The Aftermath of Deception: A Roadmap for Partners Overcoming Betrayal Trauma
The trauma of betrayal is earth-shattering, penetrating nearly every corner of life. The world you knew has turned upside down, and the one you let into the most vulnerable place in your life made choices that destroyed your feelings of emotional safety. Often when betrayed partners initially present to me, they wonder whether they will ever feel the safety and peace they once experienced. Although the journey to betrayal trauma recovery is long and painful, I have seen many walk through the steps below one by one, and with the support of their therapeutic team, overcome debilitating pain and reconnect with an even stronger self.
1.Engage support
The aftermath of betrayal can be incredibly isolating. Frequently betrayed partners report feeling devastating loss, similar to what we feel when a loved one dies, but often without the same support and surrounding. Many struggle to decide whom to confide in because of valid fears of judgment, misunderstanding, and unsolicited advice-giving. Even with the best intentions, family or friends may say something that feels unsafe and undermines the complex and unique experience you are going through.
Because of this, it is vital to access specialized professional support. Individual therapy from a specialized therapist is crucial to helping you understand what is happening in your body and the unique needs you have right now. Joining a healthy group focused on your needs is an important step so you can access safe community and have your pain supported by those who “get it.” Even though it can be vulnerable and scary to imagine opening up with a new group, many betrayed partners report this being one of the most significant components of their healing journey. I consistently recommend to partners to engage in both individual and group therapy at this stage in the process. This approach meets both the needs of safe community support and deeper space for your unique healing.
Couples counseling, when appropriate, can be beneficial in helping you have a space for setting and maintaining important boundaries. These boundaries protect against further trust breaches, eliminate harmful defensiveness, help your experiences get heard and understood, and prepare for supported full disclosure of your partner’s past actions. Whether recovering from the impacts of cheating, love or sex addiction, or other forms of deception, many relationships can survive infidelity with consistent work, high ownership, and adherence to a specialized treatment plan. I often recommend both partners have good individual therapy before beginning deeper couples work, especially if an active addiction is present.
2.Stabilize the crisis
When betrayal strikes, your brain and body register danger and threat to an extreme degree. Hypervigilance behaviors show up as a protective defense to detect any possible threats after your safety has been so threatened. This may look like constant questioning, urges to compulsively check your partner’s location or messages, associating anything “not quite right” with potential acting out, etc. Because this threat has come from the one you loved and trusted most, your attachment system is thrown into confusion. This sometimes creates an impossible bind that tells you to get as close as possible and as far as possible from the one who hurt you. Each of these experiences can be incredibly confusing to your sense of self and may create thoughts such as “What is wrong with me?” or “This isn’t me!”
As you are experiencing these things, know that your brain and body are working on high alert to try and keep you safe. Your reactions are natural human reactions to the crisis you’ve just experienced. Allow your body to feel the way it’s feeling, while creating safe boundaries and resourcing with the help of a specialized therapist. This helps protect you from both negative consequences of your own reactivity, as well as further deceit or harm in the relationship.
Important areas of focus during this stage:
Learning how to recognize and respond to triggers
Building skills to regulate your nervous system and increase safety in your body
Setting boundaries individually and in your relationship
Creating healthy routines of self-nurture
Challenging shame or self-blame messages that intensify trauma impacts
Additional note:
During this stage of high emotional volatility, your system may also be screaming for you to make big decisions on whether to stay or go. You are trying to gain control of your life when so much stability has been wrenched from you. Prioritize your immediate physical, psychological, and emotional safety in deciding whether it is best for you to be living in the same place as your partner right now. Take into account whether there is continual acting out or threats to safety in determining whether you would like to consider a temporary therapeutic separation or other measures for safety.
Where ongoing safety is not in jeopardy and where there is a struggle to decide whether staying or leaving is the best option for you, it is often recommended that you hold off on making long-term decisions regarding the relationship for a period of at least six months to a year. This can give you the time and space needed to regain access to stabilization and safety, connect to your authentic self, and make a congruent decision about which you feel confident.
3.Process and Heal
Once you have healthy boundaries in place and your nervous system is better able to regulate, it is important to create space for accessing deeper healing of the hurt and betrayal. Wading through the grief process can be a confusing journey of contradicting emotions and deep loss. One day you may experience some sense of acceptance and peace, only to have intense anger or numbing depression take over your body the next day. This can be extremely exhausting for the body, and therefore requires intentional self-care and support. Despite the pain and exhaustion of this experience, it is important to allow yourself to feel each of the emotions that arise with the to safely heal each part.
With the help of your therapist, this phase can be a good time to create your own timeline and complete story in order to process and to make sense of what has happened. If you are working to repair your relationship, this is also when many couples choose to move through the full disclosure process. It involves a series of three letters with a specific structure that you and your partner will take turns composing and sharing in a safe and guided environment.
