Ep 6 - #1 Secret to Healing

And so what I want to talk about is really how we can have the betrayer become a supporter and nurture and how that helps the betrayed or injured spouse heal. Are you tired of learning how to heal from an affair but not actually healing? Maybe you've gone to marriage counseling but it hasn't gotten you anywhere or you spent months struggling to heal and you're tired. If you're worried you might never be able to get through this on your own then consider letting us help you. Go to HealingBrokenTrust.com and discover how working with Brad or a member of our team can make the difference you're craving. That's HealingBrokenTrust.com. But before we get started, Brad let's give some context for the listeners. Why is it important to know about this number one secret to healing? Well, I think the title of this podcast is self-explanatory. It's really the number one secret to healing. Right. If you can do it. Now some couples, and a lot actually probably 50% of couples listening to this are really going to struggle with this. But when it's there it really accelerates the healing process and when it's not there we really get caught in the negative cycle and frankly there's a lot of issues that need to be resolved for people to be able to really implement this number one secret. And if you are just joining with us or you just started listening at this episode, if you want to learn more about the negative cycles go back to episode three. Download episode three and listen to the negative cycles. It's extremely important. It's another cornerstone episode to this whole process. So definitely check out episode three. Is there anything else we want to talk about before we get started? Yeah, I would just say you don't want to abuse this. This is a secret to healing. It's not something to use that you abuse. Your spouse with you want to really try to be compassionate as you work through in a fair. Obviously people are hurting. Obviously it's difficult but this isn't licensed to abuse. And so I think you're going to enjoy it and when you can implement it, things really take off. However, like I said a second ago, 50% of the couples I would say really are unable to do this because they've got serious work they've got to do in their marriage. And even when they don't have serious work to do in their marriage, you really need to be working with a competent trained professional working through in a fair. But this is a really big part of the healing process. And so without further ado, we're going to take it away. Yep, let's get started. HealingBrokenTrust.com is where you can find the downloadables, the things that you can download to help you along this process. And so let's get started. And I want to present a balanced view to this because this can be taken in such an extreme that it's very, very, very unhealthy for a couple and for their marriage because ultimately what we're doing when we're recovering from an affair is we are dealing with trauma and we're helping the marriage get back on track. We're not just helping one individual get back on track. Right. So that's what we're working for. And there's a lot of things on the internet. There's a lot of therapists. There's a lot of different people who say after you have an affair, you lose your voice, you lose your opinions, you no longer have a right to have needs and you got to be a doormat for this person right here. That you have betrayed. And that's obviously very short-sighted and very unhealthy because it's not taking into consideration the factors that led up to the affair and it's not taking into consideration. Look, we're building more than just one person who's been broken. We're also rebuilding the marriage. Right. And so we're going to talk about some of the some of the characteristics of people when they do this in a healthy way and when they do this in an unhealthy way. And we're going to talk about how this can really have a significant impact in helping a relationship recover from an affair. And then I also want to get into what does it what does this mean when the betrayer refuses to be a nurture and a supporter after an affair with that looks like with that with yeah, what that looks like and what that could mean. And so first of all, I want to say this, I have never had a couple except for one. And I've worked with at least 200 couples through an affair, maybe 250, but at least 200 couples that I've worked with through an affair where if they followed this idea that we're talking about today, they didn't they were they were covered. They didn't fall back. They didn't backslide. They didn't divorce. They didn't separate. They didn't go downhill. They didn't just crash. And the idea is the one who has the affair becomes the supporter and a nurture in their honest. They're going to help their spous heel and they're going to move forward as a couple. But when people are resistant and they are scared and they are still seeing the affair partner and their dishonest, that really hinders their ability to recover. And they don't trust the process. They're scared because they don't trust the process. Yeah, they're scared because they don't trust the process. And I've had several people where just sharing this with them, look, you need to become a nurtureer for them, a supporter for them, be honest with them about this. It's going to work. The odds are in your favor. And everybody I've worked with except for one person this hasn't worked with. And the one person that I shared this with and everything I'm sharing with you guys today, this one person that it didn't work with was somebody that came in the first week of therapy. They discovered this in the first week. They came in that same week and I met with them twice. And the first week discussing different things with them, the wife just found out the husband was willing to stay and wanted to work on the marriage. The wife encouraged him to be honest. The wife didn't like the fact that he was