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Infidelity. It's one of the most painful betrayals in a relationship. The moment you discover it, everything shifts. The trust that you thought was unshakable, it's shattered. The person you built a life with feels like a stranger. And now you're left with a gut wrenching question. What do I do now? Some couples try to move forward, but what's reasonable to expect from your partner in the early days of reconciliation? How do you cope with the personal emotional rollercoaster of betrayal? And what if you want to rebuild, but you just can't see them the same way you once did anymore? Welcome to Love Shack Live, the podcast for people at a relationship crossroads. If you're struggling with daily conflicts, emotional distance, or the fallout of betrayal, you're not alone. I'm Stacy Bartley, a relationship mentor, joined by my husband and co host Tom and our daughter Brooke. And together we help couples navigate the toughest seasons of love and find clarity in the chaos. This week, we're answering your questions about rebuilding after an affair. What are the key conversations you need to have? And how do you talk about your pain without making your partner shut down? And is it even possible to see them in a good light again once betrayal has happened? If you've ever wondered, can we actually survive this? I need you to know this episode is for you. So let's dive in to a path forward, shall we? Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack. How we're going to orchestrate this episode is Brooke is going to ask me some questions. I have no idea what they're going to be. So we're going to be coming to Hot, Real, Live and Raw. These are not pre canned questions. These are truly your questions, our listeners, our social media followers. So thank you so much for submitting your questions and know that if any of you ever wonder, are we listening? Indeed. We really are. Brookie, take it away.

Okay, so we had a follower on Instagram reach out and ask if we had an episode on infidelity and cheating. We do, but it's been a while, so I asked her to ask us some questions and she asked four and then I added some from other people. The first one I thought was really good and I'm glad that we asked her to clarify because I don't think we would have thought of these questions on our own. This one's about expectations. What is reasonable to expect from your partner during the beginning of reconciliation? How do you cope with just the idea that they've cheated on you?

So this is rough. Like the initial surprise, the initial uncovering, it leaves most of us as a human being in this very. Punched in the gut, paralyzed, numb, spinning sensation, raw. It's more visceral than that.

It leaves you, like, breathless.

You know, it is a place where you don't know where to go. You're numb. It's shock. That's what it is. It's actually shock. I'm in emotional shock. And if physically I was in a massive experience, whether it be a car accident or a building collapsing or my house was on fire or something, that just completely surprised me, shocked me, and I have no idea what to do because it's never happened before. That's what this feels like. And I'm spiraling and spinning and I'm numb because my brain. That's what shock is. I have no idea. I don't have answers. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to say. I forget my name. I don't know what day it is. And I start to freak out. And I go back to my own experience of infidelity, where my husband, one night after dinner asked me if I'd please be willing to go for a drive up the canyon. And I'm thinking it's going to be this nice little romantic. Oh, isn't that so sweet? He wants to spend some time with me because it's been a while at this point in time. He was spending a lot of time in what was his downtown office, which was about 25 miles from where we lived. And so very often we would go several days a weekend, sometimes a couple of weeks without being able to see him. And I was at home raising the children. And so he happened to be home this one particular evening. And I'm thinking, that's so sweet that you want to spend some time with me. You know, I've been missing you, too, was the thought I had. And we get in the car and we drive up the canyon to one of our favorite spots there. And this is where everything starts to go into slow motion. And any of us who have been through this experience have pretty much the same experience where as the story starts to unfold, it goes into this slow motion type of an experience. And there's this moment where I remember him putting the car in park, putting his hand on my leg and saying, I've got some things to say to you and you're not going to like it, but please do your best to not react. And the next words out of his mouth were, I have been seeing many escorts. I'VE been doing it for years and I'm just now wanting to come clean with it. So it wasn't that he had a lover per se, but he was wanting to finally, once and for all, after many years of doing this behavior, he wanted to clean the slate, clean up a mess, etc. So me being the cute little Mormon wife that I was right, was naive enough to not see or anticipate any of this. And I had no idea what to do. And I looked at his face and I immediately opened the car door, closed it and screamed, wailing as I paced around the car in my own state of shock, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do. Didn't see it coming, completely blindsided. And nobody tells you what to do in this moment. It's a moment where you find yourself in unknown territory, uncharted spaces and places. I remember him just sitting in the car as I'm pacing around the car, just screaming, just wailing. And then I went quiet. And that was the point that he got out of the car and said, come on, get in the car. It's cold out here, let's talk about this. And I didn't say a word the entire rest of the evening. It was just this numb shutdown place. And it took me time after that to kind of like start collecting my thoughts. It was several days after this where I could even articulate what I was thinking and what I was feeling in those moments, because I didn't know I was just spiraling out of control. So a great question. When you find yourself in this place and the expectation is right now, don't have any. If you're just hearing this for the first time and you feel like you're spiraling out of control, in shock, I just want you to know that's normal. Like your brain doesn't know where to resource or go for answers. Don't expect it to. Don't expect to have the next step or know what this means for your family or for yourself or for him or her. You don't know. And it's kind of this place where you have to kind of get uncomfortably comfortable in the unknown and know that as the days play out, it will start to make sense as you find your foundation again, the very first thing I would say to you is find your foundation and your own thoughts as quickly and rapidly as you possibly can. Like, what do you make of this? How are you feeling about this? What do you need to feel supported? What is it you need to express right now? What is happening, happening for you, because that's the quickest path to finding a grounded, supported foundation, which is what you need. What we have a tendency to do instead is ask these kinds of questions. Why would they do that? How come I'm not enough? How did I get it wrong? How did I not see this coming? How could I be so silly? How could I be so foolish? Like all of those things are going to continue to dismantle the foundation that you need so desperately right now.

