there are various ways in life that we
are hurt by people that we love and care
about
sometimes it's because of the way they
treat us when they're not doing too well
themselves sometimes because they're
trying to control us and we feel as if
we're being treated as a child
but one of the greatest hurts
occurs in marriage
and that's when one spouse wants them
having an affair either emotional or
sexual
with another person
and then we find out about it
you might be thinking if that occurs
how do you ever get past it what if your
spouse comes back and says i'm sorry i
want to put it back together should i or
is that thing about once a cheater
always a cheater is that true i mean i
hear that all over the place is there
some way i can forgive is there someone
we can put this marriage back together
and have it strong
again
well the answer is
yes
we have worked with thousands and i'm
not exaggerating when i use that number
thousands of couples who'd been through
just that situation sometimes the
husband was the cheater sometimes the
wife was the cheater and now who are
doing extremely well in their marriages
so let's talk about how do you forgive a
cheating spouse i'm dr joe beam with
marriage helper and this is kimberly
holmes our ceo she leads us in powerful
and mighty ways kimberly's currently
working on her phd it'll be kind of fun
to see her when he gets done with that
so she and i can then get on these
things and argue back and forth one
doctor to another that'll be fun
i'll do that now
and often too
and be sure to stick around until the
end because we are going to tell you how
to get a free ebook that can help even
more when your marriage has been
affected by an affair so stick around to
hear more about that
this is relationship radio an extension
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[Music]
a couple of weeks ago i was traveling
and speaking at an event and there was a
guy who had heard me speak talk about us
at marriage helpers saving marriages and
he said to me
why would i ever
forgive someone who cheated on me
and i looked at him and he was clearly
still frustrated still upset and and i
can't remember exactly what i said back
it was maybe tell me more or what
happened and he said
you see i
my marriage just ended several months a
couple of months ago
and
she doesn't deserve
the forgiveness
and i said you know what
i want to ask you how is it affecting
you though
what about this are you holding on to
that is still hurting and impacting you
and the more we talked i was able to
explain to him about limerence and it
was amazing to watch his his countenance
change he began to cry and he said
that's exactly what happened to my wife
and he started to have understanding he
started to realize maybe she isn't this
terrible person that i've painted her to
be and then he further
opened up and said this was my third
marriage
and he hadn't forgiven any of the three
and so of course he was angry he was
carrying all of this with him and i
tried to share with him there is power
in forgiveness even when you don't feel
like forgiving them and that's exactly
what we're going to be talking about
today so did it appear to be that he
felt that because he had not been able
to forgive for marriage one or marriage
two that that was one of his problems in
marriage three
a hundred percent yes
okay
so i i reacted in the game i said oh
when you set their marriage i just want
all of you to understand i was not
putting down somebody who was in a third
marriage
i was instantly seeing what kimberly was
describing like oh he's repeated a
pattern and if he doesn't find a way to
solve this
that's right and so when in our
conversation he said i will never get
into another relationship because you
can't trust anyone and you begin to see
it when there's a lack of forgiveness
when when you hold on to that hurt you
begin to shut everyone else out
and it's not the best way to go through
life because we're meant to be in close
relationships with people we're meant to
have that kind of intimacy with a
husband or with a wife right like that's
how god created us but that's also what
research
shows us
leads to really healthy long term
lots of things psychological benefits
mental health wellness
immune systems right all of the things
and so
it's amazing how powerful forgiveness is
it is
in our intensive three-day workshop we
do for marriages uh typically the people
who come through that are in trouble not
all couples some couples come through we
we welcome anybody some come through
because they want to make their marriage
better but most
most of the couples that come into that
are in some kind of a crisis and we
spend a section on the last day of that
workshop helping people understand what
forgiveness is
and doing research of all the good
research out there about what
forgiveness entails we put some things
into that workshop that we can't we
don't have the time to explain here if
if you really want to get to the point
of being able to forgive you must first
embrace the pain you feel in other words
you can't just push it off to the side
kimberly several years ago i was working
with a young man whose best friend
