If you and your partner are working to heal yourselves and your marriage after an affair, you may have experienced this?? Words or actions happen that immediately trigger negativity within you. The words or actions may not seem like such a big deal to others but, for you, there is something about them that is upsetting. You may not even understand why you feel this way, you just do.
Consider this scenario??
Chuck brought his wife, Elaine, a beautiful bouquet of flowers following all of the rendezvous he had with the woman he was having an affair with. In the course of his infidelity being discovered, Elaine realized this pattern and came to associate Chuck’s action of giving her flowers with the pain of the affair. Now, 10 years since Chuck ended his relationship with the other woman, Elaine always bristles when he gives her flowers. She is unable to enjoy what is now Chuck’s way of expressing love for Elaine?”not, as was his previous motivation, his guilt.
Being given flowers by her husband, fires off a negative anchor that instantly transports Elaine back to the past and the painful feelings around the affair. It is these past feelings of hurt and betrayal that Elaine needs to heal. In the present, Elaine can tune in to herself and realize she is experiencing the baggage of an unhealed experience. She can choose to let go of those old feelings, live in the present moment, and perhaps even allow herself to enjoy Chuck’s gift for what it is.
For his part, Chuck can be sensitive to this association and choose different ways to express his love for Elaine that don’t always involve flowers. Together, they can heal from the past and create a new future for themselves.
Stephen Covey refers to situations like this scenario when he says, “Old resentments never die. They just get buried alive and come up later in uglier ways.?? When we hold on to unresolved resentments, they tend to come up again in different circumstances and even with different people. They may be similar to the original trauma?”as was the case with Chuck and Elaine. Or, they may appear quite different but share similarities that are more subtle.
To begin to heal past resentments, take a moment when you first feel yourself being triggered. Examine where the negativity is coming from. Being aware of what you do, is an important first step to changing patterns. From within, take a look at the previous situation or relationship. Where did these feelings come from? Who and what was involved in the situation? Differentiating between what happened in the past and what’s happening right now is vital.
When it comes down to it, opening up to forgiving the person who may have caused you pain is part of the process. Honoring how that experience helped create who you are right now is another part. Once you are able to release the past, you will be freer to experience emotional freedom and the life you want for yourself.
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Relationship coaches Susie and Otto Collins, authors of “Should You Stay or Should You Go?” “Relationship Trust” and “No More Jealousy” are experts at helping people get more of the love they really want. Learn how you can create more trust by visiting http://www.RelationshipTrust.com
I am just curious ,why are the affair recovery sites usually based around the betrayed spouses ? I’ve been involved in an affair for 3 years and it’s been hell. I’m married and I am seeing another married man. I’ve had a very unhappy marriage for 15 years but have attempted to stick it out in hopes for my marriage to improve and at least my kids could still have their Dad around .
I met someone else and fell hard for him but it’s been nothing but turmoil . My Husband wants to work on our marriage and I feel this is because he now knows about me and this other man .
I’m in complete chaos over this . I get tired of these sites giving advice on how the betrayed spouse is to recover. Most of the time the spouse whom is involved in an affair is not happy and needs help as well!!
I do feel very guilty about being involved in an affair but I didn’t CHOOSE to have my Husband ignore me and be verbally abusive for 15 years either.
Most people just don’t wake up one day and decide to have an affair just because they “feel” like it.
The fact of the matter is ,marriages that have been affected by an affair can’t be helped unless both people realize what the other one has gone through . It can’t be one sided.
I am personally grateful for the attention given to the betrayed spouse. Only four weeks ago, my husband confessed to having sex with his boss. It only happened once, but it still turned my world upside down. I spent two days crying my eyes out. It was the most devastating news I have ever received. And to make matters worse, when I questioned him about it, he explained that it was not about sex for him, he just felt a real connection with her. She made him feel alive – that was how he described it. This was 100 times worse than having him tell me that she was just drop dead gorgeous and his hormones took over. For me, he was saying that I gave him nothing good and that he’d finally found true love with her. It was like sticking a knife in my heart.
