Encore: S03 Ep. 14 - Anna and Chris’ Marital Betrayal

I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice column for the Atlantic.

And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted. And this is Dear Therapists.

Each week we invite you into a real session where we help people confront their biggest problems and then give them actionable advice and hear about the changes they've made in their lives.

So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week, we're in session with Anna and Chris, a young married couple who came to us after Anna, who is pregnant with their first child, discovered that Chris had been lying to her.

The thing that hurt me about it was when I see tons and tons of messages to his younal co worker and asking things like hollis your day. That was really hurtful to me, because that's something he should be asking his wife first.

A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only. It is not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is not a substitute for professional healthcare. Advice, diagnosis, or treatment. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in partworn ful, and we may edit it for length and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear. All names have been changed for the privacy of our guests. Hi Laurie, Hi guy. So what's in our mailbox today?

Today we have a letter about secrets in a marriage, and here it is deotherapists. I am five months pregnant with my first child, a time that should be flooded with warm and bubbly emotions, junk food cravings, and trips to the local baby clothing store. However, the past several days have been filled with crippling anxiety and an emotional pain I didn't know existed. You see, I recently found out that Chris, my husband of one year, is a

Really feel for Anna because pregnancy is a time when people often feel a heightened sense of wanting to feel safe and protected, and there were things going on that she didn't know about, and now she is feeling very unsafe, and so I think this is really less about whether it's money or infidelity and more about deception and honesty in the marriage.

I agree, and I'm really glad that today both of them will be on the show because this is not something that she can repair alone. They need to repair it together, and they have a time concern because once that baby comes, their hands are going to be full. It's going to demand so much of their attention. They really want to try and get in a better place than they are right now, certainly, so it's really important that they're both here today.

Yeah, so let's go talk to them and find out what's going on. You're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.

I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy Wench and this is Dear Therapist.

Hi Anna, Hi Chris, Well, thank you.

For coming on our show.

Thanks for helping us.

We wanted to start by hearing a little bit about how long you've been together, how you met a little bit of the history of the marriage.

Yeah, so we've been married just over one year. We have been together for I would say over three years now. We actually met online, and up.

Until marriage, our relationship was very good, very positive.

I feel like it was very healthy. And then once we got married, certain things kind of happened gradually that started to affect our relationship.

What kind of things started to happen.

So I noticed that I would catch Chris in white wise every now and then, and at first I just disregarded that. I know that everyone tells a why at some point and there why.

What's an example of a white lie, what you call a white line.

Just talking about social media? It'd be like, oh, who are you talking to? And he would say someone that he was not talking to and I would be like, Oh, that's not what you said. Little things like that that just kind of broke down trust very gradually.

Can I ask why you were asking him who he was talking to? Did you suspect that maybe he was talking to someone that he shouldn't be.

Yes and no. At that point I trusted him, But I feel like I have trust issues in general, and so that voice in the back of my head was always just wanting to get that confirmation.

Why was it that you only started asking once you were married, but for the first three years of the relationship those trust issues didn't really come up for you in the same way, I.

Think, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think once we were married, we were more comfortable with each other, and that pressure of keeping the peace, I guess was gone, and so I felt like I was more able to ask those questions and put a little bit more pressure on him in that way.

Chris, can you tell us about your perspective just about the dating and the relationship, how it proceeded, and then we can get to these exchanges at the beginning of the marriage about the white lives.

Yeah, dating started off long distance, and it was good. Like with my company, I was able to travel on weekends, and if I couldn't travel that weekend, then she would come down and see me. And it worked really well. And then I think just kind of as we got married, I kind of lost a little bit of that I wouldn't say spark, but it just lost a little bit of the excitement of seeing each other on the weekends

In what sense a downward spiral.

I was working extra, so I was tired. Anna was working extra, she was tired when we came home. It wasn't like the fun, let's go on dates. It was the hey, let's watch a TV show. And it kind of a little bit got I would say, to the point of like a daily regimen that was pretty repetitive.

Were you voicing any of that is that something you brought up in conversation to Anna, saying, Hey, we're falling into a bit of a rout here, let's shake things up.

Not really. I've always been kind of a to myself kind of person, like I had never sought therapy or anything like that until just a couple of weeks ago and we started doing all of our healing. I was a pretty self internalized person, and I would go through ebbs and flows of emotions of being frustrated and not wanting to talk to her about it, but not really talking to anybody about it.

Why not wanted to talk to Anna about it?

I've kind of been a lone wolf for a pretty majority of my life, and so talking to other people about my problems was never really anything that I did. My parents really don't talk to each other about their problems either. They just kind of do their own thing. So I guess a lot of it would be learned, but just kind of what I was comfortable with.

It's interesting that both of you were having these thoughts and feelings that you weren't voicing to each other even before the marriage. For you, Anna, you have this history which would like to hear a little bit more about about not trusting the person that you're with, And I don't know, Chris, did you know that about her?

I know that she's had some pretty rough relationships in the past, Like there were passing conversations or comments that kind of led to the understanding that there were a little bit of trust issues, but I didn't think anything really significant.

