If trust has been broken in your relationship and you want to rebuild it, and nothing you have tried in the past has worked, this article is for YOU!
Most of my coaching clients are women who have experienced some type of relationship trauma. Their partner has cheated, has a pornography addiction, chats with other women on line, or downloads other women’s nude photos. Many times, their partner’s phone was used to commit these betrayals.
And 9 out of 10 times my clients found out about the betrayal because they had a gut feeling that something was wrong. Something inside of them told them to look at their partner’s phone, and when they did, they found evidence of the betrayal. And often they then give the phone credit for finding the betrayal, because it told them what was really going on.
Is this you? Have you experienced this scenario? If you have, I can probably guess what you did next. It’s also what most of my clients do. Once you find the evidence on the phone, you want to keep checking the phone. Some women become obsessive about needing to know every action their partner makes on his phone. Discovering this betrayal leaves you feeling totally out of control, and so you try to regain some control by controlling the phone.
There are MANY phone tracking and website blocking softwares available. Some of your partners may agree to these, others may not. And often what happens is, once a tracking/blocking app has been added to the phone, the woman feels a sense of relief and continues on with her life. They then give credit for this feeling to the phone and/or the app that is “protecting them.”
However, the next time the women get a gut feeling that something is “off” and they go to check the phone their partners usually tell them they are crazy, because they haven’t been looking at anything. And when they check the phone this time they don’t find anything. So are they crazy? Are they imagining things, or has their partner just gotten better at hiding things?!
More often than not, my clients tell me that the first few times they check the phones after the first discovery they don’t find anything, and it truly makes them feel crazy. (This is because their partner hasn’t stopped the behavior, they are just getting better at hiding it.) Their partner is saying that they have stopped, and there isn’t any “proof” on the phone, so they must be going crazy, right?! Wrong. Almost every woman I’ve coached has said that after multiple checks, they then find new evidence that the partner wasn’t able to hide, or forgot, or somehow came to them. And they see evidence that this has been going on for a while, and usually never stopped after the first discovery.
But by now the women are really FEELING crazy, and their partner is TELLING them they are crazy. So when they finally find the continued evidence, they often react in a big way, with yelling, screaming, threats, and wanting to control the phone even more.
Ok, so let’s pause for a moment and talk about part of the flaw here, and how some of this “crazy-making” can be prevented. Let’s rewind to the very beginning of the story. The woman had a gut feeling that something was off. That something inside her told her to look at the phone. SHE knew something was off. SHE even knew where to find it. That gut feeling, or intuition, or inner self, whatever you call it, canNOT lie to you. It knows so much!
But the phone got all the credit. What?!?! The PHONE got the credit, not their gut feeling. And because having some proof made them feel “safe” when they found it, they continued to look for that feeling in the same place. But I want to offer you that it was their gut that knew what was off, and it will tell them again and again with 100% accuracy if they trust their gut!
I tell my clients not to constantly check their partner’s phone, because instead we do the work to really learn to trust their gut, above all else. Let me tell you, the world is so much clearer and safe when you trust yourself completely.
Imagine for just a minute what would be different in your life if you acted solely on your gut feelings. If when something feels off, you implement a boundary right then, before looking for “proof”? What if you trusted yourself so much that you really believed your gut feeling to BE THE PROOF? What would be different? Can you even imagine that?
I CAN imagine that because it is not only my reality in my life, but has also become the reality for my clients. They are finding so much more trust in themselves and power in relying on their gut over others’ words or actions. They trust themselves more than what they see on their partner’s phone, and they understand that they are worth a relationship with someone who is not trying to make them feel crazy by telling them lies and hiding behavior.
I have clients who stay in their relationships, and rebuild from a place of self-trust and healthy boundaries. And I have clients leave abusive relationships because their partner is not actually interested in doing the work to have a healthy relationship with them. I support my clients no matter the choice they make. Staying or leaving are both equal options on the table.
What I see in my clients is that when they start to make the decision about whether to stay or leave based on self-trust, they are making decisions they are happy with. They don’t stay because they feel it is the only option. They stay because it is where they want to be AND they stay knowing that they are strong enough to leave later if things change and their boundaries continue to get crossed.
Staying in this sense of power over your own life is very different from staying because your partner SAYS they stopped cheating, you can’t find new evidence, so you think you’re crazy. That is an awful place to be in. That is not living in your power. It is letting others have power over you.
So let’s go back and answer the question again: Is it “bad” to be monitoring your partner’s phone? When I’m actually working with a client and they say they really want to keep monitoring the phone, I tell them that is totally fine, AS LONG AS they love their reason for doing it. If they are doing it and it creates closeness and love and for them it is working, great. But if it comes from a place of distrust, and makes you feel crazy, then we need to really examine WHY they are doing it.
If you are ready to move forward and create a new life, with healthier relationships, I’m here to help you! Right now I’m working with clients one-on-one, in weekly sessions for 6 months. In that time we evaluate the results you currently have in your life and relationships. If you don’t like the results you are getting, we break them down by looking at the actions that have gotten you there, the feelings that drove those actions, and the thoughts you were thinking to create those feelings. We do this work in detail. Because, once you understand why/how you got where you are, you can then train your brain to do things differently. You will then create new thoughts, which produce new feelings, that drive new actions, and create new results in your life.
We start out doing this in the area of your life that is causing the most pain. That one area will not take 6 months to fix. Working together for 6 months allows us to also examine other areas of your life that need work and allows us to deal with issues as they come up in real time, which makes the work possible for you to continue doing without me later. It also gives us time to work on other areas of your life. The work we do together can impact and change every area of your life.
I have clients who have come to me to work on abusive relationships they are in. They have then been surprised how effective the work has been at also helping their relationships at work, in their families, with other friends, with their confidence levels to apply for promotions, to change work paths, or to start new hobbies. You really will learn how to create the life you want, one area at a time.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything. As you learn specific things, they will bleed into all areas of your life. The overall satisfaction my clients have is amazing because the work they do for 6 months is sustainable and life changing.
Don’t wait any longer settling for good-enough. Take back the power in your own life and create the relationships you want. The investment you make in yourself, both in money and time over these 6 months will continue to pay for itself time and time again as you continue to create the life you want forever.
I don’t know how you put a dollar amount on the pain you feel every day being in an abusive relationship, or beating yourself up for having a marriage that “failed.” You simply don’t have to feel that way any more! You CAN feel differently NOW, if you start doing the work.
Imagine how different your life will be, come summer of 2023 after you and I have worked together for 6 months. You might not even recognise the old you, and I promised you’ll be glad you signed up for a complimentary session with me. Not everyone will decide to coach now, and that’s ok. If you have had enough of the abuse and crazy-making of your current relationship and are ready to change it, then YOU are ready for coaching!
No one else can do this work for you. You create all the feelings you feel in your life. So if you don’t want to keep feeling what you are right now, know that there is another option, and I can help you get there.
I look forward to meeting you soon. See you on our consultation call. I promise you’ll be glad you did, and you’ll be able to make a clear decision for yourself on what your future is going to look like! Kendra
If this story has resonated with you, and you’d like help finding your own emotional freedom, I’d love to help you. I have devoted my Life Coaching practice to helping people just like you find the freedom and happiness after betrayal. Schedule a complimentary consultation call HERE to see if Life Coaching is right for you. Taking this step will change your life. Schedule your call today!
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