Are Infidelity and Addiction Abusive to Loved Ones?

hello everyone my name is kristen snowden i'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in the state of california and this is a once monthly webinar through sex and relationshiphealing.com where we talk about all things related to relationships with a special focus on relationship crises and how to navigate out of those so today we're going to be focusing in on is infidelity and sex addiction and engaging in addictive behavior emotionally abusive is just the act in and of itself abusive and um so i think this can be informational for both the acting out person i'm going to call them the betrayer and the person who has loved and been in relationship with someone who's kind of been leading a double life and i'm going to call them the betrayed partner because again i try to be comprehensive so i want to save space for the fact that infidelity uh is betrayal trauma and then infidelity through sex addictive sex addiction behaviors is betrayal trauma and then just even abusing substances and leading a second life and secretly using finances to support that habit can also create betrayal trauma so i kind of want to honor all those different categories so i'm going to use general descriptors but the acts all of those types of behaviors infidelity addiction sex addiction porn use etc can be some of the most devastating destructive experiences one experiences in their life it truly turns their lives upside down and unfortunately oftentimes when we walk into treatment or seek out professional help from those who aren't properly trained and experienced in this subject matter there will be a real quick focus and a hyper focus on stopping that behavior right stop the affair um stop the the sexual acting out of the porn use the problematic use um behaviors stop the substance abuse but there is seldom a focus on helping the betrayer and the trade partner heal from the fact that there has been months or years of emotional abuse going on and there has to be um time spent on that subject because it's one of many facets and many layers that exist when a relationship dyad or just even a single person in a relationship experiences betrayal trauma from infidelity addiction sex addiction etc um the path toward healing a relationship or healing from this betrayal trauma cannot and should not just have a focus on just stopping that behavior right stopping the substance abuse stopping the affair stopping the sexual acting out um that is not enough to make a betrayed partner feel safe again and not enough to repair the damage that's been done in the relationship uh because there is always an element of lying sneaking around gaslighting living a double life and those things in and of themselves are the emotionally abusive components to them and so that has to be part of the healing process i feel like dr rob weiss was one of the pioneers in helping healing couples and addicts understand this he has his own words um you know and he helped me understand that clinically but another clinician that i think has done an interesting job of talking and focusing on this specific subject is dr omar manwalla and he uses all his own different terms but it's you know kind of the same stuff that we talk about which he uses the word integrity abuse disorder um so we're gonna talk right now about how these types of engagements these relational crises infidelity addiction discovering addiction affairs how they are also emotionally abusive and help you develop a language for why what's going on in the relationship that's causing that abuse and that trauma to develop the complex trauma that's being developed because of those behaviors and the hope is that you will be able to take this language into your therapy sessions your individual therapy sessions your couple's therapy sessions and actually work towards effective healing to transcend it so let's start out by giving you some basic definitions so betrayal trauma betrayal trauma is generally defined as the trauma and that's remember that's when you're anytime your nervous system gets overwhelmed and actually your brain starts wiring and rewiring around a significant event or multiple events around you it affects the way you engage in relationships it's the way your body wires and reacts to things so it's the trauma that you experience when a trusted loved one or person in your life betrays you by you know going back on explicit or implicit promises commitments engaging in lying behavior are behaving in ways that are just shocking that you did not know that that was their personality what they do who they are um a definition of infidelity is a violation of a couple's emotional or sexual exclusivity or their vows and commitments to one another so if fidelity is faithfulness to a person duty or commitment etc or pledge to someone or a belief infidelity is the opposite of that substance addiction substance abuse addiction um substance abuse disorder whatever the term is you feel comfortable with is excessive use of psychoactive drugs such as alcohol pain medications any kind of illegal drugs that leads to physical social relational or emotional harm sex addiction again there's multiple ways to define that but it's essentially any kind of problematic sexual behavior that comes it can manifest in multiple ways chronic affairs outside of marriage or monogamous relationship um seeking out massage parlors prostitutes problematic or chronic uh pornography use and using finances to support all