Your Plan B | Ep #7

I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to The Heal From Infidelity Podcast,
episode number 7, Your Plan B.

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 my friends. Welcome to episode number seven. I’m so glad that you’re
here. I am recording this podcast from my office on a rainy Monday. It
happens to be Labor Day, and I am hiding out getting this recorded so I can
get this to you. So my husband is awesome, and he took the kids out for a
little while so I could have a quiet house. Did you know that it can be a
little bit distracting to record a podcast with kids running around? I’m
sure that I will get better at it with time, but yeah, sometimes it can be
a little bit distracting. So he took the kids, and here I am, ready to talk
to you today.

So before I dive in, I want to thank you so much, all of you, for
listening, for downloading, for subscribing, for leaving reviews. It’s kind
of blowing my mind to see the reviews come in, to see how many downloads I
have. It’s very humbling and really, really cool to know that people are
listening and that it’s helping them. I made this to help people so to see
that it actually is getting in the hands of people who need help is so, so
rewarding. So thank you so much and keep sharing it with people, keep
listening, keep sharing, so that the people who need it can find it. But
thank you so much again.

So on today’s episode, it’s all about Plan B. Okay? We all had a Plan A,
this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to get married. We’re going to
be married forever. We’re going to just sail off into the sunset, have our
kids, have a nice life. If you’re listening to this, you probably have not
had that reality. There’s been some hard things that have been thrown your
way, that have forced you into looking at different ideas, different plans,
and today we’re going to talk about that.

So to start this topic off, I want to give you an analogy. So let’s say you
live in one house and you know this house very, very well. You know all
about the leaky roof. You know about some of the cracks in the tile. You
know that the windows can be drafty in the winter. You know about the loud
neighbors. But you also know about the pretty woodwork and the beautiful
entry, the close walk to school, and the cute backyard that you’ve made a
lot of memories in. So let’s say you’re looking at another house, and you
see that this house is a little bit bigger, that it doesn’t have drafty
windows, but that the bathrooms are small, the yard’s a little bit smaller,
but it’s a wonderful neighborhood with wonderful neighbors, and you think
that you might like that too.

Now, you could stay in house number one and be perfectly fine. You could go
to house number two and be fine. But what the point is here is that we’re
not choosing house number two because we hate or dislike house number one.
We’re choosing house number two because we prefer to have these issues over
these issues. We know full well the problems with each house, and we know
full well the things that we really like about each house, and then it
comes down to a personal preference. Which house would I rather live in?
But we’re not ignoring the things that we don’t like about either house,
and we’re not ignoring the things that we do. We are seeing them in broad
daylight and then making a decision.

Okay, so how does that relate to infidelity? Let me explain. I work with
clients sometimes who are wanting to stay married to their husband. They
know that they really love their husband, but they are not sure if they’re
staying for the right reasons. So sometimes people stay in their marriages
because they are afraid of thinking about the alternative. They’re afraid
of going, “What would I actually do? How would I actually live?” But then
there’s the problem of, “Do I really want to stay here or am I staying here
because it feels a little bit easier?” That’s the question.

So I like to think of choosing as a form of agency. It is agency. And
there’s passive agency and there’s active agency. Passive agency is where
we kind of just do the default thing. Yes, we’re choosing it because we’re
living it, but we’re living it as the default, default mode. Passive
thinking is often fear-based. There’s a lot of fear behind it. It’s like,
“I have to be here because dot, dot, dot.” Active choosing is where there
might be fear. It’s probably totally present there, but it’s not driving.
The fear is not driving. You are intentionally choosing even if it feels
really uncomfortable to do so. You really know what your options are and
you’re choosing very deliberately. A deeper form of choosing is when you’re
choosing with your eyes wide open. And the thing about choosing from this
space is that trust is built here. Trust is definitely not built where you
think you have no other option.

So a client saying to me, “I don’t have a choice. I couldn’t make it on my
own,” is not actually choosing. That’s passive choosing. Being afraid to
look at the other options leads people to feeling stuck. Another problem
that comes up with that kind of thinking is that there’s often judgment for
staying. So for example, I’ve heard this comment before, “What does it say
about me or what does it mean about me that I’m willing to stay when all of
these things have happened? Does it mean that I’m weak? Does it mean that
I’m too afraid?” And so there’s judgment there.

And so this is where I take my clients through an exercise where they are
actually really clearly deliberately figuring out their Plan B. What this
looks like is involving all of their senses. It’s getting to a place where
you feel the emotion of stepping into the Plan B. There might be fear.
There might be serious discomfort. There might be excitement too. There
might be clarity too. It’s going to that place and going, “Okay, so with
this client who is wanting to stay in her marriage, but she’s not sure if
she’s staying just because she’s afraid of the alternative, it would mean
taking her brain to the alternative.” Going there, going, “Okay, if I left
this marriage, what would that actually look like? What would I actually
do? Where would I live? How would I take care of my kids? What would I do
financially? What would that look like?”

Really, really going there and taking your brain there, feeling the fear,
feeling the doubt, and getting clear. Crunching numbers, getting out a
calculator and figuring out numbers. “What would I need to do? How could I
provide? If I knew that I needed to make this amount of money, what would I
do? If I knew that I would want to live somewhere with this kind of
support, where would that be? What would I pick?” And really stepping into
that fully and feeling it.

