to Happily Even After Betrayal with Life Coach Jen. This podcast is where we talk about betrayal and divorce and what it actually looks like to live through those experiences while still being a parent, a grandparent, a partner, or just a human trying to keep it all together. If your heart feels shattered, your nervous system feels dysregulated, and your future feels unclear, you’re in the right place. Here we focus on understanding what happened so you can rebuild your identity, restore your confidence, and find peace. So you can create your happily even after one episode at a time.
Agency Maximization After Betrayal
Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here. So today I have an interesting topic. I’m calling it agency maximization after betrayal. And I’m gonna fill you in on what that is. But I think one of the hardest parts about betrayal is that you didn’t get a choice. Nobody came to you and said, Would you be okay if your spouse had an affair that did not happen? You didn’t get to vote on the lies, the secrecy, the betrayal, or all the consequences that came afterward. Someone else used their agency in a way that profoundly impacted your life. And that can leave you feeling completely powerless. But today I want to talk to you about something that I’m calling agency maximization. And I actually got this from my coach, Jodie Moore. She taught a class on it in July. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. And then she re like, there was another thing I’d gone to, and she talked about it. And in that moment, my brain went, oh my gosh, I can totally relate this to betrayal. Because it didn’t hit me like that when I listened to it in July. And then in September, when I heard it again, I was like, I’m gonna do a class. So she coined or created the phrase agency maximization. I had never heard of it either. She made it up, but it makes sense. And I’m gonna show you how it makes so much sense, especially after betrayal. Because while someone else’s choices may have changed your life without your permission, they did not take away your ability to choose what happens next. I believe agency is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. And some of you may call it free will, but just hear me out. We have the ability to choose, learn, change, grow, set boundaries, ask for help, walk away, stay, rebuild, forgive, say no, say yes, and decide who we are and who we want to become. But here’s something really important.
Agency Versus Control
Agency is not the same as control. And I think a lot of us are trying to control our spouses and other people. You don’t have control over everything that happens in your life. And that is an uneasy thought if you really sit there and think about it. You don’t control your spouse, you don’t control whether they tell you the truth, you don’t control whether they’re remorseful or not, you don’t control whether they change, and you don’t even have complete control over emotions initially that show up in your body, right? I’ve had so many moments that how I’ve responded to something, especially finding out my husband cheated on me, it was like an out-of-body experience. I’m like, wow, I don’t know where that came from. But it’s it’s like we, you know, whether we screamed or yelled or whatever happened. So sometimes we don’t have control over that. But remember, you still have agency. And learning the difference between agency and control can completely change the way you heal. And that’s my hope for each of you is that we all heal. So there are five A’s that I’m gonna go over. Acknowledge, allow, assess, act, and author. Okay, so we’re gonna start off with acknowledge. Acknowledge first, we got to acknowledge what wasn’t your choice. So we got to acknowledge our reality. Reality is one of the hardest things for people to do. You didn’t choose betrayal, you didn’t choose the affair, you didn’t choose the lies, and you didn’t choose to have your reality turned upside down. And recognizing your agency does not mean taking responsibility for someone else’s choices. You were a victim of betrayal. But there’s a difference between saying I was victimized by someone else’s choices and believing because someone hurt me, I no longer have choices. And some of you get really stuck in this, right? And
Acknowledge And Allow Reality
we give all of our power to our spouse who hurt us. So this is where I want you to start trying to take your power back. Your spouse had agency, they use their agency in a way that hurt you. And there’s so much grief and sadness in that. I want you to feel that. I get it. But now you get to use yours. Here’s where we have to be careful. Using your agency doesn’t mean figuring out how to control your spouse so they never hurt you again. Sometimes we think if I check their phone enough, I’ll be safe. If I know where they are every second of the day, I’ll be safe. If I ask enough questions, I finally feel safe. If I can get them to understand how much they hurt me, I’ll feel better. That’s not agency. That’s often an attempt to control because your world suddenly feels completely out of control. And it makes sense that your brain would want to do that. But control asks, how can I make sure nothing bad ever happens again? Agency asks, knowing I cannot control everything, how do I want to show up now? Those are very different questions. Okay, so I want you to think about that. So the first A, acknowledge. The second, allow. You don’t have to control your feelings to have agency. This is another place where we confuse agency and control. You might hear someone say, you get to choose how you feel. And I do believe that. Okay. And I think we need to be careful with that, especially after betrayal. So hear me out. Of course, I do think you can control, but there are some times that you need to feel whatever you’re feeling. Remember, your body can react without ever having a conscious thought. It’s just this automatic response. Your heart is pounding, your stomach drops, you feel rage, you feel panic, you feel grief, you get triggered by a song, a restaurant, a date on the calendar, or a spouse picking up their phone. Your nervous system is doing exactly what your nervous system is supposed to do. Having agency doesn’t mean I should be able to control this and make myself happy right now. A hundred percent. The thing is, we don’t want to be happy when we found out our spouse had an affair. We want to be devastated. If you felt happy, you weren’t in your marriage. You didn’t care about your spouse. That, you know, that would be a whole other issue, but most of us here listening to this were devastated, shut down, couldn’t believe it, cried, screamed, threw things, hit things, devastated. Agency might sound like, I’m feeling incredibly anxious right now. What do I want to do with my anxiety? You can breathe, you can regulate, you can go for a walk, you can call someone, you can journal, you can decide to send a text. You can tell your spouse, I’m too activated to have a conversation with you right now, and I’m gonna have to come back to you. So another time we can regulate before we ruminate. Okay. You don’t have to control the emotion. You can learn how to respond to it and feel it. That is agency. I also say you have to feel it to heal it. That’s important. We have to feel those negative and positive emotions. But in betrayal, lots of negative.
