Is There Peace in Not Knowing? - Finding Real Peace After Betrayal

Peace that depends on silence isn’t peace at all—it’s quicksand. We tackle the hard question: is there peace in not knowing after sexual betrayal? Kim and John open up about the shaky calm that comes from avoidance, the simmer beneath a detente, and the moment truth—however painful—becomes the only solid ground. We don’t romanticize disclosure; we show how it spikes distress, then unlocks consent, clarity, and a path to rebuild safety.

We break down the difference between honesty and transparency. Honesty answers the question fully; transparency goes first, proactively naming slips, triggers, and financial or digital footprints so nothing lives in the dark. That rhythm creates safety, and only then can trust begin to grow. We talk about gaslighting and how it warps reality, why defensiveness protects shame but destroys intimacy, and how learning to sit with our own pain helps us sit with our partner’s pain without fixing, minimizing, or explaining it away.

Anchored in faith and practical tools, we explore boundaries that end enabling: formal disclosure with a professional, trauma-informed counseling, accountability systems, and community support. Kim shares the turning point of saying, “I love you, but I’m no longer interested in the life you offer if it remains hidden,” and how that stance reclaimed agency without revenge. We also address when full truth never arrives and how survivors can still heal—rooted in a God who sees what was concealed and offers wisdom for each next step.

If you’re navigating sexual betrayal, infidelity recovery, or the fallout of secrecy, this conversation offers language, structure, and hope. Expect straight talk on safety before trust, the cost and reward of truth, and the courage to live congruent with your values. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the one boundary or practice that brought you closer to real peace.

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.

Transcript

Welcome And Episode Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hi, and welcome to the Hurt Meets Healer Podcast. I'm Kim Caps, your host and president of Hurt 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. We are on episode 11 here of uh season two. I don't know how many total episodes we've done, but out of season two, this is number 11. And I've titled this one, Is There Peace in Not Knowing? Well, what do you think, John? Peace in not knowing what well, we focus on the sexual betrayal and the fallout of that and how to recover from that. And we've just been sharing our story and our journey, our experiences, uh, mostly the things of what not to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yes, I have a pretty good list of those things.

Is There Peace In Not Knowing

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah. Well, you know, we can all um, I'm not gonna disagree with you on that, but we all uh I have uh I admit that I have a lengthy list of things as well. So is there peace in not knowing? Well, I want to ask this question. If there were marauders coming to invade your home, would you want to know about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Why?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

So you can be prepared.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Would there be peace in not knowing that they're coming? Would you have this faulty, false peace?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yeah, it would be false though, because and you wouldn't be prepared.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

All right, and there's still stuff going on behind the scenes that you don't know about that are about to cause you some harm. Right. Or potentially cause you harm. So, in my opinion, the yeah, the big answer is a big no. There's not, not uh in a deep lasting sense. Um, we can fake it for a little bit, we can have this false peace, like you had said, and it can feel like peace for a while. I'm gonna air quote feel. But the surface level calm that comes from not knowing, you know, that term ignorance is bliss, is it really, is it really? It's it's short term because uh if you're ignorant, oh my gosh, please get educated quickly. And being unaware, which I will admit, I stuck my head in the sand for years because I knew, man, I knew something was off. I didn't want the impact of the truth that I suspected was um happening. Uh I actually thought it was one thing and it ended up being something else. So totally I was gut punched from from the betrayal, actually. And so I, you know, all those years I really thought I was avoiding shock and rage and humiliation, shattered self-worth, all the stuff, PTSD-like symptoms. Uh yeah, I wasn't. I had all that. I had all the symptoms of PTSD of stuff that like it had already happened, which is weird. Um, I've got to dig that out at some point. However, I would kind of put that on the back burner and keep the daily routines going. I had kids, you know, we had two kids we were raising, and well, I don't know where you were in the raising process, but um, I was with them a lot. And uh we would have some good times. Um, there was this sense of security. You would come home at night most of the time. Uh I may not, I would probably already be in bed a lot of those years. But there was still some some sense of security. And um yeah, just this false piece.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

It felt it's almost a detente of sorts.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Ooh, that's a word I don't know the definition to. Well it's it's uh it's uh Elizabethan.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

It it is um it's like you have uh you know the demilit demilitarized zone, you know, in north between North and South Korea. It's peaceful. Right?