honest with her and that she was that he actually had an affair with a woman and he was in his 40s and this was a woman in her early 20s. And she thought that God was giving her a ministry to help betrayed women. And she was well off financially. They were both well off financially so she didn't need him for his money. And so God had spoken to her and said, "You're going to go help other women. You've got a new ministry." So she took this and ran with it and later called her office and was very upset that she didn't give her her marriage a chance to heal and to recover. Instead she just left and said that, you know, this is my ministry. I'm not going to stay with my husband. And of course we encourage people after an affair to stay long enough to sort out what's going on and come to a decision and a conclusion you can live with. That's not based on a moment, second emotion, all of a sudden you just choose when you're in the worst part of the pain. Yeah. And so that's the one exception to this. Everybody else has always worked and I can see that confidently. That's my experience with this. When the person who has had the affair is honest and they're willing to do whatever it takes and they're a supporter and a nurturer and they show their shame and they show their remorse, they've always made it. It's always worked except for that one time and that was very in the very beginning. And so, you know, we want to present a balanced approach to this because I'm saying you got to be honest. You've got to be, I don't want this to come across as one sided, you know, you got to be a nurturer, you got to be a supporter. This doesn't mean that you're losing your rights. This doesn't mean you're losing your voice. This doesn't mean that you don't have a right to be hurt from things that may have led up to the affair. I have a couple that I've worked with where in this particular situation, the husband, he was the one betrayed. And before all this stuff happened, he was talking with his brother-in-law and had too much to drink and starts talking about his wife sharing some things about her. And then that's what led to her in discresions. And she just a wall went up and she got really hurt by that. She felt really betrayed. Even though it wasn't an affair, she got really hurt. And then those boundaries came down. Yeah. Well, and she was just very vulnerable and very broken and had an affair with somebody that was already a friend. And she was really hurt by her husband. And so her becoming a nurturer and a healer and a supporter is obviously going to be more difficult than somebody who had a one night stand or who is a sex addict or who, you know, in other types of situations. And so some of those factors are a consideration in this. But if you're able to do whatever it takes, if you're willing to do whatever it takes, if you're, you know, showing your shame and your remorse and your tears and you are compassionate in your nurturing and your supporting. This is going to greatly aid you. Obviously there's some things that are there that may make it harder. I've had, and I want to share a balanced view because I've had people who've gone to other therapists who were very bitter because they felt like they lost everything. They didn't have a voice. And usually Morgan, those people were already on the fence about leaving anyway. And they didn't want to come to counseling again because the therapist was going to say, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. So they're being very vocal about it. And they were already, and in fact, a lot of, I think in fact most of those people, in fact I would say about almost all of them that I can think of. And I've only had a handful of those, maybe five or six who, I think all of them have already made up their mind that they were going to leave anyway. They were already still in contact with the affair partner or they had already made up their mind that they wanted to leave. But it sounds like a lot of therapists are justifying the abuse of the betrayer because of their indiscretion instead of the balanced approach that both people have needs and wants. And obviously the betrayer is going to need to show remorse and a healthy level of shame for what they've done. But that doesn't mean that they are going to deserve abuse because of what they've done. And it's a great way to look at it and it's a great way to say that. And also the negative cycle isn't necessarily always taken into consideration. Correct. And the negative cycle needs to be taken into consideration because we're rebuilding a marriage. And it's two people. It's not just one person who's there. Right. Who's a nurse, who's a doctor helping this person get better. Recess it. Yeah. And here this is important for our listeners. For you guys to understand this, there needs to be compassion on both sides of this. Right. Obviously there's going to be a lot of hurt, a lot of shame, a lot of anger, a lot of rage, a lot of yelling, that kind of thing. A lot of that's normal, but there needs to be compassion. Fundamentally you have to have compassion to heal from this. Right. And you need to express that. And the quicker you can work through the negative cycle that's causing the fighting and the arguing and the yelling and the bitterness and the resentment, the better you're going to be. Right. And so because it'll help because you're working on rebuilding the marriage. And so you need that. Right. And you need to be honest. You need to be compassionate because it's a two-way street. There needs to be compassion on both sides. But we also need the one who had the affair to become the supporter and the nurture and be honest so that their spouse can move forward in healing. Absolutely. And Morgan, let me explain. Let me show you this before we move on. I had a couple one time and I've shared this before. And what's really amazing about this is just how powerful what we're talking about today is. How much this really works. I had