Is their Affair or your Emotional Baggage Poisoning your Current Relationship?

DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP BAGGAGE HOLD YOU BACK, WEIGH YOU DOWN, OR GET DUMPED ON YOUR NEW PARTNER?

The subject of emotional baggage is one that I came to know very well back in the late 90’s after my then partner had an affair.  For some reason I have noticed this subject appearing on my radar again, and not just because of the Katie Price twitter outburst upon discovering that her husband had been having an affair with her best friend.

Katie’s statement to the world was raw and to the point:

“Sorry to say me and Kieran are divorcing him and my best friend Jane Pountney been having a full blown sexual affair for 7 months…No human being deserves this especially being 6 months pregnant…Worst pain in the world”

I spent a good 10 years working in the field of helping people heal from relationships once I’d been in that void and successfully come out the other side.  In this post I have also included the key things that have people moved beyond this, and also given suggested modalities which I have found to be particularly good at working through the various stages.

After the first affair, my partner and I tried to make it work.  He said he was sorry, that he didn’t know what had come over him, that he had no interest in being with her (after he discovered that her master plan and intention was to get pregnant), and that he would never do such a thing again, having watched firsthand growing up the devastation that multiple affairs and deceit wreaked upon his parents and grandparents during his own childhood and teenage years.

The venom, the wrath, and the despair

So I tried.  Man did I try, but somehow, despite my best intentions the venom, the anger, the resentment, was always there.  When I acted upon my feelings of wrath, I was then plunged into the depths of guilt at my actions.  Sometimes it was both guilt and glee at being able to have struck a blow which at least inflicted a bit of emotional hurt so he could feel a little of what I was feeling and the constant pain which ebbed and flowed through my body on a daily basis.

I was also consumed by a sense of shame; There must of course be something wrong with me, otherwise, why would my partner have needed to even look at someone else?  I hadn’t at that time been able separate the actions of another person and not see them as a direct and complete reflection of my own sense of value and self worth.

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“Who is he talking to?  Who is he with???”

Oh and then there were the thoughts.  The constant thoughts as soon as he made or received a phone call or left the house.  Who was he talking to?  Who was he with?  Was he talking to her?  Were they laughing at me behind my back?  Was he out picking up another stranger in a bar?  It was like constant mental torture, day in day out, week in week out.  The thoughts and doubts were relentless, like crashing waves on an unsettled sea.  There might be the odd moment of peace and calm, a moment where I would almost forget, and then something, anything, a clip on TV, a headline in a newspaper, a comment made at a social gathering, and wham, slam, it would all hit home again like a ton of bricks.

It was as though I would see wrong doing and lies in all of my partner’s actions.  I almost became paranoid and because I hadn’t immediately spotted the first affair I began to lose trust and faith in my own judgement.

That of course, with hindsight wasn’t true.  Something made me look my partner in the eye, one evening out of the blue and utter those fateful words: “Have you been seeing someone else?”  The question was so left field and seemingly out of the blue that my rational logical mind told me that I was being crazy, so when the answer came back as “Yes” it was a total body shock, as though someone had punched me in stomach whilst at the same time striking a blow to my heart.

“Does a Leopard change its spots?”

I did give my partner a second chance, although if truth be told that was more for me, because I couldn’t face being abandoned and alone.  A year or so later my worst fears were realised when he had another affair.  This time I turned up at his apartment unannounced to surprise him for this birthday, and let us just say that I was the one who got the surprise.

I was gutted, and this time really beat myself up as to how I could have been so stupid, and blinkered, and not have seen what was going on having been through it all once before.  I had forgotten that he was living in another country at the time, however, I know and can recall with clarity the exact moment where I suspected that he was cheating on me again.

So how can you ever trust yourself after such an emotional pounding?

Notice that I say ‘trust yourself’, as opposed to asking how you can trust another person.

It’s all about trust, and it’s all about you.

It really comes down to trusting yourself.  Trusting your instincts.  Trusting your intuition.

However, I know with hindsight, and having worked with 100’s of clients since my own emotional transformation, that it is difficult, if nigh on impossible to trust when your vision, judgement, soul, and psyche is infected with negative emotions.

If you have not released, the anger, the rage, the frustration, the sadness, the despair, the fear, and whatever else you might be feeling, there is no space for your intuition and inner knowing to come to to the fore and be properly discerned.  And even when you do hear your intuition, you doubt it because it is so tainted by the old emotional baggage and the patterns of the past.

“Are you poisoning your new relationship?”

If you are still with the same partner it’s as though it is par for the course that they are going to have to put up with a certain amount of crap while you pick up the pieces and sort through your shattered emotions.  Problems really arise however if that is still going on several years later, or you drag this poisonous baggage into new relationships.

“But I was just . . . .”

Any action by your new partner which remotely reminds you of the cheater that hurt you, and the full brunt and weight of that emotional baggage lands right on their doorstep.  Their actions could be totally innocent, and even though you might know that rationally and consciously, your unconscious mind is confused because it can see so many parallels, and is experiencing all of those old feelings, doubts, and insecurities again.

You try to reason with yourself.  You attempt to calm your inner voice and override those feelings.  You even talk to friends, some of whom will assure you that you are being crazy, while others might agree with you and blanket and tar all ‘other halves’ with the same guilt stained brush.

The invisible wall

You might keep your doubts bottled up inside.  Well, you might think you have kept your feelings bottled up inside.  Unfortunately what tends to happen is that the heart and soul builds up an invisible wall.  A wall of protection; a wall that will allegedly keep you safe should the worst happen again.  The invisible wall is eventually often felt by your partner, and if left unaddressed can drive a wedge between you.

Others will explode at the slightest thing, even where no supporting evidence of cheating exits.  Your partner then becomes frustrated and they might either withdraw or come out fighting.  Some might even be of the opinion that: “I’m getting blamed for something that I’m not doing so I might as well go on right ahead and do it!  At least that way the heat I’m getting will be somewhat justified and worth it.”

So, if you find yourself in this scenario where do you go from here?

Over the countless number of Relationship Breakthrough Coaching Sessions that I’ve done over the past 12 or so years, everyone is so very different.  For some it is just about sorting out their feelings about the affair and the betrayal.  Some carry wounds from childhood.  Others have issues around self confidence, self worth, or self esteem, which allows the impact of the affair to embed itself more deeply into those wounds and cracks.

What can you do to move on with your life?

My general starter ‘prescriptions’ include the following (it isn’t an exhaustive list, I’d probably need a few chapters of a book for that, it will however get your started). I have also given suggested modalities which I have found to work well over the time I have been in client practice:

Sort out your stuff!!!!!   Face that emotional baggage, unpack it, and deal with it.

Suggested Modality: For releasing and resolving the old emotional baggage, emotions, and limiting beliefs, I tend to use something like Time Line Therapy, which is a way of going back into the past and releasing old anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, and anxiety.  It’s quick, requires little ‘wallowing around’ and clears things out from the root cause.  Of course there are still things that you will get upset about, but the difference is that you get upset about ‘the thing’ and not ‘a million and one things’ that happened back in the day, that you’ve been holding onto and stewing over.

There are 10,001 modalities to choose from, so pick one and get started.

Release the past.  I think of this in terms of almost releasing, cutting and severing old ties and connections.  That old saying where someone is said to be: “Burning the torch for someone’ is what I’m referring to, where even if you have physically left a relationship, you still think about your old partner or are energetically or emotionally connected with them in some way, to the detriment of really being able to move on and fully commit to another person.

Suggested Modality: My favourite for this is a process from Hawaiian Huna, which most people might think they’ve never heard of.  The process is called Ho’oponopono, or as it more commonly referred to, The Forgiveness Process.  A mini version of this was popularised some years ago by Joe Vitale of The Secret fame.  I tend to use the full on authentic Hawaiian version, complete with symbols and energy clearing work.  In a nutshell you are metaphorically and energetically cutting the old ties and connections with people, places, and things, and sealing them off with a sense of forgiveness (we’ll come back to this in a moment) and gratitude, and reclaiming your energy.

The whole forgiveness thing is so important that I am devoting a whole chapter to it in my forthcoming book.  Briefly, it is not about saying that what the person did is OK, we are focusing here on your emotional health and wellbeing and recognising that that person that suffers most by carrying around such burdens is more than likely you, the bearer of the cross as it were.  Some might also find it surprising, but when I work with clients, the forgiveness that they most need to work on is often for themselves.

