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I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 207, Peace in Difficult Decisions.

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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.

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Hello everybody. So grateful to be here with all of you. Funny little story. This is the second time that I have recorded this podcast today. I recorded it this morning, got all the way through and realized I forgot to press record. So obviously this one’s going to be so much better right than the first one. So here we go. Before I get into the content of today, I have a couple of things that I would like to tell you about. First of all, last month I hosted a class called Stop Ruminating and Reclaim Your Peace, and it was a big hit. I had a lot of people attend live. Many of you had great questions, comments, it was a great time to see each other and obviously to have an incredible training because it is a topic that we obviously need help with when we’re dealing with infidelity.

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All of those spinning, ruminating thoughts. I am doing an encore class at the end of this month, September 24th. You are all invited. Even if you already went, I invite you to come again, no shame and coming twice. Why? Because first of all, we learn by repetition. We can hear things once, have it land in certain ways and then hear it again and have it land in completely different ways. So also, I tend to, I’ll teach something and then I refine. I teach something and refine. I commit always to everything that I do to bring you the most cutting edge, the most impactful, the most, pass it to you so you can take it and run trainings, teachings, coaching, and this is no exception. So even if you already went, come again because you’re going to hear it different in taught in a slightly different way.

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Okay? If you haven’t come at all, go register, go get on that list. It’s going to be in the show notes. It is completely free, okay? And there are always perks for those who come live. I like to reward you for committing and for showing up for yourself, for carving out the time to come live. So go ahead and plan on that. Carve out the time and come chat with me. I can’t wait to see you. And also, before I hop into the content of today, I just want to thank those of you who have taken the time to go leave me podcast reviews. A few have come in in the last little bit that have just been wonderful. I love hearing from you. I love hearing how this work is helping you, whether you just found out whether you’ve been dealing with this for a long time.

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And again, it helps other people know where to find help. If they see your review, it helps other people know that this is a place worth checking out. I’m going to just highlight a few of these. One is from Graceful. She says, grateful for this podcast. I just found Andrea Giles after looking for something to help me through this hard time. I am just starting the second episode and it feels like I’m finally grabbing onto something in the middle of the storm. Thank you so much for that. Another client, a client that I am currently working with posted this I’m a betrayer listening to and working with Andrea has been the first time after working with many other therapists where my wife and I have been able to make some progress in healing and understanding the trauma I caused. Andrea’s knowledge and personal touch has been invaluable in our journey.

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So they found me through the podcast and I’ve been working with them all year and we’ve made amazing, amazing strides. Another is titled Andrea is The Real Deal From the Kitten Coach. She says, Andrea sees you asks key questions and drives you forward When you have lost control of the car, sign up, stop dropping into weekly sessions with someone who not only won’t tell you their story, but may not have any real experience with betrayal and infidelity. Just knowing the difference is powerful. 13 therapists have tried to help us. Andrea is the first one actually helping. No lie, I’ve been deep in this with top-notch, top dollar therapists. If they have not recovered from betrayal, they don’t know, and if they won’t talk about their life, move on. Join the Real deal. Thank you so much to this person who posted that. Thank you for all of you who already have, and I invite you to go into the show notes.

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There’s a link there that makes it so easy to leave a review. Go do that now. Alright, let’s hop in today. Okay, so this episode was inspired by something that happened last weekend that I’ve been thinking about a lot. I was in a situation where I was invited to go to my big sister’s surprise 50th birthday party put on by her wonderful daughters, my nieces and some of her friends. And I was planning on going and decided to fly out and just be there for just over 24 hours. I was going to leave early the morning at the party and spend the rest of the day and fly home the next morning and be there and just be there. And even though I knew that it wouldn’t be a long trip, I knew that it mattered a lot to me to be there. This sister is an anchor in my life.

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We have been through a lot together. She has always been my number one cheerleader. I just adore sister and it meant so much to me to be there. And I don’t actually remember the last birthday. I have physically been with her for her birthday, and so I really, really wanted to be there. In addition to it being this party, my daughter and her husband were coming to visit for the weekend and I was torn because I don’t get to see them a lot or spend a lot of time with them, but I decided to leave for this 24 hour period, even though they were visiting because I knew how much it mattered to me to be there for that moment. The night before I was supposed to fly out, I was putting my little girl to bed, said my goodnight to her, told her how much I love her, all of that.

