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.
So I myself have experienced this and I’ve had several clients as well. They’ve discovered their partner’s having an affair and I think, from the person discovering this and you know, our partner’s telling us I love you, I want to work this out, it was a mistake, I want to stay married, let’s, you know, let’s go to therapy, let’s get help. Whatever that happens. A lot right. Some of you have heard this before. But what we think like, oh, they’ve told us or we’ve discovered the affair, surely the affair is going to stop immediately. Well, unfortunately, that is not the case oftentimes. I’m sure sometimes that happens, but in my experience that is not what happens. So I just wanted to, if you’re listening to this and you’ve had an affair, listen to it, or if you are the person that has been cheated on, to understand this. I think it’s really important because in our mind, we think it’s just going to set us up with the right expectations, the right things to be looking for, the right maybe things to talk about, to even be aware of and it could be legitimately your spouse who has just told you that they were having an affair, or you brought it to their attention and you found out about it. They could be like oh yeah, I’m done, I don’t like this person, like it was a mistake, whatever. They’re thinking like, oh yeah, they’re out of my life too. It’s just not that easy, and so I’m going to give you some things to look for some reasons why. Okay, for many people it becomes an addiction. Now I think addiction is like a heavy word, but really there’s four C’s to an addiction Craving, and I think this is real.
There is a huge dopamine hit that someone gets from having an affair. If you can imagine, like when you were dating and like the newlywed phase of your marriage, the honeymoon phase. It’s this like you can’t wait for them to text you and call you and however you were communicating. So there’s this craving and you get instant dopamine every time. Those things happen, right. And then when you’ve been married for 25 years and your husband texts you, sometimes people get irritated. Or their spouse, right, it’s like not this exciting thing, like ooh, they texted me. Right. It’s like what do they want now? So there’s this evolution in a marriage, which is normal, but in an affair, and it’s because it’s secret, it’s even an added hit of dopamine because it’s like this secret thing that couples are doing Compulsion.
So this urge For me I love sugar or Diet Dr Pepper are my weaknesses and it’s like this urge I can feel when I haven’t had a Diet Dr Pepper, I have this urge to drink one, right, and so that’s the same thing that kind of happens in an affair. That’s the same thing that kind of happens in an affair. Control, or rather loss of control. So here your truth, what you’ve been doing, has just come out, and so there’s a lot of loss of control, and so this makes the addiction or the urge even stronger, right, because they want to get back in control. And it’s interesting consequences, right, you would think the consequences would be so harsh that you know, maybe threat of divorce or losing half your income, or you know your kids or whatever your reputation, whatever consequence the loss of trust, right. But somehow that isn’t quite enough sometimes of an addiction for their craving and their urge and their compulsion and all that. And so just, it’s a real thing, it becomes an addiction, right, and especially when it’s emotional I mean, just think the power of sex and our emotions and combining those two it’s like a bomb. And so it’s really not as easy to stop as people think it could or should be.
And one thing, if you are the person that got betrayed, is to immediately create boundaries, because I know for myself, I mean I had no boundaries. I’m like, oh yeah, come back in bed with me, come back and sleep with me. Like I never, like didn’t say, like you have to go sleep in another bed on the couch, nothing which you know I wish I would have. I didn’t even know what boundaries were. And so once I learned boundaries though that’s what ended my marriage, thank goodness Like, why didn’t I know this before, but I didn’t? So learning boundaries If you don’t know boundaries, I can totally help you out. But creating some boundaries, because that’s going to help you with deciding what you want to do in this muddled mess, right?
Number two feeling guilt. Okay, the person that bizarrely I mean this feels really messed up, but it all is. They feel guilt because they got caught or you discovered the affair, however that happened, but then they feel guilty for their affair partner, right, because they were lying to them, they were telling them they love them or whatever. So it’s hard because it’s like they feel an obligation to this other person, as well as their family, which makes really hard to understand. But that’s just what’s going on. I’m just trying to get you to see what’s going on in this person’s brain. And so they probably made promises to them or who knows what they were doing, right? So, because the guilt and I’m going to really say shame is happening, right, they’re feeling shame and guilt that they got caught, and then shame and guilt for whatever they promised this other person when they’ve become emotionally attached to this person. So I think that’s a lot harder when emotions are connected with the sex, the secrecy, all the things. And this is another reason why it’s even harder.
