Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I’m Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I’m a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing son-in-law, a home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabbler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself, your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life’s greatest challenges. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast. I’m so glad you’re here. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast. I’m so glad you’re here.
So one thing I get asked a lot is is it okay to look at my husband’s phone? And I think women who’ve been betrayed, and probably men too, but we are like expert detectives and I heard a term called Sherlocking detectives and I heard a term called Sherlocking. I’m like, oh, I love that term because, yeah, I feel like I’m kind of a professional Sherlock Holmes in my past. I totally embrace that. However, I’m going to talk about it, but I just want to give you the pros and cons of doing so. I think it’s really hard in this era with our cell phones, to be as secret as we want, so in one way, it’s super easy to be hiding an affair and in another way, it can be challenging, because our iPhone is hooked to the cloud, which usually most people have more than one device, and so it could be. Also. Your phone can be connected to your home computer or an iPad, and sometimes you know when someone’s having an affair, all reason goes out the door, and then they forget that part of it, and so they’re sending messages and then their wife’s at home reading the messages. This has happened to me and I know many of you listening to this, which is a whole other problem. Right, but do I think it’s useful? Because in relationships, the phone can be such a trigger and we need our phone right? Like it’s really probably unrealistic to tell your spouse that’s been having an affair, that he can’t have a phone, but that’s how they’ve been communicating, right? They’ve been text messaging, they’ve been sending emails or taking pictures, or whatever they’ve been doing is probably, maybe has started on the phone, but for sure, that’s how they’re communicating. They’re talking on the phone. But I just want you to consider is looking at their phone really going to bring you peace? Sometimes yes, and then sometimes no.
So, however, you have found out about the affair, whether it’s because you discovered a cell phone or you know a message or whatever. However, you discovered it. Obviously, if you’re choosing to repair your marriage, you’re going to have to create some boundaries, some rules about the phone. And I hear a lot of women. They’re like well, my husband won’t let me look at the phone. He says that’s an invasion of privacy. Well, yes, but no, if an affair has happened, absolutely you need to be able to look at his phone. But I also want to remind you too, they can delete text messages, they can have a burner phone. There’s lots of work around. So if your husband really wants to have an affair, he is going to do it regardless of whether you’re looking at his phone.
But if you’re in a marriage, that really full disclosure, they’re really trying to work on it, maybe sitting down every night or whatever. And you know, glancing at his phone could be helpful in building your trust. But don’t sneak it, don’t sneak the phone. I have done that, I’m going to say, and then I feel bad and then, if you know, my former spouse found out, then he blames it on me, like I’m the problem. Now I’m like, okay, I’m looking to see if you’ve been texting this woman, and then now it becomes my problem and my fault and it gets really yucky and you know a problem. But I get like we become super good at figuring out like if you especially if they have social media like right, like finding the pictures. And I always find all those reels funny because I’m like, oh my gosh, I think the FBI needs to hire a bunch of women who’ve been betrayed. Like we’ll be experts, right, like we could totally find anything that they need us to find. So one thing that I did read I saw this reel yesterday that the FBI, the government, is actually looking for internet sleuths. And they were. It was like you could earn over $100,000 by doing this.
But it is a way people are using their phones to have an affair, but other countries they kind of pay attention to like oh, the Pentagon ordered, has been ordering pizza for the entire Pentagon for you know X amount of days. That’s how they’re discovering like something’s going on and America, I guess, is hiring people to look in other countries to see like, okay, what is different? What is different about the patterns, the things about pizza, like here we have like this top secret Pentagon. I bet no one could even like get into. Yet they’re discovering something’s going on by the amount of pizzas being ordered. I don’t know if that was true or when that was, but it just was the example that this reel said or when that was, but it just was the example that this reel said. But I thought that was so fascinating that obviously you can find a lot of information.
A lot of women are like how do I know my husband’s even having an affair by paying attention to things that the Pentagon is doing? Right, like you know, if their habits are changing, if they’re super guarded with their phone, anything is out of ordinary. You’re going to start paying attention to those things and it could be a clue. They were looking at it as like some conflict going to happen in the world. Women, we can look at it as like okay, what’s going on with my spouse? What feels different about that? So do you want to become a sleuth? Probably not, like you’re going to drive yourself crazy.
So what I want to challenge you to do is trust your gut, and sometimes people call like a hunch, an instinct, a deeper knowing, lots of different things for your gut, the spirit, whatever you want to label that, as you know, we know our nervous system is our alarm for our body, and so, paying attention, how does it feel? Does something feel off? Because I must say, when I was married my husband I don’t even know if he ever looked at my phone, because I never gave him any reason to look at my phone, right Like I was never having an affair. Yet his phone was always an issue because that’s how he communicated with these other women, and so I was very triggered by the phone.
So, but pay attention to your gut and try to decide like okay, is something off? You know, and sometimes we don’t want to know and so we just ignore it how you can tell between your gut or fear. I think this is so powerful because a lot of times in the past, like I’m sure I’m going to experience this if I ever get in another relationship, because I’m going to have my past experience bringing it into the future with a different person, but I might still have some of these alarms that I have to decide Is it just because I’m afraid he’s having an affair or going to have an affair, or is it really happening? So, really, paying attention, when you have fear in your body, it just feels different. So if you can get good at what does fear feel like in your body? You might feel tense, panicky, like a desperate energy.
Fear kind of feels more forceful If you legitimately have something to be afraid of, like you’re getting attacked. It feels like there’s a threat, attacked, it feels like there’s a threat. But if it’s just like a fear of something happening just pay attention to what that is You’re going to have a lot more like self-critical thoughts, urges to hide, which is shame, compromise yourself, like not be in alignment with yourself. So that’s kind of what fear is going to do. But if it is your intuition, it is going to feel more like. It’s just going to feel different in your body, almost like more I don’t want to say peaceful, but it is going to feel a little bit more peaceful.
So if you’ve ever been told a lie and then you found out the truth, even though the truth was really horrible to hear, like yes, I’m having an affair, it is strange, but it almost you feel peace because you’re like it’s like a relief, because you know, like you know your body was telling you something. And then when you hear the truth, it matches and so you do feel some sort of relief and it makes your body relax, not tense up. So if you’re in fear, you’re going to feel more tense, but when you have that, your gut feeling and your gut feeling will cause you to relax when you find out the truth. So that’s a good way, I think, to pay attention because obviously we base, sometimes we have these feelings come back because of our past and then we project them on into our future or present what’s going on. And so really getting good at understanding your body, how you’re feeling, what your gut feels like, what happens when you have an intuition, feeling and remembering those moments, I think it’s good to write them down or just remember them, as opposed to if it’s a fear response, there’s an acronym, it’s called HABIT.
So if you’re trying to repair your marriage or just trying to get out of becoming a, you know, fbi agent with your husband because you don’t want to do that right, it’s going to cause you lots more anxiety than it’s probably worth, because really we have to build honesty, honesty with him, him being honest and you being honest. We don’t want to become sneaky because they’re being sneaky and then we become sneaky with their phone. It’s just, it’s not going to vibe with how you’re trying to be and so honesty in your, how you’re speaking, how you’re acting, creating honesty in your relationship. Accept your reality. This is hard. I’ve talked a lot about acceptance acceptance of what is right, because we’re not going to change it, right. We see the text message of this other woman on the phone. We have to accept. That Doesn’t mean we have to agree with it and we’re not happy about it, but just accept our reality and that’s going to help us move through this pain.
Bond, but really bonding with you. You can bond with our spouse if we want, but really bonding with confidence and knowing what you want and what your body is telling you, paying attention to that. If you’re going to stay with your spouse, creating intimacy is important with this and you don’t have to rush to have sex with them, but just creating intimate, more vulnerable moments with each other to build that, because that’s going to take some time right. And then the T is trustworthy, and that goes a lot with honesty, but being trustworthy with yourself as well as watching to see if they’re trustworthy, making sure their actions match their words. I say that all the time, but many people having an affair will say one thing to you and their actions do the exact opposite. If that is happening, listen and watch their actions. Their actions are what is true, right, that is really what they’re doing. So if they’re still having the affair but they’ve told you, oh no, we’ve ended it, pay attention. They’re not being trustworthy, right, but you can be trustworthy in your response in to yourself is the most important thing. So, if you find yourself on this thing, should I look at his phone, should I not? It is going to take some time because it’s almost becomes an addiction, right, and we feel like that is a security blanket, but it’s a false security because there are many workarounds of the phone or whatever else you’re doing, and so you’re going to drive yourself crazy and really disconnect. If you are trying to repair your marriage, it’s going to be unhelpful. So try some of these other tools and paying attention to your gut and try to create the habits, those honesty, acceptance, bonding, intimacy and trustworthy. Try to create that so you can either repair your marriage or move on from it.
I hope this was helpful today. Thanks so much for listening. I’d love for you to like and review my podcast and share it with those that you know that are struggling in their marriage or with experiencing an affair. Thanks so much. Have a great day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoach Jen, with one ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let’s work together to create your happily even after.
