In this episode, we take a look at the Involved Partner’s responsibility in healing a relationship after their affair. Tim Teder talks with Dr. Deb Miller, a long-time psychologist who has shifted her work away from traditional affair repair and toward something often overlooked: the inner work of the person who broke trust.

Deb shares why an apology alone is never enough, and why real healing requires the unfaithful partner to take an honest look at their history, emotional patterns, and blind spots. Many people—especially men—struggle to examine their past or name their emotions, not out of malice, but because they were never taught how. Deb explains how understanding family-of-origin messages, past relationships, and even what felt “good” during the affair can become powerful clues for real change.

Together, Tim and Deb explore what meaningful remorse actually looks like, why empathy—not defensiveness—is the bridge back to trust, and why change is not a one-time event but an ongoing practice. They also talk about the balance of individual and couples work, the long shadow an affair can cast, and how couples can grieve the relationship they thought they had while slowly building something new.

Deb is the author of More Than Sorry, a guided journal designed to help unfaithful partners move beyond surface apologies toward genuine accountability and transformation.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Deb Miller’s Website and Book information: DrDebMiller.com

Understanding WHY Course with Coaching

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

Want to be a guest on The Affair Recovery Room? Send Tim Tedder a message on PodMatch.

Staying after an affair is only the beginning. Real healing requires clarity, courage, and collaboration from both partners. In this episode, Tim Tedder and Nancy Pickard explore what the Injured Partner needs for genuine healing—truth, boundaries, trauma care, forgiveness, and a meaningful role in building Marriage 2.0.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Web Page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/042

Nancy Pickard’s Resources

Truth Talk Courses: Truth Talk—Asking Questions, Truth Talk—Giving Answers

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

Want to be a guest on The Affair Recovery Room? Send Tim Tedder a message on PodMatch.

Discussing the difficult decision to leave a marriage after an affair. In this second episode, counselors Tim Tedder and Sharon Barbour discuss grief, shame, coparenting, starting new relationships, and the religious issues that sometimes surround this choice.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Article: If Your Marriage Dies, Don’t Pitch Your Tent in the Cemetery

Article: How to Talk to Children about Divorce or Separation

Coaching Information: Sharon Barbour, Tim Tedder

Want to be a guest on The Affair Recovery Room? Send Tim Tedder a message on PodMatch.

Affair recovery counselors Tim Tedder and Sharon Barbour talk honestly about the difficult decision to leave a marriage after an affair. In this first episode of a two-part series, they explore the importance of timing and indicators that leaving may be the healthiest next step.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/040

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Coaching Information: Sharon Barbour, Tim Tedder

Collaborative Divorce Information

Episode Reference: The Ping Pong Effect

Want to be a guest on The Affair Recovery Room? Send Tim Tedder a message on PodMatch.

Are you interested in a regular, online group conversation about recent Recovery Room episodes, hosted by Tim Tedder? If so, we need your input.

Fill Out the Survey!

More Info: https://affairhealing.com/livechat

Tim Tedder sits down with psychologist Bruce Chalmer, a longtime couples therapist who helps partners navigate betrayal, conflict, and change. Bruce shares why he sees infidelity not only as a crisis, but as a powerful turning point for learning, meaning, and growth.

A central theme of the conversation is Dr. Chalmer’s understanding of faith—not as religious doctrine, but as a mindset that accepts reality as it is and remains open to meaning even in pain. He explains how this orientation helps couples move beyond the desperate wish to “go back to how things were” and instead face the deeper questions betrayal raises. Tim and Bruce explore how rigid beliefs can sometimes block healing, while curiosity and humility open the door to transformation.

The conversation also touches on forgiveness, grief, and the tension every relationship faces between stability and intimacy. Bruce outlines his three-step view of forgiveness and clarifies what forgiveness is—and is not. He also introduces ideas from his book The Passion Paradox, which examines how real intimacy requires tolerating uncertainty, especially after betrayal. This episode offers a steady, compassionate framework for anyone trying to make sense of infidelity without rushing toward easy answers.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Page: https://www.affairhealing.com/podcasts/039

Dr. Chalmer’s Website: brucechalmer.com

Dr. Chalmer’s Book: The Passion Paradox

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

Want to be a guest on The Affair Recovery Room? Send Tim Tedder a message on PodMatch.

As an author and therapist specializing in affair recovery, Linda MacDonald never imagined she would face the very crisis she had spent years helping others survive. But when she discovered her husband’s affair—and then heard him say he wanted a divorce—she found herself living the double trauma of betrayal and abandonment.

In her book Redeeming the Post-Affair Divorce, Linda writes candidly about that painful season, the unraveling that followed, and her gradual return to healing and faith. In this podcast episode, Tim Tedder talks with Linda about her journey and what she hopes others might discover for themselves along the way.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Free Bonus Resources from Linda: lindajmacdonald.com/free

Book: Redeeming the Post-Affair Divorce by Linda MacDonald. (See Tim’s review.)

Book: How To Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald.

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

Want to be a guest on The Affair Recovery Room? Send Tim Tedder a message on PodMatch.

Another collection of the best clips from our podcast episodes in 2025, with comments from Tim Tedder. In Part 2, we hear clips from these episodes:

Episode 17: ILYBINILWY

Episode 6: Gaslighting

Episode 14: 6 Affair Motives

Episode 9: Lovely Fruit (SongTalk)

Episodes 19-20: How to Sleep Again (free resources)

Episode 24: Stop Repairing Your Marriage After an Affair

Episode 34: Married to a Narcissist (free resources)

Episode 35: The Fog and the Light

Episode 23: Light of Grace (SongTalk)

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Webpage: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/037

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

A collection of the best clips from our podcast episodes in 2025, with comments from Tim Tedder. In Part 1, we hear clips from these episodes:

Episode 8: It Feels Like Love: The Power of Limerence

Episode 10: Crossing the Line: Steps Into Infidelity

Episodes 2-4: Elisa’s Story

Episode 13: Haunting of My Heart

Episode 21: The Problem of Forgiveness

Episode 22: The Power of Forgiveness

Episodes 30-33: Kevin Leaves

Episode: 28-29: Bad Advice about Affair Recovery

Episode 5: This Healing Place

LINKS and EXTRAS

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

Most affairs don’t begin with a dramatic decision. They begin with something small: a conversation, a shared laugh, a spark of attention that feels harmless. In this episode of The Affair Recovery Room, Tim Tedder explores what happens in those early compromises, when two competing messages show up at the same time. One speaks from the Fog of Self-Justification. The other speaks from the Light of Love’s Promise.

Through a story featuring Mark, his wife Cindy, and a coworker named Emma, you’ll hear how subtle choices can drift toward betrayal. Along the way, Tim breaks down the psychology of self-justification and how our minds protect our self-image by rewriting the stories we tell ourselves.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode includes audio dramatizations that could be activating for betrayed partners who are struggling with affair triggers. Portions of today’s content also appear in my article: Consider Your Compromises. Engage with this material in the way that feels safest for you.

Finally, Tim offers four practical steps you can take if you find yourself (or your spouse) wandering into the Fog—starting with revisiting your vows, examining where you’ve honored them or neglected them, and inviting a new kind of conversation in the Light. The episode ends with a steadying question that cuts through rationalization: If a light were shining on this choice, would it look like the love I promised? Would my partner agree?

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/035

Free Fog & Light Exercise

If you’ve crossed a line in your relationship and don’t fully understand how you got there or how to change things, you don’t have to figure that out alone. Let me help you RENOVATE.

Recommended Course: Building Us

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.