So you were both afraid to show up for each other. Anna, you didn't tell him that this is a big issue for you. Yeah, for three years, and if you had suspicions, you kind of said, well, I don't want to rock the boat. And you, Chris, when things started to feel a little bit repetitive or mundane and you missed the excitement of earlier in the relationship, you didn't say to her, Hey,

We, at my request, moved in together right around when we got engaged, which is about a year earlier. But it was still kind of new and exciting, and we hadn't really formed any of those patterns on the day to day.

And Chris, you said that you are a lone wolf. But have you been in relationships before and is this something that has happened in previous relationships where you feel a certain either frustration or something's not going the way you want, but you have trouble working with the person you're with to figure it out.

Yeah. I've had one serious relationship outside of Anna. It lasts just over one year, and it was a pretty unhealthy last six or seven months. It was constant arguments. She would just find little things to argue about and then just try to blow them up to see what I would do.

Can you tell us what those sounded like? Those arguments?

I mean anything from like a comment that I'd said, or you know, if I missed a turn going somewhere. I mean, you name it. We've argued about it all.

Did you end that relationship or did she?

I did.

Did you try to talk to her about how criticized you felt in the relationship?

Oh?

Yeah, I mean that was it was a constant conversation. I pushed that relationship probably a little further than I ought to have because it was my first serious relationship. I wanted to grow the most that I could in a relationship, so I would be ready for something serious again after that relationship. And so I took it upon myself to just try to be patient and understanding and listen and just kind of grow some of those even though it was in an unhealthy environment.

So in that relationship, would you bring up that you felt criticized and that you were concerned about the volume of the criticism, or would you just respond when you were criticized.

I would bring it up outside of it on occasion, but more often than not, it would end up leading to another argument of some sort, and so I just kind of stopped.

Was there anything that happened in your relationship with Anna, even early on when things were exciting that you didn't bring up because you were sort of trained not to, or that if you did, it would lead to an argument.

I would get upset at like stupid little things. But I kind of just kept it to myself because I figured it was more advantageous to learn how to live with certain things. And that's something I still do that I need to work on.

I'm just curious about how you observed that when you were growing up, You said that your parents never talked about things, So what would you do with that as a kid, and what was going on that you felt they should be talking about.

Oh, I feel like they should have talked about everything. My dad was a construction worker, so he'd be gone from five o'clock in the morning till seven or eight o'clock at night every day, and then he'd come home and it was basically the dad show. It's, you know, do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. My mom has used me as like a crutch for complaining about things that she's unhappy with. I feel like that those frustrations, for example, could have been brought up to.

My dad, so instead of talking directly to your dad, she would talk to you.

Yeah.

Did you ever say to her, Hey, I wish you'd talk to dad about this instead of me.

Sometimes? Definitely more, I'd say in the last couple of years.

You were saying earlier that the instinct was not to talk to Anna if there was something that was frustrating. Did you notice that that was the same strategy your mom had of just like deal with the frustrations or find someone to vent them too, but not actually direct them to the person that's causing them.

A little bit like early on, I would talk to my mom about it just to vent it out, because that's you know, she used me I could. I felt like I could talk to her and she would generally give me some pretty decent wisdom, I would say, But I felt like it was kind of like a do as I say, not as I do type of thing.

And I had mentioned these white lies that were going on at the beginning of the marriage, and I was curious about your take on that. What was going on for you? What was that about for you?

At least on our social media we it had kind of like you're doing your thing, I'm doing my thing, and it would just be like, you know who you talked to you about, nobody or coworker or whatever.

Yes, they were co workers, a lot of them were female. And there were a couple of times where I went through his messages and discovered a ton of messages with a particular coworker, and so that was obviously not something that was disclosed to me.

Yeah, and I didn't really think anything of it in the moment as being inappropriate because it's just platonic conversation with coworkers.

Ka He's saying. It was all platonic conversations. So is there something that came up for you where you didn't believe that, or do you have some philosophy that he shouldn't be friends with women, which is something different from him lying or deceiving you.

I would say the thing that hurt me about it was at this time, he was in training for his new job and I barely heard from him, which is understandable because they're very busy. However, when I see tons and tons of messages to a female co worker who he's in training with and asking things like house your day, that was really hurtful to me because that's something he should be asking his wife, you know, how's your day, what's going on? And instead of asking me those things,

And can you tell us a little bit about your history with trust issues and when those first started coming up in your life?

Yeah, I would say it definitely started with my childhood and in particular my mother. She had a very troubled past of her own and didn't really have the tools to be like a good mother. And she is very dishonest and manipulative in a lot of ways. And there was one particular instance where about ten years ago, she basically spent my dad's retirement for one k and didn't tell him, and he found out about it and they

So both your mom and your husband spent money in secret it? Yeah, can I ask cow old you are?

I'm thirty two.

