Welcome to my podcast. Happily, even After. I’m life coach, jen. I’m passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I rode the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It’s the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
So recently my daughter and I went on a road trip to visit and slash help my parents in Idaho, and luckily she likes books and so do I. So we downloaded what I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey, and I guess she wrote that 10 years ago, and so she wrote a 10-year edition of this book and I really enjoyed it and how she got the title. She said the only time in her career and if you know, oprah, she’s had a lengthy career right that she got stumped was when and I don’t remember his name, but anyways, some reporter, someone asked her what she knows for sure and it really caught her off guard and she really started questioning herself and thinking what do I know, and so, of course, then there’s my brain spinning Ooh, what do I know for sure? So I created what I know for sure about healing from betrayal. I created what I know for sure about healing from betrayal, and I created, or thought about, 13 things I learned from my spouse having an affair, and so I’m going to talk to you about those 13 things. So the first one, number one there is nothing that you can say or do to make them change their behavior.
And for me, this took a long time to realize, right, I for sure in my mind and many of us do this subconsciously, unconsciously we think, oh no, we’re changing. For sure, I felt like I needed to change for him. But I’m like, oh, he said he was going to change. So, okay, I’m going to, you know, try to find evidence that he is changing and maybe he would change for a bit. But then another affair, right. And so I’m like but this went on for a very long time because, of course, I probably had lots of beliefs, other beliefs, but I thought for sure, maybe if I was better, maybe if I was the right weight or I looked the right way, then he would change, maybe I was the problem, and so that creates a lot of a lot of problems for myself, right, a low self-esteem, lots of body issues, a lot of issues.
But there, if someone has to choose to change on their own, you, no matter how much you love them and oh, I loved him right, love him, respect him, honor him, do all the things you know, make sure all the laundry is done and all the clothes are picked up and all the kids are taken care of, like all the things, it doesn’t matter. Right has to come. Change has to come from within you, and we all know this. If you’re a parent of any, you know, if you have kids, we can’t change our kids. We have to just learn to love them where they’re at, and so that’s a big one. I made that number one.
Number two learning to trust yourself. Okay, and I mean when I say trust yourself, trust your intuition. I believe this is the only way to know. That doesn’t involve Sherlocking shenanigans. I like to call them like becoming the detective. Right, if your spouse is being honest with you, because I have done it both ways and sometimes you know, finding information, discovering the truth, right, deciding like are they telling me the truth or are they lying and like finding a text or a picture or a phone call or whatever. Whatever you discover, that can be helpful to make you realize like, oh no, you’re not crazy that this is really happening.
However, people are good liars. We sometimes want to believe the lie. I know many women and men. They know their spouse is having an affair, but it’s just too painful to acknowledge that and so, okay, let’s pretend, sweep it under the rug and still try to live our lives.
But the biggest way to learn to trust someone else is to be very confident in your ability to discern if someone is trustworthy. And, honestly, some people will never be trustworthy. Some people you don’t need to trust them, right, they are just not trustworthy and that is disappointing and irritating and sad. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t be trustworthy and you can’t be honest. So, really understanding what it feels like inside your body because your body’s alarms will go off if someone is lying so getting really in tune with yourself and trusting your gut I mean, think of there’s so many stories out there of women, the red flags, and then they marry them anyways, and you’re like wait what? But I get it because I did the same thing right, I just ignored the flags. I guess I ignored the red flags, but learning to trust yourself is number two.
Number three stop focusing on what they are doing or not doing and focus on yourself and your children’s healing. I think this is important because so often after the discovery of an affair, we become so fixated on what your spouse is doing or not doing that we take second fiddle or whatever. We don’t even focus on ourselves. No, the way to true healing is start with yourself first. Right, and you have to start healing yourself, because I promise, as soon as you start healing yourself, your eyes will be open. You will know are they actually doing things that they say they’re doing, or are they just saying them and doing something different? And so you need to get stronger inside of yourself and start healing, because there’s a lot of damage that is done in betrayal, and it’s not even at the moment of discovery. It’s the months or the years or whatever, however long the affair went on, or affairs. It’s all the lying, the manipulation, all of those little things that have damaged your soul, all the criticism and you thinking you’re not enough. So all those things you need to work on healing those, and then you’re not so focused on them, and that doesn’t mean you don’t love them, you don’t care about them, you don’t want your marriage to work out. It could, but you’re just going to be in a lot better place to make those decisions.
