If I were to tell you that there is a roadmap out of the insanity, chaos, and despair of betrayal would you want it for yourself?
I hope so, because you are 100% worth it — and more.
When you, as a betrayed partner, have a roadmap for healing, these are just a few of the results you’ll get:
- You will have a much clearer picture of what you need and want.
- You will understand your rights.
- You will be completely prepared and willing to ask your unfaithful spouse for what you want and need.
- Your triggers will lessen.
- You will refuse to see betrayal as a reflection on you. Ever.
- You will put the responsibility for infidelity and unfaithfulness directly on your spouse, where it belongs.
- You won’t see betrayal as your fault.
- You will know how to hold your unfaithful spouse, and anyone else in your life, accountable when they break an agreement or abuse you in any way.
- You will feel more detached from the crazy-making of addiction and deception, and your detachment will give you an incredible amount of clarity and peace.
- When your spouse doesn’t come through for you, or your relationship doesn’t make it, you may be disappointed and sad, but you will also be wiser, stronger, and in a much more empowered position to get your needs and wants met and to create the life you want for yourself.
Can you imagine what it would feel like if just these 10 results were yours? (And there are many more than just these 10!)
When you start to vision the life you want for yourself, you are already on your way.
The truth is that there IS a roadmap for betrayed partners. A roadmap that will help you get clarity, help you feel more empowered, and help you emerge from the despair and anxiety that are inevitable for anyone who experiences chronic sexual betrayal or a spouse’s addiction.
I believe that every betrayed partner deserves a roadmap that will guide her (or him) on her journey — the courageous journey from trauma to trust.
Over the past 11+ years I’ve worked with hundreds of betrayed partners in individual and group therapy, formal therapeutic disclosure, and in my online community — walking with them as they own the power they have to turn away from chaos and move toward clarity. It is beautiful and humbling to witness.
One of the reasons I wrote Moving Beyond Betrayal and have blogged for the past 5 years is that I want you, as a betrayed partner, to have the information, tools, skills, and know-how to speed up your healing process so that you can feel better faster.
I know, from personal experience, that arming yourself with solid information and learning certain capabilities is what makes the difference between living in despair and being confident that no matter what happens in your relationship, you are going to be alright.
I am passionate about teaching you how to take charge of your healing so that you no longer feel held hostage by your spouse’s addiction and deception, or believe you won’t feel better until your unfaithful spouse changes.
It’s. simply. not. true.
So today, and over the next week, I will share with you a 5-part roadmap that —when followed — will lead you out of chaos and despair and into clarity, power, and connection.
I call the roadmap the Survive & Thrive Blueprint, and here are the 5 components:
- Self-Care
- Specialized information
- Individualized guidance
- A community of support
- Boundaries
Learning and implementing these five essentials will speed up your healing process, bring you out of the fog, and can actually help you discover whether or not your relationship can survive.
So let’s look at each one individually.
Self-Care
The first of the five components of the S&T Blueprint is self-care because it is truly your foundation for healing.
In the early stages of discovery and disclosure, a betrayed partner’s world is turned upside down. You are assimilating, organizing, and trying to comprehend everything you’ve learned about your unfaithful spouse that doesn’t correspond with what you thought about him (or her), and your relationship pre-discovery.
To make sense of your world and to seek emotional, physical, or sexual safety, you ask your unfaithful spouse for information and details about his acting out. You may spend large amounts of time engaged in some form of detective work — combing through credit card or bank statements, phone records, or email accounts. You may go a step further and install keystroke logger software on a computer or phone, or a GPS tracker on your spouse’s vehicle.
It is completely understandable for you to use a variety of means to seek safety through gathering information that has been systematically and deceptively withheld from you.
But your greatest source of safety will be gained through your practice of self-care and boundaries.
Specialized Information
To survive chronic sexual betrayal or a spouse’s addiction, you must be highly informed with specialized information gathered from trusted resources and experts in order to protect yourself, heal, and restore your relationship (if you choose to do so).
