Healing After Multiple Affairs: How to Get Unstuck and Move Forward (Episode #140)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Something surrounds you.

Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michaelis, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne, we've been receiving questions from some of our listeners and viewers. And we want to express our appreciation to them for taking the time. Today is a day that we're going to start off with one of the questions. I'd like you just to jump in and share the question with us, Marianne, and then we'll jump into what we would, how we might address this person's question.

The one that we're going to start with today is, my partner had multiple affairs and I'm having a hard time healing. What can I do to make progress? I think this is such a, I don't want to say a universal question, but whether it's multiple affairs, whether it's multiple versions of acting out with whatever flavor of acting out, I think this question oftentimes when we're dealing with sexual acting out behaviors or addiction, sometimes there was, there is a one-off where this happened one time, but generally with addiction, we see progression. of behaviors. And so we often see this repetitive behavior. So it's oftentimes not just once. And so I think this is a really salient and really valid question.

Yeah. And I think to this person, my, first of all, my heart goes out. Like when you discover, you know, that your partner's been unfaithful, unfaithful with many people, that just, I mean, hurt is still hurt regardless of once or 10 or whatever. But my first response is just that, just to acknowledge the pain there and identifying, I am sorry for the pain that that's creating. What I would also add to this, just as something that we may not know from the question itself, like, are you choosing to stay? And to everybody, I ask the question, like, you have to pause and say, am I choosing to stay? If so, why? And before we make any decision about your healing, You have to figure out, okay, how am I going to approach this relationship? Because you have to decide, are we going to be sexual or are we not going to be sexual? Do I need to get tested for an STI? Do I need them to move out? So there's, there's a host of questions, not even just related to healing from the betrayal, but those kind of basic questions of, am I safe? Do I need to get tested? Do I need them to move out? Financially, do we have those resources? So that's what, for me, it's like a starting point is I want to talk about your healing, which we're going to talk about, but I also want to make sure that we're addressing those other things to get what we would say is stabilization. I think that's an important starting point.

I can't agree with you more, Dr. Skinner. I think there's a lot of aspects of this when we first discover betrayal. We go into shock and there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of, what do I do now? How do I even make sense of this? And to the point that you made, there's all of these questions that need to be answered. In the RISE podcast, RISE: Hope and Healing After Sexual Betrayal, we have at least 4 different episodes where we are speaking directly to, should I stay? Should I go? How do I determine if I should go? What are the things that I need to be looking at? And so if this fits for you, we want to let you know, we've also got some other resources that really dive into a lot of these questions that you were identifying and really bringing up, Dr. Skinner.

Yeah. And I think that's a great resource because, you know, something happens after betrayal that, as you mentioned, shock, and you begin to question yourself. You begin to question all people. Who do I trust? And so if we want to speak to that for just a second, it's a perception of, I don't know where my safety is. Safe people, safe with self. How did I miss this? What's wrong with me? We see all of these common responses after betrayal, the internalization and the externalization. So internalization, what's wrong with me? How did I miss it? Externalization, is anybody safe? Can I trust anybody? Because the person who I trusted let me down this way? And so it's an internal and external question that we're trying to address here.

Part of this question says, I'm having a hard time healing. And I think that is such an important part for us to also really look at this because healing is a journey and it takes time. And there are so many emotions. I had a client in my office just this week who just said, Marianne, This isn't something I chose. And I see this with so many of my betrayed partners. I'm having to spend time in therapy. I'm having to spend time going to groups. I'm having to read and listen to podcasts and learn about this. And I never wanted this. I didn't choose this. And I'm stuck in this place that I never even wanted to be. And I think there's some of the grief there. There's often a lot of anger and frustration there. I could be doing so many other things with my life, but instead I am stuck in a place where I'm trying to sort my way through. And the one of the things that I really want to emphasize is we can't heal alone. We don't heal in vacuums. And so if you are finding yourself betrayed or you're finding information and multiple counts of here's more information and here's more information. We want to focus on helping you figure out how to stabilize and also finding the right supports because this is a journey that's going to take a lot of time and a lot of emotional processing as you're working through this.