We always hear questions like that from our clients, especially people who are experiencing space and separation, and especially when their partner has cheated on them. And I just want to say that's not your job in a relationship to constantly be doubtful of your partner. The opposite of being what you call being so stupid would be being so skeptical, always questioning them, always preparing for the worst. You can't build a relationship when that's what you're doing. There's no foundation with which to build it on. So it's. In order to have a relationship, you have to get all in. You have to believe the best in them, you have to trust them. You have to do all these things that you say right now make you stupid. But no, that's what makes you a good partner. That's what makes you a willing participant in the relationship. If you were the opposite, which would be the ultimate detective, the ultimate sleuth, the ultimate skeptic, that would be a terrible relationship. So I just think it's important to point that out because we often beat ourselves up, you know, when we are the victim in this situation and that's not the right thing to do, but just play it out like I just did.

Well, you wouldn't have the relationship right now that you've had. I want you to understand and realize that it didn't start out like this. And I think sometimes we think that we should have been able to see it coming on the front side without remembering and acknowledging or even knowing that all relationships start out in a better place than this. And it's the day in, day out, rolling over and transitioning of change by nature, of being on planet Earth and being in a relationship as a human being that happens every moment of every single day. Like there's constant change afoot. You are not the same person you were a week ago yesterday or a month ago, a year ago, let alone decades ago. So the good that has been shared and created between the two of you still exists. It still happened. Those things are still valid and good. The things that co created up to this moment of betrayal still matter and count. And then somewhere along the way, you didn't know about it because you were meant to not know about it. It was kept from you, and it was kept from you because the person who was engaging in this decided that this was how they were going to cope. And I think the misnomer here, especially when it comes to betrayal of this type of infidelity, is that we all think it's about sex. It is so not about sex. It is not about sex. Nine times out of ten. Now, my story. Yes, my husband had a sex addiction that was part of the addictions, many addictions that he was dealing with in secret, underground. And he could do a lot of things because I was a little naive thing that didn't really engage in any of those things. It didn't make me better, didn't make me superior by any stretch, didn't make me inferior. It just meant I was unaware. Those were experiences I had no idea how to see. Catch didn't make any sense to me. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. So I was a pretty good culprit in regards to doing a lot of these things that I would just blindly believe because I didn't have any experience to tell the difference. Okay. The case commonly, is I give you the benefit of the doubt because I love you, I believe in you, I trust you, because I've been able to in the past. And then something happens over time. It doesn't just happen in one little, teeny tiny moment. The choice to cheat happens in one little, teeny tiny moment. But the acute accumulation of what I want to talk about today, which is the emotional driver, has been going on for a long time. There's been some unrest there. And then in a flash, it's like putting a match to a flame. There's an opportunity to all of a sudden have some things that I have been struggling with or hurting about or resentful of or frustrated of, and I don't know what to do. So in that flash, I make a choice. And in that flash, all of a sudden, I also start rationalizing why I'm doing what I'm doing. And in that flash, the more I rationalize it, the more I minimize the impact that this could potentially have on my life. And I say, it'll. It'll be okay. I'll hide it. It's not going to. I'll just do it this one time. It's just a conversation. We're just going to lunch. We're just. And so there's these steps and These buildups that all of a sudden we lose control of that, then become outlandishly out of control. And even in the course of my husband at the time, I just want.

To be clear, not Tom, Pre Tom for us listeners.

And I'm not going to name him because I care about him, I respect him. I would never want to bring ill will to him. That's his story to tell. This is my side of the story to tell. What I want to say is same here. All coping, whether we talk about pills or sex or shopping or exercise, they all come from an emotionally driven place and space of having to cope with some very difficult, challenging emotions that I don't know what else to do with. I don't have better skills to, like, understand it, communicate it, share it, deal with it. And so I do these things that commonly come from families of origin. I'm kind of repeating these types of coping skills.