We have been married for 13 1/2 years. We’ve had our ups and downs but we’ve always leaned on each other to make it through. We have five children together. He is the only man I have ever been with. And I was the only woman he’d ever been with until now.
But I must say that after two days of very little sleep, very little food, non-stop crying, and hours of prayer, I started to feel hope. I don’t know what I would have done if I did not believe in a loving God and his Son, Jesus Christ. It was on that second day – in the evening. I was kneeling in prayer and I was sobbing and begging God to please help me forgive, to please help me to understand my husbands heart – and that’s when the peace came and not just peace, but I literally felt His loving arms around me. And I knew that we could make it.
At the same time I was having this incredible experience, my husband was speaking with our bishop. I should back up and say that the same evening he confessed to cheating, he called our bishop to confess to him. I think that alone helped move along healing for both of us. The fact that he cared enough about me to tell me only the day after he cheated really helped move the healing along.
My husband came home from that meeting and we sat on the couch and we finally talked. Really talked – about our love, about forgiveness, about what we wanted. And we talked about a better future. We talked about how this awful, terrible event could be the catalyst that would help us create an even deeper and stronger relationship than we had ever had before. And honestly, I think it was the first real heart to heart talk that we had ever had. And it was incredible. I have never felt so close to him.
Now, in the four weeks since, there have been some wonderful days and there have been some terrible days. Peace and total forgiveness and trust are not restored overnight. I still have days when I wonder if he doesn’t wish I was more like her. But then, I have days where I once again feel the peace of my Savior telling me that I am of infinite worth. One very important thing I have learned is that I have to be the best of who I am. I have spent the past 13 1/2 years trying to be the woman I thought he wanted, only to have us both end up disappointed. Having him cheat is very hard to deal with, but it has truly shown me that I am a unique and valuable and wonderful person. And I must be that person, not anyone else. And if, in a year or two or three, my husband decides that he is not happy with who I am, then we may have to go our separate ways. But at least I will know that I am living my life according to what I believe and in a way that makes my Father in Heaven proud.
YGA — your response has moved me to tears. Thank you so much for your post! I’ve been married to my husband for 7 years — we have two small children (5 and 22 months). I found out three months ago that my husband had an affair over the summer with a friend of mine. It was devastating and a complete surprise. I’m also a religious person and have prayed about this situation constantly. I felt great relief at first . . and gained lots of strength from my husband who was very remorseful. However, as time goes by I’m finding the pain from this situation very acute . . . sometimes moreso. Perhaps it’s fear from not being able to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Where’s the relief?? But I’ll continue praying and working.
I do feel more attention should be placed on the cheating spouse as well. But in my current situation, I wish there were more resources for the cheating spouse on how to build trust and respect again. Because frankly, until the pain of the affair has been dealt with, no other healing can really begin.
In response to Ann’s column. I also was the unfortunate one in the affair, it always seemed wrong, but the attraction and the love we truly felt for each other made it seem worth it. It has been a long and hurtful time for both of us, nothing easy about it. He abruptly ended it and will not even talk to me or explain what happened, which is quite devastating to me. I feel almost a sense of relief it is over, but do need some form of closure to get on with my life. We are both respected, good people who got pulled together for some stupid reason, and am now hurting the ones we love. So, yes, the people in the affair also need some help and guidance.
Janie, are you kidding me! You knew what you were getting into. You knew he was married. Are we to feel sorry for you? If felt wrong because it was wrong. He ended it abruptly because that is what has to happen for us to be whole once again. There is no explanation needed, he was discovered. He decided that your relationship wasn’t worth the consequences. You both made poor and immoral decisions and now you have to live with it. Next time ask first, “are you married?” If the answer is yes, move on. That simple act of responsibility and respect would have avoided this entire thing.
