Why so many affairs? (Love, Lies and Betrayal • Part 1) Episode 34

Brent and Janis begin a series looking at betrayal and how we can recover. Over the past decade, they have observed a surprising rise in marital affairs. They explore the reasons behind this trend and analyze the possibility of recovery. Additionally, they seek to extract lessons for all marriages.

Help us reach more couples! You can donate here (tax-deductible).

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.

Transcript:

[Brent]: Hello, friends. Glad you're with us again. We're going to start a very important series dealing with a very, very difficult topic that's actually going to probably impact all of us in some ways. Some family member, friends. Some of you may be experiencing this yourself and so, we're going to jump into that today. As we've mentioned the last couple of podcasts, however, we'd love to hear from you. If you have any questions about any of the topics we've talked about, anything that you would like us to go into a little deeper or respond to.

[Janis]: Or other topics.

[Brent]: Or just even other topics that we haven't covered that just piqued your interest, the kind of things we talk about, and if that would be helpful, let us know. Also, if you subscribe to the podcast and even leave a review on Apple podcasts, it always helps other people find us.

[Janis]: Especially if it's a good review.

[Brent]: Especially, and if you don't like what we're doing, then don't do that.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: And finally, if you want to help support us in this endeavor, it'd be very helpful to keep this endeavor moving forward. You can always go to lifeandlovenuggets.com/donate (altogether), to help us cover some of the costs that are involved in this. That's going to be in some of the notes section of the podcast if you'd like to check that out. So, without further ado.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Here we go.

[Janis]: Okay. We're going to start a series that I would like to call Love, Lies and Betrayal.

[Brent]: Oh, happy days.

[Janis]: Yeah, it would make a great book title. Words aren't coming. Okay. It can happen in any kind of relationship. It can happen with a family member; it can happen at work, or what we're seeing so much of is in marriage. Something happens in that relationship and it breaks our trust. So, today we're going to talk specifically about extramarital affairs and the impact that that has. But some of the principles that we're talking about or most of the principles that we're going to talk about can be helpful in any type of broken trust or any type of betrayal in a relationship.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: So, one of the things we've talked about is that since we've been counselors since 1982, it's been amazing how over the last decade we have seen such an increase in extramarital affairs. We spend a lot of our time dealing with this particular topic and its different things. It may be helping a spouse who just found out that their spouse is having an affair. It may be working with a couple to really help them heal and have the marriage restored, which is our favorite. Or it may be helping someone cope with their new life when their spouse has decided to leave them and go off with someone else.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, a lot of this we're seeing, again, so much of the really interesting thing is the majority of the people that we deal with, we see are really good people. You know, two very good people who started off well, very committed to their relationship in its beginning. They loved each other deeply. They couldn't imagine that this could happen to them and that they would end up in our office and that they would veer off track and end up in just what is absolutely a nightmare. It's just one of the most horrific things that can happen in relationships and as we've said before, no one decides one morning to just simply “oh, I'm going to go blow up my life and mess it up”.

[Janis]: Yeah. “Let me do something really stupid today”.

[Brent]: Yeah. It really is and we see this over and over, it's the subtle one small wrong decision that leads to another, little by little, that pulls people off track.

[Janis]: That's right, and one of the things we've talked about is how good it has been for us personally in a lot of ways, to go “oh, this is so subtle, it could happen to anybody”. Because we do see wonderful people in our office that have gotten involved in affairs and so, we all have to be on our guard and keep our marriage healthy. But we can talk about that later on. But almost all of us have been impacted in some way with just the tragedy of infidelity. It may be in our own marriage, it may be a coworker, a relative, but that has a profound effect on so many people and so, it's a part of a lot of people's lives. So, we're going to look at over the next few sessions-- Sections, sessions, whatever, how this happens? How do people get involved in something like this? How do we heal and recover from it? And what can we do or what can we learn to help our relationship stay healthy and strong so that we don't fall into that temptation?

