Hurt Meets Healer Podcast
Hurt people, hurt people. Are you ready to work through the pain of your past? Healing is possible! Join us on our healing journey, a journey to freedom, where you'll get straight truth from genuine people.
We use our story and experience to help others walk through the trauma of intimate betrayal. This is raw and real talk from average people who are walking the path of healing.
Kim is a Certified Professional Mentor™ through BraveHearts University, and a Certified Christian Life Coach through the Board of Christian Life Coaching.
Hurt Meets Healer Podcast
Part 3: Forgiveness...Is More Than Saying Sorry
Forgiveness after betrayal isn't simply about saying "sorry"—it demands fundamental change that many struggling couples never achieve. This raw, unfiltered conversation pulls back the curtain on what true reconciliation requires after sexual betrayal tears a relationship apart.
Kim introduces a powerful concept that cuts through empty apologies: "Sorry stops." Genuine repentance means the harmful behavior completely ends, not just gets temporarily paused or hidden better. For betrayed spouses, recognizing true remorse means watching for subtle signs—facial expressions, attitudes, and the absence of blame—that reveal whether their partner has truly changed or is merely performing remorse.
The discussion takes a brutally honest turn when Kim raises the question many betrayed spouses silently ask themselves: "What benefit are you to me?" This seemingly harsh inquiry exposes the legitimate calculus every hurt partner must make—is staying in this relationship bringing healing or further harm? John's struggle to respond emotionally rather than logically to this question perfectly illustrates the communication barriers that make reconciliation so challenging.
Throughout the episode, the hosts' own ongoing journey becomes a real-time demonstration of both the possibility and difficulty of healing. Their vulnerable exchanges—sometimes tense, sometimes tender—show why rebuilding trust requires "provable behavior over time" and why emotional intelligence is so crucial to the process.
For anyone walking the painful path of recovery after betrayal, this conversation offers both validation and practical wisdom: establish healthy boundaries that protect without attempting to control; pursue individual healing regardless of your partner's choices; and understand that successful reconciliation doesn't mean rebuilding what was—it means creating something entirely new from the broken pieces.
Ready to dive deeper into your healing journey? Connect with us at hurtmeetshealer.com and discover resources designed specifically for those navigating the aftermath of betrayal.
Thank you for listening! For more information about us and the services we offer, visit www.hurtmeetshealer.com.
Intro & Outro music written, performed, and produced by Kim Capps.
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or professional advice. The views expressed by the Host or any Guest(s) are strictly their own and in no way constitute legal, medical, or professional advice.
Copyright ©️ 2025, Hurt Meets Healer, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kim Capps business plus ministry that was created to help individuals and couples who are walking through the devastating impact of sexual addiction and infidelity. Thanks for joining me today, hey y'all, and welcome back to the Hurt Me Tear podcast. We are on forgiveness, part three. Forgiveness is more than saying sorry, right, hey, john? Welcome back. How you doing.
Speaker 2:I'm surviving today.
Speaker 1:Surviving today Barely. Yeah, there's some allergies working around this place, but maybe if I forgive them, they will. They'll go away. Move on. Yeah, if only it were that easy.
Speaker 2:Right, still suffering the effects of my self-inflicted blunt force trauma.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it's not nearly as painful as what I've come to realize is the emotional blunt force trauma I've been dealing out over the years. So this is easy to deal with because I know there's an expiration date on it.
Speaker 1:Unless it gets infected.
Speaker 2:If I just take care of it, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:What Care for it. Okay, yeah, I will leave my sarcasm for another day. So we've been talking about forgiveness the past two episodes and tonight we're going to conclude with talking about staying forgiving in a relationship and then staying with your spouse. And, of course, this is a podcast all about betrayal, intimate betrayal, sexual betrayal, and so what we talk about most of the time involves that Sometimes we chase a rabbit or three, but that's what this is talking about Forgiving a spouse after intimate sexual betrayal and choosing to stay in the marriage.
