February 26, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode, I answer a listener’s question about how to forgive oneself after cheating in a relationship. This listener is struggling with feelings of loneliness, sadness, and fear, and they feel as though they have to carry this burden and heavy shame by themselves. We discuss why it’s important to be supported throughout the healing journey, the importance of beginning to communicate with partners, and self-compassion. We also dive into discussing inner child work and how the inner child and looking at childhood wounding can help us understand infidelity and relationship patterns better.
Check out the New View Advice Infidelity Hub - newviewadvice.com/infidelityhub
Timestamps
- Introduction: 0:05
- Listener Question: 2:50
- Outro: 27:56
For episode show notes, please visit: https://www.newviewadvice.com/123
For more free resources and to learn more about New View Advice, visit: https://www.newviewadvice.com/
Want to have a question answered? You can submit your question here: https://www.newviewadvice.com/ask-a-question
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to new view advice with Amanda Durocher.
Hi, beautiful soul. Welcome to new view advice. My name is Amanda Durocher. And if
you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for
the healing journey. I don't believe I have all the answers you seek. I believe
you have all the answers. You just may need a new view and a little
help along the way. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. Today, I'm
(00:21):
answering a listener question from someone who is struggling to forgive
themselves after cheating and is struggling in their marriage since their
affair. In this question, we discuss a relationship where someone
has cheated on their husband and they have chosen to move forward and to
remain married and together in their relationship. But this listener still finds themselves
feeling sad, lonely, afraid. They feel like a lost
(00:43):
and broken soul. So today, we are going to talk about some steps that
we can take to move towards forgiveness, but also how to move
forward. Because after infidelity, so often,
if both people are willing to work on the relationship, the relationship can
a % be repaired. But it's so important for both people to
commit to moving forward in the relationship and to learn to
(01:05):
communicate and to do some inner work. Because this
question definitely, to me, points to having to
do some inner work. I think when it comes to infidelity,
it can feel so isolating, especially for the person who cheated because society
is so quick to judge people who cheat. I also wanna give this little
disclaimer upfront because people can get really mad at me when I talk about this
(01:27):
topic. And sometimes people are cheated on by somebody who's
really narcissistic, unapologetic, and has no feelings.
Okay? That is real. But people in this podcast who are writing into this
podcast have many feelings and are very sorry for what they did,
and they wanna understand why they did it. So today's goal is really
to break down this question and start to
(01:50):
ask some questions because I can't tell you why this happened or why you feel
the way you do. But it is my goal to help everybody who maybe can
relate to this question to begin to ask themselves the questions
and to begin getting honest with themselves about what is really going
on underneath the surface. Because I believe that infidelity is so
often a symptom to deeper rooted issues. And so today, we're gonna
(02:12):
dive into maybe what some of those deeper rooted issues can be, how we can
forgive ourselves, and also offering compassion to this
listener. So before we jump in, I just wanna mention that on my website at
newviewadvice.com/infidelityhub, you'll find more
resources for healing from infidelity. On my website, you'll find more
podcast episodes, journal prompts, and book recommendations because I believe that if
(02:33):
one of your goals is repairing your relationship, reading couples books, you and your partner
can be really helpful as well. So that is all on my website at
newvideoadvice.com/infidelityhub. So with that, let's jump on into
today's listener question.
Hi, Amanda. I had an affair around the time of the death of my mom,
(02:54):
about a year into my marriage. I had two babies, and my husband is not
the most affectionate person. I did a lot of alone crying and made a lot
of mistakes by drowning myself in alcohol and neglecting everything after my
mom passed. I found someone who helped pick up the pieces, who made me feel
loved and cared for and special, who gave me the intention I had searched
for. But my affair lasted about a year on and off, scared to break it
(03:15):
off because I was afraid of him telling my husband. Finally, I did. I've since
told my husband a couple of years ago, but last year, I fell back into
it. I had another affair. I was very intoxicated and don't quite
recall it all, but later continued the conversations, though I never saw him
again. My heart fell head over heels for this person because once again, I
felt seen, I felt heard, and I felt loved. That has since ended as well.
(03:36):
I confessed to my husband, we have made it a year since then, but things
with my husband once again are just roommate lifestyle, and I find myself
depressed. I never want to make those mistakes again. I've stopped drinking.
I stay home and with a small group of ladies if I do anything, but
I just feel sad, lonely, and afraid. My husband always thinks I'm angry.
I don't feel I am, but him constantly voicing that hurts. We still do not
(03:58):
have a deep connection together, just a routine marriage. I want it to work, but
I have no clue what to do. I grew up in a house where my
parents loved us. My dad drank a lot and acted like a crazy person, but
I can't ever recall not feeling loved. There was a lot of trauma there with
fighting and my dad abusing my mom, but never us. Anyways, I struggle a lot
with accepting forgiveness from God for what I did. I cry
(04:18):
thinking that my place in hell is sealed. I'm a lost soul, a broken
soul, and I don't feel I have any trusted friends to share with completely.
I carry this alone. Thank you so much for this question.
And before I dive into kind of pulling some pieces
of this and trying to help you to move forward, I want to
thank you for writing in this question because I am grateful
(04:41):
that you have reached out for help. Because with your
question, I think that is the first step for you, is that beyond
this question and beyond my answer here, I believe you need help.
And I believe you need more people who you can rely on in your
life. And that just might be beginning to open up to your
husband and the friends you already have and your family. It doesn't mean
(05:03):
those people aren't there, but you do not deserve to carry
this burden by yourself. And I am so sorry that you have felt
that you have to carry this all alone. I don't know why you feel like
you have to carry it alone. My guess is shame, that you feel ashamed of
what you did, and you're afraid of being judged and shamed by others, maybe shunned
by others. Maybe your fear is that you will be left alone
(05:25):
and abandoned if you share this. But the truth is you
already feel alone. So I want to
invite you to invite somebody into this. And if it can't be
somebody in your present day life, I wanna put it at the top of this
episode that I really invite you to look into therapy, to look into
relationship therapy, maybe to look into relationship coaching.
(05:46):
I'm starting a podcast with a woman named Kelby Kanut, and she
does relationship coaching. I'm gonna link her in the show notes for this episode because
I believe that you are looking to move forward.
That's what it sounds like, and you're stuck. And I am so
sorry to hear that you feel so lost and broken because nobody deserves to
feel lost and broken. I have felt lost and broken so
(06:08):
many times throughout my life. I don't know how much anybody has
listened to this podcast before, but I am a trauma survivor. I'm a rape
survivor. I'm a near death experience survivor. I am a childhood trauma
survivor. So I'd mentioned that because I understand
what it feels like to be lost and broken. And it breaks my heart
that you feel that way. It breaks my heart that anybody feels that way. I
(06:30):
joke that empathy will be my fatal flaw or it'll be my reckoning.