had committed suicide
and i'm trying to help this guy
but he kept laughing now he was an idiot
and i said you're dying on the inside
you could see his eyes he was in great
pain but he's laughing making jokes
about it no he's an idiot always stupid
stuff like that and i was thinking then
you know if you don't stop and let
yourself feel the pain
then you're never going to deal with
this now we're not talking about
wallowing in pain
there are people who do that and spend
years and years and years in these giant
self-pity parties and those are bad too
but if you're going to be able to
forgive a spouse who cheated on you or
anyone else who hurt you
sometimes you have to first go through
not sometimes i think it's every time
you're gonna have to allow yourself
to to embrace the pain accept the fact
that it happened let yourself feel the
anger that's there not to hang on to it
but
so that it's not just hanging over you
that you finally can deal with it
so kimberly one thing we teach and of
course we can only explain it briefly
here uh about and teach it in our
workshop for example is that forgiveness
has three phases two of which
are essential for your own health and
then the last of which the third of
which if you want to put a relationship
back together
so the model is called decision-based
forgiveness and these first two parts of
it are that you choose
not to take vengeance
and that you choose to see the other
person as a flawed human being
not an evil human being who was out to
get you who specifically wanted to hurt
you in this way but to see them as
flawed
and then also choosing not to take
vengeance not to not to put it on
yourself to rectify the situation by
trying to inflict the same amount of
pain on them that you feel and because
why is that joe
because it will never work
i can never be sure that you hurt as
badly as i do
and so if i'm spending my time trying to
make you hurt or trying to figure out
how to make you hurt as badly as i'm i'm
always going to be frustrated plus
that attaches me to you like the
strongest glue out there
because i i can't let it go i can't get
past what you did to me
if i'm continually trying to figure out
how am i going to make you hurt even if
it's not at the forefront of my brain
every moment the fact that it's in there
that somehow someday some way i'm gonna
figure out how to hurt you as you hurt
me
then you're tied to that it becomes a
ball and chain of your life it really
does and so
there's a difference in vengeance and
justice justice if they steal your car
and you tell the police they stole the
car and that's justice vengeance is when
i want to make you hurt as badly as i
heard and you can never be sure that's
going to happen
and then other thing kimberly in
previous programs we've talked about the
fact that once you categorize a person
you tend to treat them based on that
category
so if i categorize you as evil
then i can justify anything and
everything i do to you
whereas if i categorize you as a flawed
human being
well then you're like me
maybe you're more flawed maybe you're
less flawed but you're like the rest of
us and so when you designate people as
evil
literally you can justify in your own
mind whatever you do no matter how bad
it is so these first two things are
really for your own health
if you pray to find peace
they're also about
empathy
and
brene brown who has done a lot of work
in
not particularly empathy but in shame
and
vulnerability and different things like
that one of the quotes that i love from
one of her books
is when people are thinking about
people who have hurt them in their past
she asks those people the question
how would the story that you are telling
yourselves about them change if you said
to yourself
what if they were doing the best that
they could
and it's amazing in her research doing
that how people's mindset would change
and they would go from being furious or
angry jealous envious to being
heartbroken
and saying wow if that's the if they
were honestly doing the best that they
could
then
i feel for them
and so it's amazing how it changes even
our our hearts towards the people
and changes us instead of because that
helps us to not continue to have that
negative thought about people who hurt
us but it teaches us to be more
empathetic in nature as well very good
our friend jeff king who has a
bachelor's degree in animal husbandry
points out those kinds of things if
there's a calf caught in the barbed wire
fence
and you go to cut the calf free
if the calf can it's going to bite you
but more like what a cow would do a cat
would do if it can it's going to kick
you hard even though the point could
break a limb
but it's not because the calf is evil or
bad it's because the calf is hurting and
the calf is scared
and so that often happens with human
beings they're hurting or they're scared
and what they do is atrocious we can't
justify the behavior
but like you said if i can understand
where it's coming from or at least have
some glimpse of that
it's like you know
i know you did an idiotic thing and that
hurt me a lot but it really wasn't about
me
it's about your inability to cope with
something that you're in right now
