Hurt Meets Healer Podcast

When You Choose You, You Lose Me, part 1

• Kim Capps • Season 2 • Episode 1

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A single sentence—“When you choose you, you lose me”—can crack open the truth about why relationships crumble after betrayal. We take you inside that reality with a candid look at selfishness versus self-care, what safety actually feels like in the body, and how boundaries function as bridges instead of walls. From the first minute, we name the hard parts: gaslighting that reframes feelings as attacks, entitlement that calls harm “fairness,” and the slow burn of repeated deception that turns homes into places where nervous systems never rest.

You’ll hear why accountability starts where defensiveness ends, and how “sorry” changes shape when trust needs proof, not poetry. We pull from relationship research and lived experience to outline practices that work in the real world: clear boundaries that protect dignity, empathy that holds pain without correction, and routines that remove secrecy from daily life. We talk about the trap of tit for tat thinking, the power of saying what is true before it is comfortable, and the reason unresolved issues don’t disappear—they stack up until someone says stop. Faith meets psychology through a simple call from Zechariah: tell the truth, don’t scheme, and work for peace.

If you’ve wondered whether stepping back is unloving, you’ll find language for healthy detachment that creates space for real change. If you’re the partner seeking repair, you’ll learn how to listen to understand, respect boundaries as acts of love, and sit with pain without dismissing it as punishment. And if your gut has been your only compass, we’ll help you trust it while you build a plan that turns intention into consistent action. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs clarity and courage, and leave a review with the one boundary that helped you breathe again.

