So I just wanna start off with that and just say I'm so sorry, and just slow down that whole process, and let's talk about it a little bit.

For starters too, I'm, I'm profoundly sorry that that's been your journey, and I, I pray at least some of the, the medical scare has faded into the rearview mirror.

I hope that's been stabilized at least.

Now that's a, that's a lot, but I think, you know, kinda to Jeremy's question, you know, why would we do this? I think I came to the realization, and minds much greater than mine have come to the same realization, is that the only way we're ever gonna know peace with this is to, to do it.

And I loved your point, Tracy, about this is a, a choice.

We don't have to do it.

And for some people it feels like, you know, a kind of power or something to You know, to hold on to this, to hold on to the grievance.

For God is never going to change what has happened before.

If we were to get really practical here, how do people practically work with and deal with these twenty-four/seven triggers? Um, and I know a therapy office is helpful, but kind of outside of the therapy office too is what we're talking about.

Well, I kinda like the words Peter used about kinda leaning into it, 'cause I think a mistake, what we don't do sometimes is, like, people will try to just avoid everything that might be some kind of like, [chuckles] you know, tie to the, to the memory and, and these kind of, like, betrayal memories have, like, two degrees of separation.

You can be thinking about, like, anything and immediately your brain can take that.

You can smell, like, freshly baked cookies, which can remind you of a bakery you went to in Savannah, which will remind you that like, you know, you know, he or she was having the affair when we were visiting that bakery.

It's just like everything will kinda take you there.

So that kinda leaning into it just kind of like, um...

You know, I have a place at the, at the Texas coast and, and I love going out in the swells, like when, right, right before a storm is rolling or into something when the waves are like really, really big and, and like if you, if you just stand there and don't, you know, look at them, they'll just kind of blindside you and they'll knock you down.

But for him to be able to see other people and go through a curriculum that's getting him to get it, um, you need that and you deserve that.

Yes.

You know, and just say, um,...

Because my heart was breaking as I r- was listening to you talk and, and, um- I, I think, and I really appreciated, Matt, how you kind of like teed all this up and kinda conceptualized all this, 'cause I think that's one of the real challenges for someone in our, in our listener's position, and, and so many of the people who are listening out there is just, you know, um, trying to understand kinda what this is and what this isn't, and there's so much kinda misinformation out there on all this.

And, and, but I think, you know, that in turn kinda creates some of the challenge for someone who's living with, you know, the discovery of, of an addiction within their marriage is we end up oftentimes putting a lot of effort into trying to lock down what they need, kind of like what the treatment protocol is, how do we gather resources, whatever, and kind of the needs of the person who's suddenly, you know, in this place oftentimes don't, don't get addressed.

And, uh, and I know, you know, working with so many betrayed men and women that, like, you know, the language so often is people will talk about just, like, they...

It's almost like waking up to a completely different reality.

That, like, you know, one night they, they kinda went to bed, and the sky that day was still blue, and the trees were still green, and they wake up the next day, and it's like the sky is red, and the, the trees are all purple.

And it's completely irrational, a- and it's absurd and not connected to reality, and we, we need to hold onto that so that we can get help.

But there's no healing gonna happen in that dynamic if something doesn't, as you say, put a, a stick in the spoke of the bicycle wheel, or it's just gonna keep rolling down the mountain.

I concur completely on that.

I think one of the biggest mistakes that we see is, and some of the frustration for so many of our listeners, is they go to their therapist.

And I, I share some of your frustration sometimes with the mental health community, because they will go to their marriage counselor, you know, and, and they'll start immediately working on communication, or they'll start working on, like, with these surface-level kinds of things.

And yeah, like, they're, they're trying to put a Band-Aid on a little scrape on their ankle when their, when their chest is hemorrhaging blood, and, and they're just missing the whole thing.

And it's like, I think that idea of, of kind of like having to step back, I think the...

Oftentimes they will try to force the relational healing when the, when the, the glaring kind of like individual issues are just being glazed over, ignored, not looked at.

Bye.

[laughs]

Well, I mean, uh, not to get too, not to get too biology teacher, but anger is a very efficient way to metabolize glucose for energy.

That's, that's what it's for.

And, uh, it's not, it's not weird.

It's not an anomaly.

Uh, if the bear is behind you and the tree is in front of you, that, that gives you the way to get to the tree fast.

I mean, uh, anger is, uh, anger gives adrenaline, uh, purpose and a focus.Uh, the problem comes when the bear is invisible and you can't find the tree, and then you just scream around in circles throwing things and knocking things over.

Can, yeah, Lori and Brett, would you guys mind speaking to that?

Is he really dealing with that? And then secondly, has he really done any work to really repair your heart? Which is not just to feel broken about what he did, but it's really to put himself in your shoes, to be able to get to, you know, what we call empathy.

Yeah, one of the, the questions I had with this is how much we talk in kinda past tense and how much we talk in present tense here that like, you know... 'Cause one thing that gave me hope, it seemed like somewhere in there that, that you had referenced that he, um, was broken or was starting to acknowledge that brokenness, and I think that's a, that's a huge piece of that.

You know, if you're still in any of those activities or you're still seeing a state where he's not showing any real remorse or real empathy or not really leaning in and doing the work, and it sounds like he is doing some work, which I'm, I'm encouraged by that.

You know, we sometimes say, you know, particularly with unresolved trauma, it's, it's not so much the time, it's, it's what we do with the time.

It's like making sure that we're actually going through the actual traumatic events and, and doing something with them, not just kinda waiting for the, the time to, to automatically heal that.

But one other observation I had as I, I was listening to your question is, you know, over the years, I've actually started getting real compassion for the, the men and women who are kinda stuck on the other side of this, 'cause I...

Something struck me that you were saying there, Rick, that like, you know, um, you know, while people are responsible for their behaviors, it's crazy to me what people are capable of.

In her words, there were reasons, not excuses, but this comes across to me as blame and as revoking her remorse.

So there's a lot underneath that statement.

One thing we see a lot with betrayed men and women is this kind of like fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me kind of thing that like, that I'm being somehow naive by putting myself out there to even kind of give you the chance, um, you know, and, and will withhold getting too close as a, as a kind of protection.

But one thing that struck me with this gentleman's, you know, kind of or situation and, and that our, our friend kinda called in on this one is, is with your husband.

You, I, I agree that like we probably wanna look at from the standpoint of [laughs] of unresolved trauma, because when we talk about unresolved grief and unresolved trauma, they're two different things, you know, in, in terms of the...

And, and I, I would suggest that there may be some trauma work that he still has to do to, to kinda work his way out of this, and it can, it can hang on.

I mean, I, you know, use examples sometimes.

My dad was a, a chaplain in Vietnam, and you know, I remember one time I was like in high school or even college, it was like, you know, quarter century after the war or something, and, and, um, you know, so it must've been college.

And still, like you said, I'm not all healed yet, still needing that today.