False Intimacy: Step #4 of Recovering from Betrayal (Love, Lies, and Betrayal • Part 5) Episode 38

Brent and Janis continue looking at full recovery from marital betrayal. They discuss the work that needs to happen in the betrayer who needs to understand and acknowledge where and how they were looking for love in the wrong places. Also, how the relationship can build strong patterns and deep emotional connection, to help insure this could never happen again.

The Life & Love Nuggets podcast will help you learn valuable insights into relationships, life, and love. Brent and Janis have been empowering couples through pre-marriage and marriage therapy in their private practice, Life Connection Counseling, since 1982. They recently retired after forty years of pastoral ministry and are continuing to help individuals, marriages and families in their private practice.

The podcast is produced by Clayton Creative in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The content should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

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Transcript:

[Brent]: Hello, friends. Welcome back to Life & Love Nuggets. We're glad that you're with us. Again today, we're continuing in our series that we've entitled Love, Lies and Betrayal and so, we've been looking at what do we do, particularly in marital affairs. Now, we think that the principles we're dealing with here also apply to all kinds of relationships in our life and eventually, we'll talk about that a little bit more. But we've been looking at these, what we consider four main stages of healing and restoration for couples and at least in our experience, couples really need to go through all of these and they kind of all happen all at the same time and we need to get them going and they all need to continue to be happening for healing to really take place. The first one we call it “the blank check”, which is the betrayed needs to be able to ask questions. Their brain is just going to go into hyperdrive now and they're wondering “what am I dealing with?” and unfortunately, as we talked about, the betrayer oftentimes leaks out information. They just don't give it all at once and that just causes more damage. As they find out more and more things, it causes more damage.

[Janis]: And the Betrayer is doing it because they're trying to prevent damage. I mean, it truly is damage control.

[Brent]: Yes, it's just causing more damage.

[Janis]: Absolutely.

[Brent]: So, we talked about the second one. We call it the Bathtub of Trust. Trust is earned. It's something that has to be done little by little over time and when there's a marital affair, we use this analogy of a bathtub. It empties the bathtub and then any trustworthy behavior from that point forward is like putting a teaspoon in the bathtub and so, it's like this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. It's going to take time.

[Janis]: So, you don't just get to say “I'm sorry. Trust me.”

[Brent]: Yes, that’s just--

[Janis]: Exactly.

[Brent]: Somebody [Unintelligible] say “you just need to trust me” is not even a thing.

[Janis]: Well, it doesn't work. That’s for sure.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah, trust is earned, it's something-- So, the Betrayer in any kind of a breach of trust is simply watching “are they trustworthy or not?”, it's based on their behavior from that point forward. Then last time we looked at grief, that this is a loss, it's the loss of a dream, the loss of an ideal and they're going to grieve the same way if they had a close loved one just die. Their whole life has been flipped upside down and so, now we're looking at this kind of final stage, which in my experience is where I spend most of my time with my couples’ long term. The first three are dealing with how do we repair; how do we heal the breach and now, it's how do we find out kind of why this happened in the first place, and how do we build strength for the future to make sure that this could never happen again and so, we call this one False Intimacy.

[Brent]: The idea that it is a desire for intimacy and closeness and some healing in a person's life, but it's false. They're looking for love in the wrong place, that out of their own brokenness, their own needs, that they've been veered off. Instead of finding it in the healthy place, they've looked for other places and so, I use the analogy of it's like drinking salt water, that if I'm out in the desert and I'm thirsty and just about to collapse and I come over a ridge and I see this great body of water, my brain initially is like “oh my gosh, my thirst is going to be quenched. Everything that I would ever want now I can find”. But we all know if you've ever-- That big body of water is the ocean. We've all known that you drink a little bit of salt water and it just makes you thirstier because it was not designed to meet the appropriate need and so--

[Janis]: So, no matter how good the saltwater looks, no matter how much it seems like it's meeting that need, it's really deadly.

[Brent]: Yes

[Janis]: And that's the same with an inappropriate relationship. We feel like we need it, we feel like we want it. It feels so good. But in the end, it causes destruction and it causes chaos and it really isn't going to meet those needs that we think it's going to meet. What that means is we have to cut that off and that's hard. You can't have any more contact with the person that you had an affair with. You can't message them; you can't go over Facebook Messenger and many times, it means you have to make major changes in your life. You have to change jobs or you have to change churches or many other things, because you've got to break off that contact completely. You're never going to be able to be friends. You could never have any kind of relationship with that person again. You have to cut it off completely in order for there to really be healing and that's hard and that's challenging. But what we've found is it's essential.

