Tools for Processing Grief and Loss after Betrayal

I'm really excited to introduce Kristen Snowden uh she's a therapist a coach and an author of Life Anonymous it's basically the 12-step book for everybody she has the most amazing YouTube channel um which has videos on anything that you guys are thinking about she covers it and she explains it in perfect sense and I'd love her and she also does um workshops and Bennett you're laughing at me workshop's been a brown Workshop I took it with her it was amazing um so I'm gonna pass it over to Kristen and she's going to tell you the topic that she's going to cover today hi everyone thank you that was a very generous introduction I appreciate it um today we're going to talk about one of the most what I call the Heavy Hitters there's a couple of Heavy Hitters when we're dealing with betrayed partners and kind of the falling out the stuff that they have to process and heal from and get through to get to the other side I'm going to talk about grief loss and the process the kind of sometimes inconceivable process of moving towards forgiveness um this is one of the three Heavy Hitters like I said that I find universally present in every betrayed partner's Journey um the first most common thing is obviously the trauma part the Betrayal trauma it's understanding that being betrayed by your partners addiction and Fidelity um emotional manipulation line Etc is indeed received in your body as trauma a second piece is shame so as many of you say often I understand that the attic has shame and that's what perpetuates the cycle but every person who has a desire to be loved and connected with the community and seeks approval or validation from other humans around you as long as you have that drive and desire you will also have an equal opposing Force always present that's called Shame and it's that story that little creeping annoying story we say in our head that's saying am I not enough is this too annoying too much talks too much has too many emotions feels too much do I have value do I have worth am I perceived as valuable to other people so there's trauma and shame and then this subject that we're talking about which is grief and loss now grief and loss occurs anytime there is Amy felt loss that exists it can be very very real and tangible like you lost a loved one there was a breakup but many of you who've discovered your partner's betrayal um and might still be in the relationship there is still a great deal of grieving and feelings of loss and longing that you're going through so let me just give you some um definitions grief and loss occurs when there's any kind of sense of loss something that we knew we loved we counted on we believed in is now gone and we feel an uncertainty about how to move forward in this new reality without this one thing or multiple things um why we have to talk about grief and loss when we're talking about our journey towards betrayal trauma healing is that if this loss isn't honored given the attention that it's due that gaping hole inside you that was created by the lost and longing will just grow larger the problem that I find with grief is that it's such a messy emotion so many of us grieve very differently um a family system could lose a person one person inside the family system and every single person who knew him or her would grieve and respond differently so the process is very unique and we tend to judge we put a lot of judgment around how one should respond you know an ongoing joke although it's not funny in the therapy world is that um for the diagnosis of bereavement which is grief uh you're allowed three months to be sad after you lose something and then it like transitions into like well you're just depressed and that is kind of a perfect symptom of the way our particular society handles messy emotions we want to slap a timetable on it throw some oh these are the symptoms you should be showing in this way and this pathway you're doing it the right way you're doing it the wrong way um can't you just real you know we throw platitudes at people uh you know there's a silver lining just you know deal with it it's not as bad as fill in the blank um and that is the unfortunate way that much of society handles grief and loss so as you can imagine not only are all of you who are dealing with betrayal trauma of these heinous acts that your partner did unbeknownst to you there's not just this like fear of telling people what your partner was capable of doing or being but there's this extreme hesitation to be open and honest and vulnerable about the losses that you're experiencing but they are so very real um and they have to be acknowledged and shared with other people we'll be talking about that more soon so the other day um in one of my betrayal trauma betrayed Partners groups I was running a grief group and they all shared some lists of some things that they are grieving that they feel like they lost due to their partner's betrayal and here were just some of the themes of loss of Safety and Security in so many facets and areas of their life from their relationship with their partner to their relationship with everybody else their role in relationship as a parent as an employee as an employer uh their Financial Security and their fear so loss of safety of fear of when is this going to happen again you know if my my partner's always struggling with addiction this this dealing with the fact that I can never just assume that he or she is going to stay on the straight and narrow there's grief over the loss of their instincts and intuition due to being lied to manipulated gaslighted um kind of told that it's pitch black outside when they're looking at the sun and they know there's sunlight and that there there's something that just doesn't make sense loss of their memories of of how they the framework of the way they