Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

The biggest mistake that I think us victims make is to personalize the betrayal.

"Its my fault! Why did I let this happen? If only... If I would have just..."

Even though by nature (and in large part my chosen profession) I am a problem solver, I quickly became a victim and all the junk that came with it. For months after the affair I had all those thoughts plus some I won't share over and over again, playing like the only country music station in the entire radio dial. "If you don't like this country song, my mind would say, here's another 10 stations all playing the same song just for you."

This lie behind all these thoughts are that your significant other betrayed you because of who you are or something you did. It is a lie. Those are all bold faced lies meant to keep you in a place of anger, hurt, and pain.

The truth is that affairs happen in the entire spectrum of marriage with no regard for money, social status, communication, sex, or a level of "happiness"

With that said you may have played a small part in the betrayal but it still was not your fault. I know that I did.

The analogy I like to use is that my wife got into a car accident. It hurt alot of people and was mostly her and the others fault but I was a contributing factor. I didn't keep the tires on her car properly inflated. I let her drive on really worn brakes. There were also warning signs that she was a wreckless driver that I ignored and a cry for help as well.
But she still chose to get into the car and was at fault for the accident.

Afterwords, I spent WAY too much time blaming myself. Way too much time was wasted trying to accept and place blame. I soon reverted back to my teenage year of being a victim with no control of my life.

That turned out to be the furthest thing from the truth. As the victim, my wife turned to me for guidance along the journey. Our counselor told us that I was the barometer of the relationship. As I healed, Scarlet found it ok to move on the the next phase as well.

If you are stuck in this phase, know that it is just a phase of the aftermath of the affair. But please don't focus on it. When these thoughts come into your head just say 'that's a lie and all lies come from the devil'
Say a prayer "In Jesus Christ's name I command you and this lie to leave. Jesus I invite you to come into my heart where the lie once was and heal me in that place.

Believe me when I say that I did this one a regular basis for a good part of a year and it does work. It is something I still do when I catch the lies sneaking back into my thoughts. The more I ask Jesus to come and truly invite him into my heart the closer I feel to him and the more peace I feel in my life.

Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you."

Matthew 11:29 "... learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls ..."

Which wolf will you feed today?

Here is an Cherokee tale of two wolves:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Its true. See we all have free will. We all get to do whatever we want, think about whatever we want, and make our own little world inside our minds. Sometimes our minds become little prisons that we feel we can't escape.

I'd say for the first 3-4 months after I found about my wife's affair, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I feed myself a plate of misery, hurt, pain, and anger on a daily basis. But then I realized that I had a choice to make.

I was able to picture myself 10 years from now and I saw two Ean's. The first one put on a mask for work, friends, and others, but inside was a wreck. He would turn to other things for any kind of escape. Work, sports, alcohol, movies, books, and probably greed in order to try and drown out the pain from being betrayed.

Or I could not. I could, in fact, choose joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. And that's what I did.

I forgave my wife. And I mean really forgave her. I choose first to forgive. I didn't "feel" like I had forgiven her and I felt, at times, that I shouldn't. There were even times were I had wished I hadn't. But I did. I choose to forgive her and THEN the feeling of forgiveness came to me. I feed the right wolf and keep feeding it and it grew more and the other wolf died.

And let me tell you that other wolf did not go down without a fight. I would have visions of telling my wife off. Telling her all of the things that I wanted to really say. All of the things that were inside my head of how she really hurt me. And when I started those visions, it really seemed like a wolf inside of me growing and taking over. That anger would come and the pain would come and so would the tears.

Don't feed that wolf. When that wolf comes 'round, tell it to go away. The devil will use whatever tricks he can to get you to live a life of anger and hate and focus on the betrayal. But we do have free will. As much as your hurting and full of just 'junk' inside you (believe me I know), you still get to choose which wolf to feed.

I promise you that if you feed the wolf of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith that your life will get better. I have chosen the path that God laid out for me and have not looked back. That wolf still comes around once in a while and entices me with his old tricks, but he knows that he has no power over me. That 'junk' that once filled every second of every day is still there once in a blue moon but it is like a anthill compared to the rocky mountains that it once was.