False Peace Vs Real Safety

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Most of the time. I think there's still stuff that goes on there. But that's the thing. It's a false piece.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Yeah, it is because it's always just one thing away from an explosion. And that's that's the whole w if you're one bad attitude. If you're if you're hiding something, if you're listening and you're hiding something, you know the feeling. You you you might not really understand it, but but it is that feeling that it things can explode at any moment. That's the de detente that that not knowing causes.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Okay, I still don't understand that word, but okay. Thank you for bringing that word. I'm gonna have to uh do a little word study. Yeah, I'm gonna keep it in country girl English version.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

I don't know another word.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Oh my gosh, really? Detente? I'm like detone of 500. That's like a car race. It's like a debutante.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Put it this way. How about this? Here's here's a country boy version. It's an it is a very uneasy truce.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Hmm. Hmm, sure. Okay, I can I can uh relate to that.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Or from a cooking analogy, it's a simmer.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

It's always simmering. Ah right below the surface. It's always simmering.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

There you go. Yeah, because it's like this.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

It's like and it only takes quicksand, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

It's built on quicksand.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

It takes a tiny little bit of a heat and all of a sudden it's boiling.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, peace built on quicksand. That's how I'll I'll phrase it. Probably because betrayal is still happening, which it was in our relationship.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

And we already had and that's why you were experiencing those symptoms.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Right. Because we I continued to experience secrecy and hiddenness and uh being lied to. I didn't I didn't know at the time, I now can sense a lie and can see, and I found out pretty quick. At the time, for many years, I it was this man, I even hate to admit this. It was a purposeful, I'm just not gonna look at it. If I don't look at it, kind of like an accident, if I don't look at it, I don't see it, it didn't happen. Right? Kind of that type of thing. And that was not helpful or beneficial. And a relation, our relationship was already damaged from really early on from lies and um the secrecy, the hidden, uh just the hiddenness of everything. And I didn't want to feel that emotional pain. I didn't want to be hurt, I didn't want to um be in a failed marriage, you know, all those things that I lived through as a teenager. I didn't want to, I didn't want to go through that. And you're over there living a double life, you know what you're doing, I don't know what you're doing. Um I'm gonna guess here, you can speak up and and fill in my guessing here uh that you're um well I had it, and then I went on that little stink there. But so you're in your you're you know what you're doing, and oh yeah, you're deceiving, I believe you're self-deceiving. So you're on this journey of justification, well, and blame, and that's how a lot of people uh get away, not get away with it, but soften the blow on themselves. Although it it's a false, again, it you're living in false peace, if you will, because you're you know all the things that you're doing. You know that you lied, you know that. However, you can tell yourself, well, I didn't lie because I didn't, I didn't outright not tell the truth. I just didn't tell her everything. Right? So lying by omission, and then there were times you would outright lie to me, and then well, she didn't even know the truth. I'm protecting her feelings. Um, what were some of the things you told yourself along the way? She didn't need to know. That or she's mean, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

She's gonna get upset, it'll it'll blow things up, yeah. Things will yeah.

