Hi, I'm Jim Pourteau speaking on behalf of Marriage Helper.
And I want to welcome you to this YouTube video. In fact, right now,
would you do us a favor and either like,
and follow or do both Marriage Helper videos and that way,
you'll be sure to get all the newest updates and greatest information to help
you in your relationship with your spouse. In addition to that,
be sure and stay and pay attention to this entire video.
Because following this video,
we're going to have a free resource that you can use in order to help your
relationship grow and become the best it can possibly be.
A question was sent into us and it said I've caught my spouse cheating.
What do I do? I want to just tell you, first of all,
I can't even imagine what you're going through in your head right now.
The thoughts, the emotions, all the things that seem to circle around.
And I am confident that they could be overwhelming. I mean,
to the point of where you don't even know what to do,
where you can't see straight,
and it feels like your whole world is falling apart.
But let me be the first person to tell you what this you're not the first person
to go through this and you're going to be okay,
no matter what happens in your life, you're going to be okay,
because you can survive. You can count on yourself,
but what a better life we can have if we can restore with our spouse.
But I know if you caught them cheating,
that probably the place you're pretty upset right now, angry,
hurt all these different emotions flowing. And you're thinking, what do I do?
Well, a lot of times what people do in that situation is they blow it.
They get explosive, they attack, they do all kinds of different things.
Sometimes what they'll do in those situations is they'll start making promises
because they think they're going to lose their spouse.
And so they'll start things like I promise I'll do this and I'll do this other
thing. I remember a client. I had one time where, uh, the,
the spouse was disconnected.
And the reason they were talking about being disconnected is they said their
wife had ignored them. Almost the whole marriage. Not really talking to them,
never really affirming them. And so when the one-off,
but when I became aware of that,
one of the things she said is she said every day for the rest of our marriage,
I'm going to write him a note and I'm going to tell him how great he is based on
that note every day. Well, I looked at her and I said,
you want to be careful about that because you don't want to start something you
can't complete and I'm not going to lie.
I don't think there's any human alive that I could come up with 365
positive things about, um, less than 10 let's say, okay.
So the point here is we don't want to get ahead of ourselves.
We don't want to lose it. We want to go focus. So here's what I want you to do.
The first thing, when you discover it,
whether it's in person or from another person, however, it comes your way.
Is this do nothing.
I told you so many people get involved and they think that time is of essence.
And what I'm telling you is time is actually your friend here.
Time is not of essence. You don't want to get in a hurry.
What you want to do is be able to slow down and do nothing but curious.
Here's what I know,
emotions and decisions at the same time equals
mistakes.
See the emotional part of our mind is not going to process genuine information.
It's going to stimulate us. It's going to cause us to respond in a negative way,
usually because it's emotional. We're not thinking rationally. Okay?
So you're gonna want to step back and do nothing. You're going to make sure,
like I said, you don't want to make any promises. Don't attack it.
That you're going to feel like you want to,
you're going to sell a lot of things. You're going to feel like do it.
But I just want to encourage you. Don't see.
What we're trying to do at this point is not cause any more damage that
has to be repaired later. If you're choosing to save this marriage.
So do not things stop for a minute. Okay?
You might have to separate yourself from there.
Also be careful that you don't leave and go talk to everyone about this because
it's going to be something we call poisoning the well,
many times that spouse finds an offense in it.
And maybe you're thinking to yourself, well, they did bad.
Maybe they deserve it. We're not really talking about what people deserve here.
We're talking about the opportunity to create something that's broken into
something that's brand new, not just fixed, but brand new.
So I want to encourage you to think that way it's not over, okay.
I'm a survivor of an affair.
Thousands of people I've worked with are survivors of affairs.
And I'm telling you it can become something that brings you together.
But first of all, I wanna encourage you to do nothing.
The second thing I want to encourage you to do a step back.
I want you to step back for a minute, grab your, like your, your breath, right?
And maybe give someone that's a friend or a family who is dependable. I mean,
somebody you could count on, right?
Someone that's kind of solid in who they are.
You might want to give them a call and say, at that moment,
you know what X is occurred. And I just need somebody to listen to me.
You're not looking for advice.
You might want to tell them I don't need advice right now.
I just need somebody to be here for me. I need someone to listen to me,
that constellation, that person there can do a lot for you.
So you're going to do nothing. But then at the next step,
you're going to do something by calling someone and bringing them into your
confidence, but please choose carefully. All right?
Because you don't want to hurt that friendship nor do you want someone speaking
against your vision. So if you want to,
if you want to be a person who is saving your relationship,
the last thing you want to do is have people who speak into your life,
telling you to do things contrary to your vision.
So make sure it's a dependable person.
The third thing I would encourage you to do is to contact one of us here at
marriage helper. All right,
you can talk to our coaches and I'm telling you us professionals.
They will help you look at your individual situation. What's happening,
the circumstances and help you think through the decisions you
have and the choices you can make, um, during this time.
So talk to a professional, call us at the office.
We'll be happy to help you in that.
The last thing I would tell you to do is be really,
really careful about what you do next in regards to the affair partner.
You don't want to contact that person.
You don't want to have conversations with them.
You want to be careful not to retaliate. I have watched this go wrong. Many,
many, many times I've watched the affair partner lie. Cause more problems.
I've watched the affair partner do restraining orders.
All I'm saying is it's not going to serve you any good.
You might think you're going to get some information,
but that information at best is going to be skewed through that lens.
And so what I'm telling you to do now is don't get caught up in that
pause. Don't do anything. Step back, take a review of where you are.
Contact somebody you can trust real quick.
Talk to us at marriage helper so we can get you a coach. And don't retaliate.
Give this a second for the dust to settle.
So you can see clearly and you make the best decision for you and
your family. I want to thank you for staying with us through this entire video.
And as we promised,
we have a free resource for you today for spending your valuable time with us.
It's called an affair quiz.
Now this quiz is designed to ask you some questions and then take your answers
and help you make decisions on some next steps.
In addition to the affair quiz,
we have a mini course on how to get your spouse back. Now,
we can't make guarantees and things,
but this is the best available tool for you to be able to make good decisions.
If you've had an affair or your spouse has had an affair and you've been
affected in any way, this is a great tool outside of our coaches,
to be able to help you make some decisions,
think through the process and not let your emotions drive you.
I would encourage you to give us a call here at marriage helper,
check us out online, follow us here on YouTube.
We look forward to serving you in any way that we can.