a couple I worked with in therapy for three months, maybe four months. They came in because the husband got caught in one affair, turns out he had nine and they went back from the time. I think they were dating. And so he got caught in this one affair. There was eight other affairs. He did not want to open up and talk about this. A very little answer is very few. Very short. Very short. And he didn't really share a whole lot and it kept his wife stuck. And finally she's, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I'm stuck. I'm not getting any better. I did want to first found out or at least in the first few days I found out. I'm not, you know, feel like I'm living with a liar. And so she was done. He came into our office. I happened to be free. Met with him and talked with him. And he said, Brad, how much is too much? There's more here. There's at least six or seven others. Turns out there was eight. There's at least all these different girls. How much is too much? I've been worried about that the whole time. And I told him what I just mentioned a moment ago, I've never had anybody who didn't become a supporter and nurture in a sense of healer who didn't make it work. So you've never had anyone who became that nurture and supporter who didn't work, right? Yeah. They've always done that. They've always been willing to do whatever it takes. It's been honest. And honest, he's a huge part of becoming a nurture and a supporter. Right. He's a physical affection. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed, but also honesty is a huge part of this. And I shared that with him. And she stayed. They made it work. And yeah, I talked to her later that day. She's like, this guy is evil because she told me she found out everything. It's really hard to understand what people can do things like that. And she was, you know, this guy is evil. And a few months later, maybe four or five months later, maybe six months later, she's saying he's really an incredible man. He's really incredible dad. He's a really incredible man. She began to see him differently. And so, you know, this isn't hopeless. You just have to trust this process. And so we're going to get into some of that. Right. I want to give characteristics of people who, for lack of a better way of describing this, probably are what I would consider slow supporters, slow nurturers. Where they kind of put a wrench in the process of healing. Yeah, make these are people that make healing much slower. They stunt to the process. Yeah, these are things that happens that makes us healing much slower or non-existent. And this is a way to sabotage your rebuilding process, recovery process. First is they minimize the pain that their spouse is experiencing. They don't quite understand the pain. They downplay it. You're crazy. You're nuts. You're overreacting. And sometimes that's the shame that they feel. They want the pain to stop and they'd be. Yeah, that could be the shame or it could be the shame. It could be, you know, some other things, but they downplay it. And it's not very caring. It's not very compassionate. I just nailed your hand to the wall with this nail gun. And then I'm going to downplay the pain that you're in. Oh, you must not be in that much pain. These that didn't hurt that much. I don't want to feel bad that I hurt you. Yeah. You know, and so it's really silly when you think about it like that, but they minimize the pain and it slows down the healing process or makes it non-existent. Right. And the second one is they focus on their own hurts, their own pain, their own concerns, and their own needs rather than becoming a supporter and a nurturer. They're consumed with how they feel and how what's happening for them that they can't turn and look at the pain they're causing their spouse. Yeah. And in fact, they're stuck in their own hurt. Right. And they're still better, maybe even from things in the past. Exactly. There's also a lack of knowledge about the healing process. Yeah. That's why we do this and that's why we've created this so that people who are experiencing this, you will know how to recover from an affair. You will know the steps that are necessary. You will have a 360 degree view of everything you need to know and consider when we're working through an affair and how to heal. Exactly. And the fourth one is there's a lack of knowledge about the trauma associated with the affair or affairs in general. There's a huge level of trauma. That's why a lot of people say, "Well, one minute I feel rage, the next minute I feel sad, the next minute I feel fine, I feel numb, the next minute." And so there's these ups and downs of the trauma. And the obsessiveness and the need to talk about it. Very and to ask the same question over and over and over because they process something a little bit differently the next time or they fully understand something, one part of it but they still have questions about the other part of it and so it's very common. Morgan, that's important and that's actually a part of trauma recovery is the need to go through the story. When your spouse is asking about questions and they ask the same question, it's not necessarily to catch you in a lie. It's so that they can wrap their mind around what happened and begin to heal. Right. And that's an important part of healing. And also what keeps people stuck is sometimes the supporter, the betrayer who needs to become that supporter and nurture what keeps them stuck from healing is that they're still in love with the affair partner. They still have feelings for the affair partner. And that can really stunt the process. And you need to listen to what we produced on how to fall out of love with the affair partner. We've got information in what we produced on that so you need to listen to that. Absolutely. They, the betrayer who needs to become the supporter, they are still communicating secretly with the affair partner. Maybe they haven't cut off ties. Yeah. And that can be two different things. You can still be communicating with them. And if you're communicating obviously you're probably still in love with them. But you can still be in love with them even if you're not communicating with them. Right. And you can not communicate even though you have those feelings for because you want to be honest with your spouse. Yeah. Another thing that really keeps people from healing from an affair, a marriage from moving forward is the one who had the affair is not honest about the affair. And Morgan, this is important. And for our listeners, this is really important. If you had an affair, your spouse in a sense has this, they're hyper vigilant. They have this internal lie detector that tells them when they're being lied to and when things don't quite add up. Right. Some call that the intuition. Yeah. They have this intuitive ability to know if things don't seem right and they're naturally more skeptical. [BLANK_AUDIO] So they're not easily trusting. So they tend to know when things aren't stacking up or being honest. Right. If there's something more that you need to say, they have an idea, there's something missing that they kind of have a feeling about. Right. The eighth one, they're still experiencing a very horrible negative cycle that we've talked about and we were probably continuing to talk about. There's fighting and just not- I mean, criticizing, demanding, and then avoiding, withdrawing, getting defensive. Exactly. We're not really sharing and connecting emotionally, but we're feeling stuck and we're getting caught in these rigid patterns of interaction. And honestly, we don't feel like we're cared for very much. Right. And obviously, having an affair is going to create some negative cycles or maybe they're going to at least be escalated. Escalated. But letting these negatives, not getting help for the negative cycles is one of the most dangerous things that couples can do after an affair. Almost every couple has a negative cycle after an affair. And you need to get in general. Yeah, and you need to get help with it. And that's something else you can listen to is what we talked about in negative cycles. And then the last thing I would add, and definitely there are others, things that make healing slow. It's really when the one who had the affair, one thing that can make healing harder and slower for the marriage to move forward, is the one who had the affairs bitter about something in the past about how they were treated before the affair. Like I mentioned earlier with the wife before she had an affair, she was really betrayed by her husband in a different way. Her confidence. Her confidence was betrayed, really just shattered by him because everybody in the family found out these less and favorable things about her that she really had never discussed. And it just crushed her, just destroyed her. And she started talking more to a friend that she had. And then the affair didn't happen. But maybe not even six months after that. Maybe I think it was two or three months after that. Wow. And so it happened fairly quickly. So those are some things that are characteristics of someone who's not really supporting and nurturing. It makes it slow. The process is slower, not existing. Significantly. Yeah. And then there are healthy characteristics, things that we have to have, that if we do have that really make this, I wouldn't say a seamless process, but a more productive process. I think that's a better way to describe it. And one of those, the first I would say is they take responsibility and ownership for their actions. They're not minimizing what they did. They are taking ownership of it. I am responsible for this. I did this to you. I'm responsible. There's nothing worse than someone hurting you who doesn't take responsibility and who minimizes what they've contributed and how they did it. Blames you for it. I did this to you. I did this to us. I did this to our relationship and I'm sorry and I am remorseful. The second one is they have they've ended the affair. They cut it off. Yeah, they've ended the affair and that's necessary. The third is they provide emotional support. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's important. The fourth is if needed, they provide physical comfort. Sometimes people don't want to be touched. Sometimes they need it. So being physically available. Yeah. And this is important. They're honest about everything. They're honest about the affair. They're honest about any contact that they have with the affair partner. They have to work with them. They're transparent. They're open and they're willing to be honest. Absolutely. And they come forward with it. They don't wait for their spouse to have to pry it out of them. Or find it on their own. Right. And that's huge. And the sixth one is they express healthy levels of shame, remorse and guilt. Yeah. Healthy because it's productive. It's not turning inward and going into a depression. Well, they express their shame. And I don't think you can't help but be depressed after you betrayed somebody. That's true. Right. You know, in the beginning of this. But they express shame, remorse, guilt. They show their tears. In fact, Morgan, what you really, what helps somebody who's been injured from an affair heal is they see that their spouse is hurting for them. Yeah, honestly hurting, not crocodile tears, but real. Yeah, honestly hurting. And they also acknowledge that their spouse has a right to heal. Or excuse me, they acknowledge that their spouse has a right to feel hurt. Right. And that's important. Right. And they do whatever it takes to help them heal. Right. They're proactive in the healing process. They've listened to things like us. They've read books. They've listened to our material. And they're proactive in the healing process. They know what to expect. They are there. It's almost like when you know you have a loved one who's going to be going in for cancer surgery. You look them up. You look up on web MD, Mayo Clinic.com, and you go in and you look up what they're going to need and the kinds of support they're going to have. And you do that for them. You help them with that. Exactly. And kind of in lieu of that, something that comes naturally then, they understand the healing process, they understand what it looks like. And then it's much, I think much simpler for the person who has betrayed their partner to then see what's happening in front of them. Instead of it just exploding and they don't understand why they have a better understanding. Right. And they've been able, and this is the last thing I would say, and again, there are others that I'm not including. But there are another characteristic that really helps couples recover is when the betrayer has really been able to help the couple avoid fights and arguing. They're not getting defensive. They're staying there with their spouse when they have all these questions and concerns. So that's important. Right. And then the last thing I want to go over Morgan before we're done today is what it says about the betrayer when they refuse to be a nurture and a supporter. This is important. And this is really important because there's some things. There's some factors here. And I only have a handful of these, maybe about six or seven ideas on why a betrayer would refuse to be a nurture and supporter. And the first is really they're afraid. They are afraid that the process of healing won't work and they don't believe that being honest will have a positive impact on their ability to recover. They're really afraid that in their own potential, it's like they don't believe in them that they can work through this. Or the potential of the relationship even. The second one is they don't think it will work, right? Other people have divorced. Most people divorced, which is not true after infidelity. So they just have these ideas that society puts in their head that it's not possible, but it's that's a complete false belief. You can recover after an affair, but people don't think that they will. Yeah, they've seen other people who maybe you haven't. Right. But that's not the case. You're right about that. You've recovered. This is also important. And this is huge, Morgan. Another reason why people refuse to become a healer or a nurture or supporter is they are uncertain if they want to stay with their spouse. And I would say that's probably the biggest that I've seen. Is they refuse or excuse me, they don't refuse, but they're uncertain if they want to stay with their spouse. For so many reasons, there's different reasons. Yeah. And that goes in with the next one is they're still involved with the affair partner. And you know, and another part of this is they may not be honest because there's more to the story and they want to protect their spouse from more hurtful info, just like the guy I mentioned earlier. He's not honest because there's more to it. Right. They don't want to see them hurt anymore. That's very difficult, but it's very important. So the next one is they don't believe their spouse will forgive them. They may not. They may feel beyond forgiveness because of the things from the past and what's happened. Yeah, Morgan and let me say this briefly, they don't believe that their spouse will forgive them because of things from the past that have happened because of past times where spouse didn't forgive them. Right. How can this be any different? Well, you're still nagging me about something that happened, you know, that I from 20 years ago or five years ago. So how can you, and that wouldn't, that's not even the same league as this, it's me betraying you. So how are you, you tell me you can forgive me now? How can I trust that? Right. And then the other thing is. Yeah. And this is really important. They want upfront guarantees without putting in any work after the affair that things will be different. They want to know upfront, okay, this marriage beforehand has left me hurt and bitter. So I had an affair. Now if I'm going to make this work with you and move forward with you, I need to know upfront that this is going to work. And that's part of that fear. That's part of. Yeah. And it's kind of like your friend comes up to you and says, I need a favor, but I need you to say yes before, before I tell you what this favor is. It's kind of like that. You're like, I don't think I want to say yes. I don't know what the favor is. Yeah. And my first born child, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But they want upfront guarantees that, you know, we're going to be happy. And they will be, but you got to go through the process. Right. It's like, I want to lose weight, but I got to go to the gym. I got to eat right. I got to go through the same process everybody else does. Right. I got to go through the same process. That doesn't mean they can't have needs too. In fact, we want them to have needs that can be vocalized. Because that's healthy, too. Healthy patterns. And there needs to be compassion from both sides to make this work. That's the key thing. There needs to be compassion from both sides to make this work. And it definitely helps when the person who had the affair is willing to do whatever it takes and they're honest about it. Trust the process. It'll work for you. It's worked for countless others. From my experience, less than 1% who are honest, don't make it. Being honest actually hurts them. Less than 1%. Be honest about things and trust the process. You guys are going to make it through this. And so you can do it. I believe in you. Absolutely. I believe in this process as well. Right. And we're talking about. Right. And we've helped hundreds of couples. Oh yeah. We're so glad that you've joined us today. Have a wonderful day and we'll talk in two soon. Hey, one more thing. If you want to break free from the affair, once and for all, go to HealingBrokenTrust.com for personalized help or a self-paced online program. That's HealingBrokenTrust.com.