How To Recover From An Affair

and good evening this is a signing Pettiford and tonight every single Monday at 9:00 p.m. we will be having what we call our infidelity recovery a call on face book life for all of those individuals who have been impacted by infidelity in any particular way we want you to we want you to be a part of this face book experience because we're going to give you exactly what you need to begin to restore your relationship let me simply say that you know we've been working with couples for quite some time in an overwhelming number of the couples who come to us are impacted in a tremendous way and they're at a point where they just don't know what they want to do they want to stay do they want to go they're just not clear and so what we do is we provide direction for them we give them hope we help them to begin to restore and so the reality is is if you've experienced infidelity what you're going through may be somewhat different than what someone else you know who's gone through because ultimately there are four types of an affair thank you I love the comments I love the likes and the loves this is the first time I'm actually doing a Facebook live so I'm kind of getting used to this whole process but I just wanted to share with you all that there are four types of an affair okay so a fair number one is what we will call the one-night stand so that is when an individual goes away on a business trip they go away on vacation they go to a bar they're in a secluded place all by themselves or amongst a group of people and they have an affair now this type of affair is very very very physical there's no emotional connection there's no attachment no relationship is created from this experience usually is what we will call a one-time transactional sexual experience with another person and this can happen one time or it can happen a number of times so you have people who partake participate in what we call serial infidelity and so if that is what you've experienced there's a very specific way that you can recover from that particular type of an affair but the second type of it Affairs what we will call emotional in 10 okay emotional entanglement is a relationship that has occurred over the course of time so let's just say I'm working with someone I'm in close proximity with someone I serve on the same board I volunteer on in the same ministry at church I congregate with someone at the gym I'm seeing this person on a regular basis and it quote-unquote starts off very platonic but over the course of time as we become familiar with each other and we begin to engage in quality conversation and spending quality time together all of a sudden develop um feelings are developed and now there's an emotional connection that wasn't there before now one thing about emotional Affairs they don't always lead to sex not every emotional affair is physical however when you talk to most people who's experiences the pain that they experience with an emotional affair is I would say a hundred times worse than those who have had physical Affairs because there's one thing in a person's mind for you to physically be with someone else but now that your heart in your mind and your emotions with someone else I feel like I've completely lost you forever and so it's hard to kind of rebuild back from that but there is a process so the way that you recover from a one-night stand is completely different than the way that you recover from an emotional affair let me give you a couple examples there was a couple that we work with a couple of years ago this couple literally was in a 40-year marriage and the husband had a 25 year emotional affair with another woman now what's interesting about this particular case he never met the woman I mean this was a high school sweetheart so what happened was he joined the military he moved to another part of the country and from that point forward everything was a letter a phone call an email they were never physically together but he was in a twenty five year relationship with another woman so every time holidays came around he bought two gifts he bought two sets of cards his emotions and his feelings obviously were split and over the course of time it created a huge emotional disconnect with his spouse so even though he never had physical sex with her the impact that and his wife was completely overwhelming so it's a very specific process to recover from that type of an affair the third type of an affair is what we will call sexual compulsions now this is a person who will be considered a sex addict someone who has to have sex all the time possibly with multiple partners and for some reason their partner is not enough and so in this particular case this requires a different type of recovery it requires a particular specialist that can come in and assist to restore that particular relationship and then forth which is a very common type is what we know as the open ended relationship this speaks to a marital void in the relationship so if there are problems if there are issues if there are circumstances that have yet to be resolved and you know what I've talked about it a thousand times you already know what the deal is you just won't get right either we unconsciously drift off right in directions that become very vulnerable and we emotion connect with other people or we intentionally go out and seek in others what we're no longer getting within our own relationship and so as you can see the first type is what we call the one-night stand the second type is emotional entanglement the third type is sexual compulsion and the fourth type is a marital void so whatever type of affair that you've gone through you have to realize that it takes more than I'm sorry I won't do it again to recover because once you find out about the affair statistics suggest that it takes upwards of two years to completely kill and recover it recover from it so in essence once you reach the second year anniversary of the discovery of the affair it takes that length of time with help and assistance to completely overcome it so that there's no longer any relational residue that carries forth into the future of that relationship but if couples do not seek the proper help if they attempt to do it on their own if they believe that we can get over it all we need to do is just pray you are sadly mistaken because you have to understand that as human beings were triune beings we're spirit we're soul and we're body and the biggest trouble that people have is in the area of their