Okay, So this happened in your early twenties. Growing up, you had a sense that she wasn't honest. Can you talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, there was a lot that she hid from my dad. For example, she would take us to the store and you know, buy us ice cream or something, and she'd be like, Okay, don't tell dad. There was one particular instance where I got into trouble with my dad and she said that she disagreed with him and that she would have my back and talk to him, and when it came down to it, she said nothing, and so I was punished for it. Little things like that that broke my trust even as a little kid.

And then you also experienced some dishonesty in other relationships.

Yeah, there was one other relationship that was very toxic, lasted on and off for about four and a half years.

He was just.

Very dishonest. He would just constantly lie about everything. He lied about being on the basketball team at school, he ed about his family, He lighted about just how much money he made, just everything he think of. He ed about What.

Would you do when you discovered these lies? Would you confront him?

I did, and it did not go all. He would essentially gaslight me and make me feel like it is crazy, and you know, come up with some excuse and somehow ended up putting the blame onto me, and it just kind of made me go further into my shell a little bit.

When you first got together with Chris, what made you feel like you could or could not trust him? How did you feel going into that when it came to trust.

Originally I felt really good about it. I know he's a good person. Even now, he's just a good guy. He has a good book ethic, he has good morals, he has a stronalogy with his family. You know, he showed up and he using to show up. He called and said he was going to call. All the things said I've been looking for. He was it. And so yeah, in the beginning, it is really good.

Did he know about this history that you've had with trust and especially the history with your mom and the money of the four oh one K that she was spending.

Probably not in detail, but I feel like I definitely mentioned it at least.

You know, a couple of times you said you had conversations even before the marriage about finances and such. Tell me about those conversations.

We did premarital counseling. We just did of course that was online, and we learned that it's really important to talk our finances beforehand, and so we did. We talked about what that looked like for us, and at that time we decided to have one joint account and have our separate bank accounts as well. And as time were on throughout the marriage, I realized so that was probably not the best decision.

It wasn't the best decision because I.

Think it allows for a lack of accountability, and I think it in Chris's case where he has a problem with spending, it's just enabling him.

You say he has a problem with spending. Was that something you knew about when you were dating.

Yeah, a little bit. We always talked about, oh, I need this, I need this, especially when it comes to anything techie. He needs un speaker or something for his computer. I would come over and see, Oh, like, I didn't realize that you had this. Oh, I just thought it, and so I knew that it was definitely different from the way that I was, but I didn't see it being a major issue.

At that point.

You say you noticed that he got something new, but were you guys looking at the bills together every month?

Basically we hated bills and through our joint account, and then we each had our individual bank account separate. And so his spending, which I found out later, was on his individual account and his credit cards.

How did you discover the credit card debt?

So in the months prior to me finding out about his finances, I felt that it was really important that we merged finances completely. I just felt like we were married and it was time to work together versus being separate all the time, and I noticed more and more hesitancy from him, and each time I would bring it up and there was hesitancy. I felt like something was off.

It's okay.

Just let me at least see your individual account so I can help you budget because we were a little bit tight and on the trinity we've currently and so you know, we truly need to budget. And then he completely rejects that.

Did you ever say to him, why are you not wanting to merge our finances?

Yeah, I definitely asked that question. We don't need to do it right now, we can wait until later.

That's not an answer to why, that's an answer to what he wants. It's perfectly legitimate if somebody wants to wait, but he's not explaining to you why he wants to wait. And it sounds like you didn't follow up and say I'm not understanding why this is.

Yeah, because I've been in training with my new job, I've been on a reduced pay, so it was nerve wracking for me. One to get found and have my financials exposed. But at the other side, it's like I was nervous with our type budget as it was, because I'm paying you a credit card off as well to migrate everything from one bank account to another because I didn't want something that it missed. And then all of a sudden, We've got late fees on top of credit card fees on top of bills. To me, it was

That was the reason you gave to her. Let me get off the training pay. You didn't tell her the truth. You told her a partial truth exactly.

Chris. When did the spending start on your end with this credit card that? What was your thinking about it, given that you had had these conversations with Anna about finances and she conveyed that she was concerned about it.

Shortly after we got married, we bought a house, and then I just kind of started buying things for the house, buying things to go camping gas. I mean, you name it. Some stuff I would tell her about, some stuff I wouldn't hope she doesn't notice because they're maybe a little more expensive.

But what was your thinking that? Okay, I have this deal with her about being responsible financially, but I'm going to get these things anyway and hope she doesn't notice, and then I'll cover them at some point.

I really didn't give it a whole lot of thought. I mean, I was covering my bills. I was covering my portion of our utilities and mortgage and whatnot. So I didn't really, in my mind presume it was much of a problem other than you know, I'm on reduced pay, so hey, things are getting tight. But I was still covering my half of everything, So I just figured that, you know, it's okay, I'll pay it off eventually.

But you're aware that this has heard that as well, right.

Yeah, yeah, I get that.

Now.

In the time, my brain really wasn't thinking that way. It was pretty selfish. It really wasn't putting her into consideration at all.

It seems like you've had this habit of overspending for a long time, even before you met Anna.