[Brent]: Yeah. One of the most challenging parts of recovery is that the betrayer, and we'll call them the betrayer and the betrayed throughout this time, very rarely comes to their spouse and says “I need to tell you something that's been going on”. As a matter of fact, like 98% of the time, I would say in our experience, they never do that.

[Janis]: That's right.

[Brent]: It just gets found out. People eventually get sloppy with their text messages and emails where they meet, what they're doing with unaccounted for time. I have seen people find out in the most amazing ways. I have seen computers and phones reveal stuff that I didn't even think computers and phones were supposed to do.

[Janis]: And I've seen some that have revealed a text message and then they don't do that ever again. I mean, it has been bizarre how people will walk into a restaurant and see something or their friend does, or their neighbor does, or their pastor does.

[Brent]: Or friends find out until spouses get suspicious of unaccounted for time and go into private detective mode.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: I tell you what, I have seen some of the most incredible private detective moves on some of my clients.

[Janis]: Oh, yeah.

[Brent]: It would be some of the best private detective training on the planet is somebody that's been betrayed.

[Janis]: I've told a couple of people they ought to start an agency because they can track down things like nobody else.

[Brent]: They just go into hyperdrive, which is-- You know, I think the panic that sets in, the brain is kind of designed “I've got to know what I'm dealing with”. So, it's really amazing and I believe there are several reasons that things get found out. The first one, I think, is simply God's grace and love for the betrayed. He doesn't want that person to be a fool.

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: Which is the greatest fear of everybody that's been betrayed is “I'm going to be a fool”. Even after they start finding out, you know, if they think it's going to get better, which we'll talk about later, but “it's going to all happen again and I'm going to be a fool”. And they just-- And God doesn't want the person to feel that way. If something is happening unknowing to the person that's impacting them, he lets it come out. So, know that if you've been this person that you are deeply cared about and loved by God, and if you're being lied to, he allows stuff to come out so that you have an opportunity to deal with the truth.

[Janis]: Yeah. People struggle so much with “was I stupid? How come I didn't notice all this? I mean, now that I see it, I can look back and go ‘oh my gosh, here's all the signs’”. But I often tell them, I always tell them “No, you believed in marriage, you had trust in your spouse, you weren't stupid”. We don't want people to start getting super vicious over everything. “You believed in your marriage and you believed in your spouse”. But we also say “God is revealing this and you can trust Him, that he's good and that he's revealed this so that there can be healing and wholeness and restoration”.

[Brent]: Yeah. I think a second reason that God lets stuff get found out is grace for the betrayer themselves. If a person is doing something that's unhealthy for them, their family, God will let the person be exposed. Not to shame them, not to condemn them, but it's like “this is not how I designed you to live. Don't do this”.

[Janis]: Right. “This is destructive”.

[Brent]: “This is destructive” and he will let stuff get found out because he loves the betrayer. So, he gives an opportunity for the betrayer, if they're doing something that can destroy the entire family, to turn directions, to repent, which is what repentance means, is “I'm changing my mind. Instead of going this direction, I'm going to turn a corner and go this direction”. So, he gives them that chance. Now, one of the challenges is what we would call a fair intoxication that this is a thing that there is a thing like, somebody that is literally intoxicated with a drug, alcohol or some other drug that this happens in people that are having affairs. There are so many dopamine hits to the brain in the new relationship, the flirting, the fantasy, the new sexual experiences that can trap a person in unreality.

[Brent]: Again, when people are literally intoxicated with alcohol, they do crazy stuff. They do stuff that they would never normally do. They stand on tables and sing weird; make fools of themselves and tell people “This is why they did this”. Because people are always going, “Why? Why did they do this?”. Because it never really makes rational sense. Well, if somebody's intoxicated, they're not rational. They're doing stuff that makes no rational sense and so, sometimes it's going to be really hard to figure out why. Although that is the passion of everybody that has been betrayed.

