Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
What Do I Do If My Spouse Is In Love With Someone Else?
Enjoy the episode? Send us a text!
What happens when you discover your spouse is in love with someone else? Dr. Joe Beam tackles this heart-wrenching scenario on Relationship Radio by guiding listeners through the emotional labyrinth that ensues. From the initial shock and pain to grappling with a crushed ego and questioning one's reality, Dr. Beam offers a path forward by encouraging acceptance—not to be confused with agreement—of your partner's feelings. This acceptance fosters understanding and communication, which can ultimately pave the way for healing and potentially restore the relationship.
If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free
📞 BOOK A CALL WITH OUR TEAM: https://marriagehelper.com/call
🔗 Website: https://marriagehelper.com
📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marriagehelper
👀 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marriagehelper
Follow our other channels!
📺 https://youtube.com/@kimberlybeamholmes
📺 https://youtube.com/@drjoebeam
It really hurts when you find out that your spouse is in love with someone else. I mean, your ego is crushed, your heart is broken, everything within you screams with pain. I love you and at one point I truly believe that you love me. You told me that you love me. You maybe even made me a promise somewhere along the line that we will never part, that you'd always be here for me. And yet now I discover that you're with somebody else. And even the way you discover it can cause the pain, actually the least painful way, by the way, don't think that means there's no pain. There's still a lot of pain. But the least painful way is when they come and tell you look, I know that you expected me to be with you for the rest of your life, but I need to tell you that I'm in love with blank Maybe it's Charlie, maybe it's Charlene but I'm in love with somebody else and I'm going to go be with him or her, and that'll break your heart and it hurts terribly, but at least it's not the same level of pain as if you find out some other way, like you happen upon a note that was supposed to have been discarded but it wasn't, or you happen to a right place and you see them together, or you see something online, or maybe your child comes and says, mom or Dad, I saw my other parent. All those things hurt even more because you find out second-handed. And then, when you first approach them and you first say, tell me the truth, are you involved? They may even lie. No, no, no, that's a misunderstanding, I'm definitely not involved. And sometimes they'll even do everything they can to convince you that you are the one with the problem. That person is just my friend. How can you think this way? What's wrong with you? And they'll keep that until you begin to doubt your own sanity. Like am I imagining things? Is this possibly just an honest, innocent kind of thing? Is it just me? And sometimes they'll tell you the truth. It hurts even more if they lie for a while before they tell you the truth, until finally you have so much evidence that you just confront them and say look, I know, I mean, I've got the documentation right here. I know At least fess up. And in the worst cases they still won't tell the truth. They'll blame you. What are you doing? Snooping around trying to find out things about me? And they'll scream and yell at you, accuse you of all kinds of things, and then they'll walk out the door and you still find yourself with that little ounce of doubt. Could I be wrong? I mean, I have everything here I need, but could I possibly be wrong? It's a sad situation. So at least when they tell you the truth, even though it hurts, like all get out, it's better than when they lie.
Speaker 1:Now I'm Dr Joe Beam. Welcome to Relationship Radio. What do you do when you know for sure that your spouse is in love At least that's how they're describing it. I'm in love with someone else Do you tell them that they're not in love with the other person? I won't get you anywhere.
Speaker 1:You see, we teach that one of the most powerful pulls that we define a pull as being something that evokes positive emotions in the other person and therefore pulls, pull the other person toward you. One of the most powerful pulls known to human beings is when a person feels accepted. Now let me explain. I don't mean endorse, I don't mean encourage. So, for example, if Alice came to me and she said Alice is my wife, by the way. If she came to me and said, joe, I'm in love with Charlie, that would kill me, it would hurt. But if I said to her you're not in love with Charlie, you just think you're in love with Charlie, then she's going to dismiss me, like you're not listening, you're not trying to understand me, you don't care, and she will see that as just that much more proof that I'm not attuned to her, that I don't really care about her, that I'm trying to force my will on her, and she'll walk away thinking good riddance, because this man doesn't really even try to understand me. So I'm not going to try to convince her that she's not in love with Charlie, nor am I going to attack her and think that by making her feel guilty she'll stop.
Speaker 1:Now you might be saying well, wait a minute. Couldn't guilt possibly stop some people? Sure, if they're not very much into the relationship with the other person, not very far into that relationship with the other person, then guilt might be able to stop them. Like think about your children, think about your God, think about your reputation. Those kinds of things could work if they're not intensely involved with the other person yet. But if they are, those things don't work. What they do is they just you, by doing that, will just push them further and further and further away.