Speaker 1:I know from experience that it's a complex journey. It takes a lot of courage, Ladies. If you're the betrayed spouse, it takes a lot of courage to stay. It takes commitment, it takes intentional healing and what most of our husbands don't like boundaries, Very clear, healthy boundaries. And last episode we talked about releasing the resentment, walking through that process for our own peace, so that we can then work toward the if we're choosing to stay, the rebuilding. I don't even want to call it rebuild. I don't want to rebuild what we had. I want something new. So building new, building trust and walking our journeys out. So what do you have? What are you bringing tonight, John? What you got?
Speaker 2:I'm following you. These are delicate topics to be sitting on my side of the desk because I don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I asked you last time to stop. What was the word Equal? Yeah stop doing.
Speaker 2:I just and I want to be sensitive to that, and you know it's I don't want to be flippant on any of this, because it's hard, it's brutal and I haven't had to walk your part of the journey, so it's hard for me to weigh in with anything other than compassion and empathy, and I suck at both of those. So I'll keep it brief.
Speaker 1:All right, you get no pushback from me on that. Well, maybe you could learn something, possibly, potentially. So why would? Or I say I really work to not ask why questions more what, where, how type questions, what, where, how type questions. So what does it look like if we are going to stay in a relationship and I would say from my journey what I have been looking for, what things? We'll just walk through it. How about that? Let's just, let's just walk, step into this.
Speaker 1:So the first thing was true repentance, and for me, repentance was not saying sorry. So you, if you look at the title, forgiveness is more than saying sorry, and I have a saying that sorry stops. So if you're going to tell me you're sorry, that means the behaviors, the attitudes, the actions, the whatever it is words, whatever you did to hurt me, stops, you don't do it anymore, sorry stops, stops, you don't do it anymore, sorry stops. And so, as I have been on this journey, I have been looking for repentance. What does that look like? And for me, I am watching for attitude. I am watching for attitude. Facial expressions. They say something like 76% or something like that. It's a very high percentage. Of communication is nonverbal and I look for that. I watch mannerisms. I watch eyebrows. I watch mannerisms. I watch eyebrows. I watch beady little eyes. I watch rolling of the eyes Walking away. I'm watching. I'm always watching Wazowski. Okay, yes, we watch. We in the past have watched movies a lot. We don't anymore Very rarely, and so that's been a huge first step.
Speaker 1:Were you truly repentant? And I didn't see it for a long time? Whether you were or not, it did not show up in my experience with you, and the next thing I was looking for was safety. Are you safe? And safety encompasses a lot of things Under the heading of safety you could put. Are you trustworthy? Are you faithful? Integrity is in there. Do you behave when you're away from me the same as you behave when you're with me? Are you speaking nasty things when you're not around me that you're unwilling to say to my face? Also, being open and willing to start conversations about things, about hurtful things? Hey, I know this anniversary is coming up. Hey, this is going on. Ooh, I saw that person today. We interacted with these people. How are you feeling? I'm open to talk about it. I understand it brings up a lot of memories at Cannes. Let me have it. I've got my Teflon on To me that says, hey, I'm safe for you to come to, and also, when I'm upset, being able to stand in there and understand yeah, I caused that. My actions caused my wife to hurt tremendously and she's hurting right now. I can be tender and care for her.
Speaker 1:I watch for blame, any kind of blame. My spidey senses are on heightened alert for even the slightest and you could probably agree right here the slightest hint of blame since that was the theme of our marriage was it's all kim's fault, right, all. And I use all, an, a, l, l, all capitals, underline it bold, it put it on a marquee flash the signs all of our marriage and I was to blame for it all. And so that I wanted you to own. I still want you to own. And when it happens, it's fantastic when it gets skirted around and I get trifecta, which is excusing reasoning and justification, that to me says boop, red flag, you're unsafe. So those type things. Is he repentant? Is he broken over what he's done? And repentance changes. It's an attitude change. It's a holy crud. I am not going to do that again.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to do that again.
