(00:00):
I’m Andrea Giles and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 208, When Reaching for Power Pushes Love Away.

(00:14):
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.

(00:50):
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. Welcome back to another episode of Heal from Infidelity. Always so glad to be here with you. This episode is going to be all about the things that we do to try to feel some sense of control, some sense of power, and how it’s working for you and what you might think it’s creating versus what it’s actually creating. We’re going to be diving into all of that in this episode. Before we do, I want to remind you that I am going to be teaching an encore class of the one that I did last month, all about ruminating thoughts, stopping ruminating so you can reclaim your peace. It was so well received. I decided to do it again to make it even more powerful, more direct, more clear, more actionable. So even if you went to the last one, you can register again.

(01:45):
Come to this one, you’ll hear it a little bit differently this time. I also want to let you know that I am going to be hosting a virtual retreat inside my community on October 7th. This is something that is always just included for my clients inside my group. I do it three times a year. I often bring in special guests. I have a specific theme of what we’re working on that day. We do some work shopping, we do coaching, of course some training, and this one coming up on October 7th. I always love doing them, but this one might be my favorite one yet, just because it’s so near and dear to me about the things that we tell ourselves about ourselves and the stories that we have about ourselves and navigating those stories to come home to who we really are. This whole class is going to be about coming home to ourself and it’s going to be beautiful and powerful and deeply transformational for everybody who comes.

(02:50):
So even if you are not already in my group, you can purchase a day, pass to the class and have access to the replay of it. Everything that we do there have access to that will be linked here. It’s just for women and you can purchase your spot. Alright, let’s go ahead and move into today’s episode. It’s all about the power grab things that we do to try to get power when we are feeling powerless. We all have had moments when we feel small where we feel powerless or where we feel silenced in our relationships. Maybe your voice doesn’t feel heard. Maybe your needs feel invisible. Maybe you’ve been betrayed and your left spinning. Maybe even if you did the betraying, you still feel like you don’t have a voice. Everything is kind of managed and controlled for you. And when we’re in this place, what often happens is that we might feel powerless in one way.

(03:51):
And so we try to swing the pendulum the complete opposite way to where we might feel like we have some power and we go searching for power. Anywhere we can find it, anywhere that we can find it. Okay, and what does powerlessness feel like? I know that for me, times that I have felt powerless are when something else. I’ll tell you a time when I first moved to Montana after I married my husband now, I felt very, very powerless. I picked up my kids, moved to this tiny, tiny town where my oldest was a senior, and I moved them there as a senior and I had all the other kids that were ranging from high school down to elementary school, moved into a house that I didn’t pick, drove a car that we bought together, but got rid of the one that was mine. Everything about my life was so, so different.

(04:49):
And I can look now and look at where I did in fact have a lot of power, like real power where I really did have a lot of things that I could choose, but I forgot and I felt so swallowed up in this big, big life, this life where I had a bunch of new children and a new husband and this new community and I felt very lost in it. And I can see now where so much of that was around what I thought about myself. It was around what I believed about me, and so often I felt powerless and would do things to try to get power that were very much not helpful for me. Sometimes it was making comments or it was challenging ideas that I didn’t really need to challenge. I was just looking for some kind of reassurance in a way that was off-putting.

(05:47):
Rather than inviting my new husband in, I can see where I was really shaky in my role as the second wife of somebody who buried his first wife. And everyone wanted to tell me about how wonderful and amazing and I felt like I had come through this really challenging thing. I had gotten divorce and I had thoughts about divorce and had that kind of weighing on me. And so I didn’t remember how much power I had, I forgot. And so sometimes I would do things to try to grab some power that undermined the very thing that I thought that I wanted, the very thing I did want. And that’s why I’m bringing this to you, my own lived experience and also my client’s experience. I hear this all the time. I hear from clients who are doing things that they feel are going to give them some kind of sense of power, and it’s ultimately moving them away from the thing that they want.

(06:49):
But here’s why we do it. Here’s why we do it. We do this because so many of us realize that we’ve gone years in a very pretty codependent type situation where we are kind of taking the temperature of our spouse to determine how we’re doing, how we’re feeling, what’s going on in our lives. And often what we do is we swing so far from that there’s a betrayal or there’s something that happens where we recognize I don’t like that. I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want everything in my life to be dictated by what’s going on around me. And so we swing over to this side of fierce independence and it could feel intoxicating. It can feel amazing. After being in these places of feeling powerless, it can feel really, really amazing. And the problem though is that even though we are feeling more powerful, we are feeling more confident, we are feeling stronger.