Ann-
Your feeling that your husband only wants to work on the marrieage because he knows about the affair is a classic response. My husband is having an emotional affair, and I was in therapy, improving myself BEFORE HE BEGAN THE AFFAIR. (He has issues stemming from his pathologically-controlling mother, as does his brother; even as adults, they are afraid to stand up to her and renegotiate their relationship with her. As a result, she continues to treat them as young children, incapable of knowing their own minds, which is emasculating for them. My husband has subsequently allowed people to walk on him, and has now “transferred” all that rage to ME). ANYWAY…I was already working on MYSELF and on improving the relationship before the affair began, but once he was in it, he began to rewrite history, and was no longer “open” to me. He did not want to believe that I had good motives. There was only room in his heart for the intoxicating feelings he was getting from the affair (I don’t think it is even so much about THIS specific person for him; it’s about how he FEELS…it’s the chemical alteration to which he’s addicted).
I would humbly posit that perhaps this is what’s occurring in your situation. Granted, everyone is different and I do NOT know your spouse; yet, I have done EXTENSIVE–EXTENSIVE–layperson research on the topic, in an attempt to wrap my head around it, and it is stunning to read, time after time, the EXACT quotes my husband said to me (he thinking he was speaking from his heart)–the “feelings” and the paths that adulterers experience are surprisingly rote. We like to believe that we are unique creatures exercising free will…this research points to a somewhat different conclusion.
According to all the research I’ve read: as long as you are involved with the OP, you will continue to feel scorn for your spouse. You will NOT be able to have ANY semblance of a clear, undistorted view of your spouse or his supposed “motives”. Guaranteed. It makes no difference how intelligent, how learned, how “enlightened”, how liberal you are: you CANNOT overcome this fact. I would suggest what the therapists often suggest: step away from the OP–COMPLETELY cut off contact–for a few months. Allow your head to clear. (If you’re “meant to be” with the OP, NOTHING–not even a few months without contact–is going to dim that burning fire. So why should that daunt you?) You may be surprised, if you can give it a little time and allow yourself to give your spouse the benefit of the doubt, what could transpire. I would suggest doing whatever you can to change your habitual methods of communication and also even the PLACES you communicate. Shake it up. Zag instead of zigging. Seek professional help, if you heaven’t already. And do SOMEthing FUN together!
These are just suggestions, of course. You have free will. But if you “wake up” within the affair a few months or years down the road and have lost what you then realize you truly valued…wow. Our therapist says that a full 80% of adulterers return to the marriage. That’s telling, I believe. Maybe the affair wasn’t as “real” as it seemed. Maybe the marriage wasn’t so bad, either. I know people have affairs because they’re hurting. But they also hurt people. Especially when little ones are involved. There ARE other answers. And sometimes the seemingly insurmountable issues between us just aren’t that insurmountable.
Ann-
PS…sometimes, sadly, it DOES take a “wake-up call” for some people. Perhaps you, like my husband, did not make a “cry for help.” His issues were largely to do with his mother and his past, more than with me…I was going through a more recent crisis, and had resolved it (we all have issues, of course), but he didn’t say much…he just withdrew. He checked out.
But perhaps the important thing is that your husband IS interested in working on it NOW. Talk to a therapist for guidance. Set aside pride. Is it worth the sin of pride, the false satisfaction of ego, to lose the chance for a healed marriage. I have read that people can come through affairs with a STRONGER, BETTER marriage, if both parties can come together with the right attitude…open hearts, open minds, a lack of desire to “prove” something. I’ve been deeply hurt by an emotional affair but, if my husband can express remorse and willingness to return and work on things, I will not be a “right fighter”; I will not hold it over his head; I will not live in a position of moral superiority. It’s more important to me that we have an amazing marriage.
I am quite empassioned on this topic, but these are just suggestions, of course. I hope you find them helpful and that you find clarity.
Janie,
My husband said that it always felt wrong with the other woman, but it was an escape from the everyday burdens of life. Wouldn’t we all like to have an escape? I think that the majority of people involved in an affair know that it’s wrong. They don’t really want to end their marriages or they would have done that in the first place, they are trying to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak. They are getting some needs met form their spouse and some of their neeeds met from their affair partner, they foolishly think that they are so good at juggling the two, they fail to believe that they will ever get caught. When they do, they almost always go back to their spouse, the one they “really” love. My husband has to deal with the guilt of what he has done to our marriage and the immense pain that he has brought upon me, upon us. Yes, cheating spouses hurt too and they do need help. I agree with Kathy that I wish there was more being done to help the cheating spouse understand what the betrayed spouse is going through and to learn how to restore trust, love, and respect. I understand that they would rahter not talk about it. They want it to go away, I guess I would too. I have told my husband that I would never want to be in his shoes. 6 months after the affair had been revealed I learned from the other woman’s husband that she had been involved in an affair with his best friend a few years earlier. During the affair she told my husband that her husband was the only man she had ever slept with. Once this lie was exposed my husband realized all the other lies she had been telling him and what a fool he had been to become involved with her. There is nothing good or pleasant that comes from an affair and I really feel for anyone else who is going through this.