soul because their soul is where their mind their will their emotions their thoughts their intellect their imagination resides and if someone has been cheated on in a relationship and doesn't understand the why of the affair they just can't figure it out and every time they ask questions the answers that they did just don't make any sense they're stuck in their mind as to why this happened and think about it like this if you've ever put a puzzle together before here's this analogy you go to work you go to a toy store you buy a puzzle there are pieces of a puzzle inside of a box now the cover of the box has the image of what the puzzle supposed to look like when all the pieces are together right so you open up the box you take out the pieces and you put them together and you're constantly looking at the cover to make sure that you know what it lines up with the image that appears on the box makes sense now you can struggle in this process particularly the more pieces you have now imagine if somebody gave you a puzzle but they did not give you the cover of the box so you have no clue what this thing looks like imagine it was a hundred piece puzzle but they only gave you 75 pieces so you struggled because you didn't know what it was supposed to look like and you had not enough pieces so now they are gaping hole in this puzzle that you're trying to figure out and oftentimes that's how it is for a partner who's trying to gain an understanding of what happens and no matter what they ask for they're not getting the proper information so what happens in that particular scenario you're forcing someone to use their imagination to figure it out you're forcing them to use their assumptions to figure it out in nine times out of ten they're wrong because the imagination could run wild the imagination would be far worse than what the reality actually was and so that is that is why it's critically important that when an affair has occurred some people have this you know what I'm taking this to the grave I'm not going to tell her I'm not going to tell them because if I tell them it's over I know my marriage is over so I rather hold on to this but what we discovered working with couples is that her partners are more pained not by the deed that was done but by the deception that came along with it that in essence people have said I can deal with the deed but the fact that you lied to me but not only did you tell a lie you've lived a lie and so because you lived a life and you've had this well-crafted story that came out to be untrue now I begin to question you now I begin to question everything you do everything you say everywhere you go every step you make I don't even know who I'm dealing with anymore so when people are apprehensive to really releasing the information I wouldn't I would highly encourage you that people do not leave marriages because of infidelity I'm going to say that again overwhelmingly the majority of people do not leave a marriage because of infidelity it's your unwillingness to do what's required as a result of the infidelity so when you show up half-hearted when you show up defenses when you show up secretive when you don't discover or expose what has happened when you don't provide details when you don't have a level of empathy when you don't have a level of patience when you don't have a contrite heart when you don't seem to be an individual who has been changed by this experience in the negative impact is that on the match that's what causes people to leave and so if you want to save your marriage the best thing that you've got to do is tell it also there's a process that couples go through called the disclosure process where all of the details come out all of the gory details and in that process we're able to understand the why of the affair because if I can't mentally and intellectually understand why this occurred then what that means is is balance to possibly happen again because we haven't gotten to the root of it all and what I found which is so interesting is that when people cheat if they do admit that there was an infidelity in that particular relationship will deny they will lie about all of the circumstances surrounding the affair so it's almost easier to admit that I was physically sexual with somebody than it is to admit that I had a heartfelt connection with them somehow that becomes the ultimate detail that we have to leave out because if we reveal that somehow makes us much worse than the need that was already performed but I'm here to let you know that even though the truth hurts the fact of the matter is the truth heals and I think so many people bounce back and recover from infidelity when the truth came out now there is a process of recovery right there is a process of restoring trust in the relationship but if you are holding on to things that I find out three months later a year later what you're doing is you're bringing that personal all the way back to the very beginning ground zero again to begin to restore the marriage so it makes sense to just deal with everything at once at one time so that you can overcome it and move forward and so some of the phases they're generally six phases that couples must go through when they're trying to restore a relationship phase number one is the discovery process that's when you first find out about the affair now the way that you find out can be sometimes more traumatic than it is than others like I've had a couple where literally he walks into you know his bedroom and sees a naked man underneath his bed in his naked wife in the sheet now that's traumatic that is a completely different experience than if you know you heard about it through a friend if you heard about it through the grapevine or if your spouse comes to you alright so the disclosure process is very very very important in terms of how that unfolds but what happens is is one of the most critical times in the entire relationship because it's at that moment where all of the emotions have been built up at that moment we are ready to leave we don't want to hear it we don't want to take it we have no patience we have no empathy we want out and so the best advice that I give people in that particular time period is to if you're struggling should I stay or should I go the best thing you can do is nothing because when you make decisions based upon emotions you will soon regret the decision that you made so if you're an anger if you're enraged if your patent if you're depressed that is the absolute worst time to make a life