Number four if they don’t take full ownership and responsibility for what they do and how it impacted you, that is a huge red flag. I mean, I’m going to say it’s going to be impossible to save your marriage. I hate to say that because I know some of you are just holding on tightly to the hope that your marriage can be saved. But if your spouse does not own what they did and take full accountability, it is going to be really hard right, because they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. And so if you’re in that position, just work on yourself and you’ll know when the time is right. Okay, but I do believe if your spouse really takes ownership and is really remorseful and is changing and you’re seeing that you can actually create a better marriage than you had before. I do believe, 100% believe in marriage. However, you need to pay attention to the red flags, okay.
Number five pay attention to their actions more than what they say. So, yeah, actions speak louder than words, especially after betrayal, and I think, in most aspects, right people can say a lot of things I love you, I would never do such a thing, like I’m so sorry, you know, it just was a lapse in judgment. Well, if you were nicer, if you had sex more, I wouldn’t have had to go out and cheat, right, like we’ve heard all the things. It’s not true. Those words are we just can’t. You’ve got to just separate their words and then just focus on their actions. Are they doing the things they need to change? Are they having you know full transparency? Are they allowing you to look at their phone or whatever you need for your healing process, which is part of it? Like that’s not being a detective, that’s just creating transparency in your marriage after a huge betrayal has happened. And so are all those things happening without defensiveness and irritation? Are they open and willing to be honest with you? Are they willing to sit with you and have you tell them how much pain that you feel right now? Are they able to sit with that that you feel right now? Are they able to sit with that? Some people are and many are not, and so that’s something important to consider.
Number six. Learning to love yourself, flaws and all. It is the greatest gift you can give yourself and I really, really believe this. I think so many men and women that have in a marriage that had betrayal in it. Our self-esteem is terrible. We feel like if we were better or something else, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s absolutely untrue. The affair was about the person having the affair. It had nothing to do with you. The affair was about the person having the affair. It had nothing to do with you. But learning to love yourself and love yourself doesn’t matter how much you weigh, what you look like, what your hair color is, you know where you went to school, where you live, all the things, whatever you think is important or was the reason learning to love all aspects of yourself, because we all yell at our kids sometimes, we all make mistakes, we all say the wrong thing, we all forget things. So we’re all human and so the more you can acknowledge and love all the parts of you and just be okay with you and love you, that is going to be the greatest gift you can give to yourself and, in my opinion, your kids. And it won’t matter if I mean it will be sad if your marriage does dissolve and ends in divorce, but you can get through it because you have your back and you love you.
Number seven the affair was never about anything you did or didn’t do. It is a them problem that only they can fix. So I kind of talked about that in number six, right, but it is true, I think this is the biggest dilemma for women especially, but I’m going to say men too. I do coach a lot of men and so I think on both sides we somehow we just make it mean something about us and if you can really realize that, no, this is a hurt or something inside of them. They don’t feel enough and so they needed to get validation outside of your marriage. They were too cowardly, in my opinion, to come to you and say, look, we need to have this talk and maybe that wasn’t a place you didn’t have, that you know in your marriage. But regardless, them choosing to go outside of your marriage was a completely them decision, and so they’re the ones that are going to need to take accountability and, you know, fix that in them. It is not about you.
