This week's video is addressed to wayward men, but the abuse associated with infidelity isn't gender or role specific. Infidelity can elicit both physical abuse and emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is when one person tries to make another person responsible for their emotional regulation or well-being in a manner that is detrimental to the other. Or when a person treats or exposes another person to behaviors that may result in psychological trauma. The attachment rupture created by betrayal destroys any sense of psychological safety. Whether you are the wayward spouse or the betrayed spouse, the tendency is to move into self-protect mode rather than relational mode. As mentioned in the video, abusive behaviors can be intentional or unintentional, but the damage done is the same...
Hello. This is Kristin. As an unfaithful spouse, one may argue that the shame I experienced post affair was expected, while unhelpful to my healing. One would expect that I would be feeling shame, guilt after what happened. I had betrayed the trust of my spouse, of my family, my friends, and maybe most importantly, myself. This type of shame is pretty standard.
However, there are two sides to the shame coin equally damaging, but one is much less understood. The shame a betrayed spouse may be feeling is a real and potentially crippling emotion. Thoughts are flying through your head a mile a minute. Why did this happen to me? What is it about me that caused them to cheat...
Steve just filed for divorce from his wife Stacey. The reason listed on the decree was “adultery”. They had been married for 7 years and recently Steve had discovered that Stacey had secretly been seeing an old boyfriend. His life was shattered. The pain was overwhelming. He only wanted to forget and move on with his life.
Of course, no one would fault Steve for his choice. Even the Bible would justify his decision. He was free to go and marry again.
Today I’d like to offer a different perspective on love and respect. During my own experience with betrayal, I had to reconcile the world's view of love and respect versus what God has revealed in His Word. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to punish my wife for her actions. I had the power to ruin her life like she ruined mine. The world...
Hi. My name is Karen, and I am the graduate counseling intern at Crossroad Counseling Associates. My work is supervised by Rick Reynolds, and I am in the home stretch of my master's program. I've learned so much this past year and had the opportunity to co-facilitate several Harboring Hope Groups. Today, I am delighted to share some information with you on a topic I am deeply passionate about and teach many of my own clients: Emotional Regulation. Emotional regulation or self-regulation is the ability to observe and respond to a range of emotions in a manner that is tolerable and flexible enough to allow for spontaneous reactions as well as the decision to delay those spontaneous reactions.
I have been teaching people breathing, meditation, and emotional...
Hello. My name is Candace. Let's spend some time talking today about answering questions. Post D-Day. I know some of you just broke out into a cold sweat. In this post, I will address both the unfaithful and the betrayed when it comes to answering questions. I'll be discussing a few key rules to follow to keep things constructive versus leading to greater destruction.
First to the unfaithful. Allow me to set the scene. You've either confessed to your partner or your partner has discovered your infidelity immediately after. Here comes the onslaught of rapid fire questions which appear to have no end in sight. And these questions are starting to create a shame storm. You feel like you're drowning....
In my years of being a part of Affair Recovery I have had the privilege of mentoring numerous groups of Men through the Harboring Hope program. One of the best parts of this program discusses the 20 Most Common Mistakes of the Betrayed Spouse. Within the groups I lead, and going through this section I have learned that I currently still hold the record for committing the highest amount of the 20 mistakes in my own recovery process. In my case I committed 18 of the 20 mistakes noted.
In this 2-Part Blog I thought I would go into some details of the errors I made and some of the ramifications that occurred. First of all please remember that these are the most COMMON errors. Don’t beat yourself up over these. Recognize that a lot of spouses struggle with these, committed some (or most), and your “score” does not necessarily mean you have failed...
The discovery of infidelity severely disrupts your life. It is a violation unlike any other. Most experts who deal with infidelity say that the betrayed spouse deals with anywhere from 50 to 100 reminders and triggers per day about their spouse's infidelity. But we have a God who is far bigger than our circumstances.
Those of us who have traveled this road...
Hi, my name is Rachel, and I want to talk about why letting others down and disappointing others is a necessary part of your recovery. Now, listen, I know that this seems like a silly topic, and it's not going to be relevant to all of you, but I really wanted to reach out to my sisters and my brothers who do struggle with the idea of letting other people down who hate the idea of disappointing another human who may tend to say yes often. And who have some people pleasing tendencies, but in recovery is a time in which your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual well-being is just kind of in upheaval, right?
I mean, there's just so much going on. Your world has...
The Triggers Song. Triggers - They can be anything and come from anywhere. Triggers rob us of our time, peace, and sometimes sanity. They are real and a very big deal when navigating the recovery journey of cheating/infidelity/affairs.
In this episode Rodney and Angela start by discussing triggers, how they felt them, how they managed them, how they replaced them, and overall how they navigated them in the journey of recovery. Through her testimony and harmony Angela shares this inspiring, encouraging, and even a little fun song.
Back in the mid-eighties, I had a business fail. I guess that's not unusual in the world of business, but it was new to me. In fact, when I went down, I went down big. I lost just about everything as I desperately tried to save the business. I spent our savings, our retirement, even borrowed money, all in an attempt to hold out until the market turned.
The only problem was the market never turned, so we ran smack dab into financial ruin.
Thankfully, God was faithful. He met our needs and took us in a new direction. As usual, he was able to take the worst thing that ever happened to us and make it the best.
Now, you may be wondering why I'm sharing this story, or what this has to do with surviving an affair, but I have discovered that almost every crisis has stinging parallels. How we respond has...