I don't know. But I share my
experience with being lost and broken with you because I know that you will not
be here forever. You will not always feel the way you are feeling
now, but it is going to require some work to
move forward. And it sounds like you've had two affairs now,
(06:53):
and I sounds like you likely didn't do much work on your
relationship or yourself after the first affair, but it sounds like this second
affair has really triggered in you wanting change in your life. And I
think that rock bottom can feel so freaking hard,
but, also, it can be a gift for us to get to the point
where we cannot continue to live in our suffering anymore.
(07:15):
Because, yes, you've made mistakes, but you don't deserve
to punish yourself for said mistakes for the rest of your life. I
believe every mistake we make is forgivable, and I also believe
that oftentimes the person who needs to forgive us most is ourselves.
Because it sounds like you and your husband have chosen to move forward
together. He knows what you've done. He still is choosing to be in the relationship
(07:38):
as well. But it sounds to me like you are struggling to forgive you. You
mentioned here that you're struggling to accept forgiveness from God, and you
cry thinking of your place in hell. To me, that sounds like
another way you are punishing yourself. You are continually
telling yourself that not even just right now are you being punished, but
you will continue to be punished for the end of time. And I do not
(08:00):
believe that is the case at all. Your place in hell
is not sealed. I truly don't even think there is a hell. I think planet
Earth feels like hell to me at times, but we're not gonna go there today.
But you, I believe, are struggling with accepting forgiveness from
God because you're struggling to forgive yourself. And I
want to break down a few things I noticed in this
(08:23):
question that may help you to begin to forgive yourself
or at least may help you to have more awareness because you
have a lot of awareness here, I wanna mention, throughout your question. And I
think that it's just time for you to take another step
into the awareness, which is likely going to require you to
feel some feelings and to be a bit more honest with yourself.
(08:46):
So first, let's start with some inner work, and then I wanna talk a bit
about your relationship. So if you were to begin to dive into inner
work around why did you have these affairs and why are you having trouble
forgiving yourself, I would start, if I were you, with
looking at your childhood that you mentioned. Do you mention that you grew up
in a house where your parents loved you, but your father drank a lot, acted
(09:08):
like crazy person? But you don't feel like you weren't loved, but there was a
lot of trauma. I don't wanna challenge if you felt loved,
but I do wanna challenge that it sounds like there were things missing in your
childhood. You mentioned that you had these two affairs
because you felt seen, you felt heard, and you were
given attention that you had been searching for. If your father
(09:30):
drank a lot and acted like a crazy person and was abusing
your mother, my guess is you didn't always feel seen and heard as
a child. That there were many moments in your childhood when you needed to
be seen and heard and you weren't. My guess is if you were
witnessing those events as a child, you felt fear.
You felt afraid. And, yes, you said the abuse didn't come towards
(09:53):
you, but you witnessed your mother in situations that you
could not help and you could not change. And you witnessed the side
of your father that was very scary, it sounds like. And I believe
that children deserve to be protected and safe. This
doesn't sound like you grew up in a protective and a safe environment.
And I mentioned that because though you may have felt
(10:15):
loved at all times, it sounds like there might have been other things
that were lacking. If you're having trouble on the word love, maybe look
at times you didn't feel seen, heard,
protected, or safe. And I believe all those things lead to us
feeling loved, by the way. And I also wanna offer here that it's
okay if you didn't feel loved every moment of your childhood. It doesn't mean
(10:37):
you have to hate your parents. It doesn't mean you even have to blame your
parents. We don't do inner child work to shift the blame from
us to them. We do inner child work because these wounds
that we develop in childhood live within us. These inner children,
these different ages, these different moments of time live within our
bodies. It is moments that get stuck because that fear
(10:59):
gets stuck, and we deserve to free ourselves
of that. We deserved in that moment that gets stuck
to have been protected or to have felt safe or to feel loved or
to have felt seen and heard. We deserved that then, and we didn't
get it in the moment when we were a child, but we can give it
to ourselves now. What a beautiful gift we can give ourselves.
(11:22):
That to me is the act of self compassion, self love, and self
healing, is being the parent for ourself now that we
didn't have then. And, again, a lot of people can struggle with
this because they get stuck around the thought of not wanting to judge their
parents. You don't have to judge your parent in order to
offer yourself empathy for that what you went through, you
(11:43):
wouldn't want another child to go through. Because your parents
were likely doing the best they could. That's just the reality of life.
Our parents are doing the best they can. It doesn't mean they're
perfect. But as children, we put them on a godlike pedestal
because we need to be safe. We need to be protected. This person is in
charge of giving us really everything, at the end of the day protecting
(12:06):
us and leaving us feeling safe. And so a lot of times as
children, we can't look at the pain that our parents cause
us. And that's why it comes up again later to be looked at.
And oftentimes, relationships is a big trigger for that. And I'm gonna
plug my future podcast that's coming out in a few weeks, Love Under the
Scope. We are really diving into that on that podcast about
(12:28):
how relationships trigger our inner child. And I just think it's
so important because I think so many people can get stuck in relationship
patterns because they don't understand the connection between these
childhood wounds and how we play them out today. But that's the reality
of many of these things that happen in our relationships.
And so with your question, I wanted to offer that perspective.
(12:50):
And maybe it doesn't resonate for you, but maybe there's somebody else out there who's
like, dang. You're right. I didn't feel seen by my parents, and I can see
that playing out in my life now. I'm not sure, but I do
believe so many times when we don't know or we feel stuck, it
goes farther back than we realize, the wounding. So that is
where I would begin with the inner work. And, again, you don't have to do
(13:11):
that by yourself. I invite you to try therapy or to
find somebody who can help you to begin to do that inner child
work. You don't have to do it alone. As I mentioned,
Helby, who I'm doing a podcast with, helps people with that. I'm also
in two weeks from this episode. So depending on when you listen to it, you
may be able to hear it. I have an episode coming out about EMDR, where
(13:32):
EMDR can help you do this as well, and you can do EMDR with therapist.
And I have a therapist who explains all about EMDR and the wonderful
benefits of doing EMDR. So there are steps that you can
take. You just may have to go through one of your first
hurdles, the person who wrote this question, which is opening up to other people
because you feel like you have to carry this alone, and I promise you, you
(13:53):
don't. And I promise you that if somebody shames
you for this, that does not make them right and you wrong. So
many times we don't open up because being shamed and blamed by somebody
can be more painful than the trauma itself in different situations.
