The Trauma of Betrayal

The Trauma of Betrayal (Reposted from FB as it seems to have disappeared!)

I want to preface this by saying that this post will be about my experiences as a woman who has gone through betrayal, but I know that the men who go through this experience feel it equally as deeply; and oftentimes have even less support in healing from the trauma aspect. This post is for anyone who has experienced this kind of pain and trauma resulting from infidelity.

The second thing I want to say is that this post can only be written from a place where healing has begun and moving forward is possible and… it takes time and strength to talk about these things and even more to share them openly.

So… Trauma.

It’s a term that we think about when it comes to physical violence, accidents, war, or serious illness. But so rarely do we give it thought when it comes to the after-effects of what has become a commonplace, yet hidden experience. Betrayal. Cheating. Affairs.

So here’s the thing.

I lived with betrayal for almost 20 full years.

For nearly two decades, I lived with the effects of serial infidelity. Each and every time, I worked hard to work through, heal, and recover from one more incident… but here’s the thing that nobody talks about when it comes to betrayal – there’s often so much more than ‘just’ cheating involved.

In my marriage, there was gaslighting, blame, misdirection, hiding, downplaying, and reversing the focus back to me. At times, I was pushed to the brink and my mental health began to deteriorate over time. As each and every occurrence continued to affect me, I gradually became more and more unstable… not sure what exactly was happening to me, and never really understanding how the two things were connected.

It wasn’t until more than 15 years into our relationship, that I began to accept the reality.

Living in a marriage with someone who committed serial acts of infidelity as well as emotional manipulation, changed me in very big ways.

Because by nature, someone who has an affair wants to protect themselves; it is often at the cost of the actual victim in the situation – blaming, shaming, and redirecting to any and all faults that the innocent party has. There is a form of emotional and mental abuse that occurs which tears down the other person and makes them believe on one level that THEY are the reason why this happens. In serial infidelity, it is repeated over and over again until it is the only truth that is known. I thought I was the toxic one… the trouble… the cause for all of the problems… the reason why he cheated.

Trauma.

The first time I talked about the trauma of infidelity and the effects on my mental health; I was met with three responses – the first was the support, those who had gone through the same thing and quietly whispered ‘me too!’. The second was silence… those not quite sure what to say, perhaps because of generational silence, or because I was so very open about something so personal. The third was disbelief, shaming, and reversing the blame… mostly by family and those closest to him.

I’m not supposed to talk out loud about this stuff. Even still.

But that’s why I don’t want to stay silent any longer.

The trauma inflicted by infidelity in my life is the one of the biggest contributor to a long history of mental illness, suicide attempts, and overall decline in my mental state over the years.

How can I not talk about something this big? This important? And sadly, this common?

Trauma and Infidelity.

It’s a bigger connection than what we acknowledge. It’s bigger than what we want to discuss, and it is a topic that shouldn’t be hidden… the trauma in infidelity is hard enough without having to add more secrecy and shame to the mix.

Those that struggle deserve the chance to know that the trauma is real. There is support out there… and most of all, healing is available when the stigma ends.

*This post is specific to the trauma of infidelity. It is not meant to solely blame infidelity for the choices that I made or the mistakes that I have learned from. It is to highlight a very serious effect that infidelity creates for the betrayed partner.*

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Infidelity - The Damage - Part 1

• ‘Stop blaming me and get over it.’
• ‘You made the choices you made.’
• ‘I am not responsible for the way that you feel.’
• ‘There is no correlation between what you experienced in the past, and the way that you are now.’

Four years ago I began writing this blog as an outlet… a way to express the nature of the battle that I was facing in my head. A battle with mental illness and depression, suicide attempts and instability, anxiety and overall confusion… at least that’s what I shared with the world.

But the reality - the whole picture was always much different for me.

Sure, mental illness was a symptom that I began to fight with vigor… determined not to let situational depression, chemical imbalances, and the whole genetic pre-disposition thing get me down. I believed that I could fight mental illness and win. I still believe that, but with a much broader perspective, knowing that there is far more to it than controlling the outward symptoms.

