Developing Healthy Communication Skills After Sexual Betrayal w/ Kevin Skinner

In this episode, host Tara McCausland and Dr. Kevin Skinner  discuss effective communication strategies for couples dealing with sexual betrayal and addiction. Dr. Skinner emphasizes the importance of slowing down conversations and understanding underlying emotions, such as fear and pain, rather than responding defensively. He suggests techniques like 'deep listening,' adult timeouts, and back-to-back communication to help break negative patterns. Dr. Skinner also highlights the importance of external support systems like sponsorship and groups, and advises against making quick decisions in the wake of betrayal. The conversation underscores the critical role of self-awareness and intentional effort in achieving healthier communication and ultimately, relationship recovery.

00:00 Introduction to Dr. Kevin Skinner
01:19 Welcome and Initial Thoughts on Communication
01:52 Challenges of Communication After Betrayal
03:43 Understanding Anger in Betrayed Partners
13:43 The Importance of Deep Listening
15:49 Breaking Communication Patterns
18:24 Techniques for Effective Communication
25:51 Understanding Attunement in Relationships
27:16 The Importance of Adult Timeouts
30:06 The Myth of Never Going to Bed Angry
32:16 Effective Communication Techniques
33:33 The Role of Support Systems
39:49 Final Thoughts and Advice

Connect with Dr. Kevin Skinner at humanintimacy.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dr. Kevin Skinner
• 1:19 Welcome and Initial Thoughts on Communication
• 1:52 Challenges of Communication After Betrayal
• 3:43 Understanding Anger in Betrayed Partners
• 13:43 The Importance of Deep Listening
• 15:49 Breaking Communication Patterns
• 18:24 Techniques for Effective Communication
• 25:51 Understanding Attunement in Relationships
• 27:16 The Importance of Adult Timeouts
• 30:06 The Myth of Never Going to Bed Angry
• 32:16 Effective Communication Techniques
• 33:33 The Role of Support Systems
• 39:49 Final Thoughts and Advice

Transcript

Developing Healthy Communication Skills After Sexual Betrayal w/ Kevin Skinner

[00:00:00] 

Introduction to Dr. Kevin Skinner

Tara: Dr. Kevin Skinner is a licensed marriage and family therapist who has been practicing for 29 years. In addition to therapy, Dr. Skinner has created online courses for bloomforwomen.com and humanintimacy.com.

He has written professional assessments completed by thousands of people. He is the author of four books, Treating Sexual [00:01:00] Addiction: A Compassionate Approach to Recovery, Treating Trauma from Sexual Betrayal, Treating Pornography Addiction, and Rebuild Your Relationship After Sexual Betrayal.

He's also trained therapists throughout the world as a faculty member for IITAP. Together with his wife, Katie, they have eight children and three grandchildren. 

Welcome and Initial Thoughts on Communication

Tara: Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast. I'm your host Tara McCausland, and I have here with me, Dr. Kevin Skinner. Welcome. 

Kevin: Hey Tara. How are you? 

Tara: Good. It's so fun to see you again. And we had Dr. Skinner at our conference a few years ago. If you'd like to hear more from Dr. Skinner, because I remember thinking, “Wow, I really appreciate what this man has to say!” just from your own personal experience, as well as your clinical experience. So you can go to our digital recovery library and check out his presentations, so a little plug for that.

Challenges of Communication After Betrayal

Tara: But today we are actually talking about communication after sexual betrayal. And this is such an [00:02:00] important topic because I know as someone that's been married for nearly 20 years, communication is already hard, but then you throw in a little addiction and trauma and it becomes extremely hard.

What are your initial thoughts about that? 

Kevin: A great concept. I love the fact that we're going to be talking about this because as a clinician over the last 30 years as a marriage and family therapist, what I have found is couples already have, like you said, they already have a hard time. Now let's add to that the fear, the gaslighting, the hidden behaviors that come from it. And then the person who's acting out, maybe already having communication struggles, fear of opening up, fear of being able to be vulnerable because I don't want others to really know my secret. And so you already have these challenges. Man, it just blows it up in difficulty when you put it together.

And so couples, right after discovery, [are faced with] how much do I share? How much should I share? You're angry. What do I do with the anger? And you just find that there's just not a great [00:03:00] template for how couples can communicate effectively. 

Tara: Yeah. So let's talk about this burden of sexual betrayal and how that really does affect both parties' ability to communicate in healthy ways.

Kevin: Yeah, it's a concept that I think is really helpful for me to explain to clients, because sometimes when you're in betrayal or you're actively acting out, it's really hard to see your partner. It's really hard to ask “What are they experiencing?” Because I'm so focused on my pain if I've been betrayed and my shame if I've been acting out. And so the burden of betrayal is not only do I not have the skills, but I don't even know what to say. 