And one of the things I'd highlight that you just mentioned, I know that we Sometimes want to rush things because, right, I mean, in our society today, we take a pill for depression or to reduce anxiety. We've grown into this high-speed, fast process and really healing after sexual betrayal, whether you choose to stay in the relationship or not, healing is possible, but it is going to be a time-based— you don't rush this process. Because you're reclaiming some things that have been lost, that identity, self-trust, trust in other people. So a question you might even ask yourself is, who do I trust? Who is on my team? Because healing by yourself is so much more difficult. Healing with a team accelerates the process, but it helps you do one other thing, not isolate away from, because I think isolation prevents people from healing. And so do I have connection? Do I have my tribe, if you want to call it that, to help me through difficult emotions, difficult experiences, and times where I don't know what to do or what to say? So based upon the research that we've gathered, people who have meaningful support are more likely to work through even the PTSD symptoms.

And I want to add not a caveat to this, but maybe an awareness to this conversation. I recently had a partner who's a male who reached out and said, I need some support. And we have such a lack of resources for males who've been betrayed oftentimes. And so as we're saying, yes, you need to find support, recognizing that there are some populations that, that this is a little bit more difficult for. But nonetheless, finding support, finding a therapist, finding somebody who can help you walk through this, especially in that male arena. We are, you know, I was really thrilled to find a therapist who's a couple of therapists this week who are providing support groups for males who've been betrayed. And I know Dr. Skinner, you and I've talked about that. That's definitely a need that we're looking at also. Running some groups through Human Intimacy. And so if that fits for any of our listeners or viewers, please send us an email at info@humanintimacy.com and we'll start putting together a list and creating a group for that. But as you said, this, one of the challenges with this betrayal is my partner, my primary attachment figure has betrayed me. Which flips my world upside down. And so this can create further alienation of, I don't know who to trust because my best friend may have been involved, or my spouse's best friend knew all about this for so long and I trusted them. And so that creates another betrayal as well, betrayal, not just of my primary attachment partner, but also other people who I also trusted. And so this is where we do need to find Healthy supports as we're trying to sift through and figure out who and what is safe for me.

And now I'd like to turn our attention specifically to the healing, individual healing, right? That's external, getting some meaningful support, which again is a very important research-based concept. However, individual healing, there's one question that I think is maybe the most important question I ask my clients. And what did you come to believe about yourself as a result of your partner's sexual betrayal? I'm most interested in that self-perception. What did I come to believe about myself?

Dr. Skinner, I'm wondering with that question, when do you think individuals, if we're dealing with a shock and everything's just kind of blown up and there's a lot of confusion and how do I even make sense of this? I'm wondering kind of in the healing journey, where do you feel like being able to crystallize what I've internalized about myself? Where do you feel like that really comes in?

So I think there's multiple layers to it. I think trust in other people is instantaneously gone. And if I've lost trust in others, it could be my spouse. It could be other friends, family, people who maybe knew, as you mentioned earlier, that trust goes down. And that I think instantly It triggers this. Is there something that I'm missing in people? So I stopped trusting my own perception of safety and trust. I don't know if I can trust that anymore. I think that one's almost instantaneous, but I think a gradual wear down is self-belief of I'm a failure. I let people down. I'm not enough. I must be unlovable. I think that that can come sometimes instantly, but sometimes over reflection time. The one that I hear most, and I did in my research, was, I feel stupid for not discovering this earlier. That one comes as I've gotten more and more information. And I think that sometimes we're like, and I, oh, I thought that and I dismissed it. I thought that and dismissed it. I thought that and dismissed it. And now I'm feeling like I must be stupid because I saw those signs and I didn't do anything about it. And I think that that settles in. And what I want to say is a good gaslighter is a good gaslighter. A person who's being deceptive can be very good at being deceptive. And they can hide and minimize their behaviors. And I want to emphasize, if you feel like you're stupid because of what your spouse did, that deception, I just would— might refer you to Malcolm Gladwell's book, Talking to Strangers, where he talks about how even the best FBI and CIA agents miss certain signs of people who are deceptive. And they're like, even the best trained people can miss these signs. And so I would have a little bit of compassion on that self when you're in a relationship with somebody who's living in a deceptive world.

