Ask the Unfaithful

• Episode 56: HEALING FROM SECRET INTRIGUE

  In this powerful episode of Ask The Unfaithful, James and Sam take an unflinching look at how to heal one of the most deceptive forces blocking recovery after infidelity — secret intrigue. What begins as seemingly curiosity or emotional "buzz" moments can quietly evolve into a pattern that sabotages integrity, intimacy, and repair. Whether you're five days or five years into recovery, intrigue can remain a threat to your healing — and this episode breaks down how to recognize it, stop it, and build the emotional and relational resilience that real recovery requires. 🎧 What You'll Learn: ✅ A review of:    o What "intrigue" really is — and why it's far more dangerous than it seems    o How fantasy and subtle emotional hits erode connection and authenticity    o The difference between intimacy and intensity in relationships ✅ Practical tools to interrupt the intrigue cycle and retrain your brain ✅ How unfaithful partners can replace validation-seeking with values- based living ✅ Ways to help your betrayed partner heal from the invisible damage caused by intrigue ✅ Why courage, accountability, and emotional regulation are essential for lasting change 💡 Key Takeaways: • Intrigue isn't harmless — it's a gateway behavior that fuels secrecy, shame, and disconnection. • Healing begins when you resist the "high," face the emptiness, and rebuild integrity through action. 👉 If this episode resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on betrayal trauma, affair recovery, and building trust again. 📺 For more helpful content, we invite you to explore our companion show: Ask The Betrayed (@AskTheBetrayed on YouTube) ⚠️ Note: This episode is educational, not therapy. Please reach out for professional guidance at [email protected] to learn more about coaching or intensive options. ------ Our Website: www.AskTheUnfaithful.com Contact us: [email protected] 🔗 Need help healing? Visit HopeForUs.com (Email: [email protected] ) or email Sam at [email protected] 📬 Reach out: [email protected] 🎧 Find us on Apple, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Find James & Sharon at the CORE Relationship Recovery website: www.HopeForUs.com Find more from Sam at Sam's Healing Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@samshealingpodcast Follow James at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/james-annear-lmhc-704551157 Follow CORE Relationship Recovery (James & Sharon) on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CORERelationshipRecovery

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• Episode 55: INTRIGUE: The Silent Saboteur of Healing and Connection After Infidelity

  What if the greatest threat to your recovery after infidelity isn't what you think it is?  In this episode of Ask The Unfaithful, James and Sam unpack how "intrigue" quietly destroys connection, fuels secrecy, and sabotages healing long before an affair - or any kind of sexual or emotionally intimate acting out - ever begins. You'll learn how seemingly insignificant, subtle thoughts and behaviors can become powerful dopamine loops that reinforce shame, self-betrayal, and emotional disconnection. This honest conversation exposes how intrigue starts, why it feels so intoxicating, and what it does to both the unfaithful and betrayed partner. Whether you're the unfaithful seeking to rebuild integrity or the betrayed trying to understand why recovery feels so hard and why things feel "off" even though your unfaithful partner is "doing all the right things" for recovery, this episode brings clarity and compassion - and, with that, hope. 👉 Topics we cover: ✅ What intrigue really means—and why it's so dangerous in recovery ✅ How micro-moments of attention or curiosity can evolve into obsession ✅ The role of validation, fantasy, and secrecy in ongoing betrayal patterns ✅ How intrigue affects the betrayed partner's sense of safety and trust ✅ Why "naming it to tame it" is essential for lasting healing ✅ How to begin breaking the intrigue cycle and rebuild authentic intimacy 💡 Key Takeaway: Intrigue begins small—but left unchecked, it becomes the invisible thread that ties shame, secrecy, and disconnection together. Awareness and honesty are the first steps toward freedom. 👉 If this episode resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on betrayal trauma, affair recovery, and building trust again. 📺 For more helpful content, we invite you to explore our companion show: Ask The Betrayed (@AskTheBetrayed on YouTube) 🔔 Please hit the bell to be alerted about new videos! ⚠️ Note: This episode is educational, not therapy. Please reach out for professional guidance at [email protected] to learn more about coaching or intensive options. ------ Our Website: www.AskTheUnfaithful.com Contact us: [email protected] 🔗 Need help healing? Visit HopeForUs.com (Email: [email protected] ) or email Sam at [email protected] 📬 Reach out: [email protected] 🎧 Find us on Apple, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Find James & Sharon at the CORE Relationship Recovery website: www.HopeForUs.com Find more from Sam at Sam's Healing Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@samshealingpodcast Follow James at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/james-annear-lmhc-704551157 Follow CORE Relationship Recovery (James & Sharon) on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CORERelationshipRecovery

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• Episode 54: What Are The Consequences of People Pleasing For the Unfaithful?

