Healing After Betrayal
February 29, 2024
When Lisa (not her real name) entered my office, right away I could see signs of overwhelming pain and anxiety. Her eyes filled with tears as she described to me the shock and the sick-to-her-stomach reality she had been living in for the last month. Her husband had betrayed her, and she had found out while innocently looking for an app on his phone.
Like Lisa, maybe you have been betrayed and no longer trust your partner, yourself, or your own judgment. You may wonder things like, “How can I know what is real anymore?”, and “Has our relationship been one big lie?”. You may even accuse yourself with questions like “How could I have been so stupid?” and feel deep shame about your worth.
As a relationship therapist, I work with couples and individuals who are in the throes of this type of trauma, and I have seen the very real and deep devastation that these injuries cause. For many, it is the deepest wounding they have ever experienced. If you have experienced this, you know it can be so overwhelming that your system may have gone into a type of shutdown known as depersonalization, a common trauma response when a person’s nervous system becomes overwhelmed. When this happens, it is almost as if a part of you splits off and observes what is happening in the third person. It is the body’s natural way of coping and surviving what would otherwise be unsurvivable.
You may have found yourself asking lots of “why” questions. Again, this is so understandable and is a normal question that most, if not all, betrayed partners ask. It’s as if the brain is desperately trying to help the heart make sense of something that just doesn’t make sense. That disconnect between the awareness of a new reality and what you always believed to be true can leave you feeling alone and desperate for a felt sense of safety.
Depending on the circumstances and where you find yourself in the process, you may want support to help you sort out what exactly you are feeling, what you need, and how to get to the next stage in your healing process. It is tough to do this alone, and you deserve to be seen and supported. You may be uncertain if you want to stay in your relationship or know that you don’t. In these cases, seeking individual therapy is the best place to start, as you reclaim yourself as you navigate through the hurt and loss.
On the other hand, you may want to stay in your relationship if at all possible, but you aren’t sure how to make it work. A therapist trained in healing attachment injuries can help work with you and your partner through a process of restoration and healing. Although this is difficult work, and there are no guarantees, I have seen people come out the other side of a betrayal stronger in their relationship than they could have imagined.
My hope for you is that wherever you find yourself on this difficult path, you will find your way to greater hope and healing. Please reach out to me so we can chat about what that might look like.
Source:
https://ct.counseling.org/2022/06/journeying-through-betrayal-trauma/