238: After the Affair: What Happens When You Finally Choose Yourself

Marie Murphy: Hi, everyone. I'm Dr. Marie Murphy, and I'm a non-judgmental infidelity coach. If you are cheating on your partner or having an affair, or you're the other person, or you're engaging in anything you think counts as infidelity, I can help you deal with your feelings, clarify what you want, and make decisions about what you're going to do. No shame, no blame, no judgments.

When you are ready to start dealing with your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about, I can help you do it. There are 2 ways you can have me as your coach. We can work together 1-on-1 via Zoom, or you can enroll in my self-guided course, You're Not the Only One. To get started with either of these options, go to my website, MarieMurphyPHD.com. Together, we will find you some relief and a clear path forward.

In today's episode, I'm sharing a conversation with a long-time podcast listener who calls herself Scarlett about her infidelity situation. Scarlett speaks honestly about the challenges she experienced within her infidelity situation, but she also shares what she gained from her experiences. And she talks about how she's gotten to a place of being not just okay, but better than okay in the aftermath of her infidelity situation, even though she is still dealing with a lingering challenge related to it.

So many of the stories we hear about people's experiences with infidelity emphasize how awful infidelity is and how it destroys people's lives and how if you've engaged in infidelity, you're doomed to be miserable forever. But even if those kinds of stories are true or have elements of truth within them, they aren't the whole truth. They aren't everyone's truth. So I'm tremendously grateful to Scarlett for sharing her story and for helping us change the collective conversation around infidelity. And I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation.Scarlett, it is such a pleasure to be talking with you today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Scarlett: Marie, great to be here.

Marie Murphy: So Scarlett's here because she generously agreed to talk about her experience with infidelity and how her infidelity situation has worked out rather well, shall we say? We'll get into a lot more nuance, of course. But let's begin at the beginning. What was your situation when your infidelity situation began?

Scarlett: Yeah, so I was in about an 8-year marriage. I had known my husband for about 15 years total. We went to the same high school, same college. We got together really as I was continuing my education and we're really good friends. And throughout our entire marriage, we got along great. Nothing was really ever that shaky with us. And I think the pandemic really opened our eyes to a lot of things. I think my husband at the time was 1 of these people who was very happy to have the pandemic. He really liked staying at home, sort of chilling out. We both took jobs working from home at the time, and I was like, I need to get out of this house. I, you know, I want to see the world. And after the pandemic and all the restrictions let up, we kind of maintained that posture where he was happy just to stay in. I was really looking to go out, travel, and I would say we really just drifted apart. He sort of plateaued and was very happy with what he was doing. I was constantly wanting to, you know, just get out among people, have some upward career trajectory, and that really didn't lend itself to sort of staying together and one of us dragging the other along or the other one sitting at the house all the time.

Marie Murphy: Okay. So before any infidelity began, was there this explicit understanding that your marriage was probably not on great footing, or not so much?

Scarlett: I think we had conversations during the pandemic that did shed some light on that. And afterwards, I would say that we probably didn't communicate very well, or at least I didn't communicate that I was really unhappy in the marriage until after the affair started.

Marie Murphy: Okay. Fair enough. Okay. So how did the affair begin? What was the inception of the infidelity situation like?

Scarlett: I work in a corporate environment. I had known my coworker for a couple years at that point. We worked together really well. And one thing that I thought was lacking in my marriage was everything was fine surface level, but I was really craving these, I would say, deep intellectual conversations that I just wasn't getting. And with my affair partner, you know, he and I were able to talk about anything and everything, some really complex issues at work too, and it was just a really stimulating, intellectually stimulating environment for me, and that's what initially drew me to him. We started hanging out after work, after work events, and then there was one event in particular where we started talking about the state of both of our marriages. And I think that's where we both opened up to one another and started confiding in each other that way.

Marie Murphy: Sure. Yeah. So what happened after that? How did things evolve from there?

Scarlett: Yeah, so we continued to hang out. It turns out he was feeling a lot of the same, I would say, angst in his marriage. He had about a 25-year marriage at the time. I, of course, was in my 8-year marriage, and the word compatibility came up a lot where we didn't, we both collectively didn't feel like we were very compatible with our spouses. And we certainly felt like we had found compatibility in one another, and it turned physical and emotional very quickly over the course of just a few short weeks and then into a few months, and it turned into about a year-long affair. I will say that it was sort of on again, off again. There was one point after several months where his wife did become suspicious, had a conversation with him, and he decided to end it with me in a way that I thought was really respectful at the time.