Okay, because they’ve confided in this person. They maybe have told this other person things they never have told you, which is really hurtful, but for whatever reason they did, and so this is another reason why it’s hard to end the affair. They’ve justified it to themselves. This happened a lot for me. I think my spouse thought he was a better husband because he was having an affair, which makes no sense to me whatsoever and is a lie. But when justification happens, we convince ourselves of all sorts of things and we justify it’s not wrong, or it was just one time, or it was just while I was at work, or it was just while I was on a trip for work or whatever. Whatever it was, or it wasn’t taking time away from the family. I was totally present when I was at home, so it doesn’t count. So justification is a huge issue and a reason why it would be hard for someone to end an affair.
They met a need they weren’t getting in their marriage. Now, this is not a reason to have an affair. It is your job, it is each of our jobs, to get our needs met in healthy, productive ways, not in ways that destroy families and destroy yourself and destroy other people. But that’s what an affair is. And so they think that the only way to get that need met is through this other person. Right, that’s a lie, our brain tells us, but it’s the lie they’re listening to. And so, in healing from an affair for them especially, they’ve got to figure out what that need was and get really honest with themselves. Okay, and how could they get that need met without this other person, which is totally possible? They’ve just convinced themselves that’s how they were getting it met, and so that would be a reason why that someone would have a hard time ending an affair, why that someone would have a hard time ending an affair.
So if you are the person that had the affair, you just really need to identify that need and figure out why. What was going on for you? Were you insecure? Were you needing outside validation? Were you feeling lonely? Were you it was just an opportunity that you just decided to take? Like, what was it? And until you get really clear on your why, it is going to be really hard to end your affair and you need to take full accountability for it. Not blaming anyone else and I’ve talked about this many times but just reminding you you as well as the person that you betrayed.
This is just information you need to pay attention to. You need to start focusing on your marriage. You need to go all in if you want to stay married now. If you want to get divorced, great, do that. But don’t tell someone oh, I want to get divorced, great, do that. But don’t tell someone oh, I want to stay married and then, on the side, work on getting divorced Like that’s not going all in.
You need to go all in on staying married or all in on getting divorced, like living two lives is very hurtful, very harmful, very destructive for your family and for this other person, right, and so if you think that you can do that, you’re lying to yourself. The hurt and the pain is going to be that much worse. So, get very clear on what you want to do. And even if you’re like so get very clear on what you want to do. And even if you’re like I want to go all in on my marriage and then in six months you realize that’s not what you want, that’s okay, at least you. You went all in on one thing, right, don’t do both. Don’t be like well, I’m gonna go all in, but I’m gonna keep this person on the side, just in case that’s not all in. That’s just biding your time or whatever.
Right, you’ve got to set boundaries in your marriage, and setting boundaries looks like if you’re the betrayed person. If you contact this person again and I discover it, or whatever however you want it, then I’m going to go sleep in the guest room, or I’m going to file for divorce, or I’m going to I don’t know take a break for a week or go somewhere. You know you get to decide. Whatever that looks like for you. There’s not a right or wrong thing to do. But it’s not telling your spouse what they’re going to do. It’s telling them. If you need to tell them what you’re going to do, okay, because we can’t change our spouse, even though we really want to, especially if they’re having an affair. But creating boundaries creating boundaries like in our marriage. We do not go to dinner with someone from the opposite sex or we don’t text someone from the opposite sex unless both of us are on the text thread or whatever. There’s lots of ways to protect your marriage and maybe you hadn’t thought about that before because you didn’t know it was going to be a problem, but now it’s a problem. So now, what are you going to do? Okay, you have to choose.
If you’re the person having the affair, you have to choose it on your own to end it, not because you feel forced to. I know for me. I’m pretty sure my spouse ended his affairs only because he got caught and he didn’t even end them immediately. They were probably months later before they ended, and back in the day I didn’t know this right. But I’ve now discovered and realized or yeah, he ended it because he got caught and maybe he never did really end it. I don’t really know, but I don’t think it was ever his choice to end it and that’s on me and my lack of knowledge and my lack of understanding really what the affair entailed. And so that’s why one reason why I really want to help other people because I want you to know what you’re dealing with.
This isn’t something that is just easy to stop going to a grocery store or stop buying something. It’s emotions and sex and this addiction that they’ve created that has now been brought into your life, and it can be a nightmare, or you can figure it out and you can deal with it. I think knowledge is power. So understanding maybe what they’re dealing with and what they’re going through can help you in what you’re dealing with and going through. Maybe it can help you have a little bit of compassion. I don’t know if compassion is the emotion you want to feel, but it can really help you in your healing journey, and so that’s why I’m sharing it.