I think it often also comes when you're in a rut. You know, Jack and I, my fiance and I, we've been kind of in a rut in our relationship because our dog died in January. Before that, it was a quick illness, but it was super stressful trying to figure out what was wrong with her. We thought she had a torn acl, but she actually had cancer in her leg and her bone. It was very painful, very stressful. She died at the beginning of January. And then our air conditioner is broken, our washer and dryer are broken, our oven is broken. Like, everything in our life sort of feels like it's falling apart while we've been dealing with grieving the loss of our dog. And we spend every night together in his office where I sit on the couch and work and he plays video games. And that's how we've been coping. We both know it. We both know we're not showing up as our best. You know, we're kind of like. We call it like our safe little apartment in his room. That's where we feel safe and cozy in there. But we're not interacting with each other. We're not really doing anything to improve our relationship. We both, very clearly, and we've talked about it, we're in a rut. We're not super intimate. We're, like, dealing with how life is coming at us right now, and we're kind of, like, hunkered down and surviving it. And I was just thinking this would probably be a time if either of us had the inclination to cheat, that we might look outside for some validation or some comfort and some you know, like something different to help us feel better. We're communicating that we both know we're in a rut and we're working to get out of it. But I feel like in a lot of relationships that conversation isn't available to you because maybe you've been in a rut for 20 years and you feel like if you mention it, it's going to offend your partner. So then you just keep not mentioning it or may maybe you don't have a really emotional connection with your partner where you can openly talk about those things. You know, you just move on and say, I'll just go hang out with my friends more. It's in those periods of time where you are feeling like you need something. In my instance, I could say to Jack and he could say to me, hey, babe, I need some more connection. This isn't cutting it, but we both are very open and honest about the fact that we're healing right now. So it's not a normal period in our relationship. But we also can admit that we're not really showing up as our best selves. But it's okay because it's kind of both of us happening at the same time. My point in telling this is that I think when we experience infidelity or we have a catalytic moment in our relationship, we conveniently forget this part. We conveniently forget the kind of lead up to the catalytic moment because we don't. And I want to make it clear that I'm not saying you need to take responsibility for what your partner chose to do to cope, because that we don't believe. Believe that at all. It can give you a better, like, understanding. Understanding of why it happened. Like, I'm not saying it takes away the pain, but it gives you some answers of, oh, I can see why my partner chose to cope in this way. I would never do that and I don't think it's okay. But I do see how it possibly could have happened. Let's be honest about the situation only because it can help you heal by having that intel and that understanding.

It is the understanding. And if we are going to step into having conversations like this, we commonly don't have the skills to navigate this. Especially where I'm so emotionally escalated because of the shock and awe of it all, the numbness that I'm. I'm trying to like, find some assemblance of my own place and space where I can feel like I'm going to be okay. That's usually the one that is the most threatening and the most difficult to manage as I question whether I'm going to be okay. And ironically I start asking questions about them that I can't gain answers to instead of attuning to my own needs, my own sense and also well being.

And also how you're showing up. Because that's the only thing that you have the intel for is how were you feeling?

How are you seeing it? And if we do talk about it, then we're attacking. How could you? What did you think was going to happen? What were you thinking when you did this? I'm attacking the situation because it's so hard to wrap my head around when really out of the gate. I want you to, I encourage you to, to attune to your own emotional sense of take care of yourself. Like find a foundational place for you first before you try and step into these bigger conversations that are important and need to be had, but not in this critical moment. The other thing that really screws us up here is we want all the juicy details about what happened. Oh, please don't do that to yourself. Because if you're having a difficult time just wrapping your head around what you already know, do you really think more information is going to help you with that? Like adding more details is going to cause you to spiral and continue to spiral out of control and then yes, you're not going to be able to gain your footing here. So it drives us into these deeper, darker places instead of just this. If I'm falling, if I'm shell shocked, if I've just come out of a major amputation, which is what this is, right? I need to attune to what is happening and find a good place for me first before I can start venturing into these bigger, more de places that have a lot of emotional charge. And the last thing I need is to like all of a sudden create more information and overwhelm about something else that I didn't know about. That would be like taking my one amputated leg and decided I'm just going to go ahead and lop off the other and that's going to fix it. And it never does. This becomes this overwhelming experience.

This is very, very important and very counterintuitive. It's very similar to people in the space and separations thinking they have to do everything they can to beg and plead and get their partner back. So please listen carefully to what Stacy just had strongly suggested you do, because you're not going to find the footing that you need if you typically do what most of us do, it's not your fault. But it's very counterintuitive oftentimes how we approach things, you know, with great love and respect. Don't go down that path because it's just going to cause more tremendous amount of pain and suffering.

Unraveling for yourself. It's like, I can't take on anymore right now. I need some time to wrap my head around this. I need to find myself a good place to stand and an understanding about all of this. So please, give me some space around this situation, me find my own footing here first, and then I'll come back and we can talk deeper about it. But right now, I just need to find a place of support and grace and comfort and foundation for me to stand. If we don't do that, then I'm not going to show up. So great. And I'm certainly not going to be able to pursue the next steps that are going to be critically important in the process.

The next question is, what are the key conversations to have? And could you give some examples on what those would be?