these habits legal sexual behaviors dangerous behaviors and and these behaviors lead to physical danger relational problems and emotional harm to not just yourself but to those that you love then there's the discussion of what's physical abuse versus emotional abuse because this is the hang up and um dr omar manuela discusses that that sometimes unless we have cuts and bruises on us you know we have a really hard time understanding what's intangible those emotional wounds the the complex trauma is not visible on the outside we usually can't see it so we have a hard time conceptualizing it so we often can point out physical abuse which is defined by any kind of non-accidental physical physical injury inflicted by one person to another right we can sometimes be like yeah that's inappropriate you know you don't touch you don't hit you don't um do physical you know you don't cut harm strangles things like that but we have a hard time knowing that there's those inside um scars and damage that's done through emotional abuse which is any kind of non-physical behavior that inflicts emotional or psychological harm to another it can make that person feel threatened inferior in deep shame degraded confused uncertain and scared um so again as i'm going to be talking about this i'm going to be talking about the betrayer as the person who has engaged in infidelity has engaged in substance use or sexual addiction and the betrayed partner as the person who's in relationship or their loved one is the one engaging in those behaviors just for clarity so how is addiction and infidelity emotionally abusive well many of these acts when you're engaging in fidelity addiction etc they're the following are elements that are prevalent and and present in within the intimate this is what the intimate partner experiences when you are out engaging in fidelity addiction etc so there's pretty much always chronic patterns of lying either directly like to the person's face about where they are who's calling where the money went or by omission you know just avoiding the answers um gaslighting i have lots of webinars on this topic i'm very passionate about it's very it's a very insidious form of emotional abuse and it's psychological manipulation where you make the person believe that their reality so what they're seeing feeling perceiving needing in life is not accurate so uh you know i always use the why are you getting blocked phone calls i don't know maybe you need to stop being so jealous and obsessive and why are you looking at my phone what kind of person looks at someone's phone and maybe you need to become more secure about us instead of looking at my who's my block phone calls but that person's reality is that they're not feeling safe there's there's we have gut instincts and and feelings and we're going to talk about that further but they're trying to seek clarity and safety about some red flags and things that just aren't sitting well with them and instead of that partner being able to sit and validate or help them feel safe they don't want to because they want to hide their secret behavior um they instead just invalidate them make them feel like they're crazy like their gut and their reality is off it's highly abusive other things that we see when people are engaging in infidelity sex addiction and other types of addiction patterns of denying or avoiding responsibility for what they've done and how those acts have impacted their loved ones um patterns of blaming the partner or making it a relationship issue rather than the betrayers own choices the way they've decided to cope with life the way that they've chosen to deal with their emotions or the fact that maybe they're unhappy or they're not getting their needs fed you know dr rob's always been so great about saying when if you're unhappy in a relationship or your job or life you always have choices it doesn't automatically entitle you to go sneak off and have this secret life to manage your uncomfortable feelings or you feel like you're not getting your needs met right we all have choices um we also see patterns of defensiveness so the the betrayer or the addict maybe stonewalling provide little partial disclosures okay yeah i did have feelings for that girl but she's gone now um you know so partial disclosures partial snippets oh yeah maybe i did drink a little bit that the other day but i'm not doing it anymore um using threats or intimidation to shut down their partner you know if you keep checking my phone you keep following me or asking questions i'm not going to want to be with you anymore you know you you like me the way that i am or you get out of here you know this is who i am this is who you marry deal with it patterns of trade partners feeling chronically diminished made to feel like they're crazy or the unhealthy one in the relationship or there's also chronic experiences of sexual rejection or emotional abandonment where they don't understand why why it's so hard and so difficult to engage their partner on an emotional level or suddenly have them kind of make them feel undesirable and rejected um patterns of going back on commitments and promises patterns so even saying okay fine i won't drink anymore okay i won't talk to the affair partner anymore okay fine i'll start going to meetings and then just them stopping not doing it anymore just not following through with commitments and promises but trade partners will often get these gut feelings that something is off that they feel confused by their betrayed