Betrayed Partners

 Have you recently found out that your husband or wife has been viewing porn, having an affair, or engaged in other sexual behaviors outside of your relationship -and you feel like your life has been shattered? 

The person you love most has a life you know nothing about and he/she has been lying to you. Maybe directly to your face, maybe by omission, but lying nonetheless.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Who is this person that I thought I knew?” Now you’re questioning everything. 

You probably feel anxious, have trouble sleeping, have nightmares, are quick to anger or panic, maybe even thinking that life isn’t worth living. You might find yourself checking in on him/her all the time. You may feel like you're going crazy. 

Or maybe your partner has told you you’re crazy. 

You’re not!

These are symptoms of trauma.

 If you are visiting this page and you are in pain because your partner has been unfaithful and caught up in sexual addictive or compulsive behaviors and you may be feeling shame, guilt, abandonment, anger and depression. 

You may have initially focused on your partner’s problem but now realize that you feel hurt, confused, angry, and depressed.

As an affiliate of Hope Counseling Center, and as a trained Betrayal Trauma Therapist I believe that a partner/spouse of a sex or porn addict experiences

 traumatic stress upon learning that the person she or he loved has been unfaithful, deceptive, lying and keeping secrets (some for years). 

We also know that the pain doesn’t go away on its own. You will likely go through stages of  grief and anger before you can feel trust and love.

You need support, understanding, a safe place to share your hurt, and to learn boundaries that you have a right to set in order to feel safe again.

I have completed the (APSATS) Multidimensional Partner Trauma Model training (MPTM). This training utilizes a trauma model perspective in treating the impact of sex betrayal on the partner or spouse.

 As part of the healing process, I, along with my fellow counselors at Hope are trained in helping couples complete a full disclosure or sometimes referred to as a healthy disclosure. We believe that this a an important part of the healing for both you (the partner) and your addicted partner (and for the marriage). We prefer this to be accomplished early in the recovery and the partner is allowed to ask questions.

The Full Disclosure allows the addict and his/her therapist to write out the full history to make sure it is complete. Lies, half-truths, and secrets prevent healing and prevent the relationship to be fully healed and keeps the partner from ever having trust. Without the Full Disclosure, the partner doesn’t fully know what he/she needs to heal from. Sometimes the partner will request that the addict partner take a polygraph following the Full Disclosure.