Welcome to another edition of Restoring the Soul. On today's podcast, we tackled the critical topic of betrayal trauma with my bride Julianne. We explored why many women feel stuck in their healing process, diving into relational barriers like ongoing betrayal, gaslighting, and the impact of unresolved past trauma. We discussed the importance of emotional safety and open communication in the journey to recovery. If you or someone you know is experiencing betrayal trauma, this episode is a must-listen for understanding those barriers and finding a path to healing.
Feeling stuck in your relationships? Discover insights into possible underlying reasons with our complimentary resource, "Five Ways Unresolved Trauma May Be Derailing Your Relationship." Download here -> https://restoringthesoul.com/our-resources/
ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST: - Follow us on YouTube - Tweet us at @michaeljcusick and @PodcastRTS - Like us on Facebook - Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - Follow Michael on Twitter - Email us at info@restoringthesoul.com
Welcome to another edition of Restoring the Soul. On today's podcast, we tackled the critical topic of betrayal trauma with my bride Julianne. We explored why many women feel stuck in their healing process, diving into relational barriers like ongoing betrayal, gaslighting, and the impact of unresolved past trauma. We discussed the importance of emotional safety and open communication in the journey to recovery. If you or someone you know is experiencing betrayal trauma, this episode is a must-listen for understanding those barriers and finding a path to healing.
Feeling stuck in your relationships? Discover insights into possible underlying reasons with our complimentary resource, "Five Ways Unresolved Trauma May Be Derailing Your Relationship." Download here -> https://restoringthesoul.com/our-resources/
ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST: - Follow us on YouTube - Tweet us at @michaeljcusick and @PodcastRTS - Like us on Facebook - Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - Follow Michael on Twitter - Email us at info@restoringthesoul.com
Thanks for listening!
Julianne Cusick, welcome to the Restoring the Soul podcast. You and I are back together in the studio. Hello, Michael. We've been talking about this for a while, actually only about a week. We wanted to talk about what are the common barriers for women in the healing of betrayal trauma and sexual trauma. How do you feel as we're talking about this at the start? Well, I'm excited. I always get a little bit nervous when I'm speaking on the podcast or to a large audience. But I am excited because I think it's important information, and my hope is that it's going to be very helpful. To our listeners, and I know it will be. So let's start with what is betrayal trauma for the person that's uninitiated with. That trauma, as we've learned through Bessel van DER Kock and Andy Kohlber and Barb Mayberger, can be a single event or a series of events that impacts a person's mental, emotional, and spiritual well being. When we look at betrayal trauma, it's an injury based on a betrayal. So I could have a best friend who lies behind my back, stabs me in the back, and that would be a betrayal trauma. What we're talking about today is really intimate partner betrayal trauma. And that's the deepest level of a betrayal trauma in that the person who's supposed to have my back, the person that I reveal my inner being to, my sexual being to, is the one that my intimate partner is the one who betrays me in some way. And this can be a financial betrayal. Today we're talking about sexual betrayal, but certainly a betrayal in an intimate partner relationship. And really, what I would like you to unpack, it's kind of this question, why does a woman stay stuck in this process of betrayal trauma? And I want to say at the outset that this is not about blaming, it's not about shaming. It's not about saying that you're bad or that you are somehow responsible for, for your husband's issues. But what we've seen is that people come to restoring the soul to do intensive work, and they've been to many counselors, sometimes many, many counselors, and they're just spinning, and they feel like this happened five or more years ago, and I'm in the same place. Yes. So there are two major categories for the delay in healing from betrayal trauma. Address separately, and that's going to be therapeutic barriers to healing betrayal trauma, kind. Of the treatment issues that stand in the way. Yes. Today on this episode, we're going to look at common barriers relationally to healing betrayal trauma. So this would be what's going on in the relationship, what's going on in the wife, what's going on in the husband. I want to say a word to the audience, listening audience, that for the sake of this podcast and based on my experience, we're going to be using that the betrayer is the husband and the betrayed is the wife. And I just want to say that on the onset, because I am well aware that there's a growing number of betrayed partners who are the husbands and the people doing the betraying are the wives. Good clarification. Yes. So let's jump in. What's the first relational barrier? So the first is when the wife continues to find evidence of continued acting out so she cannot get over a betrayal trauma while the betrayal continues. I'm being told things are going well. There's healing in