There are standard recommendations and treatment protocols for working with betrayed partners, sex addicts, as well as for the restoration of the couples’ relationship. These protocols are not widely known or available outside the sex addiction treatment and recovery community. This is one of the reasons, among many, it is crucial for betrayed partners and unfaithful spouses alike to seek specialized information and support.
Here are just a few of the many topics all betrayed partners must be knowledgeable about:
- Addiction basics
- Sex addiction treatment recommendations
- 12-step recovery and sobriety plans
- Formal Therapeutic Disclosure (FTD)
- The use of polygraph with FTD, as well as after-care polygraph
- The components of long-term success in recovery from sex addiction
Without this information, you may struggle to make sense of your new reality, miss opportunities to make reasonable requests of your spouse, or even unnecessarily — and unknowingly — slow down your healing process.
The bottom line is that none of us can know what we don’t know.
And when it comes to the serious, high-stakes nature of healing from chronic sexual betrayal, specialized information can literally determine whether or not a relationship survives.
Individualized Guidance & Support
Just as you would go to a cardiologist for a heart condition — rather than to your general practitioner — you will save time, valuable resources, and heartache by working with a sex addiction and betrayal trauma specialist.
I have heard many sad stories of betrayed partners or couples going to therapists who weren’t knowledgeable about sex addiction offering advice like “just go to Victoria’s Secret and buy some new lingerie,” “all men _____________(fill in the blank),” and worse.
Getting support and guidance specific to your situation and circumstances is crucial to betrayed partners.
Although there are many similarities in the ways partners, unfaithful spouses, and couples are impacted and heal after chronic sexual betrayal, every couple, every betrayed partner, and every unfaithful spouse are unique.
Community of Support
Communities of support — whether online, psychotherapy groups, 12-step, or faith-based — are vital to a betrayed partner’s healing, growth, and empowerment.
Because of the stigma and shame surrounding sexual betrayal and addiction, you may be severely isolated — often with no one in your immediate circle of friends or family that you feel comfortable talking to.
Belonging to a community of support will help you:
- End isolation and loneliness.
- Provide connection with other partners traveling the same path.
- Get the validation you need, so that you know you’re not crazy, and that your needs, wants, or requests are normal and reasonable.
- Get much-needed empathy for your feelings and experience — a quality that is often in short supply from your unfaithful spouse.
- Provide connection with other partners traveling the same path.
- Get the validation you need, so that you know you’re not crazy, and that your needs, wants, or requests are normal and reasonable.
- Get much-needed empathy for your feelings and experience — a quality that is often in short supply from your unfaithful spouse.
Boundaries
Although boundaries are the last component of the S&T Blueprint, learning good boundary work is one of the most crucial skills you can learn as a betrayed partner.
I placed boundaries last on the list because it can often be difficult to understand or practice boundaries without the foundation of self-care, good information and guidance, and a community of support.
Living with active addiction often means a life of broken promises, empty threats, lies, and other crazy-making experiences. Once surrounded by the fog of addiction, you feel as though you’re at the mercy of your unfaithful spouse’s unpredictable and chaotic dance. But that is an illusion.
Boundaries help you regain your ability to identify and trust your own reality.
Boundaries allow you to reclaim your personal power by taking action to get your needs met rather than waiting, wishing, or hoping your unfaithful spouse will stop his acting out behaviors so that you can get on with your life and feel better.
So those are the 5 components of the roadmap for betrayed partners.
If you’re like many of the partners I’ve worked with over the years who have experienced repeated discoveries over years — or even decades — you might be thinking:
Yeah, I’ve already tried that and it didn’t work. He’s still acting out and nothing has changed.
I get it. Living with someone who struggles with addiction especially when they’re not engaged in meaningful recovery can be discouraging at best — devastating and soul-killing at worst.
