Finding out your partner is cheating is one of the most horrific experiences, married or not. The world explodes around you & someone who loved you threw the infidelity bomb into your life. Getting past that, with or without continuing the relationship, is a monumental task that feels impossible too much of the time especially early on.
Especially when Devastation / Discovery Day (DDay) hits out of nowhere. You may not have had many clues the cheating was going on or you may have had a gut feeling something was drastically wrong.
Either way, the truth you never wanted to deal with is now staring you in your tear stained face with a shattered heart & soul silently screaming "Please God, let this be just a horrible nightmare that I wake up from with my loving, loyal, FAITHFUL partner peacefully sleeping next to me so we can have a good laugh together at how impossible one of us cheating is!". And you wonder what sort of affair alien took over the spouse you knew & turned them into this stranger you don't know at all.
So there is no hiding or running away from the nightmare goind on behind your back anymore. All trust is immediately blown to bits. What happens next? Will life be "normal" again? Can the marriage be saved? Should it be? Will a life together be worth having anymore? It is a very scary time with a lot of permanent, life altering decisions that need to be made.
Not wanting a divorce is not the same as wanting to be married in an honest, heart to heart, soul to soul, partnership sort of way. It is impossible to be happily married to someone that's your priority while you are only an on again, off again option to them.
If the cheating doesn't stop cold turkey immediately, with the needed efforts made consistently on a daily basis to right the wrongs that took place, the marriage is doomed unless that changes. The same is true if no forgiveness is given at the right time down the road. Yet you don't have to be sure you can forgive or even want the marriage to recover immediately, it usually takes some time to get to that stage. Lots of useful information to know right away is at: www.marriagemissions.com/quotes-on-surviving-infidelity
You may be the wandering spouse who only now fully realizes how much damage you have done to yourself, your partner & your relationship. You want to stop any new damage from happening, to restore your marriage & help your shattered partner heal but aren't sure how to accomplish that. It may be time to tell your partner the truth about what you've done but don't know the best way to do that.
You don't know how to deal with the past properly so it stops contaminating the present or destroys any chance of a future together. But that is exactly what you don't want to happen & are willing to put in the time & effort to make it work.
Both partners should be aware that it takes a VERY long time to heal from infidelity, usually at least 2 years or longer so it's definitely a long haul marathon endeavor. It will take a lot of patience, understanding, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, consistent accountability, honesty, respect & of course, love. The betrayed partner has to find a way to move past the betrayals in a healthy way whether they stay or not, which is very difficult to do & seems impossible on DDay at all. The betraying partner has to work on figuring out how they make the terrible choices they did & be there to help their devastated partner every way they can as long as it takes. The commitment to each other must be renewed, restored, refreshed & respected.
Both of you may need hope & an advocate for your coupleship. Betrayal Boot Camp is here to do exactly that.
Facing the Devastation Day Aftermath
If you have just been hit by the Betrayal Bomb, it's not comforting to know that many, many people are going & have gone through the exact same thing. Many of those marriages do make it. Many will not. If your wandering spouse is interested in reconciling, then the betrayed spouse has the luxury of time to decide what what will be best to do, stay or go. If you can, don't make any rash or sudden life altering decisions.
Take the time you need to absorb the new reality that has been forced on you. Take the time to take the best care of yourself you can. Take the time to grief for the losses the betrayal have caused you. Take the time to get the right support team in place for you. It will be best to consider carefully who you want to know what happened, you don't want to be pressured to make a decision one way or another.
It most likely will take a recovery support team plus that dreaded word "time" to successfully navigate the betrayal tainted waters that have flooded your home. Figuring out what resources are available, when to use them & how best to benefit from them is a daunting task. You may find an online support group can be a safe place to get support from those that are in your same situation, such as www.SurvivingInfidelity.com.
Mental health & medical professional assistance will often be needed. That is too often not enough. They simply are too inexperienced with the complex infidelity issues to be as effective alone as they will be with a Betrayal Coach on your team. Before you seek a therapist, please read the article at www.smartmarriages.com on how marital therapy can be hazardous to your marriage.
We can constructively guide you through this excruciating time by customizing a Betrayal Recovery Plan for you.
We can facilitate good communication & understanding of each other's position, fears, wants, needs & advocate for the relationship so good teamwork is established (sometimes for the first time in the relationship).
We can be an accountability partner.
We can mediate ongoing disputes or conflicts.
We can help you understand what happened, some of the why's & how to best proceed from there to a wonderful relationship. When that is not possible or desirable, we can coach you thru the emotional and/or legal divorce.
Happy is the man who knows what to remember of the past, what to enjoy in the present, & what to plan for the future. A. Gibson
Check out our resources page! That's a good start to finding great help in figuring out what recovery plan will work best for you to constructively move forward from DDay. We plan on adding much more constantly, there are so many excellent & inexpensive resources easily available. The Importance of Our Promises
Affair recovery & building a better marriage is a long road but well worth the effort!
If we can be courageous one more time than we are fearful, trusting one more time than anxious, cooperative one more time than we are competitive, forgiving one more time than we are vindictive, loving one more time than we are hateful, we will have moved closer to the next breakthrough in our evolution.
One warning: Evolutionary behavior is addictive. Once you start, it's very hard to stop. After all, why live & evolve unconsciously when we can live consciously &, at the same time, speed up the process of evolution for ourselves & others? Jonas Salk
What happened to the promises we made to each other when we first fell in love? Why were love & those promises not enough to stop betrayals or boredom from taking place? What can we do to show our promise of love matters? What promises do we need to feel safe in love & our partner?
Maybe it wasn't an affair but those insideous betrayals that creep into our lives that took all the joy & comfort from our relationship. When was the last time you two took a good look at your vows together & discussed what they meant to you?
All couples start off with promises, spoken & unspoken. Even when spoken, they may not mean the same to each individual which cause conflict & hurt feelings. We pay more attention to our things than the relationships that mean the most to us.
We get extended warranties to protect our TV's & get our oil changed every 3k miles but rarely check with each other to see what is & isn't working in our coupleship. Then we wonder how it went wrong & sometimes we start to do that when it is already too late to make things right for each other.
Love never fails, people do because humans can never be perfect. But we can do things better as we learn from our mistakes & we acknowledge the changing needs / wants of ourself as well as our partner.
Betrayal Boot Camp is prepared to & excited about helping with that journey of discovery into being a wonderfully happy couple in a covenant marriage.
If you have not yet faced infidelity, the odds are unfortunately high you will. If you are currently struggling with the betrayal chaos aftermath, you are definitely not alone in that battle. If you have the choice to reconcile & restore the relationship, don't be discouraged when that confusing betrayal roller coaster from hell makes things feel hopeless. They may not be. On our resources page you will find some great tools to help you through this tough time.
Great marriages must be created, nurtured & cherished. When it isn't, often the seeds of discontent & weeds of selfishness will thrive instead which will eventually kill the marriage. It may be slow, but too many times it is inevitable in this day of no-fault divorce.
Make a commitment not just to stay together but to do all you can to be happy & loving daily.
Decide to settle for nothing less than a great marriage today & decide with your partner how to make that happen baby step by baby step. You'll be very pleasantly surprised how much more passionate, fun & rewarding it will be once you get into the habit of enhancing your marriage together on a regular basis!
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope. Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I am with you kid. Let's go." 
Every Warrior of the Light has felt afraid of going into battle.
Every Warrior of the Light has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone.
Every Warrior of the Light has trodden a path that was not his.
Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons. Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light.
Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties.
Every Warrior of the Light has said 'yes' when he wanted to say 'no.'
Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this & yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.
Paulo Coelho
