Straight Talk for Wives Podcast Episode 006:
How to Repair Your Marriage Connection After An Affair or Other Marriage Crisis -Part 2 of 2
Show Notes:
8 Realistic Expectations During The Healing Process
A while back my daughter broke her elbow while riding her dirt bike. Once it happened, the next several months were turned upside down with doctor appointments, diagnostics tests, & physical therapy.
If you’ve just experienced a marital crisis like an affair; expect that the next several months and even few years will be turned upside down as you go through the process of healing your marriage.
* Expect this process to need immediate attention
When my daughter broke her elbow at the dirt bike track, we didn’t just give her an ice pack, offer a couple of pain pills and continue our day of riding. Nope, we immediately packed up and headed straight to the doctor’s office.
You will need to do the same. You will need to give this situation your immediate attention. Delaying will only make things worse. Just like delaying immediate attention to a broken elbow will potentially increase odds of permanent damage; delaying attending to a broken marriage will do the same.
2. Expect the process to be messy
Chances are pretty high that your home life is going to feel overwhelming during this healing process. When our daughter broke her elbow, the doctor had to do some special x-rays to see exactly was broken so they numbed up her whole arm and proceeded to put it in all kinds of different angles so the he could get a good look at the damage. This was very painful and took a long time.
The same should be expected for you. Your marriage has just experienced a devastating injury so you should expect it to feel a bit chaotic and overwhelming.
3. Expect my emotions to be irrational
While our daughter’s emotions were mainly agony from the pain, and quite a bit of disappointment that she would not be able to participate in a big race due to this injury; expect your emotions to be off-the-chart even totally irrational.
Don’t be surprised if you go from shear anger, to a wailing baby curled up in a ball on the floor. Your emotions will be very raw and extremely sensitive exploding from unknown triggers on any given day.
4. Expect things to get worse before getting better
Luckily our daughter did not have to have surgery to fix her elbow but sometimes that is necessary which makes things even more complicated.
Expect for things to get worse before they get better in your marriage after a major crisis. Just expect it. You both will be unpacking and digging deep into all the broken parts of your marriage which will bring to the surface probably many issues that need to be addressed and resolved. This can often make you feel like things are actually getting worse when in reality this is part of the very necessary healing process.
5. Expect to need outside support
Just like our daughter could not fix her elbow by herself nor could we as her parents even fix it, she needed a doctor who had the necessary skills and experience to fix it.
You, too will need outside support during this time of healing. Time alone will not heal it. You need counseling and if possible get into a support group if your church has one. Whatever you do, do not expect to be able to go through this alone. If you live in Southern California within driving distance from the Mission Viejo area, click here to find out how to attend my support group.
If you do not live within driving distance, sign up for my weekly emails and I will keep you posted when I start scheduling live Q&A sessions online.
6. Expect it to take a long time
Our daughter was in physical therapy for several months. However, you should expect to need counseling for a minimum of one year. DO NOT,
