Caroline Madden - Blindsided by His Betrayal: Surviving the Shock of Your Husbands Infidelity (Surviving Infidelity, Advice From A Marriage Therapist Book 1)

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Blindsided by HisBetrayal:

How to Survive the Shock ofYour Husbands Infidelity

By Caroline Madden,MFT

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Publishers Note

This book is designed toprovide information and motivation to our readers. It is sold withthe understanding that the publisher is not engaged to render anytype of psychological, legal, or any other kind of professionaladvice. No warranties or guarantees are expressed or implied by thepublishers choice to include any of the content in this volume. Notherapeutic relationship is established. Neither the publisher northe individual author shall be liable for any physical,psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages,including, but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential,or other damages. Our views and rights are the same: You areresponsible for your own choices, actions, and results.

ISBN: 978-0-9861485-3-8 (EBOOK)

Summary: Marriagetherapists advice on how to survive the shock of a husbandsinfidelity

2016 by CarolineMadden

All rightsreserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic ormechanical methods, without the prior written permission of thepublisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied incritical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted bycopyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher,addressed:

Connie Johnston

Train ofThought Press

2275 Huntington Drive,#306

San Marino, CA91108

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Other Books By CarolineMadden, MFT

Fool Me Once: Should ITake Back My Cheating Husband?

After a Good Man Cheats:How to Rebuild Trust & Intimacy With Your Wife

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Table ofContents

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Your husband cheated on you, and now youdont recognize yourself.

You used to be so together, so trusting. Nowyoure falling apart and doing things you would have never evenconsidered doing, such as:

Obsessively checkingyour husbands email and Facebook accounts

Going through his cellphone history while he is in the shower

Freaking out if he is 10minutes late (or if you text him and he doesnt reply rightaway)

Questioning whether youare attractive

After a rare happymoment with your husband, getting really, really angry and ragingat him out of nowhere

Youre scared. Angry. Obsessive.Devastated.

One minute, you hope your marriage will makeit. The next minute, you want to kill him. (And the other woman,too.)

All of this makes you feel like you arelosing it. Sometimes you worry that you are going crazy. You wonderif youll ever be the same again.

I am here to tell you that you are notcrazy. You are having a normal reaction to an incrediblytraumatizing experience. You might not have considered yourhusbands infidelity to be a traumatic event, but thats exactlywhat it is, and your reaction is a completely rational and expectedresponse to such a painful experience.

Im here to help you figure out what to doas you deal with these explosive emotions. Its important that youunderstand that your feelingserratic and unpredictable as they maybeare normal. You need to understand why you feel the things youfeel and what to do with those feelings.

Ill help you do exactly that. My name isCaroline Madden, and Im an affair recovery specialist. Ive workedas a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles for overa decade, and in that time I have helped countless couples restoretheir marriages after infidelity.

Ive also helped wives decide when its timeto throw in the towel. While I am a pro-marriage therapist (meaningI work primarily with couples who want to make the relationshipwork), I recognize that not all marriages can be or even should besaved.

As a wife myself, I wouldnever tell another woman she should stay with a cheating husbandjust to keep the family intact. This is abook written by a woman, for women. To this end, I have made everyeffort to keep your needs in clear view.

This book does not take a position onwhether or not you should stay in your marriage. The suggestionsprovided here will help you get through this difficult time, evenif you decide to leave the marriage. It is geared towards helpingyou deal with your tumultuous emotions and make sounddecisions.

(That is covered in my book: Fool Me Once:Should I Take Back My Cheating Husband?)

Lets get started. WHY does his affair driveyou so crazy? You feel this way for some very good reasons

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Youve just discovered your husband has beencheating on you.

I wont mince words; this is probably theworst time of your life. You may feel like a nuclear bomb hasdecimated your world and you are freefalling, grasping forsomething solid and trustworthy to hang onto.

There are a variety of reasons why husbandscheat and a myriad of affair types. However, as an affair recoveryspecialist I can tell you one factor remains constant: all wives inyour situation lose a sense of self that is absolutelylife-altering.

Not sure what I mean?

Pull up a photo of you and your husband(make sure its from the timeframe during which you know he wascheating). Now look at it and take note of the feelings andthoughts that cross your mind.

There you are, the two of you smilingbroadly. As you look at this photo, you will inevitably think:

I thought we were happy, but he was cheatingon me.

How much of our relationship is a lie?

How did I miss this?

Can I trust my instincts?

If I didnt realize that my husband was withanother woman, what else am I missing?

The juxtaposition of whatyou thought was real and the truths you are now uncovering arebound to collide, causing you tremendous anguish. These discoveriesinevitably awaken a maddening need to determine what was real andwhat was a lie. You are trying to figure out the reality of theworld you actually occupied not the world you thought you were livingin.

But he probably didnt tell you the entiretruth when he confessed (or when you caught him). As you quiz himand dig into his electronic records, you discover more and morepieces of the puzzle. This further erodes your sense ofsecurity.

To make things worse, your husband mightquestion why you cant get past this. He doesnt understand whyevery new piece of information that you discover sends you back tosquare one (emotionally).

The problem is a common one: the affair haschanged you. Not only has it changed you, but it has changed therelationship in its entirety. Trust, security, dreams for thefuture its all up in the air now.

Summary: You Will Survive

You probably arent sure if the relationshipcan recover. That in itself is incredibly life-altering. However,whether the relationship survives or ends, you have been changed,and you need to learn how to survive with this new information.

Survival depends on understanding what hashappened to you and what you can do in response. Thats exactlywhat this next chapter explores.

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When you look in the mirror, you wonder whoyouve become. You used to be so confident and self-assured; afterall, you were sure your husband would never cheat on you. Other mencheat on other women, but thats because those women are crappywives and deserve it or because those women married jerks.