viewed their memories are now muddied and soiled and ruined so memories of how they thought their family was what um their partner was loss of confidence in themselves in their own decision-making process but also confidence in the way they look um in their sexuality there's a lot of abuse and shame in their physical bodies and and sex due to the nature of the Betrayal trauma loss of their ability to enjoy things that used to bring joy so there was a lot of people talking about you know Mother's Day has now been soiled our anniversary because he or she was acting out at various anniversaries um things that used to bring me joy are holidays the holiday season is upon us and many of you are in a current state of grief of what you thought holidays meant to you but then you've now found out that your partner was acting out during holidays sneaking around maybe gifts that he or she bought were also bought for a fair Partners Etc music loss of joy and music or shows or travel locations restaurants because they are now associated with your partners acting out behaviors or maybe some disclosures that you've gotten loss of what's normal normal like what do relationships look relationships look like I don't even remember what I look like when before I found everything out I don't remember what it felt like to feel normal um what should a partner be like what does love look like and feel like how am I perceived by others how do I perceive myself there's loss of that orientation and then the general just loss of hopes and dreams of what you thought your life would look like um what you thought your relationship would look like what you thought your later years in life would look like and then obviously if there's there's divorce or deciding to separate there's that true loss too of the marital unit the family unit and needing to kind of reinvent uh holidays and the idea of what family looks like we have to go through this messy messy process of identifying grief and loss and kind of speaking it and owning it um because you have to eventually later on not now but make meaning about all of it on your own as you write these things down acknowledge them speak them to healthy safe Witnesses therapists or Community friends that understand what you're going through slowly but surely that story kind of of loss kind of becomes absorbed into you right it's not like you feel like it's an environment that's swallowing you whole all that loss and grief and disorientation but it's just a part of your story not all of you a part of your identity but not all of you and you get it absorbed into the rest of you so it never goes away the process of grief and lost healing is similar to a lot of the healing process with like shame and Trauma which is it's all about integration it's all about acknowledging that it does indeed exist this is what you're going through um and that it needs to be kind of absorbed into the rest of your story let me help you understand that by saying your brain is like a Bento Box it likes things to be organized and if you don't identify that with your prefrontal cortex your more executive functioning systems it will pick out random details and tell you what is good and bad and wrong and right so you have to take the time to say okay these are the things that I'm grieving this is what I'm struggling with name it I always encourage people to write it down share it um because similar to the grief and loss healing process um or I should say it's similar to the trauma healing process and that you have to own what's happening you know what has happened what's currently happening there has to be a process where you go through it you own it you speak it you share it someone who's witnessing it where you can feel safe you can do it in a way where it's safe not scary not fully overwhelming you and that usually happens with doing it in a safe group having it validated slowly going through the trauma or the grief and loss and then usually doing some kind of down regulation process so deep breathing slowing down I'm safe today other people's safe eye contact and body language and energy helps down regulate if you're doing it through a trauma experience there'd be like EMDR down regulation somatic experiencing done regulation these are all ways to calm your body down and it's important to own these tragedies grief loss trauma shame stories and um the more you go through them the more they lose their power and the strength and the of the pain and suffering associated with those stories diminish over time and then the big thing that has to happen in the end is that there has to be a new story created a story of empowerment a new narrative around it a new Association um so for some people it can be and this is down the line it might not be for you today or a year from now that um I hear a lot of women say I'm so sad that this has happened I'm devastated I now have a PhD in sex addiction and betrayal trauma that I never ever wish I knew anything about but I do and now I can use my stories what I've learned to help and support other people or I never meant to be a part of of this group of women or men who've struggled in this way but I have met some incredibly strong people um there's a great profound loyalty and connection and Community with these people who who have struggled similar to me and we've been able to show up for each other so those are all ways that you can never justify or wrap your brain around what's happened to you like that's never okay the way you've been victimized and harmed um but you can make meaning around the way that it's like and now I know what's happening and so I'm living in truth and so I know now what gaslighting looks like in manipulation and I will never be exploited again and I didn't realize that I didn't know how to hold boundaries or I didn't realize I had to or what