Final 3 Steps to Strength and Repair After the Affair
Take a second and remember where you were just weeks ago. You couldn’t imagine surviving the earth shattering pain, let alone feeling this way about your partner that strayed.
Let’s Have Some Fun
You get to co-create a life that will support the progress that you two have made, as well as, surround you with what matters most in life, more time.
The final steps in this 3 Phase infidelity recovery program are, (1) slow down, (2) simplify, and (3) savor.
Step one is done. You crossed that off your list when you completed the lifestyle assessment and answered, “What are the 5 things closest to your heart?” Then you talked honestly with each other about what’s working and not working in your life. In order to obtain your desired lifestyle and live a life with the things and people that matter most, close to your heart, you need to trim the excess.
What Does Simplifying Look Like?
It’s a spectrum. Some cleanse their home of so many material possessions while others sell their Mcmansions and semi-live off the land. You get to start and stop where ever your desired lifestyle takes you. Basically get rid of whatever is standing between you and the life of your dreams.
For example, my husband and I wanted to live like millionaires without waiting to win the jackpot. So we picked out the things that were most important to us that simulate a millionaire lifestyle: rich on time, day dates, and lots of adventures with the kids (basically living like we are retired in our thirties).
We sold over 50 percent of our tangible world, which decreased how much money goes out each month, and gave us back more time (now that we weren’t spending our free time maintaining all of our stuff). We we stopped was at our jacked up Jeep. Sure it’s a hefty monthly payment but it’s a fun making machine. From nightly town cruises to off road adventures, this vehicle provides such versatility and freedom (we heart Jeep Life).
So that’s where we stopped our simplifying process. We decreased how much money went out each month, which cut down the amount we had to work, we increased the amount of free time we had, and increased our overall satisfaction with life.
Where to Start
Start small. If your after school shuttle service is cramping your connection time, set a limit on how many activities your kids can sign up for and let them feel not overscheduled for a change. If your closet is a time suck, purge it. I just learned from Wayne Dyer about the 80/20 rule, which states that we only use 20 percent of our wardrobe.
If you’re sick and tired of all the extra volunteer work at the church, say f*ck it (or fudge knuckles) and for a while just be a prayer and not a doer.
You get the point. Everyone’s simplify process looks different and it’s customized to your desired lifestyle.
Savor
Once you get to this point you actually have some time to sit back and take in life’s sweet moments. Whether that’s watching your daughter teach herself how to snap her fingers or listening to your son tell you about his monster truck collection for the 410th time. You have time to look up from your work email (or Facebook newsfeed) and actually see (truly notice) your partner.
You’ll start to see everything around you and realize that you were basically walking around in a semi-comatose state before you made your lifestyle change. Once you wake up you’ll never want to go back to that numbed out, zombie state again.
You two will have the time to continue to devote to the marriage and not be as taxed and stressed by the end of the day. It won’t be the same marriage to come home to. That alone is reassuring for both but especially the betrayed. Why on earth would either of you go looking for something outside the marital boundaries when life is so good? You won’t.
Don’t Make the Greatest Mistake
The worst thing about humans is that we believe that we have all this time. But for those of us that have been rocked by death or great loss know that we don’t.
For me I have experienced sudden and prolonged loss. My first gut wrenching loss came five days before my high school graduation when I lost my best (BEST) friend to a car accident. The second time death came to visit was when I watched cancer slowly take over my dad’s body.
See my parents bought into the work as hard as you possible can (until you’re about dead) then retire (when you’re a fraction as mobile as you once were) and play all you want. They made it up until a few months before they were going to cut the ribbon and enter the “golden years,” when the doctor gave him an expiration date rather than a clean bill of health.
And I was there to witness their dreams come crashing down as their hearts caught up with their new reality.
I don’t know many things for certain (as most things change through time) but the one thing that I do know, is that there will never be a magic age that I reach and say, “Finally, I can start to live a little.” That won’t happen. I choose to live every day as if I’m retired, and that’s a huge reason why my husband and I are so in love, why my kids and I are so connected, and why I feel so content in my world.
The two greatest lessons that my parents taught me was that romantic love can last a lifetime and to never let my mortality get too far from my mind. To some that’s depressing, to be aware of death on a daily basis, but for me it makes my life exponentially richer.
It limits how much time I waste doing mind numbing things (scrolling or pinning), or how many times I turn into a “no, not right now” mom or how many times I snip and drag out a silly fight with my husband. If I think, I could die on the way to the grocery store, my whole defense in my head as to why I’m right and he is wrong crumbles and I soften and make up.
WE DON’T HAVE ALL THIS TIME
And even if we do get to live to an old age, it comes quick. My father used to always say (not just when the cancer came uninvited) that life was like a one-night stand, blink and you’ll miss it. Well I believe that if he were alive during this smart phone plague he would rephrase and say, look down, and you’ll miss it.
Jessica is the author of Back 2 Love and How to Start a Mental Health Private Practice. She owns a practice in New Prague, Minnesota where she lives with her husband, two kids, and two pups. For more relationship advice follower her on Twitter. Don’t forget to check out her video series, Back 2 Love on her YouTube channel Super Living.