After the Affair with Luke Shillings | Ep #101

Andrea Giles:

I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
Episode #101, After the Affair, with Luke Shillings.

Hello, and welcome to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, where courageous
women learn not only to heal from their spouse’s betrayal, but to become
the boldest, truest, most decisive and confident versions of themselves
ever. If you know there’s more for you than the life you’re currently
living, but don’t quite know how to get there, you are in the right place.
Stick around to learn how to create a life that will knock your own socks
off. Is it possible? It is, and I’m here to show you how. I’m your host,
Andrea Giles. Are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Episode #101. Glad you’re here today. I have a
special guest today that I’ve been really excited to have on. Luke is a
coach. He is in the same space as me. I’m going to let him introduce
himself. He’s in the infidelity space. He also has had personal experience
with infidelity. He’s going to tell you all about it today in this episode,
and I’m hoping that it will help all of you.

I, in particular, have men reach out to me quite a bit who wish that there
was more help for men, because it happens for men too, not just women. And
I’m just so thrilled that Luke is going to be in this space, because I know
that he’s going to be able to help a lot of men, as I do most of my work
with women. That said, I do have some male clients, usually in one-on-one
spaces, love working with my men. But I’m happy to welcome Luke into the
space, let him tell you about himself, his experience, how you can work
with him, all of those things.

Before we jump into that, if you are interested in joining the next round
of my group program, Know in 90, enrollment is open right now. We’re
starting up in November. It’s filling up. It’s going to be an amazing,
amazing group. We do some mighty powerful work in there. Go check out my
website, andreagiles.com. Everything you need to know is in there. Go grab
your spot. All right.

Hey, everybody, as I mentioned in the intro, today we have an amazing
guest. I’ve been so excited to have him on the podcast. This is Luke
Shillings. Luke is going to be sharing with us today his experience with
infidelity, with being on the other end of betrayal and kind of what his
experience was with that. I’ve been so excited to introduce him to all of
you. Luke is a coach, and he is in the infidelity space with me as well,
and he is working with men. And I thought it would be useful and helpful to
have Luke on to introduce him to all of you and to hear from his story. I’m
sure that the things that he shares will resonate with all of you. So first
of all, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.

Luke Shillings:

Thank you very much.

Andrea Giles:

You’re welcome. First of all, just tell us where you’re from, some
interesting things about yourself, and then we’ll get into more of the
infidelity piece.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for the introduction and
thank you for having me on board-

Andrea Giles:

Absolutely.

Luke Shillings:

… and allow me to speak to all your lovely listeners.

Andrea Giles:

Yes.

Luke Shillings:

Okay. Yeah. So a little bit about me. I’m a 41-year old divorced father of
two. And I spend much of my time learning and as you’ve already mentioned,
I’m a Certified Relationship and Infidelity Coach, so I also have been
building my own business over the last year or so, helping men, pretty much
the mirror version of yourself in terms of the type of clients that I work
with. And I’m based in the UK in a little town called Lincoln, just not far
from the East Coast, and I’ve been here all my life, always been in this
sort of area.

I’ve had a variety of jobs over my life. I’ve always probably defined
myself as a bit of a jack of all trades. And it’s interesting, prior to
sort of getting into the role and the space I’m in now, I’ve always felt
like I’m not really quite sure what I want to do with my life. And only in
the last few years that’s really sort of fallen into the place, and now I
can confidently say that this is what I’d like to do for the rest of my
life.

I spent about 15 years in hospitality, a customer service background. And I
owned a pub/restaurant and bed and breakfast for about five years, and then
moved into manufacturing. And I’ve always been in managerial roles, always
been working with teams of people, and I suppose in a way, coaching people,
right from the word go.

Andrea Giles:

Yep.

Luke Shillings:

And I married and I met my now ex-wife about 15 years ago. And honestly, I
don’t think I ever really wanted to get married. And when I was young, my
parents separated when I was a very young age. And bizarrely enough, it was
my sort of first introduction to infidelity. That was the reason that their
marriage broke down, and so I experienced it from a child’s perspective,
sort of going through it. They maintained a very, very good co-parenting
relationship and they get on well now, but obviously been separate for all
of that time. And so, I certainly saw it from that unusual perspective.