yeah exactly we would never look at
someone in a
actively in an affair and say well
they're doing the best they can for the
situation they're in
the affair isn't healthy like that's not
a good thing exactly but
how could we look at the situation and
still try and find the empathy somewhere
in it they are stuck in something they
don't know how to get out
maybe they're trying to cope for for
some pain that they're feeling and this
is the unhealthy way they're doing it
how can we find that sliver of it in the
situation so that we can connect on a
human to human level
very good i think that's outstanding now
if you were to come as a couple to one
of our workshops we would help you
understand something about that not by
making you a therapist or a counselor
that's not what we do but helping you
understand that that there are ways to
begin to at least comprehend and have
some empathy
for what the other person is doing even
when it hurts you badly
now that third step though
this is what sets apart us from the
the rest of the
humanity out there it's when not only
can we not take vengeance and and decide
to see you as a flawed human being but
then we decide we're going to reconcile
the relationship anyway
that kind of happened with parents and
kids we have seen that happen where kids
are 50 or 60 years old and finally
reconciled with their parents it can
happen with
with husbands and wives who are very
alienated from each other but finally
can do that but you're not going to be
able to make the reconciliation work
if you don't decide
to not take vengeance decide to see the
other person other person supply a human
if you reconcile without doing those two
things talk about a toxic relationship
talk about something that's going to be
hellaciously bad to be in
for both of you so those are two of the
things so
we need to deal with the pain
and then
understand this process and again we can
explain it a lot more in one of our
workshops than we can here what else
kimberly
the key of this is
that so many people say i don't feel
it yet i don't feel like forgiving i'm
still angry at them therefore i'm not
ready that's what the guy said to me at
that event he said
i'm i don't feel ready to forgive her
i'm not there yet
but the key to decision-based
forgiveness and why it's so powerful is
you decide it
even if you never feel it but it's
amazing how when you decide it and you
decide you choose to not take the
vengeance you choose to not see them as
evil the feelings can eventually come
but you have to make the decision to
begin to let go of it first
i have on occasion in my life of course
you know i'm 149 years old so i've been
around a long time but in my life i have
on occasion made those decisions and the
feelings of forgiveness came
almost that fast the feelings
on other occasions i had made those
decisions done what i was supposed to do
and it would take a while i'm not
talking about hours i'm talking about
sometimes months
before finally i actually felt
forgiveness toward the other person
it's kind of cool because you can
actually get there
but the decision leads to the emotion
and if you let the emotion lead to the
decision
your emotions are going to control you
and that's not always the healthiest way
to live
i don't know if it's ever the healthiest
way to live for your emotions to control
you
on some rare situation in other words if
i see you about to be hit by a bus and
my emotions cause me to thrust myself in
front of the bus to save you then yeah
you're right in the sense that it'll
kill me it won't be healthy but
it's still something we look at and say
but we understand the emotions took over
and the person did what they need to do
but mostly in life
emotions can lead us astray much more
often than they can lead us the other
direction
that's right
so what happens next if
so
i've forgiven in this instance right
like let's say my husband cheated on me
i make the decision to forgive
so then what's next
then
rebuilding trust which is going to
require some kind of accountability
in other words if i just say to alice
well okay you've forgiven me so
everything's okay now and i'm just going
to go you know live out here in any way
i want to
she's going to be saying no i need to
know where you go i need to know what
you do for a while i need to know who
you're having lunch with because i i
need some security for a while
and that's very understandable
like i need some kind of a process where
we can rebuild trust because you have
violated trust and if you just look me
in the eye and demand that i trust you
again
all kinds of warning bells go off inside
of me and so we would say you build some
kind of accountability not draconian not
like one person becomes the master and
the other the slave
but like one becomes the parent the
other a child
but some kind of accountability that's
agreeable to both so that trust can
be
rebuilt and that's if you've decided to
reconcile if you've decided to reconcile
that's correct
it's actually a pretty complicated
process we'll talk about that a little
bit right yeah well that's what i was
about to say so even if there's some of
the people listening and who have said