Speaker 1:So you say okay, dr Bean, what would you do if Alice came in and said she was in love with Charlie? I would say I understand that's how you feel and if that's what you feel, I accept it. That's what you feel today. Now, I wouldn't endorse it. You see what would endorse him being like you know what Charlie's? A heck of a guy. I don't blame you. I'm not going to do that. That would be endorsing her relationship with him and I'm certainly not going to encourage it. Like you know, you guys probably need to take the guest bedroom and live together for about a month and see if you're really compatible with each other. I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to endorse it, I'm not going to encourage it, but then you're going to accept it. That's what you feel. That's what you feel because by denying it, by rejecting it, all I do is push her further away. You see, I call acceptance, acknowledging reality, and understand that reality can change, that if she's in love with Charlie today doesn't mean she's going to be in love with Charlie a year from now. It can change, but I'm going to accept reality as it is right now If she feels she's in love with Charlie, I'm going to accept that she is, without endorsing it, without encouraging it. I can still tell her honestly and openly things like that breaks my heart, because I'm not trying to make her feel guilty, I'm just telling her what I feel. If I say you're breaking my heart, then that's an attack which is probably going to push them away. But if I say that hurts me so badly, it's breaking my heart because I love you so much.
Speaker 1:And if you decide to do that, okay, but don't overdo it, because if it turns into whining and complaining and those kinds of things, it just pushes the other person further away, Because typically at this point they're not trying to hurt you. Later they may be trying to emotionally hurt you, to make you leave, to make you divorce them, which will make things easier for them to do what they want to do. But at the outset, typically they're not there yet. Typically they're not there yet, and so they're not trying to kill you, they're not trying to destroy your life, they're not trying to make it where that you will never be happy again. Typically they're not thinking about you, they're thinking about that other person that they're in love with, and so you can say they're thinking about that other person that they're in love with. And so you can say this breaks my heart, I want to deliver my life with you.
Speaker 1:But once you have communicated that, stop, don't go further, or else you're going to start making them feel guilty, or at least trying to make them feel guilty, and that's going to push them away even faster. So don't do that. Push them away even faster. So don't do that. Now do you understand the difference, then, between accepting and endorsing and encouraging? Accepting is just acknowledging reality. Now that actually becomes a pull in the sense of, well, good grief, I thought you were going to yell and scream and demand that you go see a lawyer and et cetera, et cetera, but instead you're really trying to understand me. Yes, I'm really trying to understand you. Now, hopefully, that keeps the door open for further communication.
Speaker 1:Now you say, okay, well, besides that, what else do I do? Well, don't tolerate behavior that is specifically harmful or hurtful to you. For example, if he said, well, can I just live in the guest bedroom for a while, you may decide okay, that way we still have contact, we can still talk to each other. But if he's still living in the house with you or she is still living in the house with you, but they're sitting in the living room while you're watching television and they're talking to their lover on the phone and you can hear the endearments, and those kinds of things. Don't tolerate. That would be my suggestion.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, you decide what you want to do, but if you tolerate that, then you're basically endorsing, even encouraging. And so if it were I and then Alice were talking to Charlie on the phone and I was present nearby, I'd say please respect me, don't talk to him when you're here at the house. Please go outside, go down to the sandwich shop, get you some coffee, but please don't do that here, because that disrespects me. And you say well, what if Dr Bean, the spouse, continued to do that? Then I'd say we're going to have to change our living arrangement because this hurts me very deeply. I'm not going to make an attack like you ought to have enough sense not to do this. You're just trying to kill me, right? You're trying to break my heart. I'm not going to make an attack, I'm going to be strong and I'm going to say I can't accept you doing that here.
Speaker 1:Now go wherever else you want to, but you can't do that here, and so you set some boundaries, you set some rules, and if you ever come to one of our workshops, for example, you will actually get access to some toolkits, and one of our toolkits is about how to set those boundaries, and it guides you through, step by step, by step by step, how to set those boundaries as to what you accept and you don't accept. So what I'm saying so far is that you can still have interaction and communication with your spouse, even if he or she is still in love with somebody else. But you still demand respect, not angrily, not meanly, but you do it firmly, calmly, with confidence and strength. Now you say, well, shouldn't I try to be doing something to disrupt or distort that relationship with the other person? No, because if you do, it's going to backfire on you. Sometimes people say, well, I'm going to call her and tell her off, and tell her to leave my man alone. Then I'm going to call her husband and tell him what's going on. And well, if that's what you choose to do, you can do it.