I don’t think I really realized the impact it would sort of have later on
in life in terms of the experience it provided. And I suppose because I saw
some of the pain that my mother went through, I think there was this fear
around getting married, mainly because I had this fear of getting divorced.
And I thought, “Well, if I don’t get married, that solves that one.”

Andrea Giles:

Right.

Luke Shillings:

Anyway, and then I met my wife-to-be, and very, very quickly I knew that
something just changed and I knew that I wanted to marry this woman. And
probably within a year of being sort of dating, we got engaged. And we got
married, bought a house, and then had two children, currently six and nine.
And we were married for about seven and a half years before the infidelity
came into our story.

And she’d started to sort, I suppose, drift apart. But bizarrely, I don’t
think I’d really noticed. And this was quite a thing for me because I’ve
always been quite good at reading people, or at least I considered myself
very good at reading people. And so when this first started to happen and I
did start to spot some things, there was this element of paranoia. I said,
“Well, how could I have missed this change? How did I miss this transition
from being happily married to this now place where there’s disconnect
that’s building?” And the affair partner was somebody that we both knew
quite well, so that added an extra element into the mix and made things a
little bit difficult. So in a way, it felt like I was losing two people in
some respects, both a friend and my wife.

When it did come to the surface, I wasn’t prepared to just walk away from
the marriage. I really wanted to try and make things work. I didn’t really
know what that was going to look like, but in the end, after some back and
forth, we decided that actually divorce was the only really option. She
didn’t want to sort of reconcile.

So that’s what we did. We then got divorced relatively quickly. A real
driving force was the kids, trying to minimize the impact on them because
obviously, they were not responsible for anything that had happened. If
there’s one thing I can honestly say is that our role as parents, right
from the word go, in terms of the way we worked as a team was always very,
very good, and we complimented each other very well. And of course, that’s
continued since we got divorced. It was also quite a good focal point in
terms of actually allowing me to move forward and help heal by just having
that short-term distraction. We can talk more about that in a bit.

So yeah, we got divorced, and I moved out. That was the best logistical
thing for us to do to, to avoid disruption with the kids’ schooling and a
combination of other things. And I moved back to my mom’s house. And then,
of course, not long after that, Covid happened, and it meant that I wasn’t
really able to sort of be… It wasn’t the ideal time to be out looking for
house buying and such, so I ended up still being here, which is perfect
because it means that the kids come and stay regularly and there’s plenty
of space here, and they get to come and see their grand, and their auntie,
very regularly. And it’s also offered a fantastic opportunity for me to
make the change in my life that I have and really pursue this dream of
coaching, entrepreneurship, and ultimately helping all the people that I
can because I really can relate to the pain that we go through.

Andrea Giles:

Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for the introduction, telling us
about your story. So tell me, in the early days, you found out and you were
kind of hoping to work through it. What was the hardest part for you? Early
on, what was the hardest part?

Luke Shillings:

It was interesting. When it first… I had been suspicious for a while,
probably about six months.

Andrea Giles:

Okay.

Luke Shillings:

And I had actually confronted both of them separately at one stage, not
that I thought anything actually was going on specifically at that time,
but just that there was… I could just see patterns and things that were
emerging that I didn’t feel comfortable with. Anywho, I was convinced by
both independently that nothing was going on. It was just a friendship and
that was it. So I took a step back.

However, as time went by, I still started to get these feelings. There were
certain behavioral changes. When you live with somebody, you tend to notice
these tiny little details, the way that they are with their phone, maybe
how they are when they come in the house and their routine, just minute
little things which is going to be unique to everybody. So it’s not like,
“This is the thing to look out for,” because I think everybody is going to
have something slightly different.

But when you know somebody, you know a human being as well as you do, and I
trusted her more than I’ve trusted anybody ever, as much as you can
possibly trust another human being, let’s say. So these things start to
flag up. And when it finally came out, honestly, my very, very first
feeling, although relatively short lived, was relief. And that was because
I’d just realized that I wasn’t going mad, which is really how I felt. I
had not spoken to anybody about it, and I kept it completely private and
dealt with it myself. And in hindsight and all, whether that was the best
approach or not is arguable, but that is what I did at the time.And then,
the period immediately after, it was this like decision period. And I was
trying to just be as objective as I possibly could, which of course is very
difficult when you are literally in it.

Andrea Giles:

Right. Yeah.

