Help! My Husband Had an Affair!

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Jul 5, 2021 | Articles

There is not much that is more painful than the betrayal of a spouse. When the one who is supposed to love, protect and cherish you becomes the one who harms you, it stings. A lot.

But if you are the 1 couple out of every 4 that has been affected by adultery, there are some very specific steps that need to happen for restoration. Forgiveness will, of course, have its place on this journey, not necessarily for them, but for you. Whether your marriage finds restoration and healing or not, you don’t want to be stuck dragging this pain around with you. However…

Forgiveness is not today’s topic, and here’s why; as Christian Counselors, many women we see or hear from struggle a lot with the desire to be a godly wife, aka, a wife that forgives. They often seek forgiveness as a means of obeying God, relieving pain and moving forward. Immediate forgiveness is not healthy to do because it skips a lot of steps.

The truth is forgiveness is different than restoration. Forgiveness doesn’t always equal healing, especially in the case of adultery. Even if the betraying spouse apologizes, it won’t mean anything without changed behavior. It is the change in behaviors that rebuilds the trust that has been shattered—and without trust, it is impossible to have a healthy, godly marriage.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m assuming that you’re reading this because your husband has strayed and you indeed don’t know where to turn or what to do. My goal as a marriage therapist is two fold—to breathe hope and life into every marriage and to protect victims of abuse, repeated or unrepentant adultery.
In order to move forward into restoration there are very specific things that need to take place. Here they are:

Necessary Steps for Affair Recovery

Remorse- Your husband must have a repentant heart and a willingness to cut off all ties with the adulteress. What this means is if the affair happened at his office—he changes jobs. If it happened online—he gets off social media. A clear, hard and fast ending and self-removal needs to happen for trust to be initiated. He has to be willing to flee from all sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:18).

Open book life- His privacy is now put on hold until further notice. He has positioned himself to have to prove his faithfulness. He may not like this, but he only has himself to blame. God warns us clearly in Proverbs 6:32, “He who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself.”
What this means is you can have access to his phone, you get to check in with him when he runs late, you get to see his computer, and you get to question everything. This is not for the long term, but it is for the time being until healing comes and trust gets rebuilt more.

You get to lead- You get to be the one in charge now, in charge of your sexual relationship, whether you want to hear him say I love you or not, and how much information and details you want or don’t want. You also deserve the freedom to share with whoever you’d like. Your comfort zone is in the driver’s seat.

Consistent work and effort – You will need to see active and tangible changes in his life. Professional counseling for both of you, an accountability partner or a mentor for him, and his humility to ascribe to all of the above. You will never move forward until you suspect that he is understanding the pain he has caused. You need to see that he gets it. Forgiveness alone does not provide this. You will begin to see this through his actions.

While this is not an exhaustive list, it’s a great place to start, and it’s important for you to see these things as deal breakers. They are all needed to rebuild trust. You’re not trying to get back to where you were, that has been blown up. You’re creating something entirely new. If he is not on board, it will never work. It is not your job to fully heal your marriage or pick up his slack.

You deserve this. Don’t settle for anything less.

His adultery doesn’t define you.

God does and you do.

Be willing to fight for what you deserve.

If you want to learn more on this topic, check out episode 35 on The Expedition Marriage podcast, Help! My Husband had an Affair!

Also check out this invaluable resource, Online Affair Recovery course and use code EXPEDITION to get 10% off.

Feel free to contact us for help or to pray for your marriage!

xoxo,

Chris & Jamie

How to Get Your Husband to Talk to You

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Jun 28, 2021 | Articles

One of the top complaints we hear as marriage counselors is,

“My husband won’t talk to me!”

This can be very frustrating for a wife who’s trying to connect with her husband. Good communication is foundational to a healthy marriage, and while husbands tend not to have as much to say as wives do, this by no means lets them off the hook.

If you’re looking to have more chats with your hubby, learn how he feels, and what he thinks about his day, his life and your marriage, then we’ve got some tips for you.

How to Get your Husband to Talk to You

For starters, check your beliefs. Your mind has something that is known as a negative bias, not just your mind, all of our minds have it too. What that means is that if there are ever any empty holes or spaces where we don’t have answers or understand why, we have a tendency to fill them with something negative. For instance, if your husband won’t talk with you, it must mean they don’t care or you don’t matter to them, right? Actually, WRONG.

Your husband not talking much might have absolutely nothing to do with you. There are actually many reasons why men don’t share. You can check out our Why Men Don’t Share How They Feel, article here.

Long story short, give your hubby the benefit of the doubt about why he doesn’t share or talk as much with you. The reason might not be anything negative at all. Doing this will help you lean in with understanding more than with frustration.

You also want to focus on creating a safe space for them to share. When you let go of the frustrations this gets a lot easier. In our home many years ago while trying to get my own husband to share, it would often look like this:

I try to talk to him and ask questions.
He barely shares.
I repeat myself and ask more questions.
He once again barely shares.
I get frustrated and then we fight.

And round and round we go, and I’m left wondering why he never talks to me. Perhaps it was because every time he did, we would get into a fight. Honestly, I’d probably avoid that too!

You also want to try to understand that your husband is way more sensitive than he may lead on. He likely does care about communicating well, but is perhaps insecure with what to say, fearful of a fight, doesn’t want to be wrong, or just doesn’t know how to communicate well. We can often influence this avoidant behavior in them when we have big reactions of frustration…just like I used to.

So, when you want him to talk with you, make it a judgment free zone and a place where he has the space to pause and think about his answers and where he has the ability to have a simple answer without it not being so deep. When he shares, even in small ways, accept it and appreciate it. The smoother it goes, the more you will get from him in the future.

Finally, to get to lengthier conversations, here are two simple things you can do:

Ask open ended questions and talk about things that interest him. Keep in mind, this is not a landing place, this is a launching place. Ideally, you will get to a place where you can talk about all things—hard things, your things, your marriage and dare I say…feelings. The reality is, if you’re married to a man who struggles with communication, these are some communication training wheels that will help encourage him.
Instead of, “Did you have a good day?”, trying saying, “What was good that happened at work today?” or instead of, “Do you want to do something this weekend?”, try, “What would you like to do this weekend?” If you really want to get the words flowing, try asking him his opinion on fixing a problem. Men are wired so well for fixing problems and things like this will be right up his alley.

Whether you’re encouraged or struggling with these things, we’d love to invite you to take this a little deeper and go read Why Men Don’t Share How They Feel, and then be sure to check out episode 33 of the Expedition Marriage Podcast on What Wives Need to Know about Husbands and Failure.

Until next time,

Enjoy the Journey of Marriage

How To Recognize An Emotional Affair

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Jun 7, 2021 | Articles

There aren’t many people who wake up one day and think, “Today’s the day I’m going to start an affair.” In fact, there’s usually a whole lot of deception when it comes to affairs—and not just the deception of the victim of the affair, but also a lot of self-deceptions for the one in it.

Harmless—It’s all harmless, says the Enemy of your soul.

Affairs have to have subtle beginnings, or we’d see them coming from a mile away. Isn’t that how the Enemy works in most things? He causes and creates doubt, deception and a whole lot of smoke and mirrors that breed confusion and don’t allow us to see things for what they really are.

When it comes to affairs, especially emotional ones, they often have a path they go on that looks like this:

Stages of an Emotional Affair

Seemingly harmless—it’s no big deal. So what if I have a friend of the opposite sex? They’re a nice person, a co-worker, an old pal from high school that I’ve known for years—it’s just no big deal to chat online, to go out to lunch on business, or to start a texting conversation with them. This is the starting place, and while it may seem harmless, relationships with the opposite sex are often launching pads into relationships you never thought you’d be in.

Next up is the Butterfly Stage. This is when the excitement starts to build. Pleasure begins to be found in the presence of someone other than a spouse. It still feels harmless and no action has been taken, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is that attachment is starting to happen. Those small little feelings of excitement are meant to be found only from one person, a spouse.

And so it begins—Temptation. What happens next is the temptation to spend more and more time together gets elevated. The text messages, the online chats, the lunch dates start to increase, and this person is starting to become a “go to” person. The temptation to place them above a spouse is now much harder to say no to.

When all of the above have taken place, the final stage is becoming All in. The affair has begun. Conversations are no longer innocent, they include a lot more playfulness, sexual innuendos, and flirting. At this stage there is no doubt attraction has happened. A spouse at home becomes a little more annoying, the personal mind chatter becomes filled with justification talk, and emotional disconnection happens at home while it increases outside of the home with this seemingly once harmless person.

And to make matters worse, what’s now been created is a launching pad for a physical affair. The slippery slope has been slid down. Destruction is happening and the Enemy is laughing and taking great pride in what he has initiated.

No one wakes up one day and sets out to put this plan into action. No one is immune to emotional or physical affairs either, this is exactly why we must stay on guard.

If you want to avoid ever falling prey to an emotional affair, God has given us some great guidelines to follow…

Ephesians 4:27 “And give no opportunity to the devil.” Don’t have friends of the opposite sex.

Mark 14:38 “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Stay on guard and be prayerful. Keep walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh.

Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” Stand up against the Enemy, call his schemes out. He is seeking to steal, kill and destroy, don’t sit back and take that lightly. Protect the marriage that God put together.

Emotional affairs will destroy character, joy and families. They’re never worth it. Always remember that (Make a quote image) sin will take you farther than you ever thought you’d go, and it will always promise you more than it can ever deliver.

It’s just not worth it.

Why Men Don’t Share How They Feel

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Jun 2, 2021 | Articles

It’s been said that women have an average of 20,000 words a day, while men only have around 7,000. Who knows if this is actually true or not, or if it’s just common in a lot of self-help books nowadays? However, I think it’s generally safe to assume that women actually do tend to talk more than men.

I’ve got a couple of guesses on why that is—

1. Women tend to think out loud and process, while men tend to keep stuff in their heads and process on their own.

and

Women feel more feelings. They don’t necessarily have more feelings, but they tend to be better at actually allowing themselves to feel them. Feelings create thoughts and thoughts create words and discussions; therefore women tend to talk more.

Now, if you’re married to a quieter man, you might find his quietness frustrating. Perhaps you’re married to the man who never shares how he feels but always seems to be mad—also frustrating. Well, there might be some reasons for his quietness that you don’t realize.

Common reasons why your husband may not share how he feels.

Your man may not be sharing how he feels simply because, are you ready for this?

He doesn’t know!

Yep, you read that right. Many men aren’t well versed with feelings and therefore struggle to identify them. Men can live in a world of fine, good and mad. It’s incredibly possible that your husband was raised under the teaching of men don’t cry, they don’t feel, they just suck it up and deal with life. Their lack of feelings is a result of that kind of wrong teaching. But the truth is, God made emotions for a reason, and we’re all designed to have them. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything tougher than a man who is willing to shed a tear of pain, sorrow or compassion, in fact, ask any man what’s harder, sucking it up, or crying it out? They’ll choose crying every time.

If you think this might be your guy’s struggle, try checking out our free downloadable conversation exercise, How do you Really Feel? It includes all the feeling words and great discussion questions for good chats.

He also may not be sharing because he’s overly concerned about upsetting you. Believe it or not, men don’t like to say the wrong thing. They don’t like to bother you with their feelings or have something they’re stressed out about create stress in your life, so as a result—they withhold. They become passive and struggle to share how they feel because they’re too worried about the outcome. We actually did a podcast on this very thing. You can check it out on Episode 26 on the Expedition Marriage Podcast, Growth for the Passive Husband.

If you’re married to the angry husband who only seems to feel mad, this might actually be the cause. Behind every passive man is some passive aggression.

Lastly, let’s be sure to not overthink issues with your not so talkative man, because truth be told, he might not share how he feels because of his personality. Maybe he’s introverted, naturally a man of few words, or he is just content with life. In other words, he’s not opposed to sharing, but he just doesn’t have a need for much of it.

In this case, it’s important that he knows that you do. Let him know you have a need to for understanding him and would truly appreciate his sharing more with you. This is also a great way to use the free download, How do you Really Feel?

Overall, the best way you can start to hear from your husband on how he feels is to enter into your conversations with a heart of seeking to understand him. Validate his feelings when he does share, ask open ended questions and create a safe place for him to share anything with you.

Do you want more encouragement? Check us out over on Instagram and follow along as we help you…Enjoy the Journey of Marriage

What Wives Really Want

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | May 30, 2021 | Articles

As a newlywed wife, almost 27 years ago, I was coming in hot with all the needs I had. I thought what I wanted was socks off the floor, help with the dishes, and a husband who would, on his own, put the kids in the tub and get them ready for bed. And while those things are appealing, deep down, they’re not really what wives want. In fact, what I found myself wanting was so much more than that, but by more, I don’t mean an overwhelmingly long check list, I mean deeper, richer, more life-giving things.

I wanted to be SEEN, HEARD, and CHERISHED.

You see, those socks on the floor being picked up weren’t about a clean and tidy home, they were about a husband who saw how hard I worked whether at home or outside of the home.

They were about having a husband who wanted to help me.

The little things we often complain about as wives are often symptoms of an unmet need or desire we have. Now, it’s not up to our husbands to meet all of our needs and become the great savior in our lives, BUT, marriage is about love and sacrifice and that is something we should be doing for one another.

A marriage where both spouses are seen and heard is a good marriage. So, how about as wives, we help our husbands out and let them in on the things our hearts truly long for?

What Wives Really Want…

To be listened to— Yep! A put your phone down, look at our face, set aside all distractions, kind of listening. While men love that shoulder to shoulder life, wives need that face to face interaction. They desire to be engaged in conversation, have space created for emotions to be shared and burdens to be poured out, and also for joy to be celebrated together.

To be taken on a date—this is actually so much simpler than husbands realize. Invite us for a walk, to take a drive, to get a simple ice cream cone, just us. Sure, the romance, the reservations and weekend getaways are wonderful, but they’re not always necessary. Most of us don’t even care how much a date costs because we care more that you’re thinking about us enough to plan one.

To be cherished—wives love to feel special. We’d love our favorite Starbucks drink to be dropped off, to be noticed after a hard day and invited into a hot drawn bath just for us. The little things really go a long way in making a woman feel special.

It’s when we have these needs met that all the concerns for socks on the floor and cupboards left open, fade gently into the background. These are the things that create deeper connections with one another. These are the needs that deepen our marriages and draw us closer together.

At the end of the day, wives aren’t as complicated as one might think. We’re just all looking to be seen, heard and cherished.

If you want more on this topic. Be sure to check out the Expedition Marriage podcast Episode 31, What Wives Really Want.

As always, we’re here to help you ENJOY THE JOURNEY!

xoxo, Chris & Jamie