I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
episode number 145, Winning Strategies.

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 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.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode. As always, I’m so glad to
be here with you. So a few episodes back, I did an episode called Losing
Strategies, and it was all about some of the things that we do in
relationships that end up sabotaging our relationship, that end up not
getting us what we want. Often those things are an attempt to make things
better. Often it’s because we feel powerless and don’t know what else to do
and we get in our own way, and unfortunately often make things worse
inadvertently. This episode is going to be the follow-up to that of what to
do instead. Five winning strategies. Things that you can practice today.
Things that you can try now. And I want to make the point that I know that
many of you are in a shaky spot right now in your relationships. You’re not
sure what’s happening. You’re not sure if you want to stay, you’re not sure
if you want to go. You are waiting to see what they do.

I want to offer to you that these strategies do well in any relationship.
Yes, our closest relationships, the one with our partner, our spouse,
that’s the relationship that ultimately I think challenges our growth the
most, pushes our growth the most, where we really have to dig deep to look
at how we’re showing up, look at the kind of person we want to be based on
our own values, our own standards for ourselves, and dig deep and practice
those things. But sometimes we are in a place where it might not be the
best decision to fully commit to going all in and repairing a relationship.
Some of you don’t know yet. So I just want to offer these things as a way
to see, to get an understanding of maybe how you have shown up, how you
might want to improve. And I want you to know that by practicing these
things, it’s going to make your life better.

It will make your communication better. It will make your experience with
just going through life and knowing that you have grown some skills to
handle relationships better. It will be easier for you to go out in the
world, in the workplace, in all the different places where we have to
practice relationships, where we have to be in relationships, knowing that
you have some new skills in your back pocket, some things to practice, some
things to get better at, so that you can help your relationships to win.
The ones that you’re meant to be in, the ones that you want to be in,
helping them to win.

Before I dive in, I want to remind you that I’m enrolling for my group
program, Get Your Life Back After Infidelity. It is a wonderful, wonderful
group of women. You’re missing out if you’re not in there. We go deep every
week. It’s a year-long program where you will leave the program deeply
transformed. You’ll have lifelong relationships. You’ll have the support
that you need. You’ll have new ways of viewing things, like a whole new
lens that you’ll be able to take with you throughout your life, not just
after infidelity, but throughout your life. I invite you to check that out.
You can go to the show notes and it’ll lead you there. Go to my website,
Andrea Giles, work with me tab, and it’ll lead you there as well.

All right, here we go. So as I have mentioned this whole year, I am in a
training with Terry Real, the author of Us, the author of lots of different
books. He’s a therapist that’s been around for 40 years. And I have learned
so much from him. As it is with anything that we choose to be a student in
it can push our development so much. For me, it’s not just about learning
this stuff so I can come and parrot it off to you and tell you, “This is
what you should do or this is how you fix this.” It really is about me
being first the student and then the teacher. And I tell you what, being
the student is a lot. There’s so many things that I have seen in myself
where I’m going, “Oh yeah, I could totally do that better. I could totally
learn to show up stronger in this way.” And this episode is as much for me
as it is for you. There are losing strategies that I have participated in.
There are winning strategies that I want to get better at.

So what I challenge you to do today is as you’re listening, I’m going to go
through five, five winning strategies. I want you to listen to one that you
will commit to practicing. You might need to listen to this episode a
couple of times. It’s okay. Take some notes. I want you to listen and go,
“Which one would be the most useful to me right now? Which one would have
the greatest impact? Which one would go the furthest and really help me?
Help me get out of the funk that I’m in?” Wherever you are, help you with
that, by trying to improve in this way. It does require courage. It does
require digging in. And you can totally do that. You can totally do that.
Because at the end of the day, while having healthy relationships is the
goal, what starts a healthy relationship is really liking who we are in
that relationship. So it starts by taking ownership, digging deep, and
practicing being the person and the kind of partner that we want to be.

I’m going to dive into the five strategies, but before I do, I want to just
make sure to give credit to Terry Real. This is part of what we are trained
with, these five winning strategies, and I want to share them with you now.
Number one, advocate for what you want. Winning strategy number one,
advocate for what you want. This looks like getting your partner’s
attention. How many of us wait? How many hope that they pay attention? A
winning strategy is to dare to rock the boat by advocating for what you
want. Being bold, owning your right to want something from your
relationship. This is so hard, especially when we have been conditioned to
think that good enough is good enough or that we shouldn’t be too bold, we
shouldn’t be too outspoken, all of the messaging that we’ve gotten. What if
you gave yourself permission to want what you want? What if the thing that
keeps bothering you over and over is a signal to you to pay attention
because this is something that really, really deeply matters to you, and
it’s going to require your growth to advocate for that change.