Luke Shillings:

But I’ve always been quite calm, and even in quite extreme situations, I
tend to be able to control my emotions to a reasonable degree. And we
started straight away by just, again, keeping things away from the
children. Initially, there was this back and forth of, “Are we going to
make it work? Aren’t we going to make it work? Are we going to make it
work? Aren’t we going to make it work?” And I didn’t really have any
control over that, so I sort of laid my cards on the table and then sort of
basically put it in her hands.

I don’t really feel that she was talking to people as much as she could
have done either, so everything was closed and there was almost nowhere to
go. There was no escape for either of us. So then the decision was made
definitively that we were going to separate. It wasn’t practical for me to
move out straight away, so I still stayed living there for about a month.
And we started to form a routine, though almost as though we weren’t living
together. So I would look after the children for certain periods of time
and take on certain responsibilities. She would do the same, so it allowed
us both to go out and do things as we could and try and form that
separation, not just for us, but also that it wasn’t such a shock for the
children when we did actually finally decide to finally part ways, so to
speak, physically.

Yeah. I think it was that lack of control. There’s nothing I could do. And
it was almost likely it happened a second time, because the first was this
whole buildup, and I couldn’t control the affair. I couldn’t control what
was happening. And then, once it had come out, there was then this next
period of almost decision time, which I couldn’t control that either. And
then, obviously, I did move out.

And the next bit I really remember, which was something I hadn’t expected.
But the first few times that the kids came to stay with me, I found it
very, very difficult. I’m almost uncomfortable saying it, but I actually
resented them because they were the reason that I couldn’t just draw a line
in the sand, turn and look the other way, delete all the photos, the
Facebook profiles, disconnect, and just escape. In a relationship where
children aren’t involved, that is an option. I’m not advocating that, but
it is an option, and of course, it’s the easiest option just to go and just
not be reminded.

But of course, there was also this really sort of internal drive to really
want to try and make it as good as we could for the kids. So over a bit of
time, I really tried to divert my attention that way. But it did take quite
a while to sort of really come to terms with that, because I was still
seeing my ex-wife, well, she was still my wife at that point, but I was
still seeing her regularly several times a week because of the physical
location. I would go around after work and do sort of the bath, tea, bed
routine, and she would sort of go out during that time often. So it was
just strange. There was no clear cut… I think that was the real
challenge. That’s probably what I found the hardest to begin with.

Andrea Giles:

A couple things that you said I think my listeners will really appreciate.
One of them is the initial relief that you felt. And I appreciate your
honesty around that, because so many of us, we are tracking that there’s
something off and we know it. But it can totally feel like, “Am I losing my
mind? Am I just making this up? And why might I be? And maybe I’m crazy.”
Whatever. Right? And so, I think that that piece of just knowing, “Okay.
Yeah, I don’t like it, but at least I know. I didn’t make this up. It was
real.” And almost like, “Even though all these things are happening that
are really hard, and I don’t love the answers,” I think that there can be
some relief in knowing, “I’m still with myself. I was correct. I was
tracking this correctly.” And there can be a peace in that, a comfort in
that.

Luke Shillings:

Absolutely. There is. There is, because you’ve just had the person who you
thought you knew better than anybody else, turn out not be quite the person
you thought they were. And of course, that says more, in the moment, it
feels like it’s more about you than it is them.

Andrea Giles:

Yeah. Yeah.

Luke Shillings:

It’s like you’ve misjudged it the whole time. It’s like, “How did I get
that wrong? How did I miss that? How did I not see that for all these
years?” So when you are then essentially validated by the fact that what
you were suspecting was true, then it does offer that short-term feeling
of, “Oh, thank God for that.”

Andrea Giles:

Yep.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. I think with that, moving forward, for people who choose to stay,
people who choose to go, they can really own that, trusting that, “If
there’s something I need to know, I will know it. I will learn it. The
truth will come forward.” And really grounding in, “I was right that time.
I was correct. And I’ll know again if there’s something I need to know.”
Right?

Luke Shillings:

Yes. Yeah. I think it’s interesting to point out that generally speaking,
and I appreciate this is an umbrella statement, so to speak, but it’s not
unusual for women to be able to have these conversations amongst their
friends and to be able to talk about their emotions and maybe explore it in
a way that the average, and again, I’m generalizing, I know your guests
can’t see my hands waving around at the minute. The average guy is less
comfortable doing that, certainly in any group setting.