Speaker 1:You obviously make your own choices about what you do in life, but I'm going to tell you right now that the odds are significantly high, you're going to blow it. You see, if you attack the person that your spouse believes he or she is in love with right now, if you attack that person, they're going to defend that person. And when they defend that person, that usually means they're going to attack you Now, hopefully not physically, although sometimes that happens but they will attack you verbally, they will attack you emotionally, spiritually, every other way they possibly can, and you gain nothing by attacking that other person because you can't control what he or she does. And the more you try to control what he or she does, the worse it's going to get. Now you might be thinking well, dr Beam, is it possible that I could go calmly sit down and talk to that person and maybe she would see the error of her ways and she would stop? Is that possible? When people ask me if something's possible, my standard answer is anything's possible, but we work off what we see happen.
Speaker 1:Most often. Very rarely has a calm conversation with the other person worked in getting him or her to leave your spouse alone. Very rarely to leave your spouse alone Very rarely. I do know one situation where a fellow who's very big, very strong, trained in martial arts, a true warrior, went to the other guy and said, if you call my wife again, I'm going to do you damage. Well, because he was afraid of the big husband, who's very strong, very powerful man. Then the guy didn't contact the wife again. You say, then that was the end of everything. No, no, you see, it still didn't contact the wife again. You say, oh good, then that was the end of everything. No, no, you see, it still doesn't affect the spouse's heart.
Speaker 1:So even if you try to do something to get rid of that other person, it doesn't change what your spouse may feel, except in this way it may cause them to resent you more. How dare you do that to me? You had no right. And so even if you could do something to get the other person to leave, you're just going to cause more resentment in your spouse, which is not going to be good for putting you guys back together.
Speaker 1:You say well, what if I talk to the other person's spouse? Same kind of things? Now sometimes people will say to me well, what if the other spouse calls me? I would suggest that you listen, but that you don't participate past that, because if your spouse feels that you're colluding with the other person's spouse, things get bad in a hurry. It kind of creates a me and my lover against the world scenario. So even our two spouses are colluding against us and trying to cause us difficulty, and so we just have to stick together even closer because nobody understands and it's just us against the world. And so, while I would recommend that you listen, you very quickly say thank you for calling, please don't call anymore. I'm going to do everything I can to work things out with my spouse.
Speaker 1:Now what you do then is that you don't focus on the person that they feel that they're in love with. What you do is you focus on you. You might be saying oh good grief, dr Beam, I've heard you guys say this on video after video after video. Good, I'm glad you have, because it's the truth. By focusing on you and I don't have time to explain in great detail because we have so many other videos that talk about it you're going to stop doing the things that push your spouse away, including the things you may have started doing since you found out about the affair. Stop the things that are pushing your spouse away and start doing the things that create pulls, that can pull your spouse back toward you, because you understand this.
Speaker 1:Whatever pulls are happening that are leading your spouse to want to be with that other person, whatever those pulls might be, there are also going to be some pushes in that situation. You see, whoever your spouse is involved with is not perfect. They're not perfect and eventually they're going to see the flaws in the other person Eventually. Now, if you treat them terribly, trying to beat them up verbally, maybe, threatening physically, trying to get them fired by their boss, if you do all those things, creating all these negative things between your spouse and you, then even when they see the flaws in the other person, they're going to see that person's flaws as smaller than the flaws that you're exhibiting. What you want to do is to make sure that when they see their flaws, they don't look at you and think your flaws are worse and therefore you're going to do the best you can to eliminate the things that you do that are pushing your spouse away. You say then I'm going to become a doormat. No, no, don't become a doormat. You always make sure that you're treated with respect and if your spouse refuses to do so, you take steps to make that happen. And again, if you come to one of our workshops, we'll make it available for you to be in our full, total membership, and there's a toolkit in there that tells you exactly how to set those boundaries.