However, we continued to work with one another. So I would say that it was maybe under the surface, but still simmering. And then we engaged in the physical and emotional affair again several months later, and then at that point, his wife did find some messages between us. That's when he decided to end it permanently.

Marie Murphy: Okay. So tell us a little bit about that because those moments can be really challenging for everybody involved. What was your experience like?

Scarlett: Yes. So it was, I want to say it was 2 or 3 days prior, we had a really good conversation.

Marie Murphy: You and your affair partner?

Scarlett: Yes, me and my affair partner had a good conversation about, you know, what does this look like longer term? And not so much in a sense of like, how would we tactically execute this, but it would be like, I want to be with you, you want to be with me. I wish I had met you first. It would be easier if I did that. At the time, you know, it was just things were clicking. and in 3 days later, I get a message at 2 in the morning, like, I can't talk anymore. My wife knows about the messages. She doesn't know about the content, but she wants me to call you and tell you we'll never talk again and she'll be listening in.

Marie Murphy: Okay. Yeah.

Scarlett: Yes. For the next several days, he tried to call me. I think he tried about 3 times, but because he did alert me to that, I never picked up the phone. I just, yeah, I didn't feel like I needed to be put on full blast and for him to placate his wife. I didn't think that would be of service to anybody.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah, good for you. Love it. Yeah. Tell me, this is fascinating to me because I talk to a lot of people who are like, oh, I have to do that thing, like similar to what his wife wanted you to do and what he wanted you to do. And it's like, where did you get the idea that you have to do that? So let me ask you, what was your thinking when you were like, no, I don't want to be put on full blast. Thank you very much. I'm not going to do that.

Scarlett: Well, I do think it was twofold. So first, I appreciated the heads up. That was the conversation. So in some twisted way, I do feel like he was looking out for me. But on the flip side, I think he did it because he never fully disclosed the full extent of the affair to his wife. So I was thinking, you're really only telling me this, so either I won't pick up the phone or if I do, I won't say anything incriminating.

Marie Murphy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. And was that the end of your relationship with him?

Scarlett: No. We did not speak for about 6 months.

Marie Murphy: And oh, so but it was a breaking point of sorts.

Scarlett: It was an absolute breaking point. So, funny enough, right when this happened, we had been scheduled to go to 2 out-of-town conferences together, and so that whole lead up to those 2 conferences, I mean, at the time, his wife insisted on coming with him. She insisted on sitting in on the conferences too. So that, it was a really, really difficult time, but I was scheduled to actually move to a different city for work. So timing wise, it really worked out as an opportunity. However, it was really emotionally difficult because I it was just like, what's going on back at work? And I'm here in this new city, my marriage is on the rocks, my affair partner has left me, his wife knows. To say that it was difficult would be an understatement.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Okay, so everybody's listening. I wish you could see Scarlett's face as she's telling me this. She's just like smiling as if she's telling me that the dentist told her she didn't have any cavities today. I mean, this sounds pretty hard to me. What was it like for you at the time?

Scarlett: Oh, it was devastating. I mean, I had always felt throughout our fair relationship that I was the one that was definitely going to be taking steps to get a divorce, and then in service of being able to be with my affair partner. And he had talked about it, I would say at a very high level, but just going back to a former point, I don't think he ever actually thought about the steps he would have to take to extricate himself from the marriage. But at the time when all of this was happening, I just had to carry on, try to grieve the end of the affair because I felt like once she found out, once she found definitive evidence, that there would be no going back to trying to hide this, trying to do anything. I do feel like my affair partner, he also has, he has several children as well. And one of the things he kept saying to me was, I can't have what I want. I don't want to be the bad guy. I can't do this to my children. I can't have my kids hate me. And I don't think any of those excuses really brought me any comfort.

Marie Murphy: No.

