Nothing can compare with those early days of being stuck in a Dday nightmare: you can’t sleep, you cry all day, everything you have cherished and worked for is forever changed. You’re wrecked, and this is not hyperbole. Then with some work, life finds a certain rhythm again. Nothing like your former life, but more stable than in early recovery. If your recovering marriage is anything like mine at the 3+ year mark, it’s stable but kind of lonely. He’s “doing the work,” but that doesn’t always translate into closeness or safety for me. There’s not a lot “feel good” warmth between us, but we can tolerate being together. I’m not triggered all the time, he’s not saying crazy, defensive addict sh*t all the time, I am not questioning him until 4 am, I am not laying in my closet crying for hours, so we’re good, right?…. The easy stuff of being in love – the smiles, the future dreams, the deferential treatment, spoiling your lover, the brain limerence – is very hard to come by after betrayal. But moods aren’t changing as quickly or extremely as they were in the first couple of years of recovery, and it’s very nice to have a break from that. So we’re fine being fine. My coach calls this place The Messy Middle. The slough.

Ones mind can do strange things in this place… It asks “Is this as good as our marriage will ever be?” “Is this all life has for me anymore, because I don’t feel whole or happy?” “Was he always like this, it’s just I was generating enough positive emotion and care for both of us before Dday?” “Is something wrong with our recovery process because I was told we’d have a great marriage after disclosure?” “Is my husband even capable of emotional closeness or vulnerability?” “He says he’s sober and happy and if I’m unhappy, he says it’s because I am not doing the work or forgiving…” “Is it even reasonable to hope for happiness in my marriage after infidelity? My therapist says yes but we could go broke trying to achieve it.” “Everywhere I look I see miserable marriages that are infinitely more secure than mine because, even though one or both is an a$$hole, at least they didn’t cheat. Lucky me.” Do you wonder these things too?….

After recently finding myself particularly drained at the end of months-long challenges outside of my marriage, my capacity was at a threateningly-low place. The questions started sounding more like “Do I need medication?” “I don’t know how to move out of this pit.” Even if I could move forward, I still don’t know where to go. After Dday, I was use to seeing my friends and family go on in life without me. I was fine with it because I couldn’t be the old me anymore. But lack of life was taking a more dire tone, and that worried me. At first I could use the tools I had learned in therapy to stay on top of the challenges, but then I got busier and started losing time for self care then losing ground in my healing journey. Ultimately this results in me losing motivation in many areas of life. The brain fog increases and I feel like I’m directionless with one hand tied behind my back. I slow down to do things with one-handed, but sometimes I need both hands! This isn’t mere sadness or self pity, it’s a serious mental handicap. To get the use of both hands back, I had to take a closer look at what betrayal does to a partner’s life at large. I spent time learning how to function in a marriage impacted by betrayal, but what about handling death of family members or work challenges or physical sickness or rebellious kids? How does a betrayed partner do betrayal AND those things? This helped me to commit once again to the practices I know heal. Below are the areas I identified:

Attachment Trauma: We’ve already discussed on the blog how trauma and suffering are different. I love how MJ Denis describes how attachment injury is a serious traumatic event. Author Sue Johnson has a very understandable way of defining attachment. She says things like “Attachment means when you’re in need and cry out, they come. You have my back and I have your back.” To discover sexual infidelity in your primary attachment relationship is to learn that your partner didn’t have your wellbeing in mind. This betrayal seems to leak out to other relationships… People form opinions and take sides, but the needs of the betrayed can be ignored over and over. This feels like a tsunami of abandonment and pain. Healing from an overwhelming traumatic event is harder than healing from mere suffering because of the impact it has on your brain’s ability to cope and function – to make meaning of it all and move on. One speaker put it this way: a trainer might tell you to go to the gym and lift weights. But if you have a broken arm, trying to get stronger will harm you further. All growth is hard, but it shouldn’t cause further harm. It’s crucial to know the difference. Betrayal creates such a profound shattering of the foundational brain processes that allow us to function. Betrayal creates a loss of self concept. This is serious psychological injury. The severity can be compounded by things like how long have you been married, were you surprised/shocked on Dday or had your marriage been struggling already, was your partner forthcoming with truth or did he trickle truth or gaslight even after Dday, are you a part of a religious community where these issues carry more taboo and shame, are you also suffering from other betrayals such as financial/career/health/legal/spiritual/other relationships? On a brain level, it’s very hard to get any kind of traction toward wellbeing, positivity and hope in a trauma state. It’s takes time and commitment to heal our brains after betrayal. Healthy brain function is built on the foundation of its attachments.

