4: The Truth

When you discover infidelity, it often feels like the ground beneath you has shifted. Suddenly, every detail takes on new meaning, and you find yourself questioning what’s true, who knew, and why nobody told you. It can feel like betrayal on top of betrayal.

But truth isn’t always as simple as it seems.

Key Takeaways

• Learn the difference between facts, truths, and perspective in relationships.

• Discover why focusing on one perspective can trap you in pain.

• Understand how multiple viewpoints create a fuller picture of reality.

• Explore how assumptions about others’ silence may not reflect their intentions.

• Reclaim clarity and peace by stepping back to see the bigger truth.

💬 Reflection question:

Have you ever discovered a painful truth but later realised your first perspective didn’t tell the whole story? How did that shift change your healing?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go! And welcome to episode number four of After The Affair podcast with myself Luke Shillings. Thank you for coming back, thank you for listening. So today I'd like to talk about the concept of truth and so I was having a conversation, in fact no, no I did a social media post talking about truth and how basically the difference between a truth and a fact and and how it comes out and how that then shows up in relationships and what problems that causes.

So I use this analogy of it's almost like one of those IQ test questions where you know the question will be something like if all quarts can be blobs and some blobs can be bergs but not all bergs can be quarts or whatever it is then it's like, and I forget exactly, it's not a perfect example obviously, but you know the kind of question is like a mind challenge and it gets you thinking outside of the box and thinking creatively. Anyway with the concept of truth there is this similar kind of relationship that I've seen. So you could say that all facts are true but not all truths are facts.

So to elaborate on that a little further let's have a look at this you know if we look at the definition of the word truth it generally means the quality or state of being true. That which is true in accordance with fact or reality. So definitively speaking something that is true is something that is in turn factual.

It can be proved. So well what is a fact? Okay so I've got Google open right now and let's have a quick look so of course other search engines are available might I add. So just by definition it is the thing that is known or proved to be true.

So I think it's fair to say that the words fact and true have similar meanings. All facts are true but is it a truth? Are we saying that the two words true and truth mean the same thing now? I don't think that they do at least not quite. I think a fact is information that's used as evidence for something that is true.

Okay so I think that both facts and truth are different. Notice the use of the words state of being in the definition of the word truth. This is essentially referring to your current experience which is subjective and is more founded in your beliefs around things rather than the actual facts.

So I believe that a truth is made up from a set of things that are true. So multiple things that are true and in turn facts they form the greater thing that is the truth. And ultimately the word true and the word fact are interchangeable but the word truth is separate.

Okay so before I get you too confused on this I don't know whether you've ever seen, so this is the best example I can think of, have you seen there's an image that I've seen on the internet. If I can add it into the show notes I will do just so you can see a visualisation but I'll try and sort of explain and describe it as I'm talking here. So imagine you have the corner of a room.

You're looking at the corner of a room and you've got the floor and you've got a wall to the right and a wall to the left and they obviously meet in the middle where the two walls join in the corner of the room. Now imagine that there's a 3D object just floating in space and there's a spotlight coming from your left shining through the object if you like or the objects in the light's path and it projects a shadow, a silhouette on the the right hand wall. And this particular shadow is a circle.

Now there's also a spotlight on the right hand side, on your right hand side shining sort of you know towards this object projecting a shadow onto the wall to the left. But this shape is a square. Then there's a third spotlight and this third spotlight is from above and it's shining straight down and this is projecting a shadow onto the floor but this shadow is triangle.

So when you look at just the first shadow, the circle that we see on the wall, we can say that the shape that we're looking at is circular. There is no question. It's factual, we can see it, it's definitive, it's a circular object.

But of course that's only one perspective. Okay so let's now look at the image on the left. The image on the left now is a square or rectangle.

So that's giving us this additional piece of information. It's now saying okay right so we now know that from this angle it's circular and from this angle it's square. So that rules out a sphere because if it was a sphere it would be circular on both sides.

It also rules out a cube because if it was a cube it would be square on both projections. So we know that the shape is different and then of course by the time you add in the third spotlight, the shadow on the floor, and you've got this triangular shape then it gives you that little bit more information. So okay so that you get you get the idea that when you look at just one fact, one thing that is true, then you know it gives you part of the story, it gives you part of the picture.

But the truth is the object's actual three-dimensional shape, not the two-dimensional projection that we're looking at on the wall. Okay so let's bring this into the context of the relationship, an example. So I was actually speaking with a guy just the other day and his partner had been unfaithful and it turned out that more than one friend or family member had known about the affair prior to him himself discovering it and he felt, you know, really betrayed by this.