Assess Your Bucket Of Choices
Number three, assess. Is this mine to choose, or am I trying to control someone else? So here’s an exercise I want you to try. Imagine two buckets. One is labeled not my agency or out of my control. What’s in this bucket? This bucket has things like whether your spouse tells you the truth or not, whether they’re remorseful, whether they go to therapy or not. A lot of people are putting a lot of weight on if they go to therapy. And if they go to therapy, then I’ll consider working on our marriage. We’ve got to keep our focus off of them and onto us, but this is what’s in your bucket. Whether you understand my pain, whether they understand your pain, whether they change, whether they become a safe partner, whether they have another affair, whether the affair partner apologizes, whether my friends or family agree with my decision. Do you see this is all about other people? That’s in the bucket that you don’t have control or agency over. Whether people understand why I stayed or whether people understand why I left. You can influence some of these things and you can ask, you can communicate, you can set boundaries, but ultimately you don’t get to control them. So now your second bucket. What you do have agency over. This is the part I really want you to focus on. You can choose whether you get support or not. Are you going to hire a coach? Are you going to talk to a friend? Are you going to get a therapist? What kind of support do you need? And are you going to get it? You can choose whether you stay in a conversation. If you’re having a conversation with your spouse, it gets uncomfortable. You can walk away. You’re allowed to do that. You can have boundaries. You can choose what you will participate in and what you won’t. You can choose whether you want to check their phone at night or not. You can choose whether to call an attorney and gather information. You can choose whether you take care of your body, you go on walks, you exercise, you can choose whether you stay, you can choose whether you leave. And you can choose to say, I don’t know yet. I’m figuring this out. You don’t have to decide your entire future today. And I know many of you think, well, my spouse chose to get divorced. What am I supposed to do with that? Right? Now you get to decide what you’re gonna do next. I know it’s maybe not what you wanted, right? You you had that choice taken away, but we still have choice. We just have to figure out, okay, what do I have choice in the divorce? How do I have choice in the divorce? Agency maximization is spending less of your precious energy trying to control someone else’s bucket and more energy intentionally living from your own bucket. So even if you have a list, this is in their bucket, this is in my bucket, and just really focus, that’s where you’re you can maximize your agency.
Act On One Small Choice
Number four, act, find the choice you have today, right? Sometimes we focus on past choices or future choices. Let’s be present, focusing on today. After betrayal, we often think there is one gigantic choice. And so many of you think, do I stay or do I leave? And you get stuck and paralyzed. But remember, there’s hundreds of smaller choices before that one. What choice could you make today? Maybe today’s choice is getting out of bed. Maybe it’s eating lunch. Maybe it’s calling a therapist or a coach. Maybe it’s an appointment with an attorney. That’s all you’re doing. You’re just making an appointment. Maybe it’s not checking your spouse’s location for the 15th time. Maybe it’s setting a boundary. Maybe it’s telling someone the truth. Maybe it’s asking the question you’ve been afraid to ask. Or maybe it’s deciding I have enough information. I’m not asking another question today. That’s agency. I want you to focus on it. I want you to recognize it. It’s important. We don’t want our agency taken away, right? It’s a terrible feeling. Notice none of these things require you to control another human being. That’s the beauty of agency. Control depends on someone else cooperating. Agency doesn’t. Think about that. If my peace requires my spouse to behave exactly the way I want, hear this. I have so many clients that are thinking this. I’ve given them tremendous power over my emotional life. But if I begin asking, what can I choose regardless of what they choose? Now I’m building something much more powerful. I’m building trust in myself. And remember, trust in yourself is so important. The last A is author.
