#091: Infidelity: Healing from Your Spouse or Parent’s Affair | Dr. Christine Bacon
Feeling hopeless, our guest prayed for her husband to die. Earlier in their marriage, she cheated on him. Thankfully, they turned things around and they now have a beautiful marriage.
In this episode, Dr. Christine Bacon vulnerably shares about her affair but especially about the restoration of her marriage. She even shares the formula she’s discovered for a happy marriage. She also offers advice and answers questions, such as:
Why do people have affairs?
Should parents tell their kids about the infidelity?
What can a young person do to heal from their parent’s unfaithfulness?
Buy Dr. Bacon’s book, Super Couples: A Formula for Extreme Happiness in Marriage
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Dr. Christine Bacon
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
My guest today felt so hopeless in her marriage that she actually prayed for her husband to die. A kid. Do not. Their marriage was such a mess. And early on in marriage, she actually cheated on him. But now thankfully, they turn things around and their marriage is now really beautiful. And in this episode, my guest, Dr Christine Bacon vulnerably shares about her affair, but especially about the restoration of her marriage. She even shares the formula that she's discovered for a happy marriage. She also offers advice and answers questions such as why do people have affairs and should parents tell their kids about the infidelity that happened and what can a young person do to heal from their parents and fidelity? This is such an important topic that we privately discussed with the young people that we serve, but it's really discussed in such a public open and honest way as you'll hear in this episode. So keep listening. Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents', divorce, separation or broken marriage. So you can feel whole again, I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. This is episode 91 my guest today is Dr Christine Bacon. She's a communication and relationship expert. She's also an author, speaker trainer, longtime university professor and the host of the radio talk show Breakfast with Bacon. Her acclaimed book, The Super Couple, a Formula For Extreme Happiness and Marriage was inspired by a personal mission to help God save one million marriages during her lifetime, Dr Bacon holds three degrees in communication. She received her master's and her phd in interpersonal communication from Regent University and she received her bachelor's during communication from Old Dominion University. Her doctoral dissertation burge marital humor with her own experience and her desire to teach individuals and couples how to build and nurture what Bacon calls super marriages. She and her husband Dan reside in Virginia and enjoy time with their daughters and six perfect grandchildren. So without waiting and no longer, here's my conversation with Dr Christine Bacon, Dr Bacon. So great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. Thank you for inviting me. I'm always excited to spread truth. Your story is so fascinating. Perhaps your lowest point, you prayed for your husband to die. What happened in your marriage? But you know, gracious, I couldn't. We're going to have our 40th anniversary this year. So there's so much I could talk to you about. So let's start with the happy part there. But we got married in 83. I was pregnant and did everything the uncaf slick way and but we were happy and then we got married in 83. I started having an affair in 1986. Which is really weird because I like to first start out with telling people, most people think an affair happens in an unhappy marriage. That's not the truth affair happen when your boundaries are low. It's like, oh, I love my husband. That means I'm gonna stay with him. I'll just, you know, if someone is flirting with me, you flirt back. And so I didn't seek any relationship, but there's this individual is preying on me, which I now know, you know, he was 10 years older than me. He knew what he was doing. But let's just put that aside. But so I started having these feelings for this man, which I shouldn't have had eventually left my husband too and I was away from him for two years and then we got back together. So I ditched the other guy and then I had a Holy Spirit moment which, you know, I'll leave it up to you to ask me whatever you want to ask me kind of turned back or got back in touch with my faith that I had kind of let you know, go to the wayside, which hold on to that. And then two years on my own really talking to God. And that's when my husband started pursuing me again, saying let's let's get back together, let's reconcile was like, no No, no, no, no, no, no. It didn't work the first time. It's not gonna work sick time. But thank God he was very pursuant. And um so we agreed to get back together. We moved in and, and stop me any time because I could go on with the story. But we moved back in May of 1991. It was kind of like awkward, happy for a while. But the problem is joy is that we never, we never took a marriage class. We never said okay, what do we do differently? And we just kind of fell back into the same place. Not my husband. I mean, he's a good man but he kept your, your slot. You did this, you did that. All those bad names would continue to come out. Any time there was a marriage problem, he would throw that in my face. And of course, when he do that, I'd be like, you know, check and I, you know, it's your fault if you wouldn't be such a jerk. And so we fell into the patterns that so many people fall into. You attack me because you still don't trust me. And then so I'll defend myself and then, And then these patterns happen and we're not building a relationship. So the more that that happened, the less attracted I was to him. And, and so over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, he had this hardness and then I had this defensive edge against it because what people don't realize too when you have an affair is, they. I always think that the victim is my husband, which he is. I take full responsibility and have some people going. You're make it sound like we should feel bad for you guys who had an affair. It's not what I'm saying, but those of us that did have our feelings to deal with as well. We have self loathing, lack of respect were, you know, I sinned against God. I can never ever again call myself a faithful wife. Um How did I make such a stupid decision? So all these things. So we are a wounded animal and when anybody brings up our past infidelity, it's like poking on that wounded, like just leave me the hell alone. Sorry. I don't mean to say that, but that's kind of how we feel. And so specifically, you know, when a husband or a wife has been betrayed, like my husband was, he too has to protect himself. And so throwing darts at you or reminding you of your history