(07:49):
What happens is that we’re still likely doing things that are keeping us from this other thing that requires something different. That requires a lot. But that is ultimately what we really want. So with this pendulum swing, some of the things that I see are moving away from feeling kind of helpless and like a victim and you have no say and no voice. And moving over to this place of maybe flirting with others to feel powerful, to feel wanted, to see what kind of attention you can get fantasizing about leaving or being with somebody else and going, well, you can’t touch my thoughts. You can’t come with me here. And so I’m going to spend my time over here. And it can become quite intoxicating to imagine all these imaginary scenarios and feel like you have this little secret, this little thing that’s all yours, and it can feel intoxicating.

(08:45):
It can feel very powerful, but obviously it’s keeping you from real connection with the person right in front of you. Sometimes it can look like spending money recklessly just to feel in control. So for example, if you are with somebody who has a lot of money, who brings in a lot of money, but if you don’t feel like you have a lot of control or a lot of say in the intimacy, in the closeness of the relationship of if they listen to you or not, sometimes spending money can be the way that you feel like I will be listened to this way. I will go spend money. I will remodel my house. I will buy that purse. I will go on this luxurious trip and think that we could fool ourselves into thinking that this is you exerting your independence. What it really is is it’s a way to have a power grab to get some kind of sense of control that I will no longer be a victim here and it can feel very powerful and quite intoxicating.

(09:46):
Sometimes this looks like putting boundaries in place and I’m putting air quotes around boundaries. This is not me knocking boundaries. Boundaries are really, really important. But in this context, I’m talking about boundaries that are actually demands that we are making because we don’t quite know how to manage ourselves in a way that we respect. And so we are passing the buck over you. I’m going to place this demand here and I expect you to follow it. And really it can be an ultimatum to claw back our own sense of authority around someone that feels threatening to us when we don’t feel strong enough to just hold onto our own authority. It can look like demanding that somebody not speak to you, demanding that somebody hand over their phone whenever you want and let you go through their phone whenever you want. This can feel really intoxicating.

(10:44):
Look how much power I have. But it misses the point of what we actually are wanting, which is connection. And this can actually keep the other person feeling very unsafe, not because maybe they’re doing anything on their phone, but they might feel a sense of privacy violation or they’re not seen as a human. They’re seen as somebody that has to perform and has to check all of these boxes and wonders if there will ever be a place for them at the table again, or if it’s forever more going to be that they just have to kind of do what you want whenever you want. And I understand that at the beginning. There needs to be so much humility. I mean always humility, but so much humility, so much. What do you need? And there is a place for this for sure of open whatever you need to see, whatever you need to ask me.

(11:37):
But over time, we actually want to know that each of us have more autonomy. That trust is being built by each person being more mindful of the things that they’re doing and behind the screens when you’re not each other’s company, all the places so that we can learn that the version of you that you’re showing me now is the same version of you that’s going out in the world. And so sometimes when we are months, years in and we’re still doing these things and calling them boundaries, it’s not quite right anymore. Sometimes it’s a matter of trying to grab some power to maintain. I get the upper hand here because you did this thing to me and don’t you forget it. And this is my way of reminding you trying to hold the power. Okay? This is one way that this happens sometimes for those who feel powerless because they know that they were wrong.

(12:35):
They know that they really messed up. They know that they broke trust, they know that they betrayed their spouses. Sometimes they will make a power grab in just holding back one little detail or holding back an interaction that they had that wasn’t like an affair or cheating, but that was something that felt like something that was theirs. Maybe meeting up with somebody for what they call like an innocent lunch or an innocent interaction. Or it could be just chatting with somebody that felt very innocent to you, but that you didn’t tell your spouse about. And we can call that can call it whatever we want, but oftentimes it is a power grab. We can call it. We can lie to ourselves and deceive ourselves and say, well, I know nothing was ever going to happen there. That’s why I didn’t say anything. And in reality, it could be a way to kind of hold onto some sense of autonomy and some sense of power.

(13:32):
And what we’re ultimately doing is sabotaging ourselves. Because what we really want, we don’t want to feel powerful. We need to feel a sense of autonomy. We need to feel a sense of personal authority. But what we really want is to be able to be intimate, to be able to actually be vulnerable and to know that each person can hold that, right? So when we’re doing these little things on the side to try to hold onto some sense of power, we’re actually risking the thing that we say that we want even more. Okay? Now, what is the cost of false power? The cost isn’t immediate. Sometimes it’s not immediate. Sometimes we don’t see it at all for quite a while. But the real cost is that it’s going to create more distance instead of closeness. That’s the real cost. It erodes trust. It erodes intimacy even if the other person doesn’t know the details.

(14:28):
So for example, if you are in your mind fantasizing about leaving, it changes how you’re showing up in the relationship. Let’s say that you are already kind of planning this life and it might be very much a fantasy. It’s not something you actually think that you would do, but you’re fantasizing about what your life could be. And even if the other person doesn’t know this, even if they have no clue where your mind is, it does erode intimacy. It does erode. What is possible today, right now today in creating more closeness because you are already pulling away, you’re already checking out in that way, and it moves us further from what we want, which is love, connection, safety, belonging. We all want these things. We all do. This is universal. This is universal. We all want love, connection, safety, and belonging. So if we say that we want that, yet we do things that are creating the exact opposite.

