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Betrayal is one of the most painful things a couple can face. The shock, the rage, the sleepless nights, and the impossible question: do we stay or do we go? In this episode, couples and sex therapist Inez Cordoba, LICSW, CST responds to an anonymous question from a woman navigating the aftermath of infidelity while raising a new baby with the partner who hurt her.
This episode is not about whether she should have stayed. It's about what staying actually looks like, and what real healing requires from both people.
Inez walks through the full arc of betrayal recovery, from the disorienting crisis phase, through the decision point, into the re-bonding stage and the harder work that comes after: re-individuation, rebuilding trust through separateness, and learning to talk about the past without criticism and contempt destroying what's been rebuilt.
📖 Resources mentioned in this episode:
State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel. Best for making meaning of a past betrayal or understanding infidelity more broadly. Not recommended in the immediate aftermath, when emotions are too raw to intellectualize.
Not Just Friends: Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity by Shirley P. Glass. Inez's go-to recommendation once the initial crisis has stabilized and a couple is ready to start piecing things back together.
Tell Me No Lies by Ellen Bader, Peter Pearson, and Judith D. Schwartz. Best suited for the later stages of recovery, when a couple is looking ahead and asking how to build a relationship robust enough to hold real honesty.
🕐 Episode Chapters:
- 0:00 — Podcast Intro
- 1:10 — Welcome to Episode 2
- 2:15 — Today's Theme: Betrayal
- 3:15 — Recommended Resources
- 8:20 — The Question Revealed
- 10:45 — Opening Your Heart to Possibility
- 14:20 — Stage 1: Crisis Phase
- 17:15 — The Role of Shame
- 19:35 — Avoiding Isolation
- 21:35 — Stage 2: Decision Point
- 24:25 — Moving Forward Together
- 25:45 — The Re-Bonding Phase
- 27:30 — Re-Individuation Work
- 29:50 — The Growth Edge
- 33:45 — Why Separateness Can Build Trust
- 36:20 — Revisiting the Betrayal
- 37:25 — The Four Horsemen in Betrayal
- 39:25 — Mutuality
- 41:30 — The Work for the Betrayed Partner
- 43:10 — Agency vs. Victimhood
- 46:25 — Realistic Timeline for Healing
- 48:35 — Closing Thoughts
- 48:50 — Outro
This episode explores:
- The three phases of betrayal recovery and what each one actually demands of both partners
- Why the crisis phase is so disorienting, and why the person who caused the betrayal often makes things worse by minimizing or deflecting
- How shame isolates the betrayed partner at the exact moment they most need support
- The re-bonding phase: why staying intensely close feels safe but cannot be the final destination
- Why re-individuation (rebuilding a separate sense of self) is where real trust actually begins
- How conflict avoidance contributes to betrayal, and what it looks like to heal that pattern
- The "mutuality" framework from Terry Real, and why both partners have to hold it in order to grow
- Why righteous anger, however justified, can stall the healing process if it never softens
- What a realistic timeline for recovery actually looks like (hint: it's measured in years, not months)
Questions this episode answers:
- Can a relationship actually survive infidelity?
- What are the stages of healing after a betrayal?
- Why does the person who cheated keep getting defensive instead of taking accountability?
- How do you rebuild trust after being lied to?
- What is re-individuation and why does it matter after an affair?
- How long does it take to recover from infidelity?
- What if I'm too angry to do the emotional work my therapist is asking of me?
Have your own question about betrayal, trust, or infidelity? Every betrayal story is different. The more detail you share, the more personalized Inez's insight can be. Submit your anonymous question at welcometobeingalive.com
Welcome to Being Alive is a podcast about the messy, beautiful, and occasionally heartbreaking world of relationships. Couples therapist and certified sex therapist Inez Cordoba, LICSW, CST has spent thousands of hours helping couples and now gets to be in conversation with you. Around here, we're making sense of love, one tangent at a time.
Follow us: Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music @welcometobeingalive on all platforms
Sponsored by the Northampton Center for Couples Therapy, where loving well is an art, and getting there is a science. Visit www.northamptoncouplestherapy.com to learn more.
And a big thank you to From the Woods for our theme song: Apple Bottom Boogaloo. Check out: www.fromthewoodsmusic.com
Creators and Guests
What is Welcome To Being Alive?
A podcast about the messy, beautiful, and occasionally heartbreaking world of relationships. I'm your host, Inez Cordoba, a couples therapist and certified sex therapist. I've spent thousands of hours helping couples and now I get to be in conversation with you. Here's how it works. You send in your anonymous relationship questions, and I'll give you earnest and compassionate insight that's grounded in psychotherapy. Each episode we'll wander through the stories you send in and together make meaning about what it really means to feel alive in your closest relationships.
Hi there. You're listening to Welcome to Being Alive, a podcast about the messy, beautiful, and occasionally heartbreaking world of relationships. I'm your host, Inez Cordoba, a couples therapist and certified sex therapist. I've spent thousands of hours helping couples and now I get to be in conversation with you.
Here's how it works. If you send in your anonymous relationship questions, and I'll give you earnest and compassionate insight that's grounded in psychotherapy. Each episode, we'll wander through the stories you send in and together make meaning about what it really means to feel alive in your closest relationships.
So if you've ever wondered why love feels so complicated or how to make it a little less so, you're in the right place around here, we're making sense of love. One tangent at a time.
Hello, you're listening to Welcome to Being Alive, episode two.
Today our theme will be about betrayal and rebuilding trust.
I'm so glad you're here, and I'm so excited to dive into today's anonymous question with you and unpack all the nuances we can find. I really enjoyed getting to hear your feedback from episode one.
We are certainly learning in real time how to launch podcasts, edit podcasts, and promote podcasts. And all of your support has been so sweet and kind.
Be sure to tell your friends and family about our podcast, subscribe, like, share, all of that really helps us out. Um, you can follow us on all socials, of course.
And be sure to submit your own anonymous questions. we've gotten so many in from the first episode, and I'm going to go through them, I think, just in the order that they arrive. So definitely send them in.
All right, let's get into today's question. So our theme today is Betrayal, which unfortunately is a very common theme in relationships.
Hurt, jealousy, loss of trust. Are we gonna make it? How will we make it? sometimes the question of should I just leave? Or the question of how will I cope with my own shame, if I was the one who was betraying, right? So this is a really intense topic, but it's, not to minimize it at all, but it's so common and so I'm happy to begin that conversation today.
And if you have a similar story or your own version of Betrayal that you want to talk about or hear more perspective on, again, feel free to write in your question. I'm happy to circle back to this subject again and again because each person's story is so nuanced.
Betrayal and moving forward as a couple can follow a particular arc. And I'll try to highlight that arc today.
As always, I like to start with, resources just right off the bat. So if you want a deeper dive, if you wanna know what are good resources that I can begin that are recommended by a therapist. That would be me. I'm happy to tell you what I suggest to clients.
If they come in and they're struggling with a betrayal or an affair or infidelity of some kind of loss of trust, these are the top recommendations.
There are, of course, more resources than this, but it's a starting point. State of affairs, rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel, I think is a great book. However, I don't recommend it if you're in the midst or like the immediate aftermath of a betrayal. I think in that moment the emotions are running so high that to kind of pick apart and rethink from all these different angles, like what does infidelity and what does it mean is maybe not quite the time.
I think it's more so a resource after there's been a lot of time, or if you're trying to make sense of a past portrayal from a formative romantic relationship, and you just wanna think it over in a new way and make a different meaning out of it, or reframe it in some way. or you're kind of curious about betrayal,
Maybe you know someone who's gone through betrayal and you wanna understand it better. It scares you. you know, how could this happen? Could it happen to me? You know, that's when I think about State of Affairs by Esther Perel.
There's a different book called Not Just Friends: Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity by Shirley P. Glass. And that's actually the book that I recommend, again, not in the immediate aftermath. I think in the immediate aftermath it's too hard to intellectualize what's going on because the emotions are so intense. But as things start to settle and you try to piece it back together. I think that that's a great place to begin.
I've met couples who have read it alongside one another and just use that as like a framework, maybe even before reaching out to a couples therapist if they decide to do that to support them through this. But it is something that I think really helps couples talk across their experience, the one who was betrayed and the one who did the betraying, and what their roles are in the aftermath, especially if their plan is to figure out how to stay together, then how do you do the repair work and the shame resilience and the accountability and the trust rebuilding, and the despair and the hope. I suggest that book as a starting place when couples are really ready to start making meaning out of it.
But like I said, in the immediate aftermath, it's a different process, which I'll kind of get into.
There is one more book I'll suggest, and I, think this is in a different phase of the recovery process for a couple, because it's not exactly about infidelity and affair, but it is about trust and how do you build a relationship and a marriage, 'cause it is kind of centered on marriages in particular, but that has a lot of honesty and while not specific to affairs and infidelity.
I think when couples are at that place where they're really looking forward like, okay, we've kind of come out the other side, we've decided to stay together, the initial hurt is not resolved per se, but, the hurt is a size that we can kinda handle at this point. Our lives, our sleep, our appetite aren't as derailed.
You know, there's an equilibrium that couples can find after hurt and betrayal. And at that point when they're really looking forward going, okay, so how now do we protect ourselves from something like this moving forward?
Or we're gonna have to build a really robust relationship that can tolerate honesty. And I say tolerate honesty because. Honesty is hard. Honesty means saying things that may be hard for your partner to hear, that could lead to conflict, right? I mean, one way to think about betrayal is that it comes from a lack of capacity for conflict.