Gaslighting And Sanity Slippage

Thirty Years And Compounded Trauma

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So most of the time, I'll say most of the time, we know something's off. We can sense it, even if we can't name it um and give a definition to it. And that just creates, like you said, this simmering. It is simmering, it is simmering for us as the betrayed spouses. It calls into question our sanity. Like the because there's a lot of gaslighting. No, you didn't see what you thought you saw. Let me explain it. I had a lot of that happen. I'm like, wait a second, I know what I just saw. Why are you telling me I didn't see what I saw? But I didn't have a word to, I didn't have a definition, I didn't understand what that meant. Um, am I imagining things? Am I crazy? All these thoughts. That's not peaceful at all. And eventually discovery happens or disclosure. Eventually, the truth's gonna come out. A fair statistically are hard to hide forever. Y'all, we live in this uh eye in the sky society, eagle eye. If you ever, that's a movie, right? Yeah, there are cameras everywhere. Y'all, there's phone records, there's uh friends around, there's subtle changes in behaviors, there's disease. So many things that give clues that will eventually lead to the truth surfacing. And I know for us, because it was 30 years, it was right after our 30-year anniversary, that made it worse. Thirty years, thirty years of invested time and life and love into a relationship that was a lie, it was built on false premises. And when I would reflect on that, man, it was just this realization of man, I thought we were, you know, at least mostly in it together. I thought uh we could figure it out, and it just compounded my trauma. Number one, that you could keep stuff hidden from me for that long, that you had that ability that I honestly sitting here today scares the pituchas out of me. However, I know I say it scares the pitukas out of me. The fact that you can, you have that ability is frightening. However, I am a lot more stronger now. My bucket of suck made me grow, I grew big strong muscles, and I know that I have a good strong group of women around me that I can absolutely call in a heartbeat. I have a great counselor, and I know that will it hurt? Absolutely, but I will be okay. I will be okay. Not because of anything you do or don't do. So however, just know I have certain things and I have ways of knowing. By the way, there's this thing called the Holy Spirit. I'm talking to John, y'all. We're looking at each other. Um, funnily enough. Yeah, don't you hide behind my monitor. Um, this thing called the Holy Spirit. Uh, I question a lot of times where he is in you. Like, is he down in your pinky toe? And he's so far down you can't hear him. Is your heart really that hard? But I talk often with my heavenly father, often. That's been a bonus of this journey, by the way, is my relationship with God has grown so immensely wonderfully um deep and real. And you know, he tells me things. So just know that if you're a Christian, your daddy doesn't like what you're doing, and he will let somebody know you you will be found out. Matter of fact, he says that in his word. Just so, anywho, uh so it's better to come out sooner rather than later. Man, you could go ahead. I hear you, oh, you're sighing, oh you're yawning. Am I boring you? No, so sorry. But yeah, it's the that compounded the trauma, right? All the the length of that, and then choosing ignorance or forced ignorance is it just signals it, usually it signaled for me low self-respect. I did not respect myself. That's one thing I'm working on is being kind to myself, allowing myself to be human, not that, not to go, oh, I can go sin and I'm okay because I'm human. Not that, but to hurt, to feel the feelings, to um not be so hard on myself, not let myself get away with things that I ought not to be getting away with, but to not beat the poo out of myself for a mistake. Right? So patterns develop from mistake after mistake, then it becomes habit developed into patterns. A mistake is a one-time thing. I don't have to, I can be soft on myself on that. And so when um when I chose ignorance, I was basically consenting to live in that deceptive reality, and I was consenting to what you were doing by pretending that everything's fine. And holy moly, man, that just that doesn't work, y'all. It doesn't work. That's self-deception, and it does not uh bring peace, but it's just a form of self-deception. Where do we get true peace? Trust, yeah, from being congruent, yeah, authenticity, being transparent, being open. The intimacy pyramid right here starts with honesty first, safety, trust. And I would say honesty and transparency, you have to go hand in hand. When you're honesty is when you're asked a question, you answer it honestly, you answer it truthfully. Transparency is being proactive. Hey, um so-and-so sent me this email, has this dirty picture in it. I did not look at it. I I popped up, I immediately sent it to the trash. Here it is. I'm coming forward with this. I'm just letting you know because I don't want to hide anything from you. This bill came in, it was absolutely unexpected. I totally forgot I had done XYZ and I was not forthcoming on that. Here, that's transparency. Being open, being honest, coming forward, getting being proactive about that. And that, guess what begets the big word safety? And when there's safety in a relationship, then there can be trust. Trust can begin to be built. Not that, oh okay, I'm safe now, and so I trust you. Nope, that's not how that works. Well, not with me, anyway. You have to build trust. There have been so many um, yeah, broken trust, just too much, too much to uh to put in a bucket, my bucket of thug. So moving right along. So true peace comes with trust and authenticity. You can't have that when one of the people in the relationship is breaking the foundation. There's no calm there. The faux peace, if you will, of not knowing is more like numbness, numbness, numbness. Woo, that could have come out very wrong there. Numbness or avoidance, yeah, rather than peace. And real peace comes from a faithful partner, which we didn't get. So, how can you bring peace into this? It's knowing the truth, being able to make an informed decision. Because when we are kept in the dark, when we're kept in this um fake peace or even unpeaceful, chaotic situations, our choices, when our spouses act out, our choice is removed. We didn't choose to look at the things, we didn't choose to sleep with another individual, we didn't choose that. Yet they did. We didn't choose for our spouse to go outside of our marriage. Our choice was taken away, and so knowing brings back um our choice, our sense of self, our we get to choose now what to do with this information that we have. Whereas when we don't know, we can't do anything about it. You can't forgive, even, because you can't forgive what you don't know is happening. So um yeah. And I would say if you're getting defensive when confronted or when asked about things, you know what, here's something to try. Be transparent, be honest. The best defense against defensiveness is transparency. Has that worked for you?