And that's why for you, I invite you to maybe bring in a professional
because I don't know the people in your life, and I don't know how safe
(14:14):
they are. But that leads me to I do think that you need to bring
your husband into this conversation. It does sound like you guys
are in some patterns of not communicating, And it sounds
like he thinks you're angry, and you don't feel like you're
angry. But my guess is maybe you're feeling something else he's catching, and
you guys don't know how to communicate about your emotions. You don't know how to
(14:36):
communicate about the shame you're feeling. He may have some shame as well.
And I think it's time. If you really wanna make this relationship work, which I
think you can, but I think it's going to take both of you committing to
starting from scratch. So in the past, I'll link it in the show notes, I
did a podcast episode with Andrea Giles who is a healing
from infidelity coach. So I'll also link her website as well because maybe
(14:59):
she is somebody who somebody out there would be interested in working with who feels
alone in this because you don't have to feel alone. I really, really want
you to understand that, and I understand why we carry
these. I
believe
(15:21):
that
the
shame and the blame keeps us from seeking the help we need. Though I know
I may sound like a broken record at this point, but I really, really do
believe that there is hope for you. You will not feel
this way forever, and there are compassionate people out
(15:42):
there who can help you through this. So in your relationship,
maybe couples therapy would be a good starting point. Maybe one of those books on
my website I mentioned in the intro could be helpful. But I do think you
have to start speaking to your husband about how you're feeling. If you
don't wanna feel like a roommate with your husband,
which I think many relationships can go through rough patches.
(16:03):
I think it's part of being in a long term relationship. But I think that
your relationship I talked about this before, and I'm pretty sure Andrea Giles mentioned it
in the episode I'm going to link that when infidelity happens,
it's like a a house is on Rakke foundation and the house collapses.
And in order to rebuild a relationship, you're rebuilding a new house in
this metaphor. So you're rebuilding your relationship from scratch.
(16:26):
And I think it sounds like you and your husband with these two affairs have
tried to just kinda skirt over them and put them under the rug, but it
sounds like the piles under the rug is getting too big. I actually
talked about it in my first episode of newbie advice that it's important to do
the inner work because it's like when we don't do the work and we don't
look at why we feel the way we feel and we don't look at our
emotions and we don't look at our trauma, it's like we're shoving a bunch of
(16:48):
cookies under the rug. I call it cookies. Other people say it's like shit under
the rug. But I like cookies because I like a sweeter example. But it's like
shoving a bunch of cookies under a rug and then there's this mound. And you
can try to put plants around the mound. You can try to put decorations. You
can try to shove the mound behind a dresser, but it's still there.
And I think it sounds like the mound in your relationship has
gotten so big, it is the centerpiece of your relationship. And there
(17:11):
are so many things that you and your husband need to begin
communicating about, and that's okay. That's okay.
We all have to start somewhere. It can be so intimidating to start
from the beginning and to start from scratch. I I was just talking to somebody
about that yesterday with the example of exercise, about how when we first
start going to the gym, it's so intimidating, and we don't get the results
(17:33):
we want right away. But over time, we begin to get
stronger, and we begin to see our strength. And then a year in,
we're like, oh my god. Look at my growth. But we live in a society
that wants everything to change instantaneously. The
truth is most things in life aren't instantaneous. And honestly, I believe nothing worth
having is instantaneous. The best things in life, we have to work
(17:55):
for. And I think we forget that, and we
can get intimidated by that. But I believe your relationship
can work. It will just take you both committing to it, which is going
to take you having a conversation with your husband first.
From what I've read, you're gonna have to be the one to go to him
and open the door. Or with the cookies under the rug
(18:17):
example, you're gonna have to be the one to lift the rug and begin showing
your husband the cookies that you guys have been shoving under the rug. And, again,
it's so human to try and avoid pain.
It sounds like you and your husband have both hurt each other throughout your relationship.
You have felt unseen and a lack of affection,
and he has likely been hurt by your affairs that you sought love somewhere
(18:39):
else. And in order to move forward, it's going to take
communication and patience with one another and learning to
communicate about your feelings. Because what I'm hearing with your question with the two affairs
you had, what you were really seeking was emotional intimacy,
not sex. Sex might have been a fun part of it, but it
sounds from you with what you said, the feeling loved, the feeling cared for,
(19:01):
the feeling special, the feeling seen, the feeling heard, and, again, the feeling
loved. What you were looking for was emotional intimacy.
And, again, I invite you to really be with
that inner child and ask if it's true that you felt as
loved as you're telling yourself throughout your childhood. Because, again,
it doesn't mean your parents didn't love you. And maybe
(19:23):
loved isn't the word, but maybe you knew you were loved. But
maybe you didn't feel you were loved. Another book I wanna recommend here is called
Running on Empty, and it's about emotional neglect. And everybody I
recommend this book to is like, that doesn't apply to me. But emotional neglect
is what was missing in our childhood that we couldn't see. So so often,
we don't actually know we were emotionally neglected until reading a book like this, and
(19:45):
we go, oh, that's what I was missing. Yes.
And I think growing up with someone who drinks a lot and acts like a
crazy person, there was probably some emotional neglect going on.
And, again, you can have that information and know
it to be true and still not judge your parents for it.
It's very hard because the mind wants to then throw blame
(20:08):
or it doesn't wanna judge because it can see so many other things, especially
from an adult mind. We can see our parents so much clearer than when we
were children. Like, we can see, oh my gosh. Like, you were that age when
you had me? Oh my god. You know? I think about that all the time.
I don't have any children. And my parents had two kids at my age, and
I'm like, oh my gosh. That's crazy. I can
see why some things played out the way they did. I can see it
(20:31):
differently. But I share that because it's okay to open
the childhood wounding, and it's okay to burst the bubble that your parents
weren't perfect because I'll burst it for you now. I don't know anybody who's perfect.
So I don't know how anybody's parents could be perfect because nobody is
perfect. No human is perfect. The human journey is beautiful and
incredibly messy. It's a journey about growth. I believe we're all here
(20:53):
to play out the hero's journey. And what that is, it's like the arc of
a movie. It's like we come here one way, and throughout our life, we get
to evolve and change. And we get to have these heroic
moments, and we get to have these antagonistic moments, but we get to be the
main character of our life. And every main character in every movie
goes through obstacles and makes mistakes
(21:15):
and needs to make amends. It's human. So I
hope that throughout this question, if you've taken
anything, it would at least be to take some of that
shame and that blame off your shoulders. Because carrying shame and
blame, in my experience, feels like carrying the heaviest
boulder in the whole world. Like being that Greek myth
(21:36):
figure, Atlas, and the myth is that he has to carry the world
on his shoulders. I don't remember the whole story, but I know it from
Percy Jackson, if anybody reads those novels. But Atlas
carries the world on his shoulders. Oh my god. What a
burden. Nobody's meant to carry the whole world.