those look like and now I do and I'm now working towards those things so it's just narratives like that and the final part is that if your goal is to work towards forgiveness you know I put an emphasis on choice you get to choose to move towards forgiveness um because sometimes you're just not there and that's okay in order for the Forgiveness to happen you have to first fully move through the grief and all the loss of the hopes and dreams and the trust and the formal reality that you had you once had that all has to be fully mourned before you can forgive and move into this new reality for you've absorbed this new framework into your heart and soul and then you can view your partner in a different way so these are just a few um things that I want you to remember about grief and loss that just little pointers to recall um for yourself or just keep in mind we need to fight the urge to compare losses so perhaps when you're sitting in the community and you hear someone's story um that doesn't seem that bad um you have to fight the urge we we as humans like to really just pick through similarities and dissimilarities and that's just kind of the way our brain works but we have to fight the urge to do that because someone's own loss is always their greatest version of loss right my loss is my worst loss and so you can't compare losses and levels of grief the process of grief right you guys have all heard it if you've heard um the um not David Kessler but the kubleroth is the dabda right the depression anger bargaining um denial and acceptance that is not chronological it's not linear it doesn't happen all in the same way it up down moved around it's very scattered and there's not necessarily a beginning middle and into grief it's constantly Dynamic and changing as you change so the best example I could think of was when my mom died there was a loss of losing her right there was a process of needing to come to terms with she is not on this Earth anymore and all those things that meant and then as I became a mom I had to go through other grief and loss processes around being a mom without my mom right so maybe I had processed that I lost her and she wasn't in my life but then something new and dynamic interrupted that grieving process and then I had to grieve another dimension of the grief so that's the best way I can describe the fact that grief and loss is is dynamic um Elizabeth Cooper Roth and another man who studies at David Kessler he's found that acceptance is not enough right so that was the fifth stage I've accepted I've come to terms with it um that you have to again that it's that story of empowerment the meaning making um finding meaning at the end of it that helps people truly move through the grief I have here that Hearts stay broken I want to give you all permission to still have broken hearts to have maybe come to terms with this new life to come to terms with the fact that this is like your new reality this is who your partner is this is who you are this is where you are in recovery or lack thereof and your heart can still be broken and it's okay to give yourself Grace on that that it's just absorbed as part of your story it's maybe you don't say hi my name's Kristen and I'm heartbroken every freaking day but it's like I have a part of me that is walking around and existing all day with a broken heart you know the people who've lost the most will say you know you don't ever ever get over it it doesn't like heal up like a scab where you don't like see it and know it's there it's you walk around it's still a wound it's still broken and it's still there's still pain and hurt around it but you've just absorbed it into the rest of you right it's that integration I need to have it just integrated into my story so I don't feel like it's out Beyond me and I continue to feel so powerless around it and I've lost choice and context and connection because of it something that's really important too that David Kessler says is that grief must be witnessed so for all of you who are going through this process and you've not shared your story with anyone I'd really encourage you to see if there's some kind of grief group or somewhere that you can join um because David Kessler said you know each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprint but what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve they share a need for their grief to be witnessed that does not mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them you'll do that on your own the need is for someone to just be fully present to the magnitude of the loss without trying to point out that there's some kind of silver lining and I've said this before but don't try to judge other people's grading processes it's different it's not linear don't judge it he says judgment demands punishment which I really love that that if we're the more we judge something that means we have to kind of punish that person for not meeting that expectation or we punish ourselves for not meeting that expectation of how we're supposed to be performing um so remember when you're trying to make meaning from the grief that you you never bypass the pain um you have to let the pain happen if you can't feel it then you can't heal it um there doesn't have to be meaning in the loss or death or discovery of the Betrayal but it's just more about focusing on how you respond to it or how again you've kind of created new narratives new associations new framework in spite of it everything doesn't have to happen for a reason you know sometimes that's very upsetting for people to hear that sentence and that's okay um there's no gratitude that could really be found in that extreme loss but there might be gratitude about what you learned from it the support you got as a consequence of it the ability for you to have a more Dynamic sense of empathy and compassion