well we aren't reconciling yet but
they've had an affair then you still
need to do everything up into this point
and i even think the point we're about
to head into
you still need to do as well but if you
do decide to reconcile then the
accountability and rebuilding trust is
key
there and there's a whole lot that goes
that goes into that
so the final point is at is that at some
point you must begin to move on and stop
talking about the pain
either way there are the people who have
you know their spouse had an affair and
they ended up divorcing and they're
still living in that
like
that guy from his first marriage who's
still living in that
or
there's the people who they reconcile
and both of these are bad i don't think
either is worse both of them are bad in
their own ways but if you keep talking
about the pain to your spouse as you're
reconciling
how are you ever going to move past this
you shouldn't live
at in that time you shouldn't be as what
how did you say it earlier um
like just wallowing
not wallowing but
connected like joined together to that
traumatic time in your life you need to
move on from it
yeah we know that that there has to be
conversations you have got to deal with
issues we also know that and this is
more of an art than a science we can't
say okay in exactly 15 minutes or 15
conversations or 15 days we can't tell
you that it's more of an art than a
science but at some point you have to
move on and quit
talking about it that's where by the way
kimberly sometimes people
will use one of our coaches when they go
to the reconciliation process
by using our coaches our coaches can say
okay let's move to the next point
because the reconciliation process that
we've developed which is extremely
effective actually we use our hands to
illustrate it and it actually goes
through a process like this
and and you don't start off by
discussing your issues because that's
the wrong place to start
now unfortunately most of the time
counselors have to start you there
because you're paying them 150 bucks an
hour or something and it's like well
let's get to it but we've developed a
process to help you
get to the point of talking about all
the things you need to talk to but in a
structured way
so that you can actually have a
completion of the process because at
some point you you can't just keep
hanging onto it or be glued to it
all right with all some principles up
front
we now would like to go to one of the
questions people write questions and
send them in to us because they're
writing them then obviously they can't
read them a lot for us and so we ask
various team members at marriage helper
to read these questions for these people
and it also gives you a chance to meet
some of our team members because we get
to work with some awesome people some
really awesome people so let's go to our
first question
hey everybody my name is nathan and i'm
a coach here at marriage helper
i speak with people every day just like
you and help them navigate their
marriage situation
dr beam and kimberly holmes have asked
me to read a question that was submitted
by one of our listeners for today's
episode here's a question from gerard
he asks
my wife was in a one-year affair
she's very remorseful and has worked
hard on reestablishing trust
it's one year since she ended it we're
on a good path and i recognize what i
can do to better maintain a healthy
relationship
but what can i do to find the peace to
forgive
let's key on that last phrase in that
question
what can i do
to find the piece to forgive
it's been over for a year it lasted for
a year it's been over for a year she's
remorseful she's doing everything she
can to put it back together and he is
too
but he still has his hurt hanging on
back there
now that might mean that he will need a
therapist or a counselor to help him
work through that okay just help me deal
with this because there's a thing called
a grief process
in the degree process you know you have
to go
starting over here where it's like shock
and denial that kind of thing all the
way over here where it's like finally
being able to accept it
now he's been going through this for a
year and still hasn't got to that
acceptance point where he can find peace
within
now this is going to sound mean so
forgive me because i don't want to sound
mean
but i need to be a little bit direct
here if i can to maybe put this in
perspective for you what is it
that you want her to do that she hasn't
done yet
so that you could find peace within
do you want her
to hurt
more than she's hurt so far
is that what you want do you want her to
grovel
like being on her hands and knees almost
at least metaphorically and telling you
over and over again how sorry she is how
terrible she is etc is that what you
want from her do you do you want somehow
her to do some magic thing where she
waves a magic wand and all your bad
memories go away
what i'm saying is if you still can't
find peace with them with a woman who is
remorseful that's what you said
who wants to put the marriage back
together who knows that what she did was
wrong
now trying to to develop the right
relationship with you again
not finding peace within the forgiver
