Episode 68: When Your Options Don’t Feel Like Heaven with Andrea Giles Part 2

How does one work with others who are faced with a similar choice? And how does one come back from or recover after such an experience?

Our faith communities are often like a home—especially when that’s all you’ve ever known. Most people don’t want to leave; if they do, it’s usually for a very good reason—often deep hurt, misunderstanding, or not feeling seen.

You went ahead, married your second husband, and have built a large, beautiful, bustling family. How does someone come back from that experience—which, as you said, was absolutely crushing—to feel like you’d be “second for eternity,” or that what you had to say wasn’t enough?

How do you move forward, one step at a time?

I’ll be completely honest with you. Where I’m at right now—with all the things—I’ve given myself permission to really look at everything. To challenge and question everything, and to run it through the filter of, “What do I think?” Not what someone else thinks.

It’s been a beautiful experience to learn my own mind, to become a more critical thinker, and to really look at what I believe.

It’s been about a year since things truly cracked open in my faith journey. What that’s meant for me is this beautiful space of honesty—a genuine pursuit of truth—and the desire to live in full integrity with my values and views.

I’m still navigating. I’m still in it.

Every day brings new insight, new information, new experiences. We’re living, growing beings—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

This past Sunday, I went to church and had a moment of peace. I felt a clear message: You’re in the messy middle, and that’s okay. It’s not a problem.

There have been moments where I’ve thought, Am I really doing this? Am I blowing up my life? And yet, I keep feeling this reassurance: Keep going. This is important for your progression.

So, I keep going—holding on to what still feels true, loosening my grip on what doesn’t, and owning that it’s okay.

I remember those first moments when I had to learn to not only think for myself but to trust what I thought. I knew what personal revelation was, but when my lived reality no longer matched the handbook, I had to learn it in a whole new way.

There were no guidelines for my specific situation with my child. I still wanted to instill strong values and morals—but so much of what I’d been taught didn’t apply.

It was an immediate, baptism-by-fire experience in learning to trust my own intuition, to believe that divine guidance was personal and specific to me.

And as I learned to trust that, I realized I was closer to God than ever before—though it didn’t look like what I’d been taught it should look like. It didn’t fit neatly in a box.

That’s what I hear you saying too: learning to trust yourself, to listen to your own thoughts, and to believe them.

I truly believe open communication isn’t just nice—it’s essential. There’s no other way to navigate messy spaces.

I feel pain on your behalf hearing what you’ve gone through. And anger too—at the impossible choices people like you and your clients face.

This is why it’s so important to talk openly about these things—to remove fear and shame around being “ousted,” whether physically, socially, or emotionally. The fear is real.

Part of what has been so hard for me personally is that one of the core tenets of our faith is agency—the ability to choose. And yet, in my situation, my choice was taken from me.

It wasn’t a true choice. I made my decision, and they did not honor it.

It was deeply painful to have people who didn’t know me, who didn’t understand my marriage or the heartbreak I endured, dismiss my decision. The irony is that in a church that teaches agency above all else, mine was not honored.

And yet, in all of it, I’ve continued to feel divine reassurance: Keep going. This is important.

Even when it doesn’t look like the “right path,” I know in my heart it’s good. I’ve felt it confirmed again and again—this is part of my progression.

That’s truly the only way forward—trusting alignment. When I feel peace after thoughtful reflection, that’s my answer.

And I’ve learned to be more forgiving with myself. Just because I make one choice doesn’t mean it’s permanent or final. Choices teach us. We learn what works and what doesn’t.

I hear how painful it was for your choice to be taken from you. It’s hard enough to make such a decision, but to have it dismissed—and for people not even to realize that’s what they were doing—must have been devastating.

It reminds me of how our LGBTQ+ siblings are often treated. Policies and decisions can cause very real pain, and too often leaders or members don’t see that. I know there are loving leaders doing their best, but there are still too many blind spots.

I have extended family who are LGBTQ+, and I’ve always loved them—but it’s completely different when it’s your own child.

When it’s your child, everything changes. You begin to realize you can’t just repeat the same words, the same teachings, because they no longer fit.

When it’s your child, the old answers don’t land anymore. It becomes a sacred responsibility to educate yourself, to understand for yourself, so that you don’t cause harm to the one you love most.

It’s as close as you can get to experiencing it yourself—without it being you.

That inner tearing, that conflict between two things you love deeply—it’s excruciating.

But one of the most powerful things I’ve learned through coaching is that beliefs are just thoughts we’ve practiced so many times they feel like truth.

When you step back and examine your beliefs—when you choose which to keep and which to question—that’s where growth happens. It’s empowering.

Even if you reaffirm a belief, you do it with new awareness.

We talk a lot about “safe spaces” in families, churches, and communities. For me, a safe space—both in my home and business—means people can speak and be heard.

It means they’ll be believed, not judged.

We’re so quick to judge what we don’t understand. A safe space is where assumptions are dropped, where we really listen and believe people when they tell us their lived experience.

Even if we don’t understand it ourselves, we believe them.

I agree completely. Too often the default response is, “That’s not what I’ve seen or been taught—so it can’t be true.”

That’s invalidation at its core.
Drop assumptions. Just listen.

Much of my work involves helping clients make sense of things that don’t make sense—like, “How could someone I love hurt me so deeply?”

Many people come from black-and-white thinking: good or bad, right or wrong. I help them learn to hold nuance—to recognize that two seemingly contradictory things can both be true.

That’s maturity. That’s growth.

In faith, too, we’re taught “there’s one way,” but spiritual maturity allows us to hold both—joy and pain, peace and hurt—at the same time.

Even with betrayal, it’s possible to hold:
“This person deeply hurt me” and “This person is still good.”

That doesn’t mean ignoring reality—it means using higher values like integrity to guide your next steps.

Learning to hold that tension is a skill. It doesn’t come naturally. Our brains crave certainty because it’s easier than sitting in complexity. But this—this nuance—is where deep growth happens.

What does it mean to live beyond the shadow of doubt?

For me, it means making room for the shadows. I don’t have to be free of doubt. I can sit with it, invite it in, and say, “Tell me about it.”

By welcoming doubt with curiosity instead of fear, we move through it. We grow our relationship to doubt, rather than trying to erase it.

The goal isn’t to be doubt-free—it’s to understand it.

A Few Fun Questions

Favorite book: Jane Eyre
Introvert or extrovert: Somewhere in the middle—an introverted extrovert.
Favorite artist: My mom. She started painting watercolor at almost 70 and she’s amazing.
Night owl or morning person: Used to be a morning lark, but now with a toddler at 46—I’m just tired!
Celebrity crush: Hugh Jackman (and Ryan Reynolds gets an honorable mention).
Drink of choice: Sparkling water or Diet Coke—usually both at once.
Furthest place traveled: Europe—Germany, Oxford, and France.

You can find my podcast, Heal From Infidelity, at andreagiles.com, or on Instagram at @theinfidelitycoach.

Even if you haven’t experienced infidelity, the podcast covers betrayal and healing in many forms.
Doors are opening soon for my updated group program—details are available on my website.