So the questions you do not want to be asking are, how could you do this? Why wasn't I enough? How come I didn't see this coming? What was so wrong with me that you didn't feel like you could talk with me? Who was it? Where did you do it? What were they wearing? What were the sex positions? How did it go down? Did you contact them or did they contact you? When exactly did you do it? What time was that? After you talked to me? So you start to dig into these very finite details. I'm going to tell you right now, you're not in a place to be even taking those on, it's going to make it worse. So it's not that you're not enough. It's not that you should have seen it coming. It's not that what you have or have had with your partner isn't valid and true. It has nothing to do with that. We have arrived at a place where a choice was made. You've been impacted. And unfortunately, the fact that we couldn't have a conversation about what wasn't working like Brookie described described, is probably 99% of the reason why we're here. But before I can even understand that part and piece, I've got a foundationally better place for me to stand. So instead of asking all those questions I just mentioned, I need to be asking questions like, what do I need to do to feel supported? What is it I need to do to take care of Myself, probably spend some time with yourself and think about the thoughts and feelings that are coming up. Maybe even reach out and gain some support from people who know this way, this path. Because if not, it seems like this path that's buried in brush. You know, I need some help and somebody who has a flashlight that can guide me through this very difficult place. Somebody who's lived it and not somebody who's playing the victim and still bashing on whomever betrayed them, but somebody who's actually made it out the other side, whether that's in a better place as individuals or in a better place as a couple. And I just want you to know, yes, that's possible. We can find a better place to stand as a couple on the other side of this. Because betrayal is one of two things. It's either going to be a call to breakup. And I didn't know how to tell you. And so I said in that moment of choice, forget it. When they find out, then that will be the day I won't have to say anything. It's a cop out. It would be better for me to just come and say I'm not happy. I need to let go of this relationship and I want to support us in moving to a better place. But we don't have those skills or it's a wake up call. So it's either a breakup call to action or a wake up call to action. There's been a lot of things in the relationship that probably for a long time haven't worked for me and I haven't known how to talk with you about it.

Do you think it's ever the case where someone wants their cake and eats it too, though?

I think the I want my cake and eat it too comes from the place of I don't want to let go of you because I like some of the things about this relationship, but I'm getting other needs of mine met over there. That's the cake and eat it too. Do I think that that decision ever happens on the front side? I mean, I never am going to say never, but I would say it's a fraction of what we think it is.

Yeah, but you're saying it's not the case very often.

No. No. A fraction of a 1% if most of us find ourselves in one of those other places. I love things about our relationship, but there are things that are not working for me. I don't know how to share or I've come to the place where I'm done with this and I don't Know how to tell you I want to move on or there are things that I love about this relationship and I get other needs met over in this other one, but I don't know how to rectify that. I've gotten myself in this position now and I don't know how to fix it. That's more commonly the case. I think that's important. So where I'm going here is we don't know how to talk about this in a place that's not either self deprecating and dismantling. If you were the person who's been betrayed or the person who's gotten caught in this snare and not. I really don't know how to say what it is I need to say so that we can figure out how to navigate through this and that. That is infidelity in a nutshell. Really?

And so why is it. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, babe, but I mean, you're the one that does all the research and continuous study and such. It seems to be typically in this space is as soon as we can get the person to repent and kick their fanny enough to how bad they messed up. Once we get enough of that handled, then we'll get back to how our life was again. I mean, very much in a nutshell. Right? Get that person to say, you're right, I really messed up, I'll never do this again. We'll get back to the life we had and everything will be fine. It's kind of like, well, no, it won't. So, I mean, why does that seem to be this. Especially in this place, this common story. And we're oftentimes we get people on social media says, you guys are dismissing all of this. So why there's. There seem to be this big disconnect on how we approach it and how typically it seems to be out there. The general's narrative.