You are not meant to carry everything you're carrying. And my guess is you are
(21:57):
carrying a lot more than even this one instance, which is why you feel so
broken and so lost. And so for you, as I mentioned, I think finding
somebody to help you through this is gonna be really helpful. So, again, therapist, a
coach, a relationship therapist, maybe you and your husband can start going
to therapy once a week together. Because another thing I wanna mention
here is for both affairs, I'm wondering if there was
(22:19):
an emotional trigger that got you to the point of having
an affair. So it sounds like with the first affair, it happened around the
death of your mother, which sounds like a very stressful time, which
caused you to go to a coping strategy. You found
somebody to take care of you. I'm guessing at that time, you did not
have the tools or the skills to take care of yourself. Can you
(22:42):
forgive yourself for that? Can you forgive yourself that at that point in time, you
likely did not know better? It's hard for us to understand
that, but the truth is you were likely doing the best you could at that
time. You know, I'll give you an example from my life. I used to
drink a lot. I'm also sober. It sounds like you've stopped drinking, and I commend
you for that because I think that that's going to be really helpful for you
(23:03):
on your journey too. I believe the inner work becomes clearer
when we take away the things that we use to numb.
But when I was a heavy drinker, I was really bad to
my partner. I'll be honest. I used to drink so much. He'd have to carry
me home from bars. He'd have to take care of me. I was reckless. I
was reckless with my own life. I didn't have any regard for my life, and
(23:26):
it was a burden on other people. And I lived with immense shame
because I blacked out all the effing time. And I
would drink till blackout, and somebody would have to freaking carry me home. Somebody
would have to take care of me. And I would wake up the next day
with so much shame because I didn't wanna be that way, but I didn't know
how not to be that way. And people would say just stop drinking, and there
(23:47):
there were many times I did try to stop drinking, but I literally couldn't.
And why couldn't I? It's because I didn't have another coping
strategy to handle the hell I was living in. And that's what I think
happens is that life can feel like hell. It can also feel like heaven.
But for many of us, when we are deep in our suffering, it feels like
we're living in hell. And when I was going through the process of healing
(24:08):
from rape and healing from child rape, I was living in hell,
and the only thing that could make me feel better was a glass of
wine. And that makes me very sad to see now that
I didn't have the tools. I didn't know how not to pick up a drink
when I had PTSD for a very long time, when I was whacked with things
that most people will never even look at and won't even let
(24:30):
me speak about in most rooms. I live with those things. I
lived with those realities, and I share that because many people who listen to this
podcast live with traumas that they have to, like you
said, carry alone. And when we have to carry things alone that we
never should have had to carry alone, it can lead us to doing
things that other people would judge as irresponsible,
(24:53):
hurtful, bad, shameful, blameful, when truly
we're just trying to figure it out. We're just trying to survive. And it
sounds to me like after the death of your mom, that might have been a
place where you were at. That you just needed to
survive. And this affair helps you do that. And,
again, does it make it right? We don't have to make everything right or wrong.
(25:14):
It's just true. And what does that mean, that it was true for
you? The forgiveness comes when you can see, I'm so sorry, self, that
you didn't have another way to cope at the the time. I didn't have the
tools. It's like, say, you have to fix a door, and you have a toolbox,
but all the tools you need to fix the door are missing. How do you
fix the door? You don't. Maybe you then start duct taping it, and you start,
(25:35):
like, throwing it up, and you try to shove it in there. But it's not
actually fixed because you didn't have the tools in the toolbox that
could do the job. It's the same thing that happens in our life when we
don't have the tools yet yet because you will get the
tools. When you don't have the tools, we have to come up with something
in order to feel better. It's a survival mechanism. It's
(25:56):
a trauma response. It's devastating, and it's devastating
and painful to look at, but it's forgivable because it's like, oh,
that wasn't who I truly am. That was a trauma response.
Dang. I am so sorry, self, that it's taken me so long to
see that. And I mentioned that because with the first one, I see that with
the death of your mother, and I'm wondering if, with the second affair, if
(26:18):
there was another trauma response that was triggered. And it might have been a smaller
event, but I'm wondering if maybe something happened in your marriage that day, maybe you
hit a boiling point, like, the lack of communication just built up that you hit
a breaking point. But these are the things that can help us to bring
compassion to ourselves when we can see why we did what we
did, and we can understand that it came from a wounded place.
(26:40):
One more example I'll give is, like, think of a caged animal. Think of,
like, a coyote. When we see coyotes out and about, they don't
approach people. We don't really approach them, but they don't approach us. If you were
to cage a coyote, it likely would begin to snarl
at you, claw at you, maybe try to bite you because it's caged and
it's trying to survive. And that's what it can feel like
(27:03):
when we're living with trauma or when traumatic things happen and we don't know how
to feel like it is we feel like we're caged, and we act from a
caged response. We feel backed into a corner when we don't know what to do.
When things are just getting worse and worse, we're just backing farther and farther into
a corner, and then we can lash out. And my guess is these affairs might
have been from a lashing out type of response where you were like, oh my
(27:25):
god. I just need something to feel better. I cannot feel this way anymore. I
need something. And I share all that because I hope a new view was
brought to your situation today. My prayer is that you're able to
see yourself with a little bit more kindness, a little more forgiveness,
or at least that you see some steps you can take forward. And again
for you, you do not deserve to carry all this alone.
(27:48):
No one deserves to carry anything alone. It's why I do what I do.
I carried so much alone for so long, and that led me
to the darkest places I have ever been, and I don't think it ever
should have been that way. No one deserves to be isolated in their pain, and
that includes you. So I hope something was helpful in this answer. I am
so sorry you are going through such a tough time, but I am sending you
(28:09):
so much love. Thank you for this question.
Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Newbie Advice. As always,
I'm so grateful to have these conversations each week and to continue discussing the
healing journey. If you think this episode could help somebody, I invite you to share
it with a friend. The way that Nuvia advice gets spread the most is by
(28:31):
word-of-mouth, so I'm so grateful for everybody who shares it with a friend, and I
would invite you to continue to do so. Please, please share any of my work
with anyone you know. It's the best form of promotion. It's for
humans to share with more humans. So I really invite you, if you enjoyed this
episode, to share with somebody else. I know that infidelity can be a topic that's
hard to share with other people, but I do invite you to share this episode,
(28:52):
another episode, or even just my website where I have a bunch of free resources
for for the healing journey and a lot of content. I'm really excited. New View
Advice is moving in a new direction. I have four podcasts coming this spring,
and we're gonna have new writers on the site who are gonna share their perspectives
because I don't believe I have the only view. I believe that everybody has a
unique perspective, and I wanna bring a bunch of new views to new view. So
(29:13):
it's a super exciting time for new view advice, and I just ask for help
spreading the word about my work and my content. I am really
grateful for everybody who has continued to listen throughout the years. So thank you. Thank
you. Thank you so much for your support, And thank you again for joining me
for another episode of NuVu Advice. As always, I hope I was able to offer
you NuVu on whatever you may be going through. Send you all my love. See
you next time.