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Yes. On the limited occasions that I've employed that. Right. Unfortunately, I you know have been defensive a lot.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah. What's what purpose did that was behind that? What did you gain? What what did you think you were gonna gain? Not what did you gain? Because That's a whole nother box of worms to open. What did you think you were going to gain from being defensive?

SPEAKER_02 22:09

To tell my side of the story when what I began to understand was my side of the story doesn't matter. And so I uh oftentimes thought that I was simply being misunderstood and that was simply me risk misreading the situation and not understanding your pain.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

You thought you were being misunderstood?

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

And so that I would get defensive trying to defend my an undefendable position.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Instead of just allowing you to express your pain and coming alongside of you and but and it goes back to I think what I was saying in our last episode about sitting with learning to sit with my own pain. And as I've learned to do that better and better, I've actually been able to learn to sit with your pain better and better.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

And I wouldn't say that I do that well, but I'm learning to do that better.

Faith, Intuition, And Being Found Out

Honesty, Transparency, And Trust

SPEAKER_00 23:34

That's awesome. Yeah. And you know, it goes on on both both sides, the betrayer and the betrayed. There's no peace in for you in not knowing how to deal with your emotional state and with all the traumas that happened to you. There's you don't have peace. And so because you don't have peace and didn't have peace, you cause chaos in our lives. And I think I grew up in chaos because it seemed normal to me. And it I don't know, I think I wanted better. I wanted different. And I guess I just gave up at some point thinking, well, whatever. You know, I'll just live my life out, get the kids out. And honestly, I had planned on leaving you when the kids got out of high school. Once they went to college, I'm like, well, you know, I'm gonna grow my business and I'm out. That's where I can find peace. Because I there I had gotten to where even I didn't know what was going on, what you had been doing, done, and been doing. Um our relationship was just it was its own bucket of suck. It was not good. Oh my gosh. So many things that were just not good. It was not peaceful. I wasn't enjoying being in relationship with you, and it seemed you weren't enjoying being in relationship with me, right? Although you weren't ever around. So yeah, I don't know. I wanted you around, but it was this whole thing, but you knew what you had done. I didn't. You knew all the things that you had hidden from me. I didn't. And I still didn't want to continue a relationship with you because of how you were treating me. And so, yeah. When the kids got out of high school, I was gonna Idios amigo, and or maybe it was college, because that would have been about right. Or getting close to that, that yeah, the thing was about the end of their college days, that um I was ready to pull the trigger. I think my business was going really well. I had, you know, lots of clients and things were rolling pretty well, and so I just wanted some some kind of peace. And and I was willing to um leave to get it because I wasn't getting it. You weren't coming forth with information. I had asked you and asked to please stop, stop hiding, stop lying, stop making these decisions without me, and you just wouldn't. I I don't know what profited what profit you got from that, but um I hope it was worth it. Um I it was not worth it for me, I can tell you that. And there's there's long-term cost to, I know there's long-term cost for me for keep keeping my head in the sand. I can't go back and change the facts and um the fact that I stayed, which next episode we're gonna talk about why did I stay? Um there's yeah, there's I can't go back and change anything about the past. What I can change is what I do from today forward. And so I still have consequences and cost. I'm still paying the cost of choosing to bury my head in the sand. Um, it gets less and less as I heal those places, as I allow God to heal the places in me that are hurt, that are broken, that um are I even self-inflicted my own wounds at times. So healing can happen. I'm I man, I hope I say this every episode. There is hope, y'all. There is hope. Good groups, there are a lot of them out there, good counseling, a lot of it is out there. I want to encourage if you go that route, make sure that uh you choose trauma-informed people that understand the the tough, tough road of recovering from sexual betrayal