I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 245, “They’re Trying, so Why Doesn’t It Feel Like Enough?”

Infidelity changes everything. Who you thought you were, what you thought your life was. From here, you can keep circling the pain or rebuild something real. This is a space for men and women navigating infidelity. Whether you’ve been betrayed or you’re the one who broke trust, I’m Andrea Giles, master certified relationship coach.

I know what’s possible on the other side. When you’re willing to tell the truth all the way out, you’re in the right place. Let’s begin.

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Heal from Infidelity. As promised, I said that I was going to come back with this episode after the Q and A episode we did last week and talk about why, when we can see that maybe they’re doing all kinds of things, showing up differently than they ever have, why sometimes it still doesn’t feel like enough. I’m going to go through five different things, five different ways that this can show up. And as you’re listening, I want you to check it with yourself and go, okay, does this feel accurate?

Does this feel accurate? And reflect and look at what it might be for you. Okay, so before I get started, I want to say if you have ever felt helped by this podcast, if this podcast has helped give you clarity, if you’ve learned from it, if it’s helped you, if it’s helped your relationship, I invite you to go into the Show Notes and click on the link to leave me a, uh, review. Please leave a review for the episode. You can leave a review.

You can write words about what this has meant to you, and you can click on that link right in the show notes. It’s super easy. I would appreciate it so much. And second, if you feel inclined to contribute to the podcast, the production of the podcast, being able to put this out week after week, there’s also a, uh, link in the Show Notes where you can leave a contribution of $5 or up to any amount that you feel so inclined to donate, and that will be used to keep up the production, to continue, to help people, to scholarship people, to continue growing. So thank you so much.

All right, now let’s get into this episode today. Okay, so I want you to understand something important. Just because it doesn’t feel like enough doesn’t automatically mean that it’s not enough. But it also doesn’t automatically mean that it is. And that is the tension.

Right? That’s the tension. It doesn’t automatically mean that it’s not, and it automatically doesn’t mean that it is. Okay, so let’s. Let’s go into these things.

There’s a really confusing place that people can land in after infidelity. Their partner is really trying. They’re showing up. They are showing up differently. Maybe they’re more open, maybe they’re more consistent, maybe they’re more willing to engage.

And on paper, and even in reality, it might look like progress, but inside, inside, it still doesn’t feel like enough. And that can create a lot of doubt. Like, uh, of, is it me? Is it them? What is this?

Because now you’re likely questioning yourself, why doesn’t this feel better? Am I expecting too much? Shouldn’t I feel safer by now? Right. In putting that burden on you?

So I’m going to try to give you some things to help you make this an easier lift of understanding what this is actually about. Because there are multiple reasons that this can be happening, and if you don’t understand the difference, you’re either going to override yourself or dismiss something really important. Okay?

So again, I’m going to go through five things. Number one, your nervous system doesn’t trust it yet. Okay?

This is real, very, very common. And for good reason. Okay, for good reason. After betrayal, your. Your system is wired to detect threat.

So even when things are better, your body might not register as safe yet. Your body wants to know that trust is being built in a consistent effort over time, not just in a good month of consistent effort or a good week. Right. Or even a good year. Like, sometimes it can be like, I want to know when life starts happening again.

Like, real challenges show up where real life happens. Is the effort still there? Or does it revert back to old patterns? Right. So sometimes your body is saying, no, not yet.

Don’t. Don’t let up your guard yet. Pay attention. Keep paying attention. We want to know if this is real or not.

Okay? And sometimes our body will not register as safe. And sometimes safety itself can feel unfamiliar after we have

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felt so unsafe for so long now for some of my clients, and I will say I. I was one of these people. I felt so unsafe for so long in my, like, basically my whole life that it was really hard for me to even know what safety felt like. And so my system was just on high alert all the time. You can feel guarded even when nothing is wrong or kind of in this mode of waiting for the other shoe.

To drop or struggling to relax into change. And this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not enough. It may mean that your system might need more time and consistency to see what is actually true and to be able to trust it. Now, in each of these scenarios that I’m going to give in each of these examples, the responsibility to you is for you to understand what it is for you and to assist yourself, to give yourself the support, to give, uh, your nervous system the support. I’m safe right now.

I am safe right now. Learning how to feel your feelings, learning how to process your emotions. And that’s something that we do all the time inside. My get your life back after infidelity program is I teach you how to do this. We do this together on calls.

We, we feel into our feelings. Right? So you learn how to feel something all the way through so that you then have the clarity of going, okay, I know that it’s not me just avoiding feeling something. I still don’t feel safe. Okay, what else could it be?

Okay. So understanding your own role in it is really, really important. Now, uh, again, it may mean that your system needs more time and consistency to actually trust what it’s seeing. It may mean that it’s not enough. Okay.

It may mean if your nervous system doesn’t trust it yet, giving your nervous system support is going to help you get clearer on what else might be true. All right? Okay. Number two, the change is happening, but it’s not deep enough. Okay, this is different.

Sometimes someone is trying, but they’re trying on the surface. They’re kind of going through the motions. They’re like, what? What do you mean? Look, I did this, I did this.