is often a tactic that people would do. So with 20 years of this show, it got to the point where like I hate you so bad. I got to the point where I was like, I'm in my marriage because I know that marriages until death, I have no escape. I'm a trapped animal. And um I just the only way out of this bad marriages if you die because I don't believe in divorce and I would literally get on my knees at my bed because I, you know, I would say things but my husband was, you know, especially brutal with his words as well. So this is where I'm kind of like it's not just one person, there has to be forgiveness, there has to be kind. And so I would just be like, Lord, please make him die. He's an awful, awful man. He, he says stuff in front of our kids. I said stuff in front of our kids. And so all these things would build up and stop me wherever you want. But in this time, I was God always pressed on my heart, this desire. What, what does it take to have a good marriage? What you'd see these cute couples out there and you're like, you know, I want what they have all their so cute. They must have married the right way. They must have married the right guy. Um I did it the wrong way and you know, if, if my spouse dies, maybe I can get remarried and do it the right way the second time. You know, it sounds morbid but I've said it enough now that I know that many people say privately, I feel the same way and it's, it's shameful. But there are so many people that say I get you because when you're in a bad marriage, you do feel trapped. So, anyway, in this too time I started going to get my bachelor's, my master's, my phd, all in marriage communication. And eventually my phd was the doctoral dissertation was humor as a communication, strategy and military marriage. I don't want to study anything negative or depressing. And I thought, let's look at that and it was such a fun dissertation to do. And every question on my survey had had to do with humor except for one and it simply said write your marriage and, and that was a seven point scale from extremely unhappy and very unhappy and unhappy to the flip side, which was happy, very happy, extremely happy and perfect. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna quiz you Joey. So out of 644 people, I'll tell you up front, nine people checked off. Perfect. And I'm like, those are still newlyweds having sex every day. They got no clue what a real marriage is like. Let's just get past them. Right. But when I went back and looked at them, those nine people were married 30 years, 20 years, 15 years, I was like, what I had to put that aside. But on my quiz you of the other 630, some people, what percent would you say would check the extremely happy box, like they're not just happy and I'm not just very happy, but they are extremely happy to come home to their spouse. We're talking not even 50 people, right? So you're thinking 60 10% you're thinking about 89% right? I was thinking about 1%. It was 35% 35%. That was like one in three, more than one in three was saying I'm so extremely happy. And I said at my computer crying, look at my, my data and was like, what does that look like? I just want to know what it's like to be happy. And I cried so hard because it was just so foreign to me. Anyway. So after I got my doctorate, the the Lord just kept pushing on my gut. He was like, go go find out, go find out, find out what it was like. Okay. So I went out to discover was extreme happiness accidental or was it, was there a formula? And of course, I expected to find that it was just accidental. They marry the right person and sucks to be you everybody else. You, you know, you chose your one in 100 instead of your one in a million. But as I went through it, I, I found out that there was actually a formula. So I'll hold off right there because I can't keep talking. I know you asked about infidelity. So before I go into the super couple, I'd love to answer any more questions you have about infidelity and you can ask anything you want? Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for being such an open book and that's, that's so fascinating and I'm excited to dive into the formula more and get your relationship advice and all that, I guess for everyone interested, who kind of wants to be teased on the end of your story. How did you guys in particular turn things around? And then I do have a bunch of questions when it comes to infidelity. But yeah, what if you could tease that out? How did you guys turn things off? So there was a formula. I interviewed about 50 couples on recording but about it only took me about five or this, this pattern materialized before my eyes. As I'm interviewing these couples with a tape recorder, I would ask the same questions to every couple and 100% of the men would answer the questions the same way And 100% of the women would do the same thing. And it wasn't this contrived little. Oh honey, don't say that, you know, these people have been married 2030 years, they've seen each other naked, they've seen each other throw up, right? So they weren't playing any games. But when I'd say things like what are the main ingredients? And I am answering your questions, but I have to give you this. What are the main ingredients in the super couple marriage? Why? What makes you so special? And 100% of the husbands would say, let me tell you about this woman. Let me talk about my wife. She does this, this and this and you know what our marriage is good because she is this kind of a person that was like, wow. And then the women, you know, without going, oh no, stop honey. And they receive it. But then they go, well, you know what? He's being humble. Let me tell you about him because this family would not be what it is without him being able to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he did this and he did that and I'd be sitting back and I'd see this repeated again and again and again in every home, every home and then, and then I'd ask, okay. So like you guys didn't have any struggles, right? I mean, maybe little things like your mom's check once, but you don't ever have any big problems. And 100% of these couples, the husbands were like, no, I don't know how she put up with me. I did this and I did that and I did this and there was a time when I failed her in this way and then the wives would be like, well, I did this and I did that and I did that. Let me tell you this. Here's, here's the very first most important part of the formula when it was a negative or when it was a positive attribute of the marriage they pointed to the other when it was negative, they pointed to the self. So I just ask you right now. Stop anybody listening, Joey. Are you married? Okay. So, you know, it's like when you think about this marriage or your bad days, right? You have a bad day, you're like, if my wife would just do such and such. Right? Do, do you? And you don't have to answer this, you or any of