Scarlett: It was just one of those it was one of those things where I knew that there would be no forcing him into making that decision. He would have to come to that decision on his own, but going full no contact, it was awful and then…

Marie Murphy: So wait, let me clarify. So after he texts you and says like, look, my wife wants me to talk to you on speaker phone, and you don't pick up when he calls, did the two of you have a chance to have a conversation privately about what had happened or any kind of exchange after that?

Scarlett: No, even to this day, I would say that all I really know is she found the messages and he convinced her that all we ever did was talk.

Marie Murphy: Sure. Okay. And so this is all of this is so fascinating. You know, like a lot of folks have a really hard time with that kind of, quote unquote, ending. Some people don't even consider that sort of ending an ending, and they want what a lot of people refer to is closure, which I think is one of those awful words that, you know, we think it's this thing that exists that if we get it, we're going to feel better. But really, what the hell is closure? Nobody knows. People have a hard time defining what it is for them. And even when they get what they think they want, they don't necessarily feel better. So what I want to know is, to the best of your ability, how did you decide that this was you were just going to deal? How did you make this okay enough?

Scarlett: That is an excellent question. I think in some respects, I'm still even trying to figure it out. And I think when I realized I wouldn't get closure, and I do want to caveat this because I think I probably got more closure from him later on than most people do. We actually had a conversation not that long ago after a work event where he came out and said, I think about my decision every day. Being with you was some of the best times of my life. I same thing, you know, I couldn't have my kids hate me. And I would say if that conversation had happened right after his wife had found out, I would probably still be reeling from it. But after several months and even over a year later, he may think that, and I think this is what gave me closure. He may think all these things. He may think about me and us and our potential every day, but if he's not taking any action towards that, I mean, he actually said to me, so you've moved on. That's it. You're done. And I said, what other choice did I have? I mean, you're in your ostensibly committed marriage, and that doesn't really leave a place for me in your life.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. No, I mean, how can I say this? This and by the way, everyone, this is not a dig, but a lot of folks aren't able to take that position that Scarlett's describing. A lot of folks are like, well, yeah, my affair partner may not be taking any action, but they've made noises about taking action. So therefore, I'm going to treat those little rumblings of possibility like promises that have been made to me that I have every right to depend upon. And you didn't do that. You just said, no, like you're not really doing much.

Scarlett: Yeah, I think I decided a long time ago that the only way I would even consider even re-engaging in our relationship would be if divorce papers were filed and there was a court date to get divorced. And I have seen no action towards that, and that's just where I stand. It took me a really long time to get there, and it was not without the crying and the sobbing and just like feeling incredibly hopeless. But I think the main thing I learned from this and maybe the closure, quote unquote, conversation, is you, I'm trying to think of how to phrase this.

Marie Murphy: Do your best. We're all improvising here.

Scarlett: I spent a lot of time focused on what he was thinking and what was concerning him and not enough time really focusing on myself and my wants. And what I knew I didn't want, especially having gone through my own divorce, was the opportunity to be in another affair with him. If we were going to do this, I wanted to have an aboveboard relationship with this person, but when I saw absolutely no action being taken, I mean, talk is pretty cheap, and I never saw him take any action towards wanting to be together in a sense where we could be out in open about it.

Marie Murphy: Right. I mean, I think you put that really well. And again, I just want to applaud you for taking action on what you saw. That's not a small thing.

Scarlett: No, and it took a long time to get here.

Marie Murphy: Well, hang on. Okay, so let me ask you a few timeline questions. So, he tells you that his wife wants for him to talk to you on speaker phone, he calls a few times, you don't pick up. Had you already moved to a different city?

Scarlett: This was all happening at the same time. So, I think he had called two or three times, maybe twice before I had moved, and then he tried me again once after I had moved. So, the calls happened over the period of about a month. And in that time, I had done a lot of self-reflecting, and I knew, I knew before my move that I wanted to get divorced. But with the affair partner out of the picture, at least at the time, I actually felt that was a really good opportunity to make sure that I wanted to get divorced for my reasons and the state of my marriage and not anything having to do with the potential to get with him.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. And so, I mean, it's just so many things changing at once, right? So you've lost this person. One day you're talking about the future, the next day he's telling you like, yeah, my wife wants me to call you on speakerphone. You've moved. You're considering ending your marriage. Tell us a little bit about how you went about getting unmarried.

