In this candid episode, Lora will share her personal story of discovering her husband’s 15-years of cheating and the transformative journey that followed. We will discuss the vital importance of confronting and understanding past trauma to heal and foster healthier relationships as well as how to reclaim one’s identity and live authentically from a place of love, strength, and unconditional self-worth.

Together, let’s transform pain into power. ✨

Top Take-a-Ways:

• Understanding Trauma’s Impact: Whether minor or significant, past traumas can profoundly affect your current relationships. Recognizing and addressing these is a pivotal step towards healing.
• Reclaiming Your Self-Worth: Betrayal can shatter your self-esteem, but it’s crucial to remember your intrinsic value and begin the process of reclaiming it.
• Embracing Personal Empowerment: How to own your power and never settle for less than you deserve so you can create a life that sparks joy and fulfillment, redefining your future on your own terms.

 

Get Relief Now!

Download your Betrayal Recovery Tool Kit at www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com, and take the first steps in feeling okay again, despite what’s going on around you.

About Lora

Attorney, speaker and Burnout & Betrayal Recovery Coach, Lora Cheadle believes that betrayal uncovers the truth of what’s possible when we stop focusing on what was done to us and start showing up unapologetically for ourselves. She helps women rebuild their identity and self-worth after infidelity so they can reclaim (or find for the very first time) their confidence, clarity, and connection to source and create their own kind of happily ever after.

 

Untangle yourself from the past, reclaim your power, and own your worth so you can create a future you love on your own terms. All with a wink and a smile! Learn more at www.loracheadle.com and follow me across all social!

 

 

 

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Purchase Lora’s book, FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy & Spiritual Self on Amazon, IndieBound or wherever books are sold.

#InfidelityRecovery #SelfWorth #TraumaHealing #Podcast #PersonalGrowth #flourishafterbetrayal #FlauntPodcast #WomenEmpowerment #HealingJourney #CreateTheLifeYouLove #BetterHelp

Transcript

 

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Narrator [00:00:01]:
You’re listening to flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. A podcast women who’ve been betrayed by their intimate partner and want to turn their devastation into an invitation to reclaim themselves and their worth. Tune in weekly so you can start making sense of it all and learn how to be okay on the inside no matter what goes on on the outside. Download your free betrayal recovery toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.

Lora Cheadle [00:00:36]:
Hello, and welcome to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I’m Lora Cheadle. And today, I just wanna talk I wanna tell you a little bit about me, who I am, why I started this show, why I do what I do, what I can help you with. I just wanna talk about this whole stupid betrayal recovery journey and, you know, hopefully, bring some normalcy to it because it’s one of those things that if you’re anything like me, before it happened to you, you had an entirely different spin on what it was and what infidelity meant and what you would do if it ever happened to you. And you also probably had a lot of judgments. Like, well, it only really happens to horrible, naggy women who don’t take care of themselves and ignore their husbands. And then it happens to you when you start learning the truth, and you’re like, oh, wow.

Lora Cheadle [00:01:40]:
The narrative around this one is way off. So let’s talk about me for a second. Who I am, why I do what I do, and what specifically I do. Because I’ve had had some people reach out to me lately and be like, well, you don’t know. You’ve never been through this. And it’s like, oh, hold the horses. I most certainly have been through this in a pretty darn unbelievable way. Okay.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:11]:
So going way back to the beginning, I had a painfully boring childhood. I was an only child, middle class, no issues, parents together, like, not much happened growing up. I had the same pains that a lot of people have, you know, but nothing traumatic happened. I wasn’t abused. We didn’t have the lights turned off. Like, it was just the quintessential normal 19 seventies suburban middle class childhood. So that was my childhood, and I thought things were fine. I met my husband in law school, and I thought he was amazing.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:55]:
And I have this deep admiration for him because he had a horrific childhood. I mean, we are talking horrific. He lived in it wasn’t a state sponsored foster care. It was a private foster situation. His mom beat the living daylights out of them. He has one story where she beat his brother with a yardstick, and I think it was 46 or 47 times beating him before the yardstick broke. He was forced to live in a shed at one point overnight, like, as punishment, and the crickets were getting on his skin. He was left on a mountain for a summer.

Lora Cheadle [00:03:40]:
His mom and one of the stepdads had purchased a, like, a trailer, a camping trailer off of the junkyard because it had been burned out. So the kids were supposed to live in the empty gutted shell of a burned out trailer. They had no food. They had no electricity. Whenever something would happen, their mom, who was totally mentally ill, would leave. Like, at one point, the kids had chickenpox, and she couldn’t handle it, so she just left and came back 3 days later. So when they were well. I mean, just horrible stuff.

Lora Cheadle [00:04:20]:
Totally narcissistic, totally abusive. Dad, same drill. Narcissistic, clueless, very verbally abusive. Both parents very very verbally abusive. So when I met my husband and we met in law school, and I’m thinking, oh my gosh. What an amazing human. Like, he’s overcome so much, and he loves his mom to this day, and he’s kind to his dad. And, like, this is the best person I can ever imagine.

Lora Cheadle [00:04:50]:
You know? How can somebody be so kind and so loving and so forgiving? And this is amazing. And we get married and get the dog and get a house and start having kids. And things start not really falling apart, but they start issues start coming up that I didn’t even realize would be issues. And let me just pause right here to say, you know, we don’t know what we don’t know. And at the time, that was early nineties, I knew nothing about trauma. I knew nothing about the impact of trauma growing up, and he knew nothing about the impact of trauma growing up. And to be fair, I don’t think many people in the US knew about the impact of childhood trauma at that time. It’s something that, thank god, only recently we have really started to understand and talk about.

Lora Cheadle [00:05:45]:
And there’s a lot of mainstream books like, Bessel Van Van de Kolk. I think that’s the name. I’m totally losing it right now, but The Body Keeps the Score. And there’s all this stuff on ancestral healing and the impact of trauma and nervous system. And it’s like, thank god, because my husband’s perspective at the time was, I’m over it. I healed it. Sure. I was beat and almost starved to death and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:14]:
And I’m fine. I’m over it. And I’m like, yeah. He’s fine. He’s over. This is so great. Yeah. We shall overcome.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:23]:
We just don’t overcome. Trauma is there. Trauma is there, and it has to come out some way. And I didn’t know that, and he didn’t know that. So going back to my story. We’re a young married couple. We start having kids. All along, he would say things like, I don’t really wanna be the one disciplining the kids because I don’t know how to do it.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:48]:
You’re much better at that than I am. And you had a you had a great family, and your parents never spanked you, and they never beat you. And so you’re the one that’s in charge of that. Maybe like, of course, because having kids is wonderful. Again, a word I didn’t know triggered. Kids triggered him. Kids triggered him. Noise triggered him.

Lora Cheadle [00:07:10]:
Crying babies that cry for no reason triggered him. Things that are falling apart triggered him. The idea of, like, we have this repetitive fight over a sippy cup of milk because I would put them on the coffee table or whatever, and if they spill, it’s a sippy cup. It’s not the biggest deal. And if there’s a couple splashes of milk, I clean it. Well, to him, that was huge. So I’m interpreting so are sippy cup spills. If some milk comes out, I clean it.

Lora Cheadle [00:07:38]:
He’s interpreting it as like, this is the only milk we can afford, and we have no more milk. And cleaning it is is hugely traumatic because things like that were hugely traumatic in my in his world. They didn’t even register as a blip in my world. So we started having conflict around, like, this is not a big deal. Why is he always so hyper? Why is everything a crisis? And then he’s to me like, why are you so patient? This is ridiculous. Nobody is. You’re phony. Nobody is this patient.

Lora Cheadle [00:08:11]:
You’re phony. Nobody acts this way. And I’d be like, the baby cried. The toddler dropped his pizza? None of this is a problem. So we had completely different perspectives on things, and neither of us knew why or why that mattered. We just thought the other person was a little bit wackadoodle. It’s interesting because sometimes he would say to me, like, your family is so mister Rogers and blah blah blah blah blah, and it’d be like, no. My family is normal.

Lora Cheadle [00:08:44]:
Your family is like that old sitcom all in the family. Everybody’s just. And then to be like, no. My family is normal. So there was this constant underlying tension or underlying confusion about each other. But at the same time, we got along great. We had a ton of fun together, tons of fun together. Really enjoyed each other’s company, and life was great or so I thought.

Lora Cheadle [00:09:13]:
So fast forward, until my youngest is about to leave high school. After 23 years of marriage, again, I thought it was a pretty darn great marriage. I thought he had some issues. Yeah. Whatever. I had some issues. Yeah. Whatever.

Lora Cheadle [00:09:29]:
That’s when I found out that for 15 years, he had been cheating on me with 5 different women. One woman periodically the whole time. I vomited when I found out. It was the most traumatic thing. I couldn’t find solid ground. I didn’t understand what was happening or why. As you know, it shatters your soul. It shatters your soul in so many different ways, and it’s god awful.

Lora Cheadle [00:10:03]:
It’s just god awful. What I started learning, however, the reason the whole tagline to this show, to the work that I do is betrayal uncovers the truth is holy cow, does betrayal uncover it all. Not only does it uncover the truth about your partner and what they’ve done, but it uncovers the why. It uncovers why things were confusing in the past. It uncovers what you missed. It uncovers the places in you that are wounded and need healing. It uncovers the places in your partner that are wounded and need healing. Like, it lays everything bare.

Lora Cheadle [00:10:43]:
It exposes all of those things that none of us wanna see. And I know you know what I mean when I talk about that. There are so many things that none of us want to see. I didn’t wanna see certain things. I didn’t know how to address it. I didn’t wanna go there. There are so many things like my husband. He didn’t wanna address it.

Lora Cheadle [00:11:03]:
He didn’t know how to address it. He didn’t wanna go there. You just bury it. Just bury it. Repress it. It’s gonna go away. My past didn’t impact me. Yeah.

Lora Cheadle [00:11:14]:
It did. And sometimes the smarter and more aware you are, the more you can fool yourself. And if you’re one of those people listening to this and you’re like, I really thought I was capable, and I was really fooled, You were probably fooled because you were smart, and you could hide it from yourself. Smarter people hide things from themselves better. Smarter people gaslight themselves better. So if you’re one of those people that was like, dang, In a weird way, pat yourself on the back and be like, yep. I am smart and I’m intuitive, and I gaslit myself because I didn’t wanna see it, because I didn’t know what to do about it, because it wasn’t the right time. Because that’s what we all do.

Lora Cheadle [00:12:06]:
We push forward. We plow ahead. We diminish the negative. We make excuses for things, not just bad behavior, but just for uncomfortable truths. And we’re all busy, and we’re all overwhelmed, and we just move forward with life. So you’re not stupid. You’re not dumb. You didn’t miss the obvious.

Lora Cheadle [00:12:34]:
You’re human, and you’re a survivor, and you’re doing what needs to be done in the moment, the end. So I’m shaking because it’s a lot. It’s a lot to sit with, and it is embarrassing, and it’s horrifying. And I wanna validate that. I don’t want to just gloss over. I really wanna validate the horror, the horror that you’ve probably felt, the horror that I felt, the horror of the whole situation. Because once you start looking back through a different lens, through the lens of understanding, through the lens of figuring out things, through the lens of, oh, I know what trauma does, It’s like, oh, if we could redo this, if I knew then what I know now, everything would be different, which then brings up all of this, like, shame and guilt and sadness and what if and why didn’t. Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t he know? Why wasn’t this done? Why didn’t people talk about it? Why didn’t? And that’s where we really have to accept.

Lora Cheadle [00:13:56]:
If you’ve been listening to the show a while, you know that I say acceptance, I think, is more powerful powerful than forgiveness, and that’s why. Because you really have to accept the fact that I didn’t know. He didn’t know. Nobody knew. Like, oh my god. Impact of trauma, impact of whatever. Nobody knew. So my husband and I separated after I found out for a while, and the curiosity really kept coming up.

Lora Cheadle [00:14:28]:
Why would he do it? This doesn’t make sense. We’re such good friends. We have so much fun together. We both want the same thing. Why is this hard? Why is this hard? Why can’t I just let it go? Why am I still in love? Why would I sit there and say, I’m still in love with you? Yes. I know it might take a while to fall out of love, but shouldn’t something like this just, bam, make you do it? The answer is no. It takes time to fall out of love just like it takes time to fall in love. But more than anything, there was that curiosity of why I needed to understand it.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:02]:
I needed to know his why. I needed to know what I missed because I felt like I could only keep myself safe if I freaking understood why he did this because objectively, it made no sense. And and I’ve said this before and it sounds egotistic. I’m so pretty and I’m so kind and I’m so fun to be with and, like, I legitimately think I’m a good person. I legitimately try to be a good person. I have friends and I think I’m a good friend. So why would he go to somebody who was not the same? They weren’t prettier. They weren’t smarter.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:43]:
They weren’t better at friendship. They weren’t like, why? Why would you trade down? Oh my god, buddy. Why would you trade down when you had all of this? Why would you go mucking around in the dump? Literally, his long term apart affair partner was, and I hate the term, but, quote, unquote, trailer trash. Like, she lived in a trailer park. She didn’t have a lot of education. She was not pretty. She was not fun to talk to. He said she had a horrible voice that graved on his nerves.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:24]:
So why? Like, why? I’ll answer that, and then I’ll go back to it. Long story short, she reminded him of his abusive mother. She reminded him of his abusive mother, and he felt comfort in that. She was short-tempered. She was stressed out. She had zero coping skills, and she reminded him of his mom. Let me remind you, the mom that he got away from in foster care because she beat him and she neglected him and she emotionally abused him, but yet still there’s comfort there because that’s how human beings do it. So spoiler alert there.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:11]:
Anyway, as we start unpacking and figuring out why so I can feel safe, it actually starts getting really interesting to me. Things like that. You’re kidding me. You would trade this amazing situation and intentionally go back into your abusive childhood because you are comfortable with it? That sounds wackadoodle, but it’s actually really common. When you talk to people who have been through, even whether it’s like a prisoner of war situation or any kind of traumatic experience, there’s a part of them that identifies with that traumatic experience and either thinks that that’s who they are. So they continue to identify with it and they stay in that space or they return to that space subconsciously thinking I can do it differently this time, but it’s really hard to break away from that trauma. Did he know that? No. Did I know that? No.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:05]:
Wouldn’t it have been nice to understand? Like, he sought to break away from that. He sought higher education, much higher education. His whole drive was to not be like his family, and yet there was this internal part of him that thought, I am no better than my family, and I need to surround myself with other people who are no better than my family because that’s who I am. So that’s why in a lot of ways he would reject me. Out of this fear that someday I would wake up and be like, oh my god. You’re as crazy as the rest of them. I’m out of here. Oh my god.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:44]:
Why was I slumming with you? Even though I never thought that. Even though that was never anything in my mind, I thought we were on the same page that he broke free from this family, that he broke free from this traumatic poverty, ignorant situation. Like, yes. You went to school. You figured it out. You have skills. I thought we were on the same page. I had no idea the stress and the angst that he was experiencing because he had trauma.

