Welcome to new view advice with Amanda Durocher.

Hi, beautiful soul. Welcome to new view advice. My name is Amanda Durocher. And if

you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for

the healing journey. I don't believe I have all the answers you seek. I believe

you have all the answers. You just may need a new view and a little

help along the way. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. Today, I'm

answering a listener question from someone who is struggling to forgive

themselves after cheating and is struggling in their marriage since their

affair. In this question, we discuss a relationship where someone

has cheated on their husband and they have chosen to move forward and to

remain married and together in their relationship. But this listener still finds themselves

feeling sad, lonely, afraid. They feel like a lost

and broken soul. So today, we are going to talk about some steps that

we can take to move towards forgiveness, but also how to move

forward. Because after infidelity, so often,

if both people are willing to work on the relationship, the relationship can

a % be repaired. But it's so important for both people to

commit to moving forward in the relationship and to learn to

communicate and to do some inner work. Because this

question definitely, to me, points to having to

do some inner work. I think when it comes to infidelity,

it can feel so isolating, especially for the person who cheated because society

is so quick to judge people who cheat. I also wanna give this little

disclaimer upfront because people can get really mad at me when I talk about this

topic. And sometimes people are cheated on by somebody who's

really narcissistic, unapologetic, and has no feelings.

Okay? That is real. But people in this podcast who are writing into this

podcast have many feelings and are very sorry for what they did,

and they wanna understand why they did it. So today's goal is really

to break down this question and start to

ask some questions because I can't tell you why this happened or why you feel

the way you do. But it is my goal to help everybody who maybe can

relate to this question to begin to ask themselves the questions

and to begin getting honest with themselves about what is really going

on underneath the surface. Because I believe that infidelity is so

often a symptom to deeper rooted issues. And so today, we're gonna

dive into maybe what some of those deeper rooted issues can be, how we can

forgive ourselves, and also offering compassion to this

listener. So before we jump in, I just wanna mention that on my website at

newviewadvice.com/infidelityhub, you'll find more

resources for healing from infidelity. On my website, you'll find more

podcast episodes, journal prompts, and book recommendations because I believe that if

one of your goals is repairing your relationship, reading couples books, you and your partner

can be really helpful as well. So that is all on my website at

newvideoadvice.com/infidelityhub. So with that, let's jump on into

today's listener question.

Hi, Amanda. I had an affair around the time of the death of my mom,

about a year into my marriage. I had two babies, and my husband is not

the most affectionate person. I did a lot of alone crying and made a lot

of mistakes by drowning myself in alcohol and neglecting everything after my

mom passed. I found someone who helped pick up the pieces, who made me feel

loved and cared for and special, who gave me the intention I had searched

for. But my affair lasted about a year on and off, scared to break it

off because I was afraid of him telling my husband. Finally, I did. I've since

told my husband a couple of years ago, but last year, I fell back into

it. I had another affair. I was very intoxicated and don't quite

recall it all, but later continued the conversations, though I never saw him

again. My heart fell head over heels for this person because once again, I

felt seen, I felt heard, and I felt loved. That has since ended as well.

I confessed to my husband, we have made it a year since then, but things

with my husband once again are just roommate lifestyle, and I find myself

depressed. I never want to make those mistakes again. I've stopped drinking.

I stay home and with a small group of ladies if I do anything, but

I just feel sad, lonely, and afraid. My husband always thinks I'm angry.

I don't feel I am, but him constantly voicing that hurts. We still do not

have a deep connection together, just a routine marriage. I want it to work, but

I have no clue what to do. I grew up in a house where my

parents loved us. My dad drank a lot and acted like a crazy person, but

I can't ever recall not feeling loved. There was a lot of trauma there with

fighting and my dad abusing my mom, but never us. Anyways, I struggle a lot

with accepting forgiveness from God for what I did. I cry

thinking that my place in hell is sealed. I'm a lost soul, a broken

soul, and I don't feel I have any trusted friends to share with completely.

I carry this alone. Thank you so much for this question.

And before I dive into kind of pulling some pieces

of this and trying to help you to move forward, I want to

thank you for writing in this question because I am grateful

that you have reached out for help. Because with your

question, I think that is the first step for you, is that beyond

this question and beyond my answer here, I believe you need help.