Scarlett: So, it was not long after I moved, the holidays were coming up, and I thought I really just owed it to myself and my husband to have the conversation that this is really difficult, but I don't feel like I want to be married to you anymore. And I have to give my now former spouse a lot of credit. I think one of the best things he did, he didn't like sink into himself trying to get me back or anything. He looked at me point blank when we were having that conversation and said, if you don't want to be married to me, I don't want to be married to somebody who doesn't want to be married to me.

And then we started on a few months of no contact while we were preparing to file. So, it was it was kind of a wonky holiday season, to say the least. But I think a lot about my ex-spouse, and I think very highly of him for having done that. We were actually able to get our divorce done and finalized in a fairly efficient process. He and I had a settlement conference. We both had legal counsel, and we're able to hash it out in less than a day, and I think we even went out to dinner afterwards.

Marie Murphy: Good for you. Yeah, that's so great.

Scarlett: Yeah. I don't regret my decision at all to get divorced because I really was pretty checked out for the last several years, which I think allowed the affair to start. And I will say I don't regret the affair either, just as hard as it was, especially during that time period. Again, where the wife had discovered, well, partially discovered, and then the affair partner and I aren't talking, my husband and I weren't talking. I'm in this new city. I've taken this new job, but it was really transformative in a lot of ways and it's opened so many doors that would have otherwise just been shut.

Marie Murphy: So I want you to say more about that because what you're describing is exactly the kind of scenario that a lot of people are terrified of. Like, oh my God, maybe things won't work out with my affair partner, and they won't work out with my committed partner. And then maybe I'll have to move for some reason. I mean, you'd chosen to move. And oh my God, my entire life will be different and I will have no terra firma to put my feet down upon. And oh my God, you know, like if that were my situation, I would just implode. Right? But again, people who are listening, Scarlett's sitting here smiling at me. She's not like crawling under the chair trying to hide. Like it's just like, yeah, the dentist told me I had no cavities. Great. I'm good. So what was that like? Tell us about that transformation. What was hard about it? What was amazing about it?

Scarlett: Yeah, I went through a period where I felt very unmoored. Just every day just living on a prayer. It was devastating. It was a horrible time in my life. But I will look back and just for all the pain and suffering, I just had to continue to hope and to know that this has to be temporary. This is not going to be my entire life and I had to get through it. I will say there was a period where I was, I would say, self-medicating with a lot of substances and then trying to just to manage that. A lot of alcohol involved. I do not condone this at all.

Marie Murphy: But I mean, here's the thing. Like, when things are hard, we do the best we can. And there's a reason why God invented alcohol as I like to say. And I mean, sure, yeah, I get it. Like, I can drink like half a glass of wine these days and I'm hung over the next day. So it's like, yes, chemicals have an impact on our bodies. I understand all that. But still, we do what we can.

Scarlett: Yeah, but the substance abuse was lending itself to me putting myself in some situations that were just that were not good. And it was really a wake up call after several months to, I mean, over a year of this. And I just got tired of sort of living every day and never knowing when I was going to just break down in tears because I would have some sort of trigger that would either be triggering from the affair or the marriage and just my choices that had led me to that. And I do have to say that in the midst of all of this, it was a very chaotic time at my workplace. I work at a huge company. We were going through a lot of organizational change, and during that time, organizational changes led to my former affair partner becoming my supervisor. So, we are still in that position today.

Marie Murphy: And how has that been?

Scarlett: It has been awful. I devote a lot of energy to looking for new jobs. Job market's not great right now, but again, it's just I have to have hope. I'm not going to be in this job forever. I'm not going to be in this job 5 years from now. We've had to put a lot of separation between one another. I have asked that he only contact me via email. He's not respected those boundaries very well, but at the same time, I'm in a much better place today than if this would have happened a year ago.

Marie Murphy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What do you think has been helpful for you and just keeping on with the day-to-day when this is your situation?

Scarlett: I know the biggest thing is that I've actually met somebody else who keeps me very grounded. And with my energy and focus on I'll say my new partner, that has really helped me, again, see that what my affair partner was offering, which was nothing, is nothing compared to this new man that is in my life. He and I are just so in sync. We're able to talk about how we're feeling, what we want. He is also divorced, and interestingly, probably for a lot of the listeners out there, he had infidelity in his marriage, but in that situation, he was actually the betrayed spouse.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, there's a few things that I want to touch on within this, but let's go back just a little bit because I think, you know, I work with a lot of folks who are having an affair with a co-worker, and they're like, oh God, if the relationship ends and things get weird, I won't be able to deal with it. But what you're describing is, yes, you don't love it at all, but you are dealing with it.

Scarlett: Yes. And I think it's just a conscious effort to maintain strict professional boundaries at all times. There have been some situations and I wasn't good at this for a long time. When he first became my supervisor, you know, I was like, I'm going to need a lot of constant reassurance from you that you're not trying to like, you screw me over at work. And I got to a point where if he would try to bring up something personal, I just have to bring the conversation back to work. I don't, I'm not sure that he knows that I'm dating yet, but if that does come up, you know, I will just say like, let's focus on the task at hand. We need to get this project done, whatever it is.

It took a while to get there, but I just realized at some point that continuing to hash and rehash how we were feeling really didn't serve any purpose. And if I can go back to that conversation he had where, you know, he was talking about, oh, being with you was the best time of my life and, you know, I think about my decision every day. It didn't really have an impact on me until a couple months later. One of the things he did say, he was like, you should feel very validated that I think about you every day. And I thought, this is verging on emotional abuse because I got to a point where I didn't think about this, and I didn't need to know that to feel validated. I feel like you want to be validated to know that I'm still thinking about it. But I feel like it all goes back to actions. And he may think those things, I got to a point where I don't care. As long as no actions are being taken, then it really just it leaves me with nothing.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Okay. So this just for the for my own personal sake of putting the timeline together, he becomes your direct supervisor. When after that did he come to you and say, you know, I, you know, the times with you were the best of my life, all that thing?

Scarlett: Oh gosh, it was probably only two months.

Marie Murphy: Two months. Oh God. So you have a few months of like not having had a conversation like that, and then after having that conversation, you have a different sort of discomfort with him.

Scarlett: Yes.

Marie Murphy: Okay. Delightful.

Scarlett: He knows that I am actively looking for a new job. I've requested like anything I can do to transfer. So he understands where I stand. And one of the things I feel like we didn't do well was communicate what we really wanted.

Marie Murphy: When you were together as a couple?

Scarlett: Yeah, when we were together. I did tell him at one point, you know, I will never ask you to leave your wife. That's something that you need to come to that conclusion on your own. But in retrospect, I wish I would have said, I need you to either make some steps or take some steps towards, you know, being an above-board relationship or I had to cut it off. I almost feel like I was cheated out of out of my own resolution when it all came crashing down.

Marie Murphy: What do you mean by that? You were cheated out of your own resolution? What do you mean?

Scarlett: I had thought for a while during the affair, I need to put it out there and if his response is, no, I can't leave my wife. I can't promise you anything, then I needed to end it. And I wish I would have taken that step sooner because the way it played out, I wouldn't wish that just sort of emotional and mental anguish on anybody from having, you know, having his wife found out to not speaking, to really having no closure whatsoever. To all the way to him becoming my supervisor and then having what I'll call the closure conversation where he still thinks about it, but and he said he was sorry, but he's still not doing anything.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. I'll ask you what you think about this in a minute, but it's funny. I am a firm believer in the value of being clear about what we want as efficiently as we can reasonably become clear about what we want, and taking action in the service of what we want as efficiently as we can. And there are times in life when we just aren't able to do that for whatever reasons, or we theoretically are able to do it, but we just don't do that for whatever reasons. And all kinds of interesting stuff happens as a result. And what I want to know is what have you learned from dealing with all of this? It sounds to me like all of this pain in the ass stuff is just as much a part of the transformation as anything else is here. What do you think about that?