partners behaviors but they can't quite put their finger on it they can't put their pieces on you know why is he so explosive why and i don't mean to just say he this is gender neutral but why is he she um explosive why are they being so secretive gosh that person they hang out with is i don't feel safe or comfortable with that what's going on there there's also huge um elements of financial infidelity right so you can experience betrayal trauma just from i thought we had a retirement and here she went off and spent our entire retirement on his or her acting out behaviors um there's also exposure to harm right exposure to being exposed to dangerous people other unhealthy people that were involved in their acting out behaviors and one of the big things that i think dr omar manualla helps people understand is you have to imagine how shocking it is for a betrayed partner not to just find out that their partner was having an affair or engaging in sexual acting out behaviors or substance abuse issues but that it's done in this like whole other world of people and places and activities that the partner was never aware of you know meaning these people they didn't know about in these different places and different characters and they they assume most of these characters if they're engaging in nefarious behaviors with them that they're bad characters right they're very threatening to them because they are helping their partner act out and do nefarious things and so imagine just cracking open this whole other world i mean dr marvin wallace calls it the secret sexual basement of that was there underneath the whole time and we never knew like imagine how abusive in and of that of that just that very thing um how that can create what we call complex trauma it's being exposed to these elements month after month year after year and it it shapes the betrayed partner rewires their brains rewires their nervous system now they find that sometimes the betrayer will own what they're doing right they might get caught and fess up to the sexual acting out to the affair yeah i drink um but it'll often they'll struggle with owning the abuse of peace owning the part about how their behaviors their choices were psychologically and emotionally harmful to their loved ones um one of the reasons why is because the betrayed so i'm sorry the betrayer the addict the person who's kind of acting out just by virtue of their actual coping skills like what their choices are they're deciding instead of doing life transparently and openly and honestly they're going out and kind of seeking pleasure avoiding pain using unhealthy coping skills hiding it in secrecy so just by knowing that about them we know that they are very low have a very low tolerance for uncomfortable emotions you know they can put compartmentalize and put things in the cupboard pretend like they're not there and and they will wrap themselves up in this kind of warm blanket of oh well what he or she doesn't know won't hurt him or her you know it's my body i can do what i want to my body as far as like the the drugs go or i think i've heard a lot oh i give him or her a great life it doesn't matter what i do off on the side um you know he or she doesn't even know so it doesn't matter these are all things that i hear to help them kind of wrap themselves up in this blanket of minimizing rationalizing so they don't have to actually realize that they're capable of doing such infinite harm and damage to the people that they they do love um but they just don't want to know that their behaviors and choices impact them so greatly um but because of that you can see how owning that and knowing it and realizing it is such an important part to the healing process you you really need to know and maybe not right away often right away when you're going to couples therapy it is about cessation of of the habit you know abstinence of the behavior but and that and that's an important step to help create a stability but it won't at some point uh the therapy and the treatment process has to include that emotional psychological abuse that betrayal was willing to engage in to hide and protect his or her behaviors and know and understand how that has rewired his partner um and and be respectful and understanding of that you know empathetic of that empathy building is really important to that healing process now one of the things to note is that when you jump into couples therapy or individual therapy right after discovering this stuff it's really hard to go straight into like oh so you're an emotionally abusive like narcissist that that won't work um usually there has to be an element where the therapist or whoever is engaging with the addict or the betrayer has to build up rapport and trust right they're not gonna receive any information from some person coming off the street calling them an abusive abusive schmuck you know so there has to be some kind of rapport that's established and not only that but a slow um level of tolerance has to be built up where this addict who doesn't normally know what to do with really yucky feelings you know they've been sticking it in a cabinet for quite some time like forever there has to be a slow build up and that's why i think the 12 steps are so great because the 12 steps help that addict slowly um develop a tolerance for uncomfortable feelings engaging others accepting others influence including a higher power um and that sets the stage to start helping them realize you know steps four five six and seven are