Loss of Support Structures: There’s no way around it, bringing the problem of sexual indiscretions into any social circle is a strain that almost no group can weather… Perhaps you’ve heard it said that if you suffer any other loss (a struggling child, terminal illness, other addictions, death of a loved one, job loss), your chances are high of receiving a casserole, card, or phone call. That’s not true with sexual sin. In our case, your chances are high for receiving uncomfortable probing questions, unsolicited bad advice, public shame, becoming ignored and avoided like the plague, and becoming fodor for the rumor mill. And that goes for your kids, too. To make matters worse, when a brain is under threat, it starts behaving in ways that harm social connection and engagement: meaning we isolate, we’re untrusting, we smile less, we seek to control, etc. These are fundamentally safety-seeking behaviors, but others don’t understand. So we are showing up traumatized, stigmatized and THEN we start behaving really weirdly because we’ve lost touch with how to connect due to a lack of social safety and regulation in the brain. We’re on high alert and in a defensive posture. This can really devastate a friendship, family dynamic, church involvement, or personal reputation. The real loss here is that the best way to regulate and calm a dysregulated brain is – you guessed it – social support via other people. The best way to calm a dysregulated nervous system is by being with a more-regulated human nervous system. So social loss is very costly. The truth remains that due to the content of our stories, there will be social stigma that adds to the trauma and shame we already experience. We can’t simply “put ourselves out there.” This is where a support group of other betrayed partners can make a big difference. Even being down the road a few years, I still have to remind myself that most people don’t have a category for the things we are facing in our marriage, and this creates distance in how I relate. When I am reminded of how insensitive my old friends have been toward me, I have to realize yet again that they don’t understand what I am facing, and I am glad they don’t understand. They’re not in a trauma state. However, that makes it impossible for me to be safe with them.

Loss of Identity=Loss of Forward Motion: Having disruptions in foundational processes in the brain like attachment and alarm make it impossible to function in the higher-level areas like identity and growth opportunities. A brain must feel safe to grow. If you’ve seen the hierarchy of needs pyramids, that idea applies here. This really affects me in areas like church participation, cultivating new relationships, career choices, or even having new hopes or dreams for my future (even in my marriage). When I try to step out in these areas, I am paralyzed by fears like “What if my husband blows up our life again? I don’t want anyone at church to know what he’s been doing. If I fall apart again, I’ll miss too much work or make mistakes. I don’t want to take our kids on the emotional roller coaster of a family restored only to have their dad devastate our lives again. What if I get comfortable and then get blindsided again? I can’t let my guard down. I can’t dream with him. He’s just love-bombing and distracting me like he did in the past.” This is where the trauma loop really sets in because it’s hard to build a new identity – as an individual or in my marriage. When challenges arise outside of marriage problems, I have little resourcing to take those on. I don’t feel strong or stable. A little adversity on top of the betrayal puts me in the deep end of the pool very quickly. This is a tough lesson to learn when you want to “be normal” or “feel good.” I’ve heard healing takes about 5 years (or even 1/3 of the years you were married when Dday occured).

To heal: Grieve the losses. Sometimes it’s hard to allow ourselves to accept the loss, ie what I thought was happening on those vacations wasn’t the whole truth….I’ve lost all those special memories. It’s very difficult to accept that we aren’t going into the golden years that we had worked and planned for! When we surrender things we thought were too precious to lose, God is faithful to heal and restore.

To Heal: Get your joy up! The joy of the Lord is our strength. Real joy is shared between real faces. So spend time seeking God’s face, look at the face of someone you love, ask another betrayed friend for a zoom call, spend time with a child. Live life according to YOUR values, strength, purposes. This is a time to learn what matters most to YOU – and then craft a life in alignment with those things. Those identity areas like faith or work often need to be rebuilt so you can be comfortable bringing your entire self – even the broken, traumatized parts. Do you need to change jobs or churches? Do you need to move to a new location? This takes time and courage. Practice self care like your life depends on it, because it does. Let “drains” go to protect a limited capacity. Some refer to this as identifying the unsafe people in your life. Perhaps you need to get off of social media because of triggers, shallow people, or too much negativity. Granted, this can exacerbate the feelings of loss. Often these “drains” use nasty tactics like shame and intimidation when you don’t perform to their liking. I have to remind myself often that protecting my limited capacity is an issue of mental health, not a trivial thing. There is a new you emerging, there is a new life emerging. A life that is better suited for you. You have some new limitations and broken places, but maybe some new joys will blossom too. You’ve certainly learned a lot about relationships, addiction, and people, amiright?If you find your true worth, your future is bright regardless of what your husband chooses. Take good care of you so you can keep taking small steps out of the sadness and into post-traumatic growth. Small is key.

In closing, I think it’s worth spending some time thinking about the impact your partner’s recovery (or lack there of) is having on your healing process. In my experience, it seems ladies healing after their relationship ends get a headstart on the growth. Their betraying partner is no longer re-traumatizing them, and they’re able to get traction in these identity issues. Even if your partner is doing really well in recovery, I think it can still take quite a bit of time to feel stronger and more stable. For ladies still on the crazy train with a destructive partner, some separation time is a must. It’s hard to know when/how to implement that, but I’ve seen women make leaps in their healing when they have some space from their immature spouse. Then for ladies like me who seem to be on the slow track, my heart goes out to you. I don’t have answers…. I think we get more opportunities to implement the basics… So maybe we will get really good at it! If your husband is open to the reality that his growth and care can make a huge impact on your healing journey too, then talk with him about how you really need him to look out for your broken arm broken heart and self concept. You’re just not able to do the relational heavy lifting yet. Our marriage therapist would often remind Phil that surprises put the emotional gears into neutral, so “new” is imperative for betrayed wives, as it gives us a break from the pain. This is true for me! I like how Shelley Martinkus talks about being in a stagnant place for a few years. What got her out of it was seeing how much her husband had changed after a few years of doing the hard work of rebuilding trust and nurturing their relationship. This surrender led to such an unmistakable joy in his life, she wanted that kind of growth and joy too. What a testimony! If you feel stuck and realize the addict’s change has been minimal at best, give yourself some grace and space.

If you’re struggling to feel “normal”, even after a few years of work, you aren’t alone or broken. Healing isn’t linear, but we’re moving forward even on those down days or seasons.