206: Where Do You Want to Be a Year from Now?

Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Marie Murphy, and I’m a non-judgmental infidelity coach.  If you are engaging in anything you think counts as infidelity, I can help you deal with your feelings, clarify what you want, and make decisions about what you’re going to do.  A lot of the so-called advice that’s out there for people who are cheating is little more than thinly veiled judgement, but that is not what I provide.  I give you guidance and support that respects the fullness of your humanity and the complexity of your situation, no matter what you are doing or have been doing.  When you’re ready to resolve your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about, there are two ways we can work together.  You can enroll in my online course, You’re Not the Only One, which contains teachings and assignments that go beyond what I offer on the podcast, or we can work together one-on-one via Zoom.  To get started with either of these options, go to my website, mariemurphyphd.com.  I can’t wait to meet you.

Happy New Year… welcome to 2025… I’m a big believer in the idea that any time of year is just as good as another to think about the passing of time, and how we want to make use of time, and the changes we want to make in our lives, and all of that stuff.  But since a lot of people see the turning of the calendar year as a particularly good time to make resolutions, I like to give a nod to that in my podcast.  If this is the time of year that you like to use to set goals or intentions or whatever, then I love that for you.  

I know people approach New Years’ resolutions and intentions in all sorts of ways, so what I’m going to offer you today might be very similar to what you’re already doing, if you do this kind of thing.  But if it isn’t, I want to suggest that what I’m offering may be a useful alternative or complement to setting goals, or making resolutions.

What I invite you to do is this: imagine where you WANT to be a year from now.  

Since this is a podcast about infidelity, I – perhaps obviously – encourage you to think about where you want to be in relation to your infidelity situation a year from now, but you can apply the questions I’m going to ask you today to any aspect of your life.  I’m going to keep my comments focused on dealing with an infidelity situation because that’s the primary purpose of this podcast, but feel free to NOT focus on your infidelity situation if you prefer.  

So reiterate, I’m inviting you to imagine where you WANT to be a year from now.  And the emphasis is on the word “WANT.”  If your infidelity situation was to be resolved in a way that you felt really good about, what would that look like?

I’m going to keep asking you variations of that question, and I’m going to do that for a few very important reasons.

For one thing, sometimes we just need to hear questions phrased in a different way in order for them to make sense to us, or really resonate with us.

For another thing, what a lot of people do when they think about their infidelity situation being “resolved” is they start thinking something like, “Well, I don’t know how I want my infidelity situation to be resolved, but I can’t have what I want anyway, so why bother thinking about that?” or, “It might be possible for me to stop engaging in infidelity one way or another, but I know that whatever choices I make are going to have a huge cost,” or something like that.  In other words, they start to think of reasons why it might not be possible for them to resolve their infidelity situation, or they start to think about how difficult it will be to do so, and that totally gets them out of the mode of considering what they WANT.  Telling yourself what you can’t have is not a great way to make room for considering what you want.

Finally, and related to my last point, sometimes we need to ask ourselves a question multiple times before our brain really starts to entertain the question.  Sometimes we just dismiss a question when we hear it once.  And sometimes we need to ask and answer multiple variations of a question before we can get to the really useful answers, or the more productive answers.  Sometimes I ask people how they would ideally LIKE their infidelity situation to be resolved and they say, “Well I don’t know!”  And that’s a fine starting point.  It’s okay to start with “I don’t know.”  But we don’t want to let that be your final answer.

So, I’ll ask you again.  How would you LIKE your infidelity situation to look a year from now?  If you could wave a magic wand and have the whole situation made better, what would better look like?  What would resolving your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about look like for you? 

