Affair Recovery

As I alluded to in my last post, sometimes a couple ends up addicted to being stuck. Your first inclination might be to say “Samuel, you mean the unfaithful spouse is addicted to being stuck, right?”

Unfortunately, no. In order to be addicted to being stuck, the old saying “It takes two to tango” has never been truer. For a couple to be stuck, both spouses have to be locked in a paradigm that simply isn’t working.

This feeling of being stuck is a common occurrence when neither spouse does anything different than the pattern they have been exhibiting for a considerable amount of time. What’s a considerable amount of time you might ask? I’d say usually anywhere from 6 months to as much as 6 years. The fact is, if you’ve been doing the same thing with the same results, and...

There are several factors that will sabotage personal as well as marital healing. Unless you’ve been through infidelity, you won’t’ easily identify them and may even encourage a few things which are actually saboteurs in disguise. Unfortunately, therapists can even fall victim to these errors which end up completely undermining the entire process of recovery for both spouses as well as unnecessarily creating yet another wall to have to leap over in recovery.

I liken these saboteurs to another name, roots. Roots are not easily seen and very easily hide beneath the surface. A tree has an insane amount of roots to it, yet we see so few, if any, besides its trunk. The longer I do what I do, the deeper I understand that infidelity is a life changing trauma. It doesn’t mean it can’t...

Often times, the unfaithful feels stuck: stuck between two people, their spouse and their affair partner.

One is a life of illusion and fantasy and their needs seemingly being met anytime they choose.

One is a life of responsibilities, conflict, unmet needs and you know real life.

It’s not uncommon at all that the betrayed spouse will chase the unfaithful spouse. Whether it’s to woo them or win them the fact remains they are pursuing their spouse. Who wouldn’t? It’s the normal knee jerk reaction and we’re not playing cards here. This is real life with often times decades of marital history involved and what was supposed to be ‘till death do us part.’

Keep in mind, the unfaithful is also being pursued by their affair partner. Many, not all, but many...

To tell or not to tell is a huge question for any couple in recovery. Whether it’s been a few months or a few years, couples always wonder if they will tell anyone, ever, in their life. Some truly want to heal, move on, and never talk about it to anyone ever again. Others want to find a stage and tell the world and see others heal. I understand both positions and have operated within both of them.

For Samantha and I, we’ve been very open with our story. I would write this blog under my real name, but the executive leadership at AR has asked for our names to be kept private for those that are uncomfortable telling anyone their story. I get it. 

However, I have found an incredibly equal playing field in life when I share my story or a version of our story with people...

One of my favorite movies since our own D-Day is Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe. It’s a classic tale of a man who loses everything, pushes through the recession and rises again to be a championship fighter. I cry every time and I feel like conquering the world after I watch it. I highly recommend it for both betrayed and unfaithful spouses as a bit of a journey into the world of ‘coming back’ and finding hope and faith again. During a pivotal scene James Braddock, played by Russell Crowe, utters a line I’ve found myself saying over and over again sometimes during tough times…..

“I didn’t always lose…..I won’t always lose again.”

As a business man, I’ve lost a ton of deals and even more money. It hurt like hell every single time. I’ve also had some wonderful years and...

(From the Current Series Nagging Questions)

Quite honestly, I hope you (the unfaithful) will not ever be the same ever again. I hope this would be the change you didn’t even know you were looking for, but have finally found.

I’m also quite sure your spouse is probably hoping you’re never the same again either. They may secretly want to go back to the way life was before the affair, or even before the affair was known, yet reality is that life is gone. We’ve taken from them the illusion that that life was perfect. It wasn’t perfect, because we hid a great secret from them. It doesn’t mean life is now void of meaning or joy though. It can and will one day return again, and the sooner you get serious about recovery, the sooner the joy and new normal will arrive.

...

(Nagging Questions continued)

One of the biggest struggles for Samantha was reminders, particularly during sexual intercourse of any kind. They were unrelenting initially, and seemed to take forever to dissipate. It was not uncommon at all for her to retire to the bathroom to cry and try and get herself together, in hopes of returning to the bedroom. I hated every single minute of it. She hated it even more.

