What You Need to Know About Betrayal Trauma

Deep Thoughts with Steffi Butler

I have never wanted to do "affair recovery" work. However, so much of what finally gets people to marriage therapy is betrayal, so I got thrown into the deep end of that pool and have done a lot of work to be able to help my clients get to a healthier safer space in their recovery process.

There are a few things that MOST people do that make healing so much harder.

First and foremost, they spend a lot of time asking and answering questions outside of a therapy office without a trained betrayal trauma or sex addiction therapist. What happens is, questions are asked as soon as they are thought and are not given the scrutiny of "Is this something I want to know and carry with me forever? Is this going to help me heal?" etc... Then the questions are answered quickly, often in an attempt to get it off the table and end the discomfort of the situation and they are not always answered completely or honestly.

A betrayal expert absoutely should be employed to guide a couple through this process. In as much is possible, avoiding the temptation to start asking questions and having every conversation be about the affair and instead focus on learning to regulate through the discomfort and save those things for a therapeutic environment is going to be the most helpful to the healing process.

It is one of the worst wounds in the world to discover that someone you have devoted yourself to has betrayed that devotion. What surprises most people is that they thought they would leave and never look back if this happened to them. However, leaving someone you love, even when they've hurt you isn't that easy. Ending a relationship is painful regardless of what the reasons are. It may surprise you that many studies indicate that only 40% of affairs end marriages. That means, 60% of folks who experience betrayal in their marraige chose to stay. What may surprise you even more, is that many of those people go on to have very satisfactory and healthy marriages - if they get the proper help and healing.

So, don't reprimand yourself if you decide to stay. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with staying in a relationship where there has been betrayal. I'd advise you to take the time to do the recovery work and spend the money to do it well. On average a divorce will cost you between $10-20,000. I have had clients spend five times that over two to three years in the process. Therapy is cheaper. If you are going to stay, spend the money to get good help!

Finally, and this one is tough. If your partner has had a lengthy and involved affair and ends it to work on your marriage, assume there will be grief for the loss of that relationship. That is the awful reality. It is absolutely under no circumstance your job as the betrayed party to comfort or caretake through that grief, however, demanding that there be zero emotion for the affair partner is going to leave you feeling further betrayed because that's likely not possible.

I've heard people say, "You can't love two people." As my grandmother would have said, "That's a load of malarky." Love is not finite. None of us have limited capacity for love. "Well, if you loved me you wouldn't hurt me." Again, give me one example of a human relationship where pain is never exchanged. It is impossible. If we want relationships with real, living, human beings, we are going to experience disappointment, betrayal, hurt feelings, abandonment, etc... We won't all experience an affair, but we are going to get hurt. The loving act is fixing whatever is broken in me that made me chose myself over my partner's wellbeing. The loving act is in ending the hurt. Be very careful with grand sweeping generalizations. They are typically insufficient in explaining behavior or creating healthy relationships.

If you or your partner has had an affair, it does not mean that your entire relationship was a lie, that they didn't love you, that what you experienced wasn't real (even though it may feel that way for a while). What it does mean is that the betraying party has found an unhealthy and hurtful way to deal with their needs/wants and desires. There may be big things that you both failed to address in your marriage (*outside of infidelity). Those big things do not cause affairs. Loads of people have really trouble relationships and never cheat. Even folks in sexless marraiges stay faithful to their partners. Affairs happen because someone chose to cheat. The problems in the relationship and the betrayal are two very seperate issues. Unfortunately, if you cheated instead of dealing with those issues, your issues are now on the backburner until your partner heals.

If you are looking for a betrayal trauma specialist in your area, you can search for that or a CSAT certification. https://iitap.com/ is a good place to start!