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. I’m so glad you’re here.
I have been thinking a lot about this and a lot of my clients have been also saying like it’s so helpful that I’m reframing my thoughts, because so often when we’ve experienced betrayal divorce like any negative thing that has impacted our life in a big way we have a lot of negative thoughts and we become the victim. Right? This is what our spouse thinks about us, this is what they said, and we have thousands of thoughts every day, right? So the greatest power for me when I found coaching was wow, my thoughts matter and I can think whatever thought I want. I don’t have to think the thoughts that my former spouse was giving me or what I was believing about myself because of what was happening in my life with the betrayal and the lying and all that, and so it really helped empower me. And, as a coach, I want you to feel more empowered, because when we make a decision from empowerment, it’s such a better decision and it helps us live our best life as opposed to making, you know, a decision from victimhood or scarcity, right, it feels like desperate and just it’s more negative. And, of course, if you’ve been cheated on, your spouse has had an affair, you were the victim of that. We just don’t wanna stay stuck in that, and so I’m gonna tell you some thoughts and ways to help you reframe the thought and, with some different people, like your spouse, your kids, your parents, maybe your church group, different things that people might say and how you could think about it differently.
So the biggest one I think that, regardless of what has happened in your life, right, a lot of people think I am not enough, and your not enoughness is keeping you stuck. And what does that really mean? What are you not enough in, right? Who are you using to measure yourself? And so, when you find yourself getting stuck on this thought I’m not enough, I want you to really brainstorm and figure out where are you enough at? Like, what is the enough barometer right? Like, do you have to make five meals a week to be a good enough mom and wife? Like, is that it? Do you have to scrub your toilets twice a week? Are you not enough? If you hire someone a house cleaner, does that mean you’re not enough? Like what are you?
What is your brain telling you the reason you’re not enough? Because if your brain is saying, well, because my spouse had an affair, that’s why I’m not enough, well, that’s a lie too. Right, they had an affair because of something going on with them, some insecurity, desperate need for outside validation. Right, it wasn’t about you at all. So stop making it about you. Try to reframe it. Try to decide.
What do you mean when you’re not enough? Like, analyze it, what’s wrong with me is another one, and they kind of are the same. But like, what is wrong with you? And, of course, you’re human. You’re not perfect, so there’s lots of things that are probably wrong that you do, or you know you are low on patience, but you can get more patience or whatever your brain goes to decide. It doesn’t matter what I think or anyone else thinks. Just decide what is wrong with you? What do you think is wrong with you? And if it’s like I don’t make my bed when I wake up every day, is that really something wrong with you? No, it’s just you don’t make your bed.
Don’t make it this moral issue. How could they do this to me? Well, that’s the wrong question. It’s unhelpful. How could they do this to me? Well, that’s the wrong question. It’s unhelpful. How could they right? They did so decide. How do you want to feel more empowered about this? They didn’t. This happened. Now, what? What do you want to think instead? Do they even love me? I mean, the person that you need to work on loving is yourself. Stop focusing on whether they loved you or not, because the person that you need to work on loving is yourself. Stop focusing on whether they loved you or not, because the person they didn’t love is themselves. Too right. You don’t love yourself and go have an affair. In my opinion, you might think you know, you might think a lot of yourself, but really love yourself. I don’t think people are having an affair that really love and care about themselves and have moral integrity and are honest people.
Was our whole marriage a lie? This was a thought I had a lot, because every trip, every vacation, every gift, I just began questioning and that wasn’t helpful and I just decided. You know what my perception of my marriage was this the story I have of my marriage is different than the story my former spouse has of our marriage and I’m allowed to think whatever I want to think about my marriage and some of it I’m not going to think great about and some other things I’m going to be. Like you know what, I did have a great time on that family vacation to Hawaii or whatever I still had. Now I know what was really going on on our vacation to Hawaii, but my perception at the time, I really enjoyed it and I had a good time. So just remember, you get to decide what you want to think and you can reframe your thoughts to something that feels more empowered. So when you find yourself in real victim-y language, decide like, do I want to think that? Like, how could I be the hero of this story? How could I change this and think something different?