Number eight learning to feel all your emotions, the good and the bad ones, are the only way to fully heal, and I think a lot of us, we I talked about apathy last week. You know we’re just not good at feeling our emotions. We just haven’t been taught or we think well, I cried so I probably felt them, but no chances are, we are buffering, we are using lots of distraction in our life, we aren’t acknowledging or I know, you know it’s bad to feel angry Like that’s not a good emotion to feel. Actually, you need to get angry and maybe have some rage. Right, get it out. It is very awful when someone betrays you in such an intimate way. Right, they have chosen to have sex with another person besides their spouse. That is very painful. That is very personal. There’s just a lot of things, and I know betrayal doesn’t always have to involve sex. It can involve emotional. But regardless, whatever, however, you were betrayed, it is painful and so you are going to have a lot of emotions and so learning to feel those, process them out of your body and move through them. But what most of us do is we avoid, we resist or we react to our emotions, and so learning that skill will be life-changing and it will be the way for you to heal from betrayal Number nine understanding your nervous system and how betrayal trauma has affected you.
I didn’t put them in any particular order because this is huge. This was really a moment I will never forget when I connected my nervous system to how I had been feeling, and understanding how connected it was was life changing for me. And I actually then went on and got a certification in my nervous system and becoming trauma-informed because I was like this is the missing part. When I became a coach, I’m like, oh no, this is the missing part, because you can change your thoughts and do lots of mind work, but you have to also do it in your body, and that is where your nervous system lives, is in your body, and so once you can connect your mind and your body, I call it your mind, body and soul. That is like, in my opinion, the trifecta of healing and so understanding your nervous system. Everyone’s nervous system is different, everyone gets triggered with different things, and so understand what are your triggers, what’s going to happen, what does your body do, how do you feel? So really getting aware of what that does, that is going to get you, so you can become aware of it and move through your healing process.
Number 10, stop being a victim and empower yourself by focusing on thinking different thoughts and feeling different emotions. So I mean yes. I mean yes, you were a victim, your spouse had an affair. However, many people stay in victim mode for years and I, for sure, was stuck in that. I’m going to say 20 years, which is so sad to me. I didn’t consciously know I was in victimhood, for sure. I wasn’t conscious, I was completely unaware of it, but I wasn’t conscious, I was completely unaware of it. But I can see now and I get it. I have a lot of compassion for my past self because I didn’t have the tools, I didn’t know. So I’m not judging her, but what if I could have gotten out of it sooner? What could have been? But now I get, I’m not in that anymore. So the feeling of empowerment is amazing. And so if you can feel go from feeling like a victim and then becoming empowered, that’s amazing. Right, and so you totally can has to be a decision, right. You have to start thinking and feeling your feelings and doing things differently and creating that for yourself. But it is totally possible to flip that and the first key is to become aware when are you in your life a victim. What are you doing? Where are you stuck? Okay, number 11, learn to accept reality.
Instead of the story you created in your head about your life, write a new story. Okay, this is hard for people. It is because we all have a story of how our life is going to go and we really like our story and it’s usually full of, like flowers and daisies and balloons and, you know, happy things. No one like the day they get married. They don’t think like, oh, I hope someone you know has things. No one like the day they get married. They don’t think like, oh, I hope someone you know has cancer and I hope my spouse has an affair and I hope my child passes away. You know we don’t think of anything bad that could happen. We just think like, oh my gosh, we’re going to buy a house and my husband’s going to make a lot of money and we’re going to have these kids and they’re going to be so good and just obey us and we’re just. You know, we just think of all the fantasy, right, like all this stuff.
Maybe I just feel like I had rose colored glasses on when I got married and we’re just going to always get along and we’re going to be so in love all the time. And I honestly didn’t even cross my mind. I never knew anyone that had had an affair. I don’t think I even really watched a movie that had someone having an affair, or a TV show Like it just wasn’t a thing. So I think it was so shocking that I was like, wait, what did you do? What happened? What is going on, anyways? And so I just thought, well, I for sure thought it was my fault, so I didn’t say anything and I just probably, you know, thought, oh, I can fix this, which we talked about. You know, thought, oh, I can fix this, which we talked about. But if you can decide, like, you can create a new story and I am such a believer in this because, honestly, if you would have, you know, 2018, I was getting divorced and I did not want to get divorced. 2022, I get divorced.
