Love Coach Blog

If you are just tuning in, welcome to Love Coaching Social Experiment: watch me coach Jodi, a single, bright, beautiful, late-thirty-something lady, to help her attract the man of her dreams – reality-TV style, right in front of your eyes and ears.

Read full introduction to this social experiment, follow the links from there to the previous coaching sessions and then back to this post.

Today Jodi revealed a secret she has been hiding – she had an affair that damaged and ultimately broke up her marriage.

Is this the thing she is hiding from potential partners, the reason she hides out by dating unavailable men? I don’t know. Most people who have had affairs feel bad about them, but not badly enough to avoid closeness. Of course, the thing Jodi is hiding does not have to be some terrible secret – it could be just a thought, or a way she feels about herself. Whatever it is, be sure that I will help her find it and be free of it, so that she can allow love.

Here is some of what Jodi said in her latest post:

“…Mark and I planed on going out together. We made some elaborate plan to meet up and see what happens. Back at home, Pam was really edgy. I don’t think Mark’s plan was very elaborate. Pam’s edginess was making my ex edgy and I was edgy in my own deception. I think Mark was used to this kind of thing so he was nonchalant.

Mark and I ended up meeting one evening and it was NOT the affair of my dreams where the knight in shining armour comes to rescue me and the kids from a life of boredom and predictability to a land of safety, excitement and constant fun! What was it? A meaningless fling in a car behind a shopping mall because no hotel rooms were available.

That was our one and only time. Not because I thought about it afterwards and said, “What did I just do and to what extent did I change my entire life?” It was because my husband happened to peek inside my purse the very next morning, for a cigarette, and a receipt for condoms fell out.

Yes, I tried the “I bought them for a friend” excuse. It did not fly because I am not a good liar, never have been.

There were fireworks going off in Minnesota that day and it was not even close to the fourth of July. The impulsive decisions of two adults had forever altered nine lives. The families didn’t split immediately. There was about a week of torture as I watched my husband deal with my infidelity, watched my young children deal with adult stuff and watched my neighbors fight out in their front yard for all to see. It was surreal to me…

Check this space later to see if my Love Coach is going to stick by me or send me off to Jerry Springer. That is truly what I am afraid of now, that she will ship me off to some sick reality TV show.”

You can read all of Jodi’s post and then come here to read my coaching to her.

Love Coach Rinatta says:

Dear Jodi, you are still ok. You are certainly not the first or the last person to have an affair or be unfaithful to your spouse.

No, it’s not wonderful that you “got together” with someone else when you were married. And the cost to your family and your husband has been far-reaching. But, it’s not like you killed someone or abused a child, or did some other terrible, socially unacceptable thing.

Affairs are quite common, mostly because people don’t know how to work out their difference and get their needs met in a relationship or marriage. Instead they get their needs met by having affairs.

I certainly would not be a person to pass judgment on you or stop coaching you. In fact one of the groups I coach is people who are involved in affairs, especially the cheaters, which in this case would be you.

But my saying you are ok is not going to make you feel better. Coming clean with the affair will make you feel better, because you will see that you do not get stoned for your actions. No big red letter A will be stitched to the front of your dress, nor will you be burned on the cross.

Underneath every person’s relationship issues there is some sort of craziness. All of us are hiding some terrible secret about ourselves, or at least we think the secret is terrible. In reality, to err is human and none of us get to be perfect. Life is messy and being human is messy and we make mistakes. The best way to clean up and move on from the things we are hiding about ourselves is to come out with them, clean up the mess we have created if there is one, and move on.

The next step to make you feel better about the affair is to make amends to the people who got hurt as result. Who got hurt, Jodi? Who needs to hear how sorry you are for your actions?

 
Do you want the same help and coaching Jodi is receiving, so that you can find your way out of being single and into a healthy relationship? You can get help from me, privately, by hiring me as your love coach. Contact me, tell me about your situation, and we will go from there.

 
Update: See what Jodi has to say about this coaching to her

From the Heart,