  "Healing begins when we choose authenticity over approval and prioritize the love that truly matters." In this episode of Ask the Unfaithful, James and Sam reveal how people pleasing critically affects the Unfaithful and the steps to stopping it and living a new life where energy is focused on relationship repair and growth. 👉 If you're an unfaithful partner, this conversation will help you see how people pleasing isn't harmless. It drains your energy, blurs your identity, disrupts recovery and arrests trust rebuilding by de-prioritizing your betrayed partner. You'll discover: ✅ Why people pleasing is a survival tactic rooted in the need for validation stemming from shame and fear of rejection. ✅ How it leads to loss of identity, burnout, anxiety, and disconnection. ✅ How it disrupts your own recovery by not only deprioritizing your partner but yourself. ✅ The hidden ways it blocks rebuilding trust and relational safety. ✅ Practical steps to set boundaries, rebuild authenticity, and stop the cycle. ✅ How to shift from seeking external validation to practicing self-validation. 💡 Key takeaway: When you choose to stop people-pleasing, you are actively choosing authenticity, humility, and accountability over approval. 👉 If this episode resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on betrayal trauma, affair recovery, and building trust again. 📺 For more helpful content, we invite you to explore our companion show: Ask The Betrayed (@AskTheBetrayed on YouTube) 🔔 Please hit the bell to be alerted about new videos! ⚠️ Note: This episode is educational, not therapy. Please reach out for professional guidance at [email protected] to learn more about coaching or intensive options. ------ Our Website: www.AskTheUnfaithful.com Contact us: [email protected] 🔗 Need help healing? Visit HopeForUs.com (Email: [email protected] ) or email Sam at [email protected] 📬 Reach out: [email protected] 🎧 Find us on Apple, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Find James & Sharon at the CORE Relationship Recovery website: www.HopeForUs.com Find more from Sam at Sam's Healing Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@samshealingpodcast Follow James at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/james-annear-lmhc-704551157 Follow CORE Relationship Recovery (James & Sharon) on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CORERelationshipRecovery

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• ATU Shorts SE5: Helping the Unfaithful Move From "Not It!" to "Got it!"

  On today's episode of "Moving from Not It to Got It," Sam takes listeners on an honest journey through the pivotal moment when an unfaithful spouse chooses to stop deflecting and starts owning their actions. The episode opens by breaking down the psychological reality of the "Not It" phase—where self-protection, avoidance, and justification keep an individual stuck, unable to truly connect with their partner or heal the damage from infidelity. The reality is, "Not It" causes a significant amount of collateral damage including but certainly not limited to:   blocking all forward progress minimizing and justifying the affair(s) blame shifting subconsciously expecting the betrayed partner to handhold the unfaithful into the most basic recovery work The heart of today's episode centers on what it takes to shift from "Not It" to "Got It" not only earning self respect but simultaneously the respect of the betrayed partner.    This means facing the hard truths head-on and making the conscious choice to drop the defenses and problematic patterns which may have created the acting out in the first place.  The transformation can be palpable: when an unfaithful spouse authentically claims responsibility, they lay the foundation for rebuilding trust, self-respect, and hope for their relationship. Note: This episode is educational, not therapy. Please reach out for professional guidance at [email protected] to learn more about coaching or intensive options. ------ Our Website: www.AskTheUnfaithful.com Contact us: [email protected] 🔗 Need help healing? Visit HopeForUs.com (Email: [email protected] ) or email Sam at [email protected] 📬 Reach out: [email protected] 🎧 Find us on Apple, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Find James & Sharon at the CORE Relationship Recovery website: www.HopeForUs.com Find more from Sam at Sam's Healing Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@samshealingpodcast Follow James at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/james-annear-lmhc-704551157 Follow CORE Relationship Recovery (James & Sharon) on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CORERelationshipRecovery

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• Episode 53: 10 Ways the Unfaithful's Distorted Thinking Destroys Hope

  Stinking Thinking is more than just negative self-talk—it's the distorted, automatic thought patterns that block empathy, sabotage trust, and keep both the unfaithful and the betrayed partner stuck in cycles of pain. In this episode of Ask The Unfaithful, we unpack how "stinking thinking" shows up after infidelity: • The 5 categories of distorted thoughts • How these toxic beliefs re-traumatize the betrayed partner  • The devastating psychological effects on the unfaithful • Why distorted thinking erodes the relationship and prevents repair • Practical tools to challenge, reality-check, and rewire stinking thinking for true relational healing 💡 Understanding and addressing stinking thinking is critical to emotional sobriety and lasting relational recovery. 👉 If this episode resonates with you, please like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on betrayal trauma, affair recovery, and building trust again. 📺 For more helpful content, we invite you to explore our companion show: Ask The Betrayed (@AskTheBetrayed on YouTube) 🔔 Please hit the bell to be alerted about new videos! ⚠️ Note: This episode is educational, not therapy. Please reach out for professional guidance at [email protected] to learn more about coaching or intensive options. 📧 Contact us: [email protected] 🔗 Need help healing? Visit HopeForUs.com (Email: [email protected] ) or email Sam at [email protected]\ 📬 Reach out: [email protected] 🎧 Find us on Apple, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. ------ Our Website: www.AskTheUnfaithful.com Contact us: [email protected] Find James & Sharon at the CORE Relationship Recovery website: www.HopeForUs.com Find more from Sam at Sam's Healing Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@samshealingpodcast Sam is also on Instagram: @Samuel_healing Follow James at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/james-annear-lmhc-704551157 Follow CORE Relationship Recovery (James & Sharon) on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CORERelationshipRecovery 👍 Like, Subscribe, and Leave a Comment below to share what resonated most—or ask your question for a future episode.

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