There's all this avoidance that has happened and therefore a betrayal has unfolded, a lie snuck in. That's not the only way to understand it, but that is one way. So later on in the repair process, when you're kind of looking more forward and self protectively, how will we protect ourselves from something like this? Are we ready to look at our relationship and self confront and confront one another about how easy is it for us to be as honest as we can be in our relationship?
Then I would suggest this book, it's called Tell Me No Lies, how to Stop Lying To Your Partner and Yourself in The Four Stages of Marriage, and it's by Ellen Bader and Peter Pearson with Judith D. Schwartz.
It's a really great book, but again. In the immediate aftermath I wouldn't say turn to a book. I don't think it's the moment to intellectualize. I think that's the moment to go to individual therapy. I think that's the moment to survive the intensity of the moment.
But let's dive into the question now.
The thing about this question, I realized I'm feeling quite protective over it. Because there is something about betrayal stories that people project all over it, their fears, their worries, that I would never the, you know, if that happened to me, I would do this.
And we really don't know what we would do in those situations until they happen. And yeah, I think there's a part of me that feels really protective of this person who wrote in the story. Knowing it's quite vulnerable to share, like this is something that happened to me and I'm in the aftermath of, and you know, what do I do?
So I invite you to actually listen to this story really with an open heart setting aside your own judgment, your own experiences or stories that you've heard of betrayal and infidelity, and enter into it with like an open, flexible mind. What does happen and what can a couple do? What if they do wanna get to the other side?
I think what I encounter most often out there in like pop psychology world, it's maybe not even pop psychology world, but just like out there there's like kind of a sense of just leave if you've been betrayed. Just it's so easy. Just like pack up and go.
And I think when couples decide to stick it out. They have to face sort of the social fabric that says, why don't you just leave? And they're making a choice to stay and to figure it out. And I think Esther Perel does a really great job of addressing this. You know, she has this kind of infamous quote at this point. She talks about like "the average person has two or three marriages in their lifetime, but maybe if you're lucky, it'll be with the same person".
And I think she uses that in reference in all sorts of different ways, but I think it can be applied to the idea of a couple trying to survive a huge breach of trust, a betrayal an infidelity. And what if that couple makes it to the other side and. What if they make it to the other side stronger, better trust, better communication. Like what if actually this takes them somewhere better?
In the immediate aftermath of a betrayal? That is really not what the couple wants to talk about. It's too painful to be like, wonder what the silver lining is here. Like all there is is this raw motion.
So I invite you as the listener to try to actually hold that mental space. What if a couple can transform and this becomes a gateway to a stronger, better relationship, not as a way to excuse what happened, like absolutely not. But what if it's a catalyst for something, not just a catalyst for an ending. Sometimes it is, and there's a lot of value in that too. Not discrediting that.
But getting back to the question, this is a couple that is staying together. Um, and they are, from my understanding, at least at the writing of the question are together. So that's why I'm inviting you to sort of hold open as a listener. What does it look like after a betrayal when a couple wants to stay together?
Okay. So I'm really telling you how I want you to think about this, but you can also think about this however you'd like. Of course.
Alright. So they're in an established relationship, which we're defining as like about two years. And by we, I mean that's kind of how my anonymous questionnaire is laid out.
Like I wanna know what phase of relationship people are in and, and so they're defining their relationship as, you know, about two years in. The other thing that feels important to say about this couple, they're heterosexual and it was the woman who wrote in, and she's saying that when she met her partner at the time, he was winding down from a long term relationship, long term meaning he had been in one prior, that was over 10 years, so quite a long relationship.
So the timeline is not quite so specific. So we'll kind of use like vague timelines here. It seems that she understood then for the first year of their relationship, that they were exclusive and that other relationship had long since then ended and passed. He was actually still in that relationship to use her words, ultimately was leading a double life.
And I think she's quoting him when she says that he couldn't bring himself to end that other relationship. Um, later she goes on to describe him as conflict avoidant, and so that might be one way to understand like how he didn't ultimately extract himself from his prior relationship. He just sort of let one begin and the other one not have a true ending.
it seems that that double life went on for about a year before she found out. And at that point she was, uh, pregnant and she states like fast forward, like baby is here. That other relationship is now very much ended, and they're trying to raise the baby together, but there's the aftermath of the betrayal and the lie, of course.
Her main questions that she's asking is like, how do we mend the betrayal and what do we do about the conflict avoidance, like if that's at the root of how this all unfolded. Again, kind of what I started to allude to before of, the question of like, how do we protect ourselves and each other from something like this moving forward when the problem is conflict avoidance. Which in some ways then it's a question of like, how do we get better at conflict?
So those are the themes that I'm holding from her question as we kind of enter into this. I kind of invite you actually to slow down for a minute. Do you find that you are already making any judgments? Do your stories of betrayal start to influence what you think this couple should do?
I'm curious if any of you are thinking, "well, she should have just left him, I would've left". And I, again, I kind of invite you to say, and what if the question is, how does a couple like this move forward? What if they do want to find a way to grow and raise a baby together? What if they want another chance? How would they do that?
That's the question she's asking. And as a couple's therapist and as a sex therapist, that's the role I take on when I meet a couple like this. I don't go in with what are you still doing here, right? No, no, no, no. Of course not.
So with that lens, let's talk about betrayal.
When a betrayal happens, the first thing that goes on is the crisis stage. The crisis stage begins usually with a discovery of the betrayal or the affair or infidelity. It's actually quite rare that the partner who did the betraying sits the other down and says. "You know what? I have some horrible news to tell you. I'm so sorry this thing has happened. I'm filled with regret and remorse, and I need to tell you".
That doesn't happen usually because if the whole double life and infidelity and betrayal unfolded because of a kind of conflict avoidance, the sense of I don't know how to be honest with myself and therefore with you about whatever that led to the infidelity or betrayal.
Then that person doesn't have any skill. They certainly wouldn't have the skill to sit down and tolerate the discomfort, disappointment, anger, rage, hurt, grief that would come up with sitting somebody down face to face and saying like, this is something that has happened. They are avoiding, that's how it's unfolded and had unfolded for so long as it was because they don't have that tolerance.
So it is most likely that the crisis stage begins with a discovery. That discovery phase is well just, of course, painful, just simply from the shock of it. But also what can happen is the person who did the betrayal, because they can't tolerate it, they tend to begin with defensiveness or minimizing or more lies.
They're trying to put the secret back in the box where it came from because they're not ready to cope with the emotional aftermath, right? The whole point of the infidelity and the lie was to avoid dealing with whatever was gonna come up. And now it's here and it is here tenfold.
And the truth is, the more that they defend or minimize, the more hurt and angry the other person becomes. And so there's this polarizing effect too that in their wish to avoid the conflict that is inevitably coming, the more hurt and the more rageful the other person feels because they're like, I, this is not small. And that kind of experience back and forth of one person trying to convince the other, perhaps "it's not a big deal", "I didn't really mean it", "it's not what you think". And the other going, "this is so big, this is so painful". Like, "how do you not see what this is doing to me?"
That is such a painful place to find a couple in, and this is oftentimes where they reach out to a couple's therapist and they are truly in crisis. They're not eating, they're not sleeping. They're struggling to go to work, they're struggling to get through the day to day. The fights that they're having are probably like quite explosive. And I don't even mean, I mean, I suppose it, it absolutely could be, you know explosive in the physical sense, but just emotionally like so painful.
They can often go on for hours. People are really ruminating and going around and around. it's a very disorienting time and that's often the space that I, meet couples in is right there. There is something quite traumatic happening on a biophysiological level for both of them. The amount of adrenaline and cortisol going through each person's body. But especially the betrayed partner who feels like quite shocked, is really quite intense.
There's another thing that happens that's intense to see, and it's the role of shame. Like shame comes in like a wrecking ball right away in the crisis stage. And I worry about that person because what shame can do is isolate us.
And that is a person, if they've just been betrayed, who really should not be alone. They need to be with people, with their community, with their friends and family, with an individual therapist, just like being supported in the immediacy of a traumatic crisis moment. But because of shame, they can start to pull away and isolate. They can be really worried. What if I tell somebody and they try to tell me it's not as big of a deal as I'm making it, and then, all of these kind of painful things happen that compound the trauma for that person, the betrayed partner.
So that's one of the first things I'm looking at, you know, for them is like, are they isolated or are they talking to someone? Do they feel like someone is really grasping the enormity of the pain that they're feeling? And if they're not, then they're gonna isolate. And then the only person they have to turn to, to try to like make meaning out of what has just happened is the person who just betrayed them, which leads to more rumination together and more reenactments of minimizing and not, and that's when you really can catch a couple and they can stay in that crisis phase for like quite a long time.
They're too embarrassed to go to anyone else, and they just kind of are in it together over and over and over and over again.
So at that stage, you're really just trying to help them find their feet. Sometimes those people can turn to books, sometimes intellectualizing can ground some people, but more often than not, they find that they're just like reading book after book or watching YouTube video after YouTube video. Or you know, hopefully not, but maybe ending up on the Reddit threads.
And sometimes they might find something that's like, that's really validating. That sounds like what I'm experiencing. But more often than not because there is a uniqueness to each person's betrayal story, whether or not they're pregnant, like in this case, you know, she was pregnant at the time she found out, or if they have kids or if they're married, or are their finances bound up or did they just start dating or do they have a history of betrayal? And so it hurts doubly bad.
People aren't going to find themselves reflected back in books and stories from other people and that can make people feel worse. And so it's much better to surround yourself with like, who can hold this with me? And sometimes you need that friend who will feel the rage on your behalf and say, I can't believe this happened to you,
like, how dare the other person hurt you in this way? But sometimes that backfires, 'cause sometimes there's too much love and investment to just wanna cut the other person out. And so it can be hard to find a friend who can say, I'm so angry with them, but I'm not gonna sit here and say, pack up your stuff and go, I'm gonna let you make that choice in time and then I'll support you, whatever that choice is.