Understanding Anger in Betrayed Partners

Kevin: Now, often [from] the betrayed partner you hear a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, which according to the research is one of the most common outcomes. It's, “I'm angrier than I've ever been.”

But in general, my experience has [been that] betrayed partners as a whole, they're not angry people. [00:04:00] But what occurs is when you are in fear, you're naturally going to get angry. And that's something that the betraying partner doesn't fully understand. It's like, “Why are you so angry?” And even our society shuts down anger. 

So the burden of that is “I feel the anger. I don't know where to go with it. I don't like the way I'm feeling. What do I do with this?” So that's that part of it. 

And then the second part is, “I've had this behavior in many cases since I was 8, 9, 10, 11 and I'm afraid to talk with people or I went to people and they made me feel ashamed or ashamed because of what I did and now I'm afraid to open up because I didn't like how it felt when I was a little boy or girl. And so the burden of this is, “I have these fears, these feelings, and I don't know what to do with them.”

And so the burden of that is, “Where do I go with it? Where's my safe place where I can be open and express these honest, genuine feelings and actually feel heard?”

Tara: I really appreciate you [00:05:00] bringing up the anger piece. In our recent conference, we actually had Dr. Crystal Hollenbeck, who did some recent research, and just came out with a paper about betrayal trauma anger and how s you had described, often these betrayed partners are not angry people until betrayal. And then they're experiencing levels of anger they have never experienced before and to be able to communicate when you're so angry, it feels almost impossible. 

Kevin: And our society doesn't know what to do with anger. Realistically, in our society, when someone's angry, what do we normally do? We either want to get away from them, what we might call the natural flee response. Or we fight back, “Calm down. If you just stop yelling at me,” right?

And so again, when I have found that my work has been most effective, it's actually helping both partners understand the anger. The natural anger. And I have found that when I can sit with it, I'll give you an [00:06:00] example of that. A few years ago, a couple had flown in from out of state and we were talking and I just, my goal when I first meet people is “Who is this person sitting in front of me?”

And so I just had this person lay out there just as much openness as they could share. And really she was just really opening up and about halfway through, her husband looked at me and he said, “How are you doing this?”

“Like doing what?”

And he said, “She's never opened up to share these things.” I'm like, “You are her spouse and you've hurt her. She's not gonna feel safe enough to open up to you this way because she doesn't trust you right now. But if you can create this kind of environment, it's curiosity, it's interest, it's openness, then she feels safe enough to open up. And that's really what we're trying to do.” And when we were done with that, he's “I gotta learn how to do this.”

Because again, we don't have to be afraid of the anger. The anger is designed to teach us what's actually happening inside. And when we run from [00:07:00] the anger, we don't solve the problem. And that's one of the core challenges that I've seen in many betrayed partners is people haven't been willing to sit with them in their pain. I'm going to call it pain, not anger. It's manifesting as anger, but it's really pain and it’s not feeling heard. 

Tara: And I appreciate that. On the betraying side oftentimes they have learned to run away, to isolate rather than to face issues head on. And so these communication skills, while it's hard to develop them, they are learnable and learning how to communicate despite the pain, despite the anger, is going to be absolutely critical for healing on both sides. 

Kevin: Yeah, and that's actually fun when you can help somebody who's been acting out learn how to communicate and that really is the power of group. And I don't think people realize that in a group, when you can hear other people talking about what you've kept inside for years and decades at times, boy, when you feel like you're a part of something, [00:08:00] it really allows you to be that authentic, real you.

And I don't think we give enough leverage to the power of group until we really understand it. And if we truly understood it, I think most people would say, “I need to be in a group.” 

Tara: Maybe before we continue, let's back up to why do so many couples struggle communicating in the first place?

Kevin: And I think the beginning is actually the starting point here. I think many of us have grown up in environments where we didn't learn to communicate. And so how many of us actually saw our parents solve problems, work through issues? Where did we learn the skill of problem solving? And so I think we struggle with communication because our culture is not really effective at sitting us down and teaching us effective communication skills in the first place.

So I often give this analogy, but a few years ago my twins were learning to drive and they would get up early in the morning. I mean at times we had to have them there at 5:00, 5:30 in the morning and they would go for an hour and a [00:09:00] half and they did that for weeks at a time. Again, just learning how to operate an incredibly important vehicle and do it in a safe way. And yet if I wanted a marriage license I could go down to the Department of Justice, I could file, sign my name. My fiance could and would have that license now that we can get married. There's absolutely no requirement other than I go sign a document and pay them the fee. It's fascinating to me that what we care the most about, what we think about the most, relationships, we spend the least amount of time actually learning, studying how to be effective, how to do it right.

