Q&A - What first steps should I take post discovery of sexual betrayal?

In this episode, hosts Tara McCausland and Justin B. discuss strategies for moving forward after the discovery of betrayal in relationships. The episode emphasizes the emotional turmoil that follows discovery, and the importance of establishing safety and stabilization. They share personal stories, including Justin's own missteps post-discovery and the journey towards healing. Tara and Justin advocate for setting boundaries, seeking support outside the marital relationship, and the necessity of finding a supportive community for both the betrayed and the betrayer. They stress that healing from addiction and betrayal is a shared but individual journey that requires patience, understanding, and outside help.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction to Season Two
• 0:50 Navigating Post-Discovery Challenges
• 2:14 Personal Experiences and Insights on Recovery
• 3:51 The Importance of Boundaries and Support Systems
• 7:05 Safety and Stabilization: A Foundation for Healing
• 11:32 Finding Community and Embracing Patience in Recovery
• 15:01 Closing Thoughts and Invitation to Engage

Transcript

Moving Forward Post Discovery

Welcome and Introduction to Season Two

Tara: [00:00:00] Welcome to the pathway to recovery podcast. I'm your host, Tara McCausland. and I have here with me, my cohost, Justin B. Hey, Justin. 

Justin: Hey, Tara. Good to be here. Happy to be here today. 

Tara: Thank you. 

Navigating Post-Discovery Challenges

Tara: Well, so today for our Q & A, we've come off the recovery puzzle. We spent a lot of time there and we're entering season two, so to speak.

And we [00:01:00] wanted to start talking about how we move forward post discovery. We recognize at this stage, there's a lot going on just post discovery. We had a Q and A a number of months ago, actually with Heather B, Justin's wife. And she talked about her experience with “D day" or “Discovery Day” as it's often called. 

And I might encourage anyone interested to go back and listen to that because if we're a betrayed partner, Discovery Day, it is earth shattering. It levels everything that you built in your life, because now you're not clear about what the reality of your relationship is like.

Sherry Kepfer mentioned in a previous episode, oftentimes financially, suddenly things are unstable and unsure. Kids can be reeling also if there has been a discovery across the board, maybe something came out in the news. So there's so much wreckage that you might be struggling [00:02:00] around just post discovery and notice, I'm not saying post disclosure, I'm saying post discovery.

Disclosure and discovery are very different and we will discuss and address disclosure later on down the line. 

Personal Experiences and Insights on Recovery

Tara: But maybe, can I ask you, Justin, from your experience, what was post discovery like in your relationship? For you and Heather? 

Justin: Yeah. So, I wouldn't recommend that anybody do what I did. It was a trickle disclosure, trickle discovery. I wanted my wife to know that I loved her, that I wasn't doing this because I didn't love her. And to me, at that point in my life, I thought that my love language and the only love language that existed in me that had any weight and meaning was physical touch. And so my thing was, I just got to show her that I love her and I just want to make sure that she knows by me, you know, approaching her in a physical manner, whether sexual or not, just, “Hey, I want, [00:03:00] can I give you a hug?”

And that was not good. That was not what she wanted or needed at that time, you know? But that was the only way I knew how to communicate love because the whole world was about me. I'm selfish. Everything centers around me as an addict. It's because I'm sick. It's because I'm broken, but I don't know it. And I don't know how to put myself back together again. 

So my first suggestion would be, don't smother your spouse with physical affection at this point. Be ready to listen, and it's going to hurt to listen. There's going to be angry and maybe even violent words that are coming back at me, but I've got to be willing to sit back and listen and take it. Man, it's a hard place to be, especially if I'm still deep in addict mode, but have been discovered.

So any thoughts on that, Tara? 

The Importance of Boundaries and Support Systems

Tara: So something that probably ought to be stated - we spent a whole month talking about boundaries and bottom lines, as a part of that safety and stabilization. It will [00:04:00] be really important for both parties, the person struggling with the addiction and the person struggling with betrayal to start setting those bottom lines and boundaries for themselves.

And we always like to refer people over to salifeline.org and have them take a look at our circles models that help us understand, “What does an addict look like in their addiction?” versus “What does an addict look like in recovery” and “What does a betrayed partner look like?” What does the betrayed partner look like in trauma and what does the betrayed partner look like in recovery and what does the marriage look like when things are crazy and what does it look like when things are healing and on a trajectory of recovery.

So we point you back to those models to help you set those boundaries and bottom lines because you don't have to just wait to see acting out behavior, betrayed partner, you can set boundaries around attitudes like resentment, and victim behavior.  

And if you [00:05:00] have to, a strong boundary is, “I will separate myself from this person physically,” and that takes a lot of courage, but in that safety and stabilization phase, a physical separation may very well be a part of your healing.

But my experience is from a betrayed daughter's perspective. So it's different from a betrayed spouse, but I can't imagine that in that case. As you suggested, you wanted to still show Heather that you love her and physical affection was, in your mind, the only way that you felt like you could do that.

But if you imagine from a betrayed person’s standpoint and it's as if this person just shot you and then they're coming to give you a big hug. So having this recognition of turning to the addict for support or vice versa for the addict to turn to the betrayed, now they're hurting a partner or support.

That's not going to [00:06:00] work. We have to go outside of that marriage relationship to find some support and just some essential life sustaining help. You can even think about this, like we're in emergency mode and we're just trying to like stop the bleeding, 

Justin: I can tell you that the addict doesn't see that clearly at all and if somebody's listening to this, that has just gone through disclosure or maybe thinking about doing disclosure, I highly recommend stepping back and pausing for a minute. Because me, as an addict, those thoughts never even crossed my mind. It wasn't even, “How is this going to affect her?” It was, “How is me sharing this going to affect me?” and “How can I protect myself?” Once again it's because I'm a selfish broken person. It's not because I'm a bad person. It's not because I'm a bad person. The addict is not a bad person in almost all cases. They are a broken person, a sick person, that [00:07:00] is trying to figure things out and hopefully this process can help in that.