what is it that you want her to do
now as a second part of that
reverse it
if you decide well yeah i think i do
want her to hurt more i think i do want
her to gravel i think i do
look there's something she can't do like
she can't get in a time machine to go
back and make it not happen
that's an impossibility
but let's flip it around and say that
you were the one
who cheated which is a bad thing it's
always a bad thing
and now your wife's trying to find peace
and forgiving you and what if she were
to say to you the very thing that you
might be thinking right now well yes i
do want you to hurt more
how would you feel about that if that's
what she was telling you she needed from
you before she could forgive you yes i
do want you to grovel and talk about how
bad you are
i need that
you see then it wouldn't be fair at all
with it it's like i
do i manufacture hurt do do i just need
to wallow in how bad i was do i need to
hang on to that for the rest of my life
is that what you want me to do
self-flagellation over and over again is
that what you want me to do so you can
find peace to forgive me if she were
aiming that at you
you would find that cruel
like that's just not right
and so what is it you want or can do and
i
probably hear you're thinking right now
i want her to go back and make it not
ever happen
that's impossible
it did happen
and if you're going to find peace to
move on in
peace to move on i guess i should say
peace
comes
inside of you not by what's outside but
what's inside because when things around
you are going on and whether you have
peace or nots depending upon that you're
going to spend a lot of your life in
stress
because life is stressful there's so
many things going on oh my goodness the
government's doing that oh my goodness
look at the taxes here's inflation
here's the coronavis here's this here's
that and if your peace within is going
to be based on what other people are
doing
you're going to be miserable till the
day you die
peace comes within
and it comes from accepting now let me
be kind of a strange illustration but it
fits with this our oldest daughter
angela michelle we call her angel
when she was born she could not breathe
for the first seven minutes of her life
lost millions upon millions of brain
cells
and so angel is educably mentally
actually
she was diagnosed as trendably mentally
now i realize they don't use
that phraseology anymore has
become something bad but that's how she
was classified back when she was three
years old which means she was actually a
level under educably mentally
angel for example money makes no sense
to her
you could offer her a hundred dollar
bill and one dollar bill and ask which
one she wants it'll be the one closest
to her she'll pick it up she has no
comprehension of those things
and so when we begin to realize she's
not like other children we could
hope that things had been done
differently
that maybe she could have breathed for
those first seven minutes we could look
back and hang on all kinds of things
be mad at the doctor that delivered her
because he did something that he
shouldn't have done
but what what advantage is there to that
where is the peace
you accept what you can't change and so
we accepted
that angel's just different she's happy
she's as happy as she can be one of the
most loving people on planet earth
and she does she doesn't even worry
when congress isn't saying
and so we look at that and go accepting
angel as she is
we feel good we feel peace
she feels peace
and so sometimes it's accepting that
what has happened has happened you can't
undo it don't try to go back and figure
everything out well why did she think
like that why did she feel like that
what if i had done that what if this
other idiot had not come into
no good
no good comes from that
it's a matter of saying
within me is where the peace comes from
is accepting that it happened accepting
this over
so what else kimberly
realizing that
reconciliation
is a process we talked about it a bit
before we read this question but it very
well may be that you feel that this
reader feels stuck because
they haven't moved through the
reconciliation process and they don't
understand
that there's more to coming back
together and setting a new plan and
vision for your marriage that can get
you focused on the future instead of
focusing so much on the past
so we would recommend that you attend
our workshop and that you then do our
exploring reconciliation course along
with a coach so that you can move
forward
and there's actually a path a process
where you can talk about your feelings
but there are other things you need to
talk about as well you can talk about
the problems but it's at the right time
in the right place in this series of
things to talk about and and this
process has been validated and proven by
our coaches working with people all
kinds of great things happening there
so don't just think saying
well i forgive you let's go back and
live together and things are going to be
okay
there's still some issues underneath
there that we can actually teach you a
process
that's step by step by step you work
through
so you can find that piece within
but understand
it comes from within