Lora Cheadle [00:19:20]:
For those of you who know, the adverse childhood experiences score, the ACE score, is on a scale of 1 to 9 and he rate or 1 to 10 and he rated a 9. Just about every traumatic experience he has had except 1. And some of those 9 that he had were multiple. So whether your partner or you has a little trauma, a medium amount of trauma, or a lot of trauma, or whether any of this happens, what I really wanna say is our past impacts us more than we realize. Our past impacts our partner more than we realize, and we’re only just beginning to understand how powerful all of this is. So for me, a fair recovery was really like learning about this and trauma and all of these things. So after a lot of work, after a lot of figuring things out, we have reconciled. It’s been over 6 years now, and we have a completely different relationship.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:27]:
We are completely different people. And that’s something that I really want, again, to emphasize. I am not the same person I was before. He is not the same person he was before, and our marriage is not the same marriage that it was before. It takes work. It takes patience. It takes practice, but I’m definitely happier with this relationship than I have ever been with them before. And what I also wanna say, I’m more willing to leave this relationship now than I ever was before.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:59]:
And you might be thinking, what the heck? Did you reconcile or not? And what I wanna say is, well, yes, I reconciled, but I’ve also figured out way more about me and what I deserve and what I’m not willing to tolerate anymore. And my fear of divorce, my fear of going out of the loan, my fear of all of these things, like, that was thrown in my face. And I’m not gonna lie. There’s a part of me that was terrified to get divorced. I’m still afraid of divorce. Like, I wouldn’t say it before. I’ll say it now. It feels uncomfortable.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:35]:
It feels scary. Going out of the loan feels uncomfortable and scary. Is there somebody out there for you? I don’t know. Is this as good as it’s ever gonna get? I don’t know. Like, what if? What it’s scary. It’s scary. Making decisions is scary. Breaking up your family is scary.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:56]:
All of it is scary, and I’m okay with that fear now. Like, I can say, dang. That could be really scary, and there’s a lot of unknowns that I could mess something up. I could make something amazing, but I could also mess something up. But I can breathe into that fear now. I can process that fear now. I have tools and skills and resources. I have people that can help.

Lora Cheadle [00:22:22]:
And if this marriage doesn’t work out, it’s okay. I want it to work out. I’m glad it worked out. We’re having an amazing time. And if it doesn’t work out, I’m okay. It doesn’t have to work out. It doesn’t have to work out. I have to take care of me.

Lora Cheadle [00:22:42]:
I have to be happy. I get to be happy. However that looks, it’s up to me. My affair recovery program is called rise up and reign because it’s really about rising up and reigning as the divine and sovereign queen of yourself in your world. And that’s what it is for me, and that’s why I say, sure. I’m totally committed to the marriage. I totally love it. But if it’s not what I want, I will leave it because I am the divine sovereign queen of my own life, and I am going to rise up and reign through any circumstance at any period of time because I’m totally worth it.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:27]:
So that’s my story. Before this whole thing happened, I spent 10 years as a corporate attorney, and then I pivoted to life coaching. I did some wellness coaching, some life coaching, went back to school, became a certified hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapy, which is like moving and using the body, all these things that I’m totally interested in, energy work, personal fitness training. I I teach yoga, like, all of these really fun things. And I have this wellness business, wellness and life coaching. And I thought this is amazing and this is wonderful. Going through the affair process, the whole infidelity recovery story, I really had a hard time getting the help that I needed. I was really frustrated.

Lora Cheadle [00:24:21]:
I love therapy. I’m doing therapy now. I will do therapy on and off for the rest of my life because it’s really important, I think, to have somebody help you figure some things out so so you don’t gaslight yourself again. Hello. But I also had some really bad therapists who didn’t get it, both individual and marriage counselors, who didn’t get it. And while I appreciated a lot of the therapy, it wasn’t helping me move forward. So I started in with some coaching, some affair recovery weekends. I literally listened to all the podcasts.

Lora Cheadle [00:24:58]:
I did all the programs. I, like, read the books. I signed up. I did it all. And there were nuggets out of each one that were good, and there were some that just cheese grated. There’s a couple like, there’s there’s several groups out there where they’re, like, white men over 50 who have never been, involved in an affair on either side. And you’re like, oh my god. I don’t care that you’re educated.

Lora Cheadle [00:25:25]:
You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m going through. That felt so patriarchal and condescending. I needed to take a shower. Like, you sit there in your little office and you act like you know all this stuff, you have no idea. I don’t care what kind of an affair it was. It doesn’t matter. What matters is my understanding for me and my partner’s understanding for himself so we can put this back together again or decide to separate and be healthy.

Lora Cheadle [00:25:53]:
So there were some icky things where I was like, I am very spiritual. I pray. I love Jesus. I channel the librarians. If you don’t know that, let me know. I can send you some of the videos, but I channel a group of entities called the librarians, that are keepers of wisdom, planetary wisdom for, humankind. So I’m very spiritually connected. And yet there are some affair recovery programs out there that were just icky because they’re like, pray it away.

Lora Cheadle [00:26:28]:
I’m sorry. We don’t just pray this away. I will pray and I will get help, but I’m not subservient, and I am not going to pray this away. I need to get real. And, yes, I made vows, and, yes, my partner made vows, but sometimes those vows need to be broken. Whether or not it was my fault, I don’t have to put myself in this situation. And as a divine child of God, I can tell you no matter what you believe, God does not want me in this kind of a situation either. So there.

Lora Cheadle [00:27:00]:
Great programs out there, not so great programs out there. I really feel strongly that if you’re going to do a fear recovery work, you need to go through it personally. I don’t care how much you’ve studied it. You can help. Sure. But you really need to experience because that whole gap between knowledge and application, it’s why, like, when you graduate from high school or college or whatever and you’re like, I have a degree, and people say, that degree doesn’t matter. What matters is experience. I’m so glad people are understanding about trauma.

