Blindsided by His Betrayal: Surviving the Shock of Your Husband's Infidelity

Surviving Infidelity, Advice from a Marriage Therapist, Book 1

By: Caroline Madden PhD

Narrated by: Cathi Colas

Your husband cheated on you, and now you don't recognize yourself.

You used to be so together, so trusting. Now you're falling apart and doing things you would have never even considered doing, such as:

• Obsessively checking your husband's email and Facebook accounts
• Going through his cell phone history while he is in the shower
• Freaking out if he is 10 minutes late (or if you text him and he doesn't reply right away)
• Questioning whether you are attractive
• After a rare happy moment with your husband, getting really, really angry and raging at him out of nowhere

You're scared. Angry. Obsessive. Devastated.

One minute, you hope your marriage will make it. The next minute, you want to kill him. (And the other woman, too.)

All of this makes you feel like you are losing it. Sometimes you worry that you are going crazy. You wonder if you'll ever be the same again.

You are not crazy! You are having a normal reaction to being blindsided by your husband's betrayal! Your reactions are completely rational and expected responses to such a painful experience.

This book will help you figure out what to do as you deal with these explosive emotions. It's important that you understand that your feelings—erratic and unpredictable as they may be—are normal. You need to understand why you feel the things you feel and what to do with those feelings.

Dr. Caroline Madden, infidelity expert and marriage therapist describes:

• Posttraumatic Affair Syndrome (PTAS)
• Seven actions you want to take but should not (as they may backfire horribly)
• Understand the thoughts that plague you
• Twelve actions that will help you get back to the woman you were
• The stupid things your husband says and why he says it

This book does not take a position on whether or not you should stay in your marriage.

©2016 Caroline Madden (P)2018 CAROLINE MADDEN

Aligns with all emotions

A must read to understand the emotional rollercoaster of feelings one experiences after betrayal by a loved one. It will validate all those unwanted feelings that become part of life after Discovery and during recovery.

Necessary

so helpful in my time of need! I wish I had known what to do right after to do in order to avoid the mistakes I made and self blaming.

So Helpful

This book feels like the friend you need in a time like this. After listening, I feel like my emotions have been validated and someone out there understands what I'm feeling right now. The author gives practical, no-nonsense tips to get you through these painful first few days/weeks/months/etc. I also like that this book doesn't have an agenda to get you to leave or stay. This is more about you and taking care of yourself during this awful time. Highly recommend.

Great content and well explained

Great little audiobook which explains your feelings and how to cope with them in a clear rational manner

Hit the nail on the head with all the emotions and thoughts!

Great book! Great ideas and has a bit of humor as well! Give it a try!

Not just for women

This book is aimed at women and I get why but this can also help men. I caught the mother of my son cheating. Do I want to stay with her? I've had women reach out to me who are more attractive and make more money and let it know they'd be interested, this should be the perfect way to achieve balance, right? Its not just about me and my ego. How will that act hurt my child? I'd prefer we stay together for his sake and yes there is some ego about the idea of him being under the same roof as another man when he is with mom that I can't stomach at all but may have to. This part of the book is going to help me decide that.