because it is hard. It is very, very hard. Um, now, and I will say this so there are studies that um can tendue to, well, they're consistent in highlighting the effects of discovery, and maybe that would be a fear of not knowing. Because you can go out there and find all these studies of oh, they discovered this, and well, now they've got depression, they've got this and that, it blew their marriage up. It's um, however, I think we can reframe that. I know we can, I don't think. I know I've lived, I'm living that to reframe that into knowing instead of ignoring, but knowing that that information, finding out I can create a path to eventual healing and empowerment instead of avoiding the um the discovery side of things. The sometimes you can't avoid discovery, that discovery happens, but the avoiding the not knowing. Um that ignorance is bliss, big fallacy. And what I realized is that it protected John more than it was protecting me, and I became an enabler. I became an enabler in his acting out and continued the deception because I enabled it, and that's something that I that's one of my hurts that I've got to work through and um work on forgiving myself for, and realize that, oh my gosh, well, I'm I was human. Of course I didn't want to hurt, of course I didn't want to know that my husband was sexually betraying me, of course. However, I'm thankful that I know now what I know because now I can have and have developed a true sense of peace that came from facing reality instead of ignoring it.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

And I think our relationship is better now than it ever has been.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Well, it's getting there. I mean well things have not been it it's not well looking at it re realistically, things haven't been great.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

No, they haven't. But it is it's honest. It we have we have um we're able to have conversations that we never used to have or be even be able to have.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Okay, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

And that's intimacy. It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

No, it's not intimacy. We don't have intimacy yet. We don't have complete honesty or safety or holy balls, it trust.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

Okay. It's it is a level of intimacy that we haven't been at.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

There's a speck. You can see it from here, maybe. Okay, or maybe that's intimacy to you. It's not my definition of intimacy. Okay. What it is for me, when I take a risk to be vulnerable with you, it's a risk that I'm gonna get slammed in my lady balls and rejected.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

And then I have to choose to what to do with all that. And so um, and there is still in my from my side, a big gap of uh an honesty bucket that needs to get filled, so that safety can be had, so that then trust can be restored, be begin to be rebuilt.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Then vulnerability comes. Just because I can share a feeling or something doesn't mean vulnerability exists, and then intimacy is there. Right. And by the way, sex doesn't equal intimacy.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

That's a that's a physical act. That's not intimacy as far as intim.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

And and I don't want you to hear that I think our relationship is good. I I'm just saying we're at a point where we're progressing in being able to be open and to say hard things to each other, with each other, and and not as as it relates to calling each other out or anything like that, but just to share hard things that we're going through that we're feeling and thinking.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Well, I do have to call you, uh hold you to account on things. Now, one thing that I've pushed back on is you holding me accountable. I'm at a point right now where I cannot receive that with enthusiasm or even the slightest bit of acceptance. I cannot receive that from you. Now, I do receive that from other ladies that I go to because I you you might be surprised to hear this. I tell on myself because I really want to be a better human being. And so I tell on myself to get um informed, to get a feedback. And for them, and a lot of times they've said, oh, well, what do you think would have been? Could there have been a better way to say this? Or what about this? Or what if you did this? They didn't, you know, it's not a tell me what to do, but I tell on myself because I want to be better. I want to expose this stuff that's dragging me down, you know. Had I not exposed my health issues last year, I wouldn't be a healthier person today sitting here.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Right.