Yeah, it's been on and off over my adult life.

Do you remember when that started and do you have any sense of what that's about.

Oh, as soon as I moved out of my parents' house, it was, hey, I can get things that my parents maybe wouldn't let me get, or I can do whatever I want, and there was really no accountability. And then after the first time, I was probably eighteen or nineteen, when my parents found out that I had spent two or three thousand dollars, they bailed me out and I paid them back basically just to get away from the interest rates. And then, you know, six or seven years later, same situation.

When this happened twice, When your parents bailed you out the first time and then they bailed you out a second time, what were you thinking about in terms of maybe I have a problem with this, or maybe this is compensating for something that I don't have in my life. Did you ever think I need to figure this out? Did it wear you at all?

Yeah, it was a thought in my mind, just you know, hey, is this really a problem? Why am I reverting to these kind of spinning habits? But I honestly just kind of shrugged it off as just being young and impulsive and there was something that was going to need to grow out of.

Did your parents talk to you about it. Did they say, what's going on here? This is the second time we bailed you out.

There was a little bit of a conversation there. It was more of a disappointment and hey, what the heck are you doing? Pull your head out and figure it out. And that was pretty much the extent of it. It was more of a hey, you screwed up, not a why are you doing this? Can we help you?

Anna? Did you know about these two incidents before you got married?

He had mentioned before that he had gotten into some credit card debt at one point, and he didn't go into detail about it.

Chris, you mentioned earlier when you were getting into credit card debt after the first year of marriage, that you're thinking about it was, well, you know, it's my stuff and I'll deal with it. And you weren't thinking. You said about the fact that actually you're creating that that's shared equally with Anna, and that she doesn't even know about this step that you're creating. And so you were really in solo thinking rather than in partnership kind of thinking.

Seems like, yeah, it was more like and I'm dating this person, not a we are one type of thing.

You've said. The two options are we are separate people or we are one. And I think that that's a way of thinking about this that might make you feel a little bit trapped because you are not one. Even when you are married, you are still going to be two separate people who happen to have a commitment to each other, and part of that commitment is honesty, accountability. But that doesn't mean that you're one person. And I don't know where you got that message that somehow, when

Again, my representation of marriage, which are two completely separate people that don't really talk to each other, really don't express frustrations and feeling towards each other. It's just kind of two people that cohabitate and raise kids. I don't necessarily think it's we are one, but I definitely think it's we are together.

On everything, we're a team.

In the last few months, i've really formed an understanding of the team of marriage versus the representation that I've grown up with.

When I asked Chris whether the other aspects in the relationship in which he was thinking as an individual rather than as a member of a partnership you were not in your head? What did you see in terms of other aspects in which you weren't forming a full partnership, but that Chris was still operating as a solo player.

The sciences were a big one. Also, just little things like he would have conversations with his mom about our relationship that I felt wasn't appropriate. He would share things like that that shouldn't be shared in my.

Opinion, What kind of things was he sharing with her?

There was one instance where he talked about my health issues and those are very personal to me, and I asked him not to share any with anyone, and he shared with his mom.

Chris, that sounds so much like what your mom did by talking to you instead of your father, knowing that Anna didn't want that shared. Did you at the time that you were talking to your mom think I really shouldn't be telling my mom this, but I'm doing it anyway because I need to.

Or what was the thinking, So my mom is a nurse, and so it kind of crossed my mom, like, Hey, she doesn't want me to talk about this, but I'm concerned. And this is the person that I go to to talk about things i'm worried or concerned about who Growing up, I've always been able to talk to her about medical things on a very professional style level, and so when she had issues medically, that's the person that I felt like I could go talk to.

I think the conversation that didn't happen was Anna, I really love you and I care about you, and I'm really anxious about this medical stuff that's going on with you, and I feel like I don't have enough information for me to know if I should be worried or not worried, and I'd like to get a straight answer from someone I trust. She might still have said no, but I think what was missing was the emotional piece, was the

Yeah, I think another part that you learned from your parents growing up was that even if you do talk about something, if you disagree, I can't push back and say, actually, this is something that's really troubling me. So this idea that Laurie's saying, you can have that kind of discussion.

I would say that I'm clear about it and working on expressing that when I feel it.

So right now, Anna's pregnant and I'm wondering what that has been like for both of you. Is this when the spending on the porn sites all started or was this going on before that?

It was going on before.

Before you got married.

It was kind of when we got married and we moved in together, and our work takes us away, both of us for a couple of days at a time, I was feeling disconnected from our relationship when she's traveling or when I'm traveling. When we come back from work, it's we're both tired, we don't really want to talk right away, And so I think that I was very internalizing a lot of that in unhealthy ways.

So again, this was something where you didn't say to her, I'm feeling really disconnected when we're both away from each other. Exactly did you both decide that you wanted to go ahead and try to get pregnant at the same time or how was this talked about.

It was a conversation, quite a few conversations. We both kind of decided like, hey, like we're ready to start taking the next step and building a family.

And what was it like finding out that you're pregnant?

