Can I Stay With Someone Who Broke My Heart?

Can you be with someone who broke your heart?

Today we're going to talk a little bit about the process of healing after an affair, after some form of betrayal, and if it's possible to have a good relationship after there's been this big breach of trust.

What's going on you guys? Today we're talking about how to heal after having a broken heart, and if it's even possible to stay with someone after they've cheated on you, or after they've broken your heart.

This is an interesting question because when you talk to most people, most people will say something before they've been betrayed that, “I would instantly leave the person that betrayed me. If I ever get cheated on, I'm out of there. I'm gonna leave.” That's a common statement that most people would say in the context of the relationships.

What we know is that the actual truth is that about 70 percent of people who are betrayed, where there's infidelity in a relationship, actually choose to stay in the long run. And there's some research that actually shows that those who choose to stay often do better than those that choose to leave.

Now with that said, there's a couple of things that need to be talked about in the context of what makes it possible to stay and have a good relationship.

To preface this, I've worked with a lot of couples. I've experienced some of these things myself. I've been the one who's caused the problems in the relationships. And what I will tell you is, that if certain principles get followed, it's entirely possible, not only to heal your relationship, but to have something that's far more than what you had in the first place.

The trick is that it takes two sides, doing lots of work, over a long process to get to that point where you have a relationship that you've always wanted—of depth, and connection, and trust, and commitment, but it is entirely possible.

Back to the beginning. You're probably watching this video because you or somebody you know is struggling with having been betrayed. And right now, the world feels like it's upside down. It's gone crazy. You feel like you're an emotional roller coaster and you can't really manage all the things you're trying to figure out emotionally. Should I stay or should I go? Do I need to know more truth than I already have? Am I stupid if I stay? Am I going to get betrayed again? What else don't I know? All of these things are probably running through you, and right now, your life is probably in crisis.

So, the first thing that has to happen is that we have to learn how to manage the crisis itself. And this is going to be done through some heavy self-care—meaning, I'm going to be taking care of myself emotionally, intentionally, on a regular basis, with the limited energy that I have.

That could be anything from a hot bath, to a walk with a friend. Go get a pedicure. Some type of self-soothing. Any form of grounding exercises that we can talk about in other videos. Other skills that you can use for grounding. You want to be able to ground your system and help the system of your body to relax. And if you get good at those skills, it helps to keep the roller coaster down that you're on. And then it allows you to start to see the landscape of what's really going on in your lives so that you can start to begin to make the right kinds of decisions for whether or not you should stay or you should go.

Here's the recipe for how to stay.

First, I take good care of myself and in taking good care of myself, I then start to set proper boundaries around my values about how I'm going to be treated, and the things that are okay with me inside my relationship. As I start to grow into those boundaries, those boundaries become an invitation to my partner to either make the changes that they'll need to make in order for our relationship to work—or not.

And in doing that process, I'm becoming stronger, either way. It's giving my partner a chance to do some of the healing work that they need to do and do some of the restitution work that they need to do. And it's growing me into a place of clarity and strength.

Eventually, you can get to a point where your choice to stay is now one from a place of strength and clarity and understanding, rather than out of fear or shame or doubt. So, either way you're better off whether you choose to stay or go, if you do that work of grounding, self-care, get clear, set some boundaries.

Working with couples, we look at it from a perspective of three recoveries that need to happen. There's HIS recovery. There's HER recovery. And if both people end up doing their recovery, then we can have OUR recovery.

So, what are the elements of HIS and HER recovery to get to OUR recovery? Things like education. Both of us need to be educating ourselves about the things we're dealing with, the struggles that we're facing as a result of the things that we've gone through. We need to be learning about the landscape that we find ourselves on.

This can be done through things like this—watching podcasts, listening to podcasts, reading books. Lots of good books out there. Visiting with a therapist. Getting an education. Education is power. Once I have education, I need to be living principles of wholehearted living, principles of accountability, principles of humility, principles of connection.

And we talk about connection three ways—connection with a higher power or God, connection with other people through authenticity, and accountability, and empathy. And then, also learning skills to connect myself—heart and mind—being able to operate from a place in my life where my mind and my heart are connected, and I'm living a life of intention.

If both of us start to do those things, then we also build in a team—people we can rely on, people that we can trust, people that we can go to. Because, as things come together in your relationship to try to save your relationship, the fact is that there's been so much trauma and there's not much trust yet, that it will likely break down. And, when it breaks down, you want to fall into your team as a landing spot.

That team will be someone who's getting educated with you, someone who provides empathy, but someone who pushes you to back in towards what your goals are. And then you'll come back together and you'll practice that over and over again. Work on my relationship till it breaks, set my boundaries, go to my team—over and over again. And in doing so, you give yourself practice in the relationship to see if there's going to be commitment towards that practice. And trust then becomes re-established with the right kind of effort and commitment over time.

Time also does something else—maybe the biggest factor is the biggest healing balm towards healing your heart. When we have things happen in our lives, we go through these things that cause us grief and pain, one of the best things that we can do for ourselves is to allow ourselves the time that it takes to let all of those emotions move and let ourselves heal. So, continued action over time is what does the healing.

If two people do those things, it establishes groundwork to be seeing that we can be trusted, that trust can be re-established. Trust allows us to be vulnerable with each other and we know that vulnerability is the key to the deepest level of connection.

And that's why I say all the time that people in recovery make the best wives, mothers, husbands, fathers, because they've been willing to deal with their struggles. They've been willing to live a life of accountability. And they learn how to stay connected to the lives that they're living. Who doesn't want to be married to that person. So, the betrayal has happened. If those factors are in place, you can have something far greater than you even started with over the course of time.

The flip side to that is this—is that if I do all of my work, I will be in a better place but I'm also going to be needing my partner to do their work. And eventually, if my partner doesn't do their work, eventually I'll be strong enough that I'll have to break that bond and allow myself to move on with my life so I can protect my values. You will still be better off having done it that way than making a decision on a knee-jerk reaction because of the pain that you're feeling.

So, is it possible to stay with somebody who's broken your heart? The answer to that is an absolute, resounding, yes. If you've got two people who are willing to put in the hard work to deal with the pain and the blood and the sweat and the tears and have the guts to stick it out, yes! Absolutely you can have everything that you want in a relationship.

Thanks a lot. Have a great one.

Thank you so much for being here with me. If you found this to be valuable for you, please hit the like and subscribe button. If you're facing particular struggles that you need help with or roadblocks that you're running into, please submit a question. I'd be happy to answer it for you.