Sometimes, when we have kids well, oftentimes when we have kids, we think thoughts like will this ruin their childhood, right? Well, first of all, just know that parents are human and we make mistakes and there’s going to be things in our kids’ childhood that they are going to perceive as ruining their childhood that we might not even have thought about. So if we can just allow our kids to have whatever experience they need to with us being their parents and then repair when needed, that just takes so much pressure off of us because, yeah, we’re all going to ruin our kids childhood in a way. We’re all going to make mistakes. No one’s a perfect parent, so we are going to make mistakes. But when we do, can we recognize and apologize and repair with our kids? That’s what’s more important.
What if they think it’s my fault? I hear this all time. What if they believe all the lies my spouse is telling them about me, right? So what? I always say? So what if they do right? Like?
I honestly believe kids, as they get older, they can see the truth. Now, maybe when they’re little. Now, maybe when they’re little it’s different, but ultimately they will see and feel the truth regardless. If you ever tell them a thing about what the truth was, they watch you, your example. They can tell like, oh, maybe the divorce really was more my dad or more my mom, and that doesn’t really matter. All that matters is how are you showing up with your kids? Are you loving on them or are you taking it personally that they need to blame you? Remember about the shame and blame. We need to blame someone because we feel bad and a lot of kids, they might internalize it and think it’s their fault, and a lot of kids, they might internalize it and think it’s their fault. Do we want our kids to think it’s their fault? Absolutely not, and so just be mindful of this.
Will they take sides? Maybe they might, and still you’ve got to make a decision for your sake. What is going to be the best thing? I for sure stayed longer. I’m sure both my spouse and I we stayed longer in our marriage because of our kids, and was that the best thing? I don’t know. I’ve just had to decide. That’s what I did and so it was the best thing. That’s what I knew. I did my best, but now I can say it’s okay, like kids, we don’t like our kids to have hard things, but sometimes they do.
So if your kids are taking sides, that says something about them and how they’re feeling and thinking. Don’t make it worse by making yourself wrong or, you know, berating yourself or what’s wrong with me, right? That just makes it worse. So just decide it’s okay. They’ll figure it out someday. They’ll know the truth someday, maybe, but you know the truth and that’s all that matters. Did they already notice something was wrong? I find this interesting. My kids tell me all the time like, mom, we knew something was going on, they felt something in our home and I, surprising, was surprised about that. I was like, really Like in my mind I was the only one absorbing all this criticism and undertone of walking on eggshells. But no, my kids felt that too. So give them space, that they need to talk about it. But it doesn’t mean that you were purposely hurting them. Or, right, like, how can you be empowered, teaching them Like, oh, that makes sense. Of course you did, because we were living together. Of course they felt something and that’s okay that they did.
If you’re working, a lot of times after you discover an affair, you’re like, oh my gosh, my world’s going to fall apart and I’m not going to afford to live. And you go down this you know spiral of what if I get fired, and those thoughts are not going to be helpful in you keeping your job right, those negative thoughts. So how can you reframe it? It’s okay that you fall apart, but maybe try to do that at home instead of at work, right? Or what if I lose my job because you can’t function? Well, what if let’s go to worst case scenario? And what if you know you’re just going to be okay no matter what? What if that’s not the job for you? If they can’t be supportive in your pain, right, like we don’t want to bring it all to work, but maybe that’s not the job for you If they can’t be supportive in your pain, right, like we don’t want to bring it all to work, but maybe that’s not the job for you right now.
