Betrayal Overcompensation: From Image Management to Authentic Recovery (Episode #138)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Something surrounds you. Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michalis, licensed clinical social worker. The last 2 weeks, Marianne and I have been doing a couples retreat and then a therapist training. Absolutely beautiful here in Utah. One of my favorite things, seeing the leaves changing colors. If you haven't taken us up on opportunity to do a retreat with us or come to, if you're a therapist, do the training with us, absolutely phenomenal experience. My favorite part, Marianne, you know what I'm going to say.

I do.

We're on this beautiful side-by-side. If you've never ridden a side-by-side, it's like a four-wheeler, but bigger. We're riding down this area and this big animal jumps right in front of us. And I thought a deer, an elk, no, neither one. It was actually a mountain lion. And I just, man, it was just made my whole thing. I'd like, not only did I see this beautiful area, I saw a mountain lion.

And we were in the side-by-side right behind you and we missed all of it. It was so fast.

All right. To today's topic. We talked a few weeks ago about betrayal withdrawal, where there's a withdrawal of connection, intimacy, emotional connection. And really, I think a very important part of, you know, what we're seeing in our clients, Marianne. And now we're talking about today, the other side of that, where maybe I'm completely blindsided because my spouse is going over and beyond. I'm like, I thought we had a wonderful marriage. They're doing this, taking care of this problem. They're just wonderful. And then I get sideswiped, shocked, whatever term you want to use here. And I'm like, what, what is this? How is that even possible? You've been so good. And now I'm confused by, was your good just because you were trying to make yourself feel better because you were acting out?

I recently had a brand new client come to me and say, my husband hasn't had a lot of motivation. That's how I've known him. And when he started to do recovery work, suddenly he was helping. Suddenly he was picking things up. He was cleaning things up. And my client was really shocked and surprised. And then they noticed that that kind of waned, that kind of slacked back off again. And I'm thinking this probably also fits into this, this category more than anything. I think I want to talk about the confusion, the confusion that a betrayed partner experiences, as you alluded to, who is this person? What's going on? I don't understand this. What does this mean? And does this mean that they're doing better? Does this mean that they're in recovery? How do I make sense of my spouse or partner's behaviors because they look so different?

Or looking at another one that I've heard is, you know, they were really good before discovery. And now when they do good things, I'm like, I don't believe it. I don't trust it. Is there a motivation behind that? Are you still hiding things? And so I've actually heard people say, I don't trust you doing well. Right? Doing the dishes, helping with this task and whatever is at home. I don't even trust that part of it. And so now I, the senses are so confused that I don't know. I have no idea how to trust anymore. I don't know what that means because what I thought was good wasn't good.

And I hear you talking about that. And if I were listening to this, my reaction to that would probably be a lot of anger and rage. Really, really. I think that the phrase that I usually look at with this with my clients is it's almost like I'm trying to balance the scales. And I have clients who will tell me, you know, my spouse or my husband, they're a super great dad. They are so good at cleaning everything, taking care of everything because they feel like it balances out their bad behaviors.

And when we were at the therapist training, Stephen Grant, our friend, CSAT, brought up a very important point. He said, you know, it's usually shame, it leads to anger, but he said, there's also another side of this, which I also have seen in my clients, where the shame leads them into those behaviors you were just describing, going over and beyond, trying to show my worthiness, trying to show that I'm enough. And I think what's driving that, and that's kind of what I would like to talk about today, what's actually driving that need Because if you really knew what I was doing, you would probably reject me. So I'm going to do everything I can to make it so you don't reject me.

So would we call that betrayal compensation?

We're compensating for this part of me that I'm not sharing with you, that I'm hiding. And so that, again, that goes back to that confusion because the shame is not really addressed. It's hiding back there because you don't see this part of me. And then I'm doing all these things and you're saying, wow, look at this wonderful person. They're doing this and your friends, everybody, everybody says, wow, you've got a great husband or you've got a great wife. And at the end of the day, it's compensating, as you say, for this part of me that I'm not showing, I'm not revealing.

Yeah. The way that I think my mind frames this, I go back to Brené Brown's work, which I really appreciate. And I remember years ago, my brother-in-law came to my house for something. And he said, there's a lot of shame there, Marianne. And I was like, what are you talking about? Of course I want my house to be perfect before you get here. Because of course we live with the perfect house. And he said, no, that's, that's perfectionism. Brené Brown calls that, that's just shame. We want to make sure that everything looks really good on the outside. So nobody knows. What's really going on on the inside.

Yeah. And that, and that's the concept. So if you're listening to us and you say, okay, I didn't do the betrayal withdrawal that we talked about a few weeks ago in our podcast, but I can acknowledge like I was putting on this front, I was putting forward this part of me that's like, this needs to be corrected. And how do we correct that? How do we fix that after betrayal is discovered? Because now everyone's confused. If I'm doing something, what's the agenda? What's the motive? Are you hiding something? Even, even if something's good, I may think you're hiding something. How do we help the couple in this situation realize what's real?

Well, maybe before we jump right into that, I think there's another component that I want to make sure— there's probably lots of them, but one that feels important to me as part of this conversation. I often see high religiosity showing up in this area. And, and so Once again, on the outside, I'm, I'm, I'm so good with my higher power and I'm, and I'm doing all this work or, or I just look so put together, especially in that religious area.

Context. Yeah.

Which can be so, once again, so confusing for that betrayed partner because look, my partner is so connected with God and serving everyone. And doing so many things and it looks so great and it doesn't fit what I feel and experience maybe at home.

So that would be a different thing is if it's not felt that way, but even more confusing if it's seen in public and I think it's that way in private, even more confusing. So that's a great example. So when we look at this type of a scenario, and I wanna look at it from both sides, from the betrayed, How would I know what to trust? Because I thought you were putting your best foot forward. So if you act like a jerk, that doesn't help. If you act like Mr. Nice Guy, well, that doesn't work anymore either, because you were being Mr. Nice Guy when you were acting out. If I'm the betraying, it's coming congruent. It's being able to be completely authentic here, is seeing how I hid my behaviors, how I deceived, and acknowledging it. Like, Like I was trying to prove my worth. I was trying to show it. And I think that awareness in the betraying spouse is so important. That insight is so incredibly important for them to see. Yeah, that's what I was doing. I was, and I, again, I think there's a language here. I was putting out this part of me that really wasn't what I was feeling inside. And the way you're gonna heal that is to be absolutely congruent. So there's not a hidden behavior. Is what you get, that WYSIWYG concept that I've talked about in the past.

So, man, I am fixating on this confusion part for the betrayed partner, Dr. Skinner, but, and here's why. I have clients who will say to me, my partner looked me straight in the eyes. My partner was maybe doing everything so well. And so I had no idea. This took me so by surprise. There's that part. We don't really listen to the words. We're watching the actions. So what happens then if my partner is doing all of the actions? So they looked me in the eyes. I totally believed them. I had no idea. I didn't see it coming. And then they're going through all the behaviors. They're, they're, we're watching their feet, what they're doing, and they're doing it all right.

Yeah.

But it's, it's, they may still be hiding behind that. Comes back to this confusion. How do I know then? What do I do with this?

While this is a very slow process because of that very reason, the answer to me is always that the person who is acting out has come to the point where they can acknowledge and own it and sometimes be very specific in ways that they did it. Can we use the word transparency? This is how I was thinking. So I would go do this because I wanted to put my best foot forward when I knew that I had just acted out, as an example. And so owