The discovery of your partner’s secret life creates a horrible dilemma of wanting to scream out for help and simultaneously wanting to hide from the world. Unfortunately, for most women, betrayal trauma pushes them toward deep isolation that makes it difficult to say anything, even though they desperately want to share their pain with someone.

Trauma creates chaos, so it’s good to be aware of a few reactions that can surface. First, many women also feel worried about exposing their partner’s behavior to others. They struggle to protect his reputation, even though they’re terribly hurt by his actions. This is not an easy decision for betrayed women. They not only worry about how others will see their partner, but also how others might see them for being in a relationship with someone who acts out sexually. This fear usually keeps women silent and hiding in shame.

Second, some women want to share their story so they can get back at their partner for hurting them so bad. They will post direct or indirect comments on social media, confide in people close to him, or tell anyone who will listen. This can backfire down the road if you choose to reconcile with your partner. Remember to carefully consider your motivations for wanting to share. Are you seeking support for yourself or are you trying to get even with your partner?

Third, please recognize that in your vulnerable state, it’s easy to form unhealthy relationships and emotional bonds with others. You can end up in a romantic relationship even though you have intentions of sharing your pain with a co-worker, a neighbor, or acquaintance. These vulnerable feelings drive injured people to seek soothing and relief. You don’t want to heap betrayal upon betrayal.

The first thing a woman can do to begin healing from betrayal trauma is to fight the pull of isolation and begin talking and sharing her story with a safe and healthy person. She needs a witness to her pain so she can know that she’s heard and seen. She needs to know that she is a human worthy of love and belonging. She needs to know that her pain matters to someone else. Ultimately, she needs to know she won’t have to do this alone.

Naturally, the fear of being judged, criticized, misunderstood, blamed, and dismissed keeps traumatized women silent. The risk of negative fallout keeps betrayed women in the dark, which is why there needs to be a discussion of how to minimize the potential for a poor outcome.

Sharing with anyone who will listen is a really bad idea. You don’t want to spend anytime worrying about what happens to your information in the vulnerable early stages of discovery. You don’t need additional betrayals of people gossiping and criticizing.

Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend wrote a book called “Safe People” that outlines the characteristics of people who are more likely to protect you and your story.

They identify safe people by the following characteristics:

• They value love and connection
  
• They have the ability to trust others
  
• They value responsibility and aren’t overly dependent on others or allow others to be overly dependent on them
  
• They are honest and transparent with their lives
  
• They work on their own issues
  
• They have good track record and have respectfully deal with yours or other people’s private information. 
  
• They encourage you to grow individually and in your relationships with other people.
  

I will also add some qualities I’ve observed in safe and healthy people:

• They are well acquainted with suffering and have graciously learned important lessons from their trials
  
• They are good listeners and don’t interrupt
  
• They don’t gossip about other people to you
  
• They are fair and work to see the big picture
  
• They keep their promises
  
• They don’t jump to conclusions

It’s likely there aren’t many people in your life that fit these criteria. It takes time and experience to find safe relationships. You don’t need to have more than one person in your life that fits this description. Even though it’s good to have multiple people in your life that can support you, recognize that when you are working through the messy and vulnerable early stages of discovery and trauma, it’s not a good idea to broadcast your situation to multiple people. This will leave you feeling more exposed, scattered, and anxious about having to keep everyone updated and in the loop, as things can change quickly.

While there is a natural reflex to turn toward parents or siblings after the crisis of discovery, this may not always be a good idea. Once you unload all of your trauma on your parents and siblings (who are naturally going to take your side), they may have difficulty supporting your marriage down the road if you choose to reconcile. You don’t want to spend the rest of your marriage trying to defend your decision to get back together.

However, many families are healthy and provide the best kind of support. Healthy family members know you, care about your marriage, and will give you a permanent shoulder to cry on when you’re struggling to put together the shattered pieces of a betrayed life. Just make sure your family is healthy and won’t, as Brene Brown once put it, “become another piece of debris in your tornado.”

Recognize that it’s common in the early days of discovery for word to get out that there has been a crisis in your marriage. Curious people may approach you to find out more details. You DO NOT owe anyone an explanation of any details just because they ask. And, you certainly don’t need to apologize for not sharing your story with them. You can simply tell them that you appreciate their concern, but you already have the support you need.

It’s critical to take a little time to carefully select someone who will hold your story with respect and compassion. Brene Brown once said that we should only share our shame story with someone who has earned the right to know that story. Trust is earned. It’s not something you give someone just because they’re family, you attend church with them, or you roomed with them in college. Safe people have passed multiple relationship tests and continue to provide you with the steady reassurance that they can handle your reality.