Recently I’ve been experiencing another rough patch. It’s not nearly as bad as I’ve been in the past and I’m much better at managing it these days… at least for the most part. But a few weeks ago as I doubted my strength to get through this darkest period, I spoke with a friend whose words were beyond powerful as she texted me.

Read Psalm 88 – darkness is my closest friend.

It’s okay to feel the way you are sister!

You have been so mistreated – disrespected – unloved.

I wanted to believe her words so badly that night. But as I laid awake in bed, unable to sleep… I turned my head back to the bible and read the verses… several times. Going online I read several sources as they picked apart the words and I tried to understand the meaning behind it. And as dark and heart-wrenchingly sad as this Psalm is, in the end I found comfort in that fact alone. It’s dark. It’s sad. It’s okay. Even biblical writers felt completely alone.

The rest of her words hit me harder than the Psalm. It’s okay to feel the way you are sister! – In the past I have often been told that its okay to feel sad, or to feel pain, or to be angry. But those feelings must be temporary… fleeting. In the end there is always an expectation that those feelings won’t last long enough to make anyone else uncomfortable, or to move me into the status of ‘playing the victim’. It’s okay to feel those things, as long as I’m not speaking about why I feel those things… just that I do, because if I tell the whole truth, then I’m somehow crazy, dramatic, vindictive, or looking for attention.

The next words she gave me were such a relief as I felt the pain and the darkness, that at first I didn’t really know how to react. You have been so mistreated – disrespected – unloved. – Again, I’ve heard similar words in the past, but never without a clause attached. You were mistreated BUT you deserved it because you did this. Sure he mistreated you, but you’re no saint either. - To see the words solidly appear across my screen without a hesitation, a clause, or an exception took my breath away.

Ten months ago, I opened up a folder from my husband’s satchel. Out of the folder fell a small bundle of papers… a chart of sorts. When they quite literally landed on my lap, I froze momentarily as the words appeared in front of my eyes. Names. Dates. Descriptions of incidents. Affairs. Too many to count; some of them unfamiliar, strangers; and others too familiar - former friends, acquaintances, and coworkers of his.

Now, to be fair. I already knew about a couple of the incidents… one nine years ago, another five years ago, and one just two years before finding his list. I also know, that throughout my life, I have developed faults of my own, as well as unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the difficult parts of life. I also accept that I chose to continue to fight for my marriage, remaining two feet in and ready to heal and move forward… believing that we were on the same page at the time.

Now, from my experience, I know that there are generally two trains of thought that go along with this decision: The first, is that because I chose to stay, I am a fool who brought it on myself. The second is that I must have done something wrong to force him into someone else’s arms… after all, I’m the one with the self-disclosed mental illness.

And those two trains of thought are why I’m choosing to share this now, after all of this time.

I’ve been with my husband for nearly nineteen years now (coming up next week - December 20 - would be our fifteenth wedding anniversary). Around eighteen years ago, I now know that my husband had his first affair, dating all the way back to a friend from high school. Depending on how you’re reading this, it might sound like I’m bitter or angry. But the reality is, that I’m sad… for both of them, as well as for myself.

Because you see, I knew about it… or at least I suspected that there was something... and I even questioned it. And while I truly believe that my husband never set out to harm me through his actions; self-preservation won out and I was told from the beginning that I was imagining things, that I was making too big of a deal out of nothing, and simply that the signs that I saw were in my head. He kept what actually happened a secret until this year… so did she… and I truly believed that I had spent 18 years imagining things until I saw her name on that list.

Eighteen years passed… similar patterns became a part of our life. I questioned what I saw happening before my eyes, and I was nearly driven into complete madness. I became the crazy-lady.

I was mentally ill, depressed and full of rage that was never acknowledged nor allowed. Emotionally, I felt unable to function properly, believing that my head was simply not normal, messed up, or wired wrong.

