Affair Recovery, Infidelity & Betrayal

The Questions Everyone Asks After Betrayal (But Are Sometimes Hard to Put Into Words)

The questions after betrayal begin long before you say them out loud.

After betrayal, the questions don’t stop. They wake you up at 2 a.m. They loop in your mind while you’re driving. They rise in your throat… and sometimes you’re too afraid to even ask them.

Why does this hurt so much?
Will I ever trust again?
Should I stay or leave?
Am I broken?
Will I survive the answer?

In this powerful, nervous-system–aware episode, Lora answers the most common questions people search for after infidelity and betrayal — not with platitudes, but with grounded insight, lived experience, and deep compassion. More importantly, she helps you listen for the question beneath the question — the one that’s really asking:

Am I safe? Am I going to be okay? Can I trust myself again?

If you’ve ever Googled your pain late at night, wondered how long healing takes, or feared that asking the wrong question might make everything worse, this episode is for you.

You are not wrong for having questions.
You are not weak for needing reassurance.
And you are not broken.

Top 3 Takeaways

The question beneath the question is always about safety.
Whether you’re asking why it hurts, how long healing takes, or whether you should stay or go — underneath it all is a deeper question: Am I safe? Can I trust myself again?
Healing is not linear — but it is possible.
The nervous system needs time, regulation, and support. Feeling better is not the same as feeling regulated — and that distinction matters.
Trust is rebuilt inside you first.
You cannot rely on your partner to restore your safety. Rebuilding self-trust, alignment, and internal steadiness is the foundation for everything else.

Favorite Quote

“The most important work after betrayal isn’t answering the loudest question — it’s listening for the question beneath the question.”

In This Episode, We Explore:

Why betrayal hurts more than you imagined
Why your nervous system feels overloaded
How long healing really takes
Why “stay or go” is often the wrong first question
Why triggers persist (and what they actually mean)
Whether relationships can truly recover
Why you might be afraid to ask certain questions
How to listen for the question beneath the question

Couples Q&A Invitation

If you’re in a relationship and have questions about rebuilding trust, repair, reconciliation, or what’s realistic after infidelity, we want to hear from you.

Lora and her husband, Sean, will be recording a special follow-up episode answering your top couples questions — not as experts pretending it’s easy, but as two people who have walked this path.

Send your questions to:
📧 Lora@LoraCheadle.com

Ask the real ones. The awkward ones. The ones you’re afraid to say out loud.

You don’t have to stay shattered. Download your FREE Betrayal Recovery Guide and come back home to yourself with clarity, confidence, and unshakable self-trust.

Calm the chaos inside & out

Break free from the trauma bonds

Stop the spiral of second-guessing

Call back your power, self-trust, & self-worth

Ready for More?

I'm Lora Cheadle

I’m Lora Cheadle, JD, CHt—a betrayal recovery expert, attorney, TEDx speaker, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal. After uncovering my husband’s 15-year affair, I turned my own pain into purpose, helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, power, and joy. As a trauma-aware coach and somatic therapist, I blend legal clarity with emotional and spiritual healing to guide women toward full-spectrum recovery.

