The devastation to the relationship from a marital affair can take years, if not decades,

to recover from. But we'll share why healing is still possible even when there's been betrayal.

I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Erin.

They head up our marriage department.

And, Erin, what are some of the common things that you hear from couples about kind of the aha moment,

when they learned that there was an affair going on?

A, it's so shocking, traumatizing.

It's like a bomb has gone off.

And then they start reeling, going, wait, how did I not pick up on this?

How did I not see signs of this?

Or maybe they did see signs of it, and they're the one who discovered it.

And so when Discovery Day appears, it's devastating. And there can be anger,

resentment, shame, self-blame, like what did I do that caused my spouse to do this versus

your spouse is responsible for their choices. And regardless of what you've done or not done, they made the choice to

have an outside relationship. So eventually the individual will get to the place of gone,

how did I influence my marriage in holding that but not being responsible for the actions of the

other person? There can be jealousy, hypervigilance.

They can start digging in and investigating where, you know, where were the signs or are,

is this continuing looking at phone records and credit cards and on and on. And sometimes

they land in depression. So it's important that that individual is seeking support.

I say go to individual counseling, have a safe place that you can express whatever it is

your feeling and have somebody that is solely there to support you. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot there

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