Welcome to new view advice with Amanda Durocher.
Hi, beautiful soul. Welcome to new view advice. My name is Amanda Durocher. And if
you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for
the healing journey. I don't believe I have all the answers you seek. I believe
you have all the answers. You just may need a new view and a little
help along the way. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. Today, I'm
(00:21):
answering a listener question from someone who is struggling to forgive
themselves after cheating and is struggling in their marriage since their
affair. In this question, we discuss a relationship where someone
has cheated on their husband and they have chosen to move forward and to
remain married and together in their relationship. But this listener still finds themselves
feeling sad, lonely, afraid. They feel like a lost
(00:43):
and broken soul. So today, we are going to talk about some steps that
we can take to move towards forgiveness, but also how to move
forward. Because after infidelity, so often,
if both people are willing to work on the relationship, the relationship can
a % be repaired. But it's so important for both people to
commit to moving forward in the relationship and to learn to
(01:05):
communicate and to do some inner work. Because this
question definitely, to me, points to having to
do some inner work. I think when it comes to infidelity,
it can feel so isolating, especially for the person who cheated because society
is so quick to judge people who cheat. I also wanna give this little
disclaimer upfront because people can get really mad at me when I talk about this
(01:27):
topic. And sometimes people are cheated on by somebody who's
really narcissistic, unapologetic, and has no feelings.
Okay? That is real. But people in this podcast who are writing into this
podcast have many feelings and are very sorry for what they did,
and they wanna understand why they did it. So today's goal is really
to break down this question and start to
(01:50):
ask some questions because I can't tell you why this happened or why you feel
the way you do. But it is my goal to help everybody who maybe can
relate to this question to begin to ask themselves the questions
and to begin getting honest with themselves about what is really going
on underneath the surface. Because I believe that infidelity is so
often a symptom to deeper rooted issues. And so today, we're gonna
(02:12):
dive into maybe what some of those deeper rooted issues can be, how we can
forgive ourselves, and also offering compassion to this
listener. So before we jump in, I just wanna mention that on my website at
newviewadvice.com/infidelityhub, you'll find more
resources for healing from infidelity. On my website, you'll find more
podcast episodes, journal prompts, and book recommendations because I believe that if
(02:33):
one of your goals is repairing your relationship, reading couples books, you and your partner
can be really helpful as well. So that is all on my website at
newvideoadvice.com/infidelityhub. So with that, let's jump on into
today's listener question.
Hi, Amanda. I had an affair around the time of the death of my mom,
(02:54):
about a year into my marriage. I had two babies, and my husband is not
the most affectionate person. I did a lot of alone crying and made a lot
of mistakes by drowning myself in alcohol and neglecting everything after my
mom passed. I found someone who helped pick up the pieces, who made me feel
loved and cared for and special, who gave me the intention I had searched
for. But my affair lasted about a year on and off, scared to break it
(03:15):
off because I was afraid of him telling my husband. Finally, I did. I've since
told my husband a couple of years ago, but last year, I fell back into
it. I had another affair. I was very intoxicated and don't quite
recall it all, but later continued the conversations, though I never saw him
again. My heart fell head over heels for this person because once again, I
felt seen, I felt heard, and I felt loved. That has since ended as well.
(03:36):
I confessed to my husband, we have made it a year since then, but things
with my husband once again are just roommate lifestyle, and I find myself
depressed. I never want to make those mistakes again. I've stopped drinking.
I stay home and with a small group of ladies if I do anything, but
I just feel sad, lonely, and afraid. My husband always thinks I'm angry.
I don't feel I am, but him constantly voicing that hurts. We still do not
(03:58):
have a deep connection together, just a routine marriage. I want it to work, but
I have no clue what to do. I grew up in a house where my
parents loved us. My dad drank a lot and acted like a crazy person, but
I can't ever recall not feeling loved. There was a lot of trauma there with
fighting and my dad abusing my mom, but never us. Anyways, I struggle a lot
with accepting forgiveness from God for what I did. I cry
(04:18):
thinking that my place in hell is sealed. I'm a lost soul, a broken
soul, and I don't feel I have any trusted friends to share with completely.
I carry this alone. Thank you so much for this question.
And before I dive into kind of pulling some pieces
of this and trying to help you to move forward, I want to
thank you for writing in this question because I am grateful
(04:41):
that you have reached out for help. Because with your
question, I think that is the first step for you, is that beyond
this question and beyond my answer here, I believe you need help.
And I believe you need more people who you can rely on in your
life. And that just might be beginning to open up to your
husband and the friends you already have and your family. It doesn't mean
(05:03):
those people aren't there, but you do not deserve to carry
this burden by yourself. And I am so sorry that you have felt
that you have to carry this all alone. I don't know why you feel like
you have to carry it alone. My guess is shame, that you feel ashamed of
what you did, and you're afraid of being judged and shamed by others, maybe shunned
by others. Maybe your fear is that you will be left alone
(05:25):
and abandoned if you share this. But the truth is you
already feel alone. So I want to
invite you to invite somebody into this. And if it can't be
somebody in your present day life, I wanna put it at the top of this
episode that I really invite you to look into therapy, to look into
relationship therapy, maybe to look into relationship coaching.
(05:46):
I'm starting a podcast with a woman named Kelby Kanut, and she
does relationship coaching. I'm gonna link her in the show notes for this episode because
I believe that you are looking to move forward.
That's what it sounds like, and you're stuck. And I am so
sorry to hear that you feel so lost and broken because nobody deserves to
feel lost and broken. I have felt lost and broken so
(06:08):
many times throughout my life. I don't know how much anybody has
listened to this podcast before, but I am a trauma survivor. I'm a rape
survivor. I'm a near death experience survivor. I am a childhood trauma
survivor. So I'd mentioned that because I understand
what it feels like to be lost and broken. And it breaks my heart
that you feel that way. It breaks my heart that anybody feels that way. I
(06:30):
joke that empathy will be my fatal flaw or it'll be my reckoning.
I don't know. But I share my
experience with being lost and broken with you because I know that you will not
be here forever. You will not always feel the way you are feeling
now, but it is going to require some work to
move forward. And it sounds like you've had two affairs now,
(06:53):
and I sounds like you likely didn't do much work on your
relationship or yourself after the first affair, but it sounds like this second
affair has really triggered in you wanting change in your life. And I
think that rock bottom can feel so freaking hard,
but, also, it can be a gift for us to get to the point
where we cannot continue to live in our suffering anymore.