because you've been through so much suffering and struggle and humiliation Etc uh so I am going to offer you all a um betrayal trauma grief and loss journaling assignment so to speak um if you want it all written down what you can do is you can go ahead and email me put it in the chat what my email is Kristen Snowden mft gmail.com and I'll send it to you um in written format but for now I'll just talk it out to you remember when doing this grief work it's like doing trauma and shame work this is these are very very visceral visceral experiences that can and will overwhelm your nervous system so I always encourage you to do this work with the help and support of mental health therapists supportive healthy people um and take breaks if you need to give yourself permission to dip your toe in it walk away do it again and it's it's not easy work to do um so let's all talk out the Betrayal trauma grief loss Journal topics as you explore your relationship with your primary partner the addiction you've uncovered the Betrayal trauma you've experienced and your path toward healing and Recovery please journal on the following topics what do you feel has been taken from you due to this betrayal how have you and your loved ones been harmed by this discovery how do you feel like you've been manipulated at times abused at times what hopes and dreams have been ended or broken or shattered because of this what kind of fears do you find that you have now that you didn't have before now look into the relationship and explore the following what are you realizing are your partners limitations what are you realizing are your limitations in this process and if when or ever you're ready to move towards the acceptance phase many of you won't be there and that's okay if you were to move through the grief what would you feel like you would have to unstick from right so there's this really focus on internally exploring what do I get stuck on things that just keep looping in my head stories I tell myself memories what are you getting stuck on that would have to be processed through this dream this idea a reality a formal reality or framework that no longer exists but you're having a hard time letting go of that um a way that you wanted to be perceived by other people um I know when I've gone through crisis I've wanted to be perceived as very emotionally stable and you know just able to make really good choices and good coping skills and I've had to let go of those stories that when stuff gets bad I don't handle it as gracefully and beautifully as I'd like to and I have to mourn the loss of not being the person right let go of the judgment of what an emotionally unstable person or someone who's emotionally dysregulated looks like um would you have to let go of what you thought your life or relationship would look like is there would you have to let go of an idea of the role you thought your partner would play in your life now turn your focus towards forgiveness what does forgiveness even mean to you what would it even look like if you've forgave yourself forgave another person forgave your partner what exactly do you even need to forget what are the things that you have to forgive yourself for others who what why get very specific and then focus in on what is your historical experience with forgiveness have you watched other people have major conflict and someone had to forgive the other have you watched it in like other relationships being role modeled for you have you had to forgive things in your life have you struggled with it when you watch shows about forgiveness or hear stories about forgiveness what is your experience with those and again spend some time with this journaling experience taking note of your stuck points stuff that you just keep getting stuck on that you find yourself continuously asking or being confused about or needing more time around or just feeling so angry you're just not gonna be able to push through this particular thing things that are not sitting well with you and while you have all those visceral experiences going on in your body yeah are you able to coincidentally hold space for things that you might also feel grateful for this is hard because this literally is brain splitting for your brain we are so good at focusing on our pain and our loss and our trauma and we put it foremost in our brain because you know good stuff doesn't tend to kill us so our brain is wired to keep us safe and it wants us to pay attention to bad stuff that's what's going to kill us first it's a really good exercise while you're processing grief and loss and pain to see if you can also kind of crack open your brain and heart to hold space for some gratitude not even in the same area gratitude that the Sun's shining that um maybe I do have Financial Security even though I have no other types of security uh maybe help children job the holidays I don't know but can you work on kind of splitting your brain to hold space for the grief and loss and pain but also gratitude we have to kind of work on building up that muscle of of two extreme dichotomies and I'm here to listen to um any other comments and questions that you have so I'm going to start with some questions on the Q a feel free to type it in and the first question is how can I forgive him when he keeps making new wounds for me and um that would be pretty hard that's the same thing that I say for clients about working through trauma it's hard for me to do trauma heal trauma help it be reprocessed and and kind of packed away into a you know integrated part of my story when it continues to be cracked open I'm re-traumatized it'd be hard to get someone to feel safe when they're returning to a domestically violent home or home where there's still uh discoveries or disclosures going on trickle disclosures and uncovering things more lies that's that's not