Speaker 1:Oh, and I'm not going to blame you for my infidelity. I'm not going to put that on you. I'm not going to blame you for my attitude, Kim. No, I own that Owning what you've done. Saying it, confession, and then being safe and being willing to be all of those things, being willing to be kind and tender and responsible with my heart and with my emotions Anything to add in there.
Speaker 2:I recognized recently that I have been responding to emotional conversations with logical conversations and that doesn't really help engage, and so I'm learning about that in me. So I'm hoping that'll actually be a good piece of learning.
Speaker 1:What brought that to your attention?
Speaker 2:What book are you reading? I'm currently reading a book called super communicators and he it's a charles duhigg book and he was talking about emotional conversations and I realized that I, because I haven't been in touch with my emotions, I avoid those kinds of conversations. I don't recognize them when they happen. That's something that I'm really seeing in me that I don't like, and I hear in your report just now that it's not helpful for you either. It doesn't create the safe feeling that I'm wanting to create, that I'm wanting to create. So I've got some notes to talk with my counselor tomorrow on that particular issue.
Speaker 1:All right, very good, very good. So how do we in the process of forgiving, how do we stay in this? I would say we've had a highly contentious relationship and on our recovery, our path to recovery, our recovery path, has been volatile, very, very volatile.
Speaker 2:Yes, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 1:So and I think I've asked I think I asked you this question at some point why, what? And boy, it set you off. So I'm going to be very careful of how I say this. I'll just ask the why question. Why should I stay? What is the point? What is the point? And I have asked myself that question. I'm not asking you, john, for an answer. The question I asked you was what benefit is it? What benefit? I think I said, said what benefit are you to me? Why, what, what does it gain me to stay in this relationship? And that um boy set off a whole firestorm. I apparently walked in with a match to a with. Then you were covered in gasoline and poof yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:That is a very um, um. I mean that rips off every scab that I every scar, every, every uh abandonment fear that's in me gets covered in gasoline and lit on fire with that statement.
Speaker 1:What do you think would bring that even to my mind? Ooh, silence, dun dun dun.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, let's consider it for a minute, because these will be, this is a process, so let's just brainstorm. Why in the world would I even have that thought in your mind?
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't need, like the answer well, I mean, I would imagine that the reason that you would have that thought is that you're trying to decide whether to stay or go.
Speaker 1:Is that it? I mean? Would that be the only reason I would ask that question?
Speaker 2:You're asking a deep emotional question to a guy. That's pretty deep, shallow emotionally, all right. What if I don't know?
Speaker 1:I mean that's wow, one of those. That's why it's so terrifying get you to emotions 101 that's why it's so terrifying okay, so could it be?
Speaker 1:we'll just say it could, could it be?
Speaker 1:Or what if it's that my experience of you is not bringing benefit to my life, bringing benefit to my life? And what if you go? Well, holy balls, kim. What a great question. I can absolutely see how you would ponder that with the experiences I've given you.
Speaker 1:Where I don't hear you, I don't listen to your heart, I get this thing in my mind. When you're telling me no, I don't want a double oven, I'm all well. 10 years ago she wanted a double oven. I'm all well. 10 years ago she wanted a double oven. And I'm on this rabbit trail of double oven and I don't hear you and I think you don't want this oven because of some other reason, and so I'm not listening to you. I absolutely see and can understand, kim, how you would ask that question.
Speaker 1:When you're not heard, I don't listen to you, I don't respect your feelings, your thoughts, your emotions, your requests. You've requested of me to be different, to show up different, to give you a different experience. I haven't done that. I haven't done that. I haven't done that. What a great, thought-provoking question. Do you mind if I take that and just pray on that journal and can we circle back to this? Because I really want to be a benefit to you, kim, and so if I agree to not agree, but if I can go and journal and think on this, will you agree to circle back with me, say, tomorrow 7 o'clock, can we finish this conversation?