decision particularly if you have children if you have finances opps you've got a time to one another if you have a lifestyle and a reputation there are all types of factors that are involved in the decision of whether you should stay or go so rather than asking somebody do you want to stay or do you want to go the better option is this if an affair has occurred go through the process of recovery right and let the recovery process answer the question as to whether you should stay or you should go so if you find that the offender right the cheating partner has done all that they can to restore the relationship and they're showing up 100% of the time doing the right thing their repentance and they're doing all that's possible to reestablish the connection then that's an indication that you know what is worth saying but I've dealt with couples where there were constant accident fidelity even throughout the recovery process so for you know an unstable partner they were actually just going through the motions they didn't properly end the affair they didn't disconnect emotionally they were still in communication with that person they weren't willing to make any sacrifices they weren't willing to make any course corrections and so that shows an individual who really doesn't want what they say that they want at the end of the day you can't pay attention to what people say you got to pay attention to what they do because results mean everything so many people say I love you I want to stay I want to work out the relationship but their actions are in complete contradiction to what it is they say so I say time will tell the journey that you take someone through will ultimately determine whether that relationship is worth restoring or whether it's worth just moving forward so that's phase one the discovery phase in place two is what we call the disclosure phase which we just basically talk about is revealing all of the details of the affair so generally you will have the hurt person who writes out a list of questions that they want to ask the unfaithful person and that unfaithful person has to be completely honest the details no matter how painful they are and so one of the things that we talk about is the policy of radical honesty now many counselors many coaches many therapists will say not everything is worth saying don't share every detail you know if you mentioned this you know you'll wind up exploding in your face just don't do it hold on to it but I totally totally disagree with that philosophy because as I said all hidden things eventually come out it's just a matter of time and so the policy of radical Odyssey comes in four particular categories number one we're talking about historical honesty where you are honest about the past either the past prior to our marriage or the beginning of our relationship which represents now the past then there is emotional honesty when we are completely honest about our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions and those things that we've kept inside you know when a relationship goes downhill the first thing that's impacted is our communication and oftentimes we suppress our feelings and our emotions and our opinions because they feel like our partner can't handle those things but having a sense of emotional vulnerability is critical if you're going to restore a relationship the third type of Odyssey is what we call current honesty current honesty means I know where you are I can text you and you respond I call you and you answer ours don't go by days don't go by and you're missing in action and so you have all of these ridiculous excuses I left my phone in the car my battery died I was in a meeting like all of these ridiculous things that you continue to tell hoping that it will work but the partner can see right through that and so when you are not experiencing or participating in current honesty by being open and honest about your whereabouts it breeds distrust then the fourth component right of radical Odyssey is what we will call future honesty future Odyssey says I'm going to be open and honest about my future plan future intentions so I'm going to tell you where I'm going tomorrow I'm going to let you know about decisions that I'm making for later in the day and for the next day and for the next week why because if you're at the point where you're making independent decisions because your single-minded and no longer married minded now I can't trust your motives I don't know what your what your true intent for what it is that you're going to do I can't trust you and so the trust building phase is a credible process in a recovery process because whether an affair has taken place and I don't you know that one of the biggest issues that couples struggle with is trust either they don't trust their partner because of things that were done in the past where they don't trust the apartment because of broken promises things that they said they were going to do that they didn't do this is an incalculable number of reasons why trust dissipates over the course of time in a relationship so this is the stage that really takes time it doesn't happen overnight I remember I was on the Bill Cunningham show a couple years ago and if you don't know the gloww Cunningham show is it's like equivalent to those crazy daytime talk shows back name up back to Jerry Springer or Maury Povich and I remember there was a couple who had experienced infidelity and the boyfriend was just like I wish you would just get over it but somehow I cheated on you last month it's been 30 days get over it and she was just like could you tell this man that you just can't get over understand it's just not that easy and she was absolutely right if you don't go through the recovery process the right way if you just can't get over in his life if a month ago if a year ago check this if a decade ago an affair has occurred and it hasn't properly been dealt with when it occurred it created a wound right and when that wound was created it was painful it was raw right now over the course of time that will closes up have you ever had an accident before where you ripped your skin or had a huge laceration and either you allowed it to heal on its own and it improperly heal or maybe you what to a hospital or doctor the emergency room and they you know put stitches in you but they didn't do it the right way so it healed incorrectly and then there are times throughout the course of the year depending upon the weather in the season where you'll experience pain and the