Well, first I thought there was something seriously wrong and happened. She came outside yelling Chris, Chris, Chris and crying, and then she showed me a pregnancy stick when she found out, and we both just kind of sat there. I was elated and excited. She was balling her eyes out.

Balling your eyes out because you were excited.

Yeah, we had been trying for at that point about six or seven months, there have been a lot of disappointment, all of anxiety, and so to have that positive pregnancy test was just very very special.

How did you both deal with that period when you were trying to get pregnant and it wasn't happening. That can be incredibly stressful both talking about how you felt.

No, not really.

I was showing how emotional I was about it, and Chris was just kind of internal these saying things, and to me, it felt like he maybe didn't care about it as much as I did, or it wasn't hurting as much as I was. But I think he just kept it inside.

When you were feeling very strongly and you saw him you thought not feeling as strongly. Did you ask him how he's feeling? Did you express that you were feeling very disappointed?

I expressed how I was feeling. I don't think I asked him how he was feeling, and that's something that I should have done. I think I was just so overwhelmed with emotions that I feel like I was being selfish in that respect. I didn't ask him how he was feeling.

And Chris, was that the time that you were starting to use porn? Because as it might have been related to the stress that you were feeling.

Yeah, I was trying to reassure Anna that, you know, God has a plan and it's kind of how I've always lived my life is God's got a plan for us, and things happen when they're meant to happen. I may not understand why things are the way they are, but I feel like in retrospect down the road, they tend to make more sense. I was trying to let her know, Hey, you know, it didn't happen this month, but you know God's got a plan and it's going to happen when it's meant to happen for us. And then I felt

This is why I pointed out that phrase that you used we are one, because you're not one. And here's an example of Anna feeling a certain way. She's feeling disappointment, she's feeling anxiety. She's worried what if I never get pregnant? What does this mean? She's futurizing the whole thing, and she needs some support, and you're saying to her, God has a plan, It'll all work out, which is very

Yeah. And on top of that, when she was feeling upset and her and alone, I was even pushed off further because she would have a very short temper. She obviously is hurting, and I could figure out how or what I can do to help. I just felt like I was kind of the problem.

But Chris, do you see the connection between how your reassurance to Anna, God has a plan and all work out. It didn't land well with her, but it wasn't sufficient for you either, because it didn't resolve your tension and your distance that you felt. And do you see the connection between those times and you turning to porn for comfort or for distraction, because that happened at the same time.

Yeah, it was like a kind of barrier from real life, just kind of removing myself from a situation and you being distracted.

And that is much more likely to happen when you don't know how else to deal with the situation.

Yeah.

Can you tell Anna now how you were feeling during that time.

I felt like I was being pushed away by the way that she was being frustrated. And the best way I can describe it is very snappy and short, because at the time we were also dealing with some of other issues as far as our relationship with talking to other people still.

Talking to other people still meaning what.

Coworker from my old job, just talking to people online, and I would turn into video games as well as as finding some sort of like way to just kind of get away from everything, and ended up snapchatting once. Right, rather, I gave my snapchat out online and somebody had messaged me back the next day. I just snapped them back and said, Hey, I screwed up. I'm married. No, but that definitely drove a big wedge in between us and kind of really really kicked off the shortness with me.

How did Anna find out about that? And then how did you too try to repair the trust after that?

We were camping and it was just on my phone on Snapchat, She's like, hey, who is this person? And we talked about it, but I didn't feel like she was ever really able or willing to try and rebuild trust.

You said you were just trying to move on. What did that mean to you to move on when the trust had been broken? And how did you imagine it would get repaired? What did move on look like to you?

Move on to me looked like, you know, understanding what I had done wrong and removing that temptation and us being able to kind of how we are now being able to talk to each other about Hey, this is why I'm frustrated you did this. Okay, well, I'm sorry. Much healthier conversations, and I never felt like any of those conversations were really willing to be had at the time.

And when that happened, what did you need in order to start to rebuild some trust with Chris?

I think I needed the full truth, And at that point it was hard to tell if I was getting the full truth.

Why did you think you weren't getting the full truth? Was he telling part of the story and you had to keep asking follow up questions?

Yeah, yeah, I kept having to kind of dig deeper and like, okay, you know, explain this a little bit more because it's not making sense. Also paired with the fact that in previous times it's been the same thing where I feel like I have to pull it out of him in order to get the full truth.

Tell Chris right now what you would have needed at the time.

I needed you to come forward before getting caught and let me know, Hey, I messed up and this is what happened. Since that was not the case after the fact, I needed to do to fully own what you did and ask me how it made me feel, because it was incredibly hurtful, and at that point we had just gotten married, and you know, it was devastating for me.

So when Chris is saying I tried to book about it and see how she felt, but she didn't want to have the conversation, I'm confused about how that played out.

I wanted to have the conversation, but I don't feel like he was going about it the right way. In my mind, it didn't seem like he really wanted to take accountability for what had happened. I think he wanted to just move on and for me to forgive him and everything to go back to normal.