we can get some things to help you get
there
but it's from within
well kimberly i hope i didn't confuse
that with all the various rambling i did
through there maybe we can get more
specific if we uh if we can go through
the next question
hello everybody my name is jared i'm one
of the coaches here at mayor chopr
uh you may also have seen me on the
tuesday night support call
i'm in addition i'm the head admin of
our uh facebook team dr beam and
kimberly have asked me to read a
question that has come in
alex says my wife does not see the harm
in remaining friends with the affair
partner i have explained my trust issues
my pain and how i feel disrespected her
response is that those are my issues to
deal with and that it's all about me not
her behavior
if i truly were forgiving i would trust
her how do we get past this
part of what we discuss at the workshop
which i'm not going to go into depth
here now
but when we talk about forgiveness we
also speak about how important it is
that the person who did the offending
thing so in this
example it's the woman who had the
affair
can understand how hurt
the person who was offended so in this
case the husband is about this situation
and
it seems like a couple of things could
be happening with this wife but one of
them could be she doesn't understand how
much he's hurt although he has said i've
tried to tell her my pain
how i need to feel respect how i have
trust issues but there's something there
to where either she's not hearing it or
she doesn't want to hear it
and so it can be very difficult to
forgive when a person refuses
to see the pain that they are that they
are causing or that they did cause it
can also be difficult to forgive when
the person isn't going to do what it
takes to rebuild trust and in this case
the fact that she's continuing to see
the affair partner
is not helping rebuild trust
it's making it worse
you see if i try to tell you
how much you hurt me and you basically
blow it off hey buddy that's your
problem not mine
i feel as if that you don't care about
what i feel
or that you're not accepting
responsibility that at least at the very
least you're not empathizing with the
pain and if you've ever had a situation
in your life where somebody did that to
you you were trying to tell them this
hurt me and they just blew you off like
get over it pal
you didn't walk away feeling good
you walked away you misunderstood you
walked away feeling used perhaps
manipulated etc etc and so in this
particular case where the wife doesn't
do that
would you agree kimberly then that it's
going to be difficult for him to be able
to go to the whole forgiveness process
as long as she refuses to understand or
even try to empathize with the pain he
feels not only from what she did
but the fact that she's still being
friends with this other guy
so i would agree
that it is difficult for him for them to
go through the reconciliation process
but he can go through the entire
forgiveness process
where he can forgive but reconciliation
will take place right exactly good point
excellent point i'm glad you said that
but it seems so he didn't actually have
a question i would think the implied
question here is what do i do
but
it
this is where we would say you have to
have a stop i would think because she's
continuing to do a behavior
that is harming
him and or the relationship she's
continuing to see the affair partner
remain friends with the affair partner
even though they are not intimately
involved
so she says
so she says
but then again
why would he believe that
exactly you're saying well i know i lied
to you before i know i cheated on you
before but although i'm still being
friends with this guy and seeing him i'm
not doing that anymore you know that
he's sitting here thinking
how can i believe that to be true
because here you are in this situation
when people refuse to empathize or don't
even try or refuse to accept
responsibility
this is what my behavior caused in you
this is what my my behavior led to
occurring in your heart your mind your
soul if i don't do that
then my sensitivity to you
is pretty much lacking
and so the question would be coming to
the guy like this well if she's still
seeing the guy which is still tearing
you apart
and she refuses to take responsibility
for her behaviors she refuses to
sympathize with your pain
do you think
they have a decent future together
if that never occurs
no this is
either
it this and this is why the
reconciliation process that we teach is
so key
because
you can't just say well she ended the
affair and then we didn't talk about
anything else and she wants to continue
to stay friends with the affair partner
you haven't fixed anything yes
maybe hopefully they're not physically
involved hopefully
hopefully or but
hopefully even if they're not right so
the other part of this is
what i would feel if i were this husband
is
but you still care more about that
relationship because you are unwilling
to end it
in any
capacity yeah yeah
so what do you think is going on of
course we don't know hers would have to
guess but what do you think's going on
when she says well this is a problem
this is your problem not mine
