Apology Letter to a Betrayed Person

What follows is an adapted transcript of an apology video that was presented by Laurie of AffairRecovery.com. We hope it might be helpful for you and your situation.

An Apology to the Betrayed

When I began thinking about writing this letter to you all, and considering what I wanted to say, God impressed on me to set aside what I wanted to say to you for a moment, and start with what He would say first.

He would tell you that you are his child and He loves you beyond your understanding; that you are not a disappointment to him in any way; that you have personal dignity and honor and value, and that none of those can be diminished by anything that someone else did because He created these in you from the beginning; that this betrayal doesn’t and will never define you; that He offers strength and healing and hope for you, even if your circumstances make it seem impossible to see.

I know you are now living in a story that you never expected to be yours, one you certainly wouldn’t have chosen, that you’ve been disrespected and disregarded and traumatized in ways that no person should ever have to experience. Your losses must feel almost innumerable, and you add to the list of those losses continually as you realize new depths of what has been taken away.

It’s a new reality that isn’t welcome, one that exhausts you in every way, one that you can’t ever seem to get away from. I understand that often, the pain is so hard to see around, and it disrupts even the best of days without warning. You’ve learned how fast you can be taken down by intrusive thoughts, and how hard you have to fight to push them out and get back up.

Some of you wonder if it’s possible to ever put things back together in your life; some of you are conflicted inside over the choice to stay or walk away; and some of you are not even being given the chance at having that choice. You carry the heavy weight of shame from being betrayed by the person you loved and trusted most in your life. This has been overwhelmingly the worst thing you’ve ever had to endure.

I want you to know with absolute assurance, that nothing about your husband or wife’s betrayal was because of anything you weren’t, nor was it about anything you did or didn’t do in the marriage. She/he made the choices she/he did - I made the choices I did - because of something terribly broken and wrong inside of us. We are responsible for every little step we took over time that led us to ultimately make the choice to be unfaithful to you. None of it was ever your fault.

And so I want to offer to you, on behalf of all unfaithful men and women, an apology, first for our destructive and unloving behavior, which has brought complete and utter devastation to your heart. We were so wrong to do what we did.

I apologize to you for the seemingly casual way in which we tossed aside your love and everything right and true;
For how easily and quickly we fell for someone’s empty ridiculous words of affirmation or validation;
For trading sex as currency instead of protecting it as the sacred and beautiful thing it really was;
For disrespectfully giving our very self to someone who absolutely didn’t have any right to it.
For our deceitfulness and all the lies we told you to protect our shameful secrets;
For all of this, I apologize.

And I apologize for the ways you’ve been further mistreated . . .
For the refusal to accept full responsibility for our actions;
For all the baffling contempt you’ve experienced on the other side of us, without knowing why or where it’s coming from;
For the attempts to manipulate and control you;
For the defensiveness we have shown when you just needed answers, and the refusal to give you the full picture of what happened;
For the blame that some have tried to put on you for what we ourselves did, and how it stings you deeply;
For how we’ve been more sorrowful for our own painful consequences than we have been for the pain we’ve caused you;
For the lack of empathy toward what you are feeling and going through, not just on our part, but a lack of empathy from others in your life as well;
For putting you in a position to need so much support;
For our hard-heartedness toward you;
For the loss of your dreams of the future;
For the trauma and devastation inside;
For the way you have felt totally isolated since your world was blown apart;
For the nightmares and thoughts that intrude peaceful moments and constantly reopen the wound;
I apologize.

I apologize for the impatience you’ve been shown for not already just getting over it;
For the pressure you feel to either forgive and forget and put it behind you, or maybe conversely, to walk away and just start over;
For what this is doing to the kids;
I apologize.

For so many other losses…your confidence, peace of mind, future dreams and plans, trust, sleep, health, your ability to celebrate and feel happiness, finances, time, productivity and focus, your whole belief system, your self-esteem, your spirit, hopes for the future, your faith in your spouse, your faith in God, even your faith in yourself;
And for the losses you haven’t even realized yet,
I apologize.

4 Steps for Releasing Guilt and Gaining Forgiveness

By Doug

Quite often I correspond with betrayed spouses who claim that their spouse is not helping in the healing process because of the guilt that they feel as a result of their affair. This simple 4-step process may help with this issue.

While searching for appropriate content for the Higher Healing area the other day, I came across an audio interview with David Richo, Ph.D., M.F.T. He’s a psychotherapist, teacher, workshop leader, and writer who works in Santa Barbara and San Francisco.

The interview was on the subject of grace in relationships and was quite interesting and it motivated me to Google him and ultimately check out his work a little further. Below is an article that was included in a compilation manual that contains numerous excerpts from some of the books he has authored. We thought it might be helpful for some of you.

Continue reading…

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Take care!

Linda & Doug

Emotional Affair Journey

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