spouse. Alternatively, the betrayed spouse needs to be the one to determine if they want to know the details and how much they really want to know. The late Peggy Vaughan, one of the research pioneers in both infidelity and compulsive behaviors, found that 72% of betrayed spouses reported that they recovered from the extramarital sexual activity of before they recovered from the feeling of being deceived.1 It's the deception during and after the affair that creates the biggest challenge for reconciliation. Deception creates the sense of betrayal and destroys not only the trust toward their mate, but also their trust in themselves. They no longer feel they can trust reality or their intuition. Providing answers to the betrayed spouse's questions allows them to find footing in their new, albeit painful, reality. Remember: if you can't accept where you're at, you'll never get to where you're going. Discovery is the first step to accepting where we're at, both as individuals and as couples. While it is possible for a couple to continue living together after betrayal, without discovery, they will never reestablish a deep, trusting, and meaningful relationship. Again, discovery has everything to do with surviving an affair and getting to a better, more fulfilling, and peaceful place. Couples may live under the same roof, but without trust, intimacy can never be reestablished. Before the betrayed spouse can trust their mate, the unfaithful spouse must first trust them with the information and details of the affair. This is the minimum, but an infinitely important, requirement for establishing loyalty. You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets Time and time again, I've heard people bemoan the fact that they never had full disclosure. Without full disclosure, they feel insignificant and, quite frankly, foolish. The message, "you are not capable of handling the truth" or "you don't deserve the truth" is clearly communicated, which only adds to the hurt they already are enduring. This leaves them feeling even more disrespected and unimportant. While they may continue in the marriage after the affair, without full disclosure, healing your relationship is drastically limited. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, you're only as sick as your secrets. Choosing to withhold information perpetuates a pattern of deception. I could never be a decent partner to any person until I could be rigorously honest with self and others. Failure to do so left me vulnerable to repeating patterns that destroyed my loved ones. For unfaithful spouses, if they ever hope to have intimacy with their mate, disclosure is an absolute necessity. During my recovery, the last thing I needed was to continue lying. I didn't need to be perfect; I needed to learn how to be authentic. If I ever wanted to have an extraordinary life of meaning and purpose, I had to begin to be honest about who I really was. My biggest fear was that no one would accept me if they truly knew who I was and what I had done. In reality, my deception was costing me the very love that I so desperately wanted. You can never be loved unconditionally as long as you only conditionally let others know who you are. It was through the process of discovery that I was finally able to admit who I was and what I had done. The process of discovery realigns loyalty in the relationship. As long as I withheld information from my mate regarding my extramarital activities, I maintained a covert alliance with those with whom I'd cheated. Refusing to give information clearly communicated that I held myself and my affair partner in higher regard than my mate. Releasing secrets through the process of discovery provides the betrayed spouse the necessary security to continue in the process and to continue healing after the affair. For those of you at this stage of recovery, I hope you don't think I'm minimizing the difficulty of this process. In fact, I can't underscore enough the need to go through this painful but vital step in the journey towards healing and restoration. Infidelity creates a pain like no other and it may be extremely helpful to have a qualified therapist or another person who has already gone before you to facilitate this process. Propel Your Healing With EMS Online Registration Is Open Today Our Emergency Marital Seminar Online Course, better known as EMS Online, isn't a one-size-fits-all program for couples. It was created by expert Rick Reynolds, LCSW who has decades of experience exclusively in the field of infidelity. Our methodology is designed to better serve couples as they address the betrayal, reconnect as partners, and restore their lives. "I would like to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your ministry and the materials you have provided as part of EMSO and Married for Life. We, all five couples that started EMSO, have just completed the Married for Life 52-week course. We are now deciding what to study next as a group, as we so value the relationship we have together as couples. With God, with your materials and with each other, we have saved our marriages."- B. Minnesota | EMSO participant, March 2021 Spots fill up quickly, so don't wait! Learn About EMS Online Sections: Must ReadNewsletterFounder's LaptopFree ResourcesHot Off the PressRL_Category: Handling DiscoveryRebuilding TrustRelapse PreventionRL_Media Type: Text