Safety and Stabilization: A Foundation for Healing

Justin: So many people who are in this situation. I'm just going to come at it from the addict's point of view. That concept of stepping back and going outside of my marriage for support seems not only impossible to me, but it seems wrong to an addict. No, me and my wife are supposed to work this out together.

“We are together, we have been married, we're gonna stick together through thick and thin,” and stepping outside to seek support almost seems really wrong. It's not wrong. It is needed in these moments and it's very important that each individual within a relationship find somebody other than the spouse that can help support and lift them in these moments. Even though it feels so wrong. But my thinking is broken, in addict mode and thinking from a betrayed spouse becomes [00:08:00] broken at that point and yeah, there needs to be outside support in that.

Tara: Yeah, so that's going to be a shift. We're both partners, right? Yeah, even for the betrayed, there may even be a desire to to come in and rescue because they see the pain that their spouse is in. But in order for the marriage to heal, we are going to have to turn outward for a time, not always, but for a time.

And so APSATS is an organization that helps betrayed partners, and they talk about three phases of trauma healing. And their first phase is actually safety and stabilization. And so if you think about that, there has been an earthquake and there's all this wreckage. We're going to first try and get some stability, right? Some safety. Again, if someone's bleeding out, we have to first address that type of first aid situation. 

We will look [00:09:00] to safe people like a therapist, like a faith leader, like a 12 step group and sponsor to help us establish safety and stabilization. And we'll allow the professionals to talk about this more. But as a betrayed daughter, I recall very vividly the distress that I felt after my father disclosed his 30 plus years of sexual addiction. And you can't even begin to describe the wide array of emotions.

But I do recall some things that helped me feel safe. First of all, neither one of my parents was going to make a permanent or major decision immediately in their relationship. They were told to pause and wait. And so for me, as a betrayed daughter, I felt some safety in that - that things were going to calm down a little bit before any [00:10:00] major life decisions were going to be made. And I think that that was good counsel that they received. 

But what also helped me feel safe was neither party was blaming the other. My father chose to take full responsibility for his choices. He chose to be honest. And my mom didn't take responsibility for his actions, neither was she the crazy raging woman. She very well could have been blaming and finger pointing. And so that provided a safe space for me as a daughter to begin to process some of this hard information. 

Also they both started taking steps, actions that I could see. They were working toward healing, whether or not the marriage stayed intact. None of us knew what the outcome was, but I could see that they were both willing [00:11:00] to move in a healing direction. And all of those things help provide some safety for me as an adult daughter. 

Now it's different from a young child who's still fully dependent on parents, but I saw that example and that within our family context at least, to help provide some safety and stabilization. Any thoughts about that or anything that you've observed from other people, just post discovery, that have helped them establish some safety and stabilization?

Finding Community and Embracing Patience in Recovery

Justin: Yeah, I think that patience is core in this. Patience from both the side of the addict and from the side of the betrayed. Patience and a willingness to step back and, as we've talked about a couple times, pause. When agitated, we pause and seek what the next right move is to make. React, we respond, you know, the stimulus is going to happen and I as an addict have to, whether the [00:12:00] stimulus is towards addiction, whether it's towards an angry response, whether it's towards, “Hey, why aren't you over this yet? I'm sober, you know,” I have to sit back and pause. [I have to] say, “Okay, God, how do I need to respond here rather than react?” and then take kind, gentle, gentle, but definitive and courageous action in that. I think that's for me and for my observation with others,[the] most important thing of all is to be patient and loving in that process.

Tara: Yeah. And we recognize that there are a million different scenarios in how this could all play out. In my personal experience, I had a father who was willing to be honest, humble, and accountable. And so he was already on that path of healing. You know, when we talk about the recovery puzzle, we have to be in a heart-set and a mindset to heal as individuals and certainly as a couple.

And my parents were already stepping onto that [00:13:00] path in those early stages. But you may have a scenario where there's been discovery and there's no remorse and perhaps that person will never get into a state of mind where they want to do the work to recover. And that's a different story, but I think that we get to emphasize that we all have choice.

And this is something that Rhyll Crowshaw does a great job of helping betrayed partners understand is that we can't determine outcomes. We can't control our spouse. But we always have a choice of how we're going to respond and how we're going to keep ourselves safe. And so going back to that initial phase of trauma healing, which is safety and stabilization, I encourage anyone out there who's listening to find your safe people, find your tribe. They're out there.

And we would invite you to come and join our tribe here at SAL 12 step and begin to find connection with people who are walking this road [00:14:00] of recovery. But also [to] those individuals [who] will point you and help point you to the God of your understanding where you'll also be able to find some safety and stabilization. Because a lot of people in this process might fail us, but God won't, if we'll turn to him.

Justin: I want to say something real quick that may ruffle a couple of feathers. But I'm going to speak courageously and bluntly here. If you are trying to do this on your own, by listening to podcasts or by just reading books - it is very rare that I've seen someone heal [by] just doing that.

You need a tribe. You need to jump into a fellowship, a group therapy, if nothing else, but a 12 step fellowship of other people who are walking the same path and who are healing together in a community. Doing it on your own will not work. You may think you're the unicorn, that it works one in a couple hundred, but you're most likely not. Please get into a community. It will provide [00:15:00] massive help. 

Closing Thoughts and Invitation to Engage
Tara: Justin and I were just two people on the bus. We're not professionals, but we hope for our listeners that this has been helpful. And thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next time. [00:16:00]