So the subtext that you heard when he's asking you what's going on and how you're feeling is let's just check the box here and just get they okay, Yeah, things are fine, so I can take myself out of the doghouse. You didn't feel that it was since enough.

Yeah, I also needed him to just be patient with me, because it's a process to move on from something like that doesn't happen overnight. When I needed time, I needed time to heal from it well.

You voicing that that you needed more time.

Probably not in a great way. I was very angry, and I probably was very short tempered and didn't ask it in the right way.

I imagined that finding this out when you're newly married must have brought up all kinds of questions for you, specially given your history around trust. And then there had been that earlier incident as well, And it sounds like Chris wasn't asking about what this was like for you, or wasn't very curious about it, probably because he was scared and knew he had messed up and didn't want it to have any catastrophic consequences for your marriage. Is

Looking backwards, I could have been using it as an emotional crutch to feel validated because we weren't effectively communicating.

And in terms of porn, Anna, you said, I consider that infidelity not everybody does, and what matters is what it means to the two of you. Can you both talk about your feelings about what it means to be in this relationship where you're not betraying the other person. What are the boundaries? Have you ever had a real specific conversation about that.

We did recently, and we agreed that for right now, porn would have to go completely.

You say we agreed, and that's sort of an action, But in terms of just how you both view what it means to not betray your partner, what it means to be loyal to your partner, it sounds like, Anna, you have this idea that using porn is infidelity, and Chris might not have that idea.

Yeah.

I think for me, the point where it reached infidelity in my mind was the only fans piece you do subscribe to these women, and that felt more personal to me. Maybe it wasn't completely being unfaithful, but I certainly don't feel like it was being faithful in our marriage.

It makes you uncomfortable, Yeah, and Chris, I have a question fore you when and it says, yeah, we agreed that the porn has to go. I just want to check in with you. If you truly agree the poorn has to go, that's one thing. If you don't truly agree, but you just agreed to it, then that's when you're still going to have the impulse to do it, and you're going to have the impulst to do it when

I'm full on board with it. I really don't actually need this. I can talk to her if I'm frustrated. There's so many other ways to go about it rather than trying to fill some sort of void with porn.

When you were on social media with that coworker and you were saying, how's your and Anna said, I just wanted him to ask me that. Do you know why you weren't asking that?

I think that I would every once in a while, but I feel like at the time there was a lot of disconnect between us that that had just built up over time.

And so when you feel disconnected, instead of coming closer, you retreat, Yeah, instead of saying that we're disconnected. So I want to see Anna, how are you? Let's reconnect you go somewhere else.

I agree, And I think that we both kind of do the same thing because it's like, I know when she's feeling disconnected, I feel like she's very much pushing me off, or like trying to push me away.

That's not when she saydn't disconnected, that's when she's feeding hood. Yeah, those are very different. Yeah, you are correct.

When she's feeling disconnected, it sounds like she tries to come toward you and then she doesn't get that and then she feels hurt and then she retreats. And when you are feeling disconnected, do you feel rejected? Do you feel hurt? What do you feel?

I feel rejected for sure, and just lonely.

So you each are able to love one another because we do get the sense that you love one another, and yet you can each really hurt one another, and you have not yet developed adequate tools to come to would one another in those moments, to have discussions that bring you closer, that breach the gap, and instead what happens is something that typically makes you feel worse, each of you in your own way.

Today, I have no problems with it at all. I feel like since I've been ousted for financial spending in my debt, that kind of broke down all of the barriers that I have as far as constly trying to hide things. It's miserable. We've saw a marriage counselor that has been very good. I've also saw personal counseling that

Okay, that's good to hear. Anna. For you, though, since you're dealing with mistrust at this time still, it might feel even scarier than to be truly vulnerable and to open up, because that's a trusting act to say to someone, here's what I'm feeling, and here's where I'm hurting. So where are you with that today?

I always say I'm trying really hard to be vulnerable and to you know, be open and trust that he is working on things and that he is willing to change. It's still is hard. I'm still very hurt and it's still raw, and you know, I'm also pregnant, and so I have all these emotions and they get the best of me, you know, every time and then, but I would say I am trying to overcome that.

Do you feel that this time, as opposed to the other times, that Chris is being fully accountable for deceiving you and for the dishonesty I do.

We have merched finances and so we both have access to seeing everything that's going on. I have all of his passwords. We are bringing a baby into the world, and that has impacted him as well, and he knows if I'm very serious, if the pattern of dishonesty and deception continues, he will lose me as his wife and that will change the time he gets to spend with his daughter as well. So yeah, I mean, at this point I do trust that he is serious about it, but it's still hard.

What do you think you need from him in order to rebuild the trust in a way that eventually, because it's going to take time, eventually feels solid to you.

I think the most important thing for me is when he messes up, because you will, because no one is perfect.

What does that mean he messed us up? How do you imagine if he looks up worn, or if he spends you know more than he knows that he should without talking to me first something like that.