I love being divorced and I know that makes some people cringe, like wait what? But I would say I’ve never been happier and I love the life that I’m creating, and so it’s totally possible to flip your script, change your story and create whatever you want, but it really takes a lot of intentionality, and so I think that’s important. But a lot of people stay stuck. They don’t want to deal with reality, so they just pretend. I did so much pretending in my life, pretending we were this family, that inside felt really out of alignment with myself, because that wasn’t. I knew the truth and so I don’t want to pretend anymore.
Okay, number 12. Divorce may feel like the worst case scenario, but what if that’s not true? Divorce is always an option. I know a lot of you are. We got married forever. I don’t believe in divorce. A lot of religions aren’t I would say my own religion. Divorce isn’t really talked about.
But I think divorce needs to be an option in all marriages and that doesn’t mean that people just give up on their marriage. Most people, it takes a lot to get divorced. First of all, I just don’t think people nowadays just say, oh, I’m sure there are some that are, you know, don’t really value marriage. Those people are probably just living with their partners anyways. They’re not even choosing to get married. But I think those of us that do get married, that say we’re going to be, honor our spouse and we have children, we have a house, all the things divorce isn’t really something you talk about. Like my former spouse and I never even talked about divorce, even when I found out he had cheated on me. That wasn’t. We didn’t talk about it until we did right. And so I just think many people decide no, we’re going to stay married, we’re going to get through this, and so it is a hard concept. It’s a belief that you’ve held tightly, but I want you to.
If you’re in a marriage that you’ve seen some of these things I’ve talked about, maybe consider what are the possibilities. Is it an option? Could it be an option? What does that look like and I know it’s hard Women I was a stay-at-home mom. It’s terrifying. The insecurity women feel, I know, is terrifying, but it is a possibility and it doesn’t have to be terrible. Okay, it could be amazing. Okay.
The last one and of course I’m going to advocate for this is having a coach and a therapist. Helping you navigate during or after the affair will help your healing. I found coaching in 2019. I’ve had a coach since my own coach that I meet with almost weekly, probably since 2021. And therapy almost weekly. Now I go once a month to therapy, but life-changing Having someone to help me see my brain and my heart has helped me so much in my healing and has given me different perspective, has really helped me heal, helped me learn all the tools that I didn’t know, which is the whole reason why I wanted to become a coach is because I’m like I can help other people heal from betrayal and they don’t have to be stuck in the misery that I was for 26 years right, and so that’s where my passion is and the why. But honestly, I am so grateful I don’t. It’s like somehow we think no one can understand me. No one will be able to relate. How can I speak? This unspeakable thing that has happened to me. But that’s why I’m a coach.
I specifically only coach men or women who experience betrayal, because I understand, but I also know that helping you get out of victimhood, helping to empower you, is the way out. Not to sit and commiserate with you because your friend is going to want to say, oh yeah, he’s a total jerk. Right, and that’s helpful. Sometimes you need to hear that, or I can’t believe they did that or your parents? It’s just hard right to do true healing, to have someone that’s more of a neutral party, neutral person. They have no feelings for your spouse because they don’t know your spouse, but they want to help you, and there’s just a lot of things, especially in betrayal, with trauma, that it is important to heal, and it’s just not your thoughts.
You’re just not trying to decide like, oh, should I take that job or that job? This is like internal work, right? You have to also heal those parts in your body that have been damaged from the actual betrayal, and so it is more. I view it as like more holistic. It has to be mind, body and soul. You have to integrate it, and so that’s why I believe that’s another important thing that I for sure learned from my spouse having an affair.
So I hope these 13 tips were helpful, and if you have any others, I’d love for you to share with them with me. You can always email me at hello at lifecoachjencom, or if you have any other ideas for topics I can talk about on my podcast. Thanks so much for listening. If you liked this podcast, I’d love for you to leave me a review. That’s how other people find my podcast and can get help if they are experiencing betrayal. Have a beautiful day and I’ll talk to you next week If you want to learn how to live happily, even after sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjenwith1ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Happily Even After. Coach, let’s work together to create your happily even after.