(07:15):
Because, yes, you've made mistakes, but you don't deserve
to punish yourself for said mistakes for the rest of your life. I
believe every mistake we make is forgivable, and I also believe
that oftentimes the person who needs to forgive us most is ourselves.
Because it sounds like you and your husband have chosen to move forward
together. He knows what you've done. He still is choosing to be in the relationship
(07:38):
as well. But it sounds to me like you are struggling to forgive you. You
mentioned here that you're struggling to accept forgiveness from God, and you
cry thinking of your place in hell. To me, that sounds like
another way you are punishing yourself. You are continually
telling yourself that not even just right now are you being punished, but
you will continue to be punished for the end of time. And I do not
(08:00):
believe that is the case at all. Your place in hell
is not sealed. I truly don't even think there is a hell. I think planet
Earth feels like hell to me at times, but we're not gonna go there today.
But you, I believe, are struggling with accepting forgiveness from
God because you're struggling to forgive yourself. And I
want to break down a few things I noticed in this
(08:23):
question that may help you to begin to forgive yourself
or at least may help you to have more awareness because you
have a lot of awareness here, I wanna mention, throughout your question. And I
think that it's just time for you to take another step
into the awareness, which is likely going to require you to
feel some feelings and to be a bit more honest with yourself.
(08:46):
So first, let's start with some inner work, and then I wanna talk a bit
about your relationship. So if you were to begin to dive into inner
work around why did you have these affairs and why are you having trouble
forgiving yourself, I would start, if I were you, with
looking at your childhood that you mentioned. Do you mention that you grew up
in a house where your parents loved you, but your father drank a lot, acted
(09:08):
like crazy person? But you don't feel like you weren't loved, but there was a
lot of trauma. I don't wanna challenge if you felt loved,
but I do wanna challenge that it sounds like there were things missing in your
childhood. You mentioned that you had these two affairs
because you felt seen, you felt heard, and you were
given attention that you had been searching for. If your father
(09:30):
drank a lot and acted like a crazy person and was abusing
your mother, my guess is you didn't always feel seen and heard as
a child. That there were many moments in your childhood when you needed to
be seen and heard and you weren't. My guess is if you were
witnessing those events as a child, you felt fear.
You felt afraid. And, yes, you said the abuse didn't come towards
(09:53):
you, but you witnessed your mother in situations that you
could not help and you could not change. And you witnessed the side
of your father that was very scary, it sounds like. And I believe
that children deserve to be protected and safe. This
doesn't sound like you grew up in a protective and a safe environment.
And I mentioned that because though you may have felt
(10:15):
loved at all times, it sounds like there might have been other things
that were lacking. If you're having trouble on the word love, maybe look
at times you didn't feel seen, heard,
protected, or safe. And I believe all those things lead to us
feeling loved, by the way. And I also wanna offer here that it's
okay if you didn't feel loved every moment of your childhood. It doesn't mean
(10:37):
you have to hate your parents. It doesn't mean you even have to blame your
parents. We don't do inner child work to shift the blame from
us to them. We do inner child work because these wounds
that we develop in childhood live within us. These inner children,
these different ages, these different moments of time live within our
bodies. It is moments that get stuck because that fear
(10:59):
gets stuck, and we deserve to free ourselves
of that. We deserved in that moment that gets stuck
to have been protected or to have felt safe or to feel loved or
to have felt seen and heard. We deserved that then, and we didn't
get it in the moment when we were a child, but we can give it
to ourselves now. What a beautiful gift we can give ourselves.
(11:22):
That to me is the act of self compassion, self love, and self
healing, is being the parent for ourself now that we
didn't have then. And, again, a lot of people can struggle with
this because they get stuck around the thought of not wanting to judge their
parents. You don't have to judge your parent in order to
offer yourself empathy for that what you went through, you
(11:43):
wouldn't want another child to go through. Because your parents
were likely doing the best they could. That's just the reality of life.
Our parents are doing the best they can. It doesn't mean they're
perfect. But as children, we put them on a godlike pedestal
because we need to be safe. We need to be protected. This person is in
charge of giving us really everything, at the end of the day protecting
(12:06):
us and leaving us feeling safe. And so a lot of times as
children, we can't look at the pain that our parents cause
us. And that's why it comes up again later to be looked at.
And oftentimes, relationships is a big trigger for that. And I'm gonna
plug my future podcast that's coming out in a few weeks, Love Under the
Scope. We are really diving into that on that podcast about
(12:28):
how relationships trigger our inner child. And I just think it's
so important because I think so many people can get stuck in relationship
patterns because they don't understand the connection between these
childhood wounds and how we play them out today. But that's the reality
of many of these things that happen in our relationships.
And so with your question, I wanted to offer that perspective.
(12:50):
And maybe it doesn't resonate for you, but maybe there's somebody else out there who's
like, dang. You're right. I didn't feel seen by my parents, and I can see
that playing out in my life now. I'm not sure, but I do
believe so many times when we don't know or we feel stuck, it
goes farther back than we realize, the wounding. So that is
where I would begin with the inner work. And, again, you don't have to do
(13:11):
that by yourself. I invite you to try therapy or to
find somebody who can help you to begin to do that inner child
work. You don't have to do it alone. As I mentioned,
Helby, who I'm doing a podcast with, helps people with that. I'm also
in two weeks from this episode. So depending on when you listen to it, you
may be able to hear it. I have an episode coming out about EMDR, where
(13:32):
EMDR can help you do this as well, and you can do EMDR with therapist.
And I have a therapist who explains all about EMDR and the wonderful
benefits of doing EMDR. So there are steps that you can
take. You just may have to go through one of your first
hurdles, the person who wrote this question, which is opening up to other people
because you feel like you have to carry this alone, and I promise you, you
(13:53):
don't. And I promise you that if somebody shames
you for this, that does not make them right and you wrong. So
many times we don't open up because being shamed and blamed by somebody
can be more painful than the trauma itself in different situations.
And that's why for you, I invite you to maybe bring in a professional
because I don't know the people in your life, and I don't know how safe
(14:14):
they are. But that leads me to I do think that you need to bring
your husband into this conversation. It does sound like you guys
are in some patterns of not communicating, And it sounds
like he thinks you're angry, and you don't feel like you're
angry. But my guess is maybe you're feeling something else he's catching, and
you guys don't know how to communicate about your emotions. You don't know how to
(14:36):
communicate about the shame you're feeling. He may have some shame as well.