And then somehow we think that we're going to do well without training, without taking the time. And so if we go back to the question, why did so many couples struggle to communicate? It's really that we haven't had a model of how to do it. And when I ask people that question, honestly, Tara, “Who taught you?” rarely do I get, “My mom and dad were really good [00:10:00] at it.”

And it's not to be critical. It's just the reality that human relationships require effort and we all would benefit from taking some classes on communication and how to genuinely understand each other. And if we could be better at that literally everything could be easier for us. Now, let me go to the other side of this for a second, right?

So now add on top of that, that I have a secret behavior that I've been engaging in for years and years. And I've kept it a secret from everybody, and this person I've finally fallen in love with, and I know they're in love with me, do I really dare go tell them? And so how many people are entering into a relationship with the burden, with the secret, and now, how do I communicate that I tricked you into marriage, I deceived you because I was afraid I was going to lose you?

Boy, that's a burden, so hard for couples to work with. But again, the solution is learning how to communicate, learning because many betrayed partners say, “I just want to know what my partner's thinking and feeling. I want to know what they're really going through.” So [00:11:00] again, there's a lot of complexity, what we're saying here, but it's difficult.

Tara: I was just thinking, you're absolutely right. Societally, we're not good at teaching this to our children. And, I think about my grandparents and then my parents, my grandparents’ generation was called the silent generation. They didn't talk about hard things, period.

And then my parents, they did a little bit better, but I just know looking generationally, I think there's some hope that we are doing better and we're showing our children, hopefully that there is a better way than silence or avoidance. But I'm curious, just from a parental perspective, as we're trying to change this in the upcoming generation, what are some things that we ought to be doing so that we can shift this?

Kevin: I think that's the right question. What can we do? And really, I think it's helpful for our children to see us work through differences, [00:12:00] to recognize [that] we're going to have differences and it's okay to express myself and to do it in a validating way. See, what we're so afraid of is conflict, but conflict is normal. And in any relationship, if I still keep the fundamental principles of, “I still love you, I'm still committed to you and I value this relationship. We're going to figure it out, even though we don't agree.” So I think it's helpful for our children to see us have differences. And it's okay. I still love you even though we have differences.

See, I think we're so afraid because we want people to think the way we think, feel the way we feel. But that's just not how we work as human beings. We recently went through an election cycle where there was a lot of diversity of opinion, a lot of differences. But one of my favorite quotes is, “If you give up on the most important relationships because you have political differences, you are making a huge mistake.” So learning how to have differences and be okay with it, to me is absolutely essential. 

Tara: Yeah. We'll talk [00:13:00] more about how we're dealing with communication when sexual addiction and betrayal trauma is present. But I think if we can think about the upcoming generation and being a transitional character in our homes and our families and doing something different than what we were taught and being intentional, our children will do better in their personal relationships. If we can make that change now and it’s hard, but I think it's worth the effort. 

So let's talk a little bit about some communication techniques. Again, most couples are struggling with communication, but then you throw in the betrayal and the addiction making the patterns even worse. What are some techniques that can help us out here? 

The Importance of Deep Listening

Kevin: One of my favorite [techniques] actually comes from Thich Nhat Hanh and he referred to it as deep listening. And when we are in fight or flee or if you really look at the communication patterns, it's actually predictable. Most couples fight in patterns.

And [00:14:00] if you think about the disagreement with your spouse, you could probably say something and you could probably predict what your partner is going to say through their words or their body language. So I often say we need to slow down our communication and identify the most important thing that we're actually trying to communicate.

So part of effective communication is a self evaluation, of saying, “What am I actually trying to say here?” And far too often, when I work with individuals and couples, I find that they, I'm just going to use this word, they go off. They just say things, but if I pause them and say, “What is it that is the most important thing you're trying to communicate to your spouse right now?” it's a different question. It's a deeper question. 

And so when they are able to pause, they actually have more effective communication because they've thought through what it is they're really trying to communicate. “I'm scared. I'm afraid. I'm [00:15:00] worried.” What was coming out is “You were late when you came home and it makes me mad when you're late.” Okay, I hear the anger, but really I'm scared, right?

And so we aren't necessarily communicating what we're trying to say and so effective communication actually starts with me knowing what I'm trying to communicate 

Tara: So you had said we tend to fight in patterns and I totally see that. It can be very predictable on what's going to come up, what we're going to fight about.

I think it's helpful to recognize, like to even try and stand back and observe some of those fights just to see some of that pattern. But like, what do you do to break that so that you can step more into a pause and a deep listening state versus just the reactivity, because that can be hard to change.

Breaking Communication Patterns

Kevin: So when I do intensives, [which is when] couples come to my office for usually two or three days. I actually will break down their pattern and we will actually help them rebuild their [00:16:00] patterns. So in essence, you haven't done it well, you've struggled. Now we're going to actually take the pattern and we're going to understand it and then we're going to create new patterns to help change it.

So let me give a few specific examples. Let's say that you say something and my typical response is “You're so upset and angry all the time.” So if I just take the language here, the anger represents something. My response is a defensive response. “You're angry all the time.” So if I break that down, I say, “Okay what is it that my spouse is saying in their intensity of emotion?”

See, we can't even get there in most of our conversations. I'm not thinking about that because I've got a defensive response already in place. So I'm triggered and from a physiological perspective, my body is already preparing for a battle and that literally is what's happening. If I can get them to slow down this process and say, “What is my partner saying here,” [00:17:00] that's the beginning of deep listening.

What's actually being said here? Oh, I hurt them. And they're now trying to communicate that hurt. And the way they're doing it is through an accusation or through their frustration or through their anger. If I can help them see this, then they can be with their partner longer and acknowledge, “I did hurt you. And I understand that my actions created that, and I need to acknowledge that you didn't deserve what I did now.” Just that simple response. And I say simple, it’s so complex because the emotions want to fight back. 

Tara: Right. 

Kevin: But what I'm trying to do in our intensives is to help them slow down and rewire the pattern so when their spouse is upset, instead of emotionally responding instantly, they've paused long enough to see what their partner's actually [saying].

That's a major transition for the couples and learning how to do that takes skill and it takes practice and it [00:18:00] requires an understanding. So that deep listening is actually being able to hear what your partner is saying rather than to respond like you normally would or you have in the past. 

Tara: So say we have a couple listening, and they're like, “Yeah we know that like we have this cyclical pattern going on.” Is there anything that a couple can do at home without the help of a therapist to start breaking these cycles? 

Techniques for Effective Communication

Tara: Would you even invite them to like practice during a peaceable time?

Kevin: Yeah, it's a great question. I, first of all, would say, when couples are in conflict, and maybe they don't want to call it fighting, or fighting, whatever you want to call it, when that's actually happening,  we read each other. And if you're angry at me, your eye contact, your tone of voice, your facial expression tells me that you're angry at me. 

One of my favorite interventions is actually to have a couple face back to back and try to communicate [00:19:00] without body language. So we've, in essence, taken out your visual awareness and we've just required you to have physical touch. But now you're listening rather than observing facial expression, eye contact. What you're doing is you're inviting them to slow down and try to communicate in a different way.

And the healthy touch, if it can be touching back to back, is a different way of doing it. It's not as threatening as if it's face to face. 

Tara: I like that. So even back in the day, I used to work with troubled youth and I would teach parents how to deal with some difficult behaviors and I would actually do role playing with them as a part of the preparation when their child actually starts throwing a crazy tantrum.

Would you recommend couples practice this back to back communication again, in a peaceful time so that when in the heat of the moment, they have this new technique that they can [00:20:00] turn to. 

Kevin: Yeah, as a way to play, yes. Just practice. Just take an issue that's been mildly difficult for you guys and try it back to back.

And then jump it up a little bit to maybe a little bit more difficult issue and what you're going to find is it's a different way of communicating. Again we communicate through our body language. In fact, it's not necessarily our words. The research shows that maybe 7 to 10 percent of our communication are the actual words we're saying.

More than our communication is the tone. And actually the body language itself. So over 90 percent of our communication is our tone of voice and then our body language. I can't read your body language if we're back to back. And so now I'm having to use a different sense and okay, now I'm paying really close attention to tone and now I almost have to pay attention to the words more intently.

So that's all it is. It's just an exercise to practice doing it in a different way because I can easily be triggered by your facial [00:21:00] expression. I can be triggered by your hands. I can be triggered by a frown or angry eyes. All those things can be triggers for me. I can just tell you're agitated. I'm not even listening because I can just tell you're agitated. 

Yes, I'm a therapist, but really I'm a pattern breaker. I help couples break patterns. And that's the concept of when you fight in patterns, we're interrupting the pattern. And if you don't interrupt it, you're going to keep doing the same thing. 

Tara: Any other techniques that you might suggest to couples, especially maybe let's take a scenario where maybe there has been a relapse. And a betrayed partner is flying off the handle with high intense emotion.

What would you recommend? 

Kevin: In every situation, and I'm going to tell you a generalization because if there has been a relapse, everything comes flooding back. The fears, the worries, the anxieties, “Are you ever going to get over this?” All of those emotions come back in just full force. In fact, if we've been [00:22:00] making progress, I could be the same emotional intensity as I was when I first discovered. So we have to honor that as a truth, a reality.