[Janis]: Yeah, I think everybody is looking for a logical explanation and once you get involved in a relationship like that, that chemistry is so powerful that we aren't rational, we aren't thinking clearly.

[Brent]: And of course, when all of a sudden this comes out and they realize that their partner was intoxicated by these experiences and these encounters, how painful is this to the one that's betrayed. Even again, though they logically can think “okay, they were not in their right mind. They were intoxicated. They were not thinking straight. They were in fantasy land, really”. It was really not real, but it feels very real to the betrayed.

[Janis]: Yeah. I oftentimes will hear and we've talked about this, where somebody will say, the person who is a betrayer will say to us as counselors “it's just I've never felt anything like this before. I mean, this is a chemistry and a magic like I haven't felt” or one of the things I've heard over and over again is “it's like I have oxygen for the first time. How could I possibly give that up?”. It is hard for them to give it up because they're still for a period of time, they're still in that intoxicated phase. I mean, we get them coming in the office and they want to work on their marriage, but they're still stuck in that intoxication and it's really, really painful for their partner to hear that. It's so painful for them to know that they're having a hard time giving the relationship up even though they know it's wrong.

[Brent]: Yeah, it just makes it really hard for the betrayer to also think “if I can't have oxygen anymore, if I'm never going to have this feeling, can I live with that?” and that makes recovery so difficult. Some people, some betrayers tell the other person they're having an affair with that they love them. I mean, they're talking about running away with them., you know? These positive things that are said and done are so powerful and yet, it's fantasy because you don't have to deal with the difficult and real life with a person in an affair and yet, fantasy is always more powerful and exciting than reality. So, that's one of the things that an individual has to break through. It can be very hard and even though they know it is wrong and they have to give up the relationship, that it can just make it so very difficult. It's twice. Recovery is so difficult in the beginning for the betrayer because oftentimes they're still intoxicated or they go in and out of it. I've seen that where they come and say “no, I know it's wrong, I want to change” and then they slip back into it. So, they fall off the wagon. Again, it's like somebody that's literally intoxicated.

[Janis]: You call that waffling.

[Brent]: Yes

[Janis]: I've started adopting that when I deal with clients. It's like they're going to waffle a little bit in the beginning and that's really hard for the other spouse. It's like “wait, you confessed it, you know it's wrong. Stop it”. But that intoxication is so strong that it is hard for them to just stop.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, we find this on both sides. This is why recovery is so difficult. Now, we're going to talk about in a minute why it's so important and can happen and it can be amazing things can happen, but it starts off so difficult because the betrayer, again, it's hard to imagine giving up those feelings, never having that again, and possibly having those with my spouse. How could we ever regain that level of strength and powerful connection? And then again, for the betrayed, how could I ever possibly trust them again? How could I ever possibly feel safe again?

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: And so, we always say that healing always requires risk. So, there's no way through this without some risk. We try to help minimize that and we're going to talk about that process and how that works. But it's a tough beginning.

[Janis]: And that intoxication phase is so hard because you don't know how long it'll last. It will end. Eventually it will end and when it finally ends, people will go “what was I thinking? I'm an idiot! I was really going to leave my wife and my kids and go away with this person!?”

[Brent]: “And the other person was going to leave their kids and divorce them and we're all going to run off and be happy forever?”

[Janis]: Yes, but in the intoxication phase, it feels very, very real. I remember years ago talking to a woman that was having an affair with her neighbor. I think she kind of came in for me to say “no, go ahead and be happy”. But I was talking about how marriages can be healed and can be restored and even if you don't feel that attraction for your spouse, there are things that you can do to make it better and she stopped me and she said “so, are you telling me that if I leave my husband and marry my neighbor that I'm having the affair with, it's not going to be a happy marriage?”

[Brent]: Still intoxicated.

[Janis]: It's still intoxicated. Yes.