Well, there's more to the story, right? There is so much that's misunderstood and so sure, you could, you could have an ultimatum. You cheat on me, it's over. And then people will come back and say, man, I keep finding myself in these relationships where all I attract is a cheater. Yeah, really? You don't say, and I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I'm saying that when this happens, there is more to the story. There is so much for us to understand about the situation. How I show up in relationships and how my partner shows up in relationships and an assessment of the skills that we have and all the unspoken Things that have probably been left off of the table. And then we go along with it, we put up with it, we minimize it, we get frustrated, we get angry, we act out. I don't know how to talk about it, I act out again. And then little by little this starts to create an unsatisfactory divide between us. Yes, it can be sexually, but sex is what, really? Yes. I love the act of sex. It's awesome. It's wonderful. Like I haven't had it in, you know, a long time. So as a person and I, I want to have, I want to, I want that, I want that to be a part of my life that's real. And if I don't feel like I can ask you for it or I have asked you for it and it's been put off or minimized or negated, criticized, belittled, that's all you want, etc, well then that's going to start to create a divide in that conversation. So we just stop bringing it up. But it doesn't mean the problem goes away, we just stop talking about it. Or I could feel like I'm not heard, or I could feel like my needs don't ever surface long enough in order for me to get the comfort, the remedy, the reassurance, the acknowledgement that I need. All of these little things now turn into big challenges later and it's eventually going to come out when unfortunately somebody makes the choice to cheat. And it's not a choice that works for either side. So the person who's cheating is going to pay hell on this one as well. Not because you make them pay, but because they know what they've done. Some of the most heart wrenching stories are the stories that are never told about the person who chose to cheat and now has a tremendous amount of guilt and regret for doing so. And you might say, well good, they deserve it. Damn right. Again, there's more to the story. I'm not saying they should, should have done what they did either, nor would they. It's where do we turn around? So, okay, we end it, we sever it. I was never going to put up with this. And we cast them to the curb. Well, for everyone, your whole family, for each of you individually, life is going to continue to go on. And what are we thinking about that cutting them off and pushing them out and blaming them doesn't solve the problem. The problem still exists. And the hardest thing to wrap our head around that nobody likes to hear and think about in these situations is what was my part? How is it That I show up in these places and spaces. So going back to my story, how in the world would I have a part to play in regards to my husband's sex addiction? We had sex, we did regularly, every time he was home. It was mandatory. But I wanted it too. After not being together several times, that was kind of part of how we would reunite and reconnect. How I would approach problems was very much an attack, very much a place of this has got to be perfect. We've got to do it by the book. It has to be right. Here's the protocol. I needed to check all these boxes and don't miss one. Because you know what?

You kept him in line.

I absolutely kept him in line. Like there was no discussion about doing anything outside of this, which put him in a very tight box. That he started to have a difficult time dealing with that. He then started to act out around that. Then he found himself in a catch 22 of drinking and coping and spending money and, you know, gambling and all the things. Because I don't want to disappoint you, so I'll just do it in secret. And that's where I start the minimizing part. But don't forget how we drove here. I had to be perfect because I was paying a penance for some mistakes that I'd made in the past. And I was going to do it by the book this time. And you're going to do it with me in the front side not knowing what we were doing. It's like in. Yeah, I'm in. Are you in? Yeah, yeah. Check, check, check. And then I am the gatekeeper. I am the control freak that is making sure that all those boxes and all those things get met. And then what happens when somebody else is having the experience of this doesn't work for me. And I can't say that I don't want to go here anymore. But we can't say that I need to switch this up. I don't feel supported or heard. I'm feeling minimized, criticized, belittled. You don't want to hear that. You don't want to take on and hear the challenge that I'm having. Okay, no problem. I'll just take care of it in secret then. It's not that the problem goes away, it's just the coping of it will. I'll do it in secret. So when it comes to things like this or any lies of betrayal, really, the question that we need to be asking ourselves more often is why didn't you feel like you could come and have a conversation with me about it directly.

Well, and also, you pointed this out a little bit, but it just made me have this kind of clear picture in my head that heterosexual couples, which is what we talk about the most, because that's what we are. I mean, we support every kind of relationship. But let's talk about men and women first. Second, men are the ones who stereotypically want sex. Women are the ones who stereotypically want emotional connection. Okay? So. And women need emotional connection to want to have sex. If we're in this cheating scenario, let's say the man wasn't giving the woman the emotional connection that she needed to be able to, you know, get aroused and want to have sex. But then the man sees it as, oh, my wife doesn't want to have sex with him anymore. The woman sees it as though my husband can't emotionally connect with me, so I don't want to have sex with him because it doesn't feel safe for me. So no one is talking about either of those things. They're just seeing themselves as the victim in the situation. Without looking at, has the man ever been taught on how to emotionally express himself? Does he have those skills? Does the woman have the skills to even know that she's not getting the emotional connection and that's what's missing? Can she even identify that? Or is it just a feeling she has in her body? And then do we have the ability to actually express those things and say. The man can say, hey, I noticed you're not having sex with me. Is something wrong? Can we fix this? And the woman can say, oh, I notice you're not really connecting with me emotionally. Is there anything that. But no, we don't do any of that. We just ignore both things. We see the other person as a piece of shit who doesn't know how to be the partner that I need them to be. We never talk about it. We never do anything about it. We ne. Just like the story where you said, the man who cheated, we don't think about what led him to be there. This problem exists probably in every household. No one's talking about it. Everyone's dealing with it in different ways. There's a million different ways that you can deal with this situation. One of them is cheating. And it's just a real crime that we don't talk about this because each cisgender woman and cisgender man is probably feeling these things, and we're not having conversations about it. Instead, we're coping in terrible ways, and we're making our partner out to be this real jerk when, hello, do they even have the skills they need to do the thing that we're dying for them to do?