That’s something I never would have done before. Look how I’m showing up. They might be saying the right things, they might be doing some of the right things, but. But there’s not real emotional depth. There’s not real wanting to know you, wanting to sit with you in the impact, really wanting to hear you.

There might not be full ownership by this person. They may not still be owning at a, ah, deep, deep level. For example, this is something that I run into a lot with my clients with this, with the, uh, the one that betrayed is that they still need so badly to see themselves as a good person, as a good man or a good woman, that they are avoiding, really confronting the part of them, um, that overrode their own integrity, that was willing to lie to their spouse, willing to lie to the people that they loved. And they’re so holding onto But I’m a good person. That they’re not fully going into the depths of understanding the impact of understanding what in them led them to these actions.

And so for. For the one on the other side of that, they’re left feeling like it’s halfway, it’s partial. And your body picks up on that. That, yeah, this is effort. Yes.

This is trying. And it’s still not meeting me. It’s not going. Like, your body knows. Like, this is not quite it.

And this is where it can get very confusing because they think, well, look, they’re trying, but why doesn’t it feel better? Your system is responding to depth, not just effort. Okay, I want to say that again. Your system is responding to depth, not just effort. Depth is being able to confront things, like at a soul level, feeling it all the way through, not trying to get around it, being able to sit with it and not just throw all this action at it to kind of make it go away.

Depth is going into it and meeting whatever is there and not avoiding it and not trying to. Good guy, or, uh, I’m a good woman around it. Number three, there’s no shared meaning around what happened. This is a really big one. Okay?

You might be moving forward logistically, but you’re not actually aligned and understanding. Okay, so I’ll give you an example. Sometimes this is something I see. The woman that I’m going to use just, this is like, I know this is the stereotype, but I’m using the man in this as the one that was unfaithful, the woman as the one who was betrayed. Okay?

And I know, I know, I know it can go both ways, right? Okay? But in this, I’m using that example,

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and let’s say that the man is like, it didn’t mean anything. I love you. I don’t love them. I was. I felt trapped.

I didn’t know how to get out of it. I didn’t want to be there. It got harder and harder. It didn’t mean anything. Right?

And you’re over here going, well, if it didn’t mean anything, then why were you willing to risk everything if it didn’t mean anything? And this can be a real problem, like a real impasse, right? And if each person is holding onto that and there’s no going deeper into really understanding, what did this mean? The person who was betrayed going, I want to know what this meant so I know if this is a place that’s safe for me to be and really know how you feel about me and not just the fear. Of losing me, the fear of losing this nice life.

But I want to know that you are actively choosing me and that you have been able to look at all of it with complete openness, even if it really hurts. Right. So what did the infidelity mean? Is something we need to know. What does it say about the relationship?

Where were you? What did you think about me? What did you think about the relationship? Not what you think now, but where were you? What was going on for you?

Where did you feel pressure? Where did you feel this or that? Right. And what has actually changed because of it? And if one person is minimizing it or framing it differently or wanting to move on quickly or.

Or consistently digging in our heels and saying it didn’t mean anything, there’s something there that is going to feel unsettled, that’s going to feel like there’s something missing. Because there is something missing. There’s a missed meaning. There’s a missed shared meaning. There’s no shared reality.

There’s no shared. Even if this hurts, I want the truth. Right?

It did mean something to you. What did it mean to you at that time? Even if it means something different now, what did it mean to you? I want to understand. And the other side to this is becoming the person that can handle having those conversations.

Because we can say that we want to have the meaning, but if we know it might sting, are we actually allowing ourselves? Or being somebody that can handle the truth. Right. That can handle it. And I will be clear.

Okay, I’m going off on a tangent. Go with me. The movie A Few Good Men. Okay. Anybody who’s seen it?

Jack Nicholson, There’s a famous line, you can’t handle the truth. And he holds back some very crucial truths, and then that costs people lives. And then when it’s revealed, he finally says, you can’t handle the truth. And it turns out that his withholding of the truth had big consequences and he gets in trouble for it. We don’t get to decide what somebody else can handle and use that as a means to avoid telling the truth.

We don’t get to decide how somebody else. What they do with it. Okay, I’m not using this as an excuse, but what I am saying is that if you want to find a shared meaning and there’s something that feels unsettled in you, it’s their responsibility to tell the truth. And it’s your responsibility to learn how to open to it, how to receive it. It doesn’t mean that you have to be stoic.

It doesn’t mean you don’t feel stuff, but it means that you be somebody who is open to truth and that you don’t make them wrong for something that they’re telling you that they really felt. You can have feelings about it, but you don’t tell somebody that’s not how you felt. Okay. Becoming somebody who can hear somebody else’s truth. All right, Again, without shared meaning, there’s not shared reality, and it becomes very hard to feel safe.

Number four, you’re overriding your own truth. All right, I’m going to be really direct here. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough because it’s actually not enough for you. Not because you are just so high and mighty and need so much. Not because you’re broken, not because you’re too sensitive, but because what’s being offered is not matching what you actually need.