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Get the Transcript

Speaker A [00:00:03]: Take a breath before we dive in. I mean, literally sit back and take a breath. You are listening to this show, you are listening to this episode because you have been through something traumatic, something wildly destabilizing. That invokes grief, loss, fear, shame, and I think most significantly identity loss. So it’s normal to have questions. It’s normal to have so many questions after betrayal. And that’s what I really want to normalize during this interview. I want to normalize having questions, and I want to let you know that in a lot of regards, the questioning never really stops because there’s always something more. Speaker A [00:01:12]: But what I also want you to know is while the questions don’t stop, they do change. They soften. They evolve. And the questions really— honestly, I can say this both from my experience and from working with so many women, men, and couples— the questions are what define you moving forward. And the higher quality of questions that start evolving, the more growth you have as an individual. And you really are in for a ride. And I know you’re probably like, oh really, Lora, did she just say that? Yeah, I did just say that. Because what I mean by that is You were in for an experience, you were in for a ride. Speaker A [00:02:15]: And while you think it’s going to look one way, and while you think it’s going to produce a certain result, what I’m going to say to you is it’s going to be different than you think. It’s always different than you think. And not to Pollyanna, this, because there’s nothing, there’s nothing positive about this in the moment. At the end of the day, you will be okay. At the end of the day, you will be safe. At the end of the day, you will trust yourself at such a deep, profound level. And no, you’re not always going to feel like this. No, you’re not always going to be triggered and sad and scared. Speaker A [00:03:09]: You will be fine. You will be so much better than fine. So again, settle, drop into your belly. If putting your hand on your belly helps, put your hand on your belly. If you feel like shuddering or crying, go ahead and cry. If you’re having one of those reactions where I just have to move, go ahead and pace or run or shimmy or shake. Do what you need to do to regulate your body, because today I’m going to answer your top questions. I’m going to answer the most common questions both that people are searching for online and the questions that they are asking me when we get together in an introductory session or when we begin our work together and we start this journey. Speaker A [00:04:14]: So yes, these are the questions that show up on Google, on YouTube, and in private sessions, and chances are these are the questions that you have had to. And what I want to do is I want to answer them, obviously with honesty, but also with nervous system awareness and compassion. Because I know there were so many times, especially when I was early on in this journey, where I would have this question and I would desperately want to ask it, but I was also terrified of the response. Because I knew what I wanted that response to be. And I found myself kind of caught in that in-between place of, do I really want to ask this or not? So rest assured, the answers will all have that level of nervous system safety. And I also want to give you full permission up front, if you need to pause and reregulate, pause and reregulate. If you need to come back to the show in a week, come back in a week. It’s always going to be here. Speaker A [00:05:26]: But every question, every question that I’m going to present to you today and then answer, I want you to hear it in a slightly different way. I want you to hear it not only on the surface level, like, here’s the question, But I want you to think about what’s underneath that question, because what’s underneath all of these questions is a question about safety, about trust, about self-trust, about am I going to be okay. So as we go through everything today, I want you to hear the questions on two different levels. All right. Are you ready? The first question, why does betrayal hurt so much? That is the number one question that people type into Google at some point during their betrayal recovery journey is why the heck does this hurt so much? Because most people don’t think about what it would really feel like. When people think about infidelity or betrayal, they go right to, well, I would leave him. Well, I would never do this. blah, blah, Well, blah. Speaker A [00:06:50]: And they go right to a judgment and an action. They don’t go right to that sense of your insides crumbling. As your— the world crumbles around you. Betrayal hurts so much because it comes from the people who we trust the most. And in movies, TVs, books, all of that, when we think about betrayal, we don’t think about the impact of the person closest to us hurting us. We see it from that like once removed perspective of that’s, you know, that’s a horrible thing and I would just walk away. We don’t see it from that personalized space. So then when it happens to us, we are wholly unprepared because we never think it would happen to us. Speaker A [00:07:54]: Now there are situations where people will say, Oh, I kind of maybe suspected it. And even when you kind of maybe suspect it, you still don’t really think it’s going to happen to you. Now, moving deeper though, what is under that question? What is under the question, why does betrayal hurt so much? What you’re really asking is, why does this feel so big? What’s wrong with me? Nobody talks about this. Nobody talks about that internal shattering, that sense of crumbling. Nobody talks about the fact that I can’t eat and I can’t sleep and I can’t function. So clearly something is wrong with me. Hence