When you go to church, if you’re going to church, this is a big concern for clients and for people, and I felt the same way. Will people gossip about us? Just know people are going to gossip. We can’t control if people gossip about us or not. What we can control is what we think about it or how we participate in it, or we just know, like that says something about them and nothing about you, and it is, of course, it’s painful. We want everyone in our neighborhood, in our church, to like, feel bad and love us and, you know, not judge us. We don’t want to be judged. But the person that I don’t want you to judge is yourself and some people. That’s just their personality and they like to gossip and we just can’t control that. But we can’t let those people make us, you know, act a certain way or pretend or hide. That’s just hurting you and it’s, you know, not helpful in your healing.
Do I even believe in marriage vows anymore? Like I for sure have gone here right, like what do I even believe? And we can go down the negative route of like I’m, you know, never getting married again. Men are horrible or women are horrible. And life is so unfair, right? Why did we even have these vows if they weren’t going to keep them? Whatever is so unfair, right? Why did we even have these vows if they weren’t going to keep them, whatever? But you’ve ultimately got to decide like, no, that’s not really what I think.
I want to believe that marriage is good, that people can work things out right. So just pay attention when your brain, our brain, likes to fix things. Our brain oftentimes, especially in betrayal, divorce, these negative moments in our life, it wants to stay negative, but it’s important for healing to reframe. How can we switch and become more empowered? Will my kids feel shame at church? Maybe empowered. Will my kids feel shame at church? Maybe, and we can’t control how our kids feel. But what we can control is how we show up for them.
If they do come home and say something and we can talk to them, we don’t have to blame or get mad at whoever said whatever to them. Right, they’re just human, trying to do whatever, and your job is just to help your kids feel better. Your in-laws will they blame you? Right? Maybe they might. So then what Do you want to get angry at them? Right, your parents? Or right? They’re just feeling bad. So they need someone to blame, and they either want to blame you or your spouse or someone. And also, how do I tell them without breaking their hearts? You can’t control if you break someone’s heart.
My parents I didn’t tell my parents until after I got divorced that I was getting divorced. I know that’s very unusual, but it’s just the way I needed to do it for myself. And so my parents’ hearts were broken. They were devastated and I felt so bad. But that’s okay. It’s okay. They loved my former spouse, they loved our family, of course, like do you want them to be happy? And maybe they would too, like some of my friends were like cheering me on and super excited, right, like. So everyone’s reaction is okay, but we can’t control it, right? You see the you wanting to control when you have a thought like that. So just pay attention. Is that keeping you stuck from being your authentic self or is it moving you through becoming more empowered and healed?
So, in your path of healing, if you find yourself just having lots of thoughts, I want you to slow them down and write them down. And look at thoughts that you’re having, often like I’m not enough, what’s wrong with me? My life is over, right, just any negative thought that you’re having. Slow it down, write it down and be really curious and find ways that that thought is not true, because your brain is saying this is a fact, that you’re not enough, and I just want to tell you that is not a fact, that is a thought, and you have power to change your thoughts Now. You can’t just quickly change them, because that’s not going to work. You have to really feel it in your heart and mind that that thought is no longer true.
For me, I never think the thought I’m not enough anymore, and I used to think that thought all the time. But now I know like no, I’m just right, like I am enough for me and that’s all that matters. I’m enough for me, my kids, my life, my friends, my clients, my family, whoever I’m involved with in my life, I’m enough. And if they don’t like it, who I am, that’s on them, not on me. And of course, course I’m not perfect. I make mistakes and when I do, I try to repair. So focus, you know.
Write the five most common thoughts in your head, write them down, really investigate, be curious about them and see if you can take those thoughts from a like a victim-y thought to more empowered and this practice of reframing your thoughts. It will change your life. It’s going to make your life so much better, because thinking a thought like I’m not enough is so heavy and it’s not even true. Anyways, I hope this helped. If you want more help with reframing your thoughts, I would love to be your coach. Hop on a clarity call. They’re free and we can chat. Have a beautiful day and I will talk to you next week If you want to learn how to live happily, even after sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjen with one n dot com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach, let’s work together to create your happily even after.
