Affair Recovery

To borrow from both AA and the Twelve Steps, as well as Richard Rohr’s take on it, here is a fabulous quote which resonates with me and my own life:  

“Our troubles are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves; and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he or she does not think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us!”

Several years ago, mid-affair, my life was about me; how everyone was to relate to me, how Samantha was to please me, and how my own little world had me at the center of it. Even while serving others, somehow it very easily became about me. I was sick. Sick and unable to see how lost I was.

I’m truly in awe at how easy it is to...

am·biv·a·lence--the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone

Ambivalence can also be defined as ‘being of two minds.’ Or in a general sense, “I want to, but I don’t want to.”

In recovery, ambivalence can be a very common denominator for the unfaithful. It’s not always there, but when it is it’s altogether excruciating for the betrayed. An unfaithful spouse may not want to talk about their deep-seated ambivalence, for fear of being hammered upon or ‘shamed’ if they were to disclose it. But it’s there. Deep in the inner resources of their heart and mind, it’s there, trying to eat away at their resolve and their hope.

I certainly didn’t...

Triggers are typically associated with the betrayed spouse.

Research shows that early in recovery, the betrayed spouse encounters between 75 and 110 different reminders of the affair every day. They can be incapacitating and overpowering, making it almost impossible for hurt spouses to reclaim any stable ground.

Samantha encountered thousands of reminders, and the courage and perseverance it took to press through them was monumental. The good news is they do dissipate over time and they can be diffused when you get the right kind of help. (Harboring Hope was a great asset for Samantha.)

Unfaithful spouse, when you are aware of your mate encountering a reminder, choose humility and own the moment as an immediate first step. Something that worked for me was to...

I hate to fail. At anything. It ruins me, one could say. Being a performance driven individual, and growing up under a reward-driven system of affection, I’ve always been a very driven, performance based individual.

An odd disconnect though, is that I had never been consumed with succeeding at marriage, but only succeeding at my traveling schedule, financial stability, investing and personal accolades.

When I failed at my marriage I failed big. I’m not sure I could have failed in a bigger way than I did.

When really began to grasp what I had done to my wife Samantha and so many others, it was almost incapacitating. Getting healthy meant walking through my pain at first.

They say the truth will set you free, but first it will make you incredibly...

Rick’s recent article, found here: http://affairrecovery.com/newsletter/founder/infidelity-and-transition-stages-the-mystery-of-change, is brilliant, but poignant for both sides of the affair. It’s relatively easy to understand why a betrayed spouse would need to grieve.  After all, life will never be the same again, and life has been changed forever.  It’s not un-repairable, but the fact remains, understanding why the betrayed spouse would grieve is rather easily comprehensible.

Grieving for the unfaithful is paramount as well.  For me, I had to grieve for what my affair did to Samantha and also what it had done to so many other people.  You may not be a public personality, but at one time I was, and in a high profile position.  My...

Many times during our discussions early on in the recovery process, even after we met Rick by the way, anger was a normal part of our lives.  We were smart to never let it fully unleash in front of the kids who were pretty young at the time, but it was there:  simmering….waiting for a chance to manifest.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to get angry when Samantha wanted to talk about it.  I didn’t always show it, but internally, I was about to burst.  I don’t know if anger was the most definitive term, but perhaps better, more descriptive words would be short, trite and borderline uncooperative. 

I genuinely felt terrible about what I did.  I felt like I was a complete failure and had let down so many, including myself.  Let’s face it; I did...

It’s a common understanding; we just don’t want to talk about what makes us feel uncomfortable or ashamed. We certainly don’t want to talk about our failures, unless we’ve experienced a great deal of healing for those failures. Early on in our recovery, I made the mistake of saying to Samantha several times “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s start over, move on, and save us!”

What a great heart’s intent right? Who wouldn’t love that? Sounds sincere enough right?

What I thought I was conveying was “I want to be with you, and I’m willing to work on the marriage at all costs.” But what I was conveying was, as long as we don’t talk about the affair or how I failed and I am ready to get healthy (as long as we talk about you and not me) and here we go, off to the next...

I’ll never forget a lunch I was having with a couple who eventually became like mentors to Samantha and I.  Samantha wasn’t there but I was venting a bit and talking to them very openly about my anger and bitterness and unmet needs which I felt led to the affair in the first place. 

They listened and graciously I might add.  I say graciously, as the fact is, I’m not quite sure how they stomached my deception and lunacy.  But finally, he had had enough add said, “Samuel, are you done yet?”

Laughingly I said, “Oh, yes, I’m sorry” and chuckled. 

It was at this moment that he led me by the hand and took me to the proverbial woodshed of sobriety and awareness of what an idiot (to put it lightly) I was...

If there is one thing we have learned through this mess that we have to keep going back to each year, it’s the concept of prioritization. No, this is not going to be a self-help post, or a menial approach to six steps to peace, etc. etc. It’s more about seeing the world and seeing the situation through the right lens of prioritization.

Let’s face it. My affair, and possibly yours, happened due in large part to me making everything else, and everyone else, a priority except my spouse. Work came first, people’s needs came first, my affair partner came first, and even my kids came first. Samantha was dead last in terms of genuine concern, focus and attentiveness. My boss and his family even had priority over her in many ways.

When we allow life to get...

Along the road of recovery there will be immense frustration. Frustration at your spouse, frustration at circumstances, and hopefully, yes I said hopefully, frustration at even yourself.

I hate to be a downer but if you think recovery and the pursuit of restoration is always this joyous, redemptive season of renewed love and compassion, I'm sorry but it's far from that. If you also think you can go back to business as usual, friend, you are sadly mistaken. You and your spouse have just experienced great turmoil and destruction, and life doesn't just pick up and move right back on. (side note: life doesn't bow down to a desire to recovery either. Kids still fight, bills still come, sickness still happens, and peripheral drama amongst loved ones, family and work all...

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...