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:

1. You will have a much clearer picture of what you need and want.
2. You will understand your rights.
3. You will be completely prepared and willing to ask your unfaithful spouse for what you want and need.
4. Your triggers will lessen.
5. You will refuse to see betrayal as a reflection on you. Ever.
6. You will put the responsibility for infidelity and unfaithfulness directly on your spouse, where it belongs.
7. You won’t see betrayal as your fault.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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:

1. Self-Care
2. Specialized information
3. Individualized guidance
4. A community of support
5. 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).

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© Vicki Tidwell Palmer, LCSW (2019)