Lora Cheadle [00:27:37]:
Learning about trauma is good. Therapists, counselors, coaches, clergy, whatever, have some training, and that training is enormously helpful, but you need someone who has both. You need someone who has the training, and you need somebody who has the experience. Would you hire a weight loss coach to lose a £100 if that person has never lost a £100? Would you hire someone to coach you on your resume but has never written a resume? Like, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t care what kind of theoretical knowledge you have, and this is my bias here. If If you’re gonna work with somebody, they need to be somebody who has been through it, and they need to be where you aspire to be. They need to be where you aspire to be. Do you want to be calm? Do you want to be confident? What do you wanna be? Find that person who presents as you want to be because they are the person that can get you there.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:39]:
They are the person that can get you there because they have gotten there themselves. So like I said, I was a life coach doing wellness. And after I started going through this journey, people would reach out to me just randomly. I heard through the grapevine that you’ve gone through this, and I’ve heard through the grapevine that you can help. And I’d be like, it’s not what I do. I don’t do betrayal recovery coaching, but let me help you. Because I’m a lawyer, so I know the legal aspect of things. And I do mediation, so I can help you, you know, resolve conflict with your partner, and I can help write up a separation agreement, and I can help you write up a marital agreement to get you through this infidelity, and I can help you.

Lora Cheadle [00:29:17]:
I can teach you communication, and I can teach you trauma, and I can teach you how to advocate on behalf of yourself, and I can teach you tools to calm and resend to your nervous system. And I’m like, I can do these I can do these things because I was trained in them before. And the things that I wasn’t trained in before, because I experienced it, I started learning it, and I started having to do it. So I was like, oh, this is great. Well, after, like, 3, 4 people who are like, oh my god. You’ve changed my world. I have this revelation. Why would I not do this? Why would I not do this? I know how to put a marriage back together.

Lora Cheadle [00:29:57]:
I know how to get your partner to open up in ways that you want them to open up. I know how to provide tools to calm and reregulate your nervous system. I know how to frame questions in a way that elicits an answer. I know how to move toxic emotion through your body so you don’t get sick or have a headache or feel stressed. I know how and why people have affairs. I understand the impact of trauma. I understand the two sides of the story. Why would I not do this? And that’s when I’m kind of, like, turned this whole business over.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:32]:
I’m like, I surrender. I surrender. This feels like it’s a really sweet spot for me, but I surrender. And I’ll just put out a few podcasts and see. Well, from the day I started putting those podcasts out, it was huge. It was huge. We have over half a 1000000 listeners now. Over half a 1000000 listeners.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:59]:
My Facebook group, if you’re not on my Facebook group, look for it, Affair Recovery For Women. We we’re small because I kick out a lot of people who are toxic. And I’ll say more about that in a minute, but I’m protective. I’m protective of you. I’ve been through this. I know how it is, and the last thing you need is negativity bringing you down. The last thing you need is BSE type stuff that doesn’t work. You need tools.

Lora Cheadle [00:31:26]:
You need strategies. You need skills. You need perception or a change in perception. You need a shift of your perspective. You need to rise up and reign as the divine sovereign queen of your life and of the next chapter of your life. So that’s what I do. I meet you where you’re at, and I am the guide and the mentor that will walk you through this betrayal recovery journey. I will literally be there whispering in your ear via Voxer, via text every day.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:02]:
You can bounce things off of me. We talk dinkly. This is not just a therapeutic relationship. I’m not a therapist. I’m a coach. I’m an attorney. I’m a somatic attachment trained therapist, but I’m not gonna sit here and talk about your childhood. I’m gonna talk about how this works, the strategy, what you need to do, what your partner needs to do, how you can figure this out.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:27]:
I’m an advocate. I will teach you how to advocate more clearly so you can get your needs met. I can help you mediate and come to agreements. What I’m really passionate about, however, is teaching you how to reclaim yourself, how to reclaim your identity and your self worth. And you might be thinking, but I wanna recover from an affair. It’s all the same thing. It’s all the same thing, and you cannot recover from an affair until you reclaim your identity and your self worth and prioritize yourself. Let me tell you another story.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:05]:
When I met my husband, like I said, I was all, whoo. He’s so amazing. He’s so strong. What are my coping skills? It’s not really seeking to please, although I did a lot of people pleasing in my day. It was more I will make myself like in solidarity with somebody. If he had a struggle filled stressful life, I will get down in the trenches with you and I will fight alongside of you. So that’s what I did. For 23 years, I got them in the trenches with him, and I fought side by side.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:40]:
Yes. We’re gonna do this together. Yes. We’re gonna do the yes. Well, what I was really doing that I didn’t realize I was doing is I was abandoning myself. I’m not a struggle y person. I’m a go with the flow person. But because my whole way of finding love, finding connection was being in the trenches with him, I went and got in the trenches.