Even there, when we pause long enough to understand what we're trying to communicate, we're going to be more effective. Now, I want to honor that initial emotion, because if we stop emotion, we're actually creating the potential for more trauma. But I might need to go for a walk. I might need to write down what I'm so angry about in this moment, because what happens in coupleships, when I'm that angry, most people can't withstand constant anger and not fight back or flee.

What we often find is either the fight back, which is “You've been doing…..” a blame. So I'm fighting back or you see the defensive posture of shutting down and avoiding. And most betrayed partners do not [00:23:00] do well when their partner goes into the shame spiral and does not attend to the pain. And that even makes them even angrier because it's “You hurt me and now you're disappearing. You don't have the right to disappear.”

So in this example, this is one of the more difficult ones because couples typically fight with high intensity right after a relapse, that's what you would expect. If they have enough awareness, the person who acted out should expect anger, but they should also both agree that's not going to get them to the outcome that they want in, my rage or anger.

I'm not going to make you heal, I want you to acknowledge my pain. I want you to be aware of my pain.

But a person who's just acted out is usually in a high level of shame. So from a therapeutic standpoint, when you're in high shame, in fact the research shows, when you're in high shame, you have less empathy. So we have to slow down and in this moment couple communication should probably be the bare necessities until we both get our bearings [00:24:00] set and then we need to have more communication. The person who acted out needs to communicate clearly about the boundaries that they've had to set because of the recent relapse. So they need to communicate, “These are the boundaries I broke and these are the things I'm doing to repair that so that it does not happen again.” Now that should be on the person who acted out.

The betrayed partner needs validation as well. And that's where the betraying partner needs to get to the point where they can be with him and recognize, “I did it again and you didn't deserve that. I hurt you.” So that's a more mature conversation, but couples can get there, but they've got to learn how to get there.

Tara: So as a therapist then, what are some things that you do to help couples get there? Because again, breaking patterns often years in the making, right? 

Kevin: Yeah. So this is actually the fun part. This is when you teach couples how to do it and they start implementing, it's really fun because they begin to feel hope because they're [00:25:00] doing it.

I just recently received a letter from a couple and it was just so delightful because they'd been in the pattern for years. And they came, we role played, we talked through things and then I practiced with them. I literally practiced with them for two or three days. And when I got the letter, it was like,”That was the most helpful thing we've ever experienced.”

And they wrote this letter to their whole community of people who are in their recovery. And it was just a beautiful expression. But what I discovered in that process is they didn't, again, when you don't know what to do, you don't know what to do. It's just that simple. It requires practice. It requires time and effort to break down these patterns and then to implement them.

So if you have the right skills, you can do it. It's just learning how. So let me just give you a really simple one. One of my favorite techniques is an emotional conversation. Now it's reading each other's emotions. 

Understanding Attunement in Relationships

Kevin: What do you think she's feeling right now? What do you think he's experiencing right now? Close? Not close. Yep. Nope. Nope. Yes, maybe. All right, and we play a[00:26:00] game of trying to understand, “Okay, what just happened here?” And as they learn to read each other, it's what we call attunement. Because we're so mis-attuned after betrayal, and my hope is to get them like we were playing the piano, we could actually be in harmony, and we could be playing the keys at the right time, at the right pace.

Unfortunately, many couples are like beginners playing the piano. And so we have to accept that this is going to be a journey, a learning process. You're not going to instantly know how to do something. It's going to require practice. And that's the part I try to get across to couples over and over again.

You're going to do it right, then you're going to do it wrong. You're going to do it right, then you're going to do it wrong. And that's just the reality. 

Tara: Earlier in the conversation, you had said, asking the question, “What am I actually trying to communicate, and what is my partner trying to communicate?”

Would it be helpful right out the gate, to just be like, okay, asking myself, “What emotion am I feeling?” [00:27:00] And then naming that for yourself and for your partner. So rather than just spewing out the blame of the action, more like “I feel this as a result of this.”

Kevin: Yeah. Most people can't do that on the spot. It takes time to get to the deeper [meaning of] what I'm really trying to say. 

The Importance of Adult Timeouts

Kevin: So at times I tell couples, “When things are heated one of best gifts you can give to your relationship is to take an adult timeout.” Because of the research, John Gottman, a great researcher looks at a concept called flooded. And really that's when our heart rate is over a hundred beats per minute.

So when you are flooded, just out of the way your body's created, you don't listen very well. You're more critical. You're more angry. So when you're flooded, you're not going to communicate well. That's just how we as humans are. In fact, he does not suggest we do marital therapy when a couple is flooded. 