When I whispered to a friend after I confirmed the first affair that I knew about… nine years ago… I was told to spice up our sex-life. I was told that I was holding onto too much anger. I was told that he ‘seemed remorseful’ and that I was ‘too unstable’. Over the years I reached out to several people... seeking help, guidance, and at times simply a friend that I could talk to. The answers always seemed to ring with the same tone though:

• ‘Let it go’.
• ‘Don’t talk about it’.

The last several years, my own responses became wild. I was unstable. I was angry. I was ashamed. I was trying so hard to do everything right… and yet everything kept falling apart. Three years ago, I wrote a blog-post about my behaviour and the way that it hurt those around me, pushing people away, volatile, harsh, and unpredictable.

Today, I take responsibility for my behaviour, but I also want to hold up a sign and say STOP… my response was unacceptable, damaging, and frightening for those closest to me… but why was nobody around me asking me what happened? What hurts? Why are you in so much pain that you are lashing out in this way?

This is the stigma that needs to end the most.

We talk about ending stigma surrounding mental illness on a regular basis. Depression and anxiety, bipolar, even borderline personality disorder is becoming an okay topic to discuss… as long as we are discussing the disorders themselves and not the experiences that have led to these imbalances in our heads.

I want to clarify for a moment, that I do not blame my husband for my mental illness or even for my choices to stay in the relationship as long as I have… blame is suffocating and harmful, not at all conducive to healing. However, I am learning that our experiences do shape us and mould us into who we become and those experiences NEED to be shared, spoken about, and brought out of the darkness - so that we are not struggling alone.

So often, we don’t want to discuss those horrible things that make people squirm. We don’t want to see them cast their eyes downwards, or walk away, or tell us we’ve had enough time and should be over the pain. Never heard, the pain eats us, until it manifests in other ways. Addiction. Mental illness. Suicide. These are not the problem. These are the symptoms. And until we’re comfortable talking about the physical and/or sexual abuse that little Mikey faced as a child, we’ll never really be able to help him get out of the cycle of addiction or understand why he wants to escape the pain in the first place. If we never get comfortable speaking about the pain of infidelity, betrayal, and emotional and mental manipulation, we will never understand why Suzie decided to just give up and slice her wrists open… believing that she isn’t worth the effort, and that her pain is not that bad... and of course her fault for choosing to stay. And if we never talk about the constant bullying, and the shitty home life that little Billy lives with, we’ll never be able to fully empathize with his never-ending cycle of in-and-out from the psych ward and his inability to function within society.

This year, I made a commitment to speak openly and with authenticity about the struggles that I face… and up until now, I’ve been lying to you.

Because up until now, I took on the entirety of blame and the excuses… I hid the nitty-gritty, mostly out of fear. I didn’t want to embarrass my husband or ruin his life (I still don’t.), and I didn’t want to hurt those who hurt me, or seem like I was using the past as blame for our current situation. I didn't want the truth to get out as much as anyone else; I already felt like I had to hide my face.

I was conditioned to believe that I didn’t have the right to share my story out of guilt, shame, embarrassment, and fear.

Today I walk a very different journey than ten months ago. Working to heal myself has been my priority, but it looks different now that my shell has crumbled and I see a bigger image around me.

Infidelity, and the betrayal that surrounded it within my life, and on my particular journey… played a major role in my mental health issues, both my actions and my reactions… and while I’m working on changing the familiar brain patterns; to an extent, it still does affect me, and it probably will for a while. And that’s not just okay… it’s normal.  

Ten months ago. I was afraid to say that. I believed that I always had to add in a stipulation. ‘Infidelity affected me… but only because I _________.’ or 'Infidelity affected me, but it was my fault for choosing to stay.'

Today I’m ending the stigma. I’m not wallowing in self-pity, and I’m not living in the past or in blame. Today I am reaching out to tell you that you are not alone. It’s okay to talk about it. It’s okay to cry about it. It’s okay to not understand it at all, and to feel alone and terrified and confused. It’s okay to not talk about it, but it’s also okay to reach out. To let someone in. It's okay to not trust yourself. It's okay to feel confused. It's okay to feel nothing at all. It's okay to take your time. 

Today I’m talking about the damage that infidelity caused in my life... and I will continue to talk about the recovery process along my journey. 

