99. The Other Side of Betrayal: The Ten Core Wounds of The One Who Betrayed

0:07 [SPEAKER_01]: 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_01]: 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_01]: 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_01]: Realizing how many people the podcast was reaching, and that we could offer even more support to our listeners.

0:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Marni Co-founded Helping Couples Hule, which has since grown into a global online coaching organization. [SPEAKER_01]: This podcast is a foundation of all the work that we do at Helping Couples Hule. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening. [SPEAKER_01]: 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.

1:09 [SPEAKER_01]: If you've lost hope, you've come to the right place. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, they can slow deep breath and let's begin with the helping couples here podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, everyone. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Helping Couple Seal podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: This is Marty. [SPEAKER_00]: And in a previous episode, I spoke about the core wounds experienced by betrayed partners.

1:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And these are wounds that often shake a partner's sense of safety, reality, self. [SPEAKER_00]: and really the foundation of their inner and their outer world. [SPEAKER_00]: And today I'm going to continue that conversation by widening the lens and talking about the 10 core wounds often carried by the partner who did the betraying.

1:57 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're listening to this and you were betrayed, I'd want you to know that your pain is not going to be sideline here. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're listening as someone who has done the betraying, I want you to know that your internal experience matters, even as you remain fully responsible for the impact of your betrayal and your actions.

2:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Today's episode is about holding both of those truths at the same time. [SPEAKER_00]: So as I said a minute ago, we're going to talk about the core wounds often experienced by the partner who betrayed, not to excuse the harm or minimize the impact, but to better understand what must be healed so that safety and integrity and trust can be rebuilt.

2:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be very clear about something from the start, and that is acknowledging the wounds of someone who has caused harm, does not excuse the harm. [SPEAKER_00]: It does not minimize the impact of betrayal and it certainly does not shift the responsibility away from the person who broke trust.

3:01 [SPEAKER_00]: What it does do is help us understand what must be healed inside the betraying partner if real accountability and safety and relational repair are going to be possible. [SPEAKER_00]: In the work that I do with couples, I see this dynamic over and over that the healing stalls or sometimes stops entirely when we only look at one side of the injury.

3:24 [SPEAKER_00]: But trade partners need their pain fully recognized and we talk about that a lot on this podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: And the reality is that partners who have caused harm need to be willing to face their internal wounds with honesty, humility, and with conscious presence, not just emotionally, but physically and not just physically, but emotionally.

3:46 [SPEAKER_00]: I've learned that when we refuse to acknowledge the wounds of the person who caused the harm, those wounds don't just disappear, they end up going underground. [SPEAKER_00]: And when wounds go underground, then they tend to get acted out in unhealthy or destructive ways that make healing and repair impossible.

4:03 [SPEAKER_00]: So this episode is for couples who are trying to heal together. [SPEAKER_00]: It's for betrayed partners who want to understand what may be happening internally without being asked to excuse it, and it's for those who have betrayed and are carrying deep shame, confusion, or remorse, or all of the above, and are willing to do the work of becoming safe again.

4:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's wounds matter, even the wounds of people who have harmed others still deserve compassion and recognition. [SPEAKER_00]: Not so they can be bypassed, but so they can be healed rather than acted out again. [SPEAKER_00]: Accountability and compassion are not opposites. [SPEAKER_00]: They are both required for real sustaining change.

4:47 [SPEAKER_00]: My hope is that this conversation creates more clarity and more accountability and most important more humanity for both partners because lasting repair requires all of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Before we go any further, I want to offer a moment of grounding and centering. [SPEAKER_00]: If you are a betrayed partner, parts of this may stir anger, grief, fear, or, again, a combination of all of those.

5:10 [SPEAKER_00]: If you are the partner who caused harm, parts of this may stir shame, defensiveness, collapse, or a combination of all of those. [SPEAKER_00]: None of those reactions mean you're doing anything wrong, they are signals from your nervous system. [SPEAKER_00]: As you listen, I invite you to go slowly, pause when needed, notice what happens in your body, place a hand over your heart right now, and take a breath.

5:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's begin. [SPEAKER_00]: The first and most foundational wound for many who betray is core shame. [SPEAKER_00]: When shame floods the nervous system, it activates that trauma response, fight, flight, freeze, or collapse, making presence and empathy difficult and sometimes actually impossible.