And I think it's time. If you really wanna make this relationship work, which I
think you can, but I think it's going to take both of you committing to
starting from scratch. So in the past, I'll link it in the show notes, I
did a podcast episode with Andrea Giles who is a healing
from infidelity coach. So I'll also link her website as well because maybe
(14:59):
she is somebody who somebody out there would be interested in working with who feels
alone in this because you don't have to feel alone. I really, really want
you to understand that, and I understand why we carry
these. I
believe
(15:21):
that
the
shame and the blame keeps us from seeking the help we need. Though I know
I may sound like a broken record at this point, but I really, really do
believe that there is hope for you. You will not feel
this way forever, and there are compassionate people out
(15:42):
there who can help you through this. So in your relationship,
maybe couples therapy would be a good starting point. Maybe one of those books on
my website I mentioned in the intro could be helpful. But I do think you
have to start speaking to your husband about how you're feeling. If you
don't wanna feel like a roommate with your husband,
which I think many relationships can go through rough patches.
(16:03):
I think it's part of being in a long term relationship. But I think that
your relationship I talked about this before, and I'm pretty sure Andrea Giles mentioned it
in the episode I'm going to link that when infidelity happens,
it's like a a house is on Rakke foundation and the house collapses.
And in order to rebuild a relationship, you're rebuilding a new house in
this metaphor. So you're rebuilding your relationship from scratch.
(16:26):
And I think it sounds like you and your husband with these two affairs have
tried to just kinda skirt over them and put them under the rug, but it
sounds like the piles under the rug is getting too big. I actually
talked about it in my first episode of newbie advice that it's important to do
the inner work because it's like when we don't do the work and we don't
look at why we feel the way we feel and we don't look at our
emotions and we don't look at our trauma, it's like we're shoving a bunch of
(16:48):
cookies under the rug. I call it cookies. Other people say it's like shit under
the rug. But I like cookies because I like a sweeter example. But it's like
shoving a bunch of cookies under a rug and then there's this mound. And you
can try to put plants around the mound. You can try to put decorations. You
can try to shove the mound behind a dresser, but it's still there.
And I think it sounds like the mound in your relationship has
gotten so big, it is the centerpiece of your relationship. And there
(17:11):
are so many things that you and your husband need to begin
communicating about, and that's okay. That's okay.
We all have to start somewhere. It can be so intimidating to start
from the beginning and to start from scratch. I I was just talking to somebody
about that yesterday with the example of exercise, about how when we first
start going to the gym, it's so intimidating, and we don't get the results
(17:33):
we want right away. But over time, we begin to get
stronger, and we begin to see our strength. And then a year in,
we're like, oh my god. Look at my growth. But we live in a society
that wants everything to change instantaneously. The
truth is most things in life aren't instantaneous. And honestly, I believe nothing worth
having is instantaneous. The best things in life, we have to work
(17:55):
for. And I think we forget that, and we
can get intimidated by that. But I believe your relationship
can work. It will just take you both committing to it, which is going
to take you having a conversation with your husband first.
From what I've read, you're gonna have to be the one to go to him
and open the door. Or with the cookies under the rug
(18:17):
example, you're gonna have to be the one to lift the rug and begin showing
your husband the cookies that you guys have been shoving under the rug. And, again,
it's so human to try and avoid pain.
It sounds like you and your husband have both hurt each other throughout your relationship.
You have felt unseen and a lack of affection,
and he has likely been hurt by your affairs that you sought love somewhere
(18:39):
else. And in order to move forward, it's going to take
communication and patience with one another and learning to
communicate about your feelings. Because what I'm hearing with your question with the two affairs
you had, what you were really seeking was emotional intimacy,
not sex. Sex might have been a fun part of it, but it
sounds from you with what you said, the feeling loved, the feeling cared for,
(19:01):
the feeling special, the feeling seen, the feeling heard, and, again, the feeling
loved. What you were looking for was emotional intimacy.
And, again, I invite you to really be with
that inner child and ask if it's true that you felt as
loved as you're telling yourself throughout your childhood. Because, again,
it doesn't mean your parents didn't love you. And maybe
(19:23):
loved isn't the word, but maybe you knew you were loved. But
maybe you didn't feel you were loved. Another book I wanna recommend here is called
Running on Empty, and it's about emotional neglect. And everybody I
recommend this book to is like, that doesn't apply to me. But emotional neglect
is what was missing in our childhood that we couldn't see. So so often,
we don't actually know we were emotionally neglected until reading a book like this, and
(19:45):
we go, oh, that's what I was missing. Yes.
And I think growing up with someone who drinks a lot and acts like a
crazy person, there was probably some emotional neglect going on.
And, again, you can have that information and know
it to be true and still not judge your parents for it.
It's very hard because the mind wants to then throw blame
(20:08):
or it doesn't wanna judge because it can see so many other things, especially
from an adult mind. We can see our parents so much clearer than when we
were children. Like, we can see, oh my gosh. Like, you were that age when
you had me? Oh my god. You know? I think about that all the time.
I don't have any children. And my parents had two kids at my age, and
I'm like, oh my gosh. That's crazy. I can
see why some things played out the way they did. I can see it
(20:31):
differently. But I share that because it's okay to open
the childhood wounding, and it's okay to burst the bubble that your parents
weren't perfect because I'll burst it for you now. I don't know anybody who's perfect.
So I don't know how anybody's parents could be perfect because nobody is
perfect. No human is perfect. The human journey is beautiful and
incredibly messy. It's a journey about growth. I believe we're all here
(20:53):
to play out the hero's journey. And what that is, it's like the arc of
a movie. It's like we come here one way, and throughout our life, we get
to evolve and change. And we get to have these heroic
moments, and we get to have these antagonistic moments, but we get to be the
main character of our life. And every main character in every movie
goes through obstacles and makes mistakes
(21:15):
and needs to make amends. It's human. So I
hope that throughout this question, if you've taken
anything, it would at least be to take some of that
shame and that blame off your shoulders. Because carrying shame and
blame, in my experience, feels like carrying the heaviest
boulder in the whole world. Like being that Greek myth
(21:36):
figure, Atlas, and the myth is that he has to carry the world
on his shoulders. I don't remember the whole story, but I know it from
Percy Jackson, if anybody reads those novels. But Atlas
carries the world on his shoulders. Oh my god. What a
burden. Nobody's meant to carry the whole world.