But when you get this suspicion, this almost feeling of paranoia, I think a
woman’s standard word for this would probably be intuition.

Andrea Giles:

Yeah.

Luke Shillings:

There’s just that sense. And actually, I believe that men have exactly the
same, it’s just that we tend to refer to it as a gut feeling and it’s just
a slight different terminology. Yet, of course, you still pick up on these
things and you should still pay attention to them. They might not always be
right, but they’re definitely worth listening to.

Andrea Giles:

Yep.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah. Without a doubt.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. It’s leading you somewhere. There’s a reason for it to be there. Just
pay attention.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah. Yes.

Andrea Giles:

The other thing that you said that I really appreciate your honesty around
is the resentment that you felt that you couldn’t have this clean break.
And of course, I guess I’m going to assume this, but we want to avoid
things that hurt, right?

Luke Shillings:

Yeah.

Andrea Giles:

And so, if you’re having this constant reminder by having to be around and,
“Oh yeah, this is happening. Oh, that’s right.” Right? It makes sense that
it would be easy to be like, “If I didn’t have these kids, then I wouldn’t
have to…” Right? It makes sense. I remember kind of feeling like, “I just
want to sit here and feel sorry for myself for a while. I just want to
drown in my sorrows and give myself some time.” And I just couldn’t. Right?
Because I had to be a mom and take care of my kids. Right?

Luke Shillings:

Exactly.

Andrea Giles:

So tell me how you kind of came to terms with that and where you moved into
kind of an acceptance of what was for yourself.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah. So I think the first thing I started doing was I did find a friend
who was a very good help. He was just a real natural listener and didn’t
provide me with lots of advice or lots of, “How you should do this” or any
of that, which interestingly, a few years down the line, matches perfectly
with my role as a coach. And that really helped.

Andrea Giles:

Good.

Luke Shillings:

Because I could sort of really just process it at my own speed, because one
thing that I did notice amongst people in general, once it started to come
out and more people started to find out, everyone’s got an opinion.

Andrea Giles:

That’s right.

Luke Shillings:

Everyone’s got an idea of how you should act, how you should feel, what you
should do next, what they would have done if they were you. And of course,
I know we’re all guilty of this, of course. We look at all kinds of
situations in life, and you’ll see something happen and you think, “Oh,
well, I know if I was ever in that situation, this is what I would do.”

Andrea Giles:

Yeah.

Luke Shillings:

Until you’re in that situation, and then all of a sudden, you’ve got no
idea what you’re going to do.

Andrea Giles:

Right.

Luke Shillings:

You’re don’t really know going to react at all.

Andrea Giles:

Right.

Luke Shillings:

Unless you’ve literally practiced that same thing repeatedly, or you’ve got
master management of your mind, the average person doesn’t know how they’re
going to be in a situation like that. And so, I found that very difficult,
with the exception of this one person that was really, really helpful. And
I felt like I was always questioning myself. And so, “Well, should I be
feeling this way? Should I be hating this much? Should I be doing this?
Should I be doing that?” Because one of the things that I didn’t find that
I did, which I didn’t hate my wife. I was extremely shocked, upset,
disappointed. There are stronger words, but yeah, I think shock was
probably the greatest thing above all. And I really didn’t like that choice
that was made. And ultimately, that’s what it was. It was a choice.

But it didn’t take away everything else. It didn’t wipe the slate clean.
There was still 10, 12 years worth of relationship that had come before
that, which from my memory, was pretty good. So just because one bad thing
happened, as bad a thing as it appeared to be, and it really was at the
time, I can assure you. I really, really felt it. It still didn’t erase
everything that had come before.

So the reason I say that is everyone’s expectation was almost like, “Wipe
the slate clean. Walk away. Do what you’ve got to do. Get the finances
sorted. Draw a line in the sand.” All of that kind of stuff. And actually,
that wasn’t really my driving desire. That’s not really what I would…
Yes, I wanted to sort out things logistically, I wanted things to be clear
between us. I didn’t want any gray areas. I wanted to make sure everything
was logistically sorted in that sense, but not for the sake of building a
fence between us, not to put her on one side and me on the other side.
Because at the end of the day, in some way, shape, or form, this woman is
going to be in the rest of my life, for the rest of my life because of the
kids.