Well, and here's the thing that I'm going to stack on that. Isn't it ironic? It is to me that the way we conversate out of what you've just described so well is that the man just needs to learn how to become more emotionally in touch with his feelings. And then we can go ahead and proceed like, but you're going to get cut off from sex and connection, my attention until you figure that out. But does that door ever swing the other way? How about females? Because I want you to know that door swings both ways. But we put the responsibility on him when he has no skills to meet you in that emotional place without the thought of, well, maybe I just need to get more comfortable in my body and meet him there and then maybe I'll get more of what it is I want. Everybody, male or female, could do a better job of finding a way in the middle to create connection. Okay, maybe I do need to have sex first so that we can have a wonderful emotionally touching conversation on the outside. Why don't I work on that while you work on getting in touch with your emotions and maybe we'll all get more of what it is we want.

I was gonna say, or flip. Like, one week you work on the emotional, one week you work on the physical. And to add on to what you just said, we always say, man, go get better at emotions, but do offer any like, resources of our possibilities of where they could actually do that. Of course it's not our work to do all the emotional labor to help them do that. But no, we just either passive aggressively hand them a book and say, read this, or we make fun of them when they try something and they get it wrong. You know, it's a whole bunch of shame. A different flavor of making fun of men for crying. You know, we do that to them, but then we beg them to be more emotional. That doesn't make any sense. And then we expect them to be pros at it. And then when they mess up, which they are going to just, you're going to mess up. Women, when you are trying to get more comfortable with your body and you probably do some funny silly stuff, we make it totally unapproachable and totally unavailable. And then we get mad at them when they suck at it.

When the reality is. And this is where we say everybody has a role to play as Hard as it is sometimes to look at, there's more to the story. We could just cast each other to the curb and say, hey, okay, we're done, you've cheated, that's it, it's the end. But I hope that in this episode you're starting to see there's a lot of understanding that we're missing a lot. And it's highlighting things that we could learn and practice and get better at. And I don't know where that would take you, but I'm going to promise it's going to take you to a better place than what you're in and experiencing right now, that it's worth the journey. It really is. It's worth the learning, the practice, the emotional push ups, wherever it takes you. Because this is how we get better at my part in the relationship journey. So, okay, you cut them off. And there's so much more that we need to understand about ourselves and each other and relationships overall. And that's why forever and always, regardless of how criticized we get on social media or in our communities and the world at large, I am going to stand very firm here and remember I'm a person who has been shocked by betrayal, infidelity. It has happened to me and I don't want to stand as a person who doesn't realize and I had to take my own journey here. Big gulp moments that I've shared with you on this podcast today about what that looks like. I had a role to play and when I got better at that role, I got better at relationships and I got better at being the person I am today because of it. Sometimes I. I put my arms around this person that I was married to and I thank him for helping me become the person I am today with the understanding that I have because it helped me expand and grow. And that is what this has is a call to all of us if we'll step into the bigger, better story. Those door swings both ways. It's not one person's fault. It never will be in a co creation is it heartbreaking. But if we can rise to the opportunity, there's so much for us to undercover and learn and discover that will help us improve our relational abilities and skills. We can show up and finally have and create what it is we ultimately want. So don't miss the moment as hard as it is. Find a foundational place for you to stand first. Then we step in and we start looking at what the emotional driver was that prevented the conversations we probably needed to be having in the first place. And what it is that drove the choices and decisions that inevitably ended up playing out. That's what we need to know and understand. Because if I understand the emotional driver, it will tell me everything I don't understand about us. Emotion creates motion in the choices and behaviors that I do as a human being. If I understand the emotional driver of what's happening. If we were to use Brooke's example that she so eloquently shared here on the podcast past about grief and challenge and in a rut, that emotional driver is. I am still trying to find a good place inside of me to show up better for you. But until I find that place within me, I can't give you what it is I know you need. We have the ability to acknowledge that emotional driver, tell the truth about that emotional driver, and reassure ourselves and each other that at some point in the very near future, if I continue to find a foundational place within me, I know, I believe in my heart I'll be able to show up for you better.

And I just want to share. This is the first relationship I've ever been able to do that in. I've never been able to verbalize that before and be in a safe environment where it was possible for me.

And those are places and spaces where we would start to cope in all manner of other places and spaces, whether it's infidelity and cheating or lying or drinking or pills or hanging out with the guys or the girls or the myriad of things that we can do over exercising, et cetera. It's all coming from trying to manage very similar emotional drivers. And I think that's really important for us to wrap our head around. So wherever you find yourself today, you've got to find yourself a grounded place first so that I can show up and have the conversations to explore those emotional drivers. And the biggest one, especially when lies and betrayals are part of this. Help me understand why you emotionally didn't feel like you could come to me so we could have a conversation. That's an important question because it's going to tell you the state of the emotional safety in your relationship. There probably hasn't been any. Okay, well, that's a problem. How do we build it? How do we learn from this? How do we get better at building emotional safety so we can start to have these kinds of conversations? And that's probably where you're going to need to step in and get some help and support, because now you're being asked to build and understand things that you know nothing about.

Last question. Two parter. How do you talk to your partner about your feelings without making them feel less than or more embarrassed? And how do you help yourself view your partner in a good light?