Author What Comes Next
You can’t control the story, but you can participate in writing what comes next. I love this because I feel like my marriage ended, and now I’m writing this most amazing book that I never imagined would be possible, right? I’m writing a new story. And it’s not always exciting. I mean, my life is normal, but then there’s some really amazing things that are happening in my life. So here’s another difficult truth. You don’t get to control how your story turns out. I know for some of you, my story didn’t turn out the way I want it to either. I get that frustration. I get that disappointment. But what if it’s turning out better than you imagined? And that’s what the thought that I like to believe. But none of us do. We all think, well, their life is turning out picture perfect. We just don’t know, right? We tend to, you know, see everyone, the good things that people post online or are doing. We just don’t know the whole picture. We don’t have the whole picture. The only whole picture we have is in our own life. You could do everything right and your spouse could still leave. You can rebuild your marriage and still experience challenges. You could get divorced and still experience grief. Agency doesn’t guarantee a pain-free life. That’s not the point of this life, anyways. That would be boring. Just remember that. Like we’re we’re sent here to have challenges. That’s how we grow and learn and progress, but it’s how we handle the challenges. I think that is important to pay attention to. Agency gives you the ability to intentionally participate in your life even when you cannot guarantee the outcome. That’s very empowering. It’s a huge difference. So instead of asking, how do I make sure I never get hurt again? Try asking, who do I want to become, knowing that life will always contain some uncertainty? Our brain doesn’t like uncertainty, but get used to feeling it because you just never know. There’s no remember, there’s no guarantee. Who do I want to be right now? What kind of relationship do I want? What will I tolerate? What will I no longer tolerate? What boundaries do I need? What do I want to believe about myself? What does peace look like for me? What does healing look like? What would your happily even after look like? And maybe it’s rebuilding your marriage. And maybe it’s rebuilding your life without this marriage. And maybe you don’t know yet. That’s okay. You don’t have to know the ending to exercise your agency today. So remember, agency versus control. If we remember nothing else from this episode, I want you to remember this. Control says, I need you to change so I can be okay. Agency says, I get to decide how I will care for myself, respond, and move forward whether you change or not. And if you can sit with both of those, it is very empowering to go there. It feels very constraining in the control scenario. And many of us are trying to control our spouses so that we can be okay. Control says, How do I guarantee they never betray me again? Agency says, What will I do if someone violates my boundaries again? Control says, How do I get them to tell me the truth? Agency says, What will I do if they continue lying? Control says, how do I make them understand my pain? Agency says, How do I honor my pain even if they don’t understand it? Control says, how do I make my future turn out exactly the way I want? Agency says, whatever happens, I trust myself to make the next decision. And that’s empowerment. That’s what coaching helps you do. That’s what healing helps you do. Your life will change when you can figure this out. So your agency maximization challenge. I
The Agency Challenge Questions
want you to get out a piece of paper, unless you’re driving, and answer these free questions, right? You can do this later if you’re not available right now. But do it. Be curious. Number one, what happened to me that I did not choose? Write it down. Tell the truth. Don’t minimize it, right? There is a lot that has happened to you that you did not have a choice in. And you need to honor that pain. You need to feel it. You need to become aware of it. Number two, what am I currently trying to control that actually belongs to someone else’s agency? Guessing there’s a long list here. Right? We do it. We do it with our spouses, we do it with our kids, we do it with our parents. We don’t need to do it. We can let go. Think of their behavior. Are we trying to control that? Their recovery. I know we’re trying to control that. Their honesty, their emotions. Many of us are very uncomfortable with other people’s emotions. Their opinion of you, the future. And then number three, what are three choices that are yours today? Not next month. Not whether you’re staying married forever. See how our brain goes, we like to go to the future. Today, just pick one. Use your agency because every time you intentionally make a choice that supports your healing, you’re teaching your brain and your body, I’m not powerless, I have a voice, I have options, I have choices, I have agency. Right? So just pick one small thing. It doesn’t have to be big. So in closing, someone else’s agency may have changed the direction of your life without your permission. And that matters and it hurts, and there’s so much grief in that. And you don’t have to pretend that’s not what happened. But they don’t get to decide what you do with your life from here. And you don’t have to control them in order to reclaim what you want in your life. That’s what agency maximization after betrayal is. So acknowledge what wasn’t your choice, allow what you feel, assess what actually belongs to you, act on the choices available today, and author what comes next. You may not have chosen betrayal, no one did. You cannot control every outcome, and you cannot control another human being, but you still get to choose what you want to do. And the more you learn to maximize the agency you do have, instead of exhausting yourself trying to control what you don’t, the more peace, confidence, and freedom you will create, and you will be able to create your happily even after. Anyways, thanks so much for listening and
Coaching Invite And Free Quiz
being here. And if you like this podcast or if you need help in your own life figuring this out, I would love to be your coach. Reach out and let’s talk. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Happily Even After Betrayal. If you want to understand what stage of betrayal you’re in, head to my website at lifecoachgen.com. That’s Jen with one N, and take the free quiz. It’s a simple step you can take today toward creating your own happily even after.