I really concur with that. But one of them that I think is really important is the concept of the multiple affairs, because oftentimes my clients will say, I discovered this and maybe there's some hope. Hey, let's do some couples counseling. Let's, let's, let's try and fix this. And so there may be some efforts that are made by one or more partners. However, I think we also need to talk about complex trauma because when I'm experiencing this over and over and over again, complex trauma, the reason why we call it complex is because it's something that's repeating. And so each time There's a new discovery. If I haven't done my, the healing work that's needed with the previous traumas, what I tell my clients, it's like there's a big, huge dump truck full of manure and it comes and it just kind of dumps on me. And I'm trying to claw my way up to get a breath out of it. And then there's another discovery. And that second discovery or the third or fourth isn't, oh, here's just the new information. But the pickup truck carries all the manure from all of the previous ones as well. And it carries and it dumps all of those on as well. So I'm having this brand new discovery, but I'm getting all of the manure from all of the previous betrayals and discoveries as well. And so that pile gets higher and higher and higher. And so I might feel like, oh, even there might be a smaller discovery or something that's maybe Not as egregious, but I might have a bigger reaction than I had in the past because I'm dealing with everything from the past that's brought to the fore right here, right now. And so, so we're talking about those multiple discoveries. We just want to validate how destabilizing it can be. Yeah. And what a huge impact it can have.

And I think that's why it's harder to heal. I mean, if we were to speak to that, but before we move on, Marianne, that's the crappiest example you've given us yet. All right. Sorry. I could not help myself. I could not help myself. But back to the reality of that, because we want to believe in people, we may have heard our spouse say, I'll never do that again. I won't do that. I'm done. I promise. And yet finding ourselves a year, 5 years down the road, I remember a few years ago working with an individual who had received time-apart discoveries, like 7 years and 7 years, and coming to the conclusion of like, I regained my sense of self and then it was all taken away again. And I wanted to believe, and I was promised this, and then I trusted and it pulled away again. I think that's another case like what you're talking about. It could be closer months apart or years apart. But I can still feel like, why did I stay? Why did I choose to do this when I've continually been hurt? And so I don't know the specific timeframe for this person, but the hurts— what I do know is that learning how to take care of those internal feelings that you're experiencing and paying attention to them is really important in the healing process. So I tell my clients, regardless of your personal story, It's— your story is relevant. We don't want to dismiss it, and we don't want to compare our stories to other people. And so if I'm struggling in my healing journey, I don't compare myself to anybody else. And that's something I often say— we can't compare your story to anybody else's. I don't know your childhood stories. I don't know if you've been— trust has been breached in other relationships. I don't know any of that. So I want to honor your story. I don't care if it's even one time. It's one time too many. And so when we look at this process, we want to honor your story. And it's something that I've been doing more recently with my clients, something to our listeners. I would ask you to reflect on 2 or 3 questions to this person who asked the question. One, I already mentioned the question, what did I come to believe about myself as a result of the betrayal? And I would encourage you to sit for about 10 minutes. Don't type it. Get pen and paper. And write it. 10 minutes. And I would do that for 2 or 3 days to answer that question. Then I would move on to this next question. What am I missing? Do I need more information? Do I need more details? Do I— what is it in this experience that I need for my healing? So what am I missing in my healing? Is there parts of the story? Is there a conversation? Do I need support? So you're identifying maybe areas that You've identified, like, I think I need this for my healing. Maybe I need a person that can be my support person or a group. These are the things that we need your intuitive selves to start to realize, I've got to take care of this part of me. Otherwise, I'm neglecting that part that's hurting and suffering. And then the third question that I often am asking my clients here, Marianne, is related to healing. And so we understand our beliefs, But when I look at healing, what would it look like if I was feeling better? What would that look like? And you may not know the answer to these questions. And that's why I'm saying, let's write about them for a little bit. And if you can't find the answer, that's where you want to talk with somebody and say, I need more support. I can't figure some of these things out. I can't even figure out what I need. That would be a pretty good indicator that, yeah, reach out for professional support to make sure that you can cross over that bridge.

I love what you're sharing. And these are tasks or tools and resources that are really helping us to connect with our cognitive mind. So we're trying to make sense of our situation. I think there's just one other aspect that we haven't really talked very much about. There's lots of aspects, but one specifically that we haven't talked about is our nervous system. And we want to validate What happens with betrayal is our nervous system goes into fight, flight, or freeze. And that, and oftentimes we are so dysregulated. I have clients come into my office and as we know from the Grief After Betrayal Impact Survey that we did, the GABBIS, we'll have a link for that in our show notes. But what we learn and know is that people usually aren't sleeping. They're usually not eating. And that's because their nervous system is— they feel like they're under attack. I don't know what's coming. My world and my reality has just shifted so much. And so my digestive system kind of turns off because my body's bracing for impact, basically. And because of the criteria B of the PTSD symptoms, we're looking at the intrusive thoughts, the triggers, the nightmares. the flashbacks. So many times we don't sleep well and we're not eating. And so we're not really functioning. Our nervous system is just in such an upheaval. And so one of the areas we just really need to look at is what's going on with my nervous system. And we often talk with trauma about starting bottom up. And what that means is before I really start doing a lot of cognitive work, because that part of my brain's really not— Online, I've got to start calming down my nervous system. And so that starts with our mindfulness work that starts with our breathing. So oftentimes I hear clients tell me I'm having a panic attack, or I've started having panic attacks and I've never had those before. And so starting to breathe, working on some breathing exercises, slowing things down, just noticing what am I feeling in my body? Or do I feel some discomfort? When I can start to notice what's happening inside of my body, that helps bring me more into a present state and allows my nervous system to say, I'm not being chased by a tiger right now.