And it's hard to find those friends, not because they aren't good friends, but because it's such an intense and complicated time. how can people really know what to say and do? Just like friends don't always know what to say, like in moments of intense grief, right?
So I'm always hopeful that someone like that has an individual therapist when I meet them 'cause I'm meeting them as the couple's therapist. But as a couple's therapist, I really see my job as like helping both of them stabilize, but especially the betrayed person.
There is another stage that then begins to unfold. A kind of choice point where there's all this ambivalence of like, "I don't know that I can get over this", "I don't know how we'll rebuild trust". But if someone is pregnant or if the couple has kids or they've been together a really long time, or their lives are really bound up together, then that ambivalence is very real.
Walking away is not easy, and there is a choice point that has to happen, and sometimes that takes a while, which is like this question of do I stay or do I go? Do I believe in our capacity to get to the other side or not? Can I trust this person? Can I love them, and be soft and open with them again? And that choice point just takes a while.
Kerry from Northampton Center for Couples Therapy, who, you know, they sponsor, this podcast, she has this quote that I really love and she uses it in different contexts, but I often think about it in the context of betrayals or when I'm working with a couple, struggling with infidelity, and she says, you know, "it's about running headlong into heartbreak".
Meaning if there is a choice point in a relationship, both things are incredibly painful. They both involve a kind of heartbreak. One is saying goodbye, maybe I had no plans on saying goodbye. I was not interested in a goodbye. There are parts of our life that I want and wanted and wish I can keep, and saying goodbye is so painful.
Or I have to choose to lean in and go through the process of rebuilding trust and repair and take all this emotional risk now knowing that you are someone who's capable of hurting me and that is terrifying.
That is a really, really impossible choice. It takes people some time to be there. I feel that my role as a couples therapist is to kind of help someone make a choice sooner rather than later, because that limbo stage is really just serving to avoid heartbreak, but it's just a elongating the process.
People have to make a choice. Do they need help Saying goodbye and saying, this is too painful. I just can't, and how do we say goodbye with grace? I have worked with those couples, but in the instance of the person who wrote in the question, it's actually about we've, you know, they've made the choice to stay together.
They have a baby now. And so that choice point for them was we're gonna lean in and try to figure out how to rebuild trust. How do we do that? That's the heartbreak we're choosing, which is all of this emotional risk, all of this hope of like, we can work through the parts of us that have become known now.
Loss of trust, conflict avoidance, jealousy. You know, she didn't use the word insecurity, but I can imagine like what insecurities then arise and the like attachment bond between them. And so after the crisis stage, a couple has to make a choice.
In this case, this couple has decided to stay together.
So now I wanna get to the question, right?
They've already made it through the crisis phase. Time has passed. They're not writing in and asking, should I stay or should I leave? They're writing in from a place of having made that choice, we have decided to stay together. How do we do that? How do we move forward? How do we rebuild trust? How do we get out of whatever it is that brought us here, which they really identified as conflict avoidance.
And so let's talk about that kind of couple. It's actually quite courageous and quite brave and quite risky to decide to stay and see what's possible, to really believe in someone's capacity for change, for regret and remorse, and to want to make it right and to use this as a catalyst for personal growth and relational growth. Not that I'm trying to whitewash it and then give it a silver lining and tie it up with a neat bow. I don't necessarily think that people come out of it and go, I'm so glad we went through that. I'm sure they would've rather have found that personal growth without the pain of betrayal.
And yet growth is possible from a place of betrayal. And so it is from that place that this person is writing in, right? They've decided to stay together. They have had their baby, and they want to know where do we go from here?
So something really interesting happens when a couple first decides to stay together. There's like a re bonding experience that happens. There's a call for total transparency. There's a really kind of merging of the two people. It there's this sense of like, the closer we stay together, the safer we'll be, the safer I'll feel. It has an edge of like wanting to look over the other shoulder and just like check in all the time that they're doing right by you when you're not looking.
And for a while that does feel safe and sometimes there's a period of time in which that makes sense for a couple to sort of reestablish a homeostasis and to feel a kind of earnestness and sincerity towards the repair process. And that means spending a lot of quality time together, having a lot of transparency say around phone or emails or text messages.
That phase lasts different amounts of time, but the truth is that can't be the final resting place for a couple. I think when I'm meeting with a couple like this that's decided to stay together and wants to work through their betrayal, I really see my work as helping them get out of that stage 'cause at some point, that's what feels safe, but that's not actually overall the definition of a secure and solid relationship.
That's one that is insecure and is managing by staying deeply tied together, a kind of enmeshment, a kind of codependency, and that cannot be their final resting place. It won't work. They'll suffocate each other trying to be that close together. So I really see my role as helping a couple re individuate and establish safety and trust from that place of being a little bit more separate and managing the anxiety that separateness brings up knowing that separateness before led to lies or avoidance or betrayal or secrets.