So getting your partner’s attention by being an advocate for what you want
means being willing to rock the boat, being willing to be bold, preparing
to risk disappointment or rejection. How hard is that?One of the great
paradoxes of intimacy is that in order to have a healthy, passionate
relationship, you must be willing to risk it. Isn’t that fascinating? To
really, really dig in deep for what we want, we have to know that the other
person might say no, and we have to be willing to risk that. That is why
this is a skill, not just a given. This is a skill. It requires a lot of
growth. It requires a lot of self-esteem or to know that you can handle it,
to know if you can handle rejection. Often we have to practice really
getting more settled within ourselves before we can do this work because
our nervous system sometimes can’t handle rejection when we don’t have a
solid sense of who we are. But when we are starting to get our feet more
firmly on the ground, getting more clear on what we want, this is when we
can step into this space, ask for what we want, knowing that they might say
no, but also knowing it’s called a winning strategy because the best way to
get what you want is by advocating for what you want.

This also requires making your needs really clear. First, being clear with
what your needs are, your wants and your needs, and then speaking them. And
there’s a way to do this. It requires being very specific. It means using a
specific kind of behavior. Less words, more clarity, less going on and on,
more getting right to the point. Giving your partner a way to deliver. This
is a winning strategy. Advocating for what you want and then giving them a
clear way to deliver it. Like, “I want it to look like this.” No guessing
games, no moving targets. No, “Well, it’s not quite how I wanted it, so now
I’m going to be mad.” We have to be very clear and give them a way to
actually deliver that.Nurturing the change, reinforcing and appreciating
what you are getting, celebrating the glass 15% full. We’re so used to
hearing more like, “Is the glass half full or half empty?” That kind of
rhetoric. What if we celebrate 15% full? Not 85% empty, 15% full, focusing
on growth, focusing on the things that are moving, discussing and
negotiating what 25% would look like rather than 15, and allowing time for
change to occur.

When we are clear like this, when we show up in this way and step away and
let other people step into this growth, there are things working on the
inside of them that might take time to calibrate. We get so impatient. We
get so impatient. We want to see it now. A winning strategy is to get so
clear that you’ve been clear and then stepping back and allowing this
calibration to take place. That was all just part of winning strategy one.
Let’s get to winning strategy two.

Number two, speak to make things better. Ooh, this one has got me. This one
has got me. You guys listen to me and many of you have been coached by me,
and I try to be a pretty positive person, but guess what? Sometimes I
complain. Sometimes I complain to my husband about our kids or about
different things happening. And when I’ve been studying this and seeing how
detrimental that is, and then looking at this winning strategy number two,
speaking to make things better? This is an area that I am really trying to
double down on. Like, “What is the usefulness in what I’m about to say? Is
it going to make things better?”

So let me tell you what this looks like. This looks like moving out of
complaining and into request, getting much more clear. From negative or
past focused to positive, future focused. This is also tough for me
sometimes. I have a memory of hurts that sometimes I bring up and it’s not
helpful. It just makes things worse. It can create more division rather than
really focusing on where we’re going and what we’re working on together. So
moving out of past focus. Now, I want to give a caveat here. For those of
you who are here in this space where infidelity is pretty recent, you’re in
it. You’re in it. It’s not in the past yet. It’s current. So I don’t want
you to make yourself wrong for needing to talk about it, for wanting to go
there, for wanting to ask questions, for allowing yourself all the heavy
feelings. You get all of that. You get all of that.

Your growth possibly in this area is getting more clear about the requests
that you want rather than complaining. Complaining will make you feel
worse. Saying very clearly what you want is a lot more powerful. It will
feel different in your body. It will sound different. It’s asking for more.
It’s saying, “I expect more.” And it’ll get you closer to what you want.
Part of this winning strategy is the understanding that you don’t have the
right to complain about not getting what you never asked for. Ouch. We have
to ask. And the more that you grow into your own person. Really getting
clear with who you are and how amazing you are, how strong you are, how
powerful you are. Guess what happens? In raising your standard? You’re going
to want more.

You’re going to want more. The things that used to fly are not going to fly
anymore, and especially after infidelity occurs in many situations it kind
of feels like all bets are off and this thing’s burned to the ground
anyway, so this time around I’m going to ask for what I want and I’m not
settling. And seeing in that energy can be really, really powerful. Really
powerful. Don’t move from it. I know it’s easy to go back to your old ways,
old patterns, old ways of being. And my challenge to you is to stick with
what you’re wanting and getting better at asking for it, speaking to make
things better. This goes hand in hand with winning strategy number one
about being a stronger advocate, but this is a little bit more specific.