It would be very helpful if he came to me first before me finding out and saying, hey, I messed up. This is what happened. Because that to me is so so crucial. It's not waiting to get caught, to be honest and do the right thing.

Thinking about is that Dynamica happens with his parents where he went to them and said twice I messed up to the tune of several thousand dollars and they said, we will bail you out. And I wonder, Chris, if you imagine that if you go to Anna and say, hey, I messed up, that she's going to be like your parents and say, okay, well you know, I'll let it slide. I'll be mad at you and it'll be unpleasant, but

I think I do. I mean, there's a lot writing on.

My honesty right. But what I'm talking about is that when you were honest with your parents, they bailed you out, and so far Anna's bailed you out to her or she's discovered things. But either way, what she's saying is I need you to come to me. But I think she's saying something more, which is not just I need you to come to me, but that I'm not necessarily going to bail you out.

Yeah, and you know she hasn't really necessarily bailed me out. Well she's here, Yeah, you know, I don't expect her to ever stay if any of this stuff continues, because that's a lot to deal with from her perspective.

So what are you going to do to find healthier ways to deal with these feelings of disconnection or loneliness that won't be so harmful to your marriage.

I'm trying to be more present in my actions right now, not so passive and just like reacting how I react, but like being conscious of how I'm reacting to things and how I'm feeling in the moments, trying to hold myself accountable.

How do you both feel at this point in the conversation about where you are with trust and all of the changes that are about to happen, and being able to come closer together as opposed to farther apart.

I feel hopeful. It does concern me that in a few months where going to be having a baby, and there are a lot of stressors that come with that, but I am hopeful we just need to keep reminding each other to have those conversations.

Do you see your role in holding back as well?

I do.

I think I'm still struggling a little bit with all these emotions and feeling very hurt, and it's hard for me still to open up and be vulnerable. But I do feel like I can do that now.

Can you tell him right now what all these emotions are.

I feel very very hurt by you. I feel the trade. I feel like the vowels that Lee said on our loving day weren't as important to you as they were to me. I'm very anxious and sad.

I think the main theme here that encapsulates all of that is I don't feel safe. Yeah, Chris, what was going on for you as she was saying this? What goes on in your body when you hear this from her?

It was heartbreaking?

Say more about that.

I want to, you know, be able to lean into hers as she needs to be able to lean into me. It's hurtful to know that I'm not a person that she can feel comfortable talking to about things.

And I expressed a lot of concerns for the future. Could you respond to hann now and some response to the wardies that she has to her.

I think that your concerns are completely valid. I've completely broken your trust multiple times and retreated from you when I'm hurting. I'm trying very very hard to be present and take steps to rebuild the trust that I've broken because I want to build a safe place for you.

Are you hurting right now? You said you retreat when you're hurting. Are you hurting right now a little bit? Can you tell Anna about how you're hurting?

It's just hard to hear that I've hurt you.

Are you hurting also because you feel lonely?

Not right now?

To talking about this makes you feel less lonely.

Yeah, it's really relieving being able to to talk to about it.

Really tell me what the tears are about.

It's just a release of emotion. It's just hard, you know, knowing that I've done these things to hurt her, and you know it hurts to hear it.

I think the tears might also be related to what you said about It's a relief to be able to talk about this.

Oh, it's a huge relief. When I told her about the fifteen thousand dollars in credit card debt. Being able to talk about it, like, I feel one hundred times better than I ever did trying to hide what I was doing, just because it's like it's out there, and that was like a huge pressure relief was taken off by expressing those things I was hiding.

You know, Chris, it's so important to remember this because this is how you feel after you open up. This is how you feel after you're completely honest. You feel connected. Oh yeah, you feel hurt, but you feel connected. And the default that you have is to run away and increase the disconnection. And this feels very scary before you do it. This feels like this is going to make

I think just coming to me and expressing how he feels saying, you know, I'm sad or I'm hurt because of so and so. Just hearing him express his emotions like.

That right now, are you feeling more connected to him as he's expressing these emotions. Yeah, Chris Andnana, we have some advice for you. The first part is we'd like you to have a monthly finance meeting. Find that time, put it in the schedule every month. Shouldn't take that long just to go over the bills. You should discuss a dollar amount above which you consult with one another before spending it below which you have the autonomy to

This week, and this way too. It becomes a partnership that you're working together on the finances. That it's not one or the other or doing things separately and without the other's knowledge. The second thing is, we would like you to schedule a weekly feelings meeting. And I know that does not sound necessarily appealing to people who don't like to talk about their feelings, but we want it to be really fun and there's a structure to it,

Try very hard, Chris, especially not thoughts feelings, So make sure you're talking about actual feelings, not thoughts, because those are different. And the last thing we'd like you to do is you'd like you to come up with a constitution of your marriage. And what that means is we'd like each of you to sit down and write a list of things. We have two parts. Number one, what I expect of you, Chris, you would write Anna as my husband, and then after that, what my expectation of

And one of the reasons we want you to do that is because many people come into marriage and they don't talk about what their expectations are for the marriage. They use old models, they use fantasy, they use all kinds of things, and they never actually discuss with each other what do we want our marriage to look like, what do we expect from each other, and what do we expect from ourselves. And so when you have that, it provides both accountability and transparency.

