SUMMARY KEYWORDS

partner, betrayal, trauma, couples, relationship, person, people, acting, betrayed, sex addict, betrayer, therapist, heal, behavior, create, understand, question, traumatized, helping

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Marnie Breecker and Duane Osterlind

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

 

Hi there. Today, we’re talking about helping couples heal from infidelity. My guests are Marnie Breecker and Duane Osterlind. And they are Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, who cumulatively have over 20 years experience working with sex addition, infidelity, and betrayal trauma at their own respective treatment centers in Los Angeles, San Diego and Long Beach, California after years of watching their clients struggle to rebuild trust and intimacy in their relationships, even after a substantial period of abstinence from both sexual acting out as well as ongoing lies secrets and manipulation. They joined forces to create a comprehensive program for couples devoted to healing from relational and betrayal trauma.

 

So, thank you both so much for being here. I’m excited.

 

02:20

Thank you for having us. We’re excited, too.

 

02:23

Yeah, we’re both very excited to be here.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  02:25

I know this is a difficult topic to discuss for many people, but so many marriages and relationships, struggle with infidelity. And so I wanted to bring you on because that’s a really difficult experience to have.

 

02:41

That’s why we call it Betrayal Trauma, because it’s actually so much more than just difficult experience. It involves major attachment, ruptures attachment wounds, and significant traumas symptoms for the betrayed partner.

 

02:57

Infidelity in many ways, not just infidelity at all. But all the betrayal that goes with it. All of the behaviors that keep someone else’s behavior, secret their sexuality- a secret from their intimate partner. So, it’s not just the infidelity itself as which is huge. It’s also all of that behavior that goes with it. That creates even more trauma for the relationship and for the partner that’s been betrayed.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  03:25

Yeah, cause I know. I mean, obviously, if this is a secret. There is a lot of lying and gaslighting and manipulation, where the partner might be like, Am I imagining this? Am I crazy?

 

03:39

There is such a significant amount of gaslighting that over time, creates an unbelievable disconnect for the partner with their own intuition.

 

Right. And there’s often so as a result of the discovery of betrayal, a lot of betrayed partners look back, and they can’t really forgive themselves for maybe not noticing red flags, or recognizing that in the past, they actually did see red flags, and they even asked about it, and were told that they were crazy. And so, over time, that really creates a rupture in a partner’s relationship with their own intuition. And so, in the recovery or healing process, one of the things that we do to help partners is to really reconnect with that part of themselves that was so harmed, right, and really start to trust their intuition.

 

But yeah, years of gaslighting, which is one of the biggest ways that betrayers find to keep their secrets essentially, a secret from the people that are in their life most often their intimate partner and does tremendous damage to the one who’s been gaslit.

 

04:49

Yeah, and when we talk about betrayal trauma, you can really look at these partners and see that they qualify for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), that we see the same things that we see in people who have been in natural disasters or war. These partners who have this intimate betrayal have the same kind of symptoms. So many partners who find this out, they’ll have nightmares, they’ll have depression, they’ll have flashbacks, they’ll have hyper vigilance. And in many ways, they think that they’re going crazy, or there must be something wrong with them. But this is what happens when someone has this level of betrayal in their life. And so, for partners to begin to understand that some of these things are very normal for having this kind of trauma, these kinds of things, but often they’ll dismiss it themselves. Maybe something’s wrong with me, or maybe I don’t understand it, or why am I acting this way? Because I’ve never acted this way before. And I think it’s very important to be able to point that out to see the symptoms as PTSD. Yeah.

 

06:03

And actually, we even go a step further. And we say that it’s complex, PTSD, right? Because it’s exposure to this betrayal, over years and years and years, right. It’s like, little T traumas become big T traumas, right? When somebody has been married, or in a relationship, a commitment for so many years, and they are gaslit. And this goes on and on. And they can’t really escape, right? They’ve got young kids or they have a marriage, they have a commitment that they’ve made. And so yeah, over the years, that really creates a lot of complex trauma symptoms.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:37

I can imagine not only that, and it shouldn’t be this way. But a lot of partners may feel shame as well, or to feel like they don’t want to tell friends and family about this so that they don’t get the support they need as if you were going through something else. So I’ve talked to people who said, I don’t want to tell my best friend or my mother or who their normal sources of support are. Because maybe they’ll tell me to leave. And I’m not sure I’m ready to leave or ask, How could you possibly stay with this person? And I don’t know, in my own head, if I can get over this. But the problem is, then they don’t get support. It’s like their secret to even though they weren’t the person who did anything wrong.

 

07:29

Yeah, we see that all the time. And it’s so heartbreaking because the person who’s been betrayed, doesn’t know where to go. And they have all their own shame of maybe staying or being in the relationship are not seeing it, or how could they be so blind to not see this and all that, so they don’t share. And then, if they do want to say, yeah, they’re really frightened that they’re going to be told to leave, and they have this whole relationship, they have kids, they have a lot invested in this relationship, and they may not be ready to leave, or they may be able to see different parts of their partner that they want to stay for, or their partner might be in recovering. If they tell people then that ruins everybody’s perception. And it’s a real bind to be in. And it’s like having good support is so important. Going somewhere where you can get that.

 

08:17

Can you say just wanted to say we actually did an entire podcast episode about it was called the shame of staying. And we really talked about this exactly what you just said, the extent of the shame that a partner feels is probably almost as equal to the shame that the betrayer experiences after the disclosure or the discovery of their betrayal.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  08:42

Quick question, what podcast is that? Because I know you guys do one together. But why don’t you share it here?

 

08:49

Marnie, and I got together to do this work. It’s the Helping Couples Heal Podcast, and you can find it at helpingcouplesheal.com. And we talk about all of these issues in detail. And because there’s, it’s very complex, there’s a lot going on. And so, partners are… where do we start? What do we do if I’m the betrayer? And I want to save the relationship or repair the relationship? What do I do? How do I handle that? And so the helping couples heal podcast goes into all of those details. And we talk about those topics on a every other week basis to answer some of those questions because they’re it’s complex. It’s, it’s a difficult issue to deal with. There’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of pain and a lot of hurt and a lot of shame and suffering.

 

09:36

And yeah, and do you usually work with the couple together with one partner to start I mean, who, who usually is the first person to seek out help?

 

09:47

And I’ll speak for myself that often. It’s the betrayed partner, because when he or she discovers that there’s been betrayal in the relationship, they’re desperate to get help, they’re shocked. They’re completely shocked. They feel like their world is turned upside down. And they don’t know where to go, what to do. So I often see the partner come in. And then they ask typically, again, this doesn’t mean that people that betrayed don’t seek help. But if you ask who’s generally the one that comes in, that’s what I see. And then the partner will often actually put his or her needs aside, because the immediate concern is, how do I get my partner to stop acting out? Right? Like, how do I get this business to stop and then often when he or she gets the help, then the partner can focus more on his or herself and Duane and I conceptualize all of this a three legged stool, that when we’re looking at a couple dealing with betrayal, there’s three different parts. One is the betrayed partner. One is the person who’s done the betrayal. And then there’s the couple ship the relationship as a separate entity, and we believe all three legs need attention.

 

And so, contrary to what some people think, when it comes to betrayal, which is, let’s push off the couples work for down the road. What we believe, and we talked about in our podcast is that in the beginning, after the discovery of betrayal, couples are completely dysregulated, they can no longer talk with each other, there is so much, there’s just so much activation trauma reactions everywhere. So, we encourage these couples to come in to therapy, to get basically for crisis management, we are not going to tell a newly traumatized partner, how to reconnect and be intimate with the person that helped them, we’re not going to encourage bonding. At that stage, what we’re going to do is really help the couple try to deal with the here and now the crisis that’s occurred because of the betrayals short answer to your question is that we can see anybody first but typically, we bring the entire system in as soon as possible.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  12:00

Yeah, I think it’s interesting that you mentioned that you don’t try to immediately encourage intimacy or bonding between the couple, because is that a different approach than you see other people take?

 

12:15

What we see a lot, unfortunately, is that the level of betrayal trauma is not fully understood and not appreciated. And so what happens is that you have this traumatized individual, this partner, and then you’re asking them to be vulnerable with someone who hasn’t proved that they’re safe to be vulnerable with. And so, that really has to happen first. And often, because the level of betrayal trauma is not understood or realized, helping professionals sometimes try to move them together, right, because we want to bond that’s what a relationship is all about. But the betrayal, trauma gets ignored. And many of these partners suffer more trauma on top of that, because their experience is I don’t think necessarily purposely but is minimized or cast off, or ignored. And here they are, while I’m supposed to bond with my partner, and the partner has improved this their safety, so they get hurt again, and they get more trauma on top of it. So, it’s really important to like what Marnie was saying is what we call like, creating a scaffolding of safety.

 

First, there has to be structured crisis management in the beginning, and the person who’s done the betrayal has to be willing to prove through noticeable trustworthy behavior, that they’re trustworthy that this that bonding with this person is a risk worth taking, that I’m willing to if I’ve been betrayed, I’m willing to put myself out there a little bit to be a little bit vulnerable, because I’m watching your behavior, I’m watching you change. So I’ll take that risk with you. But that takes time. And it can help because a lot of times How do you do that? Right? How do you rebuild trust after this? It’s a difficult thing to do. But it is doable.