Part of this, part of speaking to make things better is a really tricky
part that I want to share with you. After infidelity, a lot of the respect
for the person we’re with has gone right out the window. How did this
person do this? How are they capable of doing this thing? Part of healing
and stepping into a really strong version of yourself is trying to look at
this person as a whole person that did this thing. He is a whole person
that did this thing, this thing that, yes, really hurt you, all of that.
But it’s part of stepping into what Terry Real calls full respect living,
that people do things that hurt us, that people can really rock the boat in
not a great way, and that we can still act in a way that we respect by
trying to see people as a whole and not just as their problem, just seeing
their problem, this thing that they did.

So what this means is using I statements instead of you this and you that.
I. This is how I feel. This is how this impacted me. Being thoughtful when
choosing your words. Being careful with how many words you use even.
Sometimes we can have something that is so powerful to say and we’ll say so
much with it that it’s like a fire hose of words rather than the impactful
short message that we initially wanted to say. So part of speaking in this
way is speaking from love with less words, so you don’t let a great message
get lost in the delivery.

All right. Number three, winning strategy three, listen to understand. This
one’s hard when your heart’s broken, when you’re really hurting, like, “I
don’t want to understand. I don’t get how you could do this.” I’m telling
you, in order to salvage a relationship and build something better, this
skill is crucial. It is crucial. There’s no way around it. There’s no way
around it.

Be curious about your partner’s perspective. This requires so much
maturity, to be able to say, “Okay, what was going on for you? What was
being married to me like? What’s going on in your life that you have been
afraid to tell me or that I’ve been blind to?” Really being curious. That
is a strong relationship skill. In this space, when you’re listening, you
are actually suspending your own point of view. Ooh, that’s hard. It’s hard
to suspend your point of view, to just listen. You’re asking clarifying
questions that center your partner’s experience, not your own. That means
when they have the mic, you are holding off on rebutting, on, “Well, that’s
not how I see it. That’s not how I remember it.” You are getting their
point of view, their experience. Objective reality is not the goal.
Reconnection is.

Sometimes there is not going to be an objective reality that you’re both
going to agree on. One person will remember something one way, the other’s
going to remember it the other way, and there’s really nothing you can do
about it. And you could fight to the death of who’s right, or you can
prioritize reconnection and realize that you’re not going to see eye to eye,
but that you can reconnect and meet in the middle. Strive to understand how
your partner feels, the way he, she, they do. Strive to understand. Even
when you’re mad, even when you really don’t get it, strive to understand.

Now, I want to make one really, really important point here. Agreeing with
your partner’s perspective is not necessary. You can be a strong listener
and not agree. We might be able to go, “I can see how you might have
thought that. I can see how you might’ve felt that way.” It doesn’t mean
that we feel that way. It doesn’t mean that we have to feel that way or
justify them feeling that way, but we can go, “With what you’ve explained
to me, I can get that that’s where your brain would go, that that’s what
you would feel.” It does not mean that you have to agree with them. So
listening to understand is where we kind of put on pause our emotional
reaction to what they’re saying and actually listen, not from our point of
view, but from theirs. Also a strong skill.

Number four, respond with generosity. Acknowledge and take accountability
wherever you can. This means acknowledging the things that are given,
acknowledging the efforts that are there, and taking accountability for the
things that we bring to the table. And that means good things and not so
great things. Part of responding with generosity is giving the benefit of
the doubt and also giving our selves the benefit of the doubt. That’s part
of accountability. That’s part of that there. Giving from a loving,
generous heart. Reminding ourselves, “You know what? I love this person. I
care deeply about this person. There’s a lot invested here. And I don’t
want to just throw in the towel.”

So again, I want to just reiterate again, those of you listening that are
not in a relationship, maybe you’re going through divorce, maybe you are
divorced, some of you are not with people where this work is going to
happen. Some of you are going to listen to this episode and you are going
to try some of these things. And the best way to find out who you’re with
is by changing the pattern, changing it up. And you showing up and
practicing it and really digging into the kind of spouse that you want to
be. You are going to learn who you’re with. You’re going to learn is this
somebody who wants to change, who really wants to change? Or is it a lot of
lip service?

This is why this is so important no matter where you are. This means
leading with yes. What that means is openness. “Yes, I want to do this
thing. Yes, I want to hear you. Yes, I want to connect.” Being open. Being
open. Giving to your relationship is in your own enlightened self-interest.
I want you to understand that. Right now, it might seem counterintuitive to
give anything at all, but from this kind of mature, enlightened place,
giving from this space, from generosity, is the thing. If this relationship
can be salvaged, being able to show up in this way is your best bet. This
does not mean throwing caution to the wind and becoming boundaryless. Nope,
it does not. It means from a very strong place within you with strong
boundaries, this is what I can give, and I’m giving it from an honest, pure
heart, generous heart, and I care about this person and I’m going to see
where this goes.