The initial full disclosure letter gives your partner a chance to give a complete accountability report and timeline of acting out and deceitful behaviors while in full and grounded ownership. This must be done with the support of one or more therapists to avoid harmful effects and ensure the disclosure process is done in a regulated, helpful manner. You will have the chance to form a list of questions to be addressed with the help of your therapist, as well as clarifying questions that arise in the aftermath. You may also choose to involve a polygraph test as well for extra accountability and security.
A note about anger:
Remember that your anger is a vital part of the healing process. Depending on the messages you received growing up, you may have learned that anger should be suppressed, that good people aren’t angry, or that anger can only be reacted to in an explosive manner.
Whatever your relationship has been with this emotion in the past, this is an important time to learn that your anger is showing up to inform you of unsafe boundary violations and to protect you from further harm. Listen to these feelings by allowing the anger to be present in boundaries, healthy ways that increase your sense of stability and empowerment.
4. Access deeper healing and repair
The aftermath of betrayal timeline processing and/or the disclosure process can bring fresh grief and raw emotions in need of deeper healing. However, now that you have more truth and answers to questions, you are more equipped to fully grieve and make choices for yourself in the here and now. Couples therapy is a valuable tool for processing post-disclosure emotions and working to access the needed empathy and repair for re-establishing safety.
If you are working towards rebuilding your relationship, part of the healing process is knowing how and when you can trust your partner again. Earlier in the process, you may have set boundaries, processed impacts, and intervened on threatening patterns like blame shifting or defensiveness. Now, it is important to repair trust through deeper repair and amends, including processing impacts with non-defensive empathy. The impact letter is an opportunity for you to compose a full account of the impacts you’ve experienced from your partner’s cheating and/or deception. This letter should be structured with the help of your therapist and focus on your experience and grief, rather than a blaming focus on your partner’s behaviors. Your partner will then have an opportunity to respond with a third and final letter—the emotional restitution letter—that involves a genuine, empathetic response to the impact letter. This letter allows your partner to put themself in your shoes.
If not repairing with a partner, it may still be a therapeutic exercise to create an impact letter and read it aloud to your therapist to help you process and grieve the many devastating impacts with a safe witness. Your grief deserves to be seen and validated in a thorough and supported way. This is also an important phase to continue rebuilding trust with self and healing impacts to your self-identity that have resulted. Validating your reality and repairing any self-blame or self-questioning that has lingered throughout the process is important to rebuilding trust with yourself and your gut. Remember that although the brain may send messages that “I should have known” or “I can’t trust myself now”, anyone can be deceived when information is willfully withheld from them, and you cannot be responsible in any way for another adult’s choices. Practice differentiating ownership for your behaviors and choices from those of others.
5.Restoring and rebuilding
As you process the remaining grief in an empowered and self-focused way, you will find your brain and body are more ready to re-shift focus from the past actions of others to your present and future. You may never have all the answers you wish for, and you may not ever forget the pain of what has happened, but the more you honor your needs, the more space there is for this betrayal to cease driving your life and consuming your focus.
I hear many betrayed partners ask, “Why should I have to do the hard work when I didn’t make the mess? My partner should clean it up!” This valid feeling reflects the unfair reality of many traumas; it is painful to do the work of healing trauma we did not choose. However, this attitude neglects the power only you have to heal and change your life. And if this attitude is, it risks keeping you stuck in a painful sense of victimhood. While you can never be responsible for your partner’s actions, you can take ownership of your now.
With the work you’ve done to validate your reality, rebuild trust in your gut, re-establish truth, and take responsibility for your life and choices, you will find increased freedom and peace. Moving forward, you may be revisited by triggers and reminders, yet you will build skills and self-trust to respond in ways that benefit you and your goals. With the help of your therapist, you can work to continue building resiliency, connecting to your authentic self, and creating the next chapter to your story.
Do you find that you are struggling to regulate symptoms of betrayal trauma? Are you curious about how else we might be able to help? While each person’s experience of betrayal is unique, there is always hope for healing. To find out if our programs are right for you, contact us for a free phone consultation. Our team of Certified Sex Addiction Therapists (CSAT) and Certified Partner Trauma Therapists (CPTT) are licensed, experienced, and specifically trained in treating betrayal, trauma, addiction and relationships.
About The Author
Kelsi Wilson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Partner Trauma Therapist, and couples therapist trained in Gottman Method, Level 1. Kelsi recognizes the traumatic nature of betrayal as well as the pain and challenges for both partners. She specializes in healing broken trust and helping couples and individuals build new secure bonds in their relationships.