about this how you're capable of doing some really terrible things you know that we are these perfectly imperfect beings that deserve to be loved but holy geez you're capable of doing a lot of harm if you don't stay on this path towards recovery and not only that empathy building i need to understand what i have done my addict behavior my affair my bad choices how they've impacted my loved ones and so when i see my partner react you know have a really high response it's not like god when are you gonna get over this i haven't drank in a year or god when are you gonna get over this um and they could just be like those blocked phone calls just even though it was just spam and it wasn't i just i get these memories of how many times i asked you and you just made up this diabolical lie and said it straight to my face right understanding how those years and years of emotional abuse complex trauma being developed in your partner can help you with the empathy and help support that partner the trade partner um to heal so because like i said um this is a complex trauma that happens when you're living in years of emotional abuse and it impacts your partner's ability to engage in all relationships not just a relationship with you how the betrayed partner views the world views themselves their self-image their confidence level uh their ability to trust their gut gets completely destroyed and betrayed partners also commonly suffer physical physical manifestations of the years of of confusion and trauma and abuse that occurs right lots of gastrointestinal issues major allergies inflammatory diseases etc um it's really interesting because to jump over to betrayed partners this emotional abuse really deteriorates and erodes their ability to trust their own instincts at one point you know we all have this this second brain this gut instinct where this just this person doesn't feel right i pick up something's off i see this face expression we're all meant and you know talk about this in our fear stress survival responses and other webinars but we are meant to pick up nonverbal cues if something's congruent or not and so and and we're meant to have that validated by our trusted loved ones by our trusted community be like yeah you're right that person is off or yeah you're right i am stressed at work i it's not about you i just this thing's going on at work and that's why i'm having a hard time like we're meant to check in with our environment and say hey this is what's coming up for me is this right but when a betrayer is constantly invalidating you gaslighting you telling you that you're crazy that your gut's wrong it slowly erodes at those really important instincts that you need to survive so at one point you have to choose i either erode my relationship with my intimate partner my teammate you know the person who i have kids with and a life within memories with because then i'll just not believe him or her or i have to erode my instincts and just say okay well maybe i am overreacting god maybe i am maybe i am jealous you're right i i do have really low self-esteem and who would like this like this isn't this isn't lovable i'm i'm lucky here she loves me in the way that i am because god this is like a hot mess right like those are the choices that you eventually have when you live in that type of relationship is you either turn away from the partner because my gut's not matching what he or she is saying to me or you turn your back on your instincts and and that's a whole other world so a lot of the betrayed partner recovery process is about rekindling and reconnecting with those instincts setting up boundaries um working on their own shame to say like oh no i know what my stuff is and this isn't one of them or you know i have the right to ask for needs to be met i i when i pick up on instincts i need to develop my new community who can help validate what i'm feeling and thinking instead of having it invalidated i need to rewire my brain re-engage the world within relationships because the other way i was doing it was was very traumatizing etc etc so when infidelity a sex addiction substance abuse disorder surfaces um and they come into therapy both things have to be discussed we have to own the fact that there was the affair infidelity whatever happened um whatever that person did their acting out behavior their poor coping choices so to speak own the addiction the sex addiction what is problematic what is not working what did they do there that's causing the harm but then the second part has got to be owning how all those behaviors are a part of a chronic abuse disorder um chronic lying dismissing others that person's needs and feelings putting them in harm's way lack of empathy chronic deception minimizing feelings and how those are currently creating or currently feed you know the betrayed partners nervous system and the way they show up in that relationship because often it's the second part that's the most traumatizing and painful part for the betrayed partner so this is not just important for the betrayed partner but it's also as i mentioned before a huge step towards the the betrayer owning what he or she has done what he or she is capable of doing if he goes back to his or her former behaviors and also oftentimes addicts or someone acting out an infidelity they kind of need to be dunked in the shame swamp a little bit of like yeah you can do some pretty horrible things like this is this is what you're capable of before we can kind of go back and build them