place where you initially had that wound and then sometimes that wound will reopen and you have to get it attended to again well that's what happens when you don't properly heal from an affair so there's something called emotional triggers emotional triggers can be caused by a day of the week a time of the day a color a smell a scent a song on the radio a television show anything could spark an emotional trigger and when these emotional triggers happen that will reopen and it's just as raw today as it was a month ago a year ago a decade ago and so that's why it's important that both of you do everything that's possible to restore the relationship and the trust building phase is so critical and it's a two-way street because this is the reality if I am the offender and you are the one who's been cheated on that's right I'm talking to you if I do everything that some that I'm supposed to do I'm dotting every I I'm crossing every T I'm making phone calls I'm letting you know where I'm at I'm accountable I've got accountability partners you know you have software on my website you see or on the computer so you know what websites I'm going to I'm doing everything right right but you still have aught in unforgiveness and resentment and bitterness on the inside no matter what I do it will not be good enough it's not going to work if you as the her partner says you know what I'm willing to forget let's start our lower let's move forward let's let's let's plus have a new lease on life when it comes to our relationship but I'm still doing the same thing I'm still involved in the same behaviors and activities there's no changing me then there is no trust so Trust is a two-way street so there are roles and responsibilities and obligations of the offender and their roles responsibilities and obligations are the one who has been hurt and if you both are doing your part you're able to make a quantum leap forward and it doesn't take as long as it would take if you did not these particular things then we go into the next phase is what we will call understanding the why of the affair this is so critically important and a part of that process is really knowing how to shut that relationship down and make sure that it is totally gone because I've seen situations where the her partner relied and trusted that the unfaithful partner ended the relationship but it was never over they were still in contact and communication so when I'm working with couples I take them do a very very specific process to ensure that it is over once and for all and what happens in that moment Trust is regained you know the fact that we were willing to do this together there were no secrets there were no private conversations because we were concerned about offending the affair partner so what happens in that particular situation the spouse feels offended like why did would you care about protecting their feelings and their emotions when I'm the one in the relationship who has been hurt so your allegiance has to be for your spouse and the message has to be made clear that you're working on your marriage and all forms of communication you know are going to cease and be over and that you were wrong for what you did and willing to do whatever you need to do restore it like the messaging has to be right because if the messaging isn't right then I'm telling you is an experience that goes wrong and then when we do that we kind of enter into what we call the forgiveness phase and the forgiveness phase is probably one of the biggest issues that people struggle with now the reality is all of us have a different experience when it comes to forgiveness some of us experienced that in our home some of us do not some of us held on the things forever I know people who have been hurt by siblings or by their parents or by extended family member and for years has not spoken to one another so if you have a habit a practice and a pattern of not forgiving other people then you've trained yourself not to be able to forgive yourself so one of the things that we talked about is cool out there who is a significance in your life who you need to ask forgiveness of and they need to ask of your forgiveness what relationships are not healed the way they need to be healed because whatever is out there it could have an impact on your existing relationship and how you think the way you think how you respond the way you respond and how you do what it is that you do so the forgiveness process and I'm not going to go into it because it is very very deep but I will say this in church we're taught the principle of forgiveness and it sounds good and it's scriptural I mean there's no doubt about it but even though we have a principle we haven't learned proper application we don't know how to walk it out and so we think we have forgiven our partners but we played a month later years later there's still that pain there's still that passive-aggressiveness this still that a resentment that we hold on to because we haven't properly healed and so I take couples to a what I call a system of forgiveness that really works and allows you to begin to reconnect out once you've done that now you're entering into the rekindling phase where you're trying to re-establish the intimacy in the chemistry and the passion that you once had and not going to be a very tricky awkward phase because now when we're intimate all I can think about is who you were with and even though I wasn't there my mind and my imagination begin to wonder and so now when you touch me are you thinking about her where you think about him and so we've seen where you know we've had people who have taken the affair partners face and put it on their spouses body or we you know all types of things so there was a stranger innocent sleeping in the bedroom all types of things go on in bedrooms and so we kind of deal with all of those intimate details that help get couples back on track these are just the basic phases that you have to go through the final phase is really when you rebuild the foundation for a relationship a lot of times and this may sound weird relationships if they go through the proper recovery process the relationships are stronger after the affair than they were before the affair because now they took the time to build the proper foundation they have the building blocks in place they have all of the questions out all of the issues that need to be resolved and there's literally a plan for future of that relationship and so even though it can appear to be a daunting task for people