Hmm.

So we always want to also make sure we're looking at that because calming our nervous system takes time. And then we have a trigger or a thought or a nightmare or flashback, and suddenly here we are again. And so We've really got to figure out where, what emotional regulation tools am I using to help myself settle?

Yeah. I really liked that because before the assignment, if your nervous system isn't in a state, it's not going to be as productive. So if I can get my nervous system to that calmer state using the polyvagal concept of, can I get into this slower pace rather than constantly feeling like I'm in a fight or flight? So yeah, I would love that idea. So yeah, let's regulate the nervous system. That assignment, those are the places that I would start as we're answering this question. One final thought. We are just releasing Making Sense of Sexual Betrayal. It's just a mini course on humanintimacy.com. It is a free course. It's included in that is a short assessment to help you identify what you're experiencing in your relationship and what you're experiencing. Very short. It's like 26 questions, but it will provide you personalized feedback based upon your answers, just to kind of see where you're at. And we have a more in-depth one that's being prepared, but for now, that free course, Making Sense of Sexual Betrayal, if you want to see where you're at and kind of dynamics in your relationship that may be preventing you from healing, I would recommend that free resource. And I'll put that in the show notes as well.

Let me just double-check. Is that for somebody who might be further along on their journey? Is this for anybody?

Is this anybody? Yeah, anybody, because it's really just like, where are you in this process? And so what are you currently experiencing? So yeah, I would encourage anybody who's listening, go take that short mini course. There's a write-up on it, some readings that you can do. It's not long, but it will walk you through. I took some of the research of Dr. Stephen Pfeiff. He's done a lot of research with betrayed couples and in using some of the research, some of the key findings of what he said, this is what successful couples are doing. Based upon the interviews that he did with over 32 couples who were working through it. And so that's a research report. That's a part of that. Again, it's a free resource to everybody just to see what other couples, you know, what's working, what's not working, plus a short assessment with some personalized feedback you can get.

So Dr. Skinner, I want to just add one more concept that oftentimes if you're a regular listener or viewer, you'll know that I often come to this space, but Bringing in self-compassion, I think, is such an important part of this healing process. This is not something that you chose. Usually this is not something that you had informed consent that you said, okay, yeah, I'm gonna be okay with this. This is fine. Betrayal, the concept of betrayal is that someone broke your trust and they made choices. Mm-hmm. Or had behaviors that have hurt you. Mm-hmm. And so giving yourself loving kindness. And so many times my clients have such a hard time with this, but when I say, what would you say to your sister or friend if they came to you and said, this is happening? Usually our response would be, oh my goodness, can I just sit with you? What can I do? Do you need a hug? This must be so, so hard for you. It makes sense that you're not doing very well, honey.

Mm-hmm.

Those would be normal responses that we might give somebody that we care about. And so being able to recognize, how would I respond to someone? And applying that to myself and giving myself just an awful lot of grace and space because everything in the world that you may have understood is now called into question. And so it makes sense if you're not doing very well right now. So give yourself a lot of kindness and compassion and grace as you're in this state.

Thank you, Maryanne. And my thoughts to the person first, again, thank you for taking time to ask your question. Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable. What I want to say is this process, there are answers. It takes time. You can't rush through it. And that importance of self-compassion. Listen to how you're talking to yourself. Listen to that voice. Do I find myself being critical of myself, feeling like I'm not enough, there's something wrong with me? If so, that's what we want to address to help you get unstuck. You are enough. You do matter. You are lovable. And those are simple facts. You matter. And that's something that I would like to close with today. Marianne, thank you again for a great discussion. And to our listeners, again, thank you very much. If you're finding benefit from this podcast, please share it with others. And you can find us on YouTube at Human Intimacy. And you can also ask your questions. We appreciate your time.

May you be blessed.

Thanks.