The thing is, the person having the affair has to avoid relapse, right, and you can only avoid relapse when you stop, maybe, how you communicated with them. One of the past experiences was Marco Polo. My husband would communicate with his affair partner via Marco Polo and so, like we got to get rid of that app and for years I had triggers about Marco Polo. I would hear the word and it would just really bother me, but now it doesn’t. But, or, if you’re communicating, I mean you know you can communicate. People through Spotify is another way, like sending each other songs, right? I mean it’s amazing the great lengths that people will do to go and have an affair and communicate, but obviously text messaging emails. If they’ve created a secret email, make sure that they get rid of that. Now you have to just trust that they are, but hopefully, if they’re wanting to stay married, they’ll understand like this is important. Maybe they went to a coffee shop or a restaurant all the time together. You just don’t go to that restaurant, don’t go to the coffee shop.
Create a new routine, a new way of doing things I think is going to be important. If you met them at the gym, you need to change gyms. You might need to change your job, which I think a lot of affairs happen in the workplace and that’s a huge financial risk, right? Like why people do that. I don’t know, but they do, and so you might need to change jobs or go to a different office. But I think it’s important to recognize how are you going to not relapse?
What parameters, what protocol are you going to have in place so you don’t relapse? And it’s not your spouse’s job to monitor you and micromanage you. You’re an adult and you’ve got to figure this out. But on the person that’s betrayed, it’s going to be hard because you’re going to want to micromanage, right, but just, you’ve got to focus on yourself and healing yourself. I think it is important if you decide to end the affair, if you want to call that person, if you’re like, I need to just call them. Have your spouse on the other line if they want, right.
I would have found this very helpful so I could hear them say it, because it’s one thing to just say, oh yeah, I ended the affair and then you’re like, did you? And then you know you keep on seeing things and discovering it’s happening. So if you really did want to end it and you had your spouse hear that, that would be helpful. But really if you can go no contact, that’s hard because you’re stopping an addiction, you’re stopping something that you’ve been doing. But do you want it? What do you want more? Do you want your marriage? Do you want your family? Do you want to repair that marriage more than you wanted? That extra dopamine hit? How can you find that in other avenues and other places in your life? That’s why having an affair is never a good idea. It is going to cause you way more problems than it ever gives you right. But some people have to learn the hard way and some people have to have a lot of bad things happen to them before they’re willing to give that up or end it.
And if you’ve experienced this, first off, I’m so sorry, and secondly, you can get through it if you are both working together to get through it. I just want you to really be aware of what’s possibly going on for your spouse and, depending on what type of affair, how long it was going on and if they’ve come back to you to know it may not be over. And I’ve experienced this several times where it’s like, oh, I thought the affair was over. Oh no, they’re back in our life again and that’s a miserable place to be. But that was my reality. Remember, we got to deal with reality. Now what? And boundaries are your friend here. I didn’t understand boundaries at this time in my life and so I’m not going to judge myself. I’m not going to judge you if you don’t understand boundaries. But learning boundaries is going to be your best friend in these situations, because it’s going to allow you to have respect for yourself, so you’re not betraying yourself and lying to yourself and you’re protecting yourself by having the boundary and you’re sending a message to your spouse that’s having the affair that this is what you’re choosing. If you do this, if they’re an adult, if they are really wanting to save their marriage and to work on their marriage, then hopefully this will help them and and if not, it’s sending you a message that maybe this isn’t what you want or need right now and it is okay to get divorced and this will be the best thing for you. So I hope this is helpful. I just think.
So often we think, oh, the affair’s been discovered, it’s now out in the open, it’s going to be over. That is rarely the case, I’m sad to say. It isn’t that easily over just because the person got caught or the affair was discovered or they came clean. Now I think if your spouse came to you and admitted to you about their affair, a lot better chance of healing because they have somehow realized they need to be honest okay, as opposed to you discovering it. I don’t know, I don’t have evidence of that, really, because I’ve never experienced that, but that’s just what I believe. If the person having the affair comes and tells you, that’s a lot better sign than you discovering the affair.
In my opinion. If you are stuck in this mess of your spouse is having an affair, you think it’s over and you discover it’s not over, you’re not alone and I can totally help you. I would love to be your coach. Thanks so much for listening. 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 sign up for my email at hello at life coach 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.