this area. We're trying to rebuild our marriage, but I keep discovering things, and they could be past, they could be present, but this, there's ongoing a lack of a full disclosure or hidden behaviors or secrets that are still coming to light. And it's impossible to recover from betrayal trauma when you're still a victim of betrayal trauma. It's like the person who is in combat overseas in the military, and they experience traumatic warfare. They come back to the states, they have a furlough, and then they're redeployed, and they go back into having to go look for ieds or being shot at or being shelled, and that person couldn't heal from their trauma while they're back in it. I'll never forget the moment when I was working with a woman before. We knew a lot about betrayal trauma. And I said, you know, you really have trauma from these betrayals. And she said, no, I'm being betrayed. I'm being traumatized ongoingly. And so how often do you see this, where there's this re traumatizing? Well, unfortunately, it can be part of the process, because as with any type of addiction or sexual acting out, whether, you know, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping, eating, we have to be ready to address the deeper issues. And until we're engaged in that type of work, then many times there's repeated behaviors that, you know, are ongoing. What is the next relational barrier? This is similar to the first one, although it's different. This still involves a continuation of acting out behavior, but this involves gaslighting. And for those who aren't familiar with the term gaslighting, I used to call it crazy, making it's basically when you're told one thing, but the reality is something different, so it's very crazy. Making gaslighting is the psychological abuse of consistently being lied to or being told half truths that change a person's perspective perception about what's real and true. So what I mean by that is the person doesn't have to be continuing to act out. However, if they are hiding any type of behaviors and they're lying about that to their partner, this type of lying and gaslighting can prevent healing from betrayal trauma. So give me an example of what gaslighting is. So first thing that comes to mind, many women will say, my husband is up in the middle of the night. And that's a trigger for me because he used to watch porn. So fast forward, husband's up in the middle of the night. Wife wakes up, oh, my gosh, she's not here. She's kind of in a panic. He's watching porn. And she goes back to bed, and the next morning she says, where were you? And he says, oh, I couldn't sleep, so I was watching tv, or I couldn't sleep, and I was working on a work project when in fact, he really was watching porn. And he's lied about it, so. Or as I've heard. What do you mean? I wasn't out of bed. What are you talking about? So it's that kind of crazy making where you're literally challenging truth that would otherwise be undisputed. Yeah, that's even more crazy making is I wasn't in bed. Yeah, absolutely. Or I'm drinking water when really it's, you know, vodka. And you're crazy that you think it's alcohol or. What do you mean about this purchase on the credit card? That must be fraud. I didn't purchase it, but it says right here that it was your card number with the last four digits. Well, we have. That was fraud. That's not me. And it really was. So it's changing the perception of the reality. It can be active lying, but can also be deception. So the term gaslighting comes from a film named Gaslight from the 1990, early 1950s or forties. And this man is systematically trying to drive his wife crazy so he can gain her inheritance. So he flickers the light and makes her think that she's losing her mind by hearing sounds or seeing lights change that really aren't flickering, when in fact they really are. So the trauma with gaslighting is not necessarily the acting out, but it's the crazy making, the deception. And really, I don't know what is real. That's it. That's it. It's. I don't know what is real. And so it leaves a woman in a position of, I either I trust my husband, and I deny my gut sense that something's off here. Oh, he says he didn't sleep with her, and yet everything in me is saying, yes, he did. So I either have to deny myself and believe my husband, or I go, no, I'm sticking with something. Doesn't, you know, feel right to me. And if I believe myself and trust myself, then that means my husband's, you know, lying to me and I can't trust him. So that's the impact of gaslighting, is. It changes. It's like your brain being on a. On a drug that you can't see clearly what reality is. And it doesn't have to be about porn or sexual behaviors. It can be about what I did after work and did I come straight home? Did I go to the bar or did I go to the gym? And I omit things. That's a big part of gaslighting, is I just don't tell the whole story. I just tell part of it. And my partner is left to believe one truth when really a different truth is what's true. And you referred to a woman's intuition and trusting her heart. Would you say that gaslighting often leads to a woman losing her voice or being tempted to lose her voice? I think it's even worse than losing her voice. It's an erosion of the God given system inside of her to discern danger. Say more about that. Well, all of us have what's called our second brain, which is our gut. And when we're listening to that, that's what tells us when we're safe or not safe. And the erosion of that is I'm lied to. I'm being gaslit over and over and over. So that radar that I have, that barometer of warning, doesn't work as well. It gets muffled and drowned out. And so there's a real sense of. I don't know what is real and what isn't real. And I feel crazy. Julianne, what is next? So I have two more on this portion. In a relationship, the third barrier is a husband or man's inability or unwillingness to own their impact. So it's a minimization of the impact of behaviors. It's also not addressing the wounds. Right. The impact of the behavior would be the wounds on his wife, on his partner. So he's willing to move forward, and she's sitting there bleeding, and he's either unwilling or unable to address those wounds. And we have both seen this so often, but where a husband is like, I know what I did was wrong, and I know it was hurtful, but I just can't take this anymore. You know, she's getting angry, she's frustrated, she's always anxious. She's not sleeping. And I just need to kind of get back to my normal life. Right, yes, that. And it's more than that. It's this sense of she's hemorrhaging because of the relational betrayal. She's bleeding out because it's more than just his behavior that's wounded her. There's a lack of emotional connection, there's a lack of trust in the relationship. There's a lack of her wounds being addressed. So I had a woman describe it to me once as saying that she felt like she had been hit by a drunk driver and then was in the ICU for treatment, and everyone was paying attention to the drunk driver and not her. And she was the one with all the injuries. We can have a separate conversation sometime about what it is in a man that makes him unable to empathize and to allow himself to feel the impact of those wounds. But that's not what this conversation is about. Right. So what's the next relational barrier? Well, let me hold you back just a minute, because I also want to say that sometimes it's not the woman is crying or angry. Sometimes the woman is really longing to move forward in the relationship. But the barrier then is still his unwillingness to own his impact. And so she's saying, hey, I'm willing to forgive you, whatever it is. I just feel like you haven't told me the whole truth. And so this just feels like it's a barrier between us. You know, I'm willing to stay with you and work through this and move forward. I just want to do so knowing the full truth. Because the heart feels unsafe. Exactly. Yeah, that's a really good point, that I don't want to pathologize a woman, per se. The stuckness might have nothing to do with the symptom or the manifestation of the betrayal. It might be purely that the husband has not given his heart and provided safety for her to just rest. Yes, absolutely. So another barrier, a relational barrier to healing betrayal trauma is when the man is doing his work, he's going to counseling, maybe he's doing a twelve step group, you know, saa, but he's not communicating with his wife, he's not sharing his work, and so she's left really isolated and alone and not sure what he's really working on. So it's this not sharing the intimacies of, hey, this is what I talked about in therapy today, or this is what I'm learning about myself, or some really hard things are coming up from my childhood and I'm not sure how to process that. This inability or unwillingness to open up to the wife about his healing journey can be a barrier to her healing from betrayal trauma. So I'm wondering if you've ever seen an instance where a husband wants to share his journey in process and it's not good for the healing process for the wife with betrayal trauma. Well, yes and no. We have to agree on what's good and what isn't good for the wife. And that's not something that you or I can decide. That's something that each wife needs to decide for herself how much she wants to know. My go to, and I've said it before, is specific but not graphic information. So categories of acting out behavior, not the specific details. What I'm talking about is less about the acting out behaviors and more about, hey, I'm in therapy and I'm doing some work and I'm taking a deep dive, but I'm not telling you any of what I'm learning. And so that leaves you out, you know, in an open field, not knowing what's going on. That can be a barrier in healing the betrayal trauma, because the wife doesn't have information of, hey, is he really getting something out of this therapy? Is he really changing or is he just going and checking the boxes? Many times wives will ask and husbands are reactive and they don't want to share. It's that not sharing that hinders the healing. So to state this another way, a husband to help his wife heal can actively engage in sharing with her about the healing process in therapy, in his recovery meetings, and to really use that as a launching pad for building intimacy. Yes, absolutely. If what has broken the relationship is not just the behavior, but the hiddenness and the secrets, the lies, the dishonesty, then one of the bridges to recovering that is transparency, being forthcoming, sharing about the healing journey. So, Julianne, there's relational barriers that are things that a woman will struggle with. So talk about the wife. Yes, well, one of the ones that I see quite frequently is unresolved past trauma. And as we've learned, as we've talked about trauma together, for those who haven't listened to the podcast with Andy Kohlber, we talk about how trauma piggybacks on trauma. In other words, if I have a traumatic event happen in my childhood, and then something similar happens in adulthood, that past trauma gets reactivated. So many times, women aren't able to heal as easily or as readily over from betrayal trauma because past trauma is reactivated. And this isn't something that a woman chooses. It isn't something any person chooses. We all have trauma. And when that is unhealed and we re experience trauma, our hippocampus remembers very primitively, hey, this happened before. This was unsafe. This was dangerous. Our central nervous system gets activated. The amygdala starts yelling, warning, warning, warning. And we go into fight or flight, freeze or fawn. And that becomes then a barrier to healing. And it's really difficult for a woman to try and heal from two different levels of trauma at the same time. I have noticed that sometimes it can feel like minimization when I've been talking with a betrayed spouse, a wife, and maybe it's because I'm a man I even own, that. It could be that I'm not communicating well, but that it sometimes feels like a minimization of the wound of betrayal in the present when there's conversation about past trauma. Have you experienced that? Yes. And we certainly don't want to minimize the present trauma or the betrayal trauma. I've seen this happen where a husband has said, oh, this isn't me. You know, this is something that happened in her past, whether it was x, y, or zombie. That kind of minimization is really, really damaging. So that also would become a barrier to healing. I'm talking about the woman really being flooded with the impact of betrayal trauma. So her system is so traumatized, and she's dealing with multiple levels of trauma. Getting to a place of safety, getting to a place of emotional regulation to be able to do the healing work that takes time. So what is the next barrier? This is a hard one, Michael. Sometimes the barrier is really a woman's inability or unwillingness to take necessary steps to keep herself emotionally safe. If I'm sleeping in bed next to my husband, and my husband is actively lying to me, that is not allowing a context for my central nervous system to be at rest or at peace. I'm literally, quote, unquote, sleeping with the enemy. So some women are afraid to ask for separate bedrooms or a separation. And many times, having that space to allow each party to heal is really beneficial and done well with therapeutic guidelines and agreements and boundaries and time limitations and goals for each person can be really, really helpful. Some partners are so scared to risk a separation that they stay where they are. There's a belief in the church, right, that the divorce is wrong and you have to stay. And it's not about staying or going. It's about why we stay or why we leave, how we stay, how we leave. And the underneath question is, is the goal to stay married, so we're just married and living together versus is the goal to have a life giving, thriving marriage? They're two different things. The other barrier to healing relationally is any type of underlying issue on either party side that hasn't been addressed. So maybe there was a loss of a child or a loss of a job or financial bankruptcy issues, something pretty significant that has never really been addressed relationally with the couple. So not necessarily childhood trauma like sexual abuse or growing up in an alcoholic family, but something that definitely wounded the couple or that was, you know, part of their life, chronic unemployment or, as you said, some other kind of major loss. Yes. It's almost like they've both had a trauma that isn't resolved. So not a past trauma, but a relationship trauma that they've experienced together that has never really been resolved, can keep the couple and can keep the individuals from moving forward. So you have one final barrier to the healing of betrayal trauma. What is that? That would be similar to the husband not sharing. This would be the wife's inability or unwillingness to ask questions of her husband. So she might have questions about their relationship, about his healing, but she doesn't engage him. She keeps those questions to herself, stays on the surface, just trying to keep things nice, kind of walking on eggshells, not wanting to tip over the apple cart in any way. And that inability or unwillingness to really press in, in her relationship with her husband to ask the hard questions can actually prevent her from experience healing. Because a man who is not self motivated or who won't do the work without her pressing in, he's likely to just stall and say, this is as good as I need to be. Yes. Or he's actually doing the work and changing. And she's. She may be stuck in a frozen state where she's not engaging. And so that's another aspect of how do we wake her up to the reality of what's happened and work with her to have the sense of self and stability and safety to engage the. Husband, referring to how on the one side of trauma, there's the fight or flight, which is that activation of our nervous system. But on the other side. It's the freeze, it's the numbing. And very often, that's the case, too. And as you said, there needs to be a waking up. Yes. Many women are just afraid to ask questions about is their husband still acting out? When was the last time he watched porn? And so that frozenness keeps her from healing.