[Brent]: Yes, absolutely and so, I have to cut off the salt water to convince myself it's salt water, that it's not going to really meet the need, and then begin to find out, how do I drink fresh water? One of my definitions for sin, if we use that language, is an inappropriate response to a real or legitimate need.

[Brent]: We all have real needs to feel loved, to feel cared for, to have peace, even for physical intimacy. These are all God given designs that are legitimate needs and God has a certain framework, a certain structure or guideline with boundaries on how we get those needs met and so, if we don't know how, again, to get them met legitimately or appropriately, then there's like a gazillion counterfeits.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: All of these things out in culture that says “this will make you happy, this will satisfy your need, or this will numb you out so you won't be in pain anymore”, whatever those things are and so, it's how do we find, again, the pathway back towards fresh water? And how do I set boundaries so that I'm not drinking salt water anymore? Now, we're not suggesting that marriage is designed to get all of our needs met. This isn't going to happen. This is a human-- Marriage, in my opinion, has to start with, it's actually designed as a relationship that allows us to practice Christlikeness, which is self-giving love. It's the way that I give of myself to another. We get to practice that every day and it's not a getting. It's not I'm taking, it's giving first.

[Janis]: And it's especially giving to our spouse. You know, it's so easy to get involved with kids’ activities and church activities and all kinds of other things, that we can easily neglect our spouse in really giving towards them or trying to meet so many of their needs. Again, not inappropriately, not too much, but really when we become one, which we believe happens in marriage, when the two become one, we have a responsibility to help feed that other part of ourselves. I consider it a privilege to be able to do that. He's put us together, so there can be mutual giving. It's who we're designed to be because this is the person that the ultimate plan is that you are with for the rest of your life. They are your person. They're the person that you're going to spend the most time with. They're the one that you share children and finances and house with and as I say, eventually you and I will be roommates in our nursing home. So, you're going to be my buddy through all of the ages.

[Brent]: Let's just stay in our house.

[Janis]: Okay, okay. Well, in 50 years when we have to go into a nursing home. Yeah.

[Brent]: Okay, okay. So, healthy relationships, again, we don't have time to go into this in too great in detail, but it's this-- So, when we talk about two becoming one and giving, it's not losing yourself. It’s not you're not a person anymore. Its healthy individuals share healthy life together. We've believed that healthy relationships are those that get a reasonable amount of both of our needs met, because this is going to be the most important human relationship that we're going to have. But again, we're not going to get all of our needs met., it's just not possible. That literally would be idolatry. We'd be worshipping this person. We would find ourselves only in them and that would be unhealthy. So, there's extremes on both of these.

[Brent]: And if we're trying to get the marriage to do stuff that it was never intended to do, which is what some people try to do, then you're going to slip into some extremes. On one end, we consider it kind of codependency, it's that “I'm only okay if you're okay with me and so, I've got to do everything I can to make you happy because my mood depends on your mood and so, if you're happy, then I'm happy” and again, that's giving too much. Again, we've talked about love your neighbors, you love yourself and so, it's got to be a balance there. The other extreme of that is control, where “I have to have you do these things for me. You have to and whatever I have to do to convince you to do those things and to get you to do them and I got to stay on you until you do it right and if you don't, you're going to get in big trouble”. That's the other end of that continuum of unhealth, which is control and so, again, love your neighbor as you love yourself. So, this idea of false intimacy suggests there's something in the betrayer that needs to be addressed. There's something that they have not found health in themselves as an individual. Even if they're not getting everything they need from the other person, they have not been able to find it in themselves and so, they have to go outside the relationship. That brokenness nudged them to step outside the relationship.

[Brent]: Now, that may be-- What caused that might be traumas in their life. It might be some damage that they experience as a child. It could be unhealthy family patterns. “Well, this is how my parent did it, you know? This is how marriage looks like”. It could be they don't speak up; they don't know how to ask for change. They don't have a voice. They're too much focus on self, which is “I feel needy myself as an individual, so I have to--” It’s just too much focus on that. Could be an addiction. The list can go on and on of things that ultimately the betrayer is going to have to look at and have to address.

[Janis]: Yeah. You know, one of the things that I've seen over and over again is when I'm dealing with a couple where one of them has been or is in a very demanding career that's taken years and years and years of education, or they are a college or a professional athlete that's taken lots and lots of hours of practice and now, as they've gotten older, well, they necessarily are self-focused during that time. They have to be. If you're going to get through this--

[Brent]: On that level.

[Janis]: On that level, then it really does have to be all about you and so, they can tend to have a self-focus even when they've moved out of all of the hours that they have to spend doing a certain thing. But the family has adapted to that. They've gotten used to, they're just not involved or we just don't expect as much from them.

[Brent]: They've just really allowed it to happen.

[Janis]: They have. It sets up an unhealthy relationship. But it makes sense because you think about, “We had this”. We had a child that was an athlete in high school that also is taking a lot of AP classes and so, if that's happening, they literally don't have time to do the family chores. Well, if that continues on, then they get used to the fact that they shouldn't have to take responsibility for things when life has changed and it's shifted and it also can set the spouse up for what you were talking about earlier, where “I just don't want to speak up and share my needs because they have so much going on that I just need to step back and make their life work for them”. But it ends up being very unhealthy in the long run and can be very difficult and damaging.

[Brent]: And so, the family, without-- Trying to do that to help, actually becomes complicit in allowing them to be too self-focused.

[Janis]: Yes, and it's a very subtle but natural setup. It's just something we have to recognize and decide what to do and sometimes it'll come out in clients that I see, in very passive aggressive ways where it's like “well, the doctor needs to do this, so we have to do this”. Then the spouse is not speaking up for themselves to work on “how do we make this relationship feel better for both of us? How do we make it healthier for both of us?” and when your spouse has had an affair, it can uncover a lot of unhealthiness in you.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: A lot of things that were there that we just kind of ignored, but now is the opportunity to address them. Now is the time to deal with it. In order to heal that relationship, we really have to help both individuals heal. Healthy marriages come from two healthy individuals and so, we have to work on those things in us that are unhealthy and become as whole as possible. We're not going to be completely whole until we see Jesus, but we work on “how do I get healthier?” and that involves some significant work.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah.

[Janis]: I mean, we have to work hard on the things that are uncovered in us in the midst of this and I find there's a good need for individual counseling. You know, sometimes you need to go in and see somebody and just say “this is how I'm feeling and I can't say this to anybody else” or “these are the things that are coming up in me that I never knew they were there, or I knew they were there, but I thought I dealt with them a long time ago and I thought they were healed”. But those come up and we have to deal with those and get healing in our lives.

[Janis]: I find that some of those that come up are childhood wounds, things that we learned in childhood that we thought we got rid of, and they just pop right up again when our spouse has an affair. So, if I have this core belief as a child or from my childhood that there's something wrong with me, I'm inherently flawed or I'm never going to measure up, I'm not going to be good enough, you bet when your spouse has an affair, that comes right to the surface again.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: But also, I see for the betrayer. Sometimes they will see things like “gosh, in my family, I was only good enough if I performed well enough as an athlete or if I was pretty enough. That's where my worth was” and especially for the athlete, if they're no longer an athlete and they're now hitting 50 and their glory days since are behind them, it’s very appealing to have someone say “oh my gosh, you're so wonderful, you're so great” and they get sucked right into an affair which again, causes tremendous damage. So, it takes a lot of soul work. It takes work of looking at your beliefs, looking at your wounds, working on how to change our habits, working on how to have healthier thoughts and eventually, we have healthier actions as a result. But you can't wait for your core beliefs or the deepest things in you to be fully healed. My value can't be fully healed before I work on the marriage. As you said earlier, we have to do it all at the same time and it takes work. But what we find is it really helps us become healthier as individuals, which is important no matter what happens to the marriage, but it also helps us have a healthier marriage.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, really part of doing this is really helping us also how to affair proof our marriages and so, what you're speaking to there is the best way to affair proof our marriage is to be healthy as an individual, is to always be looking inward, to become more self-aware and “okay, what's my weak spot? What's my shadow? What do I need to be working on?” and the healthier we are, again, as an individual, then we're going to be looking for the marriage relationship to do what it was designed to do reasonably and appropriately and not trying to get it to do too much.

[Janis]: And we're surrounded by a world of counterfeits.

[Brent]: Yes.

[Janis]: It's so easy to get needs met in other ways that are salt water. So, it's being vigilant to see what is around me that may be inappropriate for me to try to meet my needs through.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, false intimacy is, first of all, becoming healthy as individuals, helping each of them do that and then secondly, it's how do we now build strength for the relationship so that we can thrive together?

[Janis]: Which is true intimacy.

[Brent]: Yes, and so, there's a couple of major areas that we see that we usually spend most of our time on here, helping couples move forward. One of those and again, we've done podcasts on both of these areas extensively, so we're not going to go through all the detail of that. But the first one is that we all start out again in the beginning of our relationship with-- We call it a face-to-face relationship. We're smitten with this person. It's “you and me, baby against the world” and easy to do nice things for each other. We want to spend all of our time together. We call it the unoffendable zone where it's just impossible to offend each other. Even if you do something that's a little hurtful, I just overlook it. “Oh, they didn't mean that” or whatever and it feels amazing. This is why people usually think about walking down the aisle with this person.

[Brent]: But studies all tell us that we get about 18 months of that and usually what tends to happen after that is, we kind of pull side to side and now we have jobs, now we have start having children. Now we take care of a house. Now we got to cut the grass, we got to pay the bills, we've got to go to soccer practice. I mean, just all those things that are normal and natural part of life. But again, as we talked about, its subtle and so, we slowly begin to pull away from each other without realizing what we're doing and all of our energy goes into everybody else, everything else and we don't have much less left for each other. So, most marriages look like they're dealing with malnutrition, they're just not being fed well and so, one of the things we do is we've got to help couples develop these new practices and it's hard to reprioritize when you're hurt and wounded and when the betrayed is feeling “I don't know that I even want to be in the same room with them at times” or the betrayer feels like “They're never going to trust me again. They're so angry at me”. Now we're going to start doing positive things. Well, that's easier said than done, but it's necessary. Again, feelings follow behavior. So, we start helping them lean into these practices on how do we feed, nurture, give strength to the marriage.

[Janis]: And we really have to learn, or a lot of people do, the healthy habits, the skills and the healthy habits of marriage. I mean, it's hard after an affair to rebuild life again because you don't like them and so, it's really hard sometimes to follow through on those things that really do make a difference in their relationship. Those are the things that bring health and life not only to us as individuals, but as a couple and as a family, and it really involves these little habits we've talked about so much before in helping us pull together, helping us be on the same team and really valuing each other. But it's not easy and it does take work. You know, I'll have people say after they've had an affair or a big breach of some kind, it's like “I don't enjoy going on date night. I did it because you said we had to, but it was awkward and it was weird” and I go “uh huh, do it anyway” and over time as they build more closeness, then having a date night or doing loving things for the other person becomes more natural. It's a new habit and any habit has to be practiced over and over again just like lifting weights. You may not feel like doing it, but eventually it becomes normal and you become stronger and you become healthier. Same thing happens in our marriage.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, how do we again start these habits that can be then sustained long term? And again, one of the things we find is there's so much pain that this causes that it sometimes is the motivator. Most couples say “we just went to sleep, we just neglected, we didn't mean to” and this is a huge wake up call.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: Now, again, we wouldn't have wanted this to have been the wakeup call, but it is and if we can just take it for the benefit that it is, that forces us to develop new and life giving habits and do it long enough that those can be sustained. So, that's why relationships can end up better than they ever were. It's because of those new practices.

[Janis]: Yes, yes, and one of the things that I tell my clients a lot when they're struggling getting these practices going is “your kids are watching you”, and we want to have the kind of marriage we want our kids to have and we model that before them. So, if they see us being loving and kind and going on date nights, there's a good possibility that that's what they're going to do in their life.

[Brent]: Yeah, for sure. So, that second major area that we find is that couples have just lived with-- They've kind of given up on really dealing with conflict well. That they don't blend well, they don't know how to make adjustments in their life. Again, surprise, surprise. I don't know how we would have learned this in our culture. We're not taught how to do it and they spin out into what we call a dance step. Again, we've talked about this before. They get in this unhealthy pattern of how to deal with conflict and then they get frustrated. “I mean, who wants to fuss all the time? So, I just won't bring it up”. We just won't talk about it and little by little that's where we become more roommates. We're just co parents. We're just roommates. It sets people up. They're at much higher risk if they don't feel this close intimate relationship with their partner, they're at much higher risk for a counterfeit to lure them.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: And so, we have to help them learn how to identify and recognize what the unhealthy pattern is and then we have to learn a new way of doing it and get really good at that. It is one of the main pathways towards intimacy is resolving conflict well, which suggests number one reason of--

[Janis]: Lack of intimacy.