And I believe you need more people who you can rely on in your

life. And that just might be beginning to open up to your

husband and the friends you already have and your family. It doesn't mean

those people aren't there, but you do not deserve to carry

this burden by yourself. And I am so sorry that you have felt

that you have to carry this all alone. I don't know why you feel like

you have to carry it alone. My guess is shame, that you feel ashamed of

what you did, and you're afraid of being judged and shamed by others, maybe shunned

by others. Maybe your fear is that you will be left alone

and abandoned if you share this. But the truth is you

already feel alone. So I want to

invite you to invite somebody into this. And if it can't be

somebody in your present day life, I wanna put it at the top of this

episode that I really invite you to look into therapy, to look into

relationship therapy, maybe to look into relationship coaching.

I'm starting a podcast with a woman named Kelby Kanut, and she

does relationship coaching. I'm gonna link her in the show notes for this episode because

I believe that you are looking to move forward.

That's what it sounds like, and you're stuck. And I am so

sorry to hear that you feel so lost and broken because nobody deserves to

feel lost and broken. I have felt lost and broken so

many times throughout my life. I don't know how much anybody has

listened to this podcast before, but I am a trauma survivor. I'm a rape

survivor. I'm a near death experience survivor. I am a childhood trauma

survivor. So I'd mentioned that because I understand

what it feels like to be lost and broken. And it breaks my heart

that you feel that way. It breaks my heart that anybody feels that way. I

joke that empathy will be my fatal flaw or it'll be my reckoning.

I don't know. But I share my

experience with being lost and broken with you because I know that you will not

be here forever. You will not always feel the way you are feeling

now, but it is going to require some work to

move forward. And it sounds like you've had two affairs now,

and I sounds like you likely didn't do much work on your

relationship or yourself after the first affair, but it sounds like this second

affair has really triggered in you wanting change in your life. And I

think that rock bottom can feel so freaking hard,

but, also, it can be a gift for us to get to the point

where we cannot continue to live in our suffering anymore.

Because, yes, you've made mistakes, but you don't deserve

to punish yourself for said mistakes for the rest of your life. I

believe every mistake we make is forgivable, and I also believe

that oftentimes the person who needs to forgive us most is ourselves.

Because it sounds like you and your husband have chosen to move forward

together. He knows what you've done. He still is choosing to be in the relationship

as well. But it sounds to me like you are struggling to forgive you. You

mentioned here that you're struggling to accept forgiveness from God, and you

cry thinking of your place in hell. To me, that sounds like

another way you are punishing yourself. You are continually

telling yourself that not even just right now are you being punished, but

you will continue to be punished for the end of time. And I do not

believe that is the case at all. Your place in hell

is not sealed. I truly don't even think there is a hell. I think planet

Earth feels like hell to me at times, but we're not gonna go there today.

But you, I believe, are struggling with accepting forgiveness from

God because you're struggling to forgive yourself. And I

want to break down a few things I noticed in this

question that may help you to begin to forgive yourself

or at least may help you to have more awareness because you

have a lot of awareness here, I wanna mention, throughout your question. And I

think that it's just time for you to take another step

into the awareness, which is likely going to require you to

feel some feelings and to be a bit more honest with yourself.

So first, let's start with some inner work, and then I wanna talk a bit

about your relationship. So if you were to begin to dive into inner

work around why did you have these affairs and why are you having trouble

forgiving yourself, I would start, if I were you, with

looking at your childhood that you mentioned. Do you mention that you grew up

in a house where your parents loved you, but your father drank a lot, acted

like crazy person? But you don't feel like you weren't loved, but there was a

lot of trauma. I don't wanna challenge if you felt loved,

but I do wanna challenge that it sounds like there were things missing in your

childhood. You mentioned that you had these two affairs

because you felt seen, you felt heard, and you were

given attention that you had been searching for. If your father

drank a lot and acted like a crazy person and was abusing

your mother, my guess is you didn't always feel seen and heard as

a child. That there were many moments in your childhood when you needed to

be seen and heard and you weren't. My guess is if you were

witnessing those events as a child, you felt fear.

