I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
episode number 186, Focusing on the Wrong Things After Infidelity.

Hello and welcome to the Heal from Infidelity podcast for 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.

(00:49):

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back, back again. Sometimes I wonder if you
get tired of hearing my voice every week, but you keep coming back and
passing me along, and I appreciate it so much. So thank you so much for
being here. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for reviewing all the things I
sure love. My listeners. Thank you for being here. Today. We’re going to be
talking about focusing on the wrong things after infidelity. Why? Because I
want to save you some hassle. That’s why. Okay? I want to save you some
time. Let’s shave some time off of this process and look at the things that
are slowing you down and let’s look at the things that are going to help
clean that up.

(01:44):

We all can fall into the trap of focusing on the wrong things, thinking
that it’s going to help us get where we want to go faster, when in reality,
it’s like dragging our feet in the mud when we are shattered that initial
shattering after infidelity. It makes total sense that your brain is really
trying to latch onto something, anything that’s going to give you some
sense of control or direction, and the most commonplace that people fixate
is the decision to stay or go. What do I do? That’s the biggest piece, but
there are so many other pieces here that we fixate on. There’s so many, and
today I’m going to go through several different examples of things that we
focus on that are the wrong question and what to be asking instead. Okay?
You ready? Alright, let’s go. First one. The first one, should I stay or
go?

(02:47):

I’m going to start with this big one because it is the one that I see
people get hung up on the most. They will start taking steps towards
staying or going, and then question it, question it, question it, right? The
question of staying or going absolutely does matter. Absolutely does have
big consequences, ramifications, all the things, but it is not the question
that should come first. It’s not the one that’s going to give you peace or
clarity. In fact, when you ask the question too soon, it tends to spin you
out. You end up trying to make a permanent decision from a very temporary
emotional state. What I’ve come to see again and again in my own life and
in the lives of the people I work with my clients, is that the real
decision is not actually about staying or going. It’s about who you are
becoming in the process.

(03:44):

It’s about which path calls you deeper into truth. Which direction calls
you into your highest good, even if it’s not the easiest or the clearest
one right now. That’s the question to ask which path? Ask me to step more
into who I am. Ask me to shed layers of doubt and fear and step more into
boldness and deleting myself forward into asking for more of what I want
into being more of who I am and then letting the chips fall where they may.
Something I’ve been known to say in my group, my coaching group, is the
decision to stay or go is beside the point. It’s beside the point. The point
is, who are you becoming and when you choose who you’re becoming and when
you decide that you are choosing you, no matter what the decision reveals
itself and you know which one is going to help you become more of you, and
which one is going to keep you shrunken and small and only you can decide
that, but it comes from putting you first about stepping into who you want
to be, how you’re going to grow, who you are, what you need to shed,
choosing who you want to be, who you want to become.

(05:13):

Alright, now we’re going to get into more examples. Okay, here’s another
question that’s focusing on the wrong thing. Are they, sorry enough. So
many get stuck on are they showing enough remorse? Are they doing the work?
Are they in pain like I am? It’s really, really natural. We want justice.
We want validation. We want to know that they know how much they’ve hurt
us. Here’s the trap though. Their guilt does not equal your healing. It
does not equal your healing. They can be the most remorseful person in all
the land, and you can still be walled off. You can still be angry. You can
still hate their guts. You can leave. You can still stay and resent them
forever. You could have a partner who is weeping at your feet every day and
still feeling completely stuck. Why? Because the real question here is not
are they sorry enough?

(06:13):

The real question is, am I facing my own pain, my own grief and my own
power? Am I facing why this hurts so bad? Am I facing the stories that I’m
telling myself about this that actually maybe have nothing to do with this
other person? Am I facing my own power, my own authority to decide whatever
I want to do with this, my own authority to change my life however I want?
Okay, we get stuck on are they sorry enough? But that only gets you so far.
We do need to know if they’re remorseful. We need to know if they’re doing
the things they need to do to internally become the kind of person that
would never do this. Again, this is very, very important, but prioritizing
that over looking at yourself, facing your own pain, your own grief, your
own power, your own authority is getting things in the wrong order.

(07:20):

Okay? Now, another one that we get wrong, I just want them to regret it.
Okay? It’s similar to the last one, but it’s a little bit different. This
one is so human. We want to feel chosen. We want to be proven right? Like,
you’re right, I’m wrong. You’re good. I’m bad, right? We want them to
finally wake up and see what they’ve lost and see what they’ve done. Wake
up. When are they going to get it? Are they always going to be the kind of
person that we have to pull questions out of that I have to go tiptoe around
or they’re going to blow up and ask me when I’m going to get over it? Those
are important things to know, but there’s something else that’s more
important. In that example, you’re focusing still completely on them. It is
still about getting something from them, but the deeper question is giving
back to yourself.

(08:21):

So the more powerful question is, what does my healing look like when it’s
not dependent on their regret, their return, or their recognition? What
does that shift for you? I’m curious what that shifts for you. If it’s not
completely focusing on their regret or their guilt, what shifts? How am I
tending to my pain regardless of how they’re showing up? Rather than I’ll
feel better if they’re showing up this way. I’ll feel worse if they’re not.
It’s putting too much power in their hands to look at it this way. Your
healing is not contingent on their remorse, on their guilt on if they get
it or not. You get to decide, okay? You get to decide that. Alright, next
example. They need to change. I can only get better if they change. Yeah,
they do. If they want to rebuild trust, real change is absolutely required,
but the truth is, many get stuck monitoring their transformation while
neglecting our own or tracking.