 

One of the things that Marnie and I are very passionate about is that we do see couples heal through this and a lot of people, like, will say, Oh, that’s impossible, I would never do it. But I can tell you, when you’re in a relationship that you’ve been in for a long time, you really have to think about, do I want this relationship to end? Or do I want to work on it? And that’s a tough question. But couples do heal when they do this work. And if the betrayer is willing to step up, then you have that possibility.

 

14:46

And going back to your specific question, Casey, I like to believe that couples therapists that work with this population that are specialists in betrayal trauma, don’t push a couple to bond and be vulnerable and all, will have that quickly. But what I will say, with certainty, is that when therapists see these clients and they’re not specialists, then yes, I, 100% believe that they are encouraging connection and intimacy way before is safe. And that’s really because they don’t understand as Duane said, the extent of the trauma, like they’re minimizing the trauma, and they’re approaching the couple, you’re here, you obviously want to be connected. So let me help you do that, as opposed to approaching it as a, in a way that I recognize that safety has been completely shattered. There is no trust here, there is no sense of safety. So how could we encourage somebody in that situation to try to trust and be intimate with the person who has caused the trauma and really has become a source of danger? Right? Yeah, I can’t stress enough. And I know Duane, is with me on this, how dangerous that can actually be to try to push a couple towards that place when they’re not ready that absolutely can create treatment induced trauma.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  16:08

And do you see the partner who has done the betrayal? often try to justify it, meaning that you didn’t have sex with me or you’re not as intimate as often as I want or you did XYZ. First, I said, an issue to work through in the beginning.

 

16:25

Absolutely. Sex addicts and people that have done betrayal. Much like I think alcoholics, drug addicts use distorted thinking, right in order to continue to perpetuate their acting out. And so distorted thinking does absolutely include the include what you were just talking about, which is the justification of their behavior or rationalizing it, I’ve seen people act out only when on business trips and out of town. And they use compartmentalization, which is another big form of distorted thinking to justify, they say, Well, I only do it when I’m out of town, when I’m home, I am a great partner, great husband, great father, I’m only doing it out of town. So my partner is not going to know and therefore he or she is not going to get hurt. And so yeah, there is a lot of that justification, my partner’s not having sex with me or when the kids were born, my partner stop giving me as much attention. But what I can say is that one of the first things that at least I do with the betrayer, or the sex addict, when they come in for treatment is I make them aware of their distorted thinking. And I help them understand how in order to be sober, they need an optimist, they have to get into reality, and work on the distorted thinking so that they can sort of challenged themselves when the distorted thinking comes in, right into their mind.

 

17:49

And I think that also goes into the idea of deceptive sexuality. And if you’re in an intimate relationship, and you have an agreement about monogamy, and you’re not honoring that agreement that is really at the core of the issue. And that becomes deceptive, that becomes the betrayal, no matter the reason is you are you’re not being honest with your partner, no matter how you’re going to rationalize it, or say my partner didn’t do this, or didn’t do that, or this was happening. And I couldn’t say anything. If you’re in this monogamous relationship, and that’s the agreement in the relationship, then you have an obligation, to be honest. And what the other part of that is, is, if you’re not honest with your partner, you’re taking the ability for your partner to consent to this relationship. If your partner doesn’t have all the information, how can they consent and say, I want to be part of this relationship. If there’s this dishonesty about it, I think that’s very important to say as well. And that’s you have to go in and get through those rationalizations and justifications and all of that, that keeps an addiction going, you have to break through that. And a lot of times, when everything they call it D Day, everything kind of falls apart and everything comes out. These things have to be phased and are starting to get phased.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:12

Yeah, yeah. And I can imagine when you said consent, not only consenting to the relationship, but consenting to sexual activity with someone who is also having sex with someone else. Yeah, a lot of times partners say, I never would have gotten into a relationship with you, if I’d known about the sexual behaviors, so their choice has been taken away from them. And that is a big part of their trauma. I think a lot of people think when there’s been betrayal, that the trauma and the upset, and the despair comes specifically from the betrayal, the act of betrayal itself. And what I have seen over and over and over again, in the time I’ve been working with this population, which is many, many years, is that the acting out is probably the easiest part for the partner to I don’t want to say forgive but to get past I’m not saying it’s easy, none of its easy, but I think that is easier for them.

 

Then the amount of gaslighting the amount of what you just said those justifications, blaming the partner, justifying the acting out by blaming the partner for what they’ve done or have not done that contributed to their choice to act out. And then that pattern of abusive behaviors that accompany the addiction to try to keep it a secret, that in itself is likely more painful for the partner and harder to forgive.