You felt afraid. And, yes, you said the abuse didn't come towards

you, but you witnessed your mother in situations that you

could not help and you could not change. And you witnessed the side

of your father that was very scary, it sounds like. And I believe

that children deserve to be protected and safe. This

doesn't sound like you grew up in a protective and a safe environment.

And I mentioned that because though you may have felt

loved at all times, it sounds like there might have been other things

that were lacking. If you're having trouble on the word love, maybe look

at times you didn't feel seen, heard,

protected, or safe. And I believe all those things lead to us

feeling loved, by the way. And I also wanna offer here that it's

okay if you didn't feel loved every moment of your childhood. It doesn't mean

you have to hate your parents. It doesn't mean you even have to blame your

parents. We don't do inner child work to shift the blame from

us to them. We do inner child work because these wounds

that we develop in childhood live within us. These inner children,

these different ages, these different moments of time live within our

bodies. It is moments that get stuck because that fear

gets stuck, and we deserve to free ourselves

of that. We deserved in that moment that gets stuck

to have been protected or to have felt safe or to feel loved or

to have felt seen and heard. We deserved that then, and we didn't

get it in the moment when we were a child, but we can give it

to ourselves now. What a beautiful gift we can give ourselves.

That to me is the act of self compassion, self love, and self

healing, is being the parent for ourself now that we

didn't have then. And, again, a lot of people can struggle with

this because they get stuck around the thought of not wanting to judge their

parents. You don't have to judge your parent in order to

offer yourself empathy for that what you went through, you

wouldn't want another child to go through. Because your parents

were likely doing the best they could. That's just the reality of life.

Our parents are doing the best they can. It doesn't mean they're

perfect. But as children, we put them on a godlike pedestal

because we need to be safe. We need to be protected. This person is in

charge of giving us really everything, at the end of the day protecting

us and leaving us feeling safe. And so a lot of times as

children, we can't look at the pain that our parents cause

us. And that's why it comes up again later to be looked at.

And oftentimes, relationships is a big trigger for that. And I'm gonna

plug my future podcast that's coming out in a few weeks, Love Under the

Scope. We are really diving into that on that podcast about

how relationships trigger our inner child. And I just think it's

so important because I think so many people can get stuck in relationship

patterns because they don't understand the connection between these

childhood wounds and how we play them out today. But that's the reality

of many of these things that happen in our relationships.

And so with your question, I wanted to offer that perspective.

And maybe it doesn't resonate for you, but maybe there's somebody else out there who's

like, dang. You're right. I didn't feel seen by my parents, and I can see

that playing out in my life now. I'm not sure, but I do

believe so many times when we don't know or we feel stuck, it

goes farther back than we realize, the wounding. So that is

where I would begin with the inner work. And, again, you don't have to do

that by yourself. I invite you to try therapy or to

find somebody who can help you to begin to do that inner child

work. You don't have to do it alone. As I mentioned,

Helby, who I'm doing a podcast with, helps people with that. I'm also

in two weeks from this episode. So depending on when you listen to it, you

may be able to hear it. I have an episode coming out about EMDR, where

EMDR can help you do this as well, and you can do EMDR with therapist.

And I have a therapist who explains all about EMDR and the wonderful

benefits of doing EMDR. So there are steps that you can

take. You just may have to go through one of your first

hurdles, the person who wrote this question, which is opening up to other people

because you feel like you have to carry this alone, and I promise you, you

don't. And I promise you that if somebody shames

you for this, that does not make them right and you wrong. So

many times we don't open up because being shamed and blamed by somebody

can be more painful than the trauma itself in different situations.

And that's why for you, I invite you to maybe bring in a professional

because I don't know the people in your life, and I don't know how safe

they are. But that leads me to I do think that you need to bring

your husband into this conversation. It does sound like you guys

are in some patterns of not communicating, And it sounds

like he thinks you're angry, and you don't feel like you're

angry. But my guess is maybe you're feeling something else he's catching, and

you guys don't know how to communicate about your emotions. You don't know how to

communicate about the shame you're feeling. He may have some shame as well.

And I think it's time. If you really wanna make this relationship work, which I

think you can, but I think it's going to take both of you committing to

starting from scratch. So in the past, I'll link it in the show notes, I

did a podcast episode with Andrea Giles who is a healing

from infidelity coach. So I'll also link her website as well because maybe

she is somebody who somebody out there would be interested in working with who feels

alone in this because you don't have to feel alone. I really, really want

you to understand that, and I understand why we carry

these. I

believe

that

the

shame and the blame keeps us from seeking the help we need. Though I know

I may sound like a broken record at this point, but I really, really do

believe that there is hope for you. You will not feel

this way forever, and there are compassionate people out

there who can help you through this. So in your relationship,

maybe couples therapy would be a good starting point. Maybe one of those books on

my website I mentioned in the intro could be helpful. But I do think you

have to start speaking to your husband about how you're feeling. If you

don't wanna feel like a roommate with your husband,

which I think many relationships can go through rough patches.

I think it's part of being in a long term relationship. But I think that

your relationship I talked about this before, and I'm pretty sure Andrea Giles mentioned it

in the episode I'm going to link that when infidelity happens,

it's like a a house is on Rakke foundation and the house collapses.

And in order to rebuild a relationship, you're rebuilding a new house in

this metaphor. So you're rebuilding your relationship from scratch.

And I think it sounds like you and your husband with these two affairs have

tried to just kinda skirt over them and put them under the rug, but it

sounds like the piles under the rug is getting too big. I actually

talked about it in my first episode of newbie advice that it's important to do

the inner work because it's like when we don't do the work and we don't

look at why we feel the way we feel and we don't look at our

emotions and we don't look at our trauma, it's like we're shoving a bunch of

cookies under the rug. I call it cookies. Other people say it's like shit under

the rug. But I like cookies because I like a sweeter example. But it's like

shoving a bunch of cookies under a rug and then there's this mound. And you

can try to put plants around the mound. You can try to put decorations. You

can try to shove the mound behind a dresser, but it's still there.

And I think it sounds like the mound in your relationship has

gotten so big, it is the centerpiece of your relationship. And there

are so many things that you and your husband need to begin

communicating about, and that's okay. That's okay.

We all have to start somewhere. It can be so intimidating to start

from the beginning and to start from scratch. I I was just talking to somebody

about that yesterday with the example of exercise, about how when we first

start going to the gym, it's so intimidating, and we don't get the results

we want right away. But over time, we begin to get

stronger, and we begin to see our strength. And then a year in,

we're like, oh my god. Look at my growth. But we live in a society

that wants everything to change instantaneously. The

truth is most things in life aren't instantaneous. And honestly, I believe nothing worth

having is instantaneous. The best things in life, we have to work

for. And I think we forget that, and we

can get intimidated by that. But I believe your relationship

can work. It will just take you both committing to it, which is going

to take you having a conversation with your husband first.

From what I've read, you're gonna have to be the one to go to him

and open the door. Or with the cookies under the rug

example, you're gonna have to be the one to lift the rug and begin showing

your husband the cookies that you guys have been shoving under the rug. And, again,

it's so human to try and avoid pain.

It sounds like you and your husband have both hurt each other throughout your relationship.

You have felt unseen and a lack of affection,

and he has likely been hurt by your affairs that you sought love somewhere

else. And in order to move forward, it's going to take

communication and patience with one another and learning to

communicate about your feelings. Because what I'm hearing with your question with the two affairs

you had, what you were really seeking was emotional intimacy,

not sex. Sex might have been a fun part of it, but it

sounds from you with what you said, the feeling loved, the feeling cared for,

the feeling special, the feeling seen, the feeling heard, and, again, the feeling

loved. What you were looking for was emotional intimacy.

And, again, I invite you to really be with

that inner child and ask if it's true that you felt as

loved as you're telling yourself throughout your childhood. Because, again,

it doesn't mean your parents didn't love you. And maybe

loved isn't the word, but maybe you knew you were loved. But

maybe you didn't feel you were loved. Another book I wanna recommend here is called

Running on Empty, and it's about emotional neglect. And everybody I

recommend this book to is like, that doesn't apply to me. But emotional neglect

is what was missing in our childhood that we couldn't see. So so often,

we don't actually know we were emotionally neglected until reading a book like this, and

we go, oh, that's what I was missing. Yes.

And I think growing up with someone who drinks a lot and acts like a

crazy person, there was probably some emotional neglect going on.