Really felt as though, you know, how could this person possibly have not told me? And then the fact there was more than one person, you know, why didn't they tell me? Everyone obviously doesn't care, they don't give a crap about, you know, how I'm feeling about me, you know, it's like everyone was laughing at me and, you know, he was painting this whole story of how worthless he was as a result of these people basically not caring and not, you know, valuing him and not telling him and informing him. Anyway we were exploring this a little bit and and I offered this perspective that well, you know, okay so of course every situation is unique and there are no two situations aligned even in this realm of, you know, of infidelity and it's kind of the reason I've sort of decided to do this podcast is so that we can explore, you know, all aspects of the topic, you know, both from the perspective of the betrayed and those who have been wayward or unfaithful and both obviously the women and the men and how we see things differently and that's kind of the point of this. So we started to explore this a little bit and I just threw up a scenario, it's like well, you know, okay so let's let's imagine that a friend had discovered that your wife was having an affair and maybe even confronted her and she convinced or, you know, reassured and that, you know, she was full of guilt and regret and that she was going to call the affair, basically draw the affair to a halt and, you know, and sort of, you know, and begged her friend to, or this mutual person, begged this mutual person not to say anything, let her handle the situation.

So of course this first person who's now the discoverer, we'll call them, the discoverer now knows something about this other people, this other person's relationships and she's left in this dilemma, you know, it's like well, okay I'm gonna have to, I think my only option now is to to trust this other person and have them, you know, deal with the situation and I don't need to get involved plus I don't want to be taking sides and, you know, and it's complicated and anyway then a little time passes and it seems apparent that the affair's still going on, there's something still going on and the wife in the situation has not honoured this conversation that she's had with this mutual friend. So the mutual friend is now in a situation of, well, I've now known for a little while and I haven't said anything to the husband and now I feel guilty because I've got this secret and it's like, well, if I approach him now it's like, well, he's gonna think, well, you've known it for all this time, why didn't you say anything, you know, and it gets this sort of anxiety starts to build up within this mutual friend. So this mutual friend then maybe confides in a second person, you know, somebody, an additional person outside of the circle just to offload the, you know, the pressure and the stress of just taking on this knowledge and not really knowing what to do with it and of course that incorporates this second person and then this just compounds the situation because now you've got two people who know this secret, this big secret, and now you've got a dynamic whereby if either one of those people were to, you know, to divulge the information to the husband then they are potentially exposing the other person to have been withholding this information for X amount of time and it just gets worse and worse and worse and then of course then the easiest thing for people to do is just mind their own business, you know, generally speaking, you know, human beings, we tend to be more self-centred and I don't mean that in a truly selfish way, as in I'm not saying that we don't care about other people, of course most people do care about most other people, at least to some extent, but we don't always see things quite the way we think other people see things and what I mean by that is I have my own experience of what I think my life is like, what goes on in my head and I'm the only person that's experiencing what's going on in my head right now, you know, as I'm talking to you through the microphone is literally the thoughts I'm having are 100% unique to me, yet it's very easy for me to have an expectation that if I have a thought, if I have a belief, I have an idea that the person I'm in conversation with is going to think the same way or at least a very similar way and then of course if they don't, it's like, well, why? Why don't you see it the way I do? You know, why isn't your truth the same as my truth? So bringing this back round to the conversation I was having with the husband in the first place in terms of him not being able to understand why his, you know, his friends, family, colleagues, whoever it is that knew about this situation didn't say anything, well it's because he was looking at the situation from just one perspective.

That bit of information that he had, they knew and they didn't tell me, that was his circle projection on the wall, but that's all he could see, it's the only thing he could focus on and of course it's understandable why that would be the case, particularly when you feel like you've been betrayed by not just one person but by multiple people, it's just adding evidence and that circular silhouette is getting more defined, it's like the light is getting brighter and the shadows getting more, you know, crisp edges if you like, a better, higher definition, let's say, and of course only if you take a step back and start looking at the other projections and then you take a further step back and start looking at in three dimensions or more dimensions, then you get to see the real picture, you get to see the truth of the situation. So when I'm working with anybody, one of the first things that we look at is how to take a step back and really get a grasp, let's get a true picture of what we're actually dealing with here and not just this narrow tunnel vision that this particular story, this particular projection in this case, of what my situation looks like. So for anybody else who is also struggling with this aspect of their relationship, I have a free First Steps guide on my website which you can download, just visit LifeCoachLuke.com. If there's anything in today's show or any of the previous shows that you would like to personally talk about and just have some questions or questions that you maybe want to offer me that I can maybe answer in future shows, then please get in touch.

I'll put all the contact details in the show notes. Otherwise if you've enjoyed today's show then please like, follow, leave comments, ratings, it all helps, it helps get this to people who need it and that is my ultimate goal is to try and help as many people as I practically can and this just gives me the platform to do just that. And of course you guys really do have the ability to to make that difference for me and for the people out there that need to hear what you've heard today.

So thanks ever so much for listening once again, can't wait to talk to you again next time. Have a great week!