Yes I do wish there was more help on-line for the cheating spouse. I was betrayed by my husband of 17 years with a friend of ours. I trusted my husband completely we have always brought our children up to be honest in in a God loving family. This woman protrayed herself as a CHRISTIAN woman always praying for others, in fact I found out she was also always PREYING on married men. It took my husband 3 years to figure her real motives out. How do you deal with the OTHER WOMEN who will not let go, even when they are confronted by the wife? She even showed up to my father-in-laws funeral it was extremely upsetting to my children. My husband has never wanted to seperate, but this woman has become so over bearing and entangled in my life. I feel like I can not breathe. I have been to counsling and I am a forgiving person.
This issue runs so deeply in so many lives I can’t even get over it. I am the daughter of a man that cheated both on my Mom and my Step-mom. He cheated on my Mom when I was still an infant. The moment my Mom found out what happened she left him and became a raging alcholic for the next 25+ years…always feeling like she wasn’t good enough and so lost in her sorrows. I was raised by her and watched many men pass in and out of our lives because my Mom couldn’t find it within herself to be happy and confident in what she had, and still has, to offer a man. My Dad finally wrote her a long letter a few years ago that expressed his deep remorse for his actions and his genuine guilt that still sits with him today. This has proven to start my Mom down a path of slow healing and I’m so happy to report that she’s in a loving relationship finally at the age of 51 and I believe her life will only get better from here now that she’s starting to see how wonderful and beautiful she is!
The woman my Dad cheated with is my Step-Mom. Years after he married her she found out he was cheating on her as well!! I’ve never really talked to my Step-Mom about how she’s dealt with the pain after all these years. They are still married and have been for about 27 years now. My Dad and Step-Mom have two of their own children together.
When I was about 10 my Dad told me about his affair w/ my Step-Mom as he knew I would wonder whey my parents weren’t together. Then when I was 21 I moved in w/ him and my Step-Mom for a short while. At the time I lived a long ways away from my Dad and on the long drive home to his place he confessed his infidelity against my Step-Mom. Now, you should know that I have the deepest respect for my Dad and love him VERY much. It hurts me so much to know that such a wonderful man could do such things to two of the most loving and gorgeous women I know! To this day I’ve never asked him “Why?”. I just love him and want all of them to be happy!
I guess I’m writing this because I’m now 31…never been married…and suffer greatly in my relationships because I always end up w/ terrific guys but can never bring myself to truly trust them! I would be so honored to be even half the woman that my Mom and Step-Mom are and if they can be cheated on SO CAN I!! I’m a deeply loyal person because I know first hand how much pain this type of betrayel can cause everyone involved!! I care so much for the wonderful man I’m in a relationship w/ now and I hope to find the strength to believe that he is just as capable of being faithful as I am. If you’ve been the one to cheat on your spouse and you have children…make sure you don’t forget the effect this has on them! You may not realize how deep this wound can be for them as well.
At the end of the day we all make mistakes…I think it’s important that we all realize that nobody is better then the other. I will get up everyday and try to be a little better then I was yesterday. I’m grateful to have someone in my life that is patient and willing to understand where I’m coming from. I hope the best for all of you as well!!