Matthew 6:21-23 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."

How Do You Cope After an Affair?

I know Husband needs to blog more, he's sick with a sinus infection and he works some pretty crappy hours which doesn't leave a lot of energy for blogging. But he's beginning to see that our blog is helpful to some people.

More than anything he wants to start a local support group for people. I think that would be great however I'm just not ready to out myself fully yet. I live in a pretty small town and all of the yuck is still very fresh. Besides, neither of us have any time at all so I don't know how we'd manage to squeeze one more thing into our hectic and crazy life.

So I thought I'd try to blog a little more. And I was thinking about some coping mechanisms I used after the discovery. First off, I really detest coping. To me coping means you sort of give up and make due with your lot in life and stop trying to change it. It seems so helpless.

So imagine how hard it was for me to realize I did something I couldn't change! I couldn't take it back or make it right. That had NEVER happened to me. It drove me insane with grief and fear. So I had to cope.

I wrote before that I tried hard to remake myself after the discovery. That was one way I tried coping. I worked hard on getting healthy. something I'd needed to do for the last ten years. I'd gotten really fat in college. I started running shortly after I "met" the Other, but after the discovery I worked harder on myself and started a weight loss program. Since I couldn't make what I did go away I tried to make the body that did it go away. Does that make sense?

The only way I could think to cope with this was to become a different person than the one who did the Big Bad. I really started to deconstruct myself and I think I realized something really important.

My counselor talked about how I had taken my heart offline after my first love and I broke up. I think he was dead right, and I think I stopped growing since that time. I feel like I slept walked through the years after, not living but just existing and content but never truly happy.

When Husband fought for me and my eyes were open suddenly and I fell in love with him, my heart came back online. I was then able to trace back and see the little hurts and the old wounds that led me to who I became. A person with two parts, the light and the dark. I had let the dark win out because it seemed stronger, but it wasn't. It was just angrier. Anger seems that way but its just a secondary emotion to something deep and rotten. Now the light has won!

Ok, I'm totally babbling. So anyway, I coped. I remade and I listened to a hell of a lot of new music. I made soundtracks for Husband and I at each stage of our journey. We had Soul Kissing-which was the few months after the discovery and recovery where we were in a honeymoon sort of state. Then there was Coming Through the Woods-as we struggled through all the yuck we were dealing with. Then Outside the Blastzone-for after we made it through the worst of the muck. And now I have a soundtrack for my fiction pieces I work on because he and I are mostly good. :)

When I go through each soundtrack it takes me back to all those emotions I felt during each stage. Its sometimes painful but sometimes very good. It helps me see what we've come through and how we've won. Its healing and reinforcing.

Today has been a long day, Spring is a long time coming and Husband is sick. I have a baby growing in me that makes me sick all day long and two children who like to not be fully potty trained even though they should be... But tonight is a good night and today was a great day because I didn't have to be alone. Husband and I survived and are better and stronger for it, and you can do it too.

Believe me when I say this-I never thought I'd love my husband. I married him as a friend figuring that I'd never love anyone other than my first love. But something happened the day after the discovery while we sat in our counselors office, and I can only say that I was touched by a miracle and so was Husband. And I am so truly thankful for that.

Must see Webinar this Sunday at 8pm EST

We love to help as many people as possible but we also know that there are many more and better sites out there for people. This is one of them. This webinar will pull together many of the leading experts in the field together, most have been through an affair themselves.

Please watch, as it looks to us that this webinar is put on to help people, and not sell anything.

-Ean

Below is the letter from www.affairrecovery.com :

My inbox is full of nothing but pain. Email after email reflects the turmoil and confusion of those who have been betrayed. If you're getting this email, I know you understand what I'm talking about.

More needs to be done. So we're networking with other leaders in the field in hopes of providing what you need. Sunday evening, February 22ndth at 8:00 PM EST, I'll be joining a panel of experts on a teleconference sponsored by the Affair Recovery Center to address issues specifically for betrayed spouses.