(15:29):
Alright? Now I want you to understand that both sides do this. Both people involved, both the person who feels betrayed and who was betrayed and the one who did the betraying, the betrayed might do this, seek control where they can because they feel devastated and powerless. They might make little threats, they might make little jabs, little comments. They might spend money, they might be extra paranoid and do it in a way that is less about their own fear and more about control. There is a difference here in this episode, I’m talking about control. It’s not because we want to make sure that they’re not cheating. Again, that’s part of it. But it might be more about, I want to know how committed to me you are. And so I’m going to test it by doing this. I’m going to exert control in this way and see if you jump and see if you follow through.

(16:27):
And oftentimes this kind of approach is creating more of what we don’t want. Hopefully they will respond in a way that can help you feel more comforted, help you feel better. But if they don’t, they’re reactive. If they’re like, I don’t like this feeling, I don’t like feeling pinned into a corner and controlled, it can just feed more of that sense of powerlessness, which can lead to more of these power grabs and round and round, big go, right? The betrayer might do this. They might grab for power through little bits of secrecy, through lashing out through making everything about their needs, making themselves a victim. Even in this, some of you might relate to this, some of you might relate to even with being the one that really caused a lot of harm, trying to be the victim, trying to make people feel bad for them.

(17:21):
Sometimes this looks like instead of staying in the conversation, dropping into a place of shame where they are feeling so small and so fragile and need you to comfort them, that can be a power grab. It can be a, this is one way that I can be in charge here. And in both cases, it’s still a power grab and it’s still keeping both people from the vulnerable and tender ground where intimacy grows tender. It’s tender. This place moving into, in the therapy world, it’s called interdependence. Interdependence where there’s some dependence on each other, but there’s a lot of autonomy. There’s a lot of room to breathe, there’s a lot of space. And we also co-regulate count on each other. We also are tender. There is tenderness here. There is like I’m going to open my heart and try to walk around in this relationship with an open heart.

(18:22):
Please don’t hurt my open heart. It can feel so scary. And for both people involved. For both people, okay? Very vulnerable, very tender. And this is where intimacy actually grows and flourishes and where we heal, okay? This is where we heal. So what does real power look like? Real power is very different than the description above of these power grabs. Real power is not loud and flashy. Real power does not spike your adrenaline. Real power does not need to prove anything. Real power is about being willing to tell the truth even when it’s hard. Real power is about if we want to do something doing it, but not doing it from a place of defense or a place of proving. But because we want to and because we are willing to manage the disappointment or the hurt or whatever our partners experience because of our choice, it’s more measured.

(19:27):
We recognize they might not like this, and I am okay with it because this is something I really want or really need, and I’m willing to manage my own anxiety or worry a concern about how they respond. But I’m not doing this to get a response. I’m not doing this to get a reaction. I’m doing this because I want to. Knowing I might get a reaction and that that’s something that I’m willing to handle within myself, to speak up for this thing that I want, this thing that I need, whatever it may be, it’s taking responsibility for your choices instead of trying to manipulate others. It’s sitting in the discomfort of not being heard yet or not being understood yet, and staying committed to showing up with integrity. This one’s really tricky. This one is hard. It’s a hard ask. Why? Because we are all growing and learning every single day.

(20:20):
We all are. And I can tell you part of why I decided to record this episode today is because my husband and I had had something come up this last week where we had one of the most wonderful, so close, closer than either of us have ever felt to each other, ever experiences. And it’s amazing how quickly those fears can creep in. And something creeped in and I said something that poked on something in him, and then his response to that poked on something in me. And just like that, there were some distance. And where the growth is, and this is where I’m really holding myself accountable here, is that I always get to choose if I’m going to lean out or if I’m going to lean back in knowing that what I really want is to get back to that place of connection. But it’s not at all costs.

(21:15):
It’s not like I’m going to shut down the things that I think the things that I want to say. It’s that me owning my truth and telling the truth might risk a response here, but that I’m playing the long game and that I can trust that this response that I’m getting today, or even the response within myself is just part of our healing. And that by continuing to lean back in and talk about it and to share and to say, when you responded in this way, this is what it touched on in me. And we literally had a conversation like that last night of really owning our part, but also saying, this is how this response from you, this is how it impacts me. And can we try a different way of communicating about these things that we can be careful with each other’s tender hearts, right?