What this space requires, from a place of just so much maturity, is
stepping out of the old norms of like, “This is your role. This is my
role.” There’s a lot of that in patriarchy. That men have these roles.
Women have these roles. This one’s powerful. This one’s less powerful. It
requires us to step out of some of these norms that have been passed on to
us and become more relational. That I am a human that is worth respect, you
are a human that is worthy of respect, and how can we mutually respect and
be kind to each other. This is called relational ecology, giving from your
own growth, your most enlightened, most mature self. That’s why this is so
difficult is because it requires so much growth within us.

All right. Winning strategy number five, cherish what you have. Cherish
what you have. This can be really hard, especially after you’ve been really
hurt by somebody. Anybody who says that staying after infidelity is weak,
doesn’t know what the heck they’re talking about. Because to really stay
after infidelity and really make something that is amazing? Oh, the amount
of growth and maturity it takes. So much, so much. In the best way, this is
the best growth you’ll ever experience in your life. It’s transformative.
It’s pulling us out of our unconscious, childish ways of doing things, and
it demands of us growth. It demands of us to step into an adult mature way
of being. This is part of that. Allowing yourself to receive the change of
another person. How hard is that, when somebody is doing the thing that you
say you want and actually receiving it, acknowledging it, amplifying their
progress? “Oh my gosh, look, I see that you this and this and this. Yay.
Thank you. I’m so grateful for that.”

Expressing appreciation for your partner through words and actions. Not
just in saying it, but in what you do, how you express it. Taking pleasure
in the gifts and accomplishments of your relationship. Some of you may feel
like you’re at rock bottom. As you are growing, as you are healing, looking
at the ways that things are growing, looking at the way that things are
better. Often this can be done with ourselves first, where we can see our
own growth, and train our mind to appreciate the things that are happening,
the growth that’s happening, and then extending that to the person that
we’re with. I will also say, this is a great skill for children. Really
cherishing what we have, cherishing the kids we got, cherishing all of it.
Even if sometimes they’re challenging, knowing that there our challenge,
they’re ours, and appreciating the ride.

This also can include reclaiming romantic space, especially after it has
been broken for a little bit. Reclaiming it, taking it back, making
something that you cherish, cultivating it, cultivating connection,
cultivating closeness and unification and working hard to have a kind of
relationship where you both feel cherished. Sometimes when we don’t feel
cherished, it can be really hard to cherish back and this is part of the
skill. And the amazing thing is the more that you learn to do this, the more
that you in return will feel cherished because you’re helping to cultivate
an environment where that is part of what you do. This is part of what we
do in this environment. We cherish each other. You see that? It’s pretty
amazing. It’s so easy to go to the place of, “Why should I work so hard
when he did this and this and this?”

Here is the thing. If we really want a kind of relationship where we feel
chosen and cherished and beloved, we have to learn to be the kind of person
that can give that, and the first person that we can practice with is
ourselves. Learning how to cherish ourselves, learning how to give more
generously and kindly to ourselves, learning to speak kindly. Every single
thing that I just went through, all five of those things, can be practiced
individually first before we ever take them to our partners. Learning to do
this will transform everything for you. Again, this is a lifelong thing.
It’s not a one and done, and I am a fellow traveler right along with you,
where I can look at some of these things and go, “I am not very good at
that. I want to work on that. I want to get better at that. I want to get
better at this skill. I want it to become something that becomes so natural
for me.”

I want to add, as I wrap this up, that in my program, I’m going to be doing
an episode pretty soon sharing some things that I think will be really
useful to hear about how I work and the essentials that we go through in
the program so that you really do get your life back and get to the other
side of it. But I recently added something to it, and its relationship
skills. I added a section about relationship skills because there is no
shortcut. There is no shortcut to learning relationship skills or to having
a good relationship without learning these things. It doesn’t matter if you
stay. It doesn’t matter if you go. If we do not learn the skill of being in
healthy relationships, we will divert back to our old ways. It’s human
nature. We will do what we’ve always done, even when the best intentions
are there. Because if we don’t know what to do instead we’re going to do
what we know.

So in my program, it’s one of the milestones that I take my clients through
is practicing relationship skills in real time, coaching on it, going deep
on all of this stuff. It really is life-changing. It really is. If you have
been listening to this podcast for a while, thought about joining, why
don’t you just come join us? Why don’t you just come? Just say, “Yep,
today’s the day. It’s time. I’m going to jump in.” You’re so worth it.
You’re so worth the investment in yourself. And I have to say, we have quite
an amazing group and the program is really powerful.

All right, my friends. I just went over the five winning strategies.
Advocate for what you want, speak to make things better, listen to
understand, respond with generosity, and cherish what you have. Pick one of
those things, double down on it, and watch what unfolds. All right. Thank
you my friends. 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
email. You can subscribe at andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. Again,
it’s andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. I will see you next time.