Welcome 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. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast. So I know I’ve talked about this before, but I just am gonna do another podcast about it because I was listening to a podcast. This is how I get ideas for what to talk about. And I just had one of those light bulb moments where I’m like, yes, because so many of us, if we’ve experienced betrayal, we then go to should I stay married or get divorced? And we think that there is a right and a wrong decision in this. And so I think a lot of us get stuck in making the decision. And another thing I’ve learned about me is that I’m a really quick decision maker. However, when it came to my marriage, it took me 26 years to decide to leave my marriage. So I was not a quick decision maker in that. However, once I decided, I was divorced in six weeks. And it was a mutual decision. And once the decision was made, we really did it. Because in 2018, I had decided to get divorced, yet in that moment, I didn’t necessarily want to get divorced. So I hadn’t really decided yes, but I just in my mind thought I have to get divorced. My husband moved out and was living with this other woman. I mean, what was I supposed to do? And so, anyways, it’s just interesting. I want you to really think about are you making this decision harder than it needs to be? And I’m gonna say, yes, you are. And also, we might be asking the wrong question. Because people ask me, how do I know if I should stay married and get divorced? I don’t know the answer for you. I wish I did. I
wish I could tell you, oh no, you need to get divorced, you need to stay married. I don’t know that. But what I do know is that you know. And if you don’t know yet, you can figure it out. So a lot of people, it’s because we are stuck on is it the right decision? We have been conditioned to believe important decisions have a correct answer. If we think long enough, pray hard enough, gather enough information, ask enough people, eventually we’ll discover the answer. But what if there isn’t one objectively right answer? What if staying could be a good decision? And what if leaving could also be a good decision? And what if both choices include, which I know they do, loss, grief, opportunity, fear, growth, and uncertainty. You may not be choosing between right and wrong. You may be choosing between two very different lives and deciding which one you are willing to create. Oftentimes we turn divorce into a moral decision. So often people think staying equals good, loyal, committed, forgiving, leaving equals failure, selfishness, giving up. And sometimes the opposite is true. Leaving equals strong and empowered, staying equals weak. So you’re gonna find people on both sides of this. And I just want to tell you that both could be true and both could be not true. And you getting stuck in it is the problem. So neither framing is right or wrong. We just have different life experiences and different reasons we think these things. And I think especially in religious communities,
divorce can carry enormous moral weight. Someone’s faith may absolutely influence our decision. And they get to decide how much weight they give those beliefs. And I know in my own experience, my religious beliefs for sure kept me married for longer because I really thought in my mind I was going to lose my forever family. I thought I could be the one to forgive. I think I’m a very forgiving person in general. I am very patient and kind. And I I just got fixated on, I don’t want to lose my family, which was such a painful thought. Like, who wants to lose their family? Nobody. And I realized now that was just a thought. I didn’t, the good news is I didn’t lose my family. I ended my marriage. Thank goodness. And I really believe God absolutely does not want you to be miserable. He absolutely doesn’t want you to stay in a marriage that is full of emotional abuse, that is full of infidelity, lies, betrayal. That’s not what God is all about. And so I think we tend to use our religious beliefs almost as a weapon. And it can be painful. And I just want you to be curious if that’s what you’re doing. I think separating morality from preference, from values, from consequences and choice. Think of, you know, if you were going to ask me, hey, Jennifer, do you think I should rob this bank? I’m going to tell you, no, that is a bad decision. That’s a wrong decision. But getting divorced is not the same as choosing to rob a bank or not. We’re not deciding whether we should murder someone. These are moral questions with obvious legal and ethical implications. We’re talking about two options that exist: remaining in your marriage or ending your marriage. You aren’t trying to determine which choices make me a good person. You’re trying to determine which life do I want to participate in creating. And so I think we make choosing to stay married or get divorced a choose the right decision. It’s not. It isn’t. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way. And you can disagree with me on this if you want. I’m open to hearing your disagreement, but I just I think we’re putting so much weight on this decision. And stop calling one path the easy way. Because believe me, I’ve been married and I’ve also been divorced. And neither path was easy. And I think, especially in longer marriages, people may think, if I stay, I don’t have to deal with divorce. So many people lately I’ve been talking to, especially when people are in their 60s, 70s, or 80s, they think it’s just easier. And maybe it’s true. And the truth is, and we’re going to talk about this, you got to choose one lane or the other. You can’t sit on the fence. And in a second, I’m
