111. Why the Past Won't Stay in the Past (And That’s Okay)

0:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Helping Couples Heal Podcast, a place for healing and hope for couples impacted by betrayal, resulting from infidelity and or sex addiction. [SPEAKER_00]: Your host is Marnie Breaker, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex addiction therapist, and founder of the Center for Relational Healing in Los Angeles and San Diego, California.

0:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The helping couples heel podcasts was launched in 2021, with the intention of bringing hope to couples all over the world, who are desperately trying to recover from the devastating impact of betrayal. [SPEAKER_00]: Realizing how many people the podcast was reaching, and that we could offer even more support to our listeners.

0:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Marni Co-founded Helping Couples Hule, which has since grown into a global online coaching organization. [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is a foundation of all the work that we do at Helping Couples Hule. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening. [SPEAKER_00]: Marni brings over a decade of experience and expertise in the field of betrayal trauma and is honored to support you wherever you may be in your healing.

1:10 [SPEAKER_00]: If you've lost hope, you've come to the right place. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, they can slow deep breath and let's begin with the helping couples here podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, everyone. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll come back to helping couples heal podcasts. [SPEAKER_01]: It's Marnie. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was not planning on recording a podcast today.

1:39 [SPEAKER_01]: But I just listened to another podcast episode that somebody had suggested I listened to. [SPEAKER_01]: And I came away feeling a little frustrated. [SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to talk about it here in this space. [SPEAKER_01]: So the podcast was talking about the mistake that a lot of people make when they are trying to heal from betrayal.

2:02 [SPEAKER_01]: is the revisiting of the facts and not just revisiting the facts of the betrayal but also revisiting and wanting to talk about the why. [SPEAKER_01]: Why did you do this? [SPEAKER_01]: How could you have done this? [SPEAKER_01]: What was your mindset like at the time? [SPEAKER_01]: What were you thinking?

2:16 [SPEAKER_01]: And in this particular podcast, the host was saying that it is creating more distress and sort of prolonging the healing and the grief by continuing to go back and visit that. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the part of that conversation that was very frustrating to me because the truth of the matter is, based on what we know about neuroscience and the nervous system, [SPEAKER_01]: it is totally normal and expected that a partner who's been betrayed and doesn't feel safe anymore is going to go back and revisit the facts over and over again and that happens for a while.

2:52 [SPEAKER_01]: And even if the partner doesn't talk about it out loud and doesn't ask the person that caused the betrayal, those questions and they're just internalizing it, it's still going on. [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't change their nervous system activity, it doesn't change what's going on for them in terms of their nervous system being on high alert and in a threatened state.

3:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So I find it unethical on some level to be telling people who are traumatized to stop doing something that is literally what the nervous system does in order to seek safety. [SPEAKER_01]: It is really normal after finding out about a secret life and a reality that you did not know existed to try to make sense of it.

3:34 [SPEAKER_01]: And the truth is, oftentimes, no matter how hard you try, as the betrayed partner, you're never gonna really fully be able to make sense of it because it doesn't make sense. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, most of the men and women that I talk to who've betrayed their partner, they tell me they don't understand it.

3:50 [SPEAKER_01]: They can't make sense of it. [SPEAKER_01]: They feel totally helpless when their partner asks them these questions. [SPEAKER_01]: What were you thinking about? [SPEAKER_01]: What weren't you thinking about? [SPEAKER_01]: How did you do this? [SPEAKER_01]: How did you render me non-existent?

4:01 [SPEAKER_01]: What was your mindset like at the time? [SPEAKER_01]: All those questions? [SPEAKER_01]: And they'll say to me, I don't know how to answer the question. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know. [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make sense. [SPEAKER_01]: So while it might never fully make sense in a way that you can understand and narrate, right, in a way that, like a whole story, what is true is that it is a normal part of the process to try to put it into some kind of a timeline, some kind of a context, some kind of a way to understand your story.

4:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Because I mean, if we look at the metaphor of the filing cabinet in the brain, [SPEAKER_01]: There's this file cabinet in the brain, which is our hit the campus and it gets dumped onto the floor and all the files go everywhere and those files are all the experiences that you've had in your life.

4:47 [SPEAKER_01]: All of them, it's like you've put it all into a story and it's in chronological order and [SPEAKER_01]: that's how you can make sense of your story. [SPEAKER_01]: If someone says what's your story, it's well, it's some of all of these experiences I've had. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, after betrayals discovered, those files get dumped all over the floor and a big part of the healing process for the partner is to reorganize those files with the new information in a way that makes sense.

5:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Even though [SPEAKER_01]: The partner would never want to have to reorganize the files. [SPEAKER_01]: They never wanted to do that, and they certainly don't want to put in files that they never would have wanted in their relationship. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't want any of these other files, right?