Speaker 1:I'm going to put it on our calendar, on our shared calendar, right now, and I'm going to put some notes in there, so we'll remember this is what we're coming back to, because I really want to close the loop. I want to give you a different experience of me, kim. I want to be a benefit to you. I want to help you be the best, kim, that God created. I haven't done that. What about that? That's obviously a better answer than mine.
Speaker 2:What about that? That's obviously a better answer than mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know was your answer. Ugh, dude, You're killing me Smalls.
Speaker 2:You're killing me. I mean all of that stuff I'm obviously aware of, Really, I just yeah.
Speaker 1:Since when, two seconds ago, when I said it.
Speaker 2:No, it's, yeah, it's just not.
Speaker 1:Where is it then? Where is it? It's not showing up. Where is it? Okay, don't sit there and shake your head at me and say, okay, it is not showing up.
Speaker 2:I acknowledge that.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's not your experience, y'all this is uh how our conversations go. He just gives this answer and I don't. I that's what I can't take them out that's what I was saying is I don't know what to do. I have to and I can't walk away because I'm tethered to this microphone in my ear pieces here.
Speaker 2:My emotional quotient is not very high yet.
Speaker 1:Boy. That is the gosh honest truth right there. So, I'm Like a three-year-old. Gosh honest truth right there. So I I'm like a three-year-old. I think, carol, I think our granddaughter has more emotional intelligence than you do.
Speaker 2:It's possible she has sympathy, she comes in. I'm logically on the hand, how's your foot?
Speaker 1:and when we change the color of your bandage. Oh, you're wearing orange today. Oh, you're wearing pink. Oh, you know, she notices right. More emotional intelligence.
Speaker 2:Golly, dude, I was I was thinking of a logical answer to your question.
Speaker 1:I wasn't thinking on the emotional side oh wow, and you had just said I'm gonna do better I do want to do better.
Speaker 2:I'm just coming to understand these things.
Speaker 1:Y'all welcome.
Speaker 2:I don't have it turned around yet.
Speaker 1:To the John and Kim crazy show. Yeah, so this is why. Thank you, by the way, for helping this process. This is part of the reason why forgiveness and staying is hard. It is hard, no one. I'm not even going to put the E in easy, because it is not. This is holy balls. Gird your loins and get ready to fight the battle, because to me, it's. I'm trying to not have a conniption fit here because I don't have to edit. I don't want to. I don't want to do this in one take.
Speaker 2:It's a process, it is it's a long, a really, really hard one Right, and there's all sorts of twists and turns along the way that take us both by surprise and make it even more difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I. Part of this process is really having healthy boundaries, really having healthy boundaries, and what my counselors helped me understand is I don't always have two sets of boundaries, but I have boundaries for what I will accept from me. Then I have boundaries for what I will accept from others, and I'm really hard on myself. They're necessary. I think I'm still working this through. I'm not on the other side of this. So we're still in the trenches. We're still, all these years later, good gravy, and we're still, I don't know, we're still there. So it's highly frustrating. And I will say this even though I think I have good boundaries, I have healthy boundaries, it doesn't stop that and it doesn't. It doesn't control him to make him be a better human being. So if you're going to use boundaries, please use them wisely. They don't control other people. They're for what you will do. And so I had to exercise a boundary, just in that conversation where I, you know, I controlled myself to not become angry at his answer, angry at at his answer, but to give an answer and to become curious about what the heck. I used to say what, the what, john, what the what, and so, um, yeah, and so yeah, but these. You know, if you're going to stay, stay healthy. That's my saying. If you're going to stay, stay healthy.
Speaker 1:And to stay healthy, I believe you have to work your healing journey. You cannot control your spouse's healing journey. If I could control his journey, he would be healed and it would have happened within two seconds, or at least 10 minutes of D-Day. Actually, it would have happened 30 years ago. 35 years We've been married, 36 years. It would have happened 35 years ago at least, but I can't control that. He has to do his own work. I can't speak common sense and it hit in his uncommon sensical mind.
