While You Are Waiting (On Him) | Ep #92

I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
episode number 92, While You Are Waiting On Him.

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 freedom 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.

Hi everybody. I’m so happy to be with you today. As I mentioned in my last
episode, this summer, I’m going to be following a little bit of a different
schedule. Most likely my podcasts will be coming out every other Friday for
the summer. And then I’ll reconvene in the fall with weekly episodes.
That’s my plan right now. And maybe I will throw in extra episodes
throughout the summer, depending on scheduling and where I’m at. I am
looking forward to a little bit of a change, but I also know that I really
love talking with you. So we’ll just see.

Anyway, today, we’re going to be talking about what to do while you are
waiting on him. Okay. So I’m going to start with a couple different
stories. Story number one, you are a few months past the initial disclosure
day. Your spouse says they want to work things out. They want to stay. They
want to fix things. And you are thinking you want to at least try. You want
to give it a shot. You know that there’s a whole lot at stake. There’s a
lot on the line. And you want to make sure that you know what you’re doing
before you make a big decision.

You see them go to counseling, maybe in affair recovery group, and they
seem to be trying. You are still reeling from the initial shock of it all
and you don’t really know what you want. Right now, you’re watching him,
watching what he does, how he responds to you. And you’re just sitting and
waiting for more information to come out, to come to light, to see if you
can trust him again, et cetera. You often just feel numb and at a loss of
what to do, so you just wait.

Story number two, the infidelity is out in the open, but he is unsure if he
wants to move forward with you or the affair partner. He says that he loves
you, but cares about the other person too. You hope that he will come back
home and pick you and help put your life back together again. You know you
love him deeply. Again, the stakes are high. There are a lot of people
involved and a lot of people affected by this choice. You are waiting to
see if he picks you. You are thinking that if he can just see how much you
love him and how supportive you are and how patient you are, then surely
he’ll pick you. So you wait.

What do these two stories have in common? Waiting. Waiting on them. In this
episode, I’m going to be covering what to do during that time. How to make
productive use of your time while waiting to see how things unfold. In the
last couple of weeks in my business, I have had multiple people reach out
and talk to me about this very issue. Somebody used the word purgatory,
that it feels like purgatory. Like, what am I supposed to do during this
time? What do I do? How do I find peace while I’m just waiting to see what
happens? So that’s why I decided to do this episode. Okay?

So there are four things that you can do while you’re in this waiting
period and I’m going to go over them. First, I’ll give you a little spoiler
alert. They all revolve around you. Not obsessing about him. Okay? Number
one, meet your own needs with abundance. Be so generous with yourself. Ask
yourself, “What do I need?” And listen, and meet your needs. Meet your
needs. If you need a day to slow down, if you need a day to rest, if you
need a day to sleep, if you need a day to just be with yourself, give it to
yourself.

Show yourself the utmost care, attention, love and compassion. Show
yourself kindness. Give yourself so much grace to feel all of the feels, to
feel all of the waves of emotion that are going to come. It’s okay.
Sometimes you need to give yourself wide open space to feel and to process
and it’s okay. Meet your needs with abundance. Check in with yourself all
the time, “What do I need?” And be the compassionate, generous giver of
those things.

Number two, know why you are waiting. Is it for reasons you like? Sometimes
we are waiting because we are seeing how things play out. We want to know.
Does he follow through? Is he truly changing his behaviors? Does he seem to
have a true change of heart? Is this something I can live with? Do I want
to stay or do I feel obligated? Am I attaching shoulds to it? You’re
waiting to just see how things shake out when the emotions aren’t so high.
You’re waiting to see if he is consistent with what he says he is doing.

Sometimes though, we are waiting because we are avoiding the pain of moving
forward. For example, if we know we want to end it but say we are waiting,
we are prolonging our suffering. If this is you, if you know that you
really don’t want to stay or that he is not ready to commit fully or
whatever other reason that you don’t have to justify to anyone, by the way,
what does courage look like? In reality, you are waiting on giving you
yourself what you want most. You’re putting off your own piece. Okay? There
can be peace in the waiting when you’re waiting for reasons that feel true
to you, for reasons that you believe, for reasons that you like. But if we
know inside that it’s over and we call it waiting, peace will be harder to
come by because you’re just prolonging your suffering. So check your
reasons for waiting. Are you being completely honest with yourself?

Number three, give your brain a job besides obsessing and worrying. I know
how hard this can be. It’s so easy to have a one check mind. You want to
manage his every move. Where he is? Who he is really texting right now?
Does he remember how much he has hurt me? If he doesn’t mention it every
day, does it mean he forgot? Does he know how much pain he has caused? Et
cetera. While these things feel very, very important in the moment, they
ultimately will rob you of healing.