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And she was sad, but she was okay. She was kind of sad, and I thought, ah, she’s just tired. She just needs to go to sleep. I read her a bunch of books, sing her songs, got her tucked in and I thought she went to sleep. I went downstairs and started watching a movie with my daughter and her husband and some of my other kids, and my husband was planning on coming down with us and he didn’t come down. He finally did. I said, what’s going on? He said, Finley’s really having a hard time. He said, I’m not trying to make you feel bad at all, but she’s really struggling with you leaving. And so he said that she was asleep. So we watched a little bit more of the movie and then I went upstairs and went in to check on her and she was just tossing and turning and not in a deep sleep at all.

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She saw me and I started just rubbing her hair like I do. She saw me and her little lip, her little bottom lip started to quiver. Her eyes filled up. Just that sad pout face that you see sometimes in little kids that just breaks your heart. And she just said, I do not want you to leave tomorrow. Don’t leave tomorrow. I will not be okay if you leave. And she just started sobbing, just sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. I will not be okay. I will not be okay if you leave. And I travel quite a bit, whether it be for business things, speaking, teaching, trainings that I’m participating in, family things, whatever it may be. I travel. I travel quite a bit, and this time I knew something is different this time. This is not her normal just sadness about missing mama. This was something that it was like her heart was really sad and she really was genuinely saying, please, not this time, mom, please stay home in the words that she could as a three-year-old.

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And so I picked her up and held her and rubbed her hair and rubbed her cheeks, and she just was so sad and crying. And in that moment I had a choice to make. I was supposed to leave early in the morning. I would not be able to see her in the morning. And in that moment of decision of a difficult decision, I tapped into what my values are. I tapped into what matters the most to me. And what matters the most to me is that my people, particularly my minors that are at home that are counting on me, my husband who is at home know that at the end of the day, they matter to me more than anything else. And in that moment I thought, this little girl needs to know that I choose her right now. And so in my arms, she was just laying there crying and I said, Finley, what if mama stayed home?

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What if I stay home? I’m staying home. I’m not going to go anymore. And her whole body just relaxed, just relaxed. She was precious. She grabbed my face and looked in my eyes and just smiled at me with these big grateful eyes like she could just relax. She started rubbing my cheeks and rubbing my hair and squeezing me with this little squeal that sounded like a squeal of gratitude. Like, Ooh, thank you just, oh, I love you. And she was saying, I love you. And she laid right down and went right to sleep. After that, her little body could relax. She could feel peace. She went to sleep. I went in my room and cried and cried. I felt that dilemma that I know so many of you feel that dilemma of wanting a lot of things, wanting more than one thing, and they’re good things.

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They’re good things. And knowing I have to choose. I can’t have both feeling the sadness that I was going to miss my sister’s surprise party, that I didn’t get a redo, that her 50th birthday’s not rolling around again, that this surprise party’s not rolling around again. As far as I know, as far as I remember, this is the only surprise party she’s ever had. And knowing I would not be there. Now here’s the thing that’s the most important about this. Even though I was really, really sad, even though I was sad to be in this position, I instantly felt peace. I knew it. I felt peace. I felt like I could be at ease. I knew that I was making a decision that was the best decision that I could make in that moment that was going to bring me peace in that moment and the next day and the days moving forward because it was aligned with my deepest values with what matters to me most.

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And the next day, I woke up in the morning. It was late the night before, so I didn’t tell my nieces that I wasn’t coming. The next morning I did again, I was so sad. I have a great niece that I’ve never met that I was going to be able to meet, didn’t get to meet her, didn’t get to meet the friends of my sisters that I hear about all the time. Didn’t get to surprise. My beloved sister cried again. I cried. I was really, really sad about it, but I felt peace. I felt calm. I felt good about my choice. I felt respect for my choice. I was able to enjoy my daughter and my son-in-law and my little girl. And the thing that I did not know is that the next morning my little girl was going to wake up with a cold.