(09:30):

Have they booked therapy? Are they reading the books? Did they respond the
right way when I brought up my trigger? And in the meantime we haven’t
asked, am I living in alignment with my truth? Am I honoring what I really
need? Whether or not they ever change? What am I watering down and how I
actually feel and what I actually want to keep the peace here I’m going to
watch. Instead, I’m just going to watch and see what they do before I really
even tell the truth to myself. Okay? This is the reverse order. Look to you
first. My friends look to you first. What do you want? What do you need?
What are you willing to stand up for? Whether or not they ever change. We
cannot outsource our healing to someone else’s timeline. That’s not fair to
you. It’s not fair to you.

(10:32):

So the bigger question here, rather than are they changing, are they doing
enough? Is am I giving myself what I need? What do I need and am I taking
good care of myself? What do I need now? And the thing is, when you go in
that order, what they’re doing, you won’t have to push for it, you won’t
have to go searching. You’ll know your body will let you know if you can
relax or not. Your body will let you know if you need to really stay on
your guard or really firmly ask for more, or if you actually can relax, this
is inside out healing and it’s the only real way to heal. The next question
we get not in order is how do we get back to how things were? This is not
the goal, my friends. We’re not going back. We are not going back.

(11:28):

We’re not going back to how things were. The relationship as it was is
gone. We cannot go back, not individually. We are not that girl anymore. Or
for my men listening, you’re not that boy anymore, okay? You are not. You
can’t go back. You can’t go back. It’s like when you see something that you
cannot unsee. There is no unseeing it. This is one of those, alright? It’s
like trying to rebuild a house on a foundation that is collapsed. It can’t
be done, and if you try, the house is going to fall apart on that shaky,
collapsed foundation. It’s not going to stand the real question. How do we
get back? The real one is what wants to be built now and how do we go about
building that? What would be a good first step? What tools do I need? Whose
help do I need to build? Do I want to do it individually for now and then
maybe see if there’s a place here for this other person to come join me? Or
maybe down the road, somebody else entirely.

(12:37):

Something deeper is available to you, but only if you’re willing to release
what’s already died. There is no going back. There’s only moving forward
and building something new and sustainable on a solid foundation. Okay?
Alright. The next question that we get wrong, should I check their phone
again? Hypervigilance makes sense when you’ve been betrayed, right? You
want safety, you want to feel like it won’t happen again. You want to know,
but tracking and checking and controlling, they don’t build trust. They keep
you in high anxiety. They keep you spinning. They keep you on the lookout
all the time. The more powerful shift is what if I trusted myself to know
when I’m no longer safe without needing to prove it through surveillance?
Ooh, do you hear the power in that? What if I trusted myself to know when
I’m no longer safe without needing to prove it through surveillance?

(13:42):

Okay, that’s a flex move right there. And many of you have already
experienced this where you already knew something, you already knew
something was off, and for whatever reason, maybe you swept it under the
rug. Maybe you actually spoke up and they lied so eloquently that you then
swept it under the rug. You know better. Now you know were right all along.
Your intuition game was strong. What if you could know without constantly
checking? What if you could trust that If there’s something that you need
to know, you’re going to know and that until then you’re going to keep
moving forward the way you are. Right? That’s pretty powerful, right?
Alright, so if the above examples are distractions from the real work, what
is the real work? The real work is becoming the version of you. Who doesn’t
abandon yourself? Who doesn’t place how you’re doing what your piece is,
what you want, how you take care of yourself on anyone else?

(14:48):

It’s the person who knows how to discern if you’re operating out of truth
or if you’re operating out of fear. And this can be hard to see sometimes
because sometimes we can actually be operating from our highest truth and
have fear come to the table and try to sabotage us. So knowing the
difference there too is part of the work. This is about becoming a person
who leads him or herself. No matter what anyone else does or doesn’t do,
always just keeps leading forward. This is about liberation, not just
repair. It’s about freeing yourself from what other people are doing to
determine how you’re doing. It’s about coming home to yourself. So to wrap
this up, if you’ve been spinning in the questions, should I stay? Is he
sorry? Will it ever feel like it used to? I want to lovingly invite you to
pause and ask yourself a deeper question, who am I becoming in this process
and which path leads me toward the woman or man I most want to be?

(15:53):

Because when you anchor into that, the decisions become so much clearer, so
much clearer, the obsession quiets and the healing gets real. You start to
feel yourself heal, move forward. Okay? Thank you for being here today. If
this resonated with you, I invite you to go check out the class that I just
released a little bit ago. It’s about the decision to stay or go $47. It’s
a deep dive into these questions getting deeper than should I stay or
should I go? Looking so much deeper than that, dropping out of your head and
into your body, into your knowing, into your intuition, into the part of you
that already knows and getting out of your own way. Okay? Go get it. 47
bucks link is in the show notes. Let me remind you, you’re not broken.
There’s nothing wrong with you. This is your human journey.

(16:53):

This is the journey you’re on right now. If you allow it, let yourself
believe that this experience is sharpening something really important in
you. It’s not an accident. It’s not an accident, and you will be okay and
it’s sharpening something. What part of you is it sharpening? Is it
sharpening your ability to discern? Is it sharpening your ability to say no?
Is it sharpening your ability to choose you no matter what? Is it
sharpening your ability to lean in or lean out of a relationship, to let a
wall down or to set a boundary that might look like putting a wall up, but
doing it from a place of self-love? What is it sharpening in you? Alright,
thank you so much for being here, and I will see you next week. Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast. If you would
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3 Biggest Lies About Infidelity

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