Instead, start by identifying the safest person you can think of and start sharing with them. I don’t recommend you do this by text message or email. Sometimes phone is the only option you have, but if it’s possible, face-to-face is best. You need the nonverbal reassurance that you’re not crazy, to see them reflect your pain, and to know that you can be physically held and soothed by someone who cares deeply about you. Even if it’s a tremendous sacrifice to get with this person face to face, I promise you it’s worth it. Perhaps they might even come to you if you ask them.

If you can’t identify anyone in your natural support system that meets the criteria for a safe person, then don’t settle for the next best person. It’s better to find a therapist or a church leader (male or female) who can hear your messy story and provide you with a secure space to share. Then, after you feel more grounded and clear about your situation, you can take the time to find other people who are safe.

Don’t worry about how your story is shared. If they’re a safe person, you won’t have to edit your information in a way that makes it easy for them to hear. Just share and talk and cry and release and cry and let it go where it needs to go. A safe person will track you and stay with you and let you know you can say whatever you need to. This is not a time to worry about protecting them. It’s a time for you to organize your shattered reality. So, put all the pieces out there in whatever order they appear and trust that over time it will all come together.

After you spend time sharing your story with this safe person, you will feel a bit more organized and clear. As you move forward in your life, continue to share with them as things become clearer. At this point, it’s common to feel a desire to begin expanding your circle of support. I encourage you to continue searching for safe people with whom you can open up. By this time, you may have met other women in support groups who feel safe enough to risk sharing your story again. I encourage you to take the risk and open up again. The experience of sharing your story with safe people allows you to reaffirm you worth, see your progress, and even open up more support to others who are struggling. Everyone wins when sharing is done in a respectful, compassionate, and safe environment.

Discussion Questions

1. How do you decide if a person is safe?
2. Do you have any healthy examples of what safe people have done to help you process your story or offer support?
3. What changed for you as you came out of isolation and shared your story in a supportive environment?
   

The author would like to thank Amy Cluff, LCSW and Jeff Ford, LMFT, for their helpful feedback and suggestions to this article.

About the Author
Geoff Steurer is a licensed marriage and family therapist and operates a private group practice in St. George, Utah
(www.alliantcounseling.com). He is the founding director of LifeStar of St. George, a comprehensive treatment program for pornography/sexual addiction and betrayal trauma (www.lifestarstgeorge.com). He is the co-author
of “Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship
Damaged by Virtual Infidelity.” He also co-hosted the audio series “Strengthening Recovery Through Strengthening Marriage”, available at www.marriage-recovery.com. Geoff writes a weekly relationship column for St. George News (www.stgnews.com) and Meridian Magazine (www.meridianmagazine.com). He completed a bachelor’s degree in communications studies from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Auburn University. He and his wife, Jody, are the parents of four children.

Connect with Geoff:
Facebook: facebook.com/geoffsteurerMFT
Twitter: @geoffsteurer
Email: geoff@lifestarstgeorge.com

If someone steps on my foot I’ll probably say “ouch”. If they do it time after time I will eventually tell them to stop because they’re hurting me. The process of telling them to stop is where a boundary is set. I’m telling them their actions are hurting me and they need to stop stepping on my foot. I may even tell them what I’m going to do to avoid being stepped on, if they don’t stop.

At that point I’ve set the “don’t step on my foot boundary.” Notice, my actions aren’t aimed at changing them, but rather in protecting my foot, as well as our relationship. The other person will ultimately have to decide whether or not they’re going to alter their behavior, but at least I’ve warned them and I know what I’m going to do in order to protect myself.

Relationships are no different. At times our mate “steps on our foot” and hurts us. We have several ways we can respond:

1.     We can ignore it and just hope it doesn’t happen again. (this may be okay if it’s a first offense, but if there’s a repetitive pattern more may need to be done before you grow resentful or worse, empower their behavior).

2.     We can say “ouch” and hope our mate notices our pain and makes efforts not to do it again.

3.     We can withdraw and make sure they don’t ever have an opportunity to step on us again.

4.     We can stomp on their foot so they’ll know what it feels like and will be more careful next time.

5.     We can be assertive and set a boundary, letting them know that stepping on our foot is not OK.

6.      After setting the boundary we could also let them know what we’re going to do to protect ourselves from being stepped on.

Infidelity is certainly a more extreme pain than getting one’s foot stepped on, but the potential response patterns are the same. Some are helpful and others aren’t. The goal for boundaries is self-protection and relationship regulation. Within a relationship, the absence of a feedback mechanism to inform our mate of our wounds limits our ability as a couple to accommodate one another. Healthy couples communicate what they appreciate about their mate, what their mate is doing that’s wounding them and they take responsibility for their hurtful actions by making amends for having wounded them. Without these three forms of communication it’s difficult to know if we really matter to our mate. Do they really care? Are they going to be there when we cry out for them?