your listeners, do you quickly point out how he or she can change or do you think about your own ways of improvement? Yeah, that's a good question. And it depends on the day for me. Yeah. Sometimes you know, one of the more virtuous days I can point to myself in the not so virtuous days I can appointed her for sure and virtue is so so important. Actually, one of my super couples mentioned virtue and he said virtue is a disposition to do the good to do the good and, and negate the evil. That's it. To be a virtuous husband, being virtuous wife. What is a good I can do so in happy marriages, they would focus the good on the other and the negative on the self in troubled marriages like mine and my husband's, it was everything that was good was me and everything that was bad was him and vice versa. So really, if I go around, of course, I want to tell you the whole formula if you want. But what changed it for us was I was convicted and I started watching these couples and I sat there and I was embarrassed because I thought I'm such a jerk. I do this and I always insult my husband. I always blame him. I always, and he did the same. So I kind of consciously, kind of subconsciously started taking what I was learning in these interviews and bringing them home to my husband and him not realizing he was a marital guinea pig though he should have because he was married to me. He started reciprocating and our marriage once cycled bad. Your nasty. I'm nasty. You're ugly. I'm ugly. Started to slowly turn the other way. I'm nice. You're nice. You're happy. I'm happy. I'm virtuous. You're virtuous. Unfortunately, that circle it doesn't take long go and start spinning in the opposite direction. It was miraculous and that's when I realized if my marriage could turn around, any marriage could turn around. Wow. Beautiful. Okay. I'm really excited to get into more of that. But before we do infidelity, it's such a huge topic around here with the young people that we serve because so often, you know, their parents marriage fell apart because of infidelity or at least that was a factor in it. I wanted to start with. Do you know what percentage of divorces involve some form of infidelity? Oh, I would say 95 or more, you know, it's not always easy because so many of the cheaters why? And I'll talk to couples and they'll be like, oh, my spouse says they're not seeing someone else. And I'm like, well, they have this sign, that sign, this sign, that sign on that sign and some cheating spouses are very deceitful. Fortunately, for me, that's not one of my traits. I don't know how to lie when my husband found out about my affair was like, yep, you're right. I am and I don't love you, but there's so many other people, I'm not having an affair. It's you, you're stupid. You, you and, and insult the intelligence. So of all the couples, I've worked with the standards that I have in my group, people whose spouses have left them, I would say out of the 270 active ones that I have, there are two who I believe their spouse probably didn't cheat on them, but they left for other reasons. So, what's the math? Two out of 273 100? I mean, that's 1% half a percent. So, yeah, because Joey to get out of our relationship, even in abusive relationships, people get used to pattern, they stay in that situation because they know how to manage it until there's some outside force that forces you to get out and an affair. Whether it's physical or some people say just emotional but emotional is, is equally as powerful as physical, physical. Actually. Just happens when it's like I give up, I don't want to fight these feelings anymore. So your affair starts long before you ever get in bed with the other person. So I would say the vast majority deal with infidelity, whether it's known or hidden. No, that makes sense. And the cases that I'm aware of, like you said, there's just so much deceit and so much dishonesty that goes into it. So that makes a lot of sense that would be present if infidelity is often at the root of divorce. What's at the root of infidelity? What causes that? So, as I said earlier, I mean, I could go all spiritual on you until it's all Satan, right? It's the enemy. But in terms of our human weaknesses, low boundaries, low self esteem, most of the time, it's low boundaries. And like in my case, I didn't see it coming. Preachers. Right. I talked, I have some preachers in my group that, you know, husbands, a preacher and he ended up leaving me for another woman because so many people think, well, I'm happily married. I don't have to worry about that. So preachers will come in and they'll have, you know, couples in front of them or they'll council just the woman or just a man. But they put themselves in a position where they think they're strong and they can handle it, but they connect and this relationship builds into something and they end up having affairs. So I think it is not, it's not just the boundaries, boundaries, is it? But this idea that I'm immune is very problematic because some people have said I just never after they've heard my strategy, but I never thought my husband was one of those types of guy. And I say to them, I'm not gonna let that hurt me. Right. I'm just, but I want to, I want you to hear what you just said to me. My husband's not that kind of guy. You obviously were. What are you calling me? Are you saying I'm bad, I'm a slut and I'm, I'm horror. I'm asleep around. What what? And and they hear it and I was like I said, I was a good Catholic girl. I was happily married and I wasn't that kind of a girl. So that's one of the thinking I want to change in people is good. People have affairs. What, what did Jesus say in the Bible? Right? Is like who's good? But God on the days I do good things. I'm good on the days I do bad things. I'm bad. So that's probably the biggest thing is low boundaries because again, even in, in abusive relationships, abused, the victim's spouse will stay and the abuse is usually not enough to get them out. And let me just say this to so many people say I'm being abused and being abused, it annoys me. It really does because I start correcting them. I said there's a difference between your spouse being mean and a jerk and being abusive because abuse is about power and control and they're often not overpowering you. Like, yeah, if you go to your mom's house, I'm going to take you and I'm going to whatever. Right. So, but in true abusive relationships, the spouse is usually, like, look, you know, these incidents happen only every several months I can handle it and then whatever. But, you know, even in them, they don't leave until there's just all of a sudden there's a better option. There's, They meet someone, they see someone that's now they're attracted and it gives them, oh, those 11 hormones that we could talk about are so powerful. Once we let them this cascade of these love cocktail, emotions that John Gottman calls them. Once the