Lora Cheadle [00:34:11]:
And I lived a life in these weird trenches that weren’t my trenches. I had issues that weren’t my issues. And I abandoned who I was to fit his idea of who he thought I was or who he wanted me to be. Subtly, very subtly, but I still abandoned myself. I became less patient. I became less capable. I overfunctioned in ways that I shouldn’t have overfunctioned and didn’t really want to overfunction. I contorted myself in all sorts of different ways that I hadn’t really realized I had contorted myself until the betrayal because betrayal uncovers the truth.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:09]:
Betrayal uncovered the truth that I was not really being true to myself. Betrayal uncovered the truth that I was betraying myself by fighting battles that weren’t my own, by living in trenches that weren’t my own, by adopting beliefs that weren’t my own. And here’s the thing. You might be saying, yeah, but that’s marriage. It’s compromise. Yeah. You’re right. Parts.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:41]:
And there’s also times where that was wildly inappropriate, and that was wildly not okay. And I became somebody slightly different. Not because I wanted to, not because I was evolving and growing and becoming who I wanted to be, but because there was a part of me that thought that’s what I should do. That’s what I should do, that whole solidarity thing. And it was deep, and it was subconscious, and I didn’t understand it or realize it. And it’s taken years to really shake free. And it’s my guess that you’ve done that too. It’s my guess that you have given up too much of yourself.

Lora Cheadle [00:36:35]:
That without even being asked, you have given up pieces of yourself along the way. And that’s what I truly am an expert at, a gift of that, is helping you reclaim those lost pieces, helping you reclaim those lost pieces to get back in touch with that beautiful woman you were before, before any of this happened. I know it’s a lot, and I know that, like me, you probably have said this has forever changed me. Like, I will never be the same again. And yes and no to that. You will go back to being who you were before this happened. You’re not going to be who you were when this happened because who you were when this happened was somebody who had given up too much of themselves. You will be who you were before.

Lora Cheadle [00:37:45]:
Betrayal is this ultimate reset that takes you back to the beautiful woman that god created you to be. This is a beautiful, powerful resetting, and I can’t even sometimes explain how powerful it is. So does it forever change you? Yes. You will have the memories there. With the hypnosis that I do, those memories will no longer impact you. It’ll be like watching a movie. They’re not gonna feel personal. You’re not going to feel all tight.

Lora Cheadle [00:38:21]:
You will have the memories. You’re a different person, but you’re a better person. It’s like you get to go back to who you were. You get to reclaim all of those pieces of yourself that you gave up along the way, and then you get to leapfrog over the trauma, the drama, these bad situations, and land in who you are right now with the knowledge and wisdom of this journey, but with the emotional grounding and centering of who you were before. And that’s what I want for you because it’s a slice of heaven, and it’s magic. And I don’t wanna sound over the top, but it’s like miracles happen when you’re able to do that. When you’re able to take all of this knowledge, reset, reclaim who you were, and then leapfrog into the next act of your life, wow. Wow.

Lora Cheadle [00:39:26]:
It’s incredible. And to me, that’s betrayal recovery. To me, betrayal recovery isn’t tracking your partner’s phone and being paranoid. It’s not putting up and shutting up. It’s not, well, I can tolerate this because I’ve got a family and the kids are young. It’s not living in fear of any kind. It’s living from a place of love. When you join my Facebook group, A Fair Recovery For Women, you will be surrounded by people who are also dedicated to living from that place of love, from owning their power, from for rising up and reigning as the divine sovereign queens of their life.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:09]:
It’s a group for women who want it all and are not willing to sell settle for less and are not willing to tolerate anything less than having the exact kind of life that they want. And that’s why I will kick people out of the group. Now it’s a safe space to vent. I want you to vent. I want you to vent. But what I don’t want is negativity and bringing other people down because I am not gonna put up with that. We can be in pain. We can be broken for a while, but it’s time to rise up and reign.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:48]:
And when I work with people 1 on 1, that’s what it’s all about. If you’re stuck, I will help you push through that blockage. If you’re confused or if you’ve lost confidence or self worth, oh, you betcha. I can show you exactly how to reclaim that confidence, exactly how to reclaim that self worth. Maybe even get you stronger self worth than you ever had before. And I will get you believing the things about yourself that are true. I will pour love into you every moment of every day because, yes, we do talk every day, if that’s what you need. If you don’t, we won’t.

Lora Cheadle [00:41:24]:
But I will pour love into you every single day, and I will get you to see the truth because betrayal uncovers the truth, and I will stop at nothing less than revealing the full truth. And the full truth is you deserve more. You deserve happiness. You deserve safety. You deserve to feel good every single day, and you deserve to have this whole infidelity situation behind you in the most powerful way possible, and I know how to help you with that. So while I invite and encourage you to look at anything else and to hit any other resources, I really, really encourage you to reach out to me and let’s have a talk. Because chances are what you’ve seen out there is just enough to put a Band Aid on it, and I’m not about Band Aids. We’re not gonna put a band aid on something.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:30]:
We’re not gonna sweep something under the rug. We’re going to heal it. We’re going to soar. You are going to rise up, and you are going to reign. Now had to check my time here because I feel like I am just really going strong. But as you can tell, I’m passionate about this. I’ve lived it. I have experienced the change in my own body.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:00]:
I have worked with clients who have experienced the change in their own body. And when you see something this good, this strong, this powerful, you wanna give it to other people. You just want to. So that’s why I feel like I’m on this little rampage. The other thing about my Facebook group, again, A Fair Recovery For Women, is I want you to support each other. We learn by teaching what we know. We learn by bringing other people up. We see in others so often what we can’t see in ourself.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:40]:
Have you ever had that situation where you look at a friend and you’re like, oh my god. I don’t know why they can’t see it. It’s so obvious, and they can’t see it. But for you, it’s like, I can’t figure this out. I’m so confused. What’s going on? Blah blah blah blah blah blah. We can’t see ourselves. We gaslight ourselves.