We slow it down. We separate them for a period of time to get them regulated so then we can have the conversation. Most couples [00:28:00] absolutely are both likely flooded. At least one of them is flooded in heated conversations and they're trying to do it without counseling, trying to do it on their own, trying to get an outcome that they both want to have. They're not going to get it. 

So an adult timeout is an important factor for healthy communication. Now, while you're in the timeout, that's when you actually can slow down, but it's not a time to go get bigger weapons. Because I can go get bigger weapons. “All right. You just said this. You did this. And 20 years ago you did this. Do you remember when you did that?”

And so I can go get a bigger weapon. I'm trying to put that aside because if I really want to be committed to this process and that's really a big part here, if I'm committed to it, I'm going to be asking the question, “What is it that I'm really trying to communicate here and how do I do it in an effective way?

And even a more mature question is, “What is it that my partner's actually feeling?” If you can get to that point, you don't need a lot of therapy because you will effectively do it on your own. But getting to that point and [00:29:00] learning how to get there, that requires, I'm going to call it a lot of mental strength.

Tara: Yeah, I really appreciate John Gottman's work. I did some study on his work back in the day in college. I think we all know how our body responds to anger. If you don't, maybe you should look at yourself a little closer, but I know how I feel when I am flooded. So this adult timeout, how long does it take for our bodies to calm down physiologically from a flood? 

Kevin: From what I read, it's about 20 to 30 minutes at minimum. So if I take 20 to 30 minutes now, it's interesting because most couples are afraid to do that. And usually it's the partner who is in the most hurt or anger. And so they don't want their partner to disengage because they never come back to it. And that's probably the most frequent pattern that I see.

And if we're going to agree that we're going to take adult timeouts, we also have to add a plus sign to that. We're going to take a timeout plus we're [00:30:00] going to come back to it. And you're going to give it a specific time. This evening or we'll talk about it before we go to bed, tomorrow morning.

The Myth of Never Going to Bed Angry

Kevin: Now, let me bring up a concept here that I think is really important. There's a phrase that we've used over and over and heard over and over again. And I just completely disagree with it. And it's “Don't go to bed angry.”

And just let me explain this because it is, to me, one of the biggest mistakes that couples make. And I'm going to use research to support what I'm saying. Dr. Roy Baumeister, he calls it ego depletion. He wrote a book called Willpower. And when our ego, and I'm going to use a different phrase, when our energy is depleted, our ability to think and problem solve is significantly lower.

So it's two o'clock in the morning. You're both exhausted from a very busy day and you're now in your third hour of trying to solve a problem and it's two o'clock in the morning. One or both of you are going to do or say something that could permanently damage your relationship forever. And it's just [00:31:00] not good advice.

We have to talk it out. We have to talk it out. No, I love you so much that I will come back to this, but right now I'm exhausted and if I try to do this, I'm going to say or do things that I don't want to say because I'm truly exhausted. But let's talk about it tomorrow morning. I've got some time before I go to work. Let's talk about it tomorrow afternoon. Let's go to lunch together. Let's talk about it tomorrow night. And I commit that I will do that. 

That's the best gift that I can offer to couples when they continue to go into those late night experiences because nothing good comes from a four or five or six or seven hour conversation. Rarely does it end well. 

Tara: Such good counsel. I really like that. And I think it's helpful for us to consider again, this adult timeout, it's going to take 20 or 30 minutes for us just to physiologically calm down and then have the mental bandwidth to go into problem solving mode. But I like how you also had said [00:32:00] that it’s not the time to go pull out the bigger guns or like start doing about all these other things that people are doing wrong. Then when you come back, say, “We're going to address this at this time,” give a timeframe so we don't just not come back to it. 

Kevin: Yeah. 

Effective Communication Techniques

Kevin: I've got a whole formula for this. It's what I call seven rules for fighting, right? It's just a simple formula. It starts with awareness and it goes to taking that adult timeout, what you do during the timeout, then how you come back together after the timeout.

Again, before we actually come back [from] the timeout, we have to ask ourselves, “Am I in a mental space where I can have effective communication?” If I'm not ready for the conversation because I've still got guns or issues that are fired up, ready to fire some balls at my spouse or my partner, it's not wise.

So again, “Am I in a mental place where I can think and communicate effectively?” If I'm not, I still have to figure out, “Why am I so angry here?” And again, I might be angry and I want my [00:33:00] spouse to hear me, but anger is not going to help you feel heard. And that's the unfortunate thing with betrayal is it triggers that kind of anger. What I'm trying to help the betraying partner say is, “You need to sit with the anger long enough so she knows that you want to understand the pain.”

Tara: In those moments where you need someone to hear your pain, your spouse is not in a position to do that. Maybe you've taken that adult time out. What recommendations do you make to people so that they can release? 