[Brent]: Yeah. Again, another challenge that happens, and unfortunately, this happens in almost every situation. The betrayer is very slow in revealing or acknowledging their affair. They just want to do damage control. “I'm only going to let out so much information because maybe I won't have to tell the whole story”.

[Janis]: “Maybe it won't hurt them as much if I just give them a little bit of information”.

[Brent]: And we say to the betrayer, if you have not told the whole truth, tell the whole truth. Because if you don't and they find out later, and they almost always will, it will hurt way more.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: As a matter of fact, many of those betrayed say that not being told the truth fully upfront was almost more painful and hurtful than the betrayal itself and so, even though it's risky and even though it is going to allow for more pain, we got to tell the whole story. Now, betrayers oftentimes will say “well, I just didn't want to hurt my partner anymore”, but believe us, it will hurt them way more if you withhold it and they find out later.

[Janis]: Gosh, I've had couples that I've dealt with and, you know, I usually see the woman and she'll come in and she'll say “well, the affair was 20 years ago, but he just told me Sunday after church”.

[Brent]: Yeah, it's like it just happened.

[Janis]: And for her it was, it was like it just happened. But not only that, it causes them to look at their whole relationship and go “Okay. So, when he walked our daughter down the aisle, that was after he had an affair. So, when this happened, that was after or during when he had the affair”. So, it causes them to kind of look back on their whole marriage and feel like there was nothing real there. Now, I don't believe that. I think there was a lot of good real things there, but it causes them to question everything. So, the best way for healing to happen is for people to be real and honest and open and share all that's going on in order to have a good recovery. The problem is recovery is slow and it's painful, and people will go through a lot of pain in the process. Both sides will feel pain and it's slow. It might take six yea-- Six years. It may take six months, it may take six years, may take two years. It is a slow process, but healing can happen and we've seen marriages restored and rebuilt over and over again.

[Brent]: Yeah, for sure, and one of the reasons that this is so important, matter of fact, one of the signs that usually I can tell whether how quickly they're going to get in a healing journey is how quickly the whole truth comes out.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: It makes such a difference because, again, the betrayed person is thinking of all kinds of things. They're imagining everything and they can't trust them at all right now and just to have all of the lines filled in, to be told the truth, even though they've been being lied to, is the first critical step. It's so key and if it slowly just leaks out, it just keeps them from hardly even getting into the starting block, you know?

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: It takes them so long to even get started because of that. So, obviously, tell the truth. To not know the truth, it would be like somebody was riding a motorcycle and somebody pulled out in front of them and they had to lay their motorcycle down and it was on gravel and so, the whole side of their body has just got--

[Janis]: Oh…

[Brent]: Yuck. Just got gravel and we take them to the hospital and we're just going to slap a little band aid on that, you know? Cover it up, put a little something on it and put a Band-Aid on. Well, we don't do that. It will get infected; it'll get some poison in that. It's going to be painful to take all that, dig all of that gravel out. But if all the gravel can be cleaned out, if truth can be known, it allows for healing to really begin to take place and so, such a critical thing.

[Janis]: And we'll talk about this more in another podcast, but it's not just getting it out. You know, I have some people that will be like “Well, I told you everything. So, can't we go on and just go on with our relationship?”. No, there's a lot of work that needs to be done and there's a lot of trust that needs to be rebuilt. It always takes longer than people want it to, but it's the only way for true healing. So, just getting it out. It's essential.

[Brent]: But you might have to say it several times.

[Janis]: Oh, over and over again.

[Brent]: Because again, remember, they don't believe you.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: So, even if you are telling the truth, they don't believe you and so, it will take time for that to soak in and for nothing else to be found out. But it's still the right thing to tell the truth.

[Janis]: And then the work begins.

[Brent]: Yes.

[Janis]: It's not the end.