up and say okay now that you know that this is like the shame that you've been running from and that you thought you couldn't bear we can start developing a shame resiliency practice around it so you don't let it own you and paralyze you to the point that you run out and make these really bad choices and seek out pleasure and distraction and escapism to avoid all these yucky feelings because now we've like had you sit in them and now you know you can survive you know you can lean into your your recovery community you can have your higher power you can pray you can meditate you can eventually maybe lead into your partnership where they you you heal and you show up and you're transparent today and you're honest today so those are all really important parts to the healing process and so i'd encourage you to just um this is the end of my part of the lecture we're going to take some questions but go ahead and email me if you have any other additional questions and let's answer some questions let's do and but email her too but um i had a really great note from someone that was you know connecting with me for some other resources but they talked about having completed the work workshops that you do online with the trade partners and how valuable it was so so for betrayed partners consider um the online workgroups at kristinsnowden.com uh you can find information there so i i refer many betrayers as part of a whole process like so much of what you're you're talking about um um even like because i thought i really like that you said at some point that you can't just start with this stuff because i thought oh added first thing they're going to do is a be defensive b they're gonna go i'm triggered i can't handle the emotional you know i'm gonna go use and you know and then everything continues so so i really do think it is doing the work and i love that you pointed out about the steps because exactly what you said you know the you know we're going to do a searching of fearless memorial inventory and that is about our behaviors and and you know it is how we've impacted and so yeah four through nine is you know we're making events all of that is in can is is one step then the next so it isn't like oh i don't want to write this down because and you've talked about this i don't want to write this down because i'm gonna have to make an amend so i'm just gonna leave it off you know we have to own our stuff um uh you know and and you know i have people that can't handle the title of of addict i don't want to be a sex addict okay let's you know compulsive sexual behavior has been problematic for you problematic whatever sure yeah but chronic infidelity yeah i mean because i think abuser and you know has such a potency you know that like looking at how has this harmed your relationship how is this harm to your partner the shame swamp that the the betrayers go through you know and i'm thinking the betrayal swamp that you know the trauma swamp that that that um you know the trade partners are in and it is a process but you know i think we're both here to tell you there is hope you know and so so continuing the process not giving up you know at the first roadblock you know that that you see um because there are um uh but it's so worth it you know the relationship that you can build you know as as a betrayer as an addict if you're willing to take responsibility you know it it's meaningful oh the other thing is you talked about the lying like i can't tell you how many partners are going like it's the line the lying lying line and so you know the omission or commission um you know both of them are just devastating to partners and you know i don't think you can really repair a relationship if the chronic lying you know continues so i agree i feel like that's one of the biggest errors for therapists who aren't especially trained in this like i've had um an individual client who's partner was a sex addict it manifested in inappropriate work affairs like four or five affairs over and over again lots of other inappropriate things pornography use and he was in recovery but he was like lying about little things right like um not telling the the wife that the sun was smoking pot which again that has nothing to do with their relationship it's but an untrained therapist won't understand why that infuriates her so much and she's so reactive in couples therapy but they don't realize the like chronic and intense and and level of deception that they've had to endure um and i actually like it i like that they're getting upset because that's the appropriate response when someone lies to you it shouldn't be like oh well it was just about this one little thing oh well no it should be infuriating yes and how do we fix that we stop lying and if we lie we turn right back around and say you know what i just said to you or what i neglected to say to you it's just as important what i left out of the of the message is this and so all of that is is critically important so okay so first question i am struggling finding balance between having compassion for my partner and respecting and protecting myself any tips oh yes please share yeah well speaking of gut instincts we will we will naturally feel more compassion towards someone who is showing empathy and compassion themselves like the more devoted that they are to their recovery process and to making amends into not doing this behavior anymore and to changing all these damaging harming behaviors will naturally trigger uh compassion and respect in them