Scarlett: Yes. And you've said it a million times on your podcast before. I am a long time podcast listener for everybody out there, but it really comes down to what you personally want because until you figure that out, the way you engage with somebody else and the way you're able to express your wants, your needs, I mean, it took me, I don't want to say how old I am, but it took me a long time to figure out I don't want to be in a marriage where everything is just plateaued and there's no growth together. I want to have stimulating conversations with somebody else. I want to have passion. I want to travel. And ultimately, like, no, I don't want you to be married to this other person if we were going to have an above-board relationship. But even at the time during the affair, I didn't even do a good job of expressing that. So I think one of the best things or bravest things really you could do is once you figure out what you want and need for yourself, put that out there to somebody else, and then be comfortable with their response and be willing to accept that. And fortunately, I have found somebody that is very on the same page with me about those items.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. So what, let me just first say that last thing you said is so important. You know, it, sometimes we think that if we have the wherewithal to discern what we want and the courage to articulate what we want to someone else, then therefore we should just get it. But that's not quite how it works. What happens is we then get to see if the other person wants to meet us in that place that we've proposed or not. And that's power. It's not the same thing as just putting a quarter in a vending machine and getting a treat out of it, but that's not a guaranteed thing. And so, yeah, I agree with you and I think that your point is such a good one. Being able to express what we want and then be willing to see what the other person does or doesn't do is the whole point.

Scarlett: I remember there was one time during the year-long affair relationship where we were kind of off but still talking. And I had known at that time that I wanted to get divorced and started looking at apartments. And I excitedly had called my affair partner and said, you know, I'm looking at apartments. And he said, I can't promise you anything right now. And I just remember being so crushed by that because I do, I think, I'm taking steps to do this so that we can be together and you're over here saying, you know, I can't promise you anything. But at that time, I was unwilling to accept that he couldn't meet me even halfway. And I think once you get beaten down so many times, you just get to a point where you're like, you know, if somebody's telling you something so many times, you should probably believe them.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting. I think it's tough. Like what relationship would go anywhere if we didn't have some hope? So I think a little bit of, what's the right word, suspended disbelief, like maybe that's not the end of the world, but you're right. After you've heard someone tell you what they're willing to do and not willing to do however many times, it's probably time to start listening to them.

Scarlett: Yeah. It's a tough lesson, but at some point I just had to decide that this wasn't enough and either I was going to be okay with him and his continuing his marriage and just being the other woman. And got to the point ultimately that no, I wasn't okay.

Marie Murphy: Right. You know, you could have made a different choice, but you didn't. You got clear on what you wanted and you did what you needed to do to get yourself into a different position. Gnarly transformation process and all. I mean, transformation is not always cute. That's for sure. And sometimes that's the point. Sometimes we need to get tossed around a little bit to clarify what's up and who we are these days. So on that note, tell us more about your current relationship. Tell us more about how your partner's relationship with being cheated on has related to your experiences with infidelity and how the two of you have talked about that and what's that like?

Scarlett: Yes, so I again had moved to another city and met this person in my new city. And we just hit it off one night. I knew he had been divorced for several years. He had two children. And then, you know, we started going out having dinners and it got to a place where we started feeling comfortable with one another to talk about our respective divorces. And I told him everything that was going on about my divorce. I didn't openly discuss the affair when we were first starting to talk, but he had mentioned that his former spouse had some mental health issues and also engaged in an affair, which he had discovered pretty quickly. And then put years after discovery trying to focus in, a couple's counseling, the whole nine yards.

And one of the things he realized, I think it was five years after he had discovered the affair before they got divorced, in one of their therapy sessions, or it may have been an individual therapy session, he realized and speaking to his counselor that, you mean I get to have once and needs too? And I think it was after that conversation where I think a switch flipped and he was like, this is not what I want. I don't want to deal with this anymore. I think he felt like he was putting in a lot of the work trying to save his marriage and just really not getting a whole lot from his former spouse. I will say they are great co-parents together. So they're able to have that kind of relationship, but otherwise, it's very surface level. I mean, they, I think they went out to eat just recently as a family together for the first time in like over five years.

So knowing that and just knowing how just years of work on himself and what a good person he is and he's able to express, you know, his wants and needs and we can be very emotionally connected in that space. I did decide pretty early on that I should tell him about my past and my affair. I just feel like I owed it to him, just knowing what he had gone through and how difficult of a situation his marriage was and the difficult decision for him to end his marriage. So it was sort of a hard lead up. I think I listened to one of your podcast episodes and it was, you know, how to tell your new partner about your history with infidelity.

Marie Murphy: Can I interrupt?

Scarlett: Please, please do.