hopping online and searching, why does this hurt so much? What’s wrong with me? And the key points that I want to share around that is first, nothing is wrong with you. It hurts so much more than you realize, and it’s supposed to hurt so much more than you realize. Speaker A [00:09:03]: The other thing is betrayal is a rupture of your reality. It’s not just a rupture of the relationship or the finances. It’s your reality. You lived in this reality where you thought you had each other’s backs. While sure, we were having marital troubles, or sure, we had this conflict, you never really thought somebody was doing, doing this. And like in my case, it was 15 years. So 15 years of my life came to the screeching halt, and I had to think back over the last 15 years and be like, who, who were we? Who was I? Who was our family? Betrayal ruptures your entire reality. It destabilizes your internal map of the world. Speaker A [00:09:55]: And it’s not just your relationship. Like, if you have kids— I had kids— it’s the parenting relationship, it’s the extended family relationship. It makes you question vacations, holidays, anniversaries. It’s Everything. It also destabilizes your view of what it means to have each other’s back, of what it means to be married, of what it means to be partners. It destabilizes like, why was I trying so hard if they weren’t? It breaks everything. And because it breaks everything, not just the romantic relationship, but everything, your nervous system is in an extreme state of threat. So think about it like this: if you’re standing in the middle of the road and a bus is barreling at you, you are in immediate threat for your physical well-being. Speaker A [00:10:56]: I have to move my physical body out of the way. You’re not sitting there thinking, I wonder if my mortgage check is going to clear this month. You’re not thinking, I wonder what I’m gonna do when there’s not food on the table. You’re not thinking, oh my gosh, how am I going to co-parent? And what’s gonna happen on holidays? You are not thinking, do I have enough in my retirement account? You’re not thinking, how do I divide this, that, and the other thing? You’re thinking about getting your body out from in front of the bus, right? But with betrayal, it’s not just a bus that’s coming at you. It’s all those things. So as the bus is coming at you, you also have to figure out finances. You also have to figure out custody. You also have to figure out where am I going to live. Speaker A [00:11:43]: You’re also thinking about all of these things at the same time. You’re also thinking about things like, do I have an STD? Do I need to be tested now? You’re like, all of the things. Hit you at once. So your nervous system goes into overload, overdrive, to a huge extent because it touches every area of your life. So if you think about a cell phone battery and running a whole bunch of different apps When every single app is closed on your phone and you’re not on it, your battery lasts forever. But if you have your step counter going, and if you have Zoom meetings going on and off, and if you have your mindfulness app pinging you, and if you are doing some Voxer coaching with Lora and you’re doing some Marco Polos with your friends and you’ve got all these apps going on, you’re going to drain that battery much more quickly. And I love that analogy when it comes to betrayal, because it’s not just one app you have open. The sexual betrayal, the relationship betrayal, ping, all of a sudden at the moment of discovery, everything lights up. Speaker A [00:13:12]: Every app opens up and your battery drains quickly because now you’re thinking about 400 things instead of just one thing. So why does betrayal hurt so much? Whoa, totally unexpected, destabilizes everything, and puts an enormous drain on your nervous system. So what I want you to know is nothing is wrong with you. When your body shuts down, it’s like your phone shutting down. It’s trying to protect you. When you are non-functioning, There’s nothing wrong with you. Your body is shutting down because you can’t function and do all of that. And what I want you to know around that too is that’s why talking isn’t always enough. Speaker A [00:14:06]: That’s why talking about it sometimes can feel more triggering. That’s why leaping into marriage counseling— hey, let’s just go fix this— doesn’t really work because that is opening yet another app, so to speak, that is draining you. Your body needs time to recalibrate. You need support in shutting down apps, metaphorically. You need someone to say, let’s do some triage here. What do you need to do first? What can wait until next week? And most importantly, how can you calibrate yourself right now? All right, question number 2: Will I ever trust again? Will I ever trust again? Will I be able to be in a relationship again? Will I be able to trust the world again? The question underneath that though: Can I trust myself again? If this happened to me and I didn’t see it coming, how can I be so stupid? What was I missing? How can I trust myself? How can I determine good from bad, right from wrong, truth from fantasy? How can I do that? That’s the question that’s really under that. I love answering this question because trust isn’t rebuilt by promises. If your partner is like, but I’m never going to do it again, and I’m so sorry, that’s great, but that does not rebuild trust. Speaker A [00:15:47]: Words do not rebuild trust. Just like words and talking about it doesn’t rebuild nervous system safety, words do not build either self-trust or relational trust. Trust is rebuilt by a combination of consistent, consistent actions, consistent behaviors, consistently showing up in different ways. But trust is also— and not a lot of people talk about this— built by self-alignment. My husband— we are still together, if you’re new to the show. Yes, he