First question. How do you talk to your partner without causing them to feel less than you? Ask a sincere question. Help me understand what you were thinking and feeling when you made that choice. Help me understand why it is you felt like I couldn't come and just have a conversation with me about it. I didn't know you were so unhappy. You know, how long have you been keeping this a secret? That must have been so awful and so painful. So we're uncovering by those questions a safe place to maybe start having some of those conversations. Naturally, by way of asking the question. That's. That's the first part of the question. The second part of the question is, remind me what it was.

How do you help yourself view your partner in a good light again? Again.

So viewing your partner in a good light again is ironically going to come from understanding. And until I can gain that piece of understanding around those handful of questions I just asked you and a few others, you won't be able to view them in a better light because right now you're viewing them in the light that you are to protect yourself. Right? To. To find a place of trusting again. And that's why we'll go into making them pay, pushing them away, blaming them, cutting them off, kicking them to the curb. I'm really just trying to protect myself because I'm scared. I'm blown out of the water. I don't know what to do. And I'm not going to be able to see them in a different light until I understand some of these things that we've talked about in a handful more.

Well, and also, you're filling in all the blanks with your own information, not their answers. So you're making the story even worse. Unintentionally.

Yep. You're inserting what this means or what comes up for you, which is probably going to be a horror picture. At the point in time, you really need foundation. And that horror flick is going to play and it can play obsessively, which will just do nothing but continue to unravel you. So please, please, please, if you are in this space, it is so important for you to get help and support in these places and spaces. Very often we become so lost in the emotional experience of this that it's really difficult to do many of the things that we've touched on here. I'm giving you the Logical answers. But then there's the emotional journey that comes along for the ride. And very often we need to have somebody walk with us as a mentor with a flashlight that says, no, no, it's okay. This is the way you travel. It's going to be safe. You're going to be okay. You're going to make it out of here so that I can step in with some courage to have these conversations. These are probably conversations that have been laying around dormant, needing to be had for a long time. And the truth, and the reality is we just didn't know how to have them.

Yeah. And I would just also stack on that that, you know, oftentimes, because we hear this, you're going to have a lot of people in your close circle that is going to have you absolutely validate your, your position. Let's make them pay. And so what we're really strongly advocating you to consider is going to be very different than.

And they don't.

Because they love you and they don't.

Want to see you so trying to protect you.

Exactly. So, you know, this is a very difficult place to walk with any kind of neutrality because your loved ones and people close to you don't want to see you suffer. So they're going to absolutely take your side. And we're not saying you don't have a side, but this is just a very delicate place. So, yeah, most often it's going to take some skill, facilitation for someone to walk and mentor with you, you to have this come out, however it goes to where you're not just shredded. That's really the goal, is you want to become stronger however you choose to navigate it.

And please don't shred yourself. The person who has cheated has probably been in emotional conflict and turmoil for a really long time. I'm not justifying the choice that they made. I just want you to understand why it was made. And it wasn't because you needed to be more handsome or strong or make more money or be more beautiful or be more educated or more smart. Those are places and spaces where we then turn on our ourselves in our own fears and doubts and insecurities. And then I am unraveling myself. At the same time, I need to find myself a foundation. And so that's why I go back to step one. You need to find a foundational place for yourself first. That's step one. Step two is now that I'm in a foundational place, I can step in and start having the questions where I understand the emotional drivers of the choices or the lack of behavior that I see would have really helped us work through this in a better way. Those are the things that I need to understand. And as that understanding happens, the way that I see this person starts to make sense. And then the way I view them can change and shift and transform into different places and spaces. It can take some time, but it can also happen in a nanosecond. I'm thinking of a couple right now who happened over a weekend. Struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle. Had some experiences, had some great conversations of understanding, and flipped just like that. So the time frame is yet to be determined, but those are the basic steps. And again, because you're treading in territory you probably don't know, you're probably going to need some help and support with this. It's just more helpful to have somebody who knows the terrain than to try and figure it out in the dark on your own while you're freaking out. You're going to probably find yourself huddling in a cave under a bush push, thinking all is lost. And that's. That's not the case. It doesn't need to be like that. Absolutely not. This is all going to make sense. I promise. You're going to get through this. It's going to be okay. Really is. And there's just some things that I need to figure out right now. They're going to help me become a better version of myself. That's what I want you to focus on. That piece right there.

Did you just take yourself back to that? Drive up the camera?

And I want you to cling to it with everything you got. That. And I want you to drive for that and let that be a guiding light for you. And that day will come. I promise. It always does. It always will. It's when I start adding to the mess and questioning myself and unraveling myself that I'm gonna make this a lot more painful than it needs to be. Okay. I hope that helps you. We're gonna do a hard left here.

Follow some fun.