Challenge yourself to get specific about what you want.  Think about the various facets of your life that would change if your infidelity situation were resolved in a way that you are really happy with.  For instance, depending on what your infidelity situation looks like, you might end up moving if you were to resolve it.  Or perhaps you don’t think that you would move, but you do think that the partner you currently live with would move.  Whatever the case may be, if you anticipate a change in your living arrangements, think about what you would like that to look like.  If you mind wants to go to what you are AFRAID that might look like, see if you can put a pause on that mental endeavor.  That’s not what you want to use your mind for right now.  You can worry about what your living arrangement might look like later if you want to, but right now, I want you to use your mental capacities to think about what you WANT your living arrangement to look like, in the version of your life in which your infidelity situation is resolved.  Also think about what your new and pleasing living arrangements would enable.  What would your new living situation make possible for you?  

In addition to imagining where you would like to be living, think about what you would like various aspects of your day to be like.  What are the most delightful changes in your day-to-day life that you can imagine?

Now think about the specifics of your love life/sex life/romantic life/relationship life.  What do you want that aspect of your life to look like?

Now think about how you want to FEEL on a day-to-day basis.  Sometimes when people are in an infidelity situation they’re feeling a lot of stress or exhaustion or overwhelm or anxiety, and they just want to get to a place where they aren’t dealing with all of that anymore.  That’s fine to recognize – recognizing what we don’t want can help us define what we do want.  But I want you to go beyond that.  If you feel super anxious all the time because you’re lying a lot and you’re SO tired of that anxiety, can you identify what you want to feel instead of anxiety?  Maybe you want to feel calm.  Maybe you want to feel free.  Maybe it’s something else for you.  But see how clear you can get on the feelings you want to experience regularly, or the dominant emotional experience you want to have.

And then, I want you to take everything you’ve imagined, and imagine how it could be just a little bit better.  How good could you stand it?  How awesome can you imagine your life being – and then can you blow your own mind and imagine it being even more awesome?  

For those of you who are saying to yourselves, all of this imagining is fine and good, but if I’m actually going to make any changes, it’s going to take a lot of work, and that’s going to be really hard, here’s the deal: you’re at least partially right.  Getting from wherever you are now to where you want to go is going to take at least some work.  And that will take effort, and sometimes effort is uncomfortable, and sometimes to get what we want we have to do things that we experience as hard.  That’s for sure.  But what if it’s totally worth it to do whatever you need to do to get from where you are to where you want to go?

But moreover, we aren’t even talking about what you need to DO about anything right now.  We’re just talking about getting your mind in order.  Taking action is of course an important ingredient in making change.  But what we so often overlook is the juice we need to take effective actions in the service of making the changes we desire.  We need to be in a mental and emotional state that’s conducive to taking action.  And that’s what we can start to create for ourselves when we’re willing to name and claim our desires.  

So do this now, and then keep on doing it.  Ask yourself where you want to be a year from now.  Imagine how good it could be to be living the life you’re imagining.  And then imagine it being a little bit better.  And then even a little bit better than that.

This isn’t something you want to do once.  This is something you want to do REGULARLY.

Because remember, you’re always using your mental energy to do SOMETHING.  You’re always thinking SOMETHING.  If you are not in the habit of deliberately using your power to think to think about what you want and how good it would be to get what you want, why not try it out?  Just like the Blondie song says, dreaming is free.  Sometimes we’re afraid that there’s some risk associated with allowing ourselves to think about what we want.  Sometimes we think there’s tremendous value in thinking about what we don’t want.  If that’s been your stance, I encourage you to try focusing on what you want.  Try it and see what happens.  You may find that thinking about what you want feels pretty good, and you may find inherent value in that.  And you may find that knowing what you want and feeling good help you tremendously as you go about creating the life you want to live.

All right everybody, if you want my help resolving your infidelity situation in a way that you feel great about, let’s get to work!  Your ideal future is waiting for you to claim it!  If you want nearly instant access to powerful teachings and assignments that go beyond what I offer on the podcast, I invite you to enroll in my online course, You’re Not the Only One.  And if you want to work with me one-on-one via Zoom, the first step is to schedule an introductory coaching session with me.  You can do both of these things through my website, mariemurphyphd.com.  Let’s get to work and help you create a love life that you’re in love with.

Thank you all so much for listening!  Bye for now.