Sounds good, Yeah, and I kind of agree to you. It's like we didn't have those kind of talks and it was just kind of winging it in the marriage, and there was really no expectation of how this is going to go. And we've both been modeled to very different kinds of things for marriage, and.

You're going to create your own unique experience of what you want your constitution to look like. And it should be a fun activity to really think about and do together. Exciting. It's looking toward the future. It's looking toward what we can be together, and this is what our expectations are in order to build that.

Yeah, so we look forward to hearing how this goes for you guys this week. That's really good.

Sure, Yeah, thank you.

You know what's interesting with christ and Anna is that it's very clear that they care for each other, but there are some basic foundational aspects to their relationship that they never quite figured out, and that's what the task is before them now.

Yeah, And I think that these issues that have come up, not only in this relationship but in earlier relationships are things that sometimes people don't talk about and that come

Absolutely. I ask so many couples whether they've had that conversation about setting expectations, What are the understandings they have about what their marriage should be and how it should be different from what they've seen around them. Very few couples have that conversation, and.

I think it's important that they're doing that at the same time that they're repairing this rupture, because it will really make them sit down and think very deeply about what they want and how to move forward.

You're listening to DA Therapists. We'll be back after a short break.

So, guy, we heard back from Anna and Chris and let's hear how things went for them this week.

Hey, Guan Laurie, we just wanted to check back in with you guys after working on our assignments. That's such you now everything's going.

So we have been doing the weekly feelings check ins. We feel like they were going very well. So it's been really nice that we are both able to talk uninterrupted about how a situation made us feel. We can do like we've been heard and we can use that to spark positive in constructive conversations. We also have incorporated those feelings check in into our most recent couple therapy session.

It's also been nice because it's allowed us to both feel like we've been heard and it's just been sparking really good conversation. We've also been doing the monthly financial meetings. Those are going really well. We've continued to discuss our boundaries and reevaluate them on a weekly basis. We currently have a whiteboard that we've set up in our living room and that allows us to show our monthly obligations and allow us to visualize and discuss what we both

As far as the constitutions for our marriage, so we've been working on those. We both do want the main theme of this to be better together and just really show how working as a team is just better in so many ways.

We just want to let you guys know that we really appreciate everything you guys have done to help us, and we're going to incorporate a lot of that stuff into our everyday life and set up some really good foundational conversations that we're able to continue.

What I really liked about that from an overview perspective is that these tasks were incorporated, as they said, into all kinds of aspects of their lives. They bought it into the couple's therapy. They have a whiteboard in the living room. They have these regular meetings set up, and so they're really trying to change their perspective on what

I think it's great that they're finally communicating because both of them had come into this relationship and this marriage with patterns around avoidance. So when he would get into debt when he was younger, things weren't really spoken about and he would try to self soothe in these other ways. And I think with her, she also didn't know how to have these conversations. So I think they did quite

Just one thing I want to highlight is sometimes we make points with couples that they really need to make a course correction, and we don't often say what the size of the correction needs to be, but sometimes it needs to be big and when I'm hearing that they went from having the secretive credit card debt where things are all handled in private and in secret, to whiteboard

And putting it in the living room where you can't really avoid it, so it's not like, oh, it's this file somewhere and we're never going to look at it. They're really saying, we are putting this right down in the open, so we cannot be in denial about this. We are going to put everything there where we both can see it, and there are going to be no secrets anymore.

And I agree with you about the constitution. It's a work in progress, and I really hope that the principle of these changes will stay with them, which is we have to be a partnership.

And part of that too is how do we resolve conflicts. I loved hearing that they were able to use the feelings exercise to then bring that into the couple's therapy and then be able to talk about an argument that they had and both feel like that was a really productive conversation.

For our listeners. That is something you can do as well when you find yourself getting into conflict. Pausing to express and listen without interruption to what the feelings are that are coming up for each person can be a very positive way to redirect the conversation into being more productive.

When we think about what was going on here, there was this deceit, there was this betrayal, But really what it is is there are lots of unexpressed feelings that got people into a situation in the first place, and so I'm really glad they're dealing with what they actually need to deal with going forward.

Next week, we're checking in with Lauren, who came to us feeling a lot of shame around her lack of sexual experience, to hear how she's doing. One year later, I actually met someone.

I met a guy who I really really liked, and for the first time in my life, I was able to actually tell this guy what I like, to bottom what I didn't like. You know, if he did something I didn't like, I brought it to his attention in a gentle way, out like pointing the finger. He actually appreciated how I communicated with them.

If you're enjoying our podcast, don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by telling your friends about it and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.

If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us, email us at Lauri and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com. Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional editing support by Helena Rosen, John Washington, and Zachary Fisher. Our interns are Ben Bernstein, Emily Gutierrez, and Silva Lifton and special thanks to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Curic. You can't wait to see you at our next session. Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio

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