Speaker 1:So Rosetta Stone has yet to produce a dumbass language translation. So I don't know if you can laugh. I have yet to learn how to communicate clearly with a two-year-old, emotional, grown man. So for me, I'm still processing pain. There's pain that hits me every day. I have to forgive every day, sometimes a lot, a lot of times, and a lot of times it's walking outside. I'm just going to go out back for a little bit swing in my, have this nice hammock swing and I just go back there and sit and swing and talk to God, listen to some music. I think staying in, as it relates to forgiving requires communication. But you're going to have to help me here, john, because I don't speak, apparently, your language to communicate well enough to relay what I want and need, even though 10 out of 10 other people can understand what I say when I relay what I need.
Speaker 2:It's not so much a matter of not hearing what you're saying. It's apparently the delivery of what I think, and that's where I'm really trying to uh, set aside as well and do a better job of delivering on more specifically what you're asking rather than how I'm interpreting it, and so that's uh, that's been a hard page for me to turn, because for a long time, you know, I grew up in a, a setting where you didn't have needs, or, if you did, you never expressed them, and so I was always taught not specifically, but I was taught to try to figure out what everybody wanted. To try to figure out what everybody wanted even in spite of what they were saying.
Speaker 1:And so you know, I know you said this, but I think that you really meant this. That's how you built up all these resentments against me.
Speaker 2:By the way, there's correct. Some absolutely absolutely wow, some um okay, you would interpret.
Speaker 1:I would say 100% of the stuff I said incorrectly. But okay, never mind, this is not that conversation Keep going. And I'm not going to edit it out.
Speaker 2:That's where, yeah, but that's what I'm struggling with even today is just hearing and not filtering, and I think I'm getting better at it, but the double oven conversation convinces me I still have a whole lot of work to do.
Speaker 1:So if you don't hear me, do you hear God and filter his stuff through your whatever filter, so you could be misinterpreting him.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely possible. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Long pause? Well, because I don't know the answer.
Speaker 2:I don't think so, but at the same time, it is a pattern that I have and so it's something that I have to be vigilant with, so I absolutely could be doing that.
Speaker 1:All right, good deal. I need to take a breath because I really want to say, yeah, we're going to move on, so, and we're coming up on a time limit here. So, as you probably have heard from these past three episodes, if you've listened to the three episodes this is a hard topic. It's a hard topic for us. It is. This is a hard topic. It's a hard topic for us. It is. It's a hard topic for me. Um, especially with all of the, the blame that's been heaped my way by you I'm looking at john, by the way, not you podcast-osphere.
Speaker 2:By me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's a. This is so, so difficult to process, to walk through. I know that I've done that process of acknowledging the pain and there's just so much. It's okay, ladies, that you're. You don't get on somebody's timetable. This is your journey, no one else's. It's your pain. You were hurt and I want to validate that for you. You were hurt. You were hurt deeply. You take the time that you need. It's okay, I get to take the time that I need.
Speaker 2:And it's okay.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking at John.
Speaker 1:And it's okay, I'm saying that and it is okay Because it's my pain that I endured. So walk that journey. And a lot of people will say engage in couples counseling. I'm paused on that for a time due to the lack of trust in well you, john, in the manipulative tactics and some of the things, how you say things like not really owning you skirt around. I hear you skirting around Whether you're doing that in your head on purpose. That's what I hear. But if that works for you, if y'all have both engaged in individual counseling and you're ready to engage couples counseling, do it. Do it, it can be very helpful. Do it. It can be very helpful. There would be a third party there to hear, potentially hear what the other person is saying and validate that to the spouse who is unable to hear, and listen with understanding ears and listen with curiosity to gain understanding.
Speaker 2:Well, and if you get the emotional, if you get a dispassionate person in the room to hear the emotional and interpret it, sometimes to the more logical person, that can be beneficial. More logical person that can be beneficial, because I don't I mean, as I've confessed, I don't always hear the emotional side of the conversation as an emotional, because I'm, as on the logic side, I'm trying to process a solution, rather than here and that's where that's what I'm working on in me is being able to stay with the conversation, stay with you in the conversation. So put your hands down as what I say right put your hands down.