I highly encourage you that this is something that you do for the future of your of your marriage and it's critical so listen I'm going to say one more thing with a number go now this is my first time doing a Facebook live I see that there are comments in questions possibly that I haven't read because I'm learning how to use it so forgive me if I haven't acknowledged anything you said though I see that the stream is going I'll end by saying this if you've been impacted by infidelity I don't care if it you just found out about it yesterday or you're still struggling with something that happened over a decade ago it is not too late to get the help that you need this is not something that you can do on your own let me give you this example if you've ever been on a plane before ok one thing about a plane no matter how many times that plane has flown from one location to another no matter how skilled the pilot is no matter how well built and equipped the actual plane is when a plane lifts off of the ground 90% of its journey is off course 90% so the question is how the world does it get to its final destination well there's a radar system in the cockpit that's constantly guiding that claim changing at latitude and longitude lines making sure that they are course corrections so that eventually it gets to its final destination what we have found is that when couples attempt to recover and restore their relationship on their own 90% of their journey is off course and even though they have the best of intentions as I say the road to hell is paved with good intentions you don't know enough you're not skilled enough you're operating in your own skin you're seeing things from your own perspective you have your own mindset you need a third party individual who specializes in a fair recovery not a general practitioner for if I went to my doctor and I said I have a knee problem if it's a good there who's a family doctor he should refer me to a specialist because that's outside of his area of expertise but what we do is we go to the pastor who has been in tensions and who has words but may not have the experience in helping a couple recover effectively we go to a general practitioner like a general practice counselor or therapist and their approach could be good it may not be good depending upon their area of specialty what I'm suggesting is that whoever you go to whether a pastor a counselor and therapist another couple who you consider to be a marriage mentor find someone who has knowledge and skill sets to get you where you need to go one of the things that are always saying is that we are guilty of sharing our problems with people who share our problems so we're always going to people who represent our our problem for an answer you should go to people who represent your solution who have your answer so the question is who do you listen to we want to be listening to the wrong people getting the wrong advice going in the wrong direction and then we wonder why our relationships don't go right you've got to put your trust in someone who's more skilled and knowledgeable and the venue in a particular area to give you what you need now when you do this and you're committed to the process you can have a marriage that you've never even dreamt of is it possible that things kick is better after experiencing something like this absolutely there are many people who have said that cheating infidelity is comparable to death there's been simple of said cheating infidelity is comparable to rape it's such a traumatic experience the impact that it has on people could be completely different many people experience post-traumatic stress disorder from what under fear so one night of pleasure or one season of pleasure can bring about a lifetime of pain but if you take the proper steps if you seek the proper help you have all of the building blocks in place to restore your marriage so listen everything Monday at 9 p.m. we will be having these Facebook live experiences I'm going to learn how to do this better I'm going to take your questions and we're going to be responding to them and it's going to be a great Q&A session and it will be like a group counseling session that's my promise to you for all those that are interested in a free 30 minute discovery session if you've experienced infidelity I encourage you to go to my website at couples Academy org that is couples Academy dot o RG and you can sign up for a complimentary discovery session with me do something listen I just want to let you know that there's still hope for you they're still healing for you that regardless of how bleak your situation may be regardless of how confused you may be in this season in your life guess what you may be in darkness but there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I've seen so many couples overcome the pain of infidelity because I've helped them in their journey and recovery process we focus on both the marital recovery as well as the individual recovery process because the way that the her partner has to recover is completely different than the way that the unfaithful partner has to recover there are two completely different journeys and so when you focus on their individual as well as their marital you're able to take a quantum leap into a phenomenal future thank you all for participating please like please share this video you know once it's uploaded I want you to tell as many people as you can about the service that couples Academy is providing we're going to be doing this on our couples Academy page I did it on my face tonight because many people aren't necessarily receiving the notifications because they're not on that page they haven't liked it so that's what I'm asking you to do spread the word get your free 30-minute session sign up tonight I'll see you soon love you Facebook

Channel: Hasani Pettiford - Infidelity Recovery Specialist

Views: 56,694

Rating: 4.8919525 out of 5

Keywords: marriage help, realtionship guide, relationship expert, couples academy, hasani pettiford, danielle pettiford, hasani, pettiford, couples, academy, infidelity, sex, marriage, relationship, love, advice, romance, romantic, cheating, affairs, counseling, infidelity specialist, mend the marriage, dating, marriage 101, recover, rebuild, betrayal, emotional affair, trust, survive, problems, danielle, infidelity recovery specialist, divorce prevent, marriage coach, how to save, how to recover from

Id: 7VUmqwqB-T8

Length: 32min 54sec (1974 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2017