And I’m not a parent that’s going to pack my bags, jump in the car, and
drive off down the road, never to be seen again, and I know that I knew
that she wasn’t either. So this was definitely something that we were going
to have to figure out. So there was a lot of… That helped in a way.

Then, really my next process after that, I just started journaling, which
is not something I’d ever done before.

Andrea Giles:

Okay.

Luke Shillings:

And I just started just writing stuff down. And then, what I realized was
that I could start to see the things that I could actually control, the
things that I could actually influence, versus the things that I couldn’t,
which was really helpful. It just sort of got things out, because I’ve
noticed that when something’s in your mind, you think you’re processing it
and it’s there, but actually, all it’s really doing, it’s just spinning
around in circles, and you have one… The odd thought throws out here,
there, and everywhere, but it’s actually not very clear, and it’s actually
not that easy to organize for the average person at least. So getting it
out where you can see it, that really helps. And obviously, discussing it
with someone who can just listen and maybe just reflect your thinking back
to you, which is also really helpful.

Then after getting this sort of reflection stage out, I’d obviously been on
the internet and gone to Dr. Google to cure all things.

Andrea Giles:

Yes. Yes.

Luke Shillings:

He failed, but no, not entirely, not entirely. I started exploring, and I
stumbled across this mention of forgiveness multiple times. And again, it’s
something that I’d not really grasped before this. I’d always thought that
forgiveness meant letting the other person off the hook. It was all about
the other person. It was all about, well, they would somehow benefit, they
would somehow be rewarded as a result of me saying, “It’s okay, I forgive
you.”

And after a little bit of exploration, I realized that that wasn’t the case
at all. It was actually so much more about what it did for me, because by
not forgiving her, by not forgiving the situation, I was the only person
feeling like crap, to be honest, and I was the only one experiencing it. I
couldn’t separate myself from that at all. And it didn’t matter. I think
what I noticed is when I realized that it didn’t matter whether I forgave
her or not, it didn’t change anything for her. Whereas when I forgave, if I
chose to work on forgiving her or forgiving the situation, it did change
things for me. So that was really the driving force behind that.

Andrea Giles:

That’s amazing. I think something I see in my clients sometimes is whether
they’re staying married or not staying married, this kind of holding on to
the hurt and holding on to the pain as if it will somehow… “They need to
remember, they need to know how much they hurt me,” like it will somehow
help them in some way. And when they really see what they’re actually doing
to themselves, “I am continuing this painful experience for myself. I am
continuing to create new pain every day by staying in this place.” And so I
think, yes, thank you for bringing that up.

I think that we have a misconception about forgiveness, as if it’s just to
mend a relationship, right? Just to forgive and move on and forgive and
forget, and it’s just not about that, right? It’s really what it does for
you. And I think it’s one of the most loving things we can give ourselves
that nobody else can give us, right?

Luke Shillings:

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Andrea Giles:

Because you have to choose it. You have to choose it and really own it and
feel the relief of it, right?

Luke Shillings:

Yes. And I think with that, at least that, is that once you realize that
that’s for yourself.

Andrea Giles:

Yes.

Luke Shillings:

And you start to realize that everything else is for yourself as well. So
we play this part when we’re in the relationship, it’s like we’re playing
this role almost. And your goal is all about trying to do the thing that’s
best for your family, best for your kids, best for your wife or husband in
the respective relationships. And in doing that, you start to pay less
attention to yourself. And then, this happens on both sides of the gender
scale. And for a man, for example, you might be a case of, “Well, I’m going
out to work, I’m earning the money. And I’m doing all these things, and I’m
doing the DIY around the house. And I’m sorting the financial tasks,” or
whatever it may be.

The wife may have some other role. And equally, they’re all playing this
part in this sort of game, this balance of trying to make everything work
for the whole, which is of course, that’s a great goal, but not when it’s
at the expense of the individual. That doesn’t help, because if the
individuals have got themselves lined up, and got all of their ducks in a
row, so to speak, and you can really come from a place of unconditional
love both for yourself and the people around you, then everybody benefits
anyway.

Andrea Giles:

Yep.

Luke Shillings:

Once I realized that the best version of me was in fact the best version
that I could possibly offer my children, then all of a sudden, I’m actually
a priority over my children, which I remember to begin with, sounded like a
really odd thing to say. “Well, no, obviously, you put your children first,
Luke.” And it’s like, “Well, actually, no, I’m going to put myself first
because they will benefit.”