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I did not know that she was not feeling well, but that she didn’t have the language to tell me. I didn’t know that The next day she woke up with a runny nose with a cough. And of course, who do they want when they’re not feeling well? They want their mama. And my heart was at peace that I chose to be with her in that time, that these moments for her matter in building a fabric for her of safety, of knowing that she will be taken care of, knowing that she’s protected, she already has so much support. She has my husband who is just wonderful. She has our nanny who’s been with her since she was four months old, who takes care of her while I’m working and even still in this situation. She really wanted me and I felt peace about that. Now, why am I bringing that here?

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Because all of you listening have been in situations like that and it may be extra escalated right now in this space of navigating infidelity, you are likely making many big decisions right now, many of which don’t feel cut and dry, probably none of them. We are not talking about the moral decision of stealing or not stealing. We’re not talking about sneaking out as a teenager or lying about something. These things that tend to be a little bit maybe black and white, sometimes even that isn’t quite. But I think you get my point here. This is when we are choosing between good decisions, when we are choosing between decisions that could truly go either way, and that we really sometimes don’t exactly know what the outcome is going to be of those choices, if those choices are going to pan out the way that we hope by choosing them, and this was one of those for me where there were two really good choices and I had to choose one and feel the disappointment and grief of not choosing the other.

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Okay, let’s talk about the nature of hard decisions. Sometimes what makes a decision hard is that both decisions have value. Both decisions have meaning, and both decisions have costs or risks. They both do. We often are faced with good versus good choices versus good versus bad choices. It really isn’t about in these situations, it’s not about right or wrong, it’s more about alignment. Which one feels more aligned? Which one feels more true for me in this moment? And the hard part about this is that often when we are choosing one thing, we are having to grieve setting down the other. We often have this misconception that by choosing one thing that’s really aligned that really resonates, that we feel that peace about, that we should feel good. It is just not true. We can feel peace and feel grief and feel pain and feel disappointment all at the same time.

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And it doesn’t mean that we chose wrong. It doesn’t mean that we should have chose something different. It means that with each choice that we make, we are not choosing the other thing. We are saying no to something else and feeling what that feels like. Now in the realm of infidelity, here are some choices that you may face in this journey, staying or leaving the marriage. Both can be right, both can be good, both can be in alignment, but one is likely going to end up being more in alignment. One is going to end up being the thing that brings you peace, even if it’s difficult, even if it’s really difficult and you know that you have a tough road to hoe. I remember when I decided to leave my first marriage, I felt so much peace about it, but boy, by stepping into that decision and choosing that, oh, did the storms come of grief, of loss, of feeling judged, all of those things, and I had to be able to anchor back into that piece, and that’s what kept me going, right?

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We can get stuck in this around what to tell the kids and should we tell them now, should we tell them later? Because both can come from love, depending on timing and depending on our own capacity to handle their questions, to handle their reactions, to know that they may need some extra support from us. That could be one of those things. Another is do I ask for details? How much detail do I ask for? Or do I actually set some boundaries around how much of the details I want to know? And each of these things can support healing differently. Sometimes we think that we need every little detail. I’m here to tell you you don’t. Why? Because sometimes those little details don’t actually paint a different picture. What we’re trying to do is get some understanding. How deep is this? What’s the width? How far did things go, how long?

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Those things like that. But sometimes we can get in the weeds about the minute details of exactly what happened when all of that that can actually add to our pain. That’s one of those things to take into consideration. Do we separate temporarily or keep living together during the healing? Do we go to therapy together or do we focus on individual work first? This is a big one. Sometimes I have people come that are really confused with this question. They think that they should be jumping right into couples work. And I’m here to say not necessarily, because sometimes what will happen is you’ll start out with trying to repair the fire that just lit up of understanding that the infidelity occurred. The crisis is full-blown, and often what everyone involved, including the professional may want to hop to, is going ahead and trying to repair, trying to rebuild.

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And there’s so much that has to happen between that initial crisis and rebuilding and doing individual work is a good way to slow down and face all of those things. The relationship patterns, what happened here? How did we get here? All of that. And sometimes they can go hand in hand, but my point is that these are questions that we can get really hung up on and think that one has to be, and that if we don’t do it that way, we’re going to mess something up over here. And in reality, we’re leaning into what will give me the most peace right now, and that’s going to be my north star. Sometimes the question is, do we keep the circle small? Do we tell our best friend and that’s all, or do we share a little bit more so we have some support? What do we do there?

