In psychotherapeutic work, we speak of ‘time and repetition.’ That ongoing treatment involves a retelling, often with a different meaning as the story progresses.
Here are 5 of my repetitions… that today still mean the same as when they were first used. And with the hope that they will soon change the story for the individuals involved, both offender and partner. Here are a few basic concepts I have uncovered repeatedly . . .
- Patient: When is it going to end? My spouse never ceases to stop asking me about what I have done, and it is just so irritating. It’s the same things over and over and always at the most inopportune times.
Therapist: Patience here is a virtue.. . while it may be over for you, it is just beginning for her.
Michael is a 57-year-old heterosexual male attorney in treatment for his five-year active addiction to female prostitutes, or at least what has been gleaned. Discovery was six months ago; at present, his spouse is willing to stay, given he continues to do the work. Yet she persists, albeit less often than at first, in bombarding him with questions, which often feels like an interrogation.
Staggered disclosure is deemed worse than no disclosure; however, it is the standard, the status quo, in most cases, at least at the outset. Regardless, the rate at which a receiver can process such information is variable, and whether or not all have been shared, it is often perceived as incomplete, in part because there is no trust and in part because of processing and the need to make meaning out of an intimate, and often considered ruthless, betrayal. Further, disbelief and anxiety levels often push the receiver to continue to pursue information and continue their detective work…
On the offender’s side, it is not over for him. Treatment, according to Patrick Carnes, takes 3-5 years and requires both top-down (management strategies) and bottom-up work.
- Patient: I can’t stop looking on social media for more and more photos of the women he had affairs with—pictures of their lives and relationships. The compelling images that I saved from his phone of these women play over and over in my head, and I just am not ready to get rid of them. And the text messages with their detailed correspondence make it all worse.
Therapist: Looking at images makes what happened more real, but it also makes it exponentially more traumatizing. Details create images, and images create trauma. Once you are able to face reality and rid yourself of the details and images, you can start to move through the trauma.
Margaret, age 65, made a discovery of her husband’s long-term affairs with four women across the globe over a period of time that spanned 25 years. And with each one, he professed his love. His commitment to her is genuine, and his work over two years in bi-weekly therapy has helped. For his spouse, however, she is stuck and unable to rid herself of the disbelief.
- Patient: I hate my partner for having done what he did. Does that mean I have to hate my father for his chronic cheating. . . I don’t want that relationship destroyed, either.
Therapist: It’s important to put things into perspective and look at the impact of your childhood, at least to understand how it affects your healing in this context. There is a difference between blame and meaning-making.
Austin has been in treatment for some time following the discovery of several one-night stands by his partner David, from whom he has been separated for one year but wants to reconcile. While able to experience a multitude of feelings due to the cheating, he is unwilling to address his childhood, where there lay some uncovered pain points as well. Facing his frozen pain frees up the energy to allow him to move through his current trauma.
- Patient: I have read that most affairs involve some physical touch but that even an emotional affair can be considered betrayal. Is it? I just don’t know what to believe.
Therapist: Betrayal is defined by the betrayed. It is how you see it, and no one else has the privilege of making that decision.
This is simple and clear. All relationships have agreements, written and unwritten. It is up to you, together, to make those rules if you want to have a secure and strong connection. When there is one person acting outside of the rules, acting unilaterally, at any point with anything, it can be considered a betrayal. This does not only apply to intimate betrayals.
- Patient: It’s frustrating to me that we have agreed that I know little right now about the details of my husband’s experiences with transgendered women. I know enough to decide what I want to do going forward, but it seems unfair that I am not privy to that information.
Therapist: The devil is in the details, and the details are for me (the therapist). Without knowing the meaning, this information can be more devastating than it needs to be.
That is, details create the narrative, which is critical as it helps the top-down work but moreso the meaning-making and bottom-up work, the latter of which is important to healing. Details help construct a narrative that makes sense, helps address the pain, and moves the person and the partner to healing. The sharing of details with the partner is determined on a case-by-case basis.
For more information about how Dr. Winter can help someone heal from betrayal trauma, click here.
Read another post on betrayal trauma here.