Speaker 1:I is what I say. Right, put your hands down. I don't need a problem solved. What I need is understanding. I need to hear that you own, that you cause me pain, that you hurt me. I need empathy and sympathy and validation. Yeah, that hurts and I caused that hurt. That's what I need. Put your hands down.
Speaker 1:You've heard me say that a lot, and instead of coming at me where, oh my gosh, I think, kim, that you're punching me, so I'm going to punch back. And it's this tit for tat that never, ever, ever works, when all I'm doing is expressing dude, you hurt me and I'm curious why the heck would you do that repeatedly? Why is this on repeat and will it ever stop? And apparently that's offensive to ask those questions. Oy vey, oy vey. And you know this whole trust. I brought that word up.
Speaker 1:If you're going to stay, trust has to be rebuilt. If you're going to stay, trust has to be rebuilt. Well, I say, if you're going to stay. There can be other reasons that you stay, maybe financial, maybe kids. I would please, don't use your kids as pawns in this, but that's a whole other side story there.
Speaker 1:Building trust, though, is a necessary step. Provable behavior over time. It takes consistency over a sustained period of time, and that is seeable. That is experienced by the other person is who I determine, what I experience. Right, not John. I have the experience, he doesn't have my experience, and vice versa. And then cultivating compassion and intimacy and intimacy is being vulnerable with the other person, and you can't do any of that if you haven't forgiven, been understanding, built trust. Intimacy is like the cherry on top. Well, and I'm not talking about sex y'all, I'm talking about just knowing each other. Knowing and understanding each other, being willing to listen to the hurts, the pains, the fun things that happened in their day, being able to share anything and knowing that you're safe to do so. That's intimacy for me. That would be my definition being able to be vulnerable in a safe space. Safe space and, you know, walk in your own healing journey out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, work, self-care journal. I did a stint. I do these things in November, a gratitude list, and I start November 1. What am I thankful for, what am I really appreciative of? And I do that through the month of November, I've done that for the past few years, eye-opening the gratitude that it brings out in me, just to realize what I do have, instead of focusing on the negatives. And then I think the last thing to do is be willing to accept that that marriage that we had is not coming back. Accept the new in the marriage. Accept and celebrate the progress that you've been through. I hope one day we'll be able to do that. It's a little hope, but I do have a little hope that we'll be able to sit down and discuss shared goals and dreams, to create a new narrative and to help others heal.
Speaker 2:That's what I want for us.
Speaker 1:So final thoughts John, that's where those are the things that get me in trouble, usually Thoughts.
Speaker 2:That is true. This is not an easy path for either side and I'm sure if you're listening and if you've made it to this episode, um, you've, you've heard that from us and if you've been listening that long, it's most likely because you're going through a lot of it yourself and, man, I'm sorry for that for you and to my wife that I do love deeply. I'm sorry for that for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, all right, I didn't know if you were done, I was waiting. I'm for clip Talk amongst yourselves.
Speaker 2:I'm done Okay.
Speaker 1:Thanks. Thank you for that and y'all thanks for hanging with us through this. It's been a hard, few episodes and my goodness, we could probably do five more. We are not. We are going to move on to another subject. Our last episode will be the next one that we do. It will be episode 28. That will close out our season one. We'll take a few weeks off and regroup and have some more coming at you for season two.
Speaker 1:So we are so grateful for your listening and just walking this journey out with us. This you'd be surprised how much this helps us. Just walking this journey out with us. You'd be surprised how much this helps us as we sit behind these microphones and just chat and discuss these topics that somehow, away from these microphones, we can't. We're unable to have healthy communication. So, thank you If you are listening in, we sure appreciate you, and until next time, god bless. Thank you for taking the time to listen today. Remember you are more than what happened to you. We'd be honored to come alongside and guide you on your healing journey. Connect with us at wwwhurtmeetshealercom. Until next time, god bless.
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