cheated for 15 years with 5 different women, and we are together, and we are happier and healthier than before in ways that I never saw coming. But the trust was rebuilt because he showed up differently every single day. He just last week held space for me in a way that he would not have been capable of holding space before. Speaker A [00:16:53]: And when I thanked him for that and it was like, do you see what you did? I was in a really bad mood on Friday and you literally put your hand on my back and you just held me and you let me vent. Whereas 10 years ago, you would’ve poked at me, you would’ve prodded at me, you would’ve provoked me, and then I would’ve lost it and we would’ve been in a fight. That’s a change that has taken place over the last 8 years, not overnight. People don’t just suddenly learn how to hold space and show up differently. It’s small, consistent actions every single day. It’s doing 1% better every single day. It’s sure, maybe you could have a backslide, a small backslide in the moment, but it’s that consistent moving forward. It’s that consistent change of action, change of behavior, change of attitude. Speaker A [00:17:54]: He does not tell me, I’m never going to cheat on you again, because words don’t matter. It’s what he does that matters. And then that self-alignment— I have to stay in alignment with me. You have to stay in alignment with you. You need to learn how to be true to yourself. You need to learn how to have your own back. You need to learn how to keep the promises that you make to yourself. Yourself. Speaker A [00:18:25]: Because when you are in that state of knowing who you are, knowing what you want, knowing what you will and will not tolerate, then it’s easy to trust again because you know you are never going to betray yourself again. And I want you to think back, not from a place of judgment because we’re all doing the best we can at the time, But think about all the times you where, know, you’ve said something like, I’m never gonna put up with this, or I’m not gonna tolerate this, or this isn’t gonna work for me for long. But then you keep staying and keep staying and keep tolerating. And that is so common. We get out of alignment with ourselves. We make excuses. We think, well, it’s just this one time only. And then 10 years later, we are so far away from who we are that quite often it takes something like infidelity to bring us back into alignment with ourselves. Speaker A [00:19:27]: Okay, the third question: how long does it take to heal? Oh my goodness, I get asked this one all the time. How long does it take to heal? Because we want to know, because it feels so bad. Just like the stages of grief, it— healing is not linear. And yes, there are very predictable stages, but nobody can tell you how long you’re going to spend in each stage because it depends on so many different factors. So no, there is no universal timeline. What I do like to say is generally the first year Objectively is really hard because it’s like the year after a death. It’s the first holiday with, you know, with this knowledge. It’s the first situation with this knowledge. Speaker A [00:20:21]: That first year tends to be really hard. The next year is significantly better. However, it’s still the year of firsts. In a weird way, because the first year is like that trauma year, and then the next year is the first year in the rest of your life. And then after that, it definitely gets a lot easier. What I also want to say though is feeling better is not the same as feeling regulated. And it’s okay to feel better, and it’s normal to feel better in one moment and then completely fall apart in the next moment. It is a roller coaster. Speaker A [00:21:13]: It’s just that the highs and the lows slowly get smaller, and the length of time between those intense mood swings tends to lengthen. So feeling regulated really means, oh, I can tell that I’m getting anxious, I can tell that I’m getting sad, I can tell that I’m getting triggered and angry. And that there’s enough of a pause in that moment for you to say, I gotta pull out a tool. I’ve worked with Lora long enough, I know breathwork tools, I know tapping tools, I know mini meditation tools, I know self-hypnosis, I know how to do somatic processing, I can do a vagus nerve reset. Like, I’ve— in my toolbox I have 30 different tools and I can pull any of them out. And there’s that gap in time where I recognize I’m about to lose it, and here’s the tool that I can use. And then you regulate yourself again and you can move on. Feeling better is kind of to the point though that you don’t really necessarily think too much about it anymore, that it’s a part of your life, but it’s become normal And instead of consciously thinking, oh, I’m gonna use a tool, oh, I’m about to use it, you just do those things naturally as part of your life. Speaker A [00:22:34]: Whether it’s sitting up and doing, like, one of the things that I teach is the double inhale and the long exhalation where you go, you don’t think, wow, I’m having a buildup of carbon dioxide and it’s making me stressed and I really need to exhale. I’m going to do this breathwork technique. You just do it and it’s part of your daily flow and you don’t even think about it. So you’re constantly regulating yourself and you just feel normal. And here’s an important part of that too, because this is all about the question beneath the question. What is the question beneath the question of how long is it going to take to heal? Think about that one. The question under that is, am I broken? Am I going to stay broken forever? Did this experience fundamentally change me as a human? Am I ever going to get through a day without crying? Am I ever going to not throw the affair in his face again? You are not broken. You will get through the day without crying. Speaker A [00:23:51]: You will get to