You are not meant to carry everything you're carrying. And my guess is you are
(21:57):
carrying a lot more than even this one instance, which is why you feel so
broken and so lost. And so for you, as I mentioned, I think finding
somebody to help you through this is gonna be really helpful. So, again, therapist, a
coach, a relationship therapist, maybe you and your husband can start going
to therapy once a week together. Because another thing I wanna mention
here is for both affairs, I'm wondering if there was
(22:19):
an emotional trigger that got you to the point of having
an affair. So it sounds like with the first affair, it happened around the
death of your mother, which sounds like a very stressful time, which
caused you to go to a coping strategy. You found
somebody to take care of you. I'm guessing at that time, you did not
have the tools or the skills to take care of yourself. Can you
(22:42):
forgive yourself for that? Can you forgive yourself that at that point in time, you
likely did not know better? It's hard for us to understand
that, but the truth is you were likely doing the best you could at that
time. You know, I'll give you an example from my life. I used to
drink a lot. I'm also sober. It sounds like you've stopped drinking, and I commend
you for that because I think that that's going to be really helpful for you
(23:03):
on your journey too. I believe the inner work becomes clearer
when we take away the things that we use to numb.
But when I was a heavy drinker, I was really bad to
my partner. I'll be honest. I used to drink so much. He'd have to carry
me home from bars. He'd have to take care of me. I was reckless. I
was reckless with my own life. I didn't have any regard for my life, and
(23:26):
it was a burden on other people. And I lived with immense shame
because I blacked out all the effing time. And I
would drink till blackout, and somebody would have to freaking carry me home. Somebody
would have to take care of me. And I would wake up the next day
with so much shame because I didn't wanna be that way, but I didn't know
how not to be that way. And people would say just stop drinking, and there
(23:47):
there were many times I did try to stop drinking, but I literally couldn't.
And why couldn't I? It's because I didn't have another coping
strategy to handle the hell I was living in. And that's what I think
happens is that life can feel like hell. It can also feel like heaven.
But for many of us, when we are deep in our suffering, it feels like
we're living in hell. And when I was going through the process of healing
(24:08):
from rape and healing from child rape, I was living in hell,
and the only thing that could make me feel better was a glass of
wine. And that makes me very sad to see now that
I didn't have the tools. I didn't know how not to pick up a drink
when I had PTSD for a very long time, when I was whacked with things
that most people will never even look at and won't even let
(24:30):
me speak about in most rooms. I live with those things. I
lived with those realities, and I share that because many people who listen to this
podcast live with traumas that they have to, like you
said, carry alone. And when we have to carry things alone that we
never should have had to carry alone, it can lead us to doing
things that other people would judge as irresponsible,
(24:53):
hurtful, bad, shameful, blameful, when truly
we're just trying to figure it out. We're just trying to survive. And it
sounds to me like after the death of your mom, that might have been a
place where you were at. That you just needed to
survive. And this affair helps you do that. And,
again, does it make it right? We don't have to make everything right or wrong.
(25:14):
It's just true. And what does that mean, that it was true for
you? The forgiveness comes when you can see, I'm so sorry, self, that
you didn't have another way to cope at the the time. I didn't have the
tools. It's like, say, you have to fix a door, and you have a toolbox,
but all the tools you need to fix the door are missing. How do you
fix the door? You don't. Maybe you then start duct taping it, and you start,
(25:35):
like, throwing it up, and you try to shove it in there. But it's not
actually fixed because you didn't have the tools in the toolbox that
could do the job. It's the same thing that happens in our life when we
don't have the tools yet yet because you will get the
tools. When you don't have the tools, we have to come up with something
in order to feel better. It's a survival mechanism. It's
(25:56):
a trauma response. It's devastating, and it's devastating
and painful to look at, but it's forgivable because it's like, oh,
that wasn't who I truly am. That was a trauma response.
Dang. I am so sorry, self, that it's taken me so long to
see that. And I mentioned that because with the first one, I see that with
the death of your mother, and I'm wondering if, with the second affair, if
(26:18):
there was another trauma response that was triggered. And it might have been a smaller
event, but I'm wondering if maybe something happened in your marriage that day, maybe you
hit a boiling point, like, the lack of communication just built up that you hit
a breaking point. But these are the things that can help us to bring
compassion to ourselves when we can see why we did what we
did, and we can understand that it came from a wounded place.
(26:40):
One more example I'll give is, like, think of a caged animal. Think of,
like, a coyote. When we see coyotes out and about, they don't
approach people. We don't really approach them, but they don't approach us. If you were
to cage a coyote, it likely would begin to snarl
at you, claw at you, maybe try to bite you because it's caged and
it's trying to survive. And that's what it can feel like
(27:03):
when we're living with trauma or when traumatic things happen and we don't know how
to feel like it is we feel like we're caged, and we act from a
caged response. We feel backed into a corner when we don't know what to do.
When things are just getting worse and worse, we're just backing farther and farther into
a corner, and then we can lash out. And my guess is these affairs might
have been from a lashing out type of response where you were like, oh my
(27:25):
god. I just need something to feel better. I cannot feel this way anymore. I
need something. And I share all that because I hope a new view was
brought to your situation today. My prayer is that you're able to
see yourself with a little bit more kindness, a little more forgiveness,
or at least that you see some steps you can take forward. And again
for you, you do not deserve to carry all this alone.
(27:48):
No one deserves to carry anything alone. It's why I do what I do.
I carried so much alone for so long, and that led me
to the darkest places I have ever been, and I don't think it ever
should have been that way. No one deserves to be isolated in their pain, and
that includes you. So I hope something was helpful in this answer. I am
so sorry you are going through such a tough time, but I am sending you
(28:09):
so much love. Thank you for this question.
Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Newbie Advice. As always,
I'm so grateful to have these conversations each week and to continue discussing the
healing journey. If you think this episode could help somebody, I invite you to share
it with a friend. The way that Nuvia advice gets spread the most is by
(28:31):
word-of-mouth, so I'm so grateful for everybody who shares it with a friend, and I
would invite you to continue to do so. Please, please share any of my work
with anyone you know. It's the best form of promotion. It's for
humans to share with more humans. So I really invite you, if you enjoyed this
episode, to share with somebody else. I know that infidelity can be a topic that's
hard to share with other people, but I do invite you to share this episode,
(28:52):
another episode, or even just my website where I have a bunch of free resources
for for the healing journey and a lot of content. I'm really excited. New View
Advice is moving in a new direction. I have four podcasts coming this spring,
and we're gonna have new writers on the site who are gonna share their perspectives
because I don't believe I have the only view. I believe that everybody has a
unique perspective, and I wanna bring a bunch of new views to new view. So
(29:13):
it's a super exciting time for new view advice, and I just ask for help
spreading the word about my work and my content. I am really
grateful for everybody who has continued to listen throughout the years. So thank you. Thank
you. Thank you so much for your support, And thank you again for joining me
for another episode of NuVu Advice. As always, I hope I was able to offer
you NuVu on whatever you may be going through. Send you all my love. See
you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.