But here’s my question: When you think about each of the 5 parts of the roadmap, are you 100% sure that you had the expert information, the personalized guidance, a strong, validating support system, and a clear understanding of how boundaries work in relationships impacted by chronic betrayal or addiction? Probably not.
There is hope. And a path forward.
In my next post [It All Starts With Self-Care] I’ll be talking about why turning your attention to YOU — and away from your unfaithful spouse — is the first and most important thing you can do especially if you’re in the early discovery or disclosure phase of your healing journey.
Turning your attention to you and away from your spouse is extremely difficult for most partners. After all, you deserve to know what your spouse did in the past, and what he’s doing now to change and restore your relationship.
But the truth is, you’re going to feel better faster when you start paying attention to you — your reality, your self-care, your needs, and your wants.
Until then, I’d love for you to leave a comment below or leave a message on social media (links below).
If you’d like to receive blog posts just as soon as they happen, enter your email address now in the Subscribe to Blog via Email form on the right of this page. And if there’s a topic you’d like me to address in future articles, please enter it in the Comments section below.
All submitted comments are subject to editing to protect confidentiality and maintain anonymity. Submitted comments containing profanity, offensive language, or otherwise objectionable material will not be published.
© Vicki Tidwell Palmer, LCSW (2019)
Vicki,
I am so grateful that you are setting forth the map to recovery in black and white. For me, I experienced staggered disclosure for five years, a very painful process that included therapists and even a CSAT that did not plot out the map to recovery. Without this clear map, I was in a paddleboat, driven by my “teenager” husband going around in circles! No wonder I often felt crazy. It was through reading your blogs and other material that I recognized that I needed a therapist who could help guide me out of the insanity which included a having a formal therapeutic disclosure with polygraph (which was painful but necessary) and boundaries for what I need to heal and begin to trust. Thank you, Vicki.
LBee
You are so welcome, Linda!
Staggered disclosure is profoundly traumatic and painful to partners and I’m so sorry for your experience. It’s wonderful that you’re out of the paddleboat and have the information, tools, and skills you need to heal and thrive.
Thank you!!! I’ve down loaded “ 5 step boundary solution clarifier”.
Unfortunately we have a long way to go ( denial, disclosure, polygraphs) before I can fully use in my marriage. I can certainly use boundaries in other areas of life and praying eventually with my husband. Focused on my needs!
You are very welcome Scheree!
I encourage you to use the 5-SBS Clarifier as soon as possible for any boundaries you have the power to create on your own that bring more clarity and peace. I’m so glad to hear that you are focused on your needs. That is the perfect place to begin.
Take care.
My Day was 5 1/2 years ago. Married almost 30 years. My heartache is that my husband passed away from ALS last April, 2018. I quit my job of 28 years to take care of him-the last few months were 24/7 care, barely able to sleep. I’m really struggling with how to find closure on this whole Betrayal Trauma with him not being here to answer questions that I have. I don’t believe that his addiction was that bad, but I never got a full disclosure. I have a lot of guilt around his last few years-I had hypervigilance so bad with his wandering eye and was triggered 24/7 by all the women around whether it was who he worked with, saw on the streets, TV, going shopping, out to eat, etc. It made both of our lives hell! We wanted to stay together but this was such a huge issue in our marriage that I don’t know if we could have stayed married, it was so difficult on both of us. I grieved so much in those first 3-4 years-it destroyed me-that I haven’t really grieved that much over his death and I feel horrible about that. He was sick for about 10 months before his death so we had some time to process it, but I’m not devastated like everyone else. I was actually even relieved after he passed away that going away and doing every day normal things wasn’t so hard anymore. It makes me feel like an awful person. My question is: How do I heal? How do I get closure on this? I haven’t seen anyone in my situation-I was seeing a therapist (5th one) and she doesn’t really get it I don’t think! I’m lost!
Dear Confused, I am so sorry to hear about your very complex situation of having no closure around your discovery and the understandable grief you are experiencing.
