How We Use a Protocol for Triggers in Marriage

One of the questions that came up recently on social media was “are you still worried that your husband is cheating?”  I answered this Instagram follower’s question that yes. I do still get triggered and I still have intrusive thoughts as I am still very much in the healing process. Sometimes my brain gets triggered and wants to bring up something that happened in the past. To keep from riding an emotional rollercoaster, we have employed a protocol for how to deal with triggers. Though I can’t wave a magic wand and instantly feel better, I can get better control of my emotions as I make my way through this difficult process. 

our playbook

I want to share my protocol playbook with you today in the hopes that if you are also in the recovery process, you will find hope and healing and as you learn about the best ways to deal with triggers.

 A disclaimer: I am not a counselor or couples therapist. I am, however, a trained cognitive behavioral therapy practitioner. This means that I’ve been trained to help people get out of the pool of panic.

I help people who are in the pool of panic learn to get out and understand that, as a Christian, you never have to lay down your peace and it is possible to have a healthy relationship.

Another disclaimer: I’m just sharing my experience as a betrayed spouse. My experience is not your experience. Our stories are not the same.

the discovery and aftermath

Before getting into our protocol specifics, I have to give you a little bit of context from when I discovered my husband was having a sexual affair with another woman. 

When I discovered my husband was in a romantic relationship with another woman, I was pregnant with my third child. I was about halfway through my pregnancy and we had just moved from Florida to Denver. Just before our move, we were doing a church internship at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida. We were having a really hard time financially and we were hoping that we were going to get hired on by the church, but they ended up not being able to hire us. We were kind of scrambling so my husband got re-hired at his job in Denver and we quickly packed up and moved back to Colorado. The Denver job was good money for us. We felt such peace and relief. It was about one month after we had moved and one day I was putting on cartoons for my young daughters during lunch. Usually I would use my laptop to do this, but it had died. Instead, I used my husband’s. When I opened it up and navigated to the PBS website, text messages from my husband’s phone started syncing with his laptop. That is when I discovered that my husband had an emotional connection with another woman, was sending inappropriate photos to this woman and and had had an extramarital affair with her. This complete betrayal of trust rocked my world completely. I flipped out. I was so confused. I had no idea what was going on. I had a difficult time even processing it.

I had concerns leading up to this discovery–concerns about us in the bedroom and concerns about our marriage in general. But I just thought it was due to the transitions we had been through with the church internship and how unhappy my husband had been in his work. I thought it was just the daily stresses of our lives that accounted for the distance and the neglect of emotional needs in our marriage. I knew that we weren’t as connected as we used to be. I think I kind of stuck my head in the sand and just kept living life knowing that I was going show up for my babies. I was getting ready to have a third and my mind was really focused there (which is totally normal!). When I discovered my wayward spouse and experienced the pain of infidelity, I freaked out and I will never forget  just the sheer panic at the realization of the gravity of this traumatic event. 

Everything changed from that moment forward. I ended up packing up the two girls, taking them back to my home state of Michigan and I spent two and a half weeks there. I was just beginning the long process of healing as I heard more confessions from my husband, looked through prior messages and emails between him and this woman, and demanded complete honesty from him. It was excruciating to learn that much detail, but I had to know. 

It took about two and a half to three weeks for the full story to come out. I found out that this affair had been going on for 18 months. That was a long time by anybody’s standard and I was absolutely crushed. Our marriage was completely blown up.

the road back

The long road back began when he was fully honest and fully transparent. At that point, we began to rebuild and, by God’s grace and outstanding marriage counseling, we stand here today together in our committed relationship.

You cannot skip counseling and just use this protocol. Counseling was a crucial step in getting to where we are today. However, I do think that this protocol is helpful for those of you who are taking advantage of marriage counseling, yet are still feeling distant from one another. Maybe you feel like there’s something going on or something is just off. The main thing is that you both have to be willing to address the issue and be completely honest. 

The first thing you need to know is my husband immediately agreed to individual therapy and I’m going to actually refer you to the counselor, Jason Martinkus, that he went with–he is amazing and gifted and he and his wife, Shelley, head up a life-changing ministry called RedemptiveLiving.com. They offer in-person therapy, as well as virtual services. They are credited with getting us on the path to healing. I owe them so much!

If your husband is still in denial or he’s giving pseudo confessions or you still feel like something is off and he’s not being a man of integrity, then this protocol, again, will point out that you need to go and seek more help.  You need two people on board in agreement in order for this protocol to work.

If your husband is really tender and he is unafraid to own his junk, then this protocol’s going to bless your life. This is a playbook that we still run often, especially in the season of postpartum. 

Remember, I was halfway through my pregnancy when I discovered the affair and so I am very tender during pregnancy and  postpartum. My brain is more likely to offer me intrusive thoughts to keep me safe. There is good and there is evil in the unseen realm. Evil will always whisper things that provoke you to be distant with your spouse, to gaslight yourself, to make you think you’re crazy, to make you feel really guilty for even having the thought.

prep work

I want you to understand that when we’re talking about this protocol, it is not just something light and fluffy. It is something that requires a lot of armoring up and understanding when your brain is offering you something from a past trauma and when there is something speaking to you to get you to shame yourself and to make things worse. Torment is accusatory. It says things like “your husband is gonna cheat on you again”  “you’re probably not that attractive to your husband in this season”, etc etc You’re at war with yourself and the unseen world. This is why you absolutely need to be reading the Bible and asking the Holy Spirit to bring you wisdom at the same time. You’ll know when it’s the Lord. The Lord is calming, He is kind, He is near to those whose hearts are broken, and He is near to those whose spirit is crushed. This protocol takes a lot of work, but it is so worth it.

