How To Deal With My Wife's Affair | Q&A | Ep433

MorrowMarriage.com | Disrupting Divorce With The “New” Marriage

Cass and Kathryn came back from the depths of hell to save their marriage and keep their family together.  Battling narcissism, abuse, reactive abuse, emotional, physical and sexual assault. Listen as they share their lessons, actionable steps and real life examples from even the worst of their story. 

Unscripted, real, raw and against the grain from society’s example of marriage - currently leading to the demise of nearly 78% of all marriages today.

Inspiring couples around the world...

If they can save their marriage from toxicity, abuse and a sexless marriage - not only survive it all... but THRIVE... what’s your excuse?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Right, we've got Jordan Jordan.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Hello, Jordan. Okay, so Jordan Jordan, I'm not I'm not gonna bring your your wife's name into it, okay? Because we just said your name. All right. So tell me, so you're you're having trouble with how to deal with her affair? Is that what you're asking?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Yeah, so it was like it was more of a uh it wasn't physical, it was digital, right? Like she was like talking to a guy for a few weeks, like that three to four weeks to be exact, via text, but photos were sent and things like that. So I mean I it's it's an affair, right? I mean it's fair to call it that.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Betrayal is betrayal is betrayal. I mean it still hurts the same way, still feeds the same monster, insecurity.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So having a hard time getting over that, but the root cause of it is m was is my narcissism, right? So that's what I'm struggling with. You know what I mean? Like the end for 20 years.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

So what's the real question? How do I how do I prevent my narcissism from from ruling me? How can I peel that label off? What's your question?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

How do I make my wife love me again because I'm a narcissist and she seeks validation elsewhere?

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Don't go into the story right now. Go to the question for us first, mate. Let's hone in on this. Okay. What was the question? So don't go into your whole story. Everybody's got a story, and everybody thinks their story is so important. It's never been less important. What's the question? Because if you want to move on a short call, we want to drive you to the to the answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, okay, okay. So I guess uh the question, the question straight to the point, is we're having a connection issue, which is why she did that in the first place. And she has apologized and she is remorseful about it. But I'm having a hard time trusting her, and she she's like, I just need a connection with you, I need to feel it. And when I talk to her, I don't know how to resonate with her.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Okay, and then where are you tying narcissism into this?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Um, from my past behaviors, just just telling her she's always wrong, I'm always right, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Okay, so before I go too far, are you managing these kinds of reactions now and the highs and lows?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Reality? Absolutely. I have a lot more emotional control today than I did even a couple months ago. Like significant.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Fantastic. Thank you for coming on air right after we just said narcissist can change. Thank you for that. Um, okay, so what you have to think about is work backwards. So we're trying to rebuild connection always as the foundation, okay? But we often try to uh think about it like recreate the spark, try to get along, try to have fun, all these things when really it starts with the safety you're providing right there. So that's the first thing, okay? And then you have to recognize how much of your expectation is bleeding out. Okay. Here's why. You mentioned something very key and specific, Jordan. You said um that she feels remorseful. So I know you had conversations about this. Would you say you had a few? Deep ones. Okay. Here's I don't know how they went for you, especially because you were making her safe, it sounds like, hopefully. But no matter how it went positive on your side, guilt and shame are one of the number one betrayal blockers, right? So even if you're doing a great job, let's say you even took responsibility, okay, which by the way, that's not true. You're supposed to take responsibility, but you don't say it's okay you had an affair. I don't know if it went that far for you. Okay. But it's okay to understand why it went that far because of how you did it. Does that make sense? You know the difference? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So if you guys are having these deep conversations, if it's surrounded by the affair, then you're going to be really reminding her of what you did wrong. So you attack her self-worth, even if you're loved. Right? In fact, if you reflect on the fact that you know why it got to a point where she had to make a decision against state core values and have the affair, then you can start to reflect on the man you'd rather be. And I would say the deep connection conversations could be helpful more often because the lack of skills, you're gonna make it harder on you. We do more of this fixing as we go through, like it's okay. Versus what I would teach you with foundation of connection would be not to discuss all of that shit. We know we fucked up. Figure out more of what we fucked up and do the opposite of that, right? So, what what is the true conversation like? You know, baby, I appreciate that you feel sorry for what you did. Thank you. Not say it's okay if she apologizes. Cool. Then can you move that? Hey, you know what we have not done in a long time? Turn on music and start dancing. You know what I mean? She rejects you. I don't feel like dancing right now, I feel terrible right now. I got you, baby. You know what? That's good because Finn is in the house, Freddy to massage you. You know what I mean? Like turn it to something more fun. Well, why are you making everything such a joke? Maybe I'm all ears, but I know why we're here. What do you like to do? What's your favorite color these days? Because you don't even fucking know that problem. You know what I mean? Everybody's opinions change. What I'm saying is everything we do to move it forward is to take away the negative feelings. I'm not saying she doesn't have to deal with her guilt and shame, but I'm not saying you don't have to deal with your shame and your shit from what everything you did, right? That led to where you got to. But there was more. The affair was the symptom of the other problems. You're recognizing its connection. Now go further. You guys would be better off talking if you were talking on podcast episodes watching together, if you're not doing the real life. You see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually talked about that last night.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Andy, you're gonna have an echo, man. You turn off her sound on our mics. Yeah, so you just talked about that last night. So you guys could go deeper with the songs, right? You know, and you guys could connect to what a great way for you guys to connect, you know. So, yeah, this is what I want you to think. If you were in my program, for example, I would teach you that everything we lay down is taking responsibility for yourself, which you're doing, it sounds like, and incredibly well, it sounds like. Okay, then you guys can connect through all kinds of other things, like just asking how her how she feels. If she asks you, then you do it. Fact feeling, that's it. Keep it simple, okay. Then from there, you're gonna try to go to deeper conversations. And what I teach is this rejection ladder. So I want you to climb this ladder, man. I want you to think not about the awkwardness, you know. She starts to feel low because of she or feeling bad about what she did with her remorse. You know, encourage her to to to climb this ladder with you by just inviting. Excuse me. So the bottom is the energy you bring when you walk in through the door. After that, what's a day-to-day conversation? Keep conversation about bullshit like your job minimum. Nobody gives a fuck. It's boring after years just groundhog day, okay? And then go to um no, I'm not saying you can't talk about it all, but like on a whole, okay. Then climb up. What's the deeper conversation like? Meanwhile, what's the flirt and banter like non-sexual, right? Using wit for good always, never negative. Okay. Then from there, climb higher. What's the sexual uh flirt uh and and banter like? Okay, and then go higher. What's this uh uh non-sexual touch and uh sexual touch like, right? Then go higher. What's the initiation like on dates and stuff? Where are we going? What kinds of dates are we having? I teach seven types of dates, like go deeper, and then um along the way, all of these, even and next by the way, is all the sex stuff, right? So then all the way along that path, Jordan, she's going to feel something because she's not ready for it because she's still embarrassed, maybe feeling like a bad person, ashamed, guilty, whatever. Your job as a man is to let her feel that, not fix that, and then lead her to this ladder and climb up it. And then you start to rebuild connections slowly. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely. Does this give you any final question?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Um, and then yeah, real quick though while I got you on here, with the course that you guys offer, is that with you and you and your wife?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

And our whole team. Yeah. So we do we do coach, and then we have a whole team that coaches with us. Men's the men's side has 10 to 15 calls every single week. The women's side has about seven. And we do them we do some of them. We don't do all of the calls.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so we have course, we have coaching calls, our app. You can even start now without being we have a community. Well, we call you a family when you're in there.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, we actually do get to know you though. It's not like some of the other programs that you see where you never get to see the founders. We do coach.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all the people that coach with us have all been through our programs. It's a requirement.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

That's the coolest thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yeah, even our ambassadors and stuff that help. If you couldn't make calls, they they would give you uh you could give them them a question and they would they would ask us for you, and you could watch a recording. Like it's really cool what we've built here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

No, that's wonderful. That's beautiful, yeah. Because she's interested in doing that with me, so I think that's something we might do.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

And they're they're separate. So the women's program is for women and the men's program is for men. So you guys won't be working together, you'll be working parallel, learning things at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, and we teach very differently. Some stuff overlaps, of course, but it's uh yeah, you for you, her for her. What can I do differently? Okay. How could I be better?

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Uh hey, yeah, you guys are going to appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Well, thanks for saying that, Jordan. Yeah, yeah. It's our pleasure, man. Thank you. All right, guys. One triple E.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Have a wonderful day.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

You too, Matthew.