usually something that can come to be um you can always do practices of forgiveness on maybe yourself your expectations what you hope to be Etc next question is is there a better time in this journey is there a better time in this journey to work on forgiveness um yeah when you hopefully will be moving away from the active instability right so the active phases of trauma abuse neglect um lies addictive behavior manipulation and into a space where either you've created your own stability because maybe your addict didn't want to move to recovery um or you as a couple move to a more stable place where he or she is more in recovery and um you can start processing with that person the grief and the loss right um if you pay attention to some of the recovery processes they'll be uh impact letters and restitution letters etc those are processes of moving towards forgiveness and someone mentioned I wanted to say thank you I wrote my intention today as I give myself permission and you use that word many times I feel gratitude for that message good there is a lot of permission that you have to give and I think one of the biggest ones is permission for the messiness and for it to not be linear so meaning that it's not there's no beginning and end to it you will feel like you have worked towards forgiveness and grief and then something else will crack it open and you will sometimes feel more despair that you're still not over something um and and that'll be almost as heartbreaking as the grief and loss itself and I just want to give yours give yourself permission to like oh yeah this is how it's supposed to happen this is the journey the more I judge it the more I push back on it the worse it's going to be so I just okay I'm here now what do I need to do to feel safe to forgive to move what I need what do I need to acknowledge I'm struggling with I'm grieving my healing and grief work have been interrupted because my husband had a heart attack on December 2nd very sorry and then had a quadruple bypass surgery so yes another crisis obviously I have to put my impact letter work on hold so that he can heal and doesn't have a high degree yeah so he's not exposed to being upset at this time and affect his health how do I move through impact grief under these conditions this is the kind of stuff that we're dealing with right um like Health crises matched on top of emotional and addiction crises it would probably be similar to again if there was some kind of uh you know emotional impasse that he was coming to he's obviously under a lot of physical um struggles so yes maybe doctors are encouraging you to not put him through some kind of stress I would want to check in with doctors though and therapists and professionals and just kind of check in with how long that healing process is gonna be and check in with yourself your nervous system can can you handle putting this on hold with him but maybe do this processing and prepare these letters and speak them out with the witonglin community or if you do 12-step recovery groups with or your therapist you don't necessarily have to put your work on hold because your partner needs to take like a mental health and physical Break um and I'd certainly be asking when he's ready to start having those conversations because they still need to be had obviously safely but they need to be had lots of questions all right what are your thoughts on couples grieving their losses together especially if both want to move forward into a new marriage any tips on doing this um yeah so obviously your partner might be grieving things as well definitely grieving the way that he may have showed up in a relationship and that he wasn't the person he hoped he'd be um but yes in in any kind of marital dyad it takes two right like I always tell clients you can have marital discourse marital conflict that's a me and you problem but your lying and cheating and betrayal and stepping out of our relationship that's a you problem so as long as as the addict wants to process marital discourse and conflict and struggle that's fine um I don't really ever want your addict blaming or you know saying that any of his poor choices outside the relationship were because of you you know so just be careful with that um any tips on doing this together yeah so just kind of maybe writing those journaling things um and and have both of you focus in there's impact letters too I feel like the impact and restitution and those are helpful guides um to learn how to be doing these kind of letters to be sharing with each other can you explain have a hard time being relaxed and experience Joy after betrayal even with others not just with um your addict partner because our brain is lazy our brain holds on to scary stuff and IT wires into our brain permanently and the system this back caveman system that's in charge is highly effective at arousing you and getting you upset and getting you fearful and getting you hyper Vigilant but all horrible archaic at saying which thing you should be worried about um so that is why we have I mean in that lost group that we did last week several of them mentioned is I can't even be in a group of women now because what women wear upsets me or I wonder if all these men are sex addicts as we generally apply our reality our experiences our fears our traumas to everybody else so that's another thing that just really has to be acknowledged right that I find myself distrusting everybody that needs to be worked through um because you there's definitely people who are untrustworthy not everybody is untrustworthy many people are have addiction issues everyone does not have addiction issues they're very different like realities but our brain you have to spend a lot of time and energy blood flow oxygen to expand your brain right take it out of the efficient but very dumb part of our brain and