the point where throwing the affair in their face doesn’t make any sense and you have no interest in it. You are not broken. Your healing timeline is unique. And be sure to get the help that you need. Some people need medication. There is no shame in that. Some people need a complete break. No problem. Speaker A [00:24:19]: No shame in that. Some people need to lean in. Some people need to take time off of work. Some people— like, it doesn’t matter what you need. Get the help you need, whether it’s a coach, whether it’s a therapist, whether it’s a friend. Do whatever it is that you need to do, which leads to the next question: should I stay or should I leave? I want to slow way down here. The answering the question, should I stay or should I go, is something that I don’t really want you to think about for the first year. Now, there are situations, there are circumstances where your partner chooses to leave and the decision is made for you, where you are not safe emotionally, physically, whatever, and you do need to leave. Speaker A [00:25:22]: However, if you were in a position where you are the one making the decision, oftentimes I say please wait a year before making any life-altering decisions. Slow it down. Ride this out. And here is why: decisions made from a place of dysregulation tend to cause more chaos. Decisions made from a place of dysregulation tend to cause more chaos. If you leave in anger, if you make huge changes because you’re so hurt, humiliated, embarrassed, whatever, chances are high that your nervous system isn’t completely regulated, which means you are not in the prefrontal cortex, which is the rational, reasonable thinking portion of your brain. Instead, you are back here in the survival portion of your brain. And you are not seeing the full picture clearly. Speaker A [00:26:36]: I know this because I made some decisions in those first few days that I would have not made if I would have given myself a little bit of time to reregulate and to move back from the survival portion of my brain into the prefrontal cortex. Safety and clarity come before decision-making. You need to keep yourself safe. You need to find some peace and some clarity and to take care of you, your heart, your mind, your nervous system, your body before you make any life-altering decisions. And do I stay or do I go is often the wrong first question. The first question is, how do I find safety? What do I need in this moment? Who can I count on for support? Where do I need to go to be safe? What are some tools that I already have that I know work well? What are some other tools that I can learn that I can implement quickly to find a little bit of peace and calm in the more— in the moment? And what do I need to do to stay steady and safe through this? That is a much better first question than do I stay or do I go, is what do I need to do to feel steady? What do I need to do to process some of this right now? Because sometimes having a grounded outside perspective can slow the process down in a way that helps you. And not throwing shade to attorneys, I am one, but if you go to an attorney’s office, oftentimes they— it’s not that they will pressure you to file, but if you go see an attorney, they will help you by helping you file. If you go see a marriage counselor, they will help you And again, I’m putting help in quotes by being like, hey, let’s bring both of you in and talk about it. Speaker A [00:28:48]: You know, there are certain things that people will do when you seek them out that is forward-leaning, but it could be a forward lean in the wrong direction. See an attorney, yes, to find out what the laws are in your state, find out what it might take to file if that is what you choose to do or if your partner files, see a marriage counselor to find out what are some things that you can do for yourself. What are some things that you can do to not make the damage worse in this moment? But having people outside of you who can slow the process down and not try to solve the problem right away, I think is one of the most beneficial things that you can do. And that’s again what was the most helpful for me and what I do a lot in my introductory sessions. We slow it down, we get to the real first question, and we create a timeline for everything else. So when you start making decisions, you’ve got your full brain on board, you’ve got your nervous system regulated, and you are not creating more damage to the relationship. You are not creating more chaos and damage to your life, to your heart, to your kids, to your family, to all of that. And again, the question under that so often is, am I screwing up? Like, should I stay or should I go really means, am I screwing up? Because I don’t want to be stupid. Speaker A [00:30:41]: And I think in answering that question, I don’t want to be stupid, then slow it down. Slow it down, back off, don’t be rash. All right, question number 5. Why do I still feel triggered? Why do I still feel anxious? Why am I not feeling better? Why can’t I let this go? Trauma memories live in the body, not just in the mind. You can’t talk your way out of trauma. You can’t think your way out of trauma. And you certainly can’t decide your way out of trauma. You need somatic processing. Speaker A [00:31:29]: You need somatic tools. You need to use the body. The trauma is lodged in the body, so you need some body-based therapies to move that trauma out. Triggers are unfinished protection loops. Triggers are unfinished protection loops. What I mean by that is something happens and your body flies into high gear. It needs to protect itself. But betrayal and infidelity are unique in that when you find out your partner is cheating, Usually the injury happened a long time ago, a few months ago, a week ago. Speaker A [00:32:22]: Unless you are walking in the room where your partner is actively engaging