domino effect starts, it's nearly impossible to fight. So we have to stop ourselves before those hormones start clicking in here. Okay. Now it makes so much sense. Well, it's so you're so insightful into this problem. What do you think of Dr Gary Chapman's explanation to where he basically says, you know, in the five love languages that, you know, emotional tank that everyone has just needs to be filled and when it's empty, we're going to seek to fill it in ways that might not be, be healthy. And so we want our spouse to love us and fill our emotional tank. But if they don't, we might seek it in other ways, which could be an affair. That's what a lot of the stories in his book talk about that. Do you think that's maybe one of the main reasons that affairs happen or is there something else going on? So whether it's him and talking about the Love bank and the, or it's Cotman talking about the love cocktail. What I find is always, we're all speaking the same language because in my super couple formula, the sacred formula as a C R E D, the s is the most important. It's selflessness. And so simply put, if, if I am meeting my own needs but not yours, it's a problem and then happy in unhappy marriages. Let's go there. We meet the needs of the self. I wake up in the morning and make my own cup of coffee and make sure I get enough sleep. I do what I need to do. And this might not be bad things. But if I'm taking care of my needs and Danny is taking care of his, that's still much more selfish. But that we have to be selfless. If I wake up in the first cup of coffee I make is my husband's or I make sure to, you know, turn my alarm off or keep the lights off because he wants to sleep in or whatever. So do I put his needs before my own or my, my needs before his, when you're talking about Gary Chapman's the five love languages or Emerson Cedric's Love and respect they're both about or all these books about, do I meet my needs or do I meet their needs? So, my love language is quality time and my focus. And why are you never talking to me, Dan, why you're never listening to me? That's, it's nothing bad about that, but that's still focused on my needs. And my thinking about Danny's love language is acts of service. Am I doing? Did I mow that lawn for him? Did I go and massage him? Did I go and make, make whatever it was he wants me to do. So, yeah, I love what Chapman says because if we discover what the other person's love languages and we seek to meet their needs, that's what we're supposed to do. I'm married to you. I will seek your needs. You seek mine. And that way we're both having our needs met by the other. No, I love that. Yeah. And teaching each other how to fill those needs I think is, is so so beautiful. And that's why I love the work that you're doing. Would you say, I mean, your story is just the answer to this. But for everyone listening who maybe doesn't know, you know, everything about your story is a marriage doomed once infidelity occurs, you know, can you recover from it? No. You know, I'm a Lector at church and one of the things I do is I'm able to look out and see all the people in the pews and, because I'm a marriage coach, I'm like, I've worked with that couple, I've worked with that couple, I've worked at that couple and they're all together and I know which ones have had affairs but you don't Because they don't tell you and they're not going to tell their neighbors and they're not going to tell their families most of the time. And so you look at couples, see you had an affair. See, they're divorced. I'm like, ah, but you don't know about these other 2030, 50, 50 couples here that had affairs and they're happily married. Yeah, you can. And people do all the time work through them. So, so what does it take to recover from that, from, from a cheating situation for both of the spouses? Because, you know, let's assume one didn't cheat and one did. I know in some cases both do. But I'm curious, what does it take to recover from cheating? It takes every fiber of your being because both of you were, had trust broken the betraying spouse again, as I said earlier has all these self doubts. And when this love cocktail, like kicks in and you have all these feelings when you first met your wife, you probably have the love cocktails like, oh my gosh. I'm so in love and hmm. So there are 11 hormones but I call it love cocktail then, but when it's an affair, I call it the lust cocktails the same 11 hormones. But they're, one of them is a hormone that elevates your risk taking. It's like, oh, no, it's okay. We can have sex. We won't get caught, we won't get pregnant. Another one is low irritability. When you're with this person, nothing irritates you. It's just no big deal. Even the way they chew with their mouth open is so adorable. You know, that's just, it's okay. Right. But when that wears off, which takes typically about two years, six months to two years, you're like, oh my God, shut your mouth. I don't want to see you chewing like that and you're irritating me and, and, and all these hormones. But one of those hormones is called vasopressin and it's called the monogamy hormone. And it's specifically high when vasopressin touches testosterone, which means more stronger for males even though women have testosterone to. But when, And that's the person is elevated, it's called the monogamy hormone because men are visually stimulated, right? You can see your wife naked, you're totally ready, right. I'm game. But when you're in that love cocktail and those 11 hormones are elevated, you could have naked women walking around you and you won't even notice them because your object of your affection is right in front of you. Like I don't care about anyone else. So when I had an affair and that lust cocktail kicked in and I saw this person as like, just, just great. Right. There's nothing in the earth. My husband can do your wife that can make you think they're better. That's just the way God made the hormones. Um, so when you're coming out of an affair, you have to work through those emotions because so many times, you know, I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, the other guy was a better man. I'm stuck with my husband. I got to be with him, but I'm going to do this. So the things that actually keep you married are the decision. So once the hormones were off, let me just say it's the difference between what we would categorize as falling in love and being in love, right? So falling in love is I'm just in love, I'm in love with you versus love. So after the hormone wears off, you make a choice. If you and your wife have been together for more than two years, you know what I'm talking about, you're choosing to love her every day. And so that's what you have to do after an affair, you have to work through. And when I counsel or coach couples, I'll tell the husband or the wife that was betrayed. Look, I'm just gonna be straight up with you. Your spouse is still going to be thinking about the om or the O W as we call him, the other woman other man. I know you don't want to think about that, but you, you can close your eyes and stick your head in the stand or you can understand this and go with it. You want your marriage to work or not, but it's not to throw it in their face when they're like crying in bed at night because they've been out of this relationship for six months, but they're still dreaming of the other person. And that is pretty humbling. If you, if your wife, you know, you're laying in bed with your wife, you know, she's thinking of another man that's pretty humiliating or vice versa. So, teaching them, here's what it's going to look like. But eventually those hormones balance your mind balances. You will logically look at it like I had to go. That guy is not a good guy because he had an affair with a married woman. He knew, you know, even though I had an affair with a married man, I looked at him like I had to look at him logically and go, your ethics aren't as high as I would like to believe. I can't trust you because you, you're a cheater just like I was right. So you got to navigate what is truth and what is worth working. And so I will work with couples and you have a history together. You have Children, you have families, you devastate your Children if you divorce. But once you work through this and you reset logic and emotion, faith and reason. You will see that the feelings can come back for the spouse that you once couldn't stand because you're looking at him like, wow, you're stuck with me even though I did this or I did that or, or the other way around you, you look like you came back to me even though you already had someone else and you could have your a big enough person to admit your fault. You know. So how do we see you? Do we see you in that positive light or do we see you in the negative light? That's a choice. You have to train your mind. Wow. Okay. And I know you offer resources to help recover from these sorts of situations from Infidelities. So we'll definitely offer those at the end. But I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about, yeah, you know, from the perspective, I would say of the Children of the young people who come for from these situations. So would you say, should parents tell their kids about the infidelity? That's something we kind of debate around here. Not unless the kids found. So I have a sadly have a friend who recently had an affair and her Children overheard and the kids are upset. How could you have done this mommy? How could you have done this? That's devastating because the kids, they're so innocent. They believe in Santa Claus they can't comprehend this. What a child should be told is what a child can handle. His. Mommy and daddy are having a hard time, mommy and daddy are fighting, but we can get through this. Do you know how you fight with your siblings? You know, you guys, sometimes you're pulling each other's hair out and we have to ground you and then sometimes you're playing really nicely. So that's like Agia pro pre it, you get a teenager and it's the same type of things like, you know, your mom and I are struggling marriages like this. Um If you could, could you pray for us. And so if the child says, well, my friend saw mommy out with another man, you know, or they saw you, you know, daddy out with another woman, I would never lie to the child because then they can't trust you. So whatever they know, you never lie to the child, but you never give them more information than they need. And it's like, well, yes, daddy did in fact have a relationship with someone else, but that relationship is ending and we're working out, you know. So that's, that's what I would say. Okay. So not voluntarily bringing it up. But if they knew about it, if they ask, you can set aside curiosity and kind of leave it at that until maybe they have more questions. Let me ask you if I took a knife and stabbed you in the chest. That would hurt. Right. So, when you find out your spouses had an affair that hurts. Right. Why would you want to stab your Children in the chest too? Yeah. Okay. So let me just play devil's advocate for a secondary. I know a lot of the spouses who might be listening to this, especially parents who are divorced. They might be thinking, well, I want to give my child my Children some sort of an explanation for why dad is no longer living with us. What would you say in that case is appropriate? Because it might seem, and I've heard parents say this, it might seem like your mom or if it's dad being kind of this, this ruthless creature who's kicking the other parent out of the house for apparently no reason when you know, there actually is a reason there. So I'm curious what you would say to someone who would say something like that. So kind of get me to the beginning question again. Yeah. So, you know, a parent might disclose to their Children about some sort of infidelity or affair because they're afraid that their Children may think that they're randomly kicking the other spouse out of the house. So, so again, you tell the child, you always have to give them encouragement first. Just like, look, I want, I want daddy back. I'm still fighting for our marriage. But yes, he made this bad mistake. You know, if you put it in that. It's like he made a mistake or I wouldn't have ever, I was forced into this divorce. But I want you to love your daddy because just like you make mistakes, daddy's makes mistakes too. Or mommy, you know, whichever one it is. So you, but see what happens. Joey is a lot of us and anybody listening, check yourself because you know what I'm talking about is really, I want my, I didn't know that I was a good spouse and they were the bad one. It's like, well, you know, if your dad hadn't have left me and they almost want to tell the Children so that I'm the good parent and that's the bad parent. But they totally forget your kid loves both of you. Even kids whose parents are in prison. I worked with those kids, even kids whose parents are abusive. I've talked to those kids. They want mom and dad together. They want to believe this is possible. So even though you have proved that the other one in the eyes of the world is the worst one. That's not how it's coming out in your kid's head. You just need to say we are both lod people. We've both made mistakes. But yes daddy left. I wish I could get them to stay. I wish I could have gotten mommy to stay. You know, so they can know that your fight you fought or you are continuing to fight for your marriage and then just tell the kids, you know, mommies and daddies do get back together, you know. So, so pray, pray for this. Although I tell you the cheating spouse, the leaving spouse often says, don't you tell our kids to pray for our marriage to reconcile? Because it's never gonna happen? You're giving the kids false hope. The Bible