Marie Murphy: Let me ask a question. Why did you want to tell him?

Scarlett: I felt like throughout my marriage, throughout my affair, I had been holding back on what I'll call like truths in my life. And I just wanted to be radically truthful with this new person if I thought that we had a chance to be something great. And I didn't want this to be the cloud hanging over our relationship that he just didn't know about. So I ended up telling him, we, it was morning, it was coffee. I was like, there's something I need to tell you. And this goes back to the, I'm going to be brave and have courage and tell you this and then you get to choose how you respond to it. And I was worried he'd be really freaked out and you know, throw his hands up and say, I don't want to deal with this again. But instead, I was surprised and shocked actually at just the empathy he had for the situation.

I feel choked up thinking about it because he was just so supportive and understanding and he's, I know that was my situation, your situation could be entirely different. And one of the things he keeps saying is, I wouldn't wish either of us who've had to go through all the difficulty we did in our respective infidelity situations. But for our infidelity situations, he and I probably wouldn't be together.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how life's twists and turns lead us to people and situations that are amazing. Tell us a little more. I mean, when you were in the lead up to having this conversation that you were nervous to have with him, what was that like for you? Thinking like, I'm, I might share this and he might say, okay, see you later. What was that like?

Scarlett: It was horrible. I was really sweaty. But no, I think I just had to get honest with myself again and say, if I see a long-term potential and future with this person, I want him to know this about me. I want him to be able to make that decision. I didn't want to get years down the road and him in say, oh, wait, what? And I also kind of came to the realization too that if that would have been too much for him, then that's not the person for me. And as much as I was afraid that he might just get up and walk out and say like, I need to think about this, he didn't do that. And I think there's a lot of beauty in knowing that there's probably advocates for your infidelity situation in strange places that you don't even think of.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. Absolutely. Say more about what you mean by that. I could imagine a few things.

Scarlett: Yeah, so just I have not discussed my affair with a ton of people. A lot of it has to do with the working situation still. But afraid of being judged by friends, family, afraid of people gossiping about, oh, well, that's why their marriage ended because of her or how could you do that to your ex-spouse who's such a nice guy. And the few people I have told including my new partner, I've been just floored by the outpouring of support.

Marie Murphy: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's what I thought you might have meant and was hoping that you meant. And I see that all the time, too. Yes, some people are total assholes, it's true. Some people will judge you and scold you and gossip about you and say horrible things, but there are also people who will go, yeah, I get it. I understand. I see you and I love you and it's okay.

Scarlett: Yeah, and finding those type of people and friends and family members and even new potential partners. And when you find that support there, it's so cathartic and it's almost like you understand why you went through, like you walked through hell to get to this point.

Marie Murphy: Yeah. You said something a moment ago that you didn't quite use this language, but to riff off of what you said, sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves and to others is to say, this is who I am, and it's okay if you're not okay with this. But if you are, then we get to be so fully real with each other that it's a benefit to both of us to share things that might not be, you know, the most socially acceptable, or might really push some people's buttons, or might, you know, rub salt in people's old wounds. But if we can do that and get through whatever's uncomfortable about it and be like, yeah, we're these whole nuanced humans and we're going to be whole nuanced humans together, it's incredible.

Scarlett: Yeah, absolutely. I was just thinking about this. So I had held back a lot in my marriage and expressing, again, not communicating my wants, desires, and I don't know that I knew exactly what that was at the time. I held back in my affair. I don't want to hold back anymore with somebody else. And when you find somebody that you don't have to do that with, I mean, it is a whole new experience that I didn't quite frankly, didn't know was out there. I think I'm just starting to understand what love and consideration is after, you know, my whole life and all of these experiences really brought me to this.

Marie Murphy: Yeah, it sounds like it. You know, it's interesting that you say that. One of the things that I used to say on the podcast a lot, I don't know if I've said it lately, is it's pretty hard to be faithful to another person if you can't be faithful to yourself first. But interestingly enough, we often learn what it means to be faithful to ourselves through our relationships with other people. What have you learned about that through your first marriage and your affair and your current partnership?