in this moment, there is nothing that you can do to complete that trauma loop. It’s the learned knowledge of something that happened in the past. That is creating the trauma. So your brain can’t loop and complete that. So think about that. I mean, how horrific would it be to walk in on somebody? Horrific, right? But in that moment, you see it, you experience the, the trauma, you yell, you kick, you move somebody out, you have that physical reaction, and you make yourself safe. So your body is doing something versus reading an email, seeing a text, having disclosure. All of a sudden you’re getting all of this information in this moment and there’s nothing that your body can do with it because it’s in the past and it’s not happening in front of you. Speaker A [00:33:24]: So that’s why these triggers keep going because the body’s like, I’ve not resolved this yet. I haven’t resolved this yet. I still can’t resolve this. This is not resolved. What do I need to do? I need to resolve it. And it’s the body desperately trying to resolve that trauma. Again, this is why somatic therapy, somatic processing, using the body is so helpful. And I also want to reassure you that this kind of hypervigilance, it’s not a weakness. Speaker A [00:33:55]: You’re not broken. Your nervous system is fully intact. That’s why it’s trying to process this. That’s why it’s desperately going back and going back, because in a sense, your nervous system is like, I can do it this time. Give me the thread again. This time I can complete the loop and I can make it— I can make it okay. Triggers don’t mean you’re failing. They mean that something inside of you needs integrating. Speaker A [00:34:24]: Something inside of you needs integrating. It wouldn’t keep coming up unless it needed integrating. And I can’t tell you how much I do that with people, like, let’s complete that trauma cycle, let’s complete that loop, let’s give your body some satisfaction and some resolution so your nervous system can finally exhale and drop. Question number 6, one of my favorites: Can a relationship really recover? Can my relationship really recover? Yes, absolutely yes. However, and it’s a big however, it takes two people. And I want to be really clear about that because I strongly do not like some of the things that I see online that lead people to believe they can do it on their own. Save your marriage all by yourself. No, you can’t. Speaker A [00:35:34]: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. You can do a lot of things that could provoke a positive change in your partner. But you cannot change another person. On top of that basic premise that you cannot change another person, typically people who cheat are cheating because they are the ones who are broken. They are the ones who have whatever it is— unresolved trauma, uh, lack of empathy, maybe some borderline personality stuff going on. Like, healthy, whole people don’t cheat. Flat out, healthy, whole people do not cheat. People who are fully resourced don’t cheat. Speaker A [00:36:21]: They just don’t. They don’t need to. So if you know going in that the person who cheated has got some stuff going on, why would you think— why would anybody think then just by changing your behavior you can change them? This is some psychological stuff. This is some deep stuff. Yes, you can show up differently and it can inspire somebody to be different, but if somebody cheats, they need help. I’ve said this a million times, the person who cheats pretty much always needs therapy, and the person who is cheated upon, the betrayed partner, pretty much always needs coaching. It’s that coaching and the therapy that really works. It’s the therapy that figures out why did I do this, why did I cheat, why did I put myself and my relationship and my family at risk, why did I do that. Speaker A [00:37:22]: That’s therapy. That’s getting into the deep dark psyche in their childhood and figuring out their trauma. That is what therapy is for. When you have been betrayed, you need coaching. How did I abandon myself? Where can I have stronger boundaries? Where am I a perfectionist? How am I seeking to please? Where am I tolerating more than I should? That’s coaching. What do I want going forward? How— what am I going to do with this poop sandwich that was handed to me? That’s not therapy, that’s coaching. So can a relationship recover? Yes. And let’s also put some parameters around that. Speaker A [00:38:06]: Yes. If your partner is willing to go into therapy, if your partner is willing to look at themselves, if your partner is willing to show up differently, absolutely. And if your partner is still being defensive and if your partner is judging and blaming and saying it’s you, and if they’re unwilling to look at their self, then no, absolutely not. Can the relationship recover? So it really depends, but can it? Yes. Not only do I have a healthier, happier relationship, but many of my clients do too. And no, it doesn’t happen overnight, but when you were each elevating, when the person who cheated is getting their stuff and their issues worked on and they’re showing up differently and you’re becoming a clearer, cleaner version of yourself with not permeable boundaries and you’re not seeking to please and you have your own life and all this stuff going on, the relationships that can be created, oh my goodness, are so, so good. And yes, I work with couples navigating this, and I also work individually, both with the betrayed partners and the betrayers, because here’s the thing: accountability and compassion really can and should coexist. And something I hear a lot from the betrayed partners is they appreciate that I have compassion towards them. Speaker A [00:39:33]: I’m not seeing them as the bad guy. I’m not shaming them. I understand, and I’m honoring them and their work while at the same time not bypassing