 

And I will say on top of that, but even after the D day, the discovery of the betrayal, oftentimes, the person who’s done the betrayal continues to act out not with the sexual behavior, but in these ways that are mean, essentially still Blimey, still maybe blaming the partner, still lying, still withholding some of the secrets of the partner knows what they discovered, but not a lot of other things that happen and they’re asking questions and their partner’s stonewalling them or continuing to deny. So the more that those behaviors continue, the harder it becomes for the partner to be open to reconciliation. And so what we like to do as soon as we start working with the one who’s betrayed is to also start educating them about partner trauma and relational trauma, and how they can help their partner heal. Because if that person comes into therapy, and only focuses on getting sober from the sexual acting out, that’s wonderful, but likely, they’ll lose their relationship.

Casey McGuire Davidson 

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21:44

Question for you. In sort of these scenarios, I’ve heard you say, sex addict, and then acting out what if it’s a longer term, emotional, sexual relationship with one other person is that different in terms of how you would dress it, the betrayal, all of that,

 

22:04

what we see often is that the treatment for the person who’s done the betrayal, whether they are an addict, or they’re just somebody who’s had, like you said, a long term isolated affair is the treatment for that person is different, right? Because addiction is its own thing and needs to have specific treatment. But what we do see is for the betrayed partner, it doesn’t really matter, right? Whether it was acting out because of the sex addiction, or acting out because someone just chose to do it, or they felt entitled, or again, they use rationalization and all that distorted thinking, that definitely impacts the kind of treatment that they’re going to get. And the kind of therapy they’ll do before a partner, they don’t really care. The reason why, you know, what I will say is that sometimes, it might be a little bit easier for a partner who learns that her husband or the person she’s in a relationship with is a sex addict. Because using the disease model, it’s easier to understand that the it was unmanageable or out of their control. And they’ll often say, if my partner had cancer, I would stay. But for a partner who’s told that they’ve been betrayed, and there is no addiction, then they have to wrap their head around the fact that their partner chose to do this, and was completely aware of what they were doing. And that’s a lot harder to accept as a betrayed partner.

 

23:29

So one of the things I also wanted to talk about was how this trauma is so misunderstood with partners, and being able to see it, and this is one of the biggest roadblocks to all of this work, is that for the person who’s done that betrayal, it can be really hard to understand on a visceral level, how this trauma impacts them. And one of the things that we see a lot or we talk about a lot is that shattered reality for a partner, when they get this new information. It really shatters their whole idea of their life. So partners will go back and look at all of their pictures on the wall of their family. And now all these pictures have new meanings to them. Right? It doesn’t mean the same. But you mean when we were on vacation? You were acting out with that other person I didn’t know about it. What does that mean about this vacation. And so the shattering of reality creates this other level of trauma, that it can be really hard for the person who’s done the betrayal. To get on an emotional level, it really takes some time to understand that. So often that’s where a lot of the couple’s chips get stuck, became the joke get how damaging this kind of betrayal is deceptive sexuality is to someone’s psyche and how it just the world what I thought the world was, is not what it was. And now I’m stuck. And I don’t know how to wrap my head around that. And so for many partners, they’ll ask the same question over and over again. You said on January 5, you were here, but you know, it, maybe it was January 6, you sure wasn’t six, because you said six the other day. And they’ll ask the same question over and over again, trying to put together their reality and sort that piece out to find where they exist in this new reality AFTER D DAY.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  25:38

Yeah. And I can imagine there’s so many emotions there on both sides. So on one side, the betrayer, there’s justification and rationalization and defensiveness, even after the fact, and on the person whose betrayed side, so much hurt, and also anger, and resentment, and all of those emotions independently are difficult to work through.

 

26:07

They are. We see this dynamic that you’re talking about play out all the time, I was just thinking a minute ago, about a couple I was working with yesterday, who have actually been in recovery for quite a long time. They’re not in the crisis stage by any means anymore. But she hasn’t been feeling well. And I asked the person who have betrayer in the relationship. If we’re actually no, I didn’t ask him, I asked the partner, how she would feel about asking her husband, to maybe give her a massage, or a foot massage, just something that literally could help with the physical pain that she was experiencing. And the pain had nothing to do with the betrayal. It’s just body pain. And she immediately there wasn’t even a pause. She said no. And that a lot of the acting out that she learned about her husband’s addiction involved in massage parlors. And so even something small like that, right? You’re not feeling well, can you your body aches, can you ask your partner to give you a foot massage, that’s off limits. And so the partner has to choose between in that moment, maybe having some physical relief, right, by having this little massage, or it’s word, the trigger, which is she’s really even thinking about the possibility of getting a massage. So I just want to point out how there are these little seemingly little experiences every day, that are really big and are really triggering, and can cause significant trauma reactions, even years later.