going to share my thoughts and about fence sitting. But if I don’t stay, I don’t have to deal with divorce. That’s true. But also, what will staying require from you? Maybe rebuilding trust, grieving the old marriage, learning boundaries, working through resentment, creating emotional safety, potentially accepting things you cannot change. Because remember, we can’t change our spouse. So if you’re thinking, well, I could stay married if my spouse would change, well, sorry, that may or may not happen. If I leave, I won’t have to deal with this marriage anymore. Maybe, but you’ll have a different set of challenges: dividing finances, changing traditions, navigating children and family relationships, loneliness, dating, or choose not to date, building a new identity, grieving the future you thought you had. So you’re probably not choosing between hard and easy. You’re choosing your hard. And both hards can eventually create something beautiful. And I also know that is a hundred percent true. So remember, okay, so a lot of people they just choose not to decide. However, just know that that’s a decision. The fence is also a decision. That’s what I call it is sitting on the fence. One foot in your marriage and one foot outside your marriage. So many of you, this is your position. And it’s a terrible position. In my opinion, a worse position than choosing to get all in or choosing to get out of your marriage. Trying to choose both is a miserable place to live. You’re watching your spouse, you’re waiting, you’re researching, you’re replaying, asking friends, listening to podcasts, checking their phone, talking to therapists, talking to coaches, you’re praying, going to church, you’re making a pros and cons list like my former husband did. Then you’re making another pros and cons list, and six months later, you’re still standing on the
fence. Nothing has changed. So nothing has changed, but hopefully, if now I always encourage people, there’s no rush to make a decision because we have to get your nervous system in alignment. We have to get it calm. You have to create safety within you. You have to begin healing to make a good decision. Because when we make a decision from fight, fight, or freeze, it’s not going to be your best decision. So we don’t want to make a decision from a heightened state, which happens after we discover our spouse has been having an affair and lying to us. So, of course, give yourself time to heal or be healing so you can make a better decision, a decision from the CEO part of your brain instead of your survival brain. But some people, I’m going to say, and then some people will still sit on the fence. Okay. So remember, when you’re in the immediate shock of discovering your spouse had an affair, that’s not the time to make the decision. But we want to make sure we’re still moving through the decision-making process. And discernment and chronic indecision are very different. Okay. Eventually refusing to choose becomes its own choice. So not making a decision is a decision. You cannot fully rebuild a marriage you’re halfway out of. And you cannot fully rebuild yourself after a marriage, you’re halfway in. You don’t need a hundred percent certainty. You need enough clarity to take the next step. Now, our brains, we like certainty and we want a guarantee, right? I think there’s certain things you can buy, like a lot of big things, like maybe a car. Like we want a guarantee that it’s going to be safe. Like I feel like in you know, certain investments, we want something guaranteed, a guaranteed investment. So we know our brains like that. But there’s no guarantee in marriage. Being in your survival brain, after betrayal, the brain desperately wants certainty. So it thinks, tell me which choice won’t hurt. Tell me which one I’ll regret less. Tell me what happens five years from now. Tell me my kids will be okay. Tell me I’ll find someone else. Tell me my spouse won’t cheat again. But nobody can give you those guarantees. Once I know how this turns out, I’ll decide. So so many of you ask these questions, and we just want certainty. No one can tell you this. If someone tries to be like, oh, your kids are gonna be fine, nobody knows that. They’re just making that up. But you can decide, you know what, my kids are gonna be fine no matter what. You decide, and then you find out. That’s the vulnerability of decision making. And waiting until fear disappears means you may wait forever. So if you’re waiting to feel confident or something different, right? I always think we have to have courage. Fear and courage are very similar emotions, but we have to do it from a place of courage. And we just have to decide, we can believe that everything’s gonna work out like it’s supposed to once we make the decision. So instead of asking what’s right, ask, if I stay, why am I staying? Be curious with yourself. If I leave, why would I leave? Do I like these reasons that I’m staying, or do I like the reasons that I’m leaving? Am I choosing from fear or from my values? What would staying require of me? I think oftentimes staying, especially if your spouse isn’t choosing to do their work and heal, it can require a lot of you. What would leaving require from me? What am I hoping someone else will change before I allow myself to decide? And so many of you are just sitting there waiting for your spouse to be different. It has to start with you. You have to be the one to start doing things differently to try to get the needle to move one way or another. And sometimes it does. Sometimes your spouse sees you changing and they’re like, oh my gosh, I want to come with you. But oftentimes they don’t.