And instead of honoring that and just being with it and just being like, this just is this. These are the things that I need. This is where I’m not being met. And instead, um, of honoring that, you’re questioning yourself, and then you’re softening it, and you try to be reasonable, and you try to tell yourself to be grateful

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for the progress, but underneath, you know, now, I want to flip this around to the person who did the betraying. Let’s say that you are making an honest effort, that you are giving it truly everything that you have, that you are truly showing up, that you are being as honest and real and laying it all out as you can be. That you have faced the risk of being radically honest and you’re willing to do it, and your partner can’t be there with you in it. That they are. They’re trying to make your experience wrong or telling you that you’re wrong or that, uh, whatever it may be.

Okay, it goes both ways here. That sometimes, even if you were unfaithful. Not sometimes, it’s every time. You still have a right to have things that you need and things that you want. And if there are behaviors that are happening that don’t work for you, that don’t feel like they are healthy for you, you still have a voice.

Okay? You still have a voice. So this goes for both parties. What if what is being offered doesn’t match what you actually need? Right.

And instead of honoring that, you question yourself m. And you soften it. But underneath, you know, and this might be hard for some of you to hear, because I guarantee there are some of you out there that are listening to this right now going, oh, I already know. I Already know, what do I want to do with that knowing? Okay, and number five, you’re expecting their change to create your safety.

It’s a hard one, but it’s really important. Sometimes the reason it doesn’t feel like enough is because you’re waiting for them to create a feeling that actually has to be internally built. No amount of their effort will fully resolve your fear, your grief, your instability. And it can be very easy to go, well, you did this to me. You did this to me, so you need to fix it.

And the very painful truth is that other people’s impact is called impact, because it’s ours now to heal from whether it was intentional, unintentional. Right? Let’s say that somebody. We’re driving down the road and somebody hits our car, right? It can totally be their fault, it can totally be their error.

But the impact is we still have a busted car, and it’s still our responsibility to make the phone calls to figure out, do I need a new car, is it totaled? To get the insurance company out. The impact is actually still ours. And the other person can pay for it. They can be cooperative, all of that, but it doesn’t take away that the car was hit.

The impact is still there. And it is ultimately up to us to decide what we are going to do with that impact. It is up to us to create our own vehicle that is safe. So at that car, well, I didn’t hit the car. They hit the car.

So I’m going to drive around for five years with a car with the door hanging off because I didn’t do it. They did. It’s their fault. We do this to ourselves. We drive around in our.

In our bodies with these doors hanging off and windows that are open to the elements when we could actually upgrade our car where we could shut the window, where we could learn how to create safety for ourselves because we deserve it. Not because, well, somebody else did this, and now I have to clean this mess up. Uh, but because this did impact me in a really big way. And I want to feel safe again. And so I’m going to do everything in my power to feel safe again while also knowing the impact.

I’m not excusing the impact. I am actually fully acknowledging the impact and doing what is up to me to heal that impact and deciding from that healed place what I want to do. Okay, now let’s talk now about discernment. If you’re in this place where you want to feel safe, where they’re trying, you want to feel better, you want to be like, okay, good, this is working, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. I, uh, want you to ask this question.

Instead of the question, is this enough or not? I want you to ask, what is this telling me? What is this telling me? What is. What is the information that’s trying to be relayed to me?

Is this, uh, my nervous system needing time? Is this a lack of depth in their change? Is this a missing shared reality? Are they trying to talk their way around telling me something that I’m asking them because they don’t want to hurt

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me with it? And I really actually want to know. Is this me overriding what I actually need, or is this me needing to build internal safety? And you know what? Sometimes, uh, there can be a few things that are in there.

Just be honest with yourself. And each of these has a slightly different path, right? But if you don’t slow down and discern, you’ll either stay in something that isn’t right for you or walk away from something that could grow m. Because he didn’t know what to do in that moment. Okay?

And this is the work. Not the black and white answers, not rushing decisions, but learning how to tell the truth first to yourself and then all the way out. Truth over comfort. Truth over comfort. Truth all the way out.

Even when it’s nuanced and even when it’s inconvenient. And if you’re in this space trying to figure out what’s real, what’s yours, what’s theirs, I want you to know this is the work that we do all the time inside my program. Get your life back. After infidelity, there’s such power in hearing other people that are navigating the same things that you can sit there and hear and go. That applies directly to me.

I’m going to get off this and take off and run. I’ve had countless, countless people at this point say that the group element has been far superior to any one on one that they’ve done. Because with other people, you move faster. You really do. You are hearing and learning and not always in the hot seat.

Which means that you are able to be in a calm space to just really take in and absorb everything that’s happening in that room and get off the call and go. That totally applied to me. Off I go. Okay, so if you are interested in working with me inside this group program, you can apply in the show notes, get your application in, get your life back after infidelity, and off we go. Okay.

Use your own discernment. Listen to this as many times as you need to take notes, jot down what comes up for you, and take the next step forward with telling that truth all the way out. And I’ll see you next time. Take care.

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 https://andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. Again, it’s https://andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. I will see you next time.