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Right? This difficulty in these decisions doesn’t mean at all that you’re doing it wrong. It means actually that you are trying to be very responsible, very, very conscious of the decisions that you recognize, that they matter. You’re bringing everything you’ve got to these decisions. Okay? Now, next, let’s talk about the role of emotions in decision making. When we feel that quick rush of disappointment, of fear, of loss, whatever it may be, when we lean all the way into one decision, it can seem to invalidate the decision, and instead it just confirms the weight of the significance and the importance of that decision that we’re saying no to. If we are choosing between two restaurants for dinner and we choose one, we may go, I’m going to miss that cheesecake there, but I can get it next time. Quick. Okay, quick release, quick maybe tiny bit of disappointment.

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And with the situations we’re talking about, we’re talking about sometimes results that we don’t quite know how it’s all going to turn out. We hope that we are choosing something that’s going to bring more peace, more joy, more satisfaction, but sometimes we don’t know exactly what the other people involved are going to do, et cetera, et cetera. There are some things that might be out of our control here, and so these decisions inherently we’re going to feel something when we are choosing them, and it just confirms the weight. It just confirms that these are things that really matter to me, right? We often feel peace right alongside grief. Peace is often a sign of alignment. Even if pain is present, the pain does not mean that you need to recho or reevaluate at all. It actually means that you are processing the decision that you made, and it’s like a wave that you have to feel, that you have to let yourself fully feel, and that it will 100% recede every single time.

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Okay, so let me ask you this right now in your life, what decision have you already made? Do you feel turmoil about this decision, or do you feel peace beneath the sadness? I will say this. Sometimes what’s above the peace can feel like turmoil. It can feel really chaotic. It can feel like tons of waves smashing at you all the time without a break. If you can still feel peace, if you can anchor back into that peace, keep going. Okay, keep going. Now, if there’s a decision that you’ve made that you are making because somebody else is expecting it from you, because you think that others will judge you, if you do it differently than what you’re doing, if you are feeling pressure from your partner, from your spouse, from your parents, from your workplace, from anywhere, and you are honoring what other people think you should do, but you feel inner turmoil, please listen to this and slow it down and check in with yourself.

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Please don’t make a decision unless you can get yourself grounded, even in a sliver of peace, even if it can be easy to lose that moment of peace, if you felt it, you can get yourself back to it. If you felt it at one time, you can get yourself back to it. Feeling peace alongside grief. I said this earlier, I’ll say it again, is often a sign of alignment, even if that pain is present. Okay, so for me, back to my initial story here about my daughter, I chose presence with my daughter. I chose honoring her request. I chose what she needed in that moment over that milestone event for my sister, and it was painful, but it was aligned. And at the end of the day, my sister of course said, you did the right thing. She said, I was so surprised to find out that you were even coming, and of course you did the right thing.

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The piece to me came from living in my values, not my making the right choice. The perfect choice really. Either choice could have been okay there. My daughter probably would’ve been okay, but in that time, that was what was the most peaceful choice for me. Sometimes peace is quiet and not celebratory. Sometimes we don’t have people cheering on our choice or saying, oh, you’re so brave. You go, and that’s okay. The person who gets to feel that peace is you. You do, and the person who gets to feel that turmoil is also you. So let’s create more peace, shall we? So when facing a difficult decision, I have a few questions for you to check in with. One, which choice aligns more with my values right now? Which decision, even if painful leaves me with peace? What am I afraid of regretting in five years?

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And what choice can I make now that pushes me towards more of what I want rather than what I don’t? I invite you to hold both grief and peace as companions. They can be together. They can coexist. They can coexist, and as long as you allow them to coexist for as long as they need, what I can tell you is that the grief runs its course. Maybe it rears its head here and there, but the peace sustains. The peace stays. Okay? Alright, so happy to share this with you. I hope that it brought you some peace to listen to today. Thank you again for being here, and I will talk with you next time. Take care.

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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@andreagiles.com slash lies about dash infidelity slash. Again, it’s andrea giles.com/lies about dash infidelity slash I will see you next time.