 

27:45

Yeah. Does it matter? If it’s a physical relationship? Or, for example, Internet porn, whether it’s a live person, or just images or videos? How does that work in terms of healing from that?

 

28:00

It’s, that’s a really good question that you’re asking Casey. So there are lots of partners that come into our offices into our program, who, who are expressing tremendous pain and betrayal because they find out about years of pornography use that they weren’t aware of. And, and like you said, internet affairs, or internet chatting, or whatever is happening that’s secret. And for those partners, we see the same symptoms of trauma that we do with partners that come in and tell us that they’ve been betrayed by real live people acting out in person, whether that’s affairs with people they knew, with people they met on the internet, with, with prostitutes or going to massage parlors. And then there’s this interesting thing that happens between the partners where I think there are partners who’ve been a trade with on the physical level, and they might minimize the partners that were, “only betrayed” by porn, not understanding that it’s not about the porn. And it’s not necessarily about the physical acting out, although I will say with the physical acting out, there is more risk to the partner right to his or her physical health. But the pain that somebody experiences because of the fact that they were betrayed, their partner was living a double life. Their partner was not being truthful, their partner wasn’t sharing their sexuality, right? Maybe their partner was neglecting them because of all the acting out all the hours spent on looking at pornography and then masturbating and not being able to be intimate with their own partner. In a nutshell, we’re really not seeing a difference for the betrayed partner. I do think for the one who’s done the betrayal, there’s likely a lot of minimizing I didn’t have an affair. I didn’t actually act out with another person. So it’s not a big deal. But that’s not the experience of the one who’s been betrayed.

 

30:07

I mean, once again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier is that we had an agreement in our relationship that this maybe was not part of it, or it was an unspoken agreement, or it was an unclear agreement, whatever is still this level of betrayal, like I was not honest with you about our mutual sexuality. And now I don’t feel safe, because I don’t know what this is, or I see the consequences of those choices. For many couples. It can be, we’ve had a sexless marriage. And now I find out that you’ve been engaged in porn this whole time, and I’ve missed out on our sex life, and you didn’t tell me the truth about that what was going on? Because you were involved in porn, and you weren’t talking to me about it. And I feel betrayed by the app. So there’s lots of different ways to look at that. And I have to say that every relationship and every partner that comes in is unique. And there is no one size fits all. So what could be traumatizing to one person may not necessarily be traumatizing to another. And so, we have to meet couples where they are and meet partners where they are in the betrayers where they are, because it’s different for everyone, it gets a little bit complex, but the universal thing is that if that betrayal, is there, this trauma is there.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:41

Yeah, yeah, I can imagine that, obviously, if the partner is saying it’s no big deal, etc., etc., with just porn, and yet they were lying and hiding it clearly, there is an issue with how okay, they thought their partner would be with this.

 

32:01

Yeah, and there’s also a line from the very beginning of the relationship, because again, a partner enters into a relationship based on what they know, right? They’re choosing to be with someone who they know. And they share some, they have shared beliefs, and hopefully talk about things about what are their values? And what are their principles? And how do they want their relationship to look, and many of the partners that we work with tell us that at the beginning of their relationship, they actually said, I don’t believe in using pornography, or that’s outside of my value system, and checked with the person they were getting into a relationship or wanting to get into a relationship with and they’re assured by that other person, that they share the same value, and that pornography is not going to be a part of the relationship. And I’ve had partners that have experienced infidelity in another relationship, or saw infidelity in their own parents, and say to this person, before they get married, or get into a serious relationship, that’s my deal breaker, if you ever cheated on me, I’d be out. And then the person assures them, that’s not going to happen. And then when it does happen, that’s devastating to the partner, because it doesn’t matter if it was pornography or anything else. There was, as Duane said, an agreement. And oftentimes not just an implied agreement, but that conversation I just talked about had been had, and their will, right, because here’s the thing, people have the right to do what they want to do in their life with their sexuality, as long as it’s not hurting, right, another person, and there’s consent. So, when you’re getting into a relationship, if you want to look at pornography, if that’s something you want to be part of your life, if you want to be able to be sexual with other people, then your responsibility is to tell that to the person that you’re getting into a relationship with, and make sure that person is okay with that. Because if they’re not, that doesn’t mean that you get to go and do it, that because the partner needs to give consent to be in a relationship with you, based on truth, and honesty.

 

34:16

Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that, because I certainly know there are couples who are in poly marriages or do have sex with other people. But that’s part of their relationship. They’ve talked about it, and there’s no betrayal there. It’s honest, it’s open. There’s they everybody knows what’s going on. Yeah, when you look at betrayal, trauma, one person doesn’t know and has an has a different idea of what the reality is in the relationship. And then this other person is denying him that denying them the reality or usurping that reality. And that is where a lot of that trauma comes from. Yeah, it just becomes so debilitating.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:03

Yeah. When we were talking earlier you were talking about first step is regaining trust and understanding the degree of hurt caused and the degree of the trail trauma cause, what about if D Day comes discovery day, they have this discussion. And yet the betrayer continues to have affairs, look at porn, whatever it is.