The Role of Support Systems

Kevin: This is the part that I think [there] is really the benefit of having a sponsor, having a group accountability team. It's the power of writing and journaling. It's the power of going on a walk and just talking and thinking and meditating but the goal is to slow down. And sometimes we need to use other people's brains. That's why a group and sponsor matter so much. 

Sometimes it's just writing things down so I can give a voice to what's inside of me. And sometimes it's going for a [00:34:00] walk and just letting it out. I'm hurt. I'm scared. I'm afraid. But again, it's getting to the root of the pain, not just ruminating, but “What hurts so much?” 

And usually when I get people to do that, they come up with, “I'm just so scared of being abandoned. I'm afraid that I'm going to be left to myself or that she's going to quit and I will have lost everything.” So we're speaking more to authentic fear. And we're leaning into that fear, not ignoring it, not running from it, not avoiding it. 

Tara: Yes. Thank you. And I'll second that. Obviously here at SA Lifeline, a subset of SA Lifeline is our SAL 12 step program. And we know that community and sponsorship is so critical in those times when our spouse can't be a support to us. And very often they can't be as we're recovering from addiction and trauma. Then we have someone to connect with, to blow steam off with, but also to be accountable to because it's easy.

It's easy to go [00:35:00] into the blame game. I think, especially early on in the healing phase, that this is all just their stuff and not being able to look at ourselves at all. 

Kevin: Yeah. And the only caution I have there is you have to make sure that [other] person doesn't have an agenda. And what I mean by that is sometimes people will have their agenda of what you should do rather than allowing you to think through and giving you a, “Have you considered….? What about this?”

Because the person who has an agenda could actually do more harm than good. And so we want somebody who can truly be objective and help you look in the mirror. 

Tara: Yeah. And a good sponsor will do that. They will not tell, they might share their personal strength, hope and experience, but they won't say, “Oh, you should do….”

Kevin: Yeah. The moment I hear someone say, “You should….” that's probably not the best advice you're going to get. 

Tara: Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully that sponsor or that support person is directing you to the God of your understanding as well. [00:36:00] And that would be a piece that we talk a lot about in these moments where there is a lot of real pain.

It's my personal experience that there is relief as we look to the God of our understanding and that would be another person, a power that we can turn to, in those times. 

Kevin: And let me just add to that, when we slow down and if we invite Him into our relationship, usually we get much better outcomes.

Tara: Oh yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. Amen. So I'm really curious because I appreciate that you spoke to the myth of “Never go to bed angry.” because we've all heard that. And here's a little personal share.. My husband doesn't deal with addiction, but early on in our marriage, he was actually very good at pausing and saying, “If I speak right now, if we talk, I will say something that I will regret. So I'm not going to talk about this right now.” And it made me so mad. Honestly, I just thought, “He just is trying [00:37:00] to avoid this.”

And now 20 years into our marriage, I thought, “Boy, he was so wise.” And we would come back to it. But my personality was one of “This has to be dealt with right now or I'm going to explode.” So I really appreciate all of these other suggestions that you've made because that was a hard thing for me. 

And again, we weren't even dealing with sexual addiction or betrayal trauma. Although, maybe I had some trauma that I was trying to work through as the daughter of an addict. However, that's all kind of an aside.

Let's say we have a situation where the relationship has been so toxic, the communication so poor that maybe these people can't even be in the same room. Do you ever recommend other alternative communication to talking? 

Kevin: I'm going to go back to some concepts. John Gottman talks about criticism, contempt, yelling, screaming, belittling. Anytime we have that kind of verbal, we can use the word, abuse in a situation like that. If I'm verbally abusing another [00:38:00] person, that's never going to lead to a connection. I may think you're going to hear me, but usually it creates either a retaliation or a resentment. So toxicity in that situation, we need to do our best to remove it if we're going to communicate effectively.

And I've worked with a lot of betrayed partners who feel guilty because they have been so enraged that they've said and done things [that are] just so critical. But what I have found is that even when they learn new skills, those skills are slowing down self reflection. Self reflection of, again, going back to the concept of what I'm trying to communicate is empowering, rather than feeling out of control with anger, feeling empowered by being able to communicate authentically what I'm actually feeling and what I'm experiencing.

What I want my clients to understand [is], I want you to feel empowered by how you're going through this journey, not out of control. So communication techniques actually start with self awareness first. We have to look internally before we can communicate effectively externally. Pausing, reflecting, “What is it that I'm trying to say?”

I [00:39:00] have a course called How to Communicate When You Don't Know What to Say. Because I find that there's so much flooding. And it's a really simple formula. First of all, I have to figure out what I'm trying to say and why it's important to me. It's what I call the what and the why. So once I've figured out the what and the why, then it's “How do I communicate it?”