Joining me on the call will be:

• Rick Reynolds, founder of The Affair Recovery Center
• Anne Bercht, author of "My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me"
• John Haney and Leslie Hardie, authors of Harboring Hope
• Mona Shriver of Hope & Healing Ministries, Inc. and co-author of "Unfaithful"
• Joe Beam, president of Love Path International

If you're interested in getting answers to some of the hard questions, then I hope you'll join our event.

http://www.AffairRecovery.com/ft/arc

But that's not even the best part, over the next three weeks Harboring Hope is giving away multiple resources for those of you who have been betrayed. This is in preparation for the reopening of the Harboring Hope course.

Please take advantage of their free resources. You'll find them to be relevant and practical. Join their Harboring Hope preregistration list to take advantage of their bonus materials. You don't have to buy a thing just take advantage of the gift.

http://www.AffairRecovery.com/ft/arc

You'll be getting a follow-up email asking what questions you'd like to have answered during the teleconference. Give serious thought to what your questions might be and join us for this ground-breaking event.

Best regards,

Rick

P.S. I know you get hit with "offers" every day.
Well, this isn't one of them. There is nothing for sale at this teleseminar.
4131 Spicewood Springs Road, Suite K-1, Austin, TX 78759, USA

In Your Mind

In your mind. In your mind. So much of this battle that we are all on now lies inside your head. That space right between your ears is where most of the problem lies. That much I have learned from this journey.

See, the enemy wants you to linger on the details, hurt, pain, and junk that comes with a betrayal. But that is not what will help you or what God wants. Live in the moment, not in the past.

Lots of people call you every single day wanting you to sign up for long distance or buy a vacation package or donate money to the big police ball, but you don't talk to all of them, do you? Of course not. If you gave every telemarketer who called your house every minute that they wanted to talk to you, you would never get anything done. So you screen calls, you put yourself on the do-not-call list, you tell people very quickly that you don't have the time or money, and you hang up on them.

So, if you do that with your phone, then why not those dumb thoughts that come to you? Huh? Do it. Start screening your mind and when 'those' thoughts come to you, HANG UP! Take control and hang up. Think of something else. Anything else. Focus on the good or your breath. My new technique that I am using right now is just to focus on breathing. At work I can get very distracted. But I have a lot of time where I do somewhat meaningless tasks and I can just zone out. So yesterday I started to just focus on breathing. And it kinda works. I get more relaxed and in a better mood. So give it a try, but most important is to screen out things that want in, that you shouldn't let in.

Try this on for size:
In your mind, in your mind
One foot on Jacob's ladder
And one foot in the fire
And it all goes down in your mind

Living at the bottom of the stairs in your life
Never a smile knocking on your door
The air is blue and so are you
Prehistoric monsters on the floor

Last verse of your last song
And God don't hear dead men
The end of the line is in your mind
And you'll be staying in

In your mind, in your mind
Bone for bone and skin for skin
Eye for eye and tooth for tooth
Heart for heart and soul for soul
Somebody said what is true

Lock it up and close it down
The sound of morning like a dove
High beyond the rattle and roar
Look into the face of love

In your mind, in your mind
One foot on Jacob's ladder
And one foot in the fire
And it all goes down in your mind

In your mind, in your mind
Sunday words are back again
And you'll eat your fun of the middleman's pie
But just a piece you understand
You'll get the rest up in the sky

Praise and glory, wounded angel
Shuffling round the room
Eternity is down the hall
And you sit there bending spoons
In your mind, in your mind
Father, son and holy ghost
Sacrificial drops the pain
On a silver planet cross
Sanctification on a chain

They say redemption draws knives
Storms of silence from above
Stop your ears close your eyes
Try to find the face of love

In your mind, in your mind
One foot on Jacob's ladder
And one foot in the fire
And it all goes down in your mind

If you like it here is a you tube version of the song:

In your mind. In your mind. So much of this battle that we are all on now lies inside your head. That space right between your ears is where most of the problem lies. That much I have learned from this journey.