 

35:33

Let me go back and do one thing, because I want to make sure people understand actually, I don’t think the first step is regaining trust, right? It really is, the person who’s done the betrayal has to demonstrate that they are safe through their behaviors before any trust can be given back, it’s actually not the first step you trust comes later over time, as the person who’s done the betrayal earns that and that I think that’s really clear. And if a partner’s been betrayed, I would tell them don’t trust yet until they show you they’re trustworthy, until they prove that they’re trustworthy. And that comes with transparency, humility, a willingness to understand their partner’s betrayal, and that trauma. And so I think that’s really important to, to clarify, because a lot of partners will feel this pressure that they’re supposed to trust this person. And that’s the end goal of that. And so many partners feel that I want to say no, you don’t have to trust this person needs to earn that back. They lost that when they decided to do these behaviors, and to not tell you the truth, and to be deceitful. I think that’s just really important. I think going back to your other part of the question, which is, if this keeps continuing, this is where for the betrayer, if this is continuing, they mean, they may need more support, maybe a sign that they need more support, that they need more help, that they if they want to keep this relationship, they need to get that and the partner needs to see them do that. But ultimately, if they’re not doing this work, then the partner has a decision to make. Which may be you know what, you’re not doing the work, I can’t be in this relationship. Unless you’re helping me feel safe. In your doing this.

 

37:28

One of the things that we do with betrayed partners, hopefully, early on in the therapy, is we help them then create boundaries that are based specifically on what they learned in the disclosure process, right? So what are the things that are going to keep them safe, I will tell you that for a large majority of the partners I work with their number one boundary is you cannot act out again. And the consequence will be the end of the relationship. It’s hard enough to heal from hearing about the initial betrayal, oftentimes the many years. So if after the betrayal has been disclosed, and the person who’s done the betrayal sees the incredible trauma that the partner is in. If that continues, oftentimes, the relationship will end. I’m not going to say that’s always the case. But I will say it causes significant more trauma leading to more complex trauma, and makes the relational healing really, really difficult. And could because how do you create safety? Right? How could there be any safety when the behavior is continuing? And then certainly without the safety? It’s going to be impossible to rebuild trust? Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:44

Yeah. I was wondering as well, I know your work is in helping couples heal from infidelity. And you have this whole structure that you helped move couples through that you’ve touched on the different parts of it. And what percent would you say? Or what’s the most common outcome from couples going through this? Cause I know the divorce rate is 50% or so in the population? And infidelity is certainly a part of that.

 

39:16

That’s a tough question. I think it’s a tough question to answer, I certainly don’t have a percentage that I can offer. What I can say is that I’ve definitely seen people not be able to get through this and choose to end the relationship. But I’ve also seen a large number of relationships, find their way through and heal and sometimes even become, it’s not the same. I want to say that partners are not going back to the relationship that they had before and they don’t want to that’ll they’ll never have quote unquote, the relationship that they had hoped to have when they got married or started the relationship but can get through it. I don’t know what I see more often, I think I guess I would say probably more often I do see the couples that end up healing together. And we Duane and I, we offer so many services at helping couples heal that really are in service of helping a couple heal, if that’s what they want to do. But to your other question, how we like making a connection here, between your two questions, if there’s ongoing acting out, right, or ongoing, emotional abuse, or that like lack of integrity, all of those behaviors that sustain the acting out, then that’s going to likely lead to the choice to end the relationship, right, because the very thing that’s needed to heal a relationship traumatized by betrayal is at a minimum for the behavior to stop, right, and then to be able to provide the partner with the state with the safety and trust, they need to move forward. So those are the relationships that typically heal is when the partner is seeing those actions that are creating the safety and trust necessary for them to give the relationship a chance and an opportunity to heal.

 

41:07

And what I see too, is that most people that are coming to us, they want to try and heal this, they really do and you think about for some of the people that see us, they’ve been in a relationship for 1020 years, they have kids together, they have these other parts of the relationship, and they really, really want to try to be able to do it. And, and it is possible, if the person who’s done the betrayal, is willing to step up and take the steps necessary to repair. But they’ve got to be really to jump in for their partner who they’ve betrayed, and do the work. And most of the time, what I see is when they understand betrayal, trauma on this deep level, there’s a shift in them. And they begin to appreciate that trauma. And it also gives them something that they can do to repair because often the person is done, the betrayal feels just as lost when they want to try and fix it. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know the steps to take to try and heal it or to rebuild that trust, as I was talking about earlier. They need that but most of them yeah, overall, they want to fix this. But it is work.