so i always when i'm seeing this i'm always wondering how how devoted and committed is your partner to the recovery process um and i think the best protection is if this if you just uncovered this recently you're gonna struggle with compassion respect and protection in your relationship dyad which is why i always encourage group work go to betrayed partners groups um or even if you are the recovering addict go to your recovery you're not going to get much empathy and compassion from your partner right now um because of what's happened so you have to kind of go to your corner and develop community there um and then eventually you can kind of meet in the middle engage in couples therapy and start doing healing from there and they tagged on that it is from a betrayed partner yeah so it's gonna it's gonna be hard if it's the beginning um and you probably need to seek seek out safety and protection in your recovery community your betrayed partner community and other people who are struggling similarly to get your feet on the ground and get your kind of gut instincts back and get that kind of fiery anger it's okay if you lack compassion right now sometimes we need to be angry for a while um and not violent but angry angry but with appropriate ways of letting it out um and you know that's okay yeah and i was thinking uh i i think having compassion for the brokenness of that person great having compassion or buying into manipulation no then absolutely lean into your taking care of you um um i you know i think you having healthy boundaries for you is critically important and what you know getting the support just like chris was saying getting the support for you in the place you're at so so you know kind of kind of setting aside okay i'm going to be compassionate for you because you're a broken person and you know if they're particularly if they're working on being in recovery great you can but kind of watching from a distance you know and really seeing what their actions are doing you know not not just their words so yeah um lean into taking care of you yeah for the next question um is what do you think about this one my former partner said after i stopped chasing him after 12 years and working on myself after he left me i didn't think i would stay with you so he basically was playing me like a cat and mouse and he just enjoyed being chased by women and also his ex is behind my back he just wasted my years and never intended to stay with me i'm 18 months in and still grieving and in shock acting like a boy of 18 just looking for girls this was supposed to be an adult man disgusting yeah i think those are all reasonable feelings to feel um i think as you get farther into the betrayed partner community and you kind of learn how all these different uh addicts the their childhood histories and their their acting out behavior so you start developing some of my clients say i got a phd in the subject that i never meant to get a phd in but i think that the anger starts subsiding and you start just feeling sorry for them um you you realize it comes from dark trauma on their own end and thank god i'm not a part of that anymore and i'm glad that i got off that chaos carousel but yeah right now you're understandably in anger and hurt and abandonment and rejection and i completely validate it all it's not unreasonable and um there is a path out to heal and transcend it i i'm so glad you're doing work on you you you know he's in your past but one of the things i'm looking at is you know dr rob talks about you know when you're dating someone have a posse i bet during those 12 years someone might have been going you know maybe he's not such a great catch you know um and and all that so getting people that are able to tell you truth you know that have you as um the the person that they care about and and helping you navigate who's going to be a good fit for you i think as you heal and eventually you know get back into the dating world you know making sure that you've got people you know your squad your posse whatever you want to call it um but yeah i mean 12 year like 12 you you you just got the phd in you know a bad actor somebody used that the other day and i was like yes you got a phd in a bad actor you know and you won't have to repeat that you know and and you can you can be on a posse for other people so everything we learn we have the ability to turn it to good and use it in a different way heal first you know but um uh you know i'm glad you're here um yeah but i yeah okay and and 18 months in this might be a great time to explore engaging trauma treatment because honestly i mean remember years of chronic emotional abuse and the cat and mouse game as you say wires your brain and your body um and you need there are steps you know i have several webinars on betrayal trauma and betrayal trauma treatment um i just did one last month on the how to unwire these trauma responses in your body emdr somatic experiencing ifs internal family systems etc and they're effective they help so that might help you move out of the grief state okay next question what workbooks would you recommend to help a person specifically including dodging the negative triggers on social media and in the entertainment industry right so i'm assuming again this is a betrayed partner who's who's realizing that just that your partner stopping the behavior isn't helping you feel safe you still see things on social media that trigger you maybe scantily clad women or things in the entertainment industry