But then the path in between those two things gets a lot more stretched and thin, and it’s easier maybe to make that decision. And I think a lot of people focus on what my spouse wants or doesn’t want. They’re like, Well, they say they want to stay married to me. Okay, they probably do. Once they get caught from having an affair, they probably are like, oh crap, sometimes, right? I got caught. I didn’t think I was gonna get caught. Now I’m caught. Of course, I want to stay married. I don’t want to deal with that. But why are we putting all of our decisions into their hands when they clearly weren’t thinking about us when they were cheating on us? And so make sure you’re staying focused on what you want and need, because it may be different now that you’ve discovered this truth about your husband or your wife. If absolutely nothing changed in my marriage for the next five years, would I willingly choose it? I think this is such a great question, right? Would you still be married if nothing changes? If your marriage is status quo, I get you know exactly what you’re getting. Are you okay with that? Are you willing to stay? Which choice allows me to become more of the person I want to be? Can I have my own back either way? I think I really like this question. What do you want? What do you need? For me, there’s no way I would be the version of who I am now in my marriage. I was stuck, I was a shell of a person in my marriage, and I had such low self-worth and self-esteem and confidence that I don’t know what I would be. I I just I hate even thinking about it because I just am so sad for past me for what I endured for 26 years. And so I promise making the decision, you just gotta do it. You have to just take one little baby step forward in making a decision. Because the goal isn’t predicting the future perfectly, it’s trusting yourself to handle the future you create. And that’s you need to be working on yourself, healing yourself, healing from the betrayal. So that’s talking about, you know, knowing if you made the right decision. What if you make the wrong decision? What if I divorce and regret it? In my opinion, and or what if you stay and regret it? In my opinion, regret is always optional. It’s an optional emotion. You can just decide I’m not gonna regret my decision. I’m choosing it on purpose. I’m making a choice. I’m choosing to go all in or all out. I’m not gonna be a fence sitter anymore, and I’m just not gonna regret it. You can totally, that’s an option, I promise. It’s also possible we don’t get to know. You could also stay and rebuild an incredible marriage. Remember, that takes two people. So if you and your spouse are committed, 100% possible. And you could leave and build an incredible life. I believe that 100%. Either path could turn out differently than you hoped. The goal isn’t how do I guarantee
I won’t regret this? It’s how do I make the best decision I can with the information I have today and then continue showing up for yourself. Choosing to work on your marriage today doesn’t require pretending to know what you’ll choose forever. So it is true. You could decide, you know what, I’m gonna work on my marriage for right now. Do it, but do it and choose it on purpose. Don’t be like, well, if they do X, Y, and Z, then I’ll stay. No, you have to do it from what you want to do. And then in three months, you can reconsider, you can re-decide. I think people that have the idea of like, well, we can never get divorced, like divorce is never an option. I don’t like that train of thinking because it the truth is it is an option, especially in the United States. And so, really, what if every day we re-decide, we choose again and again, like, no, I want to be with you. You’re my person. I’m committed, right? I think our marriages would be stronger. And your decision, you just have to make it right for you. If you choose to stay, stay on purpose. Don’t spend every day reminding yourself you could leave. Don’t punish yourself for staying. Don’t call yourself weak. Get the tools, set boundaries, heal, work on the relationship. If your spouse is willing, work on yourself regardless if they are willing or not willing. And if you choose to leave, don’t spend the next five years wondering whether you should have tried one more thing. That’s why I really encourage people, if they are leaning towards divorce, just decide I’ve tried everything and I’m choosing to leave. Like that is one thing, maybe that I’m thinking in 2018 why I didn’t get divorced then is because I felt like there was more that I needed to grow and do inside of myself. And I’m so glad that happened because I started becoming the version of me that I wanted to be, that I had kind of been stuck from, you know, having four babies and a brother that passed away, a lot of painful things in my life that I was able to really try everything. And the truth is, my husband didn’t like who I was. He didn’t like me. He didn’t like the version of me. I wasn’t his person. I wasn’t doing the things he wanted and needed me to do. But I could realize that after the
four years and between 2018 and 2022 when I really got divorced, when I actually got divorced. And so I’m glad because I know I did everything possible to save my marriage, to make my marriage work. And it just wasn’t, it wasn’t save or redeemable or whatever. I’m not sure the word, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I was meant to get divorced. We have to grieve it, we have to learn and rebuild. Um, neither decision guarantees happiness. So don’t think, well, if I stayed married, then I’d be happy. No, if you you might be more miserable, right? That that’s not why you’re happy. You’re happy because your thoughts and how you’re living and who you are. Your relationship with yourself on the other side matters enormously. Sometimes we put too much energy into our spouse to make us happy. It’s not their job, it’s our job. So get off the fence. If you are on the fence, get off of it. Maybe there isn’t a right path or a wrong path in front of you. Maybe there are simply two paths. Both will cost you something, both will teach you something, both will require courage. You don’t have to know exactly where either path ends. You just need to decide which path you’re willing to walk and like your reasons for choosing it. Because standing at the fork in the road for the next five years isn’t protecting you from making the wrong decision. It’s keeping you from living your life. You don’t need certainty to make a decision. You need enough self-trust to know you’ll take care of yourself after you make whatever decision you’re gonna make. Anyways, I hope this helps. If you are stuck
in indecision, if you find yourself you’re sitting on the fence, there’s no movement. It’s time to start moving. It’s time to start deciding, and you can totally do it. And I would love to help you. Reach out and let’s chat. Have a beautiful day. I’m so glad you’re here, and I will talk to you next week. 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.