Once you have done the prep work, the first step is to set up boundaries. I have a highlight over on instagram called boundaries and this is a a set of parameters that creates a playground of intimacy for me and my husband.

I’m over in Scottsdale this week and our backyard has a fence around it. It’s lovely. There’s a playground. There’s a pool., There are places for the toddlers to roam, even the pool has a fence around it inside the fenced backyard and those provide safety for the children. I know that they’re going to stay here. They won’t get lost. They won’t get kidnapped. Nothing bad will happen. And I also know that they’re protected from falling in the pool. These are parameters around the yard that allow my kids to play freely without being afraid of being harmed. And I would say that there needs to be some kind of fencing around your marriage, especially if one of you guys has been an unfaithful spouse.

Boundaries allow for freedom, laughter and play within your marriage.  One of the ways we have set up boundaries is that we don’t listen to certain music. We also don’t use emojis in texts because emojis are very triggering for me. They were in part of the conversation I saw on my husband’s laptop. Emojis, in my opinion, are flirtatious. This is something I’m still actively healing in. Another boundary we have established is that my husband doesn’t bring his phone into the bathroom. When I see him faithfully leave his phone outside the bathroom, I know that he is not looking at his phone or talking to anybody in the bathroom. That was a boundary for me that creates a lot of freedom and play.

We’ve seen each other naked and unafraid. We’ve seen each other at our worst. We now have boundaries in place. We are now actively doing things that build our marriage. And it’s those things over a long period of time that rebuild trust.  

our protocol

There are some times when I will think he’s doing it again and my brain will just look up all the information around me to prove me right. 

It’s not a matter of if I will be triggered, it’s a matter of when. So the protocol looks like this:

A song comes on the radio, or a thought comes into my head, and I am emotional. I feel worried, I lay down my peace, and I think that something is wrong in my marriage.  Then I may start to cry, or I might start asking my husband questions. Or, I’ll even tell my husband. Are we okay?  Because the story I’m telling myself is the reason you were late from coming home is this. The reason that you didn’t pick up your phone was because of this. The story I’m telling myself is you’re doing it again.  

The first part of the protocol is to really understand is that the one who was unfaithful cannot be defensive when the person who was betrayed is triggered.  This is super important because when you are the one that caused harm in your marriage and you’re defensive and say things like, “I can’t believe you’re talking about this again!” or something similar, that’s a sure fire way to build that wall back up between you again.

Triggers are going to happen and the best way forward is to not be defensive and understand that part of the consequences being an unfaithful partner is the new reality of triggers and moments like this. 

And the second part of the protocol is he apologizes. He says I’m here and I’m willing to listen he stops and he says he’s sorry and he acknowledges that he’s the reason for the trigger. He doesn’t get mad and he doesn’t throw punches and he doesn’t back off or roll his eyes. This is important to note: you could experience this for years. When I first found out this protocol, we were doing this sometimes once, twice, or three times a day.

It actually helps to pull down more bricks  in the wall between us when I come to him and say, I’m feeling really triggered. I heard a song or, you know, I, I was reminded today that this happened and I started feeling really sad and I felt the need to cry and he won’t make fun of me. He will pray with me. He will stop and say, yeah, if I wouldn’t have done this, we wouldn’t be here. 

So the final part of the protocol is to allow myself enough time for my cortisol levels to come down. Because when I’m triggered, it takes me a day or two to get back to a place of safety in my marriage.

And that is with my husband being willing and being loving enough to say,

There are things that I still don’t feel comfortable with my husband doing, which is working with women and traveling anywhere without me. These are conversations that we still have today and we’re almost a decade in and I say that to you because I don’t want you to be under this pressure that you’re supposed to heal really fast. You’re not crazy for wanting him to not go places or do things. What you’re asking for is safety. And that is 100 percent reasonable.

these are the days

And I’ll share the sweet news that my husband is more my best friend today than he was ever before. We’ve hurt each other in ways that are despicable and wrong and gross.  And the Lord was not afraid to get in the muck and the mire with us. If this is something that you are longing for in your marriage, it is 100 percent possible. Hope is anxious expectation that God is up to good on your behalf. And I will tell you what, the day that I discovered my husband was being unfaithful was the hardest day of my life, but it was also showed me the power of the gospel in a deeper and more meaningful way. God was unwilling to allow my husband to sit in the dark and let this thing grow and fester in places that were unseen. He loved my husband so much that he uncovered and exposed everything that was going on so that we could have a truly intimate marriage today.  

And yeah, I still get triggered. I’m offered intrusive thoughts. We have uncomfortable conversations, even today.  But I’ll tell you what, we laugh a lot deeper.  We’re more connected than we ever have been before.  And it’s because we grabbed each other’s hands, we said we’re in and we’re willing to do the work. We didn’t look away from the hard. Instead, we had a counselor who equipped us to walk through the hard. And then we continued to do the work after it was all said and done.  I believe that if you’re reading this and this is something that you have as a desire in your heart and the Lord is stirring it up. Don’t be afraid for him to do it. He can make your marriage brand new and fresh and whole, even if there have been years of betrayal.

Imagine your marriage having beautiful parameters around it, so you guys could be naked and unafraid, playful, laughing, enjoying and drinking in one another.  That is what you’re being invited into. And I pray that this season, even if it gets hard, is your best season yet. You will look back over it knowing that you did the work and the fruit is sweet. 

consider sharing

If this helped you with your marriage in any way, won’t you send it along to a friend? Your encouragement could break the chains that your friend is bound by today. Totally worth it!