Chapter Five:
Actions To Help You Feel Safe
You will not feel safe until the affair is over and you know what happened. You need to know
what you are dealing with. You have a right to know the life you were really living, not the life you thought you were living. The following actions will help you regain control so you can make the best decisions possible.
Good Idea #1: Ask That Your Partner to End the Affair
This is important because it is the key factor in determining whether your Partner is truly
sincere about wanting to make the relationship work or not. In my professional opinion, if they are not willing to cut off contact with the affair partner, you should call a divorce attorney.
Partners may say a lot of things, but you need to watch his actions to determine whether they are genuinely ready to commit to you or whether he is still hooked on the person they cheated with.
To determine this, insist that they end the affair, and follow these pointers to ensure it truly
happens.
You will want to:
• Be on the call when they end it with his affair partner. Understand that they cannot control
what he or she does or says, but expect your partner to tell him or her that there will be no more contact.
• Ask for complete access to all of his email accounts, text messages, etc. This isn’t going
to be forever, but you should have access as long as it takes for you to feel secure. I’m
sure you hate that you are now the partner who checks her Partner’s emails!
• Talk through what you want him to do if and when the affair partner contacts him or her. I
suggest you tell them not to respond at all or to respond with a short “No more contact. I am
rededicated to my relationship.” Ask them to notify you of any contact and to show you the text messages, emails or to let you listen to the voicemails, if he or she leaves any.
• Ask them directly if they can promise to never cheat again. Tell them that if they later decide they are unsatisfied with something in the relationship, you expect them to either work it out with you or to ask for a the relationship to end, not cheat. Make it clear that cheating is not an acceptable option.
If he or she is not willing to do these things, you should be suspicious of his commitment to saving the relationship. You do not want to start the hard work of forgiving him and repairing the relationship unless you know he is completely committed to the relationship.
Good Idea #2: Get the Answers You Need
You’ve probably found yourself asking your Partner the same questions over and over again,
trying to determine why they cheated, what went wrong, why you didn’t see this coming and
what you can do to prevent it from happening again. This is a critical process to get through, but it can also be maddening—both for you and for your Partner. After all, they are tired of answering your questions, and you feel like a crazy person for constantly asking him the same questions.
To get through this, you need to understand why you feel the need to repeatedly ask him
questions about the affair. Then you need to work through your questions in a way that will
help you stop feeling the need to keep asking them over and over.
First: the why behind your need to ask the questions. You’ve been betrayed, and chances are
they were not completely transparent when you first discovered the affair. They probably tried to minimize what happened, and you’ve been asking questions and getting more details with each round of questioning.
This happens because Partners are afraid to tell the whole truth the first time they are
questioned. Sometimes this is just a natural “deer-in-the-headlights” response; they get
caught, and they fear losing you, so they give you a bland, vague, minimalistic description of
what happened. Some Partners are afraid to admit how long the affair continued or how deep it got because they are over the affair partner now and they don't want to hurt you. They truly just want to move forward. They are ready to be done with it, and so they want you to be done with it also.
Other Partners are just afraid of your response, so they drip, drip, drip little bits of information, hoping that it will be easier for you to hear the whole story if they feed it to you one little piece at a time.
Other Partners are just plain liars who don't want you to know the truth, and you only find out the details if you keep grilling them and catch them in inconsistencies.
So… why are you compelled to keep asking him the same questions over and over again?
Because you are trying to find out the truth. You want to know what you’re dealing with. You’re trying to determine how serious the affair was. Did they love him or her? Is your relationship and family in trouble? Or was it really just a stupid one-night stand that didn’t mean anything to him?
These are valid questions. However, you may find yourself asking questions that don’t matter
also, questions that aren’t worth exploring and will only damage your relationship.
So… how should you go about asking these questions so that you can stop repeating this
ordeal over and over again? First, write down all the information you believe to be true. Summarize all the questions you’ve asked thus far into the following:
• The affair started and ended at what point?
• Is the affair a threat to your relationship? Did he plan on leaving you and the kids for her?
• Have they completely cut off contact with them? Have they respected the fact that your partner says it’s over? In other words, are they still in the picture, or are they gone?
• What reasoning did your partner use to delude themselves into thinking having an affair was acceptable? In other words: why did your partner have the affair? And what made them vulnerable to thinking it was acceptable to cheat?
These are the answers that matter for your future.
Of course, no answer they give will be a good one. You know that it was not acceptable for them to cheat. But you need to determine how serious the affair was, if it will be possible for them to let go of that person and devote themselves to you and if he can learn a lesson from this. Are they capable of remaining faithful to you?
If you’ve already asked him these questions several times, allow yourself one last time to
question Them. Explain to them that you need to know the answers to these questions, once and for all, so you know where you stand. Point out to him that it’s only fair that you know the whole truth so that you can make an informed decision. Then calmly ask the questions necessary to get the answers you need.
Ssk the questions that matter—the questions that will let you know whether you should have hope that the relationship can heal or not.
Summary: Take Action so You Can Begin the Process of Moving On
If you take these two important actions, you will empower yourself to start moving forward.
While there are many other actions you should also take, these two steps will jumpstart your
recovery.
~~

Was It Really Just an Emotional Affair? How Far Did It Go?
Let him know that you need to know (for sure) that it was only an emotional affair, and that you
need him to come clean with everything. After all, if he didn't sleep with her, he should be able
to show you all the emails and all the secret Facebook messages they sent to each other so you will see that they didn’t have a hotel room booked and that there were no discussions about how great the sex was, etc.
Then discuss what really happened. Did they say they loved each other? What did he mean when he said those sorts of things? Was he planning a life with her? Was he tempted to leave you for her? What did he get from the relationship?
I know the question that plagues you is: “If I hadn’t found out, would he have gone further?” Of
course, you will never know. However, sometimes a man gets caught up in the fantasy, but when it comes down to it he really doesn’t have the nerve to do it. The flattery and attention felt good, but he wouldn’t have let it cross over into being physical. I don’t know your husband. I don’t know if he would have gone farther. But I do know that it is possible for someone to engage in an emotional affair and then chicken out.

REALLY good for the Bewildered

I loved this book. I got it when the suffering had practically made me mental (a week ago!). The readers voice is very comforting, she is perfect for this book. You will be amazed at how much you thought you were overreacting or thinking / behaving like a crazy person, only to discover your thoughts and reactions are very normal given the devastating situation. She covers all grounds. I am not 100% back to my former self (if I ever will be after this) but I absolutely feel better than I did before listening to this book. I recommend this.

•••On Point & To the Point •••

she basically breaks down every emotion and Stage after the Betrayal. Then gives very easy to follow direct steps to get through it. Easy to listen to, My only suggestion would be to slow down her speech. For me it was a little fast, But very helpful I'm reading her next book.

Saved me!

This book is perfect for anyone who is just discovered their lover has had an affair. It helped validate the emotional roller coaster I was on, and gave good practical advice on how to heal. Also advice on things to do or not do, some things I would not have thought of because I was too emotionally charged. I am so thankful to have found this!

So Helpful

This validated everything I have thought/felt and provided great insight to explore all options