Boundaries help define the expectations of our relationship. There are boundaries that define our space as a couple. These boundaries help protect our relationship. They define monogamy for our marriage and our rules of engagement. If others cross these boundaries we feel they are interfering with our lives. If one of the partners crosses that boundary, they betray the agreement they have with their mate.

We often mistakenly believe the purpose of boundaries is behavior modification, but this is not true. Boundaries are for self-protection and the protection of the relationship as a whole. Hopefully, when the boundaries are bumped, out of respect, concern and heartfelt empathy for us, the person violating the boundary will make amends and make it a point to honor our boundaries. If they refuse to honor our boundaries, we’ll need to do what is necessary to enforce them.

While boundaries are essential for defining how we’re to live and interact with one another, they are ineffective when it comes to changing our mate. All too often I see the wounded mate establishing consequences to their boundaries in hopes that their mate’s fear of the consequence will get them to stop the destructive behaviors or patterns. While that fear may serve as a short term deterrent, it won’t work as a long term solution.

The pain resulting from consequences suffered as the result of boundary violations serve only as short-term deterrents to destructive behavior. They are effective only as long as the pain remains or the fear of the consequence is in place, but once those fears are gone the motivation for change decreases. The new behaviors will remain only as long as the memory of that pain is fresh or they still care whether or not they lose what they have. But, when the new behaviors no longer provide the happiness they seek, it won’t be long until the allure of returning to old behaviors outweighs the benefits of the new behaviors.

I’m not saying that things can’t change, but change that is externally imposed is short term, at best. True change comes from inside out. It’s about a change of heart, not a change of behavior. It comes because we care and we’re willing to do whatever is necessary to be different. Do not misunderstand, consequences must be set to protect yourself, and hopefully those consequences will serve as an impetus to begin the stages of long term transformation.

Marriage is hard. There is no way two people can negotiate a life together and not step on each other’s toes. There has to be give and take and the ability to communicate when our mate is hurting us. Hopefully, our mate responds and makes a sincere effort to stop hurting us. Healthy marriages are a process of negotiation and compromise where, because of our love, we try to act in our mate’s best interest. Research shows that a third of all marital problems are unsolvable. What happy couples have that others don’t is an ability to peacefully live and work around our perpetual problems. But for that to occur there has to be a genuine concern for our mate and a willingness, to forgo our happiness for theirs.

The Three Stages of Boundaries: 
If your mate continues to seek their own pleasure at the expense of the relationship and your well-being, boundaries need to be established, or reinforced. But, don’t forget that behavior doesn’t always equal motive. From time to time, we all fail and act in ways that are contrary to how we want to be, which is why I suggest the following progression when implementing boundaries.

The FIRST stage is a request where you clearly communicate how their actions are hurting you and ask them to stop. Don’t assume they are intentionally committing the offense. Explaining to them how their actions have hurt you and requesting that they not do it again gives them opportunity to show the condition of their heart. If they take responsibility and acknowledge that what they did was wrong, you’re off to a good start. If they are genuinely concerned over the fact that they’ve wounded you and are doing whatever they can to help you heal, then they’re acting in your best interest. If they’re upset with themselves for having hurt you and are seeking reconciliation, then it’s a fairly safe bet that this person values you and the relationship and will do their best to avoid hurting you in the future.

The SECOND stage is telling them to stop. If you’ve asked and they continue their hurtful behavior, you turn up the volume by telling them they’re hurting you and telling them to stop. The goal of the boundary is for your protection. They may or may not respect your boundary, but if you love them, then for love’s sake the boundary needs to be set. Love always acts in the best interest of the other person. Allowing them to act in a way that’s unloving isn’t loving to them. It’s not okay to enable someone to act in ways that are self-destructive or to treat others in ways that are destructive. Love compels us to act in the best interest of the other person.

Their response to your telling them to stop is the next litmus test of their heart’s condition. If there is no response, it’s time to go to stage three. If they are grieved over their continued failure and are attempting to address the problem, there’s hope. If they say they’ll stop, but aren’t grieved over the damage they’ve caused you, their heart may still be hard and they may be ambivalent about stopping the behavior. Ambivalence is a state where a person holds two diametrically opposed positions at the same time and it leaves them stuck, unable to choose one or the other. For this person there is a strong likelihood that they will once again violate the boundary.

The THIRD stage is demanding they stop and telling them what you’re going to do to protect yourself if they don’t. This is the stage of consequences, but notice the point of setting the boundary isn’t to change them, rather it’s for your protection. We don’t control how they’ll respond, but we do control how we’re going to respond if they don’t stop the destructive behaviors.