 

42:26

Yeah. And going into, okay, how can we heal this, with both partners being willing, that they certainly have the intention to work through it and to do that work?

 

42:40

Yeah. As Marty was saying, not all of them can do that. And but I think in this trial, they also get to the clarity that says, okay, you know, this isn’t going to work, we need to move, we need to separate and we need to end this relationship.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  42:56

Yeah. One thing Duane and I talked about earlier, before we jumped on this call was treatment induced trauma, where at the therapist might designate the spouse or tell them they’re codependent, or talk to the person who’s betrayed and talk about their family of origin as a first step. Tell me about that. And what treatment induced trauma is, and why the different approaches matter.

 

43:29

So historically, and by the way, that’s a really important question, because there’s been controversy around this topic in our field for a long time. So historically, partners of sex addicts were treated very much like partners of alcoholics from years before and told to stay on their own side of the street, to not get involved with the addict. Let them have their own experience. And then the partner should immediately get into a 12 step program and start looking at his or her behaviors as codependent. And the way that that I’ve worked from the very beginning, is that the partner, I’m not viewing the partner through the lens of codependency I’m viewing them as someone who’s been traumatized. And those behaviors that other people conceptualize as codependency are actually seeking safety seeking behaviors. They are desperately wanting information that’s been and is being withheld from them. And half the time, they feel maybe more than half the time, they’re afraid that their own health has been put at risk. They don’t know what they’re dealing with. And there’s been a shift in the field. Not everybody has been on board here. But changing the lens under which we look at the trade partners and going from focusing on their own family of origin and what they might have brought to the to this issue and how they might have contributed to recognizing that this person has been traumatized, specifically because of the betrayal in their own relationship. And while it might bring up other betrayals, certainly and create even more trauma, the trauma they’re coming in with is very much from what has just occurred.

 

And this is the example I always give with that. If a person, let’s use a woman, for example, is walking out of a restaurant or a bar or even your office after work and gets attacked in the parking lot, right? And is taken to and she’s really hurt. And she’s taken to the hospital. And maybe she was wearing a provocative, provocative outfit, maybe she was wearing a short skirt and a very low cut top, right? And goes to the hospital. Are they going to say to her, why were you wearing that outfit? Right, maybe if you were not wearing that outfit, you might not have been attacked, right, which is putting the blame in some way on this person who’s been hurt. And so it’s the same thing with betrayal, trauma, right? Like the doctors would actually first address the here and now, the cuts, the scrapes, the injuries, and then maybe just maybe that person later will want to look at themselves not as a contributor of their assault or an explanation. But maybe they’ll want to discuss something like I’ve been looking for external validation, and I use my sexuality to get it, right. And then they could work on that. But that might not be the case at all. And they don’t want to work on that. And there’s no need to work on that. So we need to treat what we see come into our office. And right and so long, that’s a long explanation. But it really does move the conversation from a codependency model to a trauma model.

 

46:49

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

 

46:52

And for a lot of history with addiction and treatment, the person who’s struggling with the addiction got all of the attention in the family was really ignored, and just not seen. And with this model, we’re we kind of flipped that a little bit. And look at the impact that this behavior has on the others outside of this identified person who’s struggling with the addiction. And I think for a long time, it just wasn’t seen people didn’t know what to do with it. And a lot of that trauma behavior, like I was talking about earlier, asking the same question over and over again, was framed as some kind of pathological problem that the partner had. And now we understand that from a neurological perspective, we understand that from brain science, that basically when your reality is shattered like that, you can’t feel safe in your body if you don’t know where you are, or where your reality is that this is a completely normal response. And so those normal responses to this event, were treated as pathological. And so these partners are often dismissed, told they were crazy, and didn’t get any help were left out on their own. And that came out of this old paradigm, where we also didn’t appreciate how relational we are as human beings. So this idea that you’re on your side of the street, and I’m on my side of the street, and we have to do that separately, we realize now that actually has to be done together, we have to do it at the same time with each other. Because we impact each other, so intensely, with just our words and our nonverbal behaviors and our mirror neurons and all that kind of stuff. So we come from that perspective.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:48

Yeah. And I can imagine at different scenarios, and some of my clients have done this where each partner has gone to their own therapist, and it definitely sounds from what you were saying, there’s incredible value in going together.