See, the enemy wants you to linger on the details, hurt, pain, and junk that comes with a betrayal. But that is not what will help you. Yes, you do need to deal with the stuff, but most of the time those thoughts come and you just need to not think about it. You can't spend the next few years reliving the past. Live in the moment, find joy and blessing and God in the here and now.

See, lots of people call you on the phone every single day wanting you to sign up for long distance or buy a vacation package or donate money to the big police ball, but you don't talk to all of them, do you? Of course not. If you gave every telemarketer who called your house every minute that they wanted to talk to you, you would never get anything done. So you screen calls, you put yourself on the do-not-call list, you tell people very quickly that you don't have the time or money, and you hang up on them.

So, if you do that with your phone, then why not those dumb thoughts that come to you? Huh? Do it. Start screening your mind and when 'those' thoughts come to you, HANG UP! Take control and hang up. Think of something else. Anything else. Focus on the good or your breathe.

My new technique that I am using right now is just to focus on breathing. At work I can get very distracted. But I have alot of time where I do somewhat meaningless tasks and I can just zone out. So yesterday I started to just focus on breathing. And so far it kinda works. I get more relaxed and in a better mood. Its easy too; deep breath in and out. So give it a try, but most important is to screen out things that want in, that you shouldn't let in.

I found this last week and I think it fits perfectly:

In your mind, in your mind
One foot on Jacob's ladder
And one foot in the fire
And it all goes down in your mind

Living at the bottom of the stairs in your life
Never a smile knocking on your door
The air is blue and so are you
Prehistoric monsters on the floor

Last verse of your last song
And God don't hear dead men
The end of the line is in your mind
And you'll be staying in

In your mind, in your mind
Bone for bone and skin for skin
Eye for eye and tooth for tooth
Heart for heart and soul for soul
Somebody said what is true

Lock it up and close it down
The sound of morning like a dove
High beyond the rattle and roar
Look into the face of love

In your mind, in your mind
One foot on Jacob's ladder
And one foot in the fire
And it all goes down in your mind

In your mind, in your mind
Sunday words are back again
And you'll eat your fun of the middleman's pie
But just a piece you understand
You'll get the rest up in the sky

Praise and glory, wounded angel
Shuffling round the room
Eternity is down the hall
And you sit there bending spoons
In your mind, in your mind
Father, son and holy ghost
Sacrificial drops the pain
On a silver planet cross
Sanctification on a chain

They say redemption draws knives
Storms of silence from above
Stop your ears close your eyes
Try to find the face of love

In your mind, in your mind
One foot on Jacob's ladder
And one foot in the fire
And it all goes down in your mind

If you like it here is a you tube version of the song:

Cleaning House

What do you do once you've decided to end the affair, or once it has been ended for you? For one thing I think it is of the utmost importance to clean house. And what I mean by that is, if at all possible, disappear and get rid of anything that will remind you of your Other.

First off, what I mean by disappear is this. Do what you can to make it impossible for the Other to contact you and for you to contact them. This means changing phone numbers, email addresses, blocking them from your Facebook/Myspace and your instant messages. And you scour everything you have to get rid of their info. Everything. Just don't leave that window even a little bit cracked.

Secondly, get rid of whatever you can that reminds you of the Other. Clothes, scents, songs, movies-just avoid them. This doesn't mean forever, but definitely during your intial months when you're struggling to over come the discovery and/or the addiction. Once you have come to a place of peace you may be able to go back to these things without having painful memories. I don't think I'd be able to... but thats just me.

Thirdly, take back what you can. And what I mean is, take ownership of things that used to be something you shared with the other-share it with your spouse. Rewrite your old memories and haunts with all new ones. Take back every experience you can and replace it with a new healthy one.

I hope this helps you, I know it helped me.

Chicken Fried Thoughts

A friend asked me today how do I deal with the thoughts of my wife and the Other. Hmm.. it had been a while since I have had those thoughts but here's a stab at it.