it's a defense mechanism she's putting
the blame back on him
when she's the one who actually needs to
do the changing now the catch-22 in this
is he can't make her change
you can't make her end the relationship
and get the guy out of her life for
forever
the only thing he can do is express how
he feels
how it's affecting him
and
asking either asking her to stop it
which it seems that he has done
or if that does not work making the
decision of do i set a safeguard that
offers protection is this where i'm
willing to draw the line and say this is
something you need to stop doing
or i need
something to happen that's going to
protect me
and that is something we have built into
our exploring reconciliation course
there's a point where you talk about the
pain the hurts the problems that kind of
stuff but there's also a point where we
call them stops as kimberly just says
safeguard that offers protection like
this i need to be protected emotionally
here and so this is something that has
to stop
there it's much more complicated we
can't explain it all here we did some
videos on it that lasted about three and
a half hours and just still
didn't explain it as much as we wanted
to
but what i'm trying to say here is this
we look at you going and kimberly made
an excellent point yes you can forgive
by doing the two things we talked about
i'm going to decide to see her as a
flawed human being i'm going to decide
not to take vengeance
and therefore you will forgive and you
can work through the pain and agony from
all of that
reconciliation is extremely difficult to
do when the other person refuses to
empathize with your pain
it's extremely difficult to do when the
other person doesn't take responsibility
for their own actions
but they put it back on you this is your
problem not my problem because
forgiveness without accountability
actually winds up being
permission
if i'm not putting some kind of
accountability to this
then you can do whatever you want to do
and and that typically works out very
badly so kimberly we usually on these
programs try to wind up saying here's
what you can do
to fix this so what would we recommend
that he do even though you just said it
it's true he can't change our what we
recommend to this guy to do well first
recommend him
maybe trying again because we don't know
how he's expressed
anything to her so far so trying again
and and doing it from an this is how it
makes me feel when you continue to see
him i feel
unvalued unheard whatever it is i don't
want to put the word in your mouth
and see if that begins to connect with
her she begins to see why this is so
important to you
if that doesn't work if she's unable to
see you may want to ask her to
go through this exploring reconciliation
process with you and one of our coaches
because when you have that third party
who can hear both of you as they're
guiding you through this material
there's going to come the point in it
where you do talk about behaviors that
need to stop and the way that it makes
you feel and setting up that
accountability that's a that's a
that's a less
defensive way to go through the process
she's less likely to get defensive with
a third party who's on both of your
sides as opposed to feeling like maybe
you're just trying to control her if
that if that may be how she feels so
that's where i would recommend what
about you what would you add
agree with that wholeheartedly
forgiveness you can do on your own
reconciliation actually takes two
and we do have that process for him
and if she refuses to accept
responsibility for her actions like this
is your problem buddy not mine
you would have to be the one to make a
decision do i want to live like that
and if you make that decision
how is that going to affect you as you
go through life
is it going to destroy you is it going
to affect you in a neutral way where it
doesn't bother you one way the other or
is it going to make you stronger and
better
and you have to make those decisions
it's a tough situation
if indeed you can get her potentially to
come to one of our three-day intensive
workshops with us that's where we do our
best to help people understand that we
would not get in our face we won't be
mean we don't get mean with anybody but
we talked pretty straight about a whole
lot of things new some really intense
education
that helps people understand a lot of
things that they just didn't grasp
before and because of the fact that you
go through with several other couples
who are also in some kind of distress or
difficulty
it's amazing how much you learn from
each other so you yes in our show notes
you can see the link to find out more
about our workshop and on that page you
can schedule a meeting with one of our
client relations reps to find out more
about the workshop or you can also
download our workshop brochure there
that gives a little bit more information
about it as well we have our workshops
in person and online and so there you
can join from anywhere in the world or
you can come join us in nashville
tennessee we have both those options and
we would do our best to help her
not like
preaching at her not by lecturing her
not by chastising her not by