bring it into our extremely inefficient but highly executive smarter part of our brain so we can figure out what reality is keep rolling them in let's see how we're doing a time okay how do we explain to loved ones or addicts that this healing isn't linear or fast I feel the expectation is that I should be okay now I hear this all the time You Are Not Alone um I think you know I hear Scott brassart's voice in my head that it's like your addict has known for years that he has been acting out so when he finally gets caught or comes clean he's kind of ready to be like oh okay yeah so here's 20 years of you know poor judgments and bad behaviors there it is okay I'm so he's like ready to move on he thinks he can clean it's time to move on because he's like released his demons so to speak you know I'm I'm in recovery now I swear I'm being honest now I'm I'm now doing all the things that you wanted me to do you should be okay now um so it takes a lot of Education um which is why you know I love the sex and relationship healing.com um work groups that the men do they're so important because they are trying to build up that extremely weak muscle in their body called empathy and compassion addicts struggle with that they've spent a lot of their life like this focusing in just on their stuff their struggles uh numbing seeking intensity um their own perspective and they struggle with empathy and compassion and so they've got to do these these men's groups these sex addiction recovery groups 12-step meetings because people down the line in their own recovery will be like look come to us to complain you know come to us if you want the high five for your 30 days of sobriety or your six months of sobriety your partner is reeling over the years and years and years of lying and deceit um and that's going to take a long time so like buckle up this isn't going to be a tomorrow thing and by the way the more you push back at her and judge her process and tell her how she's doing it wrong the more the worse it's going to get so it's just a lot of Education that is required coming with the questions okay when waiting for formal therapeutic disclosure what advice can you give to a partner how to find safety when you know the disclosure is coming I am already grieving but also waiting for a new bomb to be dropped any guidance I know that's got to be so terrible to kind of just be waiting for the next shoe to drop well you have to check like you have to do a reality check and say are you currently in danger um you know there's a the difference between finding out things that happen in the past versus finding out you know current things which I don't know the answer to that so I guess you kind of have to take that as it comes and what I always encourage clients to do is you don't know if your partner is ever going to recover you don't know um what their process is going to be so I know this is hard because they're your life partner but you have to try to seek safety and stability out like Beyond just your primary relationship so that is why communities like Lee Tong Glen is so important sex and relationship healing.com various 12-step communities or pro-dependency um because you're going to have to find the safety and stability from other people while you kind of assess what your partner's recovery is going to look like and so it is hard for you to find safety in your current relationship without the disclosure without going through that process without kind of stepping back and seeing is he a willing partner is there accountability is he being humble and owning truly what he's done is he responded and willing to um sit there with you through this process and help you feel safer that's unknown yet it sounds like so you need to kind of find that elsewhere and and see what happens with him I fear that if I show my husband joy and lean in that he'll forget the pain and hurt he's caused or that he'll become complacent in his recovery work that's a very very common concern as well and that's okay I just always say speak it the story I tell myself when I'm laughing with you right now at dinner is that you're going to think everything's okay and that you need to stop doing your work um but it's really important for your brain and quite frankly for his brain to be able to split in two like I said early and hold space for the fact that I'm still so angry with you and I'm grieving and you scare the heck out of me still but we are still capable of having reparative moments of of laughing about something or moments of safety um Deb Dana who does a lot of work with making you nervous system feel safe again um good to hear the polyvagle theory she calls them glimmers and these little glimmers of of Hope or safety or moments where you feel okay those are actually really important so um you don't want to like just totally expose yourself to your partner if if he hasn't really proven that he's he's safe and consistent and I guess worthy of you feeling safe with him um but you don't want to quash those glimmers of of Hope of joy of vulnerability um so but do but do you add in the story I tell myself is I'm you know I'm having a great time with you but I'm so afraid of you thinking this means you're like off the hook and everything like and you'll stop doing your work because then hopefully you can engage in conversation with him where hopefully he would say like no no I'm enjoying this time with you too I'm still gonna do all my work then you can maybe truly enjoy that moment even more I um sex addict husband will not seek recovery and we are now heading toward a divorce I'm very sorry I am certain that I want a divorce grief has been the hardest emotion for me in this process but every time I start to feel my grief I start to also miss him sometimes I feel that the overwhelming grief keeps me from proceeding with the divorce how