 

49:05

And I think, let me clarify that a little bit, because we talked about earlier, moving right to that bonding space. And that’s too early that can create its own trauma. But what’s really important is for the partnership, to create what we call scaffolding. And scaffolding creates that safety in the relationship. So learning how to exchange information to each other in a way that is helpful. That helps the partner feel safer. And you need those skills in the beginning. Yeah, because when you get back together, you don’t have them. And that just activates the all of the trauma again, and all of the miscommunication and all of those ruptures because you don’t have the skill. But if the person who’s done the betrayal can come in and get the skills to understand what their partner’s going through. ruined the trauma that they’re going through, they can show up in a new way that actually helps them heal, because they, for many of them who have done this, there’s deep shame about hurting the person they care about the most. So by them being able to do something constructive to help their partner, they start to heal. And then it also creates a space for the partner to begin to feel safe. So it’s very important that takes place first and together. And I just don’t think that can be done separately, although they will need separate support as well. But that relational piece has to happen immediately. Yeah, that creates better outcomes.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:41

Yeah, that’s great. So what do you think we’ve talked about treatment trauma, as well as this approach of working with partners together? If someone’s listening to this, and going through something like this and thinks that therapy and this approach will help them what’s the easiest way for them to identify a good therapist option or model versus one that doesn’t use the approach that you’re talking about?

 

51:12

Actually, we did a whole episode just on this topic of learning and helping couples heal.com to talk about getting that right. And really having a either a therapist or a coach that is educated in betrayal, trauma, really understands this perspective, and make sure that they approach it from there. So they interview these people who are going to help them.

 

51:39

I was just going to add, yeah, interviewing the therapist, not just not just saying, Do you treat betrayal trauma, but then how do you treat and really making sure that the therapist or coaches methods and approach are in alignment with what they’re looking for. And then in terms of couples therapy, Duane and I put together a list, I think that the, we put together a list of the top 10 questions to ask potential therapists when you’re looking for a couples therapist. So I know that’s in the show notes of that podcast that Wayne was just referring to about,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:14

send me that episode, to that episode. Cause I would love to add it to our show notes. So folks can find that easily.

 

52:24

Absolutely. We can get that to you. Yeah, there’s also an organization called AP SATs, AP, s. A. T. S. AP sets. Yeah, it stands for the Association of partners of sex addicts, trauma specialists. And they have a website, app sets.org. And you can go there and put in your location. And you can get referrals to therapists and coaches who work from a trauma model. Yeah. And most of the couples you work with, is it that the partner the betrayer, is a sex addict? Or is it that they are not a sex addict, and yet have spent time on Internet porn or had affairs or even a single affair?

 

53:09

I’d say that it’s very mixed. Okay. I don’t think I would say traditionally, I worked mostly with sex addicts. That’s what I was sort of I like, that’s what I studied. And that’s what I was seeing. But then it really started to evolve. And we see more and more instances of people who are acting out who don’t meet the criteria for sex addiction. So again, I can’t give a specific percentage. But I would say that we really do see a lot of both.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:40

And do you work with clients, patients outside of the California area? Do you work online, if someone’s interested and listening to this, we have some incredible coaches that are trained in our model that are trained in the trauma model that work for us, and can help this process along we also offer men’s groups and for men who are struggling with particularly, and they want to heal their relationship to be able to get support. And the thing is, I think that is really the most valuable is our workshop, the helping couples heal workshop. It is a 10 hour workshop live workshop where couples get together and go through what this trauma actually looks like. And what are the first steps that they can take to be able to put their relationship on a path towards healing. And what we see is when couples do that workshop with other couples who are experiencing the same thing, they first they can start to see their relationship and others they can also see they can see the other partners pain outside of their relationship. But it helps them understand their own partner’s pain. And vice versa. It can also understand the maybe the shame and difficulty in being the one who’s done the betrayal and trying to repair and they see each other. And I think this workshop is incredibly powerful for couples who are struggling through this as a starting place to work on this.

 

55:23

Yeah. And also, earlier, when you were giving your introduction, you said that Duane, and I own respective treatment centers. And we do and in those centers, we do only see clients for psychotherapy in the state of California. But that’s why we started helping couples heal, it’s specifically coaching so that people anywhere in the world can access services. So everything we offer, through helping couples heal, is available to people wherever they are. And all of our coaches are very well trained in this model. And I’m really proud of what Duane and I have put together, because it’s really helping a lot of people heal.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:01

Yeah, I think that’s so wonderful that you offer that – the workshop, the podcast, the website. And I’m hoping that women listening to this, if they’ve gone through something like this, if they’re going through it right now, we’ll be able to access more resources and find new approaches to healing and moving through that betrayal trauma. So, thank you very much for being here.

 

56:29

Thank you so much for having us on.

 

56:31

Thanks. And thanks for caring about this topic and giving us an opportunity to talk about it and hopefully help some of your listeners.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:38

Yeah, I think it’s so important.

 

56:40

Thank you.

Thanks, Casey.