Speaker 1:So have you figured it out so far? Don't panic, it's almost impossible, right? But don't panic if your spouse tells you or if you find out your spouse is in love with somebody else. We deal with those scenarios every day. For 30 years we have dealt with those scenarios every day.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you that they may divorce you, they may marry that other person, but the odds against that are extremely high. The odds are that before your spouse ever gets to the point of wanting to marry the other person or deciding to marry the other person, that relationship is going to fall apart. Before they get that far Now it's going to be tight and close and so wonderful for a period of time, but eventually they're going to get to that situation where that thing is going to begin to fall apart. And that's why the vast majority of people who leave their spouse or a lover never wind up marrying that lover Never. And the ones that do marry that lover, the divorce rate's over 80%. You see, the odds are actually in your favor if you want your spouse back, you can always divorce them. It's your right. I mean, they've cheated on you and you want to start over with someone new, you can do that if you wish.
Speaker 1:But if you believe that your spouse is a good person doing a bad thing but that that good person is still in there, we can help you. We'll do everything we can to help you rescue this marriage. But you can't do it just by wishing. You need to do something. Be careful who you listen to. Oh, there are so many people giving so much bad advice.
Speaker 1:You say well, dr Bean, maybe you're giving bad advice. If you decide that, then I suggest you do not seek further help from us. Don't seek help from anybody who's giving you advice that's causing you difficulty or making things worse. But if you believe that we we've been around 30 years doing this, that our hearts are good, that we genuinely, honestly, really do care, then let us help you. We've helped so many thousands of couples and we want to help you Now. I'm not going to be like those charlatans and frauds and tell you that we'll guarantee you that you will save your marriage if you deal with us. I'm not going to lie to you, I'm going to say the odds are good in your favor.
Speaker 1:A recent study that was just done by a PhD on people who have been through our program found that a year later, 70% of them were still together. That's much higher than people who go to marriage counseling. By the way, 70% of them are still together a year later. We want to help you, like that. You say okay. Well, dr Bean, how can I find out more? Okay, what you do is you go to the internet and type in marriagehelper that's marriagehelpercom, and then slash call Marriagehelper, marriagehelpercom. Then call They'll listen. You'll get about, oh, I guess I think 30 to 40 minutes in a phone call, something like that, and they'll listen. There's no charge for the call. They'll listen and they'll hear what you have to say. Charge for the call, they'll listen and they'll hear what you have to say, and then they will guide you to whatever we have. That, we believe, is the best to help you accomplish what you want to accomplish, and they will be open and honest. And, yes, will they offer to you coming to our workshop? They definitely will.
Speaker 1:Our workshop does a dramatic amount of good. We have workshops for couples. If your spouse will come with you. That's the best. We hope he or she does. We'd love to have you there. Those things are absolutely amazing, awesome. And if he or she won't come with you, we have another version of the workshop that's just for solo spouses, and we do some of those online and there are both men and women in it, and we do some of those in person here in Middle Tennessee, and when people come to that it's only men. We don't put a bunch of men and women who are in pain and hurting in the same room for three days. We don't think that's wise. But we do have solo workshops just for husbands, three days. I love doing that workshop. The men who come to those workshops love that workshop. And so if you're a husband who's listening, come join us for that. Or if you're a wife who's listening, saying maybe my husband wouldn't come to the couples workshop but he would come to that solo men's workshop, good, send him. It's a tremendous workshop, very powerful.
Speaker 1:You say what are you guys doing?
Speaker 1:These workshops? We teach. We don't twist your arms. We don't do counseling or therapy. We don't get you to tell all the terrible things that have happened in your marriage. We don't get you to beat up your spouse verbally by saying let me tell you what that bum did or what that woman did. As a matter of fact, we won't let you say anything negative about your spouse in our workshop, really, because we're not doing counseling, we're not doing therapy.
Speaker 1:It's an educational approach and in that educational approach you learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about your spouse and you learn a lot about life, even about marriage, and that's why it has such a tremendous success rate. We treat everybody with absolute respect and dignity, even the ones who walk in the door saying I'm madly in love with somebody else. Get these three days over so I can divorce my wife or husband and go be with that person. We treat that person with respect as well, and in those three days, amazing things occur. Now we hope you come, at least find out about it. I mean, you can do that right. So go online right now, marriagehelpercom, and talk to one of our representatives who can help you think this through. We want to help. Please let us. I'll see you in the next episode of Relationship Radio.
.png)
.png)
