Video Transcript
Hello? Dr. Shane African-American marriage. Counselor. May I help you?
Hey, Dr. Shane it’s Susan. I’m so glad you answered. I really can’t get out of my head right now. I mean, James, he really needs to leave the house. He’s got to go. I get it. I get it. I get it Susan.
What happened? Well, I just, I can’t get out of my head about this. I can’t stop thinking about it. Tell me exactly what happened here. Did you catch him, did a phone ring. Did someone call you what, what happened? Well, this phone ring and he just picked it up and walked out of the house and I just don’t trust him because I automatically assume that he’s speaking to another woman.
He leaves he’s gone for a while and I just don’t. I don’t like this. Got it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense to me. You, okay. All Right. Let’s let me say this. I know trust is a horrible thing. I think it’s the worst thing you could really take from a person to be honest. And that has definitely happened to you,
but let’s kind of figure out what, what really happened here. So are you sure he had another affair? No, I’m not certain. It’s just the idea and I’m not trusting right now. Okay. Oh, okay. So you don’t have proof like a smoking gun, a naked body that he’s had an affair? No, not at all. I just have the intuition.
It’s just driving me crazy. Okay. So version, not this, not that unusual. I know you’ve heard this term is called PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Infidelity is very akin to PTSD. Well, I’ve heard of it. Yeah. And what happened is that phone call that staying out late, that behavior that you associated remembered being associated with him cheating.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s re triggered it. It’s re triggered it. So I just want you to know a challenge that you’re going to run into is very hard to break up a family without hardcore evidence. And we don’t know if this is a misdemeanor of staying out or to felony of infidelity. So we can’t treat them the same because you’re not likely to leave.
And you don’t have a mountain of evidence. Seems like you have more like a molehill, But what is it about it that just won’t let me go. You’re trying, you know, you’re really trying Susan and I commend you for all of it, but really I’ll be honest with you. It’s like a civil war between your heart and your brain. Your heart is saying,
oh God, I care about you. I love you. I love my family. But your brain is saying, Sue, protect me. This is dangerous. And it’s just a very difficult war to wage. And you’re right now, you’re in the midst of it. Okay. So what do I do from here? Okay. So what I want you to do is just take a deep breath and let’s figure out how to move forward.
So I want you to think about all the stuff you have. I want you to bring it to the office unless you sit down and go over it and let’s get him. There may be, there could be another side to the story, but I want you just to recognize the hardest thing of all is really, I think you’ve forgiven him and religion teaches us every religion to forgive other people.
But boy, it’s hard to say, you know, how do I stay and protect myself? Why didn’t I leave? And it’s just really hard to leave with a family at stake. So it’s difficult. And this doesn’t mean you’re weak. I know that I’m not trying to blame you for his infidelity. But part of what we have to do is help you work through it and help you get on the other side of it.
But it’s not going to happen quickly. And any time you have it, re-triggered, it’s going to feel like we’re starting from the beginning, but that is not the case. You know, I’ve seen you over all these months and you’ve made a lot of progress and you really have, I mean, now you call me like every other month with something like this before we were kind of talking every day,
you were texting me. So I just want you to recognize you got into a better place. This isn’t going to be your life forever. But right now you just got re-triggered and we have to get you through it. Okay. I can do that. Okay, good. So call my secretary set up a time. Let’s get you in the books.
We’re going to get you to the other side of it Again. Thank you so much, Dr. Shane. All right. Bye-bye All right. Bye-bye Infidelity. It is one of the worst things you could do to a person because it rise them up their trust. And I know how they make panic all the time and be very, very concerned. They’re just trying to protect themselves.
They don’t want to get hurt again, PTSD getting re-triggered is just a natural part of it. And they’re going to go through it as a spouse. If you’ve committed the infidelity, you’re probably saying, oh my God, this has got to be my life. However, let me assure you. It is not, but you got to make some decisions.
You got to decide if you’re going to come clean. If you’re going to give them the truth so that you could close that loop. And they figured out what happened. So PTSD, like I said, people get re-triggered. And what we have to do is help them just work yourself through it, but you also get not PTSD, but now you’re frustrated.
You think they’re not trying. They’re trying a lot, you know, going through a civil war between your brain and your heart. That’s what the 24 7 fatigue wanting to walk away, unable to walk away. They can’t, but they are trying, or they wouldn’t be doing it. They would just be shut down. So when angry hurt panic, people come into my office.
Doesn’t make me so nervous. What makes me nervous is when indifferent people come. So if your spouse is going through PTSD, they’re still fighting. This doesn’t last forever. We will likely be able to get you to the other side, just know divorce rates drop as much as 30%. That’s 30% with an intervention. So it’s never too late to live.
Your happily ever after.