[Brent]: Lack of intimacy is unresolved conflict. So, couples can learn this and again, it usually forces them to have to take the risk to do this, because either they're conflict avoidant or they just rush into it and are too aggressive and you know, it just doesn't work. So, we help them learn those new patterns and it really makes a difference for their future. So-- Because we're not going to even in counseling at the end of working with an affair, we're not going to resolve every issue that they ever have in their life, but they learn how to do it. So, they have confidence that “hey, we can face anything now. So, if either one of us is feeling disconnected or unhappy or hurt, we have a way of talking about it. We bring it up, we work it on it together, we resolve it together”.

[Janis]: And some of the things I love about the way that we do it, is it helps both of them have a voice. They can share the things that are bothering them but in a safe structure, so they both can speak up without it becoming chaotic and without it becoming the argument or painful as they really get this system down, and then the other thing that I like about it is it reminds us that we're on the same team. That the problem is the problem, not the person is the problem. Because so often we're like “well, if you would just do this…” and really, it's “somehow the dishes need to be done” and so, how do we resolve that?

[Brent]: Let’s figure it out together.

[Janis]: Instead of “you need to be doing this”. So, it really has a lot of benefits in the relationship.

[Brent]: Yeah, like any trauma there has to be-- Persons need to be seen, meaning they have a voice and they're heard. They need to feel safe; they need to feel secure; they need to feel soothed and so, learning a way that has those ingredients in it is really key for them to move through this and beyond and so, those are two of the key things that we see. But of course, there can be all kind of stuff that couples need to work on. They literally might just have sexual brokenness in the relationship. They may have had it for years and they've almost given up on that area. Well, talk about putting us at risk.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: And so, they're going to need some help in that and that could come from messages from childhood, that could be coming from traumas, that could be coming from all kinds of stuff. Again, it's not something that people are real open about in our culture. We usually don't go sit-- Go out with another couple and sit down at dinner and go “well, tell me about your sex life. What do you like? And what struggles have you faced?”. We just don't do this.

[Janis]: They wouldn't go out to dinner with you again if you did.

[Brent]: Exactly, and so, everybody is privately dealing with this and not even privately as a couple. Usually they don't even know how to talk about it. So, they're privately, internally, in pain, dissatisfaction, frustration, hurt, whatever and so, that obviously has to be dealt with. They may be dealing with just general loss as a couple. They may have had a parent die or a child that's estranged or there could be all kinds of things that-- Lost a job. It could be those kinds of things that they're not grieving well, it's not-- You know, it’s just not just the grief of the affair, but just in life they're dealing with.

[Janis]: It’s cumulative grief.

[Brent]: Cumulative grief, yes. They may have physical issues that they're struggling with, you know? A disease or pain or whatever that's causing problems. It could be parenting issues, issues with kids that have pushed them apart. Just general stresses on the jai, all kinds of stuff and so, all of those things eventually need to be dealt with and found health and wholeness for the future. As we've talked about these theories, obviously affairs are traumatic, they are messy, they're difficult. But again, if seen rightly, it really does expose weaknesses. All stress exposes weaknesses and that can be a benefit, that can help us, you know? We always say if an airplane has some loose rivets on the wing, we're never going to see that when it's sitting on ground.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: You get it up 30,000ft and boy, that wing starts wobbling and the same with this. This is 30,000 foot, okay? Lot of stress and allow it to expose those weaknesses and if we can see that rightly, and not run from it or blame the other for it, then there is an opportunity to really begin to resolve these things and find new life as individuals and as a marriage.

[Janis]: And it involves a lot of work for a long time, but the rewards are worth it.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, if we bring our real, honest, true selves to bear, to open them up to God, to each other, god always makes a way. There's always an opportunity for transformation, for new life, for new beginnings. It's an opportunity. But if we stay hidden and don't deal with these things, then we're not going to get that benefit. So, we want to encourage you whether you find yourself in this, you may be struggling with this in your own life. You may be an observer, it may be a family or a friend, family member or friend that you're standing alongside just trying to help and to encourage. Know that there's always hope, there's always a potential for transformation and new life. So, today, go in peace. Bless you as you go.