That is where the real work actually begins, not at the point of choosing to stay together or re bonding and staying close together. So that is what I imagine for this couple. I don't exactly know what their day-to-day looks like and they are raising a baby, and that certainly brings people together and has them sort of pool their resources and time.
Yet the importance of re individuating and establishing a clear sense of where do I end and you begin. And when I'm not looking over your shoulder or scanning your text messages or checking in with you every hour or two, I trust that you have my back.
That's going to be where a couple needs to head into to really be able to go, yeah, we made it out the other side and we're stronger. We have a skillset we didn't have before. Maybe we didn't realize we needed it or we thought we had it. So that's what I imagine.
That is very terrifying. That is a very terrifying edge to push people towards. It brings up a lot of anxiety. People often want to stay just really closely knit together, but what happens is like the individual gets quite lost, who are the separate friends? Who are the separate communities, the separate hobbies, the things that made each person an individual and also makes the relationships sustainable that each person has a separate identity.
We could do a whole podcast episode just on how betrayal impacts sex, libido, desire. That's not what this person is writing in about, but that certainly impacts desire during a re bonding phase for a couple, they might notice that they have more desire, that is part of re bonding.
However, when couples are too en meshed and too closely knit together, that can really actually suffocate desire. So it's not a sustainable option for a couple. They have to re individuate.
One of the growth edges I end up looking for when I'm working with a couple like this, is that the one who caused the betrayal, they might go through a period of going, you know, whatever the other person wants. I just want them to be happy. I want them to know I'm taking this all very seriously. Like I'm a yes person at this point. Like, oh, do they wanna go to the movies? Yes I do. Oh, do they wanna see my phone? Yeah, no problem.
However, it is that kind of lack of boundaries and lack of sense of self and lack of being in tune with the self that played into the avoidance that led to the secrets and the betrayal.
So while it feels good at the outset that this other person has made themselves very flexible and available and is happy to defer to the person who is hurt as their relationship continues to play out. It actually doesn't provide stability and security. When the person who caused the betrayal can start to say, actually, I was thinking about going out with some friends, instead of heading to that movie with you, or, I actually can't answer your phone call right now, i'm actually gonna head to the gym and then I'll call you on my way home, before I make dinner.
While that feels very scary and painful of like, how are you not available to reassure me and to sort of be right by my side, that separateness of self, of like, oh, you have the capacity to tolerate some friction, some conflict, that ultimately tells me that you could do that outside of me as well. That tells me that you are not a fawner. You are not a people pleaser. You are not afraid of saying no under pressure or under the fear of disappointing someone else.
When I feel where I end and you begin and that you have a sense of self, that is actually what makes me ultimately trust you in the long run in a sustainable way, even though it doesn't feel good in the immediate that you are unavailable to me. Especially if any part of me is still anxious and wanting a kind of reassurance or to know that you're there for me. However, your constant availability to me and your inability to push back on me or to tolerate my disappointment or to have a separate thought than my own constantly tells me you're not trustworthy. If you can't do that with me, how will I know that you can do that with someone else?
So that is the place I'm looking for is actually helping the person who did the betrayal begin to take up more space and be less flexible, begin to have their own opinions and exert them. And that is them actively working on being less conflict avoidant, tolerating a kind of gentle confrontation of like, here is how I'm different than you, and I'm not afraid to say so. And it's actually from there that a couple we will see, oh, this is what it looks like between us. We never maybe actually experienced this because before we were just caught up in a kind of relational dynamic that really required you to be really avoidant and say yes to me, and then say yes to everybody else around you as well. You were totally lost and that boundarylessness, that porousness in you is what led to lies of omission, led to betrayal, led to secrets.
So I hope that I'm making that kind of nuance clear. It's so important to go through a process of re individuating having a separate sense of self. And it's from that place that trust is built, that when I see you as separate from me and standing in your own integrity, including maybe being somehow less available to me, I can now trust in your capacity to do that in other areas of your life.
That is how we have a safe and secure relationship, and a lot of anxiety can come up in that moment, right? The sense of separateness can make me feel like that's where a secret can brew, and I don't like that.
And so that is the tension point that a couple has to navigate to go from, we went through crisis, we went through the decision point of deciding to stay together. We have re-bonded and kept each other very, very close to tolerate all the anxiety, of what that betrayal brought to us. And now we have to re individuate in order to actually transition our relationship into one that resembles a relationship.
Because as long as we stay really close together and have a heightened sense of transparency and seeking a ton of reassurance and looking over each other's shoulders and scanning each other's texts and emails, there is no trust.
And sometimes we can think, well, once I trust you, I won't do those things anymore. But it actually goes the other way. The more that we take risks and it goes well, I build trust. So that is what I'm helping couples do is find like what are those small places in their dynamic that they're willing to begin to individuate and have a separate sense of self and have it go well?