5:25 [SPEAKER_01]: These secrets and these lies and all of the manipulation and the deception and all of that. [SPEAKER_01]: But it has to come back in because the truth is that is the reality now. [SPEAKER_01]: And in order to have a shared narrative, to have a shared reality, we have to have all the files reorganized.

5:40 [SPEAKER_01]: So, going back to the podcast that I just listened to, that part of me wishes I didn't listen to it, and part of me's glad that I did because now I'm able to address it and talk about it here, and so if any of you hear that, either in that forum or that platform or in another space, I hope that you'll be able to reframe it based on what I'm sharing here.

6:01 [SPEAKER_01]: that it is normal, it is expected, it's a part of the process. [SPEAKER_01]: So, I actually don't encourage people to avoid revisiting and asking the questions and going back. [SPEAKER_01]: The truth is, for those people who are going to or are trying to heal their relationship together, [SPEAKER_01]: There is a process of having to move forward, but it does mean carrying the past with you.

6:28 [SPEAKER_01]: You can't leave the past behind. [SPEAKER_01]: We don't do that. [SPEAKER_01]: When someone dies, we move on, but we bring them with us into the future. [SPEAKER_01]: We can't leave it behind. [SPEAKER_01]: When we have any kind of trauma, any kind of a loss, it comes with us. [SPEAKER_01]: We can heal, we can move forward.

6:45 [SPEAKER_01]: But we move forward while we're still holding on to something. [SPEAKER_01]: And I know it doesn't sound like there are people that will talk about mindset and probably hear me say this and say that's not true and that's not a positive mindset, you know, move forward, leave it in the past, right, heal it, resolve it, move on.

7:02 [SPEAKER_01]: That's just not how neuroscience works. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just not. [SPEAKER_01]: I wish that it was. [SPEAKER_01]: That would be great. [SPEAKER_01]: That would really serve all of my clients, all of you, and you know it, it would really have served me at various times in my life, too.

7:14 [SPEAKER_01]: But it's not reality. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I came on to say. [SPEAKER_01]: I want to really normalize for anybody here who's listening to this. [SPEAKER_01]: That it makes sense why you are spending so much time in the past, why you keep going back. [SPEAKER_01]: The goal is for that time, the amount of time you spend back there to decrease.

7:37 [SPEAKER_01]: We want it to decrease in frequency. [SPEAKER_01]: And I will say that again, if you're trying to heal in the context of your relationship, then the more the person who caused the betrayal forgets or doesn't go back or refuses to go back. [SPEAKER_01]: The more the partner is going to remember, the more time the partner's going to stay in the past.

7:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So for the one who's betrayed, something that can be very helpful that I think it really is your responsibility is to be willing to go back and hold some of that with your partner. [SPEAKER_01]: Most partners I've talked to, even today, two of the partners that I talked to, said every day they think about the betrayal, no matter how far along it's been, been a couple of years for each of those people, every single day they think about it.

8:23 [SPEAKER_01]: We were in couple sessions, both of those were couple sessions, and I said to the betrayer in both those relationships, it's really important that you recognize your partner might be making dinner and hanging with the kids and going to work and doing all this stuff here she normally does.

8:35 [SPEAKER_01]: But what's underneath that and that they're carrying all the time is the betrayal and all of those questions. [SPEAKER_01]: How could you have done this? [SPEAKER_01]: How could you do this to me? [SPEAKER_01]: How could you do this to our family? [SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean about how you feel about me?

8:50 [SPEAKER_01]: All of those questions. [SPEAKER_01]: So the more you are able to show up and help hold their pain and be in it with them rather than shrinking or avoiding or collapsing or shutting down or getting angry or defensive, the faster your partner can heal. [SPEAKER_01]: The faster your relationship can heal.

9:07 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you've caused the pain, if you broke it, you have to participate in fixing it and one of the best ways to do that is to be willing to go back to the past. [SPEAKER_01]: I hope this was helpful for some of you. [SPEAKER_01]: It was a quick episode. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to jump and go pick up my son from school, but I wanted to come on and share that.

9:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Take a care and we'll see you soon. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Helping Couples Heal podcast where you're healing is our number one priority. [SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like additional resources about the trail trauma, which will learn more about our coaching services, please visit HelpingCouplesheal.com or call 562-379-4325.

9:54 [SPEAKER_00]: our help is available worldwide. [SPEAKER_00]: Please support helping couples heal and continuing to reach others impacted by betrayal trauma by leaving a review on iTunes and sharing this podcast with someone you care about. [SPEAKER_00]: For additional support, follow us on Instagram and consider joining our helping couples heal private Facebook community.

10:13 [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't an easy journey, but you don't have to do it alone. [SPEAKER_00]: Once again, thank you for listening.