Stay or leave?
After betrayal, it can feel as though there must be a right answer.
So you do what you've probably done successfully with countless other important decisions.
You gather information. Weigh the options. Consider the risks.
What happens to the children? The finances? The house? What if they do it again? What if they've genuinely changed? What if you leave and regret it? What if you stay and waste another five years?
You create pros and cons lists. Run different scenarios. Have the same conversations repeatedly.
You're trying to optimise the decision.
To find the option most likely to produce the best possible outcome.
There's just one problem.
Most of the variables you need aren't actually knowable.
You can't produce a reliable five-year forecast for your marriage. You can't calculate the return on investment of a divorce. And there's no spreadsheet capable of telling you which choice will create the least pain three years from now.
In this final episode of the three-part series, I explore why trying to find the objectively best decision can keep you trapped — and what you might ask yourself instead.
In this episode:
- Why stay-or-leave decisions resist the usual methods we use to make good choices
- How trying to optimise an unknowable future creates decision paralysis
- Why more thinking doesn't necessarily produce more certainty
- The important difference between decision quality and outcome quality
- Why a painful outcome doesn't automatically mean you made the wrong decision
- How trying to protect yourself from future regret can keep you stuck today
- Why staying today doesn't mean committing yourself to staying forever
- How breaking one enormous decision into smaller decisions can reduce paralysis
- Why ownership can become a stronger foundation for self-trust than certainty
Perhaps the question isn't:
“Which decision will produce the best outcome?”
Perhaps it's:
“Which decision am I willing to take responsibility for?”
Because you can make a thoughtful, considered decision and still experience pain afterwards.
You can choose to stay based on everything you know today and later receive new information that changes your mind.
You can choose to leave and still miss them.
You can make a good decision and get an outcome you didn't want.
Changing your mind later doesn't automatically mean you were wrong today.
Self-trust doesn't require you to predict the future correctly.
Perhaps it means trusting yourself to respond when the future actually arrives.
And maybe that's the bigger shift.
Not:
I trust myself to always get it right.
But:
I trust myself to respond to whatever happens next.
This is the final episode in this short three-part series exploring overthinking, capability, uncertainty and decision-making after betrayal.
Work With Me
If you're stuck between staying and leaving, you don't necessarily need somebody else to make the decision for you.
You may need somewhere to separate fear, predictions, expectations and everybody else's opinions from what you actually want.
That's exactly the kind of work we can do together.
You can learn more about my one-to-one coaching and the After the Affair Collective at lifecoachluke.com.
Connect with Luke:
Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity
