Overcoming Betrayal Trauma
In the blink of an eye your world is turned upside down with the discovery of a text message, an image, an email or a voicemail. Your reality is shattered. The addicts past becomes your present and you don’t even recognize yourself, how you’re acting, what you’re saying, having rage mixed with fear and then completely collapsing. You can find healing from the trauma of being in a relationship with someone who is sexually addicted. The addict’s addiction is NOT your fault. The addict’s addiction began at a much earlier stage of development-long before marriageable age. The addiction, left untreated, would have grown regardless of who the addict’s partner was and would have wounded anyone who got close enough.
You may have discovered that treatment for the partner of an addict is hard to find and most therapists are unfamiliar with sex addiction. Until recently many who specialize in sex addiction may label you a co-addict/codependent. I do not work from that model and new research shows us that we suffer from trauma after discovering our partner’s addiction. This trauma is rarely recognized or addressed by professionals. Many partners meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is a disorder that needs treatment and will not go away on its own. You may have also experienced additional trauma from your childhood. I specialize in working with partners of sex, love and porn addicts. Loved ones frequently don’t know how to bring up the issue of addiction therapy. Instead, they ignore the problem for fear of pushing their loved one away or causing them to act out sexually. They describe themselves as “being trapped”.
There are six identifiable stages of recovery for partners of sex/porn, love addicts to help move along the road to recovery.
- Developing/Pre-discovery
- Crisis/Decision/Information Gathering
- Shock
- Grief/Ambivalence
- Repair
- Growth
Let me help you recover a sense of yourself, understand what intimacy disorders are, learn how to interact in a healthy way with the one who betrayed you, make wise decisions for yourself, work through your betrayal trauma, go from a feeling of being out of control and helpless to being strong, secure and empowered.