Andrea Giles:

Yep. It’s in the highest service to them for you to put things in that
order, right?

Luke Shillings:

Exactly.

Andrea Giles:

Yeah.

Luke Shillings:

Exactly.

Andrea Giles:

Yes. A question I have for you is what have you learned about yourself in
this process? What do you know about yourself now that you did not know
before the infidelity?

Luke Shillings:

Okay. So first of all, it reconfirmed a few things that I already knew
about myself. I wasn’t overly reactive. I had moments, of course, but given
that the affair partner literally lived across the road from us, I managed
to not go around and smash his door down and be arrested for assault or
anything like that. I managed to keep myself restrained despite the urges.

I was able to do what I set out to do with the children and be that role
model and continue to be that role model. And on reflection, I think some
of that helped from what I had seen within my own parents and how they’d
tried to work things for us. So I think I always saw that, and that has
been reflected on me in some respects.

Going further forward, I’ve been exposed to my own potential in a way that
I hadn’t seen before. I always thought that I could only do things within
the confines of other things. So for example, I’d always been employed, and
every business I worked for, I always sort of naturally rose to the top.
They were never big businesses, though. All tend to be family owned, quite
small. But I was always this kind of person who could sort of take on a
task that maybe wasn’t necessarily my role. I’m not sure how welcome it was
all the time, but always able to take on these extra responsibilities.

But it was always within the confines of my role as an employee. And I
never really saw myself outside of that. And so, of course, going forward,
both in my entrepreneurial experience in the last couple of years, and
obviously, I’ve seen ways in which I can grow in all kinds of directions in
a business sense. But also in a personal sense, I’ve been able to explore
parts of me that I’m not sure I even knew existed, ways that I see the
world, the way I see people, what I really want from my life in terms of
not just chasing that next short-term goal, not chasing the next promotion,
just waiting for the next thing. I’m definitely guilty in the past of
saying things like, “Oh, well, it’ll be okay when the kids are this age.
They’ll be okay when the kids, when they’re that age.” And of course, these
ages come and it’s just a new set of problems.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. Right. Yep.

Luke Shillings:

So yeah, it’s almost like, “Oh, well, it’ll be better then. It will be
better than. It will be better then.” And it’s actually, “No. It’s at its
best now.” Right at this very moment, I’m doing the thing that I can’t… I
can’t think of anything better that I’d rather be doing right now than
talking to you about this.

Andrea Giles:

I love it.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah.

Andrea Giles:

I love it. Such an amazing perspective. And I do think that sometimes it
takes really having to stare down our life in a way that we never have
before to really see the parts of us that have always been there and we
just didn’t know it, right?

Luke Shillings:

Exactly.

Andrea Giles:

Yeah. So tell us, how’s life for you now?

Luke Shillings:

Yeah. So all things considered, life’s okay. And in fact, it’s probably
better than okay. I was able to work through my process of the infidelity
and to really sort come to terms with that.

There was another challenging factor which came into play, which we hadn’t
discussed, and that was the role in which the affair partner played after I
moved out, because of the sort of slightly increased interaction with the
children and things like that. I found that very, very difficult to come to
terms with. Again, I sort of managed it as best I could, and in the end,
that relationship did come to an end.

But even during that year that lasted, it was still… I had plenty of
things to sort of focus on of how to get over this next bit. And there was
a long succession of new challenges, new things to try and overcome and an
obstacle, which is just when you do that repeatedly and you intentionally
try and get over them, it just builds up that resilience. And you just get
better at it, and you start to have confidence in your ability before
you’ve even done something. It’s like, “Okay. Yeah, this next thing that’s
coming is hard, but I’m just going to do it anyway.”

So interestingly enough, after they separated, another year or two went by,
and actually now, me and my ex-wife are dating. And it’s still in the
relatively early stages. We are obviously wanting to protect the children
in the same way that we always have done, because it was difficult for them
as well. I know we haven’t really spoken about that too much, but it was
challenging for the kids. And yeah. All things considered-

Andrea Giles:

That’s amazing.

Luke Shillings:

It’s done a full circle, and it’s ended me up doing… Now I ended up doing
what I’m doing as a result as well. It’s strange. I’d never have imagined
that.

Andrea Giles:

Right.

Luke Shillings:

I’ve just launched my own podcast, and all these things that are just
happening all because of this choice that was made a few years ago. Yeah.
And I can’t complain, if I’m honest.