[Brent]: Yes, and I think the final reason that God allows stuff to get revealed is that he designed marriage to be a blessing in people's lives, created it to be life giving, a beautiful expression of his love and human relationships and if one person is doing something that's poisoning everything, where this is never going to go well, this is going to destroy the relationship. He lets it get found out. Again, not to condemn anybody, not to shame anybody, but to get the poison out.

[Janis]: To get the gravel out so that there can be healing.

[Brent]: Yes. So, an affair is certainly one of the most devastating things that can happen in a marriage. When couples first come to us, they just can't imagine how they're going to be able to overcome the hurt and loss of trust. They feel like they're literally lost in the woods. They don't see any light. They don't even know what's north or east. We'd say that it's like their world blew up and we don't even know where all the pieces are, let alone how they go back together and so, it is one of the most devastating things that can happen and it brings them just to the foundational kind of hopeless feeling and simply trying to find pieces and ultimately put them back together. However, the good news is, in our experience over 40 years of working with couples, when we see both people show up. Now, it doesn't always happen initially.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: But when both people are sitting on our couch and saying “we are willing to do whatever it takes”. Because it does take that, it takes whatever it takes, as long as it takes, particularly for the betrayer. We see that over 80% of them walk away saying that their relationship is better off than it ever was because it forces them to do some really important things.

[Janis]: Yeah, and I'm sure you have over the years had people, I can think of one woman in particular that said “if anybody said ‘can you recover after your spouse has had these many affairs and be healthy again?’ Tell them ‘absolutely’, because we're an example of someone who has”. So, there is the possibility of a good and healthy marriage, but it does take work. When we deal with recovering from an affair, we're forced to deal with the realities of life. The person that you had the affair with isn't the one that's changing diapers at your house. They're not the one talking about financial issues. They're not the one that we have arguments over whether we're going to go to the in laws or not. When you're in a relationship that's outside your marriage, it is as we've talked about, it's all fantasy. It's not dealing with the day-to-day things of life. So, when we're working on the marriage, when we're working on healing, it means we've got to work on all of those little conflicts that we have. Some of the things that we have been stuffing just to keep the peace, but has built resentment or has created distance between us. We've got to start working on all of that type of thing in order to have a healthy and good marriage. So, there's several stages of recovery for healing. We're going to talk about that more in depth in some of our upcoming podcast.

[Brent]: And so, one of the things we do tell people is that either you're going to lean into this and deal with all the real and come out with a great marriage or you're not going to make it. We don't get to go back to just what was okay.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: We don't get to put a Band-Aid on this.

[Janis]: You can't have the same marriage. You need a new marriage.

[Brent]: Absolutely. But again, great hope that we see. So, people ask “well, why are so many people having affairs? I mean, why has it increased so much in the last decade or so that at least we've seen?”. There's probably a lot of reasons, but certainly one of them is the invention of these amazing communication mechanisms, these little phones we carry around that have all the information in the world and allow for secrecy. Emails, you know? There's even apps out there, there's websites out there today that assist people in having affairs and keeping things private or you can text them this and then it goes away, and there's a lot of that and certainly, that is true. However, most affairs happen just catching people unaware. They don't sit down and decide. Most people don't, in our experience, and now, there are some, but most people don't sit down and go “I'm just going to decide to go have an affair”. They get caught up; you know? And so, again, we've talked about it before that you and I grew up in the age where there was one phone in the house, it had a cord attached to it. I remember we went to college many miles away from our hometowns and during the summer, we had an opportunity to make one phone call to each other once a week.

[Janis]: Once a week and it was expensive.

[Brent]: It was so expensive to do long distance phone calls and again, we're standing there talking to each other and our family is probably hearing some of that because, again, there's just not that sense of privacy.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Now, my goodness…

[Janis]: We have too much privacy in too many ways.