And when couples get into conflict, I will have them pause, take a time out, and I will have them write about “What is it that I'm trying to say and why is this so important to me?” Then I will have them think about what is the most effective way to communicate this. So it's a really simple formula. What, why, how. And then we practice it and see how it goes. 

Tara: Okay. I like that. It's easy to remember what, why, how. What am I trying to say? Why is it important to me and how will I communicate this? Very good. 

Final Thoughts and Advice

Tara: So this has been so helpful, Dr. Skinner, I really love these practical tips that you've given us. There's no doubt that this is just across the board. Again, [00:40:00] for all couples communication is challenging, but I think you've given us some hope that as we're intentional, we can get better at it.

And if there is in the relationship this burden of sexual betrayal and trauma there is hope yet that we can change the patterns that have fed the fire, right? 

Kevin: That's right. 

Tara: …dysfunction in our relationship. Any final thoughts about this topic before I ask you the final question? 

Kevin: My final thought is, “Get more information, get help.” Because if you're in a rut, if you're in these stuck patterns, you don't have to be. Reach out, get support, because sometimes people think, you know, we'll figure it out. If you've been doing something for years and years you probably aren't figuring it out.

So reach out, get support and in particular, develop your skills so you are being the best you can be. It's not just about addiction recovery or overcoming or healing from betrayal. It's actually how to be better in [00:41:00] relationships because true recovery is, “I'm going to be a better human being.” And that really means that I'm going to be better in relationships. 

Tara: Oh, yeah. And that's a gift that we'll keep on giving, right? Relationships are the basis of our happiness. And so if we can work on this aspect, certainly it'll improve our marriage, but it'll improve our relationship with our children, with other friends and family members. So important. So critical. Where can people find you if they want to communicate with you? 

Kevin: Drkevinskinner@humanintimacy.com is my email. But my website, humanintimacy.com is where I have a hundred day course for individuals who've been betrayed. I have a hundred day course for people who've acted out.

It's really just a starting point. There's assignments, there's videos. It's a foundation of how to understand trauma, how to work through the trauma, how to give it a voice. And then the one for the person acting out is really a hundred days to helping you create a foundation for healing and recovery.

Tara: Awesome. We'll put that in the show notes. I'm sure there will be listeners [00:42:00] interested in that. But before I let you go, I have to ask you this final question, “For those who are just starting this path of recovery and maybe also on the flip side, for those who have been walking this road for a while, what guidance, what, insight [do you have] for them?”

Kevin: So people who are starting the journey metaphorically, it's like you've been in a car crash and you're trying to figure out what happened. It's a state of shock. So the biggest challenge is to find support that's healthy for you. And because sometimes people will find support and they'll be told what to do rather than helping them come to these conclusions, these awarenesses, don't make fast relationship decisions is my initial suggestion. 

Gather the information. What happened? What's the extent of the partners acting out? Just, we got to gather information. That's for the person who's been betrayed. 

The person who's been acting out really needs to do a deep self dive to understand, “How did I get to the point where I would put everything that matters the most to me at risk?” Most people who act out say this, “I still loved my spouse even though [00:43:00] I was acting out.” That makes no sense to the betrayed partner, but most people acting out say that. 

In truth, you need to do a deep dive to figure out if this is the person I love, how did I get to the point where I had that much deception, secretive behavior, hidden lies in my life and in my behaviors? That takes time to figure that out. You don't just rush into that. And so that's where you really need a foundation of getting information, getting support, so you're not, I call it, winging it, flying by the seat of your pants. This is not something to fly by the seat of your pants on. This is the most important relationship.

You need to figure it out. And you need to, truthfully, you need to do it in a way that is open to information. So for beginning people, it's gathering information, not making rash or quick judgments. It's trying to figure out, “Are we going to do the work?”

And really that establishes new boundaries. Boundaries require us to have a lot more information of the patterns that need to be broken, communication, personal boundaries that have been violated for years. So that's [00:44:00] work.

Now for couples who are down the path, they've been working on this and they still feel stuck. Usually it's because there's something that's unresolved. I don't have enough time to share this with you, but it's called the Zeigarnik effect. The Zeigarnik effect is, about 90 percent of the things that you and I think about are unresolved issues. And so if you keep cycling back to the same argument, same fight, it's because something hasn't been addressed and you guys don't know how to do it.

So get the help to get you unstuck on whatever the core issue is that keeps you stuck in the patterns that you need to break. 

Tara: You are a wealth of wisdom and information. Thank you so much, Dr. Skinner. So grateful for you and the excellent work you're doing. Appreciate you. 

Kevin: Thank you, Tara. It's been a lot of fun. [00:45:00]