says, hope never disappoint. So that's what I usually tell them. I'm gonna give them hope. You go ahead and throw their little hearts on the ground and tell them not. And I'm gonna let them pray with whatever they want to say. If that makes them feel better, I think we'll get back together, then I'll let them do it and it just angers the leaving spouse. But you're not saying it to be vindictive. You're saying it to be like, I'll be darned if I'm going to tell my kids not to pray that we get back together because it convicts leaving spouse. Yeah. Oh Yeah. And from the hundreds of young people that we worked with, even if there's not this explicit conscious desire, often on an unconscious level, there's this desire that mom and dad would get back together. And even if that, even if it's the years later, there's this hope that we hold on out, you know that okay, maybe mom and dad will get back together, maybe things will, you know, the family will come back together, things can be healed. So So, I certainly just, my parents on February 23rd would have been my parents 60th wedding anniversary and they're both still alive and they divorced when I was 14. And even though back then I said I wanted it because I used to fight with my dad as I've matured. I'm like, no, I want my parents back together and I'm still hoping that maybe before they die they will. So, yeah. And if, if God wills it, it will happen. Yeah. So you get that. Yeah. What would you say to a child who that one or both of their parents were unfaithful and it really affected them, like they're really scarred by it. What would you say to them? How could they heal from that? How old? I mean, typically the people listening to this podcast typically or anyone from early teens to in their early 30s. So I know it's a big range. But no, no, no, it's good. They're just not little kids. My answer is there's a lot of Brokenness in this world and Brokenness does not mean it has to be replicated and it does not mean it can't be healed. And, you know, usually by that age, those age groups have made some big mistakes. They've had sex outside of marriage, they've broken up, they've had their own little cheating on a boyfriend or girlfriend, they've, they've made mistakes so they start understanding the humanity of themselves. And so I would help them compare their parents Brokenness to their own. But then again, going back to the hope conversation saying, But again, we learn from our mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes we made make us the better persons that we are my affair. 30 some years ago, 36, years ago, brought me to this profession. Today, brought me to that book. Got me to the platform is helping me save marriages. It is God is redeeming my sin. And so I would say to those Children, the same thing first, don't stop praying for your parents to reconcile, but look at them as the same as you are just a flawed and broken human being who made a mistake? Forgiveness goes a long way. That's so true. Thanks for saying all that. And what would you say to the young person who is just terrified of walking down the same path? Um I know, you know, we hear that a lot from the young people that we work with that. They don't want to repeat the same mistakes they saw in their parents' marriage. But so often they, you know, for one reason or another, they kind of unconsciously walk down the same path. But what can they do to avoid repeating those same mistakes in their own relationships? First thing they can do is realize that they're not gonna not make some of the same mistakes. You know, I'm just, you're taught how to handle conflict by your parents you're taught how to wash the dishes by your parents. You're taught how to interact with family and friends and spend the holidays. You're taught everything by your parents and you gotta take the good and get rid of the bad. My daughter and I was a great mom. I had other mothers say to me, if I could be half the mom you were. But my youngest daughter was like, I don't ever want to be a mom like you were in terms of conflict. My daughter's very introverted and she always calls me a bull in a china shop because I'm like, you see, I'm not shot. I'm like, I'll give you this and that and I'm opinionated and that makes her pull back. So she's like, I will never be like you in that way. I'm never going to raise my voice and she doesn't raise her voice too much. But then she's gone so far to the opposite direction. She doesn't discipline her kids at all. And I've had to say to her, your kids are walking all over you. Your oldest disrespect you, blah, blah, blah. So what I'd say to them is you're going to make mistakes, cut yourself some slack for crying out loud, but pick and choose the things that you want to repeat, the things you don't realize you're gonna make your own set of mistakes just trying to avoid your parents' mistakes. So it's got to be this balance of okay, this is gonna happen. Now, the number one thing in this is secular research and then obviously Christian as well. But secular research take, take the God out of this. The number one thing that will save a marriage is to vow to understand the indestructibility of marriage. It's like a lot of my couples would say the D word. We don't even say the D word we said on our engagement. We would never be allowed to say it, even joke about it, even threatened it. We'd never say the D word. And when you go into it and know that this is for life, it changes things when I left my husband and then I came back when he asked me back in 2000 or 1991. It's actually October of 1990. I remember standing in My living room in New Hampshire because my husband was currently stationed in South Carolina thinking to myself, Okay. The first time I left my husband, you know, I married him, I was 18, pregnant and stupid. Everybody would understand why I'm getting out of this marriage. I'd have been out. But this time you're eight years older, you know what you're getting into this time. It's for life. And I never knew back then that vow, that vow is what sustained me in the times that I wanted him to die or hated him. It's like I'm in this for life. There's no out clause. There's no get out of jail card and when you know that you will weather any storm, any storm, every storm, every storm so good. And what would you say to parents listening? Who maybe they're considering a divorce, maybe they're separated right now or just really struggling in their marriage. What's your advice for them? Especially if cheating was involved. What's your advice when it comes to parents? Considering divorce? A read Layla's book, Primal Loss. The now adult Children of divorce, speak Layla Miller. It is, it'll rip your heart out. And she has given that book to people. They have, she said some people actually changed their decisions to divorce because of like this is gonna hurt my kids. Um One of the things that I read in there that