Scarlett: I think always worrying about being judged or not presenting yourself in the best light. I mean, now I have somebody like I can be raw and messy and real with and it is, I mean, it is eye opening and I'm just very excited about where this takes us and I think he feels the same way. There's not a whole lot of holding back and we've had some difficult conversations. I mean, starting with our infidelity situations, but it's so enlightening to be able to be, I know you talk a lot about above board relationships, but I would even go a step farther than that and say like an above board relationship just in itself where I'm not worried about telling you something about me that you might take wrong or get judged by you or it's a new, brand new experience for me. I love it. It's super fun. And I just can't wait to see where it goes.

Marie Murphy: Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing. I love it, Scarlett. So part of the reason why I've had Scarlett on the show today and why I'm doing interviews like this with other guests is to give people real-life examples that infidelity doesn't have to lead to the demise of your entire life, even if it may make for some difficulties at times. So just to kind of recap, I think what you said earlier, maybe we said this via email, but you and your ex-spouse are on good terms.

Scarlett: Yes. He does not know about the affair. And that is one thing I wanted to mention. When I made the decision that I knew I didn't want to be married anymore, I knew I had another decision to make, which was either tell him about it, we get divorced anyway, or don't. And ultimately, I decided that it didn't make sense to tell him about it. I didn't want to cause any more emotional turmoil. And while I think he suspects that's going to be my burden to carry.

Marie Murphy: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I totally get it. I mean, some people have a real, how can I say this, a real honesty crusade that they're on, and you know, that's, if that works out well for you, that's great. But my belief is that the primary thing you need to be honest with someone about is whether or not you want to be in a relationship with them. If you're married to somebody and you don't want to be married to them anymore, that is the material fact that you need to tell the truth about. The infidelity stuff, secondary.

Scarlett: Absolutely. Yeah, and I am glad that was the decision I made because I think it's lent itself to us being able to have a good relationship now. I mean, it's no more than let's go to dinner and catch up on our dogs. But…

Marie Murphy: But it doesn't need to be anything more than that. I mean, that's great, right?

Scarlett: Yeah. Yeah.

Marie Murphy: And as we know, your ex-affair partner is living the life of the successful businessman/family man. He's okay-ish aside from missing you, it sounds. And you've got your new partner, and it sounds like he and his ex are on very good co-parenting terms and okay terms otherwise. And everybody's okay.

Scarlett: Yeah.

Marie Murphy: Better than okay.

Scarlett: Absolutely. I think better than okay, verging on great.

Marie Murphy: Yeah.

Scarlett: My new partner and I still, I would say relatively new. I've met his children, get along well with them, and we are actually planning to travel a lot internationally coming up. And it's just making longer term plans too. We live in separate cities, but not that far away from each other right now. But looking forward to the future, talking about potentially making a move and moving in together.

Marie Murphy: Ah, that's so exciting. Scarlett, is there anything else that you want to tell people listening about your experiences or what you've learned from them or anything related that we haven't quite touched on yet?

Scarlett: I think we've covered this, but I'll just reiterate, when you are in this type of situation, no matter what it is, I spent so much time thinking about what my affair partner was doing, how my husband was going to react, what my affair partner's wife was thinking. I didn't focus enough on me and I think that prolonged my suffering. And if there is any way to refocus your energy on yourself, figure out what you want, that will serve you the best overall in the long term. I'm good today. I was not good for a long time. And finding your podcast really helped me. It's a service. I'm really grateful and thankful for it.

Marie Murphy: Well, I'm glad you found it and thank you for saying thank you. And thank you for making that point. I think you're absolutely right. When we're in the midst of a confounding infidelity situation, it can be really easy to focus on what's going on with everybody else who's involved, but you're right. Your job is you.

Scarlett: We got to control the things we can control.

Marie Murphy: Yep. You got that right. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such a pleasure talking with you.

Scarlett: Thanks, Marie. It's been an honor.

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All right, everyone. That is just about it for today. Another big thank you to Scarlett. I am so grateful to you for being willing to share your story on this podcast.

If you are ready to start dealing with your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about and you want my help doing it, let's get started. There are two ways you can have me as your coach. We can work together one-on-one via Zoom, or you can enroll in my online course, You're Not the Only One. The rest of your life beyond the drama and difficulties of your infidelity situation is waiting for you. Thank you all so much for listening. Bye for now.