Lora Cheadle [00:44:00]:
The smarter you are, the more you’re gonna hide things from yourself. The more capable you are, the more you have to lose, the more you’re gonna hide things from yourself. Betrayal uncovers the truth. Let it uncover. Let it all out. Expose it, and let’s move through it and heal. One of my favorite analogies is, because it’s it personifies betrayal so well. If you are sitting in your living room reading a book, having a cup of tea, enjoying the day, And your neighbor’s dog runs in and poops all over your rug, icky, awful, messy poop that drips as the dog runs back out the door and leaves you.

Lora Cheadle [00:44:47]:
You’re not gonna be very happy, and you have some choices. You can go over and demand that your neighbor cleans it up. You can stomp. You can explain why it’s not fair. You can yell. You can scream. You can cry. If your neighbor is not interested in cleaning up their dog’s poop in your living room, they’re not going to.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:09]:
Who’s impacted? Who’s hurt by it? You are. It’s your living room. You can get frustrated. You can go buy a beautiful throw rug. A Turkish rug perhaps, a gorgeous rug that you’ve always wanted, and you can toss it right over that dog poop. And you can be like, yes. This is amazing. And when you sweep something under the rug, it looks good for a while.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:34]:
And then that poop starts seeping up through the fibers of the rug, and it starts mashing down into the carpet underneath. And it starts smelling, and it starts rotting. And it’s damaged now, everything. It’s damaged that fresh new rug. It’s damaged the carpet. It’s totally hurt your environment, your air. And, eventually, you’re gonna have to throw the whole thing out. Bearing it doesn’t work.

Lora Cheadle [00:46:06]:
Putting a rug over it doesn’t work. Demanding that your neighbor comes in and takes care of it because they caused it. It was their dog. It was their negligence. You were a victim here. Doesn’t help. Okay. So when she realized it’s me, it’s my living room, it’s my damage, it wasn’t my fault, but I have to take care of it.

Lora Cheadle [00:46:30]:
Once you realize that, even then you have a couple of choices. You can get some paper towels and some water and just wipe things up the best that you can or not even that great. But, hey, it’s cleaned up and it’s better. But then you’ve got a stain in the carpet. You’ve got a stain that reminds you forever what happened on that floor. And whenever you see that stain, you’re gonna be like, that dang dog. Those neighbors. You believe what happened to me? And then people are gonna come by, and they’re gonna say, what happened to your carpet? And you’re gonna say, let me tell you.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:07]:
I was just sitting here and my neighbor’s dog came in and he pooped all over the carpet, and it was slushing and gross. And as he ran out, it tripped all over the floor. And your neighbors are gonna join you in your pity. Oh my god. Do you believe it? That was so awful. That is so unfair. Blah blah blah blah blah. And then you’re gonna have this great story to tell, but it’s also gonna trigger you and remind you of all this ickiness, and it’s gonna leave you feeling bad.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:29]:
It’s gonna leave you feeling like a victim. It’s gonna leave you feeling like life is so unfair, and all I was doing was sitting here reading and having a cup of tea. Or you’re gonna roll up your sleeves, you can dig deep, and you can really clean it well. You can hire carpet cleaners. You can buy different kinds of carpet cleaners and brushes and products. You can use paper towels and a steam vac. You’re gonna have to clean it several times. You might need some air fresheners.

Lora Cheadle [00:48:04]:
You’re gonna have to do all this work, and it’s gonna be a pain in your patootie right now. Right now, it’s gonna take time. It’s gonna take money. It’s gonna take effort. It’s gonna take energy. Right now, it’s gonna take a lot of work, but guess what? It’s gone. Stain is gone. Poop is gone.

Lora Cheadle [00:48:22]:
Smell is gone. For the rest of your life, you’re gonna walk by that carpet, and maybe periodically you might might say, oh, I remember when that happened, but there’s no stain. There’s not something there that’s gonna remind you each and every day of how unfair life is. And people that you meet in the future aren’t gonna see that stain and go, oh my gosh. What happened to you, you poor thing? You poor thing. So that right there is the decision point. That right there is the decision point. Do you want to spend the rest of your life telling the story, showing the stain, and having people say, oh my god.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:02]:
You poor thing. And then you can join everybody in how bad and unfair life is. You can do that kinda like the way I joined my husband and, like, life is a struggle. That was my choice. I joined him there. I joined him in the struggle. I joined him in the unfairness. I joined him.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:21]:
That was my choice. You can choose. Obviously, I got something out of that. I still have to work with that and figure out what was it that I got out of that. Maybe connection? You know? I think I did get some connection. But quite honestly, I also think I got weird validation for myself. Like, the good things that were happening for me that I deserved because I suffered. And, you know, you only deserve things if you suffer.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:49]:
Slawed belief, but that’s what I got. I got suffering so I could justify the good things that were happening to me. That’s the way our minds work. It’s really warped sometimes. So if you wanna tell the story about how unfair life is and if you wanna keep the stain there as the badge of honor, keep the stain there as the badge of honor. But if you wanna do the work, see me. If you wanna eradicate that stain forever, see me. If you wanna fully heal and move on and set yourself free, see me.