And, again, you can have that information and know

it to be true and still not judge your parents for it.

It's very hard because the mind wants to then throw blame

or it doesn't wanna judge because it can see so many other things, especially

from an adult mind. We can see our parents so much clearer than when we

were children. Like, we can see, oh my gosh. Like, you were that age when

you had me? Oh my god. You know? I think about that all the time.

I don't have any children. And my parents had two kids at my age, and

I'm like, oh my gosh. That's crazy. I can

see why some things played out the way they did. I can see it

differently. But I share that because it's okay to open

the childhood wounding, and it's okay to burst the bubble that your parents

weren't perfect because I'll burst it for you now. I don't know anybody who's perfect.

So I don't know how anybody's parents could be perfect because nobody is

perfect. No human is perfect. The human journey is beautiful and

incredibly messy. It's a journey about growth. I believe we're all here

to play out the hero's journey. And what that is, it's like the arc of

a movie. It's like we come here one way, and throughout our life, we get

to evolve and change. And we get to have these heroic

moments, and we get to have these antagonistic moments, but we get to be the

main character of our life. And every main character in every movie

goes through obstacles and makes mistakes

and needs to make amends. It's human. So I

hope that throughout this question, if you've taken

anything, it would at least be to take some of that

shame and that blame off your shoulders. Because carrying shame and

blame, in my experience, feels like carrying the heaviest

boulder in the whole world. Like being that Greek myth

figure, Atlas, and the myth is that he has to carry the world

on his shoulders. I don't remember the whole story, but I know it from

Percy Jackson, if anybody reads those novels. But Atlas

carries the world on his shoulders. Oh my god. What a

burden. Nobody's meant to carry the whole world.

You are not meant to carry everything you're carrying. And my guess is you are

carrying a lot more than even this one instance, which is why you feel so

broken and so lost. And so for you, as I mentioned, I think finding

somebody to help you through this is gonna be really helpful. So, again, therapist, a

coach, a relationship therapist, maybe you and your husband can start going

to therapy once a week together. Because another thing I wanna mention

here is for both affairs, I'm wondering if there was

an emotional trigger that got you to the point of having

an affair. So it sounds like with the first affair, it happened around the

death of your mother, which sounds like a very stressful time, which

caused you to go to a coping strategy. You found

somebody to take care of you. I'm guessing at that time, you did not

have the tools or the skills to take care of yourself. Can you

forgive yourself for that? Can you forgive yourself that at that point in time, you

likely did not know better? It's hard for us to understand

that, but the truth is you were likely doing the best you could at that

time. You know, I'll give you an example from my life. I used to

drink a lot. I'm also sober. It sounds like you've stopped drinking, and I commend

you for that because I think that that's going to be really helpful for you

on your journey too. I believe the inner work becomes clearer

when we take away the things that we use to numb.

But when I was a heavy drinker, I was really bad to

my partner. I'll be honest. I used to drink so much. He'd have to carry

me home from bars. He'd have to take care of me. I was reckless. I

was reckless with my own life. I didn't have any regard for my life, and

it was a burden on other people. And I lived with immense shame

because I blacked out all the effing time. And I

would drink till blackout, and somebody would have to freaking carry me home. Somebody

would have to take care of me. And I would wake up the next day

with so much shame because I didn't wanna be that way, but I didn't know

how not to be that way. And people would say just stop drinking, and there

there were many times I did try to stop drinking, but I literally couldn't.

And why couldn't I? It's because I didn't have another coping

strategy to handle the hell I was living in. And that's what I think

happens is that life can feel like hell. It can also feel like heaven.

But for many of us, when we are deep in our suffering, it feels like

we're living in hell. And when I was going through the process of healing

from rape and healing from child rape, I was living in hell,

and the only thing that could make me feel better was a glass of

wine. And that makes me very sad to see now that

I didn't have the tools. I didn't know how not to pick up a drink

when I had PTSD for a very long time, when I was whacked with things

that most people will never even look at and won't even let

me speak about in most rooms. I live with those things. I

lived with those realities, and I share that because many people who listen to this

podcast live with traumas that they have to, like you

said, carry alone. And when we have to carry things alone that we

never should have had to carry alone, it can lead us to doing

things that other people would judge as irresponsible,

hurtful, bad, shameful, blameful, when truly

we're just trying to figure it out. We're just trying to survive. And it

sounds to me like after the death of your mom, that might have been a

place where you were at. That you just needed to

survive. And this affair helps you do that. And,

again, does it make it right? We don't have to make everything right or wrong.