the damage and the pain that they caused from their actions. So can relationships recover Yes. And the question under that is, will mine recover? And that’s one of those things that, yeah, I can look at that and I can say, mm, yes or no. If this person is showing up and you each want this, then yes. And no, if it’s one-sided, here are the things that you can do and here is where you should draw the line. Are you ready to move on? Question 6. Speaker A [00:40:19]: Um, nope. Question 7. Why am I afraid to ask questions? Why am I afraid to ask questions? I said this at the beginning, and that is so often we’re afraid of the answer. We wanna know, but we’re afraid of the answer because you can’t unsee things. You can’t unknow things. So when you’re asking your partner questions, it is wise to think about, is this an image that I want in my head forever? Is this knowledge that I want in my head forever? And some people are like, hard no, hard pass. And other people are like, I need to know everything, even if it’s painful. And that’s again, something that we can talk about and I can help you hash out. Speaker A [00:41:10]: But it’s also something I want you to honestly think about for yourself. And it’s not like you need to know everything now. Titrate what your nervous system, system can take. Maybe in a month you’ll wanna know more. Maybe in a year you’ll wanna know more. Maybe at that point it’ll be irrelevant. Your emotions are tender. Honor that. Speaker A [00:41:36]: Tenderness. Not knowing can feel safer than knowing, but also be mindful where you might be hiding or ignoring. So hold yourself with equal parts compassion and strength to go forward, because part of healing really is learning how to ask and when to ask and how not to ask and when not to force the answer. And again, the question beneath the question of why am I so afraid to ask questions is usually a question of what should I do and am I going to survive the answer? What should I do and am I going to survive The answer, and that’s real. Am I going to survive this? I don’t know about you, but I thought about that so many times. And not only am I going to survive this, but why, God, do I have to survive this? And it’s in that space, I want you to know that if you’re in a relationship, if you are separated, if you have questions about trust or repair or rebuilding or what’s realistic, any of those things, if you’ve got questions that aren’t covered here, send them in. My husband and I are actually going to hop on another episode and we’re going to answer the top couple’s question in an upcoming episode, not as experts who are just pretending it’s easy and who are going to be prescriptive, like, just do this and have a date night, it’ll be great. But we’re going to talk to you about a couple who, as the couple who walked it, we’re going to answer your questions as us. Speaker A [00:43:50]: So share this with your partner. Sit down together. Come up with the questions that maybe you’re embarrassed to ask somebody else. Come up with the questions that you’re scared to ask each other. Send them to me, Lora@LoraCheadle.com. It’s L-O-R-A loracheadle.com, and we’re going to answer those questions. And I’m not sure if it’ll be a week out, 2 weeks out, just kind of depending on the number of questions. And also, if you’re listening and you’re thinking, I don’t need any more answers, I need support, I need someone to hold me as I walk this journey. Speaker A [00:44:45]: I need support. I do want you to know that I’m here. Yes, you listen to me on the podcast, but I’m also here to support you on Zoom in a confidential, private, high-touch, deeply resourced way. I work one-on-one every day. With betrayed partners, with couples, and yes, with the partner who did the betraying as well. And that’s actually one of my favorite ways to work because, because I’ve got the empathy, but also because I am so big on the accountability at the same time. I’m totally low pressure. I’ve walked it, I’ve lived it. Speaker A [00:45:34]: Sometimes my husband and I do sessions together, depending on who you are and what you need. So if you want to explore what getting support would look like for you or for you and your partner, schedule an introductory session at introductorysession.com. It’s literally that easy. We hop on Zoom. It’s $97. We talk about it. And we figure things out. Like I was saying at the beginning, you have to ask the right question at the right time. Speaker A [00:46:08]: And like I said, that one question of do I stay or do I go, that’s premature at the beginning. I will help you figure out the timeline. This is what you need right now. This is what you don’t need right now. Here is how to prepare and preserve and be able to come back to things. But let’s make this journey as easy as possible. Let me give you the route so you’re not constantly hitting roadblocks and dead ends and making things worse. Because oh my gosh, that is a big part of it is not making things worse. Speaker A [00:46:49]: And like I said, there are so many things if I knew then what I knew now, I would have done differently. So reach out, you, you and your partner, or send your partner to me, introductorysession.com, and let’s just go through this. So in closing, because there’s a lot, there’s a lot that I want to circle back to, the questions after betrayal don’t disappear. So many people will say to me, like, when will it ever stop? Because I’m exhausted and asking all these questions, and my partner, they’re starting to get irritated because I keep asking questions, and they never get any peace. And then they feel like they’re being hammered on. Practical tool. I’m going to give you a practical tool and a motivational tool. The motivational Insight on that is the questions don’t really disappear for a while, but they do evolve and they get softer and they get deeper