During affair recovery you will have to wrestle with the ‘truth.’ It may cause discomfort and agitate you, but it’s necessary for recovery.
Can you handle the truth? <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I am glad that you decided to tune in this evening, because we have got a good program set up for you.
Tonight I’m going to be dealing with the question “Can you handle the truth?”. That’s a tough question. “Can you handle the truth?”
There’s many of you out there that say that you want the truth about the affair, and you’re going to find yourself dealing with this question. During affair recovery you’ll have to wrestle with the truth, and what is ‘the truth’.
You’ll find out very quickly that truth often involves many dimensions. There’s personal truths, relational truths, situational truths, a lot of things.
You’re going to have to wade through that. As you deal with the affair and the many different aspects of the affair it may create some discomfort, or agitate you.
This is part of the recovery process. It’s also a necessary part. It’s not a pleasant part, not a fun part, but it’s a part that you have to go through.
The old saying that “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” is very true. Because as you know the truth about what happened with the affair, as painful as it is, that’s where changes can start to take place, and where you finally manage to break free of any kind of bondage or chains that kept you caught up with the affair.
The difficult part is that many of can only handle a limited amount of truth. Although each of us may go around thinking we can handle a whole lot, the reality is we typically can’t.
We can only handle a little at a time. And that’s okay. We’re going to be talking some more about that today.
There’s been a lot of damage done in relationships and to other people in the name of truth and honesty. Many times people will say “Well, I was just telling the truth“, and they literally unload a whole dump truck full of painful truths and just let somebody have it.
Then they justify what they did, as mean as it was or as cruel as it was, as “I was just being honest”. You might have been honest, but sometimes you need to look at how you deliver that honesty.
We’re going to go ahead and look at the truth. Because the solution as to whether or not you can handle the truth is learning ‘How to handle the truth’. We’re going to be talking about what you can do to learn how to handle the truth.
1. The first thing that you can do is to limit your intake of truth to what you need. Because as you deal with an affair there’s a lot of information out there. How much of that information, truthful information, do you really need?
Granted, you’d like to know it all. How much do you need? That’s what you need to focus on.
It’s hard putting yourself on a diet of limiting yourself with the information. I know it’s very tempting to want more and more and more to where it turns into this voyeuristic gorging on what you consider truth. You want to avoid that. That’s not healthy.
2. Ask yourself will this heal, before speaking or seeking. Because in some cases it’s a matter that you are asking the cheater for something.
You’re wanting to get the truth from them in some cases. The cheater will want to know the truth from you. So this question about the truth is one of these of a sword that cuts both ways.
Asking this question, will this heal, you need to consider that before you tell them certain things too. I am not encouraging you to lie. I’m encouraging you to be careful with what you share. If it’s not a truth that brings healing then it’s probably not a good thing to know or a good thing to share.
Sometimes you do have to share things that are painful, or what they often say lancing the boil, and that is true. If looking at that painful issue or uncomfortable thing will actually bring the two of you closer together, if it will actually bring healing to the marriage, then it needs to be dealt with.
If it’s something that’s only going to bring more hurt and more resentment, more fear, you want to think twice about it.
3. Realize that although facts are facts, there can be many versions of the truth. Those facts are like information dots that people connect. And the way that people connect the dots, like the childhood game ‘connect the dots’, is, in my mind, what is the truth.
Truth is how they connect all the facts together and the story they make out of connecting all the dots.
Much like those old puzzles you can find all kinds of creative ways to connect all of the facts together. And you want to realize that there may be more than one correct way to connect the dots.
One mistake people make is they assume their own personal truth is the only one that counts. And there are no other truths, other than the one that they have.
You’re going to have to be open to hearing, even if it’s just the possibility, that there are other truths. This will go a long way in improving your relationship with your spouse, and also improving your relationship with yourself.
Some of the truths that you’re going to have to be dealing with are things about you. And it may be friends or family members that you’re going to have to be talking to to find out some of the things about yourself that you may not have wanted to look at. Or even about your spouse.
If you go ahead and you do these three, limit your intake of truth, ask yourself will this heal, and realize that there can be many versions of the truth, this will put you well on the way to being able to handle the truth. That doesn’t make it any easier, because dealing with the truth is often not an easy thing to do. But you can do it.
And you may have to limit how much you can do at a time. That doesn’t make you a failure, but it can make a big difference so that you’re not overloaded. Getting overloaded with to much can be overwhelming, to the point where you find yourself in kind of an emotional or mental paralysis. And that’s not where you want to be.
The next time somebody asks if you can you handle the truth, if you go ahead and you do these things and you’ve been practicing, these things that you can do right here and now and start on, you’ll be able to answer yes, you can handle the truth. I usually find when people ask that question they’re getting ready to unload one of those unpleasant truths on you.
I still have not found any exemptions to that. It’s typically can you handle the truth, you know something rough is fixing to come down. I’m also reminded of Jack Nicholson in that movie years ago, said “You can’t handle the truth!”
It kind of rattles around in my head because I know with some couples they can’t handle the truth. But you don’t have to be one of those.
In the download, “Affair Recovery Workshop“, you’ll learn more about truth and ways of telling yourself the truth about the affair and yourself. Telling yourself the truth is part of forming a new foundation for your marriage.
Compromises in truth telling weaken the foundation of your marriage.
Best Regards,
Jeff