Super important that it goes well. It's so important that the person who caused the betrayal really follow through with being a person of integrity and tolerate disappointment and all the things that scare them about conflict. Be less avoidant. And make separateness safe again. Make that sense of when I'm not with you, I still do right by you.
When I'm not with you, I'm not over there being totally porous in my boundaries, fawning with someone else, being dictated by someone else's whims. I actually was able to say what I needed to say to them and protect you and protect us, and protect our family. So that is the work I would do with a couple like this, like the couple that wrote in.
That is what I would hope for them, that they start to examine ways that they can individuate. But a lot of work has to happen on both sides. Real transformation, no longer being afraid of conflict, no longer being afraid of being different, tolerating disappointment. all of that has to happen.
There's also something else that happens emotionally for a couple in that process of rebuilding trust that I'm scanning for, looking for and wanting to help push them towards and ultimately through, and it's like a, it's a recalibration emotionally that needs to happen. Right?
And I'm really looking for it when they are revisiting and talking about the betrayal itself, not just managing their day to day and reconnecting and renegotiating who they are and how they are with one another in the day to day. But it's what happens when they revisit the past and continue that repair process because there is quite a period of time of revisiting it and making meaning out of it and making sense of it.
But it's how they talk about it that I'm looking to see how does that evolve and change over time? Right? Because at first it's going to be talked about with probably a lot of criticism and judgment and anger and rage, right? That's what happens in a betrayal. There is hurt and there is really righteous anger.
And when we think just about the relational communication skills, let's say from John Gottman, he talks about the four horsemen, right? We're in a regular context of conflict, we're thinking about how important it's to make sure there is no criticism or judgment or contempt and disgust and disdain and stonewalling.
And what is tricky is when there is like betrayal that is so, kind of ripe with a clear sense of right and wrong and judgment and, you know, really kind of appropriate criticism, but that can't be the way the story continues to get talked about, which is really hard to switch over time. How do you revisit hurt and pain without criticism and contempt and shaming the other, right? How long can that conversation be about, you are so selfish. You are so conflict avoidant. What the hell is wrong with you? If you hadn't done this, we wouldn't have had this pain. This is on you and all of the blame that goes in there, right?
And you know, to what extent can that other person hear and tolerate all of the anger and rage and disappointment. Or how often do they kind of fall apart and get defensive or collapse into shame? And you're right, I'm a terrible person. What's wrong with me? Or worse, the defensiveness or the stonewalling? The quietness. The turning away. The getting up and leaving because they can't tolerate any more criticism. Right?
It's how the event itself gets talked about. That does need to shift. And I think as you hear it shift, that is also a sign that trust is being rebuilt because when they talk about it doesn't have the same potency of rage. And that takes a long time. It takes a long time to get to that place.
There is another couple's therapist and writer and thinker out there, Terry Real, he has a lot of important points in his work, but one of the things I really think about is how he talks about mutuality, right? And when one person breaks mutuality and moves towards a stance of grandiosity, the sense of like, I'm right, you are wrong.
Or what happens when someone breaks mutuality and goes in the other direction towards shame? I'm wrong. You are right. Like, what's so wrong with me? Why are you even with me?
When a couple. Kind of accidentally or with purpose, steps into those internal states of grandiosity and or shame they have broken their mutuality, and that's what I wanna help a couple get into as they talk about a betrayal moment, is can they maintain mutuality? Can they talk about the hurt, the pain, the wish for it to feel better from a place of mutuality without so much criticism and blame and judgment and disgust. Can there be a sense of vulnerability about one's hurt or the insecurities that it brings up? Can the other person tolerate that disappointment and vulnerability and stay there without disappearing into shame?
That is such an important place for a couple to get to, and it takes a very, very long time. Even if a couple can find some sort of status quo one year, two years past when they go back to that point, if the pain is so potent when they revisit the old story, that they go right back in to criticism or judgment.
And they can't hold onto that mutuality. That tells me that there's still more growth to be done there. There is like another chapter to the story that they haven't finished unpacking, and that recalibration emotionally really takes both people. Both people have to maintain the tension of mutuality and not disappear up towards grandiosity or down towards shame.
And so it really requires both people to hold that sense of mutuality. If one person is trying but the other keeps breaking it, then they're not staying in equilibrium. It really requires effort on both sides and sometimes what I've seen happen is the person who was betrayed really feels this like. Again, like righteous sense of why do I have to do the work? Why do I have to self-regulate and tolerate this pain and show up as my best self when this other person didn't?
It comes from a very self-protective place, but the sense of like, I essentially like want to act out. I want to be angry. I feel safer in my anger. I don't want to soften and therefore open us up to growth, is, is essentially what happens. It stalls the growth, the anger, the rage becomes so self-protective.