Choice, Consent, And Informed Decisions

SPEAKER_00 35:33

And you know, and it started from a horrendous infection. And had I not taken that horrible pain that I had to go through and said, you know what? This signals that something's amiss in my body and I'm gonna get some help. And chose to, even though I have to take medication for it, I ended up with an autoimmune disease that will never go away, by the way. You know, it won't ever be healed. I can put it into remission, it can get better, I can feel better, and I do, but I'll take medicine, I'll take this medicine for the rest of my life. And I've had to come to peace with that and come to understand. I didn't know that I had this autoimmune disease for years. I had all these symptoms, all these signs. Like wasn't, you know, now that I know, oh, well, that'll make sense now. And it's the same with the hiddenness of the betrayal. It's it's okay now that I know. And we'll get into this more next time when I talk about why I stayed all these years. Because our first few years were, well, you know, the first 36 years and a half. In May, it'll be 37 years. So I'm still hanging with 36 and a half. Because the even the the past year has been, oh my gosh, what the what, John? It's like, well, what benefit it I yeah, maybe one of these days we'll uh we'll get to what benefit all your uh behaviors and thoughts were uh yeah, wouldn't that benefit you? Anywho, peace in not knowing, y'all. For me, the answer was no. It didn't help me to not know. Has it been a very painful, very rough uh recovery road? Absolutely, yes, it has. And I can tell you that today, in 2026, this I have more peace today than I think I've ever had in my entire life. Because I know, I know that I know that no matter what happens, I now have tools, I now have strength, I have muscles where I never had muscles before. I have a dedication to reality at all cost. And I can change the the uh projection and projectory of my future. Regardless of what you do, John, regardless of what how you chose you choose to shoe show up, I still get to choose for me. Period. And that's where that's where I land on all this. What do you last last thoughts? We're actually gonna maybe end up less than 45 minutes on this one.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

I I I agree um that the peace, you know, the absence of conflict is not peace. Um and sometimes peace only comes through the conflict. And and that's not necessarily conflict between us, but fighting through issues together. And um gosh, I've been such an avoider of that to my and our detriment. And that is a regret that I have. Not a you know, something I beat myself up over, but it's definitely something that I've recognized as a as a character flaw that I want to heal. And so I've I've really been working on how to be healthy in situations that I used to view as conflict. Yeah, and because that's not peace. The absence of conflict is not peace, the absence of knowledge is not peace. The end.