Then there were the triggers from TV shows, or comedians, or movies or… you name it. I had to become an expert in reviewing movies to make sure that there would be no hint of infidelity in them before we saw them. For I believe 9 months or so, we barely saw a movie if it wasn’t a Disney flick. Because my affair was highly emotionally and sexually charged, her...

Over the next few blogs I’m going to be tackling what I call some “nagging questions” that many ask me (and Rick) consistently. They will all be featured in my book so this will be a great way to polish them and obtain necessary feedback from you all as well. I always enjoy constructive feedback on the blog, especially from those in the trenches.

Will my spouse ever be the same again? The short answer is no. If you’re the unfaithful spouse, I would hope you do not want to remain the same, but pursue recovery to find the person God has created you and your spouse to now become in light of all that has changed. This whole nightmare may be the very impetus that begins the process of transformation in your life that both you and your spouse have been looking for.

For the...

Often times the betrayed spouse is infuriated by the ambivalence of the unfaithful spouse. The very fact that they do not know who they want to be with, their affair partner or their spouse, is enough to incite feelings of rejection which eventually spill over into rage, hopelessness and eventually deep despair. My question for the betrayed is, “Why wouldn’t your spouse feel ambivalent?”

It requires a bit of an exploration into the mind of the unfaithful to understand the ambivalence. Remember, the unfaithful has been living in a bit of a fantasy world. Affairs create the possibility for an unfaithful spouse to construct a new reality: sex as often as you want, no responsibility to care for the mood and desires of the other, no rejection or hard work to connect, non-stop...

It was commonplace that Samantha would ask me a ton of questions about the affair. Did I love her? Was I really trapped? What did we do, how often, when, where, what did you feel? I hated all of it and I’m quite sure she hated it more.

It was very common that during these types of conversations I’d pull back. She called it retreating. I hated to talk about it and hated to recant the details and feelings of my affair(s). I felt horrible. I hated myself, hated what I had done and didn’t want to keep reliving it. Early on, I would hesitantly give details and offered them up somewhat freely as I had to. As we got further along, a few months in, I’d get edgy and irritable when pressed with questions and concerns. Further down the road, after we found Rick, I would gladly offer up...

Our affairs are selfish in nature. I hope it gives more credence to that fact since I’m a former unfaithful.

I’m certainly not proud of that, but I am elated when I can talk to other unfaithfuls and help walk them through their own situation and struggle. I’m sure we all love it when we have community we can relate to and that understand our own struggles, because they are dealing with it themselves.

The unfortunate reality is, we the unfaithful, think we’re heroic when we say “let’s move on and let’s heal.” We think we’re giving some sort of encouraging word that our betrayed should grab hold of and shout “Oh thank God….I’m so glad that my knight in shining armor is NOW ready to heal. My life can get back to normal again.” We think it takes great courage to rise up and...

Yesterday I was listening to a Ted Talk by Debra Jarvis, a female chaplain to those who are both terminally ill with cancer and those who are going through chemotherapy. It was as uplifting as it could be considering the topic. A cancer survivor herself, she had several wonderful things to say. She made a statement after losing one of her breasts and going through her own excruciating story which I found to be so true for all types of recovery. She charged her listeners to ”claim your experience and not let it claim you.”

Yes, I can hear you already….how the hell do you claim your experience when you’ve just had your heart, life, and reality for the last several years ripped out right from under you? How do you claim your experience when all you’ve ever known to be stable or...

Many wonder if the unfaithful spouse ever returns to normal after their affair. Do they ever regain a sense of their own former personhood or do they ever get back to their former selves?

If they obtain the necessary help to heal, the answer is fortunately no. They don’t just go back to being the same person that will inevitably repeat the same mistakes; they become an even better version of themselves.

How is that possible? Well, when the right help is found, an unfaithful spouse finds two principle factors in their recovery: remorse and clarity.

"We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful.”

I was reading this morning and thinking of so many of you. Day after day I talk to many who are in such crisis and confusion. Finding hope at this new ‘ground zero’ can feel impossible sometimes.

Yet, in the somber moments of our struggle, we have to ask if we truly believe the pain we are experiencing is purposeful. If we believe it’s not, our hope diminishes and we circle the drain of despair and perceived pointlessness to our recovery and even our lives. However, if we believe this pain and this...