Did you know that you can start the healing process while he is still
figuring himself out? Healing is an inside job. Yes, he can be very
instrumental in helping reassure, comfort, making restitution, trying to do
everything he can to fix it. But ultimately, it has to be an inside job.
And that can begin now. Give your brain a job besides being hypervigilant
about him, besides worrying and wondering and fretting. Some things you can
do. Spend time every day journaling about your future. What is your life
there? Who are you there? What do you do? What do you think? Who do you
want to be? How can you be more of her today? Okay. Spend more time in the
future than in the present.

When we sit in the present, if it’s riddled with worry and doubt, that’s
what we’re going to be thinking about all the time. Taking our brain to a
future space can help pull us out of that and help remind us where we’re
going. Give your brain a job. Another idea is to learn something new.
Immerse yourself into something besides infidelity. Get a new hobby. Learn
to do something new. Is there something you’ve wanted to learn how to do?
Play tennis, paint, anything. Swim. Order a paint set and begin. Take
tennis lessons. Read a fun novel. Okay?

You do not have to stay in this purgatory state of being miserable and just
waiting. You can be proactive in bringing things into your life that take
your mind off of the infidelity and direct you forward and even have fun.
You can have fun. Okay? You don’t always have to sit around and be sad.
Another thing that I suggest is serving. I don’t know that there’s anything
like service that helps get your mind off of your own problems. It’s like
magic. Look around in your community, who needs you? Look around in your
friend group, who needs you? In your neighborhood. Use your talents and
skills to go do some good. It’ll take your mind off of things. You’ll go to
bed feeling good about your day. And you won’t be sitting around waiting
and wondering about what’s going on with him. Go find someone to serve.

Number four, remember this. You are not waiting on him, you are waiting on
you. You are patiently waiting on you. What do I mean by that? If you are
just waiting on him, it gives him all the power. His every move will affect
you. It’s like he jumps and then you jump. If you are waiting on you, you
are the hero in the story. You are the one to watch, to see how far you’ve
come, how you get back up and persevere. You are not waiting on anyone
else. You are courageously forging ahead. And he will either come with you
or he won’t. You are taking the reins of your own healing and know that you
will be okay either way.

In recap, the four things that you can do while you wait to see what’s
going to happen, to see where he is, to see where you are, is meet your
needs with abundance, generously, shower yourself, nourish yourself. I have
a six month old baby and it is my pleasure to meet her needs. It truly is
genuinely my pleasure to just give her everything she needs right now. This
morning, she woke up and she gets up pretty early and she had messy
bedhead. She has really long hair for a six month old. It’s so cute. And
she had messy hair. And my baby girl loves to take a bath. She loves her
bath time.

So this morning, before I had to work, I gave her a bubble bath and just
let her play and kick and smile and just be filled with pleasure. What
would it be like if we could give that to ourselves? If we could just do
things for pleasure, just to take care of ourselves. Give that to yourself.
Nourish yourself, feed yourself well, take the time to cook things that
nourish your body. Okay. That’s number one.

Number two, know why you are waiting and like your reasons for it. Okay?
Know why you’re waiting and like your reasons. Number three, give your
brain a job besides obsessing and worrying. And number four, remember this,
you are not waiting on him, you are waiting on you. You are patiently
waiting on you. You are the heroine in this story. You are watching
yourself go through this. You are guiding yourself through this. You are
going to get to the other side and you are in a process right now. You’re
not waiting on him. You’ll get to be the hero here. You’re the one to
watch. Okay? Keep watching yourself and move forward.

Now, I want to remind you of something. This too shall pass. If you’re
listening to this and wondering if you’re just going to hurt forever, I
promise you, you will not. This too shall pass. You will be okay. You will
heal. Whether you stay or go, this is not going to break you. You will feel
joy again. You will feel peace and happiness again. This is not all there
is for you. Okay? This is not all there is for you. There’s so much ahead
of you. Now I want to tell you that if you want help with all of this,
please get on my wait list for the next round of my group Know in 90.

In this group, we go all in on moving forward towards who we are becoming
rather than waiting for something to happen. We’re being proactive. We’re
moving forward. Making decisions courageously forging ahead. You can sign
up by going to the show notes on this episode, or you can go to my
Instagram account Andrea Giles Coaching. It’s actually
andrea_giles_coaching. Or you can go on my website, andreagiles.com. Get on
my email list. And in upcoming emails, it’ll be linked in there. And you
can get on my wait list.

I have another launch coming up next month for my group that begins in
August, 1st week of August. I want you in there. I’ll tell you what, the
group that I have going right now is powerful. It’s powerful. Courageous,
amazing bold women that are blazing their own trail. It’s something to
behold. I want you to be in there. I want this for you too. Go get on that
list. All right my friends, go get them. Stop waiting on things to happen,
make things happen for yourself. You have your whole life ahead of you. You
are worthy of living and having whatever life you want. All right. I will
see you next time. Bye-bye.

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