Andrea Giles:

Amazing.

Luke Shillings:

So there’s hope. There is hope.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. Amazing. And my guess is that in this new beginning stages of dating
again, my guess is that you’re both in quite different places than you
were-

Luke Shillings:

Very different places.

Andrea Giles:

… the first time around.

Luke Shillings:

Yes.

Andrea Giles:

You probably no more than you did about yourselves, about what you want.

Luke Shillings:

It’s completely different, completely different. And yeah, it’s almost like
dating somebody else, but with the comfort of being somebody that you
already know.

Andrea Giles:

Ah. That’s so amazing. I love that. Well, okay, so this is going by way too
fast.

Luke Shillings:

Yes.

Andrea Giles:

But we’ll wrap it up here in a bit, but I have one more question for you.

Luke Shillings:

Yeah, of course.

Andrea Giles:

Actually two more. Okay? Number one is what are you most proud of? Within
yourself, what are you most proud of?

Luke Shillings:

I think I touched on it before, and that’s probably the resilience. It is
easy to say something like, “Well, I’m most proud of my kids and I’m most
proud of these particular achievements, and I’m most proud of things.” But
of course, they’re all ongoing, fluid, dynamic things, whereas the things
that are with you, they tend to be more constant.

And so, I’m proud of how I’ve dealt with the whole situation. It was
extremely difficult. And I’ve seen people take very, very different paths
from very, very similar set of circumstances. And I can only surmise that
it’s just been the choices that have been made down those paths. And of
course, don’t get me wrong, my ex-wife played a part in this as well, of
course. Didn’t have an aggressive, abusive type relationship, it was… But
yeah. I think it’s just given me a confidence and a new look on life that I
didn’t think I would get at this point in my life. Ultimately, I know that
it’s the choices that I’ve made that’s got me here, so I think I’m most
proud of that.

Andrea Giles:

That’s pretty powerful when we have things happen that are just out of our
control, things that happen, but we always have a choice of how we respond.
And to know that you can hold your head up high and be proud of who you’ve
become through this, and the traits that were already there that have been
strengthened, that you can really see, that’s pretty amazing, right?

Okay. So the last thing before we go, I want you to tell everybody how they
can find you, how they can work with you, learn from you. And I also want
to just have you say something in closing to my listeners. If you could
give them any advice, what would it be?

Luke Shillings:

Okay. So in terms of working with me or just finding out more, I’m easily
accessible. My website is lifecoachluke.com.

Andrea Giles:

I love it. Okay.

Luke Shillings:

Nice and easy.

Andrea Giles:

Yep.

Luke Shillings:

My Facebook and Instagram accounts are @mylifecoachluke, MYlifecoachluke,
all one word. As I mentioned before, my first two podcast episodes launched
at the beginning of this week.

Andrea Giles:

That’s so exciting.

Luke Shillings:

And the podcast is called After the Affair With Luke Shillings.

Andrea Giles:

Love it.

Luke Shillings:

And yeah, so that’s the main sort of ways that you can reach out and
contact.

Andrea Giles:

Perfect.

Luke Shillings:

In terms of passing words, if you like, to your listeners, is probably the
most impactful thing, not only for me, but it’s also the thing that I start
with when I work with clients and anybody that’s been through this
situation, is start by just really getting clear on the things that you can
control versus the things that you can’t control. And even if there’s a
list of those things that you can’t control, and that list is longer than
you want it to be, and it’s difficult to look at, and it’s difficult to
come to terms with, when you realize that you can’t control them and
there’s nothing you can do about it, all of the emotional pain that you
feel trying to deal with that is just wasted energy. And if you can just
get that so you can see it, and then start to divert that energy towards
the things that you can control, you will start to see changes not just
around your infidelity, but around your whole life.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. Ah, that’s amazing. Amazing, amazing counsel, advice. Thank you so
much. All right, Luke. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was a
pleasure. I’m so excited for you and for all the people who are going to
learn from you.

Luke Shillings:

Thank you very much.

Andrea Giles:

I’m so glad to have you in this space. Yes. All right. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast. If you would
like to be kept in the know about upcoming free classes, new podcast
episodes, and other ways of working with me, go subscribe to my weekly
email. You can subscribe at andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. Again,
it’s andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. I will see you next time.