I will say to those people right now is one person said divorce is a bloodless sacrifice, deacon Harold Burke Sievers was on my radio show once and he is an adult child of divorce. And he said the most telling thing there is divorce is like putting your own cross down and forcing your Children to pick it up. So if you're a parent and you're considering divorcing their parent do not be so arrogant as to think your kids will be okay and your kids will have no pain and your kids won't mind being in a house with their dad and another woman and watching them have to sleep in the same room or their mom and another man do not think your Children will be okay with that. So when you look at and say your Children want the two of you to figure this the heck out, you said you, you right now would jump in front of a bus to save your kid's life. You would take a bullet for those kids. And yet if you divorce, you are inflicting the biggest bullet you can on your kids don't think that you're not. And so I kind of just put them right between the eyes. So you need to figure this out and then I pull back and I'm like, but I get it, I get it. I knew the pain I wanted out and let me work with you, find someone you can work with that can help you get past the season of darkness because you can get past it. So you have to do the same thing with those parents. You have to give them hope. There's nothing that you're going through right now that cannot be resolved. I've had abusive couples where the abuser stops abusing and they've gotten back together and they've had happy marriages, extra kids. Yeah, that's beautiful. I think there's this narrative in our culture that can't happen, but it certainly is true because you've seen it and help couples reach that point. That's amazing. Look at people in prison, we say, oh, they should be good. And yet so many people like, oh, they're an ex con that is a human being. And if you believe that they can live and not make those same mistakes and then they won't. But you judge them a little bit more harshly than you judge yourself. So, yeah. No, they can learn and they can be good broken. But he'll human beings just like you. And so I'm like, really adamant about changing people's frames of mind. It starts in the head. Yeah. No, it's beautiful and it does take a lot of work and I know you're not simplifying it. But um but if you have the right guide, the right mentor, the right coach, you certainly can get there. And we see that with athletes or world class musicians, right? There's always these mentors, these guides behind them. And so it should be the same if we want great marriages. Do I want to go back to the formula before we say goodbye here. Please tell us more about it. I'm really excited. So you interviewed all these couples, you came up with this formula for a great marriage. Teach us as much as you can in the short time that we have. Okay. So the acronym Sacred, I always joke that was either going to be sacred or scared, but I figured Sacred would sell more books. Um When I asked them, these main ingredients, there were some things that these couples said um that they thought were parts of a super marriage. But there were things that I saw that they weren't able to articulate until later. Some of my couples came and so did you ever find out about us? What do you think? And I told them formula. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's it. Because not all of them said selflessness. Actually, most of them didn't. But that's all I saw. And so the A I saw was attentiveness. None of them said that. But here's what I saw in unhappy marriages. You pay attention to what your spouse does poorly in happy super marriages, you pay attention to what they do. Well, so if your spouse comes home in a bad mood, slams the doors like rail in a bad marriage, you're like, you're such a jerk. See why don't even bother marrying you? But in a happy marriage and a super marriage, they go, you know what? That is a good person who's having a bad day. So they flip it. So what do you pay attention to in your spouse where they succeed, where they failed the things you paid attention to when you were dating and fell in love or you pay attention to the fact that they don't keep a clean house or, you know, they have bad breath in the morning or they, they're snarky or they're bad communicators, you know, whatever you can pick and choose because everybody's got a package of both. So the second one, the third one was c which is communication that's all my degrees are in communication. How we say what we say. Um I talk about the differences between the male and the female brain. That's huge because if every woman expect her husband to be just like her and have these conversations where they look into your eyes and you can talk for hours. A male rather shoot himself than have to listen to someone talk all the time because most guys are like, dude, get to the point, get to the point you're killing me, right? And the women are like what all my girlfriends can hang with the girls, the girls, you know. So um I talked about the compartmentalization of the male brain and the and the females circular kind of thinking. I talk about the emotion centers, you know, a female's emotion centers attached to her language center. So when she feels something, she's able to articulate it, but a man's emotion center are attached to his spinal cord. So when a man feels an emotion, he's got to move his body and stuff. So how we say we, what we say, how we communicate, our feelings is so diverse depending on our gender and then our personality type. And and again, am I going to communicate with my husband? The way I want him to communicate or the way that he wants me to communicate goes right back to that selflessness, right? Then ours respect. I don't really need to build on that one too much other than to say our society used to have respect for people. And now you can look at our politicians, our leaders profanity in the White House. You would have never heard that 50 years ago. But there's no respect for self. Look at all this cutting, look at all these horrible things. So we have no respect for self respect for others, no respect for authority, no respect for our spouses and, and respect is to find as the esteem for the value or the worth of a person. And if I don't have value or esteem for my husband's worth, it's gone because if I don't respect him, don't care how I treat him. So respect is huge. And then the kind of the last two E N D sacred, the E is encouragement. I went into my super couples asking questions about pessimism and optimism because my husband's a huge pessimist. And I thought that's what I was seeing is like, you're making me, he's toxic. It was toxic. And I found out that all my super couples were actually a pessimist, married to an optimist. And I was like, what, what am I looking at then? And then after I studied them more, I realized what I was looking at was the dichotomy between encouragement and discouragement. Super couples were extremely encouraging one another. It's like Jimmy, if, if anybody could run for mayor, you could run for mayor. If anybody could start their own business. You can, it's like, you know, Christine, if anyone could write this book, you can the super couples encourage one another and my husband, I love him, but he had to train him. This is probably one of his weak areas. He's like, well, yeah, of course, you could write a book but most books fail. You know, of course, you could start a business but most of them lose money and I'm like, you're killing me. And so I had to like push past his toxic thinking, which eventually my positive success brought him along. But so encouragement. Do you encourage one another? And again, that's biblical encouragement. And the Bible encourage one another with the kids and just be mighty encourage, mentioned encouragement greatly come and encourage them. You can do this. We can do this. I know we cheated. I know our marriage is bad but we can do this. We can do this for the kids anyway. And then the last one ties it all together. The last one is deliberateness because I remember asking one of my super couples, are you just naturally selfless? And her name was Brooke. And she's like, no, you're just as selfish as everybody else. She goes. It's just that when I wake up in the morning, I think to myself, what can I do for Chuck today? What can I do to put his needs before my own? How can I not be selfish? And she said, but that intentionality breeds habit. And eventually super couples are habitually putting their spouse before themselves. So you have to be deliberate. People who are dealing with affairs have to be deliberate and going. Okay. I know. Logically, here's what I'm feeling. I know logically, here's what's going to happen. I know logically, you know, we got to get through this spot would be deliberate, but I'm gonna do this anyway. I don't love you right now. I don't want to kiss you right now, but I'm gonna do it anyway. You know, so that's the formula. It's pretty powerful and it works. Yeah. Amazing. Well, if people want to learn more, how can they learn more about that? I know you have your book and please tell us about the other resources that you offer. Well, so just go to my website and you'll get everything there. It's breakfast with bacon dot com and you can also find Dr Christine bacon dot com. But it's easier to remember breakfast with bacon. Everybody always says that, that, that breakfast with bacon lady, what's her name? So you never remember my name. Just remember breakfast with bacon dot com. And you can find out about my book. We have an audio book, e book, you know, the paper book, but also coaching resources can, you know, work with you. I also have a standards group, the podcast. So you start there. It'll take you to the podcast. It'll take you to everything. But the standards group, I definitely want to make a plug for in this last minute that we have is standards are people who are standing for reconciliation while their spouse is cheating on them has had an affair, has divorced them, has a child with somebody else. And these are people who are standing on their vows saying well, until death do us part. Even if you're married and you've been with the other woman for 12 years, I'm gonna stand because I'm your covenant spouse. And so there are so many people are listening right now. That are what we call separated, faithful. And they're like, yes, that's what I want. I want to say to you, you're not delude, you're not wrong, you're not Pollyanna ish. There are thousands of people who are standing for reconciliation. You can come join our group. We will encourage you. You know, you will have other people who think like you and we've had now we start out with four people in my living room in 2016. We now have over 275 people in 40 states, 10 countries. We've had over 15 reconciliations already of people who once said I will never get back with you. They got back so good. Well, Dr Christine Bacon, thank you so much for your time. I want to give you the last word. What encouragement when you give to parents, listening to even young people listening who? Yeah, just are in these broken families who maybe feel stuck and discouraged in life. What would, what hope would you give to them and closing? There's so much be selfless and, and sacrifice your own needs for the needs of your Children, sacrifice your own needs for the greater good, for the community, for your spouse, for God. And you will be rewarded for that. You will probably be rewarded on this earth, but you'll definitely be rewarded in heaven because every single thorn that you have on earth, you will exchange for a jewel in heaven. Everything is not forgotten. So carry your cross and if you want me, I'll help you carry it with joy. So some questions for you to reflect on if you are married, how would you rate your marriage? How would you rate your marriage and if you're not married, how do you want to be able to rate your future marriage? Like obviously, you wanted to be as great as it can be. And so the question really is for both people in both situations is how are you going to close the gap between where you are today and where you want to be? And to do that, I just want to say check out Dr Christine Bacon's resources to help you. And again, you can go to breakfast with bacon dot com, breakfast with bacon dot com or just click on the link in the show notes If you come from a divorce or broken family. How is your parents' divorce your broken family affecting you today? It might be trickier to answer that than it seems. And if your answer is, I don't really know or you don't really understand the depth of it, you're actually not alone. That's very common from what we've seen. But in the words of one therapist, when it comes to experiencing healing, naming how you've been harmed is about 70% of the battle. Our new assessment will help you name and diagnose your Brokenness. So you can heal it at its roots, not just treat the symptoms and build the life and relationships that you desire. So if you want to become the best version of yourself, find the love and happiness and freedom that you long for and avoid repeating the cycle of dysfunction, divorce in your own life, then you need to heal. And the first step to healing is really naming and diagnosing the wound to help do that. You can take a free confidential and research based assessment. Just go to my broken family dot com, my broken family dot com, answer the questions there and then view your results again. Go to my broken family dot com or just click on the link in the show notes. That's a wrap. If you know someone who's struggling from their parents to force or broken marriage, share this podcast with them. Always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life.