It's just true. And what does that mean, that it was true for

you? The forgiveness comes when you can see, I'm so sorry, self, that

you didn't have another way to cope at the the time. I didn't have the

tools. It's like, say, you have to fix a door, and you have a toolbox,

but all the tools you need to fix the door are missing. How do you

fix the door? You don't. Maybe you then start duct taping it, and you start,

like, throwing it up, and you try to shove it in there. But it's not

actually fixed because you didn't have the tools in the toolbox that

could do the job. It's the same thing that happens in our life when we

don't have the tools yet yet because you will get the

tools. When you don't have the tools, we have to come up with something

in order to feel better. It's a survival mechanism. It's

a trauma response. It's devastating, and it's devastating

and painful to look at, but it's forgivable because it's like, oh,

that wasn't who I truly am. That was a trauma response.

Dang. I am so sorry, self, that it's taken me so long to

see that. And I mentioned that because with the first one, I see that with

the death of your mother, and I'm wondering if, with the second affair, if

there was another trauma response that was triggered. And it might have been a smaller

event, but I'm wondering if maybe something happened in your marriage that day, maybe you

hit a boiling point, like, the lack of communication just built up that you hit

a breaking point. But these are the things that can help us to bring

compassion to ourselves when we can see why we did what we

did, and we can understand that it came from a wounded place.

One more example I'll give is, like, think of a caged animal. Think of,

like, a coyote. When we see coyotes out and about, they don't

approach people. We don't really approach them, but they don't approach us. If you were

to cage a coyote, it likely would begin to snarl

at you, claw at you, maybe try to bite you because it's caged and

it's trying to survive. And that's what it can feel like

when we're living with trauma or when traumatic things happen and we don't know how

to feel like it is we feel like we're caged, and we act from a

caged response. We feel backed into a corner when we don't know what to do.

When things are just getting worse and worse, we're just backing farther and farther into

a corner, and then we can lash out. And my guess is these affairs might

have been from a lashing out type of response where you were like, oh my

god. I just need something to feel better. I cannot feel this way anymore. I

need something. And I share all that because I hope a new view was

brought to your situation today. My prayer is that you're able to

see yourself with a little bit more kindness, a little more forgiveness,

or at least that you see some steps you can take forward. And again

for you, you do not deserve to carry all this alone.

No one deserves to carry anything alone. It's why I do what I do.

I carried so much alone for so long, and that led me

to the darkest places I have ever been, and I don't think it ever

should have been that way. No one deserves to be isolated in their pain, and

that includes you. So I hope something was helpful in this answer. I am

so sorry you are going through such a tough time, but I am sending you

so much love. Thank you for this question.

Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Newbie Advice. As always,

I'm so grateful to have these conversations each week and to continue discussing the

healing journey. If you think this episode could help somebody, I invite you to share

it with a friend. The way that Nuvia advice gets spread the most is by

word-of-mouth, so I'm so grateful for everybody who shares it with a friend, and I

would invite you to continue to do so. Please, please share any of my work

with anyone you know. It's the best form of promotion. It's for

humans to share with more humans. So I really invite you, if you enjoyed this

episode, to share with somebody else. I know that infidelity can be a topic that's

hard to share with other people, but I do invite you to share this episode,

another episode, or even just my website where I have a bunch of free resources

for for the healing journey and a lot of content. I'm really excited. New View

Advice is moving in a new direction. I have four podcasts coming this spring,

and we're gonna have new writers on the site who are gonna share their perspectives

because I don't believe I have the only view. I believe that everybody has a

unique perspective, and I wanna bring a bunch of new views to new view. So

it's a super exciting time for new view advice, and I just ask for help

spreading the word about my work and my content. I am really

grateful for everybody who has continued to listen throughout the years. So thank you. Thank

you. Thank you so much for your support, And thank you again for joining me

for another episode of NuVu Advice. As always, I hope I was able to offer

you NuVu on whatever you may be going through. Send you all my love. See

you next time.