can I work on feeling my grief but continue to move forward um I like to encourage clients to be very specific um I hear what you're saying is that the grief and loss and sadness cause you to also miss him um but I I want your whole brain right not just back there but your executive functioning brain to own the whole story so you might need to kind of write these almost like pros and cons of like things that I will miss him right the loss of if and when I do divorce him but the pros um right because then I'm guessing it'll be like no more needing detective work or or getting nervous every time I see the computer open and wondering if I should be hunting uh being triggered every time I see him looking at his cell phone because I'm wondering what he's looking at being triggered by block phone calls right and kind of write out the things that you're really owning the way that you will miss him you are a human who loves another human you're not a robot so there's absolutely elements of your partner and your partnership that you will grieve and miss and so we mentioned you know give yourself permission don't judge the fact that you'll miss him it's it's practically impossible to hate and be angry at all of him you will love and miss parts of him but you are angry and hater will not forgive or will forever struggle with these other parts of him and those just both need to be acknowledged and processed I'd also encourage you speaking them out to other people what suggestions or resources do you suggest for adult children dealing with loss and grief as they are impacted by a father oh there's a lot well so I'd start writing out you know journaling what's what you've lost because of this betrayal I guess uncovering uncovering them right it's going to be for a adult child dealing with a loss in grief who you thought your father was who you thought your father you know um there's a lot of kids that I've met that they question you know why they took them to that baseball game or to that outing because they wondered if they were like more focused on um acting out and they used them you know as an acting out process or you know that they question their father's love for them or Devotion to them um because they seem to be making choices around addiction that just doesn't make sense so things like that it's a little bit different than the partner of a sex addict but nonetheless there's still a lot of grief and loss loss of normal loss of what I thought my family would be lots of all those things that I originally enlisted memories occasions locations um and then also for you because you're the adult how you feel like it might have impacted the way you view normal who you find yourself attracted to um your relationships or the way you show up in relationships etc those are all important um and suggestions or resources um for adult children there is I mean I've heard really great things about ACA that adult children of addicts 12-step communities and I bet they cover a lot of this stuff this kind of grieving process yeah you guys are doing a great job asking questions I'm struggling with the fact that my husband is trying to be accountable for his harm and addiction but he falls back to the same idea of his trauma led him to it I'm all about having compassion for his childhood trauma but sometimes it feels like that's what makes him feel better about it for the lack of a better phrase mind you he will apologize and be empathetic to me but I'm not sure true accountability is happening in regards to admitting it was his choice trauma or not right um I think the saying if you listen to any of my pod or uh sorry my YouTube videos are uh hurt people hurt people and what do I also say pain that's not um pain that's not not transpired or something painful it's not transformed is transmitted those are two sayings that I kind of say to say look at it's it's people who are in pain that are doing really bad choices but that second thing the pain that's not transformed is transmitted is also there has to be this ownership as well as I had opportunities to transform my pain right maybe my dad was an addict and instead of me doing the work to feel the pain and know oh God I never want to be like God and I'm I'm suffering so much with my dad's like emotional absence or the choices he's making or hearing my mom and dad fight about it every night instead of taking that pain and letting it transform my heart to be a better person I'm now letting it transmit to my wife with my own poor choices so it is a process um I remember grief is not a linear process so he might be in that like I'm in so much shame that I'm just trying to like pull myself up just ever so slightly out of my shame swamp to like take a deep breath and be like I am not my trauma my trauma does not define me I made really bad choices because of my trauma but there's gotta obviously like you're saying the evidence that he is still saying fully accountable you know I still had a full executive functioning part of my brain that I chose not to use I made commitments and promises and broke them I had choices to come clean but I did not um you know I had many opportunities to stop I saw the pain I was causing you and I didn't and I had many opportunities to make different choices and say oh this is hurting other people but I said yeah I don't care I'm gonna do it anyway so it's a really delicate balance between acknowledging that you made these choices because hurt people hurt people and pain that's not transformed is transmitted but those aren't excuses um they're reasons right as a Tammy River Health would say their reasons they're not excuses so it's a it's a push and pull process I am grieving the loss of my 40-year marriage the man I thought he was but is not he betrayed me financially during the divorce and lies to our adult sons and others No Remorse he acted out since dating my nightmares are terrible grieving what could have been in our golden years we planned for 40 years so much loss the MDR may help but he acted out in serious ways I have fear around not processed yet how do I unravel all of this the grief is so heavy it absolutely is um I I had a client who's been working through her grief and loss of uh sex addiction and just addiction of substance abuse addiction as well from her partner and she was saying the other day the more I write these type of journals these grief impact letters pain Etc the more I share them in my 12-step groups the more I share them in in my grief groups the more charge is removed from it so I used to ball my eyes out and not be able to finish sentences when she just did this grief group she was really proud of herself that she was able to like say the story and stay connected with the story but not crumble during her story um and she shared that as kind of like a testament to other people who were just starting their grief journey and letting them know like the the more you spend time with this the more it does become absorbed into you and it doesn't just seem like you're constant surround constantly surrounded by this pain and the grief and the loss I am I'm even Dr certified I am a fan of EMDR have seen it help because like now you're saying if you are leaving the 40-year marriage you can hopefully create a space of at least not instability maybe not necessarily full stability right now but not constant instability and that would be a good opportunity for you to be exploring this stuff with EMDR um there's other trauma treatments ifs thematic experiencing Etc I just I'm personal fans right now of EMDR and ifs internal family systems emdr's eye movement sensitization and reprocessing last question two minutes left perfect timing my attic husband has been in recovery for just over a year but he still can't hear me talk about my grief and pain without falling back into defensiveness and anger I feel like he can't be there for me with empathy and I still have a ton of grief over dealing with four Affairs in our 19 years of marriage some details I just recently found out about he says the experts say I should be sharing my pain with a support group or therapist and not with him but if we can't ever share our feelings with each other how do I ever heal together um I agree with you there is something profound about sharing well first of all addicts usually have a very low pain tolerance so they it is they've done what they've done because they cannot sit with uncomfortable feelings so showing your partner right the addict showing their betrayed partner that I can sit with your sadness your grief your loss your anger and like build the tolerance for it make healthy choices around it that alone makes your betrayed partner feel safer um but there has to there's something very profound about sharing your pain your story your pain your loss your struggle but having your your your attic partner stay having them hug you while you're crying um weeping with you those are all opportunities for healing and again if you're with like a csat or sexual trained sex addiction therapist or someone who works in betrayal trauma and can really help your attic partner know what the recovery process looks like you know there's a reason why the standard protocol for sex addiction recovery is to you know slowly work towards writing a full disclosure um the Betrayed partner writing an impact letter which again is is the grief and loss which you've lost um the attic writing some kind of form of like a restitution letter what they're they're going to do to try to help you feel safe the boundaries consequences all that kind of stuff is it's it's just a one it's the actual structural as as close as we can get creating some kind of structural safety um and the other part is to actually just sit with each other through it can be very healing you're you're creating new wiring in your brain that your partner's safe to talk about this uncomfortable stuff with that he has a higher tolerance for uncomfortable feelings and people who have a higher tolerance for uncomfortable feelings tend to not act out Etc um so that tends to be the process okay so we are at the end of time um and it says if you have any additional questions you're welcome to email me oh I did want to finish one more moment I have a new um work group that is starting January 25th I think there are only like seven spots left maybe even six I'm offering a coupon for twenty dollars off it is only good till Sunday though so you have to go in and register now all you have to do is when you're buying the life Anonymous it's where it's a 10-week program we're going to be going through my life Anonymous book all the participants are female betrayed Partners the hope is that they're going to be further down the line so maybe didn't just discover the Betrayal um because most of the current people that are signed up are further down the line some have left the marriage some are still in the marriage some are in the recovery process but they're further down the line and it's not a brand new discovery feel free to email me it's been a pleasure I thank you so much for the ability to come and be here with you um and and I'm we'll be starting up with sex andrelationshippealing.com my monthly webinars starting again in January thank you Kristen this is awesome hope to see you in the new year thanks for your great questions ladies you're awesome have a great holiday and a great New Year

Channel: Kristin Snowden

Views: 6,471

Keywords: infidelity, codependency, addiction recovery, attachment theory, cheating, betrayal, divorce, couples issues, grief and loss, therapeutic journal prompts

Id: EI5XY_vYCls

Length: 59min 38sec (3578 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2023