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.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, and welcome to the Heart Meets Healer Podcast. I'm Kim Caps, your host and president of Heart Meets Healer LLC, a business tree, business plus ministry that was created to help individuals and couples are walking through the devastating impact of sexual addiction and infidelity. Thanks for joining me today. Hey y'all, welcome. My goodness, welcome to episode one of season two. I cannot believe it. It just blows my mind that uh wow, here we are. Well, here I am, anyways. Uh John is not with me today. He will most likely join me on part two of this uh subject that I will be discussing today, which is when you choose you, you lose me. There's a lot of use in that sentence. And it is speaking to the betrayer in a relationship where uh infidelity, sexual betrayal has occurred. And I don't know where that hit me. I don't know where I came up with that. It was probably it was most likely in a conversation with John at some point, and um most likely I was uh sensing selfishness. And in my mind, the message I was telling myself was, man, this dude's selfish. And somehow the the sentence came out, when you choose you, you lose me. And the question that has come to my mind is does selfishness have a place in marriage? Uh my answer, yeah. I want to say no in the negative sense. There, well, I guess if we're working on ourselves, that's not selfishness. It's it's um we're doing self-care. Self-care is not selfishness. Self-care is self-care. We're caring for ourselves. Um, self-care is healthy boundaries. Selfishness is well, I'll just define it my way. And then while I'm defining it my way, I'm gonna ask Rock to define selfishness for me. Um, because he's my good to, and that's what I use. So to me, selfishness is putting yourself, your needs, your wants, your desires ahead of anyone else's. Your spouse, your kids, and to the to the almost to the neglect of them. Oh, here's what Grok says. Selfishness is prioritizing one's own needs, desires, or interests over those of others, often without regard for their well-being. It can manifest as actions or attitudes that seek personal gain, comfort, or advantage at the expense of others' feelings, needs, or rights. There you go. Um, selfishness. Different from um self-care, different from self-interest. It's it's I think selfishness can be become problematic. And I believe it has no place in a marriage. We're supposed to to um serve each other, not now, not to the extent that we uh give up our own identity. That's that's not um well, I'm a country girl, so I'm just gonna use my own terminology. And you know, that's not the thing to do. That's yeah. So when you choose you, you lose me. And why I said that to John at the time, well, and I say that a lot, actually, more than I I want to, truthfully, is um I was continually being placed fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, hundredth in his life. Uh, that was the reality. Um, and so I I would watch him make decisions and do things at my expense. And so when you choose, you you lose me. And I began to uh step back to detach. Last season we talked about detaching, healthy detachment, and I began to set some healthy boundaries for myself. That um, well, truthfully, that that uh ticked, it did not impress John that my that I was setting boundaries for myself, for my safety, to protect my heart and to protect um my my mental health and my emotional health. Um there comes a point where when you're unable to speak to another person, your spouse, when when if I cannot express my feelings and needs, my emotions, what hurt me, and it not be seen as an attack. I am I'm unable to communicate with a person like that. When everything is an attack, if I express an emotion, that's an attack. If I'm hurt, that's an attack. If uh I get angry, oh, that's an attack. If I state a healthy boundary, hey, I don't feel comfortable doing this, that's an attack. Or rejection, boy, that's a big one in our relationship. Rejection. Everything I do is a rejection. And I I cannot I cannot be or do enough right things to uh for John to overcome that. That's something he has to work out in him, and so that's why part two. Um I hope to have him here. This is uh not a good season in his uh work life right now, as uh he is a CPA and up against filing deadlines. So um he's busily working on tax returns. Yee-haw. But when uh when we become selfish, we choose to turn inward, we begin uh blaming other people when we selfishly choose our needs and interests above. I'll just put me in as an example. I won't use the collective when I prioritize my needs over someone else's without consideration for their well-being, I lose a little bit in that relationship. And and hear me well, this is not a win-lose situation, and what I'm talking about here is you're pushing this other person away. I'm choosing in my relationship to step back when I have that happen to me. Um, because it's not safe in my mind, in my uh body, I can feel it in my body, my gut, boy, my stomach is it's like the telltale sign for me. When I begin to have tummy issues, something is wrong. And I have to step back and say, okay, what's going on? What am I missing? Or am I overthinking something? Is something really happening? Am I gaslighting myself? Did did someone else gaslight me? And I've learned to really honor myself and care for myself in a healthy way, not at the not to the expense of anyone else, but to really learn to love me, love Kim. And boy, this is that's a hard journey in and of itself. The selfishness that that this sentence, um, it's more entitlement, I think. It's a selfish entitlement mentality that I'm entitled to do whatever I want to do, uh, irregardless if it's going to, or regardless of if it will hurt you or anyone else. If it I'm just gonna go do what I want to do. And that is not um, that doesn't have any place in a marriage. There's a big difference in making mistakes, which we all do. I'm like the chief mistake maker, but there's a big difference between mistakes and chosen patterns of behavior that bring that dishonor God, that hurt God's heart, and it hurts our marriage. I can I can easily um understand a mistake. Absolutely. But that's humanness. Do we allow ourselves to be human? But chosen patterns of behavior that dishonor oneself, that dishonor a spouse. Heck, that dishonor ourselves. I choose to step back from