Reconnect.  Having released the old emotional baggage and severed old ties and connections to the past, you want to reconnect with your mind and body.  This allows you to really get in tune with and in touch with your intuition and inner wisdom, and this time not have your judgement clouded by the past.

Suggested Modality: Things like meditation can help.  If that is a step too far I often prescribe a good dose of Mindfulness to begin with.  Just being present to your thoughts, your surroundings, and what you are doing in this very moment can be a great way to focus and be present.  Just start with a few minutes and build up from there.  It is miraculous what can happen simply by being mindful, and if you apply this approach to your relationships it can be transformational.

Focus.  Start to really focus on what you do want in a relationship.  Often when people have been through a painful experience I ask them what they want in a partner, and they proceed to tell me everything that they don’t want: “I don’t want someone who lies.  I don’t want someone who cheats; I don’t want someone who disrespects me” etc, etc.  Of course I know what they mean by that however the truth of the matter is that you tend to attract what you focus on, and if that is where the bulk of your focus is, on the lying, the cheating, the disrespect, surprise, surprise, that is who and what you will more than likely continue to attract.

Suggested Modality:  If you like a bit of process, mechanics, and strategy, NLP and things like Swish Patterns, and Anchoring can be great for this.  Nowadays I tend to lean more towards Hypnosis so that it can more easily become a natural state of being.

Openness.  This one can bring a quiver into the heart of many, that thought of being open and therefore vulnerable to another human being.  It can be a very scary thought if you have been hurt before, yet without this step, your future liaisons might be, even when seemingly long lasting, a little shallow, lacking something, devoid of real intimacy, or somewhat unsatisfying or unfulfilling.

Suggested Modality: One that fits the bill here might be OTH (Opening The Heart).  It is something that I started using with my clients last year, and is deceptively simple yet effective.  You are basically being OK with whatever comes up, be that positive or negative and doing what I call dropping the feelings down into the heart space.  I describe it as imagining a hot electric ring on a stove.  If you were to put some droplets of water onto the hot plate, they would fizz and then evaporate immediately.  The same is true when you drop limitations into the heart space.  If you work with the Chakra’s this can also work well.

Be bold.  Having done all of the above (which sounds like a lot, but really you can knock that out of the park in a day or so) a dash of courageousness is sometimes required to get back on the horse, and go forth out into the world.  Once you have cleared and aligned your energy it means that you are no longer just inflicting yourself on another person and dumping your old emotional baggage at their door, you are instead bringing a sense of joy into both your own life and that of others.

Suggested Modality: A real fun one to do here can be something like Future Life Progression where you go out into the future and see how your life has turned out in 5 or 10 years time, or as the best possible version of you.  Crazy as it might sound, the insights that people glean have been astounding, and leave you with a real sense of clarity, hope, peace and happiness.

And finally . . . .

Also know that there really is light at the end of the tunnel and that it is possible to move on.  Although I suffered for 2 years, I was lucky enough to discover that it didn’t have to be that way, and that such things could be sorted out in a matter of hours (8-10 to be exact if we’re talking about a Breakthrough Session), so take heart and take hope that it starts with simply deciding that enough is enough, and choosing to release yourself from the past and make changes.

If you found this blog post useful or know others that might benefit from reading it, do feel free to share.

Happy emotional healing!

Marilyn Devonish

 

MARILYN DEVONISH

Marilyn Devonish is a Life and Executive Coach, Hypnotherapist, Certified Trainer of NLP, Certified Trainer of Hypnosis, Soul Plan Reader, and Angel Tarot Card Reader.  Marilyn is also a Practitioner of Hawaiian Huna, EFT, EmoTrance, OTH, DNA Theta Healing, Access Bars, Access Consciousness, Positive EFT, Energetic NLP, Reiki, Past Life Regression, and Future Life Progression, and few others besides!

Having fallen into the world of personal development a few weeks after her then partner had the second affair, she was astounded with the speed at which she recovered physically, emotionally, and mentally, and decided that she would give up her ACCA Accountancy Studies, and become a Coach and Hypnotherapist instead.  She completed her initial NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner Training and 2000 and has been working with both group and private one-to-one clients ever since.

For further information about Relationship Breakthrough Sessions visit Marilyn’s website:  www.tranceformationsTM.com

To download Free mp3 Huna and Access Consciousness energy clearings visit: www.tranceformationsTM.com/resources

E-mail: marilyn@tranceformationsTM.com