But ultimately it's about helping the person who was betrayed access their agency again. You know, for how many times I can think about moments and sessions with couples where I invite the person who's been betrayed to stay in mutuality, to harness, or rather, to manage the urgency and richness of their rage and to stay in a softer place with their anger, some more vulnerable place. And having them be angry with me and go, how dare you ask me to do more work.
There's this sense of like, what do you mean I need to self-regulate? What do you mean I need to do emotional labor? I never asked for this. I didn't bring this upon myself. It happened to me. Why do I have to do the work?
And I, that is the moment for me to really, with so much compassion and incredible empathy, turn to them and say, but I want you to feel your sense of agency. It's not that I think this is your fault and that is why I'm asking you to do more work here. I'm actually, really do believe that if you tapped into some sense of agency right here in this present moment, when you revisit the past, you will feel more like yourself, right?
Because when that moment goes on too long and I'm thinking, you know, multiple years past a betrayal, and that anger is still so righteous, what I see happen after the kind of big blowout argument when they revisit the past is how then shame creeps in for them. This sense of, you can tell that they don't like how they're showing up as a partner, that they're showing up mean and callous and cold and I, you can tell that they don't want to, they felt so self-protective. So under attack, revisiting the hurt that it was very difficult for them to stay soft and open and loving.
It feels counterintuitive inside. It's like, why would I be loving towards the person that hurt me? And yet, at the same time, they have made the choice to stay. And they're saying that they wanna rebuild trust, and therefore they're saying, I want a relationship based in mutuality. And I want that. And I want that now because actually if we had that now, I would actually feel safer.
In order to get that, they have to show up as the partner they would like to be. Is it a loving partner? Is it a kind partner? Is it someone who can hear the hard things without disappearing into their own anxiety?
All of that requires emotional labor. And it is a huge ask to make of the person who has been betrayed, but without their participation in the growth, the growth cannot happen.
And at times I've seen when then the person who did the betraying decides to leave. They have a lot of remorse and they have a lot of regret, and they actually are very desirous of the opportunity for growth and change.
But if their partner now can't access the growth to go there with them, they go, then I don't know that I could stay in a relationship where I am perpetually shamed, especially if I am trying to hold my end of this bargain of mutuality and take accountability for what I've done wrong.
And that feels really complicated and that maybe I shouldn't even go there 'cause that's not what is happening in this partnership where the person who has done the betrayal is writing in saying, you know, will my partner ever forgive me? What if they can't? Should I stay or should I go? Like, that becomes a whole other dynamic where the, it gets revisited again. Like the question of should I stay or should I go?
What if they never forgive me? What if I want to be seen for my growth and they can't see me and my growth, they can only see me through the lens of my gigantic, huge, horrible mistake that I want to make amends for, that I've been trying to make amends for.
I've perhaps taken us into another dimension, but if that is something that you relate to write in, because we should explore that altogether.
So really I just wanted to speak to another area of growth and like a place I'm looking to help a couple shift around, which is not just how they manage their day to day together and re individuate, but also, how they talk about the betrayal itself when they revisit it, because it will come up and it does come up.
Whether it comes up every six months or every six weeks, it comes up until it's really repaired. When they've reached that state of being able to talk about it with mutuality. That is really when I see that a couple is like quote unquote on the other side of something or in a new chapter.
So that is something else to think about. You know, this person who wrote in, I don't know what it's like when they talk about the past. Is it still full of rage? Is it still full of hurt? Is there moments of vulnerability? Is there defensiveness? Is there accountability? Is there disappearing into shame or is there a tolerance? And being able to offer comfort and reassurance and self-reflection.
It takes time, honestly. Years, you know, just to put a little timeframe on what does it look like to get past betrayal. Years. Years, right? You can't really put a time on these things, but when people ask me that in sessions, I'll say minimum a year. Minimum. Minimum. And honestly, probably more.
That can be a real wake up call for people. Anybody who thinks we can get over this in just a couple months, no. For it to be really substantial, meaningful, transformational work. Know that you're in it for the long haul, and so you decide, is this relationship worth it to do all that work?
And I think when people have kids, when people have blended finances, when they're married, when their lives are really bound up together, they have a history. They might be more likely to say, yeah, it's worth it. I want to, I wanna do that work. And other people may decide to leave and that's also okay, actually, you know, I to just highlight that like, and it's okay to say the work is too much. I don't want to, it's too painful, it's too long.
So if you're in a similar situation, write in. The more details you write in, the more I can try to answer.
Alright. I could keep going. There's so much to say about this topic, but I'll leave it there for you and I look forward to seeing you in episode three.
Thank you so much for listening. Bye guys.
Thank you for listening to Welcome to Being Alive. I'm your host, Inez Cordoba. I hope today gave you something to think about or maybe even try out in your own love life. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow the show, leave a review or share it with friends.
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Until next time, remember, being alive means loving learning, and sometimes just surviving together. Thanks guys.