that you find are triggering to you again i think emdr is a great thing for that because it helps you go down the rabbit hole about the stories that you're telling yourself and maybe childhood trauma as well that are creating that trauma response because really when you think about it the interesting thing about trauma is that person you're seeing on social media is not actually threatening you in any kind of way they're they're on a screen um so usually it's your previous trauma your current trauma and the stories you're telling yourself the shame you've experienced around it that is creating those triggers in you so any kind of work that lets you dive into those things right um the thing i was like is the story i'm telling myself right so when i see that person on social media i feel myself you know get this way okay where is that where am i feeling it in my body um you know so maybe i guess as i'm saying that maybe dbt stuff would be good because dbt i'm sorry dialectical behavior um is a focus on slowing each one of these things down um or even i also like um internal family systems right because um those are kind of honoring all the different parts of yourself so there's a part of you that's like um wants to heal and get through this and transcend it and not have it be so triggering to you then there's a part that sees this this person on social media and you know there's a part that grieves like oh why is our society so focused on sex and sex is such a commodity and there's a part of you that's appropriately angry and upset about the exploitation that occurs because of that um and internal family systems like explores kind of all those facets and gives each one of them a voice because we want to fight back those negative triggers and be like you gross i don't want to react to seeing like a scantily clad woman on social media um but the truth is is like why i mean there is a there is a sadness and a grief about how our society does commoditize sex and it's at the cost of like people giving up their souls for it and so you do you want to lose that element like do you want to lose that part of yourself that acknowledges the sad things that happen and so it's things like that so i hope i answered like dbt dialectical behavioral therapy has some great work books um i think internal family systems has some or at least some books with some workbook stuff in there and um you know i i think it's always interesting to look at why it why am i triggered by that you know like what you know and sometimes like it might trigger you this day and it didn't you know two days ago so what what else is going on for me you know what do i need to do it you know we use hungry angry lonely tired halt you know and i use stress too and so like i always know my bandwidth and i'm going to be more triggered by things you know if i'm you know if i'm too tired if i'm too hungry i'm all of those things so so none of the stuff happens in a vacuum so what what do i need to do um you know to make sure that i'm you know attending to me you know that i'm you know that that i'm in the best space i can be in you know um understanding that if the trigger comes up it's you know that i'm human um so what can i do so so yeah the dbt you know can be very useful um grounding i mean there's lots of things in the moment that just go yep you know that's out there watch my youtube channel we talk about shame we talk about healthy coping skills we talk about the fear trauma stress response and tools to mitigate those responses i mean sex and relationshiphealing.com's content is excellent you don't even necessarily need workbooks sometimes you just need to like get the stuff in your brain listen to the podcast when you're walking uh before you go to bed or i don't know when you wake up in the morning next question um uh hi tammy and kristen i have a question about when my husband comes out of residential therapy uh he tripped up a first couple days of challenging my boundaries but when i held the line which that's important with them he seems to have really accepted that this is the new relationship wholeheartedly my question is is this a honeymoon type thing or can i relax and trust this um i think you could tell yourself that you want to relax and trust us but i don't think your body your body your trauma body keeps score and it ain't gonna let you relax and trust this um you know there's gonna be that waiting for the next shoe to drop um and understandably so like um i think it's great that your partner is leaning into recovery wholeheartedly it also makes sense that he pushes back and this is a new relationship he doesn't like and he's not used to and he's just building up a tolerance for uncomfortable conversations and uncomfortable things and it's going to be five steps forward three steps back six steps forward four steps back and that's usually how it goes which is why i always encourage you to lean into a betrayed partner community because hopefully that will be a more consistent trustable relaxing environment than what's going to be happening at home with your partner during the initial recovery process okay there's one in the chat i'm going to read this one um okay is my spouse still in denial if he says our problems are from our marriage issues and not necessarily the long-term affair and porn use yes he is in denial and and how help them understand it is a pattern of behavior instead of marriage this is what we hear often right oh my my wife is just emotionally reactive like i can't