First I have to say that I thought about it every.single.day for 4 to 6 months. Those first few months I would obsess over all kinds of details. Images that I either read about or that my wife told me about would play like broken tapes over and over. There were days that all I could do was to hold out till the car ride home just to stop from crying all day at work. Then there were nights were I cried all night long. Most of the crying was triggered or all about those thoughts.

But I had a wonderful sage, in our therapist. He definitely helped me through most of the big nagging thoughts that I was having a hard time with. His advice was that most of my issues were in the form of those obsessive thoughts but had a lie under them.

For instance, the fact that my wife and the other had constant contact with each other really bothered me. I knew that they emailed, IMed, texted, and talked many many times all day long. I went back to one month of her cell phone bill and found that she had text messaged him over 550 times in one month. I would obsess over that. I would text my wife and then check my cell phone every minute until she would text back. Of course, immediately I would think of all the contacts that my wife and the other had and want to cry. Then my mind would only go in a downward spiral from there.

'Why doesn't she text me as much as she did to him? Was their relationship stronger/better/bigger than ours? Was he better at communicating than me? Did he do a better job of loving her? Maybe he really was better than me, better at most things and better at loving my wife than I could?

So, I tried at first to just fight those thoughts. I tried very hard not to think about them. In order to distract myself I would think of other things totally unrelated. This is very hard to do 2 months out from D-day (discovery day). And it doesn't work. Believe me when I tell you that I tried. It really only helped me to put off the eventual breakdown of crying, sobbing, and wailing that came when the downward spiral had run its course inside my head.

My sage had the only real technique that really worked. Behind most of these nagging type thoughts, was a lie. And that was always the case with me. If you go back to my inner thoughts above you can almost see the progression that leads to the lie. My insecurity was screaming out 'Am I really a good, lovable, person, better than the other? The lie that my flesh was wresting with was that if I was a 'good' person than the affair would not have happened. But that's not true. I certainly had culpability in the affair, but ultimately it was my wife's choice and not mine. And the amount of text messages that I got or didn't get from my wife after the affair was not an indication of our relationship. (for her the reverse is actually true, as she found herself rid of the obsessive thoughts of her other, she was able to focus on life and work and not being trapped in a sick world lived inside her head)

The other thing that helped me was journaling. In my case I used poetry instead of a true journal, but the same principal applies. I had so many thoughts/feelings/emotions/junk in my head it really did help to take out a notebook and jot some thoughts down. In the first three months after D-day I wrote over 50 poems. Not all good or even made sense, but they all helped in some way to get out a thought or feeling.

In hindsight, I still do have some thoughts. But the 'some' I have is like a trickle of rain for a few moments compared to the day long hurricane that came shortly after the discovery. Since I know that there is a lie behind them all (and have the emotional stability to boot) I can take the time to weed through each one, knowing that just because there is a random thought there, doesn't mean anything at all. I deal with the lie, fry it up in a poem, and move on.

Music: Soundtrack for your life

I don't know about you, but I know that music can totally mirror my mood or even change it completely. I remember sitting in church when I was an angsty teen and feeling very mood and unhappy. I was dating a psycho at the time so that is probably why.

Anyway, our church decided to sing the Cat Steven's song, Morning Has Broken, and for some reason it just lifted me up and made me happy. Not so sure why, it just did and frankly I didn't care because it was a relief to not feel like crap.

Music can be like that, a friend to help you process, to pep you up or to commiserate in misery with you. After the Big Bad I had Husband listen to the song Fight Test. That song was really helpful to him when he was feeling down, it spoke about what could have happened and reinforced his feeling of strength and masculinity as a protector of our family.

I had my own songs during this time. We actually created Albums to accompany us through the various stages of our journey. Soulkissing was the first album, then Coming Through the Woods, after that came Outside the Blastzone and now we're ready to move into a new album, I'm not certain what it will be called though.

One of my favorite songs from Soulkissing, which was essentially a mix of sappy love songs, is Sugar High. Great song!

So I recommend anyone going through this sort of experience to create your soundtrack, use it to help you through the hard times. Pick things that speak to you about your feelings and give you a sense of hope. It will help.

And now for...

SUGAR HIGH. Get ready to dance!