When enforcing boundaries it’s important to respond out of love. It’s not about vengeance, it’s not about controlling them, it is about telling them that it’s not okay to treat others the way they’re treating you. It’s communicating that because of your love and respect for them and your own self-respect, you will not allow them to keep acting this way.

They will have two choices: they will either chose to do what’s necessary to honor your boundaries or they will continue to act in their own selfish interest. If it’s the latter, you’ll have to follow through with the course of action you’ve chosen to keep yourself safe. This is not an attempt to get them to change, but hopefully the consequence will result in their re-evaluating the importance of the relationship versus their own happiness and at the very least, provide the opportunity for change or intervention to start the healing process from infidelity


Contributed by Rick Reynolds, LCSW
Founder and Director, Affair Recovery

Originally posted at lifestarstgeorge.com/blog

Last month I opened my front door to discover an Italian Casanova holding the most impressive bouquet of flowers. The Casanova had a beautiful face with brown hair resting on his shoulders. I said to him, "You have the perfect look for delivering flowers" and he smiled his seductive smile and said, "I know."

I took the flowers and slowly closed the door on the Casanova -- I already had my man. 

The flowers were mostly pink roses and my favorite flower, daises. $88.00 dollars worth of flowers from my husband. I'm not a big fan of store bought flowers. I'd rather have a flower especially picked for me from a field, even a dandelion, but I'm not looking for a perfect husband only a faithful one and the flowers were his gift to me on our 30th Wedding Anniversary.

It's a miracle that we are still together. A year ago we lived in different cities and the success of our marriage was out of my control. When New Year's rolled around I wanted to feel like I had power over something....like my happiness at least. I decided to make a resolution to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary 30 times during 2014. I wasn't going to let my happiness depend on if he was with me for the celebrations or not or if we were living together or not. I had a choice---I could feel like a failure and be depressed or celebrate my ability to continue to learn and smile and stay on my feet while being married to an addict.

So this past year I have had celebration after celebration -- I went to the LDS temple 30 times in 30 days. (Now that's a trick since it's only open 5 days a week but 2 days a week I went twice.) I had fun dates with my husband (theaters, picnics, movies, beaches, drives, talks on the porch swing.). We read a fabulous book together and I can't wait for this book to be published so I can tell you all about it! There were trips and sacred occasions. I counted Life Star, special family activities, an SA retreat and UCAP . . . In fact it was during UCAP (Utah Coalition Against Pornography) that I invited my husband to move back home.  

For our actual anniversary date I sent him a Google Calender Request inviting him for dinner and an activity. The date was only from 6 pm to 8 pm. I made his favorite dinner of meatloaf, roasted potatoes, rolls, salad and 30 dipped chocolates for dessert. Then we sat together on the couch and looked at scrapbooks from our dating years and our marriage. I could feel his heart soften. At the end of the date I excused myself and went for a walk in the dark and let tears roll down my face. I'm not sure why. I felt thankful that I am still married to the husband of my youth. I felt proud of myself for surviving hard times and not giving up. I felt grateful for God's Hand in my life and I felt scared for future hard times. --Overcoming an addiction is a long and complicated path and being married to an addict is a long and complicated path too.

When I married, my goal was to be married FOREVER to my husband. Now the goal is to stay married today and we'll see what tomorrow will bring. Maybe, if I am lucky, my married days will add up to forever.


"Yea, I know that I am nothing as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things." (Alma 26:12)




Contributed by Daisy K, originally posted here.

This is the newest contribution to our series, "Her Recovery".  

Why do I need recovery?

I'm not the addict.  I didn't 'screw up'.  It's 'his problem'.

All of that thinking was exactly WHY I needed recovery.  We are all flawed.  We all carry hurts and faulty beliefs about ourselves and others that hold us back or limit us.  Recovery has been a beautiful journey into the deepest recesses of myself.  It has been better to know and understand my weaknesses, strengths, character defects and greatest abilities and talents.  I make more of my life the more I understand myself.  I work recovery for me.  He works recovery for him.  And then, healthier, we come together and work on our marriage together.  

I am not meant to sit around waiting for someone else to make me happy, healthy or whole!

Focus on yourself -- find a support group, start attending a 12 step meeting, join the Togetherness Community, find an amazing therapist you click with -- but most of all, know that you are worth the work.  It can be scary, it can be hard, time consuming, discouraging and difficult -- but we will always end up better off for our efforts when our mission is to find out who we are, what makes us tick, what makes us happy and how to be our best selves.  Focus on you.  You are worth the time and effort.  We are not meant to sit around waiting for someone else to make us happy, health or whole! 

Contributed by a member of our Togetherness Community private facebook group.  To find out more about our Togetherness Communities, click here.