come home and say anything to her because she'll just fly off the handle so i've started to lie to her because she's so emotionally reactive well if we look into the history it's because you've also never been forthcoming and honest and the only way she's ever found out about anything is by digging catching you in a lie being a detective so one issue right you and your choices to lie and sneak around would suddenly not suddenly but solve your marital problem which is the fact that your wife is highly reactive and you know sneaks around or never trusts you right so when you start realizing that how abusive and nefarious and and traumatic these behaviors are you know when you're having a long-term affair when you're sneaking around using porn and then you realize how these things impact your relationship it can make the changes in your relationship that will improve the marriage naturally when you start taking care of the problematic behaviors yeah and i wrote down somewhere i i do this too i like have two pages of notes again but you talk specifically about this the denial the deflecting blaming relationship issues oh it's our relationship no he and kristen start said this earlier dr rob talks about you have choices you know if he was unhappy with the relationship he could have said let's go to marriage counseling instead of using porn and having a long-term affair how is using porn and having a long-term affair helpful to the marriage issues zero it actually makes everything worse and whenever i have clients like what you're describing or displaying for us i say you know let's deal let's triage here right when when people go into the er they deal with the most serious issue that's going to kill you first and so having that chronic affair problematic porn use etc those the first things those are like they're internally bleeding and we need to stop that then you can get into and by the way as part of you engaging in those nefarious behaviors you created this complex trauma experience for your partner and let's understand all of those pieces and start healing the trauma and then down the line we can own the fact that we are very flawed people trying to do relationships and and build a life with another person i can have really imperfect ways of communicating my feelings i can have my own childhood trauma that you know also shows up at places that are inopportune and you know trigger issues in our relationships down the line when we have triaged and dealt with the most immediate issues yeah and i uh i under i unfortunately often hear well you know how do i get my partner to trust me because like that's part of our relationship issue is you know she doesn't trust me and i'm like what why why would she like you've lied for years decades you know and all of a sudden now you know you're you're showing up a little differently and no it's for the partner safety that they need to hold those boundaries of like really show me for over a long period of time i said this the other day to someone too it's like you you know the addict betrayer has known forever that they were you know cheating and lying and all that a partner gets you know hit like you know with a cement truck with like discovery and so so the time frame is completely different but it's really all about actions and so so i'm really sorry um on that particular one but yeah that person does not seem to be willing to step into making things different yet i i hope they change so kristin we're basically out of time we're out of questions so i can't wait to see you again next month and i i know you'll bring more great information so again kristensnowden.com has lots of information including the trade partner groups but you also do a group for men as well so share a little bit about that too well i have a co-ed um i do also i'm certified in brene brown's daring way the daring way and rising strong material so we do work around fears of vulnerability shame work shame resiliency i think it after you come out of the crisis the immediate crisis the triaging i was talking about it can be really substantive um for betrayed partners and anyone else who's been deeply impacted by relationship crises to do this personal work about fears of trusting vulnerability shame stuff etc and please take a minute to go to my website kristensnowden.com i have a lot of free articles and resources and as i mentioned before check out my live workshops and i have some opportunities to work with me one-on-one all their accessible to you on kristensnowden.com feel free to email me at kristensnowdenmft gmail.com and take a minute to subscribe to my youtube channel on kristin snowden and you will get any new videos or anything that comes up along with joining my mailing list if you want to find out about any new workshops or events that are occurring i do some free webinars and some free events all right thank you so much and then thank you for engaging

Channel: Kristin Snowden

Views: 4,133

Keywords: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Gaslighting, Narcissistic abuse, Trauma, Betrayal trauma, Codependency, Divorce, Healing after relationship crisis, Boundaries, Addiction recovery, Twelve steps, Prodependence, Healthy relationships, Shame resiliency, Reconnecting with your instincts and intuition, What to do when your partner is an addict, Finding the right couples therapist, Integrity abuse disorder, Omar Minwalla

Id: XYbDoSGBlJk

Length: 51min 18sec (3078 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 30 2022