Lora Cheadle [00:50:22]:
And I’m not shaming or judging or blaming if you don’t because just like I said, I spent 20 some 3 some years joining him in a place of struggle. I’m sure there were people along the way that said to me, I can help you. They probably saw me more clearly than I saw myself, and I was like, no. I’m good. We’re fighting this uphill battle together. I’m pushing this boulder with him side by side even though it was his boulder and I didn’t need to. Anyhoo, think about it. Think about the dog poop under the rug.

Lora Cheadle [00:50:58]:
Process that story. I’ve told it before. And make a decision for you. Make a decision for you. Because what I know for sure is I understand trauma. I understand my husband’s affairs had nothing to do with me. He chose his long term affair partner because she reminded him of his dysfunctional psychopath mom. Cool.

Lora Cheadle [00:51:25]:
He chose the others because they gave him validation, And inside, he was a scared little boy, a scared little poor boy, a scared little boy with no food, like all of the things. Is that rational? Is that conscious? Nope. He chose validation. It was not him. It wasn’t about me. Was that a problem? Sure was a problem. Is he different now? Yeah. Because he gets it.

Lora Cheadle [00:51:53]:
Am I different now? Yeah. Because I get it. I’m not gonna join him in Missouri, and he’s not gonna be in Missouri anymore. And then together, we’re gonna create this new relationship. And as long as this new relationship works and nourishes us and our family, then we’re all in. And if for some reason it doesn’t, we’re okay separating in a way where we both have integrity, in a way where we don’t have fear, in a way where it’s just love, where it’s just circumstance. We have accepted unconditionally. We have accepted unconditionally.

Lora Cheadle [00:52:32]:
We have forgiven. We have understood. We know all the whys, and we have moved on. So in summary, what I want for you most is for you to take this journey, and what I want you to do is journey back, reclaim all the beautiful parts of you that you let go slowly along the way. I want you to take this knowledge, and I want you to leap into a future that you create for yourself your way. I want you to rise from the ashes fully, and I want you to reign as the divine and sovereign queen of the next chapter of your life. If you would like to be on my mailing list, go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com. You will get a whole host of free goodies because I fully believe in sharing the love.

Lora Cheadle [00:53:29]:
You will get that 50 I think it’s a 53, 57 minute meditation on deleting the bad memories of the past so you can tell a story without pain. You will get a free chapter of my book. You will get I think there’s 6 different things, like a guide, a reading guide, a podcast episode on rewriting the next chapter of your life, a worksheet on how to rewrite that next chapter of your life. Because when we write things down, it’s concrete. It concretizes it in our brain. So then we truly can move forward and create it. You will get all of these goodies when you go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com. But in your name, your email, you will be redirected to a download page right away with all 6 downloads.

Lora Cheadle [00:54:19]:
So you can just click, click, click, click, click, click, and you can get all of those downloads, and then you’ll be on my list. Go to Affair Recovery For Women, my Facebook group. Join in. Support others. Be that beacon of hope and light for others, or let others be the beacon of hope and light for you. And know that no matter what, I am here. I am so dedicated to you, to this journey, because I know how amazing it is. I feel like I am I feel like I’m a missionary out on a mission that, oh my gosh.

Lora Cheadle [00:55:00]:
Betrayal is the worst, best thing that could ever happen to a person. You just have to be willing to let that goodness flow and unfold. I really look forward to talking to you. Betrayalrecoveryguide.com will put you on my list, then you can email me. Affair Recovery for Women in Facebook, and you can message me right there. Have an amazing week. And as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are because who you are is always more than bad enough.

Lora Cheadle [00:55:35]:
This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you been struggling lately? Relationship issues impact every area of your life. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity, I was so devastated. I could barely function. Sleeping was impossible because I couldn’t shut off my brain. Eating was a challenge because I felt nauseous all the time, and for the 1st month or so, everything felt pointless. Whether you’re having trouble sleeping, feeling hopeless, or just can’t focus, BetterHelp is here to help you. BetterHelp offers licensed therapists who are trained to listen and help.

Lora Cheadle [00:56:12]:
You can talk to your therapist in a private online environment at your convenience. There’s a broad range of expertise in BetterHelp’s 20,000 plus therapist network that gives you access to help that might not be available in your area. Just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs, and then you’ll be matched with a therapist in under 24 hours. Then you can schedule secure video and phone sessions. Plus, you can exchange unlimited messages, and everything you share is completely confidential. I know that confidentiality was important for me, especially early on when I couldn’t even get my own mind wrapped around what was happening, and it was so comforting to be able to speak with someone candidly about everything I was going through to validate that what I was feeling and experiencing was completely normal. You can request a new therapist at no additional charge anytime. Join the 2,000,000 plus people who have taken charge of their mental health with an experienced BetterHelp therapist.

Lora Cheadle [00:57:15]:
Special offer to flaunt, create a life you love after infidelity and betrayal listeners. You get 10% off your 1st month at betterhelp.com/ flaunt. That’s betterhelphelp.com/flaunt, fla u n t. Thanks again to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast.

Narrator [00:57:52]:
Tune in next time to flaunt, find your sparkle, and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal with Lora Cheadle every Wednesday at 7 AM and 7 PM Eastern Standard Time on syndicated DreamVision 7 Radio Network. Uncover the truth of what’s possible for you on the other side of betrayal and develop the skills and strategies necessary to embrace the future and flourish today. Download your free betrayal recovery toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.