Because life is messy. It's never linear. And it's rarely simple.

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The Past Was Always Vague

It seems to be a theme in my life these days.

• Everyone has a story.

• Don't ask what's wrong with them... ask them what happened to them instead.

• Everyone has something that changed them.

For a long time, I spoke about my symptoms. The state I was currently experiencing, and the ways in which I was working towards recovery and walking along my journey. I spoke about trials and successes… and I mentioned trauma – in brief, vague, and very generic ways.

Always vague. Always ashamed. Always afraid.

I’ve spent the past four years writing, sharing, and speaking about mental health; with each opportunity to share creating further determination within myself to be honest, authentic, and open. For the most part, I’ve been successful… my story of mental illness, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, suicide, and depression… no longer leaving me regularly feeling burdened or ashamed. I’ve found peace, despite the struggle – knowing that to end the stigma attached to mental illness, I need to end the stigma that I myself feel towards it.

It’s different though when you look at the history… the past.

It’s an intricate dance, and a balancing of speaking truthfully and openly about your experiences… and using those same things as a crutch – an excuse for your behaviour.

But the most impactful words I’ve heard this year was when a friend told me that it’s okay… and to actually look at my past.

Not as an excuse, or a reason, or way to ‘play the victim’. But as a way of seeing how events in my life formed the way that I think, act, and react to various situations. As a way of understanding the impact that trauma has on the mind, and the ways in which it causes different responses in each unique person and in each unique situation.

For so long I was afraid to say too much. This fear of hurting those who hurt me. And this shame associated with remaining in harmful/toxic situations. But also the shame of still choosing to stay… to fight… to work. I felt unable to speak about the pain, the trauma, and the history… guilty myself for not making different choices… unworthy of acknowledgement of the pain.

I’ve spoken for months now about the trauma and the revelations in my life that have impacted me this year. Things that have shaken me… not just because of the current impact in my life; but because of the impact that they had over the course of a lifetime. But I refused to speak in authenticity. Honesty. Openness. I felt conflicted over the word victim, and the use of my story within my journey – not sure how to find the difference between words like victim, blame, responsibility, honesty, and explanation.

The longer I put it off though, the more urgent it feels to express these things… to include the history within the story of my journey. Because they are a part of who I am, and the struggle that I face on a daily basis. And I believe that we all have things that have deeply impacted us… and the only way to end the stigma against mental health, is to end the stigma surrounding the rest of the storms in our lives. To talk about the un-speakable topics. To share the pain. To express the experiences. To learn to empathize and understand that we all feel grief and trauma differently… and that no single response is more normal than another.

Speaking up and sharing the history and the journey and the experiences and the pain and the success, does not mean that I am living in the past, or that I haven’t done the work to move forward. It doesn’t mean that I hold onto hatred for those who hurt me… or even that the horrendous things that other people did which deeply impacted me, make them bad people.

What it means is that I have accepted it as a part of my own journey… and that I’m no longer afraid or ashamed. I’m no longer trapped inside of the bubble in my head that says that I “can’t” share my story because other people might think “__________” or that it might embarrass, humiliate, or hurt the other party within my story. It means that I am at a place where I can talk, and write, and share about my experiences and the things I’ve felt, and the way that they impacted me and changed my life. The same way that the decisions that I make now are changing my life again.

It means that I no longer see myself as ‘weak’ for not responding the way that I believed I should have. It means that I no longer see myself as ‘weak’ for the impact that my experiences had on my mental health. It means that I can now see two decades worth of trauma that led me to react and behave in ways that I didn't understand. It means that I see it now, and I can openly share about it and speak about it... because it did impact me, and while it isn't an excuse for my reactions, it is an explanation. And with an explanation, comes the ability to heal and to continue to change and head towards healthier behaviours. 

It means that as I continue to write, I will no longer filter the past, the current, or the future experiences that have continued to impact my mental health. It means that going forward, I will continue to work towards full authenticity in the sharing of my journey.

It might take me time, but I will learn to let go of the shame and write in full authenticity as I go forward from here.

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