We are gonna follow some fun. Fun. And we're going to talk about something slightly ridiculous and weird, but it's weirdly effective. And it's perfect for the conversation we've just popped out of. Like, are you guys crazy? Yeah, we really are kind of a little crazy. But we're inviting you to get a little crazy with us. When you're drowning in heartbreak, play is often the last thing that's on your mind. But remember what we said. I've got to find a foundation for Myself first. Like that's step one. And I don't know of a better, easier way than to go play. It's the last thing that's on your mind. It's the last thing you're going to reach for. It's the thing that we're going to say. No, no, no, I'll get to that later. But I need to remember that there's still joy in the world even though this has happened. There's still goodness in the world even though this has happened. There's still things I do understand and things that do lift me up a little bit that are existing in the world today. And I need to intentionally look for those. So play is actually exactly what it is you need to reach for. And right now, when everything feels heavy, your brain is actually stuck in survival mode and it's going to replay the obsessive thoughts and pain on an endless loop. So we've got to throw it a curveball. We've got to freak it out again and kind of create a reset. So trying one of these very simple things that are very, very doable are going to help you. Okay, the first one I call the over the top narrator experiment. I love this. I am going to invite you to narrate your life in the most dramatic voice possible. For example, I'm making coffee in the morning for myself and I say, haha. Here we have a brave soul making coffee, unaware that she is in fact a complete badass for getting out of bed today. Well done, Stacy. Go get him, girl. And in that narrative voice, something happens. I can hear myself talk and I can remind myself that maybe I am a badass and it is a pretty big deal. I got out of bed today. Well done. Give myself a little credit and a little. A little validation. Sound absurd? Yes. But it's gonna give you emotions and feel good. A little bit of remedy is going to give them some breathing room that not all is lost. Is this hard? Probably the hardest thing you've ever gone through? Yes. But there's still joy and what I call glitter to be found in it. The second one I'm going to suggest is the little what I call lizard brain Reset. Your logical brain is exhausted. Come on, let's be honest. Oh man, has it's been this over and over and over a thousand different times. You're in survival brain. Like I've said that. If only I understood the sensations of shock, then this is going to be okay. And so we loop and loop and get anxiety and want more details and more questions, etcetera And I need you to do something physical. I need you to take a cold shower. What? Yep. Take a cold shower. Stick your hands in ice. Eat something ridiculously sour. Stand barefoot in the grass. Play in the mud. Feel the grass, feel the breeze. Dare I say lay in your backyard naked. So do something different. And this tiny little jolt will help your system break free from the emotional spiral that it's stuck in. Sometimes sitting down and have a conversation with your child, going for a drive, getting your favorite beverage. These are all stimulus from the physical sensation that jolts my brain out of this track that it's stuck in. And yeah, you might need to do this several times. I would encourage you to, because it kind of has a tendency to find its way back. And then I gotta jolt it again. Right. It's kind of like bringing myself back to life. KA Chunk here's the thing. These tiny, ridiculous moments will remind us again that movement is possible. Things are going to change. I can create and find glitter in some of the most difficult and challenging of situations. And that will help you take the first step toward feeling a little bit better again today. Again, finding that foundation with which you can stand on. This is because we want you to feel the experiences and give you some little comfort. The thing I love about music is no words required, per se. I can just kind of get lost in the song and the lyrics. Our song today is Half of My Heart by John Mayer. The song beautifully captures the conflicted space that we can find ourselves in when we find ourselves in a place of betrayal. One lyric that really stands out is this. Half of my heart's got a grip on the situation. Half of my heart takes time. And that's so true. John Mayer knocks it out of the park again when it comes to relationships, doesn't he? That's the reality of healing after infidelity. Part of you might want to reconcile, and part of you. You might still be frozen in pain. And that tug of war between love and hurt and uncertainty, that's what we've been talking about today. Because real healing isn't about flipping a switch or casting them out. It's about making sense of the conflict inside of you and deciding what's next from that place and then making an effort to understand your partner's experience, too. You can listen to this week's song along with our entire relationship playlist by going to our podcast website page or search it up on Spotify Love Love Shack Live playlist. There's some really great goodies in there for you. That's it for today's Love Shack Live. I know this has probably been a really hard conversation. I'm feeling like I need an emotional nap. How about you all? We know that navigating infidelity isn't easy, and if you're here, you're already taking the first step, seeking understanding and figuring out what comes next. I honor and acknowledge where you are. If today's conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a message, share your thoughts, or let us know what stood out for you the most in this conversation. And if you're struggling to find your footing after your partner has asked for space, you don't have to figure this out alone. I invite you to check out the Love and Limbo self paced guided 30 day roadmap because it's designed to help you regain your emotional balance and clarify and decide what what's best for you without waiting on anyone else. You can start today by going to staceybartley.com all right, you've got this. We've got this. One day, one moment, one step at a time. And remember, you're going to get through this and when you do, you're going to see things from a completely different place in space than you do in this moment. At some point in time, if you take the journey that we've invited you to take take, it's gonna all make sense. I promise. Bye bye for now. All right, it's time to leave the Love Shack. But before we part ways, we want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on. Ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, visit us atlove shack live.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live community.