Your story and question deserve much more attention than a quick answer to your blog comment, but I believe your answer lies here in your question:
My invitation to you is to accept your reality as it is. Many people find that when a loved one dies they feel the kind of relief you are describing, and there is nothing wrong with you and your reality.
One additional thought I want to share is that if you haven’t already, I recommend writing a letter (or several) to your husband to tell him everything you need/want to say. This is for you only, and your healing. You may even want to journal about your unanswered questions or ask him directly in a letter. Often, when we’re still we get unexpected answers.
Sending healing wishes to you.
The universe works in mysterious ways. I am just 3 days past being betrayed and in the last 3 days many things out of the blue have been given to me to help me navigate this painful time. And this is one of them, I so so look forward to learning more and becoming more of my TRUE self.
thank you
Hi Paige, I’m so sorry to hear about your very recent discovery, and at the same time so happy for you that you are getting the resources and support you need to heal and to become your TRUE self!
I’m six months past the day of disclosure and have suffered tremendously from negative thought loops. I have struggled to receive the safety, comfort, and compassion from my wife because she feels that if she puts herself back into those emotions of her “mistake” it would derail the progress she has made with her healing. She has been working with a coach for a few months prior to the disclosure and I’ve been stuck in my emotions. She recommended I get help from her coach but because of her betrayal I’m finding hard to trust or be enthusiastic about anything she is involved in regardless of how effective….
Hi Chris, it sounds like you need support for yourself individually, completely independent from your wife’s support circle. She is most likely in trauma, and will not be the best source for you to get the safety, comfort and compassion you are wanting.
I recommend going to this website to find a therapist to work with: http://www.iitap.com (International Institute for Trauma & Addiction Professionals).
Best to you.
Thank you
Today is the 1 year anniversary of my D-day . With the help of therapy and my strong COSA group, I am thriving. I’m still with my SA husband and we are both in recovery in our own 12 step programs.
Some days are harder than the other but everytime I’m in my stinking thinking , I do self care.
I look forward to your new blogs. Your book Moving Beyond Betrayal helped me navigate the roughest part of my recovery.
Thank you, Vicki for being generous in sharing your time and experience in the matter of infidelity and betrayal. You continually give me hope that I can survive this ordeal.
Thank you for your comment. Vicki is out of the office until April 1 and will reply after she returns.
You are very welcome Mimi, and I am thrilled that you are thriving!
It is 1year from the day I discovered my boyfriend’s infidelities. We broke up but were trying to find way back. It took another few months for me to realize that he has addiction problem and it is more complicated. Anyway I decided to give him a chance… I tried selfcare, i read books on addiction…but i suffered mentally more and more. Because i had proofs his acting out continued, but he didnt want to talk about it with me. He was always mysterious about whether or not he is going to theraphist. He would not tell me anything about how he is planning to heal from his addiction etc. Only thing he would always said to me was ‘I am solving this problem on my own and I dont want to talk about it with you’.
But I never got any proof from him about solving his problem… and that was driving me crazy and into depression. I just could not trust him. After 6months I find myself a theraphist to help. He said to bring my boyfriend next time with me.
I ask my boyfriend to come. First he didn’t want… but later he agreed and promises to come.
In the end, when that day came…he didnt come with me to theraphist.. he broke the promise.
By that time I was using already antidepresants and my doctor adviced me to break up with my boyfriend. And so I ended the relationship.
I no more live in hopes, in lies, and this crazy uncertainty about whether my boyfriend is solving his addiction or not.
I really wanted to save our relationship but decided to take advice from my doctor.
I am still sad how it all ended…
Martina, I am so sad to read your story. You deserve much better, and it is clear that your boyfriend is not yet ready to receive the support and help he needs.
Please continue going to your therapist and stay on your healing journey. Please don’t let one person’s choices cause you to lose hope. You can survive and you can thrive. That is my wish for you.