embarrassing her certainly not by
manipulating her but we would do our
best to get it to the point where that
your spouse begins to understand his or
her responsibilities and begin to
empathize with you so kimberly what are
some key takeaways from today's program
first and most importantly is you
forgive because it is the best thing for
you to do
even if you don't yet feel like it so
remember the forgiveness is choosing to
see the other person as flawed not evil
and
choosing not to take vengeance
once you choose not to do those things
it helps you forgive you make the
decision to forgive
the second for the sake of your marriage
and your family we hope that then you do
the third part of forgiveness which is
to reconcile to make that choice
together
to put the marriage back together and to
make it work and we can help you do that
with the resources we've talked about
our workshops reconciliation process
that we take people through we would
love to help you do that
number three
also talking about that reconciliation
process the the a key point of that is
that there needs to be an understanding
of
both
parties involved both sides need to
understand each other
the pain that was caused all of those
things in order for healing to really
happen
number four is that trust has to be
reestablished and it's not by trying to
control the other person but by agreeing
upon
how you can best rebuild trust together
but also fifth point is don't think that
just by saying i forgive you that you
can reconcile that things are good that
things are fine
it really is a process and as we can see
with that second question if it's not
done
well if it's not done thoroughly then it
can even look like the forgiveness might
turn into enablement or permission and
or you turning into a doormat and that's
not the goal either
forgiveness is to lead to reconciliation
and reconciliation to putting the
marriage back together the best way
possible
and we can help you do that so go and
check out our workshop brochure that is
a free resource we have for you today as
well as we have a free ebook that you
can download that we will link to
on what to do after an affair so you can
find that free ebook it will be
in the show notes and you can access
that for even more information
well we have come to the last episode
this is the last episode of this
particular season
kimberly thank you for once again doing
this with me we have become so busy
we don't get to do many things together
anymore and this program is one of those
things we get to do together so thank
you for taking the time to be on here
that we could uh share
with people and hopefully help them have
better lives and marriages
well hello um to her baby listen i'm
gonna say right now that
if you're listening to my voice it's
because you have recognized that the
relationship you're in needs some help
and i'm going to tell you that having
attended this three-day workshop with dr
joe and his team
you know
it is going to give you the tools and
just the way you will learn how to
communicate effectively around hard
conversations in a safe environment
i can tell you that if you take the
workshop you will learn and you will
feel so comfortable in being open
because you're in a you're in a setting
that is set up to be safe with people
that are going through
i don't see similar problems that you
may be having but certainly recognizing
that they have some
challenges that they're going through so
if you're looking for a workshop that's
going to help you
with tools and understanding and giving
you time to self-reflect on who you are
this is the workshop
absolutely i just wanted to say ian and
i've been married for 32 years have
known each other for 40 years we've had
a bump in our relationship a pretty big
one
i won't go into details but two months
ago i really didn't think that there was
good a chance our our marriage would
survive
and i went on to a forum and actually
marriage helper came up as highly
recommended and so i looked into the
videos i looked at a lot of joe beam's
videos that he had lots of resources
there
and you know we started talking and i
really couldn't just give up on our
relationship and i i wanted more and so
i talked to you and i said let's you
know let's go for this and see
we did a counseling session first with
somebody from marriage helper that
helped she encouraged us to also take
this weekend workshop and it has really
delivered it has really helped us
open up communication
and i can say that i'm like 99.9 from
forgiving him and 100 sure that i want
to continue our marriage
thank you for joining us for this week's
episode of relationship radio please
refer to the notes in the description to
learn more about any resources mentioned
in this episode please visit our website
at marriagehelper.com for more
information about our online courses
marriage workshops
and coaching
if you would like immediate help for
your marriage situation then click on
the link on the screen to schedule a
free marriage strategy call with one of
our team members
we exist to help save marriages and
strengthen families we look forward to
interacting with you on the next episode
of relationship radio
you