5:58 [SPEAKER_00]: This is not guilt about behavior. [SPEAKER_00]: This is identity-level shame. [SPEAKER_00]: The belief that I am fundamentally bad or broken, not I did something harmful. [SPEAKER_00]: For many men, this shame existed long before the betrayal. [SPEAKER_00]: The betrayal didn't create it, what it did was it exposed it.

6:17 [SPEAKER_00]: After discovery, shame often floods the nervous system. [SPEAKER_00]: And when shame is running the show, people either collapse, become defensive, withdraw, or try to self-punish their way into change. [SPEAKER_00]: So an example of this might be, a man or a woman saying, [SPEAKER_00]: While it might sound remorseful, it pulls the focus away from the betrayed partner's pain and into self-loving.

6:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It ultimately redirects the attention to the betraying partner and redirects the attention away from the person who has been harmed. [SPEAKER_00]: And the relational impact is that the betrayed partner feels emotionally abandoned again. [SPEAKER_00]: Healing begins with learning to tolerate shame without collapsing, and when shame is metabolized into responsibility.

7:06 [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, when I am bad becomes I did harm. [SPEAKER_00]: I am accountable for repairing it. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the second wound. [SPEAKER_00]: Many people who betray live with a fragmented sense of self. [SPEAKER_00]: Another way to say that is living in double life, and many of us are familiar with the term a secret basement.

7:25 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what we're talking about here. [SPEAKER_00]: When we talk about a fragment in self, many people who betray live with a fragmented sense of self. [SPEAKER_00]: They may genuinely experience themselves as loving partners, devoted parents, good friends, reliable professionals, while simultaneously engaging in behaviors that violate their own values.

7:47 [SPEAKER_00]: This is not always conscious deception. [SPEAKER_00]: It's often compartmentalization. [SPEAKER_00]: compartmentalization allows conflicting behaviors to co-exist without conscious integration. [SPEAKER_00]: It's often adapted on childhood, but destructive, really destructive in adult intimacy.

8:04 [SPEAKER_00]: So let me give a simple example. [SPEAKER_00]: So a person is a devoted father or mother and partner, while secretly engaging in betrayal, truly experiencing themselves as both, without awareness of that internal split. [SPEAKER_00]: Different parts of the self are ultimately kept separate, so the internal conflict doesn't have to be felt.

8:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And after discovery, many betrayers say something like, I don't know who I am anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: That disorientation is real, and it must be worked through, not avoided, if integrity is going to be rebuilt. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not working on integrity and that's not important, then you probably could avoid that.

8:45 [SPEAKER_00]: But integration work is necessary for integrity to develop and to be sustained and integration work involves aligning values, behavior, and identity into one coherent self. [SPEAKER_00]: So let's move on to wound 3, and that's the fear of being fully known. [SPEAKER_00]: For many men, vulnerability earlier in life was met with ridicule, rejection, or emotional absence or abandonment.

9:11 [SPEAKER_00]: So secrecy becomes a form of protection. [SPEAKER_00]: And instead of saying, I feel inadequate, I feel disconnected, I'm scared I'm not enough. [SPEAKER_00]: Those feelings get managed privately and often, destructively. [SPEAKER_00]: And that person will seek validation elsewhere. [SPEAKER_00]: and real intimacy requires risking exposure and that risk can feel terrifying when being known once meant being hurt.

9:38 [SPEAKER_00]: So this is about practicing truth telling in small tolerable doses, learning that intimacy does not equal annihilation of the self. [SPEAKER_00]: And at the core of many [SPEAKER_00]: One number four is about unmet attachment needs. [SPEAKER_00]: Betrayal, as you likely know, is rarely about sex alone.

10:02 [SPEAKER_00]: More often, it's about unmet attachment needs that were never named or understood. [SPEAKER_00]: And these could be needs for validation, reassurance, worth belonging. [SPEAKER_00]: For example, a person who never learned to ask per reassurance seeks affirmation as an adult [SPEAKER_00]: And the relational impact is that the betrayed partner often internalizes blame, and says something like, why wasn't I enough?

10:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Attachment needs to not disappear when they are unspoken. [SPEAKER_00]: They go again, like I said earlier, underground, and then they emerge through destructive or unhealthy behavior. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, these attachment needs do not justify in any way, be trail, but they do need to be identified.

10:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And repair requires learning how to name and express needs directly instead of acting them out indirectly. [SPEAKER_00]: One number five is emotional and maturity, or you can look at this as an underdeveloped regulatory system. [SPEAKER_00]: Many betrayers, especially men, were never taught how to regulate emotion.

11:11 [SPEAKER_00]: They learned how to perform, achieve, provide, or distract, but not really how to sit with discomfort. [SPEAKER_00]: And emotional maturity is not about intelligence. [SPEAKER_00]: It's about nervous system capacity. [SPEAKER_00]: Many men were socialized away from emotional literacy. [SPEAKER_00]: Women are more often socialized toward emotional literacy.

11:33 [SPEAKER_00]: However, when I work with women who have betrayed a partner or a women who identify as a sex or love addict or both, often they tell me that they were also socialized away from being emotional, from talking about feelings, from communicating, from really letting themselves be known. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think when we look at betrayal, no matter what the gender of the person who's doing the betrayal, we are able to recognize that most of them were never taught how to regulate their emotions.

12:02 [SPEAKER_00]: What this looks like is when, here, she feels overwhelmed, the nervous system looks for relief, and acting out can become a way to escape feelings rather than move through feelings. [SPEAKER_00]: And the relational impact is that the betrayed partner becomes the emotional regulator for both people, and that is a huge burden to carry.

12:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Emotional maturity is also not innate. [SPEAKER_00]: Many people think that emotional maturity, just like empathy is innate, we're born with it. [SPEAKER_00]: Not necessarily true, it can be learned. [SPEAKER_00]: and learning is a part of becoming a safe partner. [SPEAKER_00]: Repair requires building distress tolerance and emotional literacy.

12:39 [SPEAKER_00]: One number six is compartmentalization as a survival strategy. [SPEAKER_00]: Compartmentalization often began as a survival strategy. [SPEAKER_00]: So what does this mean? [SPEAKER_00]: It means the brain can separate experiences to reduce pain. [SPEAKER_00]: Over time, this becomes automatic and completely unconscious.

13:00 [SPEAKER_00]: In childhood, what happens is there's a splitting off of feelings or experiences that becomes adaptive. [SPEAKER_00]: And then in adulthood, it becomes maladaptive, it becomes destructive. [SPEAKER_00]: This is why many betrayers say I never wanted to hurt you and they really genuinely mean it because the part of them that acted out was split off from the part of them that loves.

13:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And the relational impact is that the betrayed partner feels gaslit by the lack of a parent intent. [SPEAKER_00]: So healing again here requires integration, bringing all parts of the self into awareness and accountability. [SPEAKER_00]: and this involves mindful awareness and accountability across all parts of the self, not splitting off and fragmenting.

13:44 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's move to wound number seven, conflict avoidance. [SPEAKER_00]: Avoidance often stems from early environments where conflict felt unsafe or overwhelming. [SPEAKER_00]: An example of this could be rather than risk-disappointing a partner, someone betrays, and then tells themselves that they're protecting the relationship and protecting the partner.

14:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And the relational impact is that the eventual rupture, the discovery of the betrayal, is far more traumatic. [SPEAKER_00]: But the betrayer fears disappointing others, they fear confrontation, they fear being seen as failing. [SPEAKER_00]: So instead of risking the consequences, which really would be like an honest rupture, they avoid conflict entirely until the avoidance itself creates a far more catastrophic rupture.

14:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So learning how to tolerate conflict is essential for repair. [SPEAKER_00]: It's essential to realize and learn that healthy conflict can strengthen rather than destroy connection. [SPEAKER_00]: Many people who betray are deeply conflict avoided. [SPEAKER_00]: Healthy conflict does not destroy relationships avoidance does.

14:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me say that again, healthy conflict does not destroy relationships of wooden stores. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to put in a quick plug here from one of my favorite books. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an old book and it's timeless and it is called the power of positive confrontation. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's all about how we can reframe the idea of confrontation as conflict and rather look at confrontation as an opportunity to strengthen a relationship.

15:19 [SPEAKER_00]: and be honest. [SPEAKER_00]: So highly encouraged people to get that book. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's old but it's still applies and will likely always apply. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's move on to wound number eight. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the loss of integrity and self trust. [SPEAKER_00]: After discovery, many betrayers experience a profound loss of self trust, the ability to trust themselves.

15:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Integrity is internal alignment and betrayal fractures [SPEAKER_00]: So, for example, they might say something like, I don't recognize myself anymore, or I became someone I never wanted to be, or I don't trust myself anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: This is really grief, and it matters because a person who doesn't trust themselves cannot yet be fully trusted by others, and the relational impact is that the betrayed partner senses instability and therefore lack safety.

16:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Integrity is rebuilt not through promises but through consistent value aligned behavior over time. [SPEAKER_00]: One to number nine is isolation after discovery and I see this so often which is why I really encourage betrayers to get into groups so that they can come out of that isolation.

16:39 [SPEAKER_00]: After betrayal comes into the open, after discovery, the betrayed partner rightly receives care and validation, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The betrayed partner's life has been blown up, they are devastated, and they deserve all the care that they can possibly get. [SPEAKER_00]: The betrayer, however, often becomes profoundly isolated, especially if Shane keeps them silent.

17:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Shane drives in secrecy. [SPEAKER_00]: So that person might withdraw, convince that sharing will only make things worse. [SPEAKER_00]: Many men, in particular, lack emotionally safe spaces and support where they can process remorse and shame and fear and pain without being shamed or without collapsing.

17:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Women by nature are more emotional and often do have places to go and people to talk to, but that's not always the case when you have a sheenbound person. [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of addicts are sheenbound. [SPEAKER_00]: So we see in treatment or I see in treatment a lot of times is the traitors men or women who come in profoundly isolated without those emotionally safe spaces to seek support.

17:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So the relational impact here is that the betrayed partner feels solely responsible for holding the emotional weight. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, that is a huge burden to carry, especially for someone who's life has just been blown up and they are trying to just figure out how to put one foot in front of the other every day.

18:04 [SPEAKER_00]: isolation does not deepen accountability at all. [SPEAKER_00]: It actually weakens it. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say that again because this is really important. [SPEAKER_00]: So discovery and the betrayal coming out the open creates profound isolation. [SPEAKER_00]: And isolation does not deepen accountability.

18:23 [SPEAKER_00]: It weakens it and it actually creates more shame. [SPEAKER_00]: Community work, group work, therapeutic support that promotes accountability [SPEAKER_00]: And then the last one I want to talk about today is grief and remorse. [SPEAKER_00]: True grief often comes last, not because the betrayer doesn't care, in fact that's often just not true at all, often the betrayer cares a lot, but because grief cannot be accessed while the nervous system is flooded with shame and defense.

18:55 [SPEAKER_00]: One shame softens, and that could be weeks or months, sadly, more than months often, to many people finally feel the weight of what they've done, and they can really let the consequences in the impact land. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's grief for the pain that was caused grief for the life that was broken, grief for the self that they lost along the way, grief for damaging a family system.

19:18 [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much grief, and then the relational impact here, [SPEAKER_00]: is that the betrayed partner may misinterpret delayed grief as lack of caring or lack of remorse or lack of empathy. [SPEAKER_00]: This grief, when held properly, can become a powerful motivator for lasting change.

19:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Because repair is all about allowing grief to fuel humility and empathy and all of those things that are so necessary for healing. [SPEAKER_00]: So for couples that are listening to this and are working on healing together, this is what I want you to hear. [SPEAKER_00]: The trade partners heal through safety, truth, and consistency.

19:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Be traitors heal through shame resilience, integration, and accountability. [SPEAKER_00]: And one partner's healing does not come at the expense of the others. [SPEAKER_00]: Real repair requires both processes happening at the same time. [SPEAKER_00]: The trail does not end relationships, unhealed wounds do.

20:13 [SPEAKER_00]: When betrayed partners are fully seen and betrayers are willing to face their internal wounds with humility and with courage, something new becomes possible. [SPEAKER_00]: These wounds do not cause betrayal, but they do explain what must be healed if the trail is not going to happen again.

20:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Healing isn't about going back. [SPEAKER_00]: It's about becoming more honest, more integrated, and more real than before. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here today as always. [SPEAKER_00]: Take care of yourself as you continue to move forward one second, one moment, one day at a time.

20:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the Helping Couples Heal podcast where you're healing is our number one priority. [SPEAKER_01]: 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.

21:10 [SPEAKER_01]: our help is available worldwide. [SPEAKER_01]: 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_01]: For additional support, follow us on Instagram and consider joining our helping couples heal private Facebook community.

21:30 [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't an easy journey, but you don't have to do it alone. [SPEAKER_01]: Once again, thank you for listening.