(22:08):
Careful with the vulnerabilities in each of us, while also speaking right, while also sharing what is true for us. So it’s not just about withholding and keeping things, it’s about learning how to do it in a way that speaks to our own tenderness and our own vulnerabilities and our own need to be treated with love and softness and kindness. What real power looks like is taking responsibility for your choices instead of trying to manipulate others. So for example, if their way of feeling like they have some control is to spend, spend money understanding why they do it. This is a way that I try to get some kind of power here because I know that my partner doesn’t like it and I use it as leverage that maybe once they X, Y, and Z, maybe I’ll stop doing X, Y, and z rather than looking at what am I doing and do I respect it within myself?

(23:09):
And if I don’t, then I want to stop this behavior and learn what it is that I’m actually trying to get here. What is it that I’m actually seeking here and looking at where we are actually robbing ourselves of the real power that we have by doing these other things that are actually sabotaging us and selling us short, real power looks like sitting in the discomfort of being vulnerable, of letting yourself be seen in your hurt, in your longing, in your fear and holding and being with it and being present with it without jumping over to that place of, that’s it. You go, do what you’re going to do. I’m going to do what I’m going to do. Jumping over to that like, fine, I’ll do it myself. I’m fine. I don’t need anybody staying. Staying with that vulnerable place within you, growing your capacity to hang with that part of you so that you can really understand what is it that I need?

(24:09):
What is it that I want? How will I really feel powerful here? Really, really strong? And how can I speak for that? How can I speak for that? And the other day I had some words come to my mind that were really helpful to me. It was Andrea, speak power to your fear. And there was some fear that popped up in my head, some fear in my heart, and those words speak power to your fear that I can bring power to my fear. I can speak to it, I can go into that fear and I can give it a shot of real power, of real strength, of real comforting a child who’s scared. You’re okay, I’ve got you, you’re okay. Speak power to it. Real power, real strength, real courage. Okay, now this last section is about moving toward intimacy. Tenderness and expansiveness come when we stop chasing this false power and lean into real grounded presence.

(25:15):
Staying in not disassociating, not keeping yourself so busy that you don’t need to go there. I know this one all too well. If I just have all these things that I need to do that are just so important, then I’m not leaning into that slow, open, tender place of real grounded presence within myself and grounded presence within my spouse. And so learning how to slow this whole thing down, stop the chase, stop the busyness and look at what’s actually here is going to actually help you access what’s really happening. So some questions here are, where am I reaching for false power right now? What am I really longing for? What is the real thing that I long for here? My habit might be to go about it this way, to say this thing, to ask it this way, to avoid in this way. Okay, that might be the habit, but what is it that I’m really, really longing for?

(26:21):
Is it to feel seen, loved, safe, connected, and what’s one vulnerable truth I could share instead of lashing out or acting out or going for one of those power grab moves that feels safer to me than actually asking for what I want or saying what I need, knowing that I am stepping into risk because I don’t know exactly how they will respond. But what will you respect more within yourself and what ultimately, regardless of what somebody else does, you are growing your own ability to be vulnerable with yourself. You are creating more safety, more belonging, more connection with you. No one can take that from you, no matter how anyone else responds, and no one can take that. Showing up for that way with yourself is going to help you have whatever kind of relationship you want with somebody else, regardless if it’s the person in front of you or somebody else entirely.

(27:21):
Okay? So as a reminder, false power feels good for a moment, but it’s like eating candy when you really just want a meal, okay? It leaves you emptier, it leaves you emptier than before. It does not scratch that itch. It does not. It leaves you still feeling restless and uncomfortable. The real path, the one that leads to real intimacy, to connection, to expansiveness, is through honesty and tenderness and vulnerability. First of all, with yourself. Next, with who you choose to share this with, for those of you listening who are not in relationships, practice this with yourself. Where are you making power? Grabs within yourself to avoid real intimacy, real connection, really tapping into what your body is telling you, what you need to feel, what you need to process, what you really need, right? Don’t try to outrun it by making these power grabs. Okay?

(28:18):
False power feels good for a moment, but it is not sustainable. It is not sustainable, okay? So when you decide to look at this and see where am I, maybe making these power grabs that might be really praised even might feel really good, but that are actually just trying to reclaim something, some kind of voice, some kind of power. Know where this is sabotaging you and what you want to try instead. Alright, my beautiful listeners, thank you so much for being here. I invite you also, those of you who know that when you listen to my podcast and you feel like everything I say is speaking to you, just you wait until you’re inside my group, just you wait my get Your Life back after Infidelity group. It is a powerful, powerful place to be where people are in rapid pace, changing their own lives, learning where they are falsely trying to grab for power, and what real power looks like for them. Real healing, real sustainable strength that is still where they don’t have to go do something today just to try to get some kind of power. They’re learning what it feels like to be still in their own body. And then taking that and turning it into really aligned, courageous action. It is such a joy to watch. It happens quickly. If you want that kind of support, go get your application in and come visit with me. Alright, take care, and I’ll see you very soon.

(29:53):
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.