and they get richer. Speaker A [00:47:57]: And asking the questions eventually helps calm and re-center your nervous system. And if you are partnered up, the questions also bring you closer. My husband and I are 8 years out and the questions and the conversations that we have now are very enriching in a lot of ways. And again, they’re giving us insight into each other’s heart and soul in a way that we never have had before. So the questions become something that brings you closer together versus something that drives you apart. And I look forward to that for you because it’s a beautiful depth of the relationship that you wouldn’t have had but for this kind of an experience. And I know that might sound weird to you now, but I want you to know what’s possible. And then I also said I would give you a practical tool, and that practical tool is get yourself a journal, a little paper journal, just a cheap one, a notebook, whatever. Speaker A [00:49:16]: And I want you to write down the questions that you’ve asked, and I want you to write down the answers. And the reason why is when we’re in that state of trauma when we’re in the survival portion of the brain, when we’re running away from the bus that is barreling at us, we don’t remember things. If you’re running away from a bus that is barreling down at you and somebody shouts their birth date to you, you’re not going to remember the birth date because it is not important in that moment. What is important is navigating the bus, and that’s what you’re experiencing right here, right now. So write down the answers, write down the questions, and then when you have them, you can go back to your notebook and be like, I asked that already, I know this, I know this, I know this. And then that also helps you to evolve the questions because, okay, well, I know this. Oh wow, but I don’t know this. And that is going to calm and reassure you. Speaker A [00:50:24]: That is you taking care of you. And if you’re partnered up, it’s going to calm and reassure them as well because you’re not hammering away, hammering away, hammering away. Your questions are shifting. You are calming your nervous system and you are calming theirs. So you’re co-regulating off of each other and becoming calmer and calmer. Instead of more and more and more keto. And then the other thing I want to circle back to is the most important work around this isn’t answering the loudest question. How could you do this? The most important work is listening to the question underneath the question. Speaker A [00:51:14]: It’s not necessarily, how could you do this? It’s, why was I not worthy enough? Why didn’t you love me enough? What— how am I ever going to know that I’m safe again going forward? Listen for the question under the question. Ask yourself, what am I really asking here? Am I really asking for The color of her bra and underwear? Is that really what matters to me? Do I really, really want to know the color of her bra and underwear? Or is the question that I’m asking really, was she prettier than I was? Was she sexier than I was? Did she do something that you found more attractive that I wish you would have told me because then I would have known blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What is that question? Beneath the question. And then the last thing is, I want to reassure you, you are not wrong for having so many questions. You are not wrong for needing reassurance. You are not broken. And most importantly, you are absolutely capable of rebuilding safety, both in inside yourself and with the world. But what I want you to know is that trust gets rebuilt inside you first. Speaker A [00:52:41]: You cannot rely on your partner to help you rebuild the trust. And oh my gosh, this is a whole other rabbit hole I could go down. So many people are like, I need closure before I can heal. No, no, no, no, no, you need to heal before you get closure. Everything starts with you. Everything is internal. When you rebuild your trust first That’s when you can rebuild trust with your partner. It’s not about what your partner is or is not doing. Speaker A [00:53:06]: It’s about what you are doing for you. And yeah, that’s a big one. I can’t tell you how many introductory sessions we go through that. What are the ways you are rebuilding yourself first? How are you creating trust with yourself? How are you having your own back? How are you stopping self-betrayal? In every moment. Because until you are solid with you, relationships will never feel the way you want them to feel. One more deep breath, okay? This has been a lot, right? This is a lot. There’s a lot of questions. There’s a lot of questions beneath the questions that really go to you and your heart and your worthiness. Speaker A [00:54:06]: Go slow. Listen again. Take notes if you need to take notes. Pause, move your body, somatically process. Come back to the show. Email me your questions. Have your partner email me your questions. Sit down with your partner and ask all the questions you want to ask, because again, it’s both me and Sean will be answering. Speaker A [00:54:36]: It’s not just Lora, it’s Lora and Sean answering as two people who have been through it, not answering as your resident affair and betrayal recovery expert and coach, but answering as people who have walked this path. Lora@laurachetel.com. I can’t wait to hear from you. I can’t wait to sit down with you and do an introductory session. And I look forward to your growth. I look forward to seeing what’s next. To see all that post-betrayal transformation that is going to start happening for you, whether right now, whether you’re on the cusp of it, or whether years down the road. One more breath. Speaker A [00:55:36]: Shake it off. Have an amazing week. And as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are, because who you are is always more than enough.