Now, the beauty of that is that once you’ve done that work and really
stepped into it, you can see what your actual choice is. You can go, “Okay,
I can stay here and make it work here by doing these different things, by
showing up in these different ways, by supporting myself in these ways. I
can also make that work. I can also go over there and make it happen.” And
what’s amazing about this is that we show up differently in where we are if
we know that we can do something else anytime we want. We show up
differently. We show up as somebody who has actively chosen it.

So I’ve had a client say to me, “Well, wouldn’t my husband be hurt and
upset if he knew that I was thinking about this? If he knew that I was
planning it and really deliberately thinking about it?” And this is what I
said to her about this. I said, “Would you want to be chosen because the
thought was, ‘There’s no other choice. I’m just kind of stuck here?’ Most
of us would say, no. Most of us want to feel chosen. Most of us want to
feel like I could do all of these things, I could be with all of these
people, and I pick you.” And I reminded her that it might mean a lot to him
to know that you know that could be somewhere else, that you know that you
could make it by yourself outside of the marriage, and that you are
choosing to stay. And she resonated with that. She understood that.

Now, what if you find yourself in a situation where he left and where you
are left alone. You might think that they made the choice for you and that
you have no choice. I want to remind you that you always have a choice. You
have so much choice. What would your Plan B look like? Let’s go there. You
could choose if you want to stay single forever. You can choose if you want
to trust again. You can choose to be upset and bitter. Or you can choose to
find the reasons to move forward and to love your life. You get to create
all of that.

What if him not choosing you gives you the biggest opportunity of your life
to take a stand for yourself and choose you? What if that is the greatest
gift that comes out of it is that you, for the first time in your life,
choose you? No matter what, you’ve got your own back. No matter what you
can take care of yourself. No matter what you can handle your own negative
emotions. You can handle not people pleasing and really stepping into who
you are as the powerful strong woman that you are. What if that is your
Plan B? And what if it took Plan A not working for you to own and choose
Plan B? Would you be willing to step into that?

Many women choose to stay in Plan A and in the pain of Plan A not going
right. Like let’s say your husband leaves and years go by and you feel like
life did you wrong. I know that it can be easy for your brain to go there.
It can be easy. It can feel very true, can feel very valid, but what is the
fruit of staying in that? How is it serving you? What if you chose a
different plan? What if you deliberately carved out a Plan B and decided
what it would be, and were the grand architect of that? What would that
look like? You get to pick it. And I suggest choosing yourself at the core
of that.

And that’s either way, choosing you. Choosing you, and then deciding who
you want to bring into that. What happens when you do that is that you run
all future decisions through the filter of, “Does this uphold me? Does this
support me as my highest self?” And when you are showing up as your highest
self in that new constructed Plan B, the people around you will feel it and
benefit from it. You are now this person who is telling the truth, standing
firm in who you are, what your gifts are, how you can show up in the world,
how you can help other people, and again, who you want to bring into your
circle.

I remember a time, a while back when I was feeling pretty triggered. My
brain was freaking out and telling me that I was stuck and that things
would always be hard and that I would never feel whatever it was I wanted
to feel that way, and I was creating so much drama in my brain. I felt
really panicked. Well, guess what? In that time I took myself to Plan B. I
went there in my mind. I went, “Okay, if I decided to walk away from it
all, what would I do? Where would I go? Where would I live? Where would I
want to live? Who would I want to spend my life by? How would I survive
financially?” I took my brain through all of that. I really went there. I
visualized it.

I came up with a plan. I had this idea that I’d go live by my sister who I
miss and don’t get to see very often, and that our kids could play
together, and that plan, just having that in my mind and going, “”Yeah, I
actually could do that,” calmed me down. It helped me remember that I
always have a choice, and it also helped me to remember that I like the
choice that I am currently making. That I want to keep choosing it. I want
to stay. But taking my brain to that Plan B and actually feeling into it,
even some of the fear and discomfort, helped me to more deliberately step
back into Plan A.

So this is going to be a shorter podcast today. That’s about all I have for
you with this one. I want to encourage you to go spend time looking at your
Plan B. What are you avoiding? What are you not willing to look at because
it feels too scary? Often we find that when we step into that Plan B and
really see what it is and what it feels like, we become less afraid of it.
We realize that we actually can do it, that we can make it happen. We
remember resources that we have. We remember tools and skills that we have.
When we are looking at things through the lens of fear, it generally shuts
us down. It takes us away from problem solving abilities and shuts us down.

When we lean into figuring things out and seeing what solutions are, like I
said before, the fear can most certainly be there, but it is not driving
the show. You with your highest brain is driving the show, really seeing
what’s possible for you, and then deciding from that place which house you
want to live in. Do you want to live in the one with the leaky roof and the
drafty windows? Or do you want to live in the other one with the cracks in
the tile and the various problems that are there? There’s things to love
about both. There’s things to maybe not love about both. But you’re
choosing with your eyes wide open and realizing that you always, always
have a choice. You always have a choice. So go find what that choice is,
get clear about it, and then own the choice that you make.

All right. Take care, my friends. Have a wonderful week, and I’ll talk to
you soon. 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.