there. Um I read a quote that says, People love to their level of self-love, they communicate to their level of self-awareness, and they behave to their level of healed trauma. And holy smokes. Um in trauma. Um, some our own self-doing and some not. When we continue in that, um, those behaviors, um, healing, boy, healing is so hard to come by. Healing will not take place if my spouse thinks everything I do is against them. Healing will not take place if my spouse believes I'm against them. Healing will not take place if I if my spouse continues to think that I do things purposely to hurt them. Healing will not take place if my spouse continues to view legitimate healthy boundaries as rejection. Esther Perels, she um in her state of affairs, the state of affairs, she wrote, she said, there's a quote that she said, healing requires the betrayer to sit with their partner's pain, not dismiss it as overreaction or punishment. That's tough. That's tough, it's tough to sit in our own pain, let alone someone else's. However, I I wonder if if we really understand the love that God gives to us and accept that. And can our partner do that? Can the betrayer um they first have to sit in their own pain? And then they can sit with their partner's pain. Boy, that's a big one to um you spouses out there that that have betrayed your partners, that's hard. It's hard, it's hard to um set your own stuff aside and not dismiss your your valid, your partner's valid pain as overreaction or punishment. John Gottman says that boundaries are the language of safety. To heal, the betrayer must learn to listen and not push back. Boy, that is so important. I know through our marriage, as I would push against John's raw spots, and I would call to account his actions that were hurting me. Oh my goodness. The pushback, the pushback that I received was tremendous. It was demeaning. Um it it it spoke to my identity that I was broken. I was the one to blame. And I owned that. I I owned that. I took that hook, line, and sinker for a very, very, very long time. Until one day I didn't. And that's um, I think, I think that's when the tide began to turn for me. When I decided that I'm not gonna play this, I'm not dancing this dance anymore. I'm gonna step out and find something different. We didn't have the internet at the time. I couldn't just go, you know, sit down at a computer and look stuff up. We didn't have that. Um, I wasn't available back in the day. And so I had to go off of what um what I knew, what I could find in books, what I would talk to my friends about, what I talked to counselors about. And even then, most of the counselors, well, all the counselors that I spoke with had no idea how to what trauma looked like. They were not trauma-informed, they were more biblical counselors. And um, if I would submit more, that that might help. If I wouldn't be so harsh or rough or uh they didn't come right out and say mean. Um basically enabling John to continue with his addiction that I didn't even know was an addiction. I had an inkling. I had um my gut, my gut told me something's not right. This is not right. And uh yeah, it's been a journey. It's been a journey for sure. The um how do you go forward when your spouse continues to lie and hide and deceive? Um, continues to uh play this tit for tat game of well, you did that, so I did this, well, you did that, so that gives me um reason to lie and to hide. Um, well, you did that, so I get to do this. How come how come you can do this, but I can't? That's not fair. And man, what selfish thinking that is. That's choosing yourself. And as the title of this episode says, when you choose you, you lose me. And if that's how you want to live, wonderful. Wonderful. Go live your life. Oh my goodness, please don't bring anyone else into your life. Because all it's gonna do is hurt that person, and you may not be aware of this, but you're hurting yourself. You're hurting yourself. Emotional maturity comes from accepting. Well, emotional maturity is accepting that no amount of explaining will make someone self-aware. Um, I have had long, long discourses where I am just saying all the right things, I'm using all the right quotes, um, I'm uh well, in my mind, I'm telling it like it is. Didn't make a hill of beans a difference. Didn't change anything. John didn't just go, oh, oh my gosh, Kim, wow, you said that so eloquently. I am going to change, and now I am totally self-aware because you said that. You told me you were hurting, and now all of a sudden my eyes are open, the scales have fallen. I can see.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, if a person hasn't done the work to sit with their own pain, they'll deflect yours. You can't earn empathy from people who don't have the capacity to offer it. And I want to say to the betrayed spouse, most of which are ladies. That it's okay to take a step back. It's okay when your emotional and mental safety is at stake. If gaslighting is off the charts, if lying and deception is rampant in your relationship, it's okay. Where your safety is concerned, it's okay to detach. I understand, and I validate that. We live, I I have lived in a crazy making relationship, and I'm just choosing to not. This season is gonna be a lot different. This the podcast will um it's gonna change a little bit. Uh we uh we talked a lot about you know how we got where we are, and but we haven't gone uh too deep. And I think it's time we stop playing the games. Life is too short, relationships are way too important, lives are at stake. We get hung up on our intentions instead of how we make other people feel. Heck, I hurt John. Well, I do it a lot, um, with uh something I did and I had I I apologized because I hurt him. Even if my even if my intention wasn't to hurt him, he still was hurt. And I didn't defend I didn't defend my actions, I didn't defend my intentions He's hurt. I apologize and understand how he feels. It hurts when someone when when you have a sense of betrayal, when you have a sense of um someone didn't, you know, honor me. I really like what Zechariah 8, verses 16 and 17 says in the New Living Translation. But this is what you must do. Tell the truth to each other, render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace. Don't scheme against each other. And I wonder if that sentence right there, don't scheme against each other. It starts in our minds, y'all. It starts, we start scheming in our minds. And God specifically says, don't scheme against each other. Stop your love of telling lies that you swear are the truth. I hate all these things, says the Lord. Wow. That is a powerful, those are powerful verses right there. Tell the truth to each other, be just work for peace. Don't scheme against each other. Stop the love of telling lies that you're swearing are the truth. God hates those things. Did you I I read this thing in my um at my doctor's office, and it says, love needs actions. Action. Love needs action. Trust needs proof. Sorry needs change. Love needs action. Trust needs proof. Sorry needs change. Wow. I've said um many times over John will apologize. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And my my phrasing of that is sorry stops. Two words. Sorry stops. If you're sorry, you stop doing the action that is hurting someone. Sorry stops. So I am uh rounding out this first episode coming up on. We seem to go a lot longer when John's here, I guess, um, because we kind of banter back and forth a little bit, and he's not here to uh I want to say reject what I say, but maybe he it's not rejection because that's what I was talking about earlier. Maybe it's um uh a little pushback. We have a uh uh, I guess, good um conversation that that sometimes actually we promote healing in our relationship when we um talk these things out, even while we're recording uh this podcast. So imagine that I uh I want to encourage healthy boundaries for both sides, y'all. Healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries, y'all, is choosing love in a relationship. May not seem like it, it's not a rejection. Boundaries aren't walls that it's not a wall to keep people out, they're bridges to build trust. And when a betrayer sees a boundary as a rejection, boy, they're missing a great opportunity for reconciliation. My boundaries are for me, for my safety. Not to keep John out, but as a way that he can build trust, and I can be safe during the time that it takes him to build trust. Healing, again, from Esther Perel's work, healing from betrayal begins with accountability. If the betrayer views boundaries as punishment rather than protection, they're still prioritizing their ego over their partner's pain. Oh, I gotta read that one again. Healing from betrayal begins with accountability. If the betrayer views boundaries as punishment rather than protection, they're still prioritizing their ego over their partner's pain. When you choose you, you lose me. Respecting a partner's boundaries after betrayal. Y'all, that's an act of love. That's not a concession. That's love. And I really like John Gottman. You can't heal what you refuse to understand. Boundaries are a cry for safety, not a rejection of love. And ignoring boundaries, ignoring this, stalls any chance of repair. Man. And also, you know what? If if when my boundaries are not respected, when they're dishonored, that just keeps a betrayal alive. That hurts me. It continues to foster distrust. And so I I'm gonna speak to the betrayers here. I I don't like that. The both spouses are hurting. I want to speak to the um, well, it would be the husband and our relationship. The person with sexual integrity issue that if you will just step back, take a breath, understand, listen to gain understanding, understand that your wife's anger doesn't equate to her being hateful or mean. It just means that she is upset at being mistreated, at being betrayed, at being lied to. And y'all, when that happens repeatedly, those wounds go deep. And you may have to have hard conversations over and over and over and over until you work it out. Until you get through all the hurt. And I know with John and I, there's a lot of hurt, both sides, both ways. A lot of hurt. And it's gonna take us. Good gravy. We'll probably go 10 seasons just working out our own hurt here. I hope it's I hope it's fruitful. I hope it's productive. I hope that it produces light and hope to those who are hurting. For those that are working through a ton of unresolved issues. Which, by the way, unresolved issues don't die. They just pile up. And I know in our marriage there's a heaping pile of unresolved issues that we, if we are gonna survive as a couple, we must work through. So, y'all, as the title says, when you choose you, you lose me. This is part one. I'm gonna hold over for part two in hopes that John will join in the next time. And um, I know, I know that I know he will have an interesting take on this. Um, that I will most likely, you know, I'll give him, I'll give it a benefit that I might disagree with. It's a possibility. We may have some uh what I hope would be healthy uh bantering that goes on on that. So I just want to leave you with a statement or four, actually three, three things that I mentioned earlier. People love to their level of self-love. If they don't love themselves healthily, boy, they they can't love anyone else healthily. People love to their level of self-love, people communicate to their level of self-awareness, and people behave to their level of healed trauma, and y'all, that is so true. Uh I I live it every day watching um well, watching myself, watching friends, family, others. Self-awareness is uh an amazing gift that God gives us. And I encourage you to grow that in yourself. It's an amazing, an amazing present from God that when we become self-aware, boy, it just enhances how we relate to other people. So, y'all, thank you. Thank you for listening. This go round episode one of season two. Wow, man, in the bag. And remember, when you choose you, you lose me. Guys, let's get out of our self-seeking, our self-prioritizing, our self-I don't know what another word would be, edification. Boy, let's seek the good of others. Let's listen to gain understanding. Let's uh work and grow our empathy, bone a little bit. And what if we put this tit for tat on the back burner and stop this? When you do that, I'm gonna I do this because you did that. Life is not a competition, it's not who gets to the end first. We're here to help each other, help each other grow. So that's all I got for y'all today. And thanks again for listening in. Blessings to you, and I will uh check in on the next go round. God bless you. 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 www.hurtmeetshealer.com. Until next time. God bless.

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Kim Capps

Host
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John Capps

Co-host