This week we’re chatting with Melodie Fleming, an adoptive mom of two who co-wrote The Dance of Restoration: Rebuilding Marriage After Infidelity.

Part 1: Melodie’s Adoption Story

Part 2: Why Write a Book about Marriages Damaged by Infidelity?



Your book is unique in that it contains a ‘mini novel’ of a typical infidelity scenario.
We begin with a woman who suspects her husband is cheating. We then walk the couple through the entire process of confrontation, admission (or denial), breaking up with the other woman, reconciliation (and its inevitable struggles), forgiveness, and rebuilding.

How do you work practical advice into the story?
Using font changes and titles, we move back and forth from story to explanation. In the instructional section, we clarify the reasons the story characters are reacting as they are. We also identify typical responses other than the ones illustrated in the story. Finally, we discuss how things differ if the wife is the unfaithful spouse.

Anger is a huge factor among spouses who have been betrayed. Explain your theory regarding dealing with anger.
This was one of the most difficult portions of the book to write because each person is unique in their handling of this emotion. In addition, gender also plays a role in how anger is managed. Even so, in his years of counseling, Abel has seen some general patterns emerge.

There is usually a set of conflicting needs or desires between the husband and wife. The betrayed spouse is tremendously angry and has an emotional need to express this anger. On the other hand, if the unfaithful spouse is hopeful for reconciliation, he or she needs forgiveness and often wants it far more quickly than it comes.

These opposing relational positions are complicated by the typical two-stage pattern of anger that often occurs. After an initial explosion, the wounded spouse often enters quickly into an apparent desire to save the marriage and extend forgiveness. But as the relationship begins to progress, the depth of the pain involved begins to stir deep anger, which confuses the spouse who thought he or she was forgiven. There are several specific reasons this anger is sometime especially intense, which we discuss in the book.