[Brent]: Too much privacy and again, it's not necessarily that somebody's decided to do that, but they meet at a business conference or even a social gathering in the neighborhood.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: And they meet somebody and then later they might just text them a funny story or a follow up of a joke that somebody was saying and then the other person responds back little emojis and slowly, it just gets farther and farther and farther until they get snagged.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: They get caught, again, unawares, they get caught off track and something powerful begins to happen. So, it can just happen so easily.

[Janis]: And so innocently in so many ways.

[Brent]: Initially, yes.

[Janis]: And it can happen at work. You know, there's so many men and women working together and so, something happens in the office and there's a little joke about it and we see something on a show and we go “oh, they like this show” and we text them. Just as you said, it can be somebody in the neighborhood. We spend a lot of time with other people besides our spouse and we're all susceptible to that if we're not really careful and again, it's because they're not dealing with a day to day nitty gritty of life that we're dealing with, with our spouse and besides, that person thinks we're interesting and smart and are just wonderful. We're funny to them.

[Brent]: Yeah, or we're helping-- Again, more men and women are working together now. So, one person just over lunch or over a break or just sitting in the office talking about a business meeting “gosh, you look down today”. “Yeah, I'm just going through something”. You know, they start talking then about their spouse or a situation that happened, and somebody shows empathy and they show that they care and they're listening and all of a sudden, it just snares us.

[Janis]: Yeah, or how many couples have we seen that have gotten involved at the gym?

[Brent]: Yes. Oh my God.

[Janis]: Because it's like “oh, you're helping me with this training” and “let's text each other and support each other in our exercise program” and then we text each other about a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. So, it happens.

[Brent]: Which just should tell all of us, be careful.

[Janis]: Yeah, okay.

[Brent]: I mean, these are some of the high-risk things that we see that are going on.

[Janis]: It's interesting now the statistics are showing that there's more married women that are having affairs than in the past. In the past, it was generally married men who were having affairs with unmarried women. But the statistics have changed, and there's a lot more married women that are actually having affairs than they have in the past. You now, we get so busy in all of our lives that our marriage is not a priority. It's just easy for so many things to be put on hold and as we've said before, most marriages are dying of malnutrition. They're dying of neglect and that makes us more susceptible to getting involved in other types of relationships.

[Brent]: Yes. We've talked about, again, in previous times this idea of face to face and side to side that we start off initially in a relationship with this chemistry, and “it's you and me, baby, against the world” and it's this intoxication that can happen and that's what people are experiencing when they have this new relationship and they spend a lot of time and energy communicating and telling each other how wonderful they are. Remember, we all get about 18 months of that. But it can happen again in people's lives, and that's why it's such a risk. But everybody then turns side to side and they just get busy. They get distracted in their own marriages, and they slowly start distancing, end up leading two separate lives. We're kind of a little bit more like roommates now, or we're co parents or co business partners instead of boyfriend/girlfriend. Instead of that connection. It leaves people at risk. It just simply does and we just need to pay attention to that.

[Brent]: The increase and the ease of even things like online pornography. You know, talk about dopamine hits and these interactions and so, if somebody has gotten caught up in that, of course, we've seen that for years, mostly men, but we see a lot more women now involved in that and so, we have these addicted individuals that are just needing another hit, another dopamine hit, and they found it online with somebody. But all of a sudden now, it becomes with a real person, the risk is higher because it's a real person, which is more powerful, more intoxicating and so, that has added to a lot more of affairs as well and so, again, a lot of risk going on in our world and it's probably appropriate that we mentioned again the phenomenon that all marriages are vulnerable to that we call the 90-10 lie and it affects all of us and if we're not paying attention to it, being purposeful about our marriages, we all can be susceptible to this and so, you may not have listened to this one a few times ago, but the idea is that we all tend to, again, in that face to face environment where we fall for somebody. We think that we found everything that we would ever want in life, which just simply can't be. I mean, no human could be 100% of everything that we would want and that would be-- I always say-- I always tell people that would be idolatry, god's not even going to let that happen, you know¡

[Brent]: We generally marry somebody 80% to 90% of what we would like. Now, as marriage counselors, we help them go from 80 to 82 to 83 to 84 and a half, to 87. It's never going to be 100 though and so, the challenge with that is that leaves a certain amount of desire or need even, unmet, and we will encounter people in our life, we're going to come across their path of people that have that 10% or that 15% and the challenge is, even though it's only 10% that my partner doesn't have, that this person has, it doesn't feel like 10%, it feels like 50% or 70%.

[Brent]: Now, this will affect all of us on a continuum. On the low end, it just affects our attitude. We don't really say anything about it, but we just think internally like “gosh, I wish they had this kind of a job. Like so and so that I saw at the school fundraiser” or “this person coaches their kids. In Little League and I wish my spouse did more of that”, or “I wish this person cooked like that” or looked like that or went to the gym this often or whatever it is.

[Brent]: Again, so it just affects our attitude. Then you move up the ladder a little bit farther and people actually begin to criticize their spouse and try to mold them and get them to be different and to change and then, move up the ladder a little bit farther, which is what we're talking about here and people just think “I can't live without that, that 10% is oxygen. I have to have that” and they go after it. Now, again, over and over again, we see oftentimes they go out there and they get it and then they start being a little bit more objective because they had very much tunnel vision before. It's like “I just have to have that”. They go out and get that, but then now it's like “oh my gosh, I got that 10% or 15%. But this person's never going to be the mother or father of our children. This person is never going to have these qualities and so forth” and sometimes, again, reason we call it the 90-10 lie is because they get out there and they've kind of burnt the bridge and can't get back.

[Brent]: And so, the reason we always say that it feels more like 80% even though it's only 10%. I use the example that had two brothers and we'd always come home from school and my mom was like “Get a snack. Go to the refrigerator, get a snack”, because she knew we were always hungry, but she'd always baked cookies or something. They were on the counter and she said “but don't touch the cookies!”. All I could think about was the cookies.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: I had a whole refrigerator to eat from, which is the 85%, but I just wanted the 10% and so, again, it's just a phenomenon that's going to impact all of us. We just need to wake up; We need to pay attention to that. We've talked in the past about the key, as how do we keep our focus on the 85% or the 90% and then there's some grief that's involved in that. “Well, they're never going to be this, but there's so much wonder in the 80 and 90 that they have”, and it's just being consciously aware of that and managing that well or we get caught unawares.

[Janis]: Well, I think too in the affair recovery process, one of the things that's always so startling to the spouse when they find out the betrayer has had an affair is, they rewrite history. So, part of the 90-10 lie, especially when you're dealing with infidelity, is they've had a great marriage, then they've met this person six months ago and, all of a sudden, they go “I haven’t been happy for 25 years. Boy, the day before we got married, I knew shouldn't have done it” and it really throws the other spouse off because it's like “how is that possible? They were really happy just a year ago when we went on that vacation” and I think that's important for people to know once they're out of the affair intoxication, then they're like “no, I have been happy. This was a temporary thing”. But boy, that rewriting history.

[Brent]: Yeah, that's part of the lie. That's huge. That's really good.

[Janis]: It is, and it's very confusing for the other spouse. So, that is part of the 90-10 lie. So, next time we're going to begin to look at the key stages of recovery that are critical for couples to heal well and to thrive and to go on, and what we can all learn from that because we can learn from those in many things, and as much as-- As much as the frequencies of affairs have increased in our world, there's a way to prevent affairs. We can put tools in place, put practices in place and guard ourselves so that we don't have to get caught up in that, but that we can have healthy and whole and strong marriages.

[Brent]: So, we'll leave it there for today. But just know whether you're facing this, experiencing this yourself or whether it's a friend or family member, there's always a way through. When we bring our honest, real, open selves to God and to our spouse, there's always a way through to recovery. So, for today, go in peace. Bless you as you go.