My husband cheated on me three days after we ‘renewed’ our vows. Ironically the reason we went through the ceremonial charade was because he had confessed to an earlier transgression, and we both agreed, or at least I thought he agreed, it would be a great start towards a new commitment. It has been 6 years, and we are still together. I wish I could say I am over it, but the truth is there are many days when I wonder if I will ever recover. I stayed mostly because of the children, and because I believed that repair was possible. The breathtaking pain is no longer there. But what has replaced it is an even scarier feeling of ennui. Most days, I just don’t care. If it works out, great. If it doesn’t I know I’ll survive. I have come to believe that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. I also know I am more cynical than I used to be. My religious faith suffered as well. I never blamed God, but I have a hard time allowing anyone, even God, to crack the shell I have so carefully fashioned around my heart.
It makes me wonder if I made the right choice by staying.
My husband and I married for 20 years. Six years ago I found out that he had an affair with a married woman in a different city. He went to that city three to four times a year on business and always stayed there for two nights. This relationship lasted for four and a half years. This woman wanted to marry him and made him wrote a gurantee. When she finally found out that he won’t marry her, she had an affair with a third man. My husband was jealous and felt betrayed. I found out when he was begging her to take him back. It hurt my feeling enormously. Once I found out, my husband suddenly wasn’t interested in her any more and started to fully devoted in me and our marriage. We have two boys. Two years have passed, it still hurts every time when I think about it. In his eyes I’m prettier, sexier and much more intelligent than her. She admired him and flattered him. She surely made him felt good. After they broke, she made ugly comments about him in front of me, she used words that I would never say to him in my life. Now he thinks she is disgusting.
Till this day, I still don’t understand why he wanted her over me.
It has almost been 2 years since I received a phone call from the OP’s husband telling me my perfect husband was sleeping with his wife. What a blow. I felt so sick…I had put my husband up on a pedistal and now it came crashing down. I told him right away that I forgave him I think b/c I was in total shock after I raged and cried for 2 days straight. I lost 10 pounds in 3 days and could not eat because my stomach was tied in a knot. My husband said such terrible things to me, like I didn’t try hard enough and even called the OP after he said he would never talk to her again. The irony was that the OP’s husband showed up on our door step to confront me and to attack my husband, but he was on a business trip that day. I say that is the irony of it b/c he (my husband) witnessed his father receive a beating b/c he had cheated on his mother with a neighbour. He did not learn anything from that I think he learned to be selfish and just care for himself b/c his mother turned to him after the incident and cryed to her 7 year old boy to make it better and continued to do that for the next 18 years. Calling him up 10 times a day was/is not out of the ordinary. But she did even worse to him – she abandoned him and attached herself to the first willing man to come along. She left her boys alone every weekend at home and sometimes did not come home for supper. In my mind my husband never confided in me and striked me down once when I told him we were best friends 5 years ago. I was confused? I should have questioned him, I should have not trusted him and I should have not given him any freedom. It was like I was number 3 or 4 on this list. Work, friend, golf always came first. All the time he was having the affair he was grumpy and always yelling at me. He never helped with the kids. The thing that hurt me most was that he would not become my friend on facebook and laughed at me when I confronted him about an email from the OP. We ended up having another baby – I think b/c I was desperate to stay together because he was taking such interest in our kids and finally doing well financially and was trying to repair all the wounds he had created in my heart. I still feel the hurt and pain everyday from the mistrust. I don’t believe in true love and like someone that has gone thru the same pain once told me is that now I just exist and that is all. I put on a fake smile everyday and hope that I don’t travel back in time to revisit all the painful memories that haunt me. Sometimes I wonder if being alone and content is better than being with someone and hurting. Unhappiness spreads sometimes or maybe I have just learned to live with it. When asked why he has told me it has nothing to do with me? I feel so isolated from him and I have no connection with him. I have been open and honest with him for 10 years and now he is trying to be open with me. We have just reversed roles. I will not open to him for fear that I will be hurt again. Why is life so terrible. I hope happiness does exist and I will find peace inside and will not rage in my head while I am trying to play with my kids for they have done nothing wrong. How do people get over this. It hurts so much…my mother in-law told me that revenge just eats at you – what is that suppose to mean? I don’t think she is very helpful – really she just cares about herself. I am lucky I can cry to my sister and my mother. God I hurt so much and need so much help. Please grant me peace. Sometimes I can’t believe there can be so many tears to be cried. I feel ugly, I feel fat and I feel gross.