Defensiveness And Learning To Sit With Pain

SPEAKER_00 40:19

All right, thank you. Yeah, and here's here's a harsh and uh sad reality is that some of y'all may never know the full story. And my question to you is will you choose to walk your healing journey in spite of not knowing the full story? I think that, well, now I may contradict myself here. I think that even if you don't get the full story, you can heal. You can walk the path of healing. And it here's one thing that I know for sure. I've lived this. I can't, I can't demand that you, John, give me any information. I mean, I can demand it. You're you you have the free will and free choice to choose whether to, you know, be open, honest, and provide safety, be transparent. Uh, I can request, but I can't force anyone to tell me the the truth about what they've done or not done. Uh, if they want to live in denial, which if you want a little uh an acronym, an acronym. What is it anyway? Denial. You can take those letters and it means don't even notice I am lying. Denial. Don't even notice I am lying. They want to live in denial. Is that my problem to manage? Or can I um refocus my attention on my healing journey? If I'm gonna stay in relationship, maybe I should have caveated this at the beginning. If I'm gonna stay in the relationship with this person, there is not peace in not knowing. I believe there has to be a disclosure that takes place at some point, or the earlier the better, by the way. If if you're walking through divorce, if the person has passed, how do you find peace then? And that's where I believe God is our trustworthy, he's sovereign, and he knows all that's happened, and he can give you peace in that journey. And that's where we when we seek him first, seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you. And my prayer on a daily basis is God, give me wisdom, give me the knowledge. I don't want to hide from you. I want a peace, I want a life of peace, and then you can go into this hole. I could go down this rabbit hole of the suffering and but that's not what we're talking about. We're gonna stay on this betrayal and the trauma associated with it. And you know, there comes a point too where if your spouse is unwilling to um give you a disclosure. To be honest and open and give you the truth. At some point, you may, I had gotten to this point, and this I think is another pivot point in my life, where I just said, John, I love you. I love you. I'll love you forever. But I'm no longer interested in the level of life you have to offer me. I'm I'm not gonna ask you to change anymore. I'm I'm tired of attempting to force change. But I really need you to understand. You can do whatever you want to do, how you want to do it. I'm just not gonna participate in that. You're not gonna do that with me. I'm stepping out. And when I can do that, not out of vengeance, not out of uh fear, but in true um congruency with who I want to be, that I'm not gonna participate in enabling bad behavior. That's not, I'm just not gonna do that. I bring my own peace in my life. And I believe that's what God, God, I want to think that that's what he says to us. You know what, Kim? I love you. I'm gonna love you forever and ever. I sent my son Jesus to die for you. But I'm not gonna approve of this behavior that you're exhibiting. That does not exemplify, that doesn't reflect the image of my son. And so I'm here to change you if you want to be changed. And oh, my dear daughter, you have that free will to do what you want to do, how you want to do it. But God says, You can't do it with me. I love you, but I can't participate and be an enabler in sin. And he has healthy boundaries on that. And I'm reminded of the prodigal son. Did the father go chasing after him? What did he do? The the son asked for all his stuff. Give me my fair share. I'm out. What'd the dad do?

SPEAKER_02 46:33

He waited. He let him go.

Numbness, Avoidance, And Reclaiming Self

SPEAKER_00 46:35

He gave him all the stuff, right? Gave him what he asked for. And he watched him leave. Broke the dad's heart. And then he waited. And he waited. And he waited. And he waited. He didn't beg the son, just come to your senses. He didn't even go out looking for him. He didn't go hunt him down. He waited. And he watched. What a great picture of our Heavenly Father. He allows us to cause such devastation. Not only in our lives, but in the lives of others. But there can be change. And the story is when the son came to his senses. And he even said, I'll just ask my dad to be, I'll just, I want to be a servant. You don't even have to call me your son anymore. I just don't want to live in this pig slop anymore. He was starving. And God lets us get to the end of our rope. He's waiting for us to be obedient. To make the effort. God's not, he doesn't do it all for us. And so betrayed spouses. It's okay to set these healthy boundaries. We don't have to chase after our wandering spouse. We can stand in the security of who God says we are. We can stand in his promises. And I say this a lot. I am the daughter of the king of heaven and earth. John, you can act however you want. But I am not going to participate in things that will hurt and damage. Not only our relationship, but my relationship with my Heavenly Father. So y'all, you can have peace. In a marriage, you that there has to be a clean slate. It has to, all the stuff has to come out for there to be peace. So that's where I'm going to land on that today. Um good with that there, John?

SPEAKER_02 49:46

I'm good with it.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

Anything any last comment to say?

SPEAKER_02 49:53

There it as painful as it is and was, there is peace in telling the story. So if you're struggling with that, just know that freedom comes with a price. And buying I don't know if we don't have enough time to unpack what I'm fixing to say, but buying back into your marriage comes with a price. And that price is honesty. And it's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yep. You can make that one of the episodes. Y'all, thank you for listening today. I hope that you find some bit of information in this that will help you. Um just find some resolution, some peace, some understanding, and that your journey will um take you places you never ever expected God to show up in. And he will. Um, there is help out there, y'all. So many groups. You can go to our website at hurtmeasehealer.com. We promote and partner with Living Truth and Brave Hearts, both have great groups that you can join. There's also some great counseling and coaching out there. I encourage you, get some help, get into community. That is such a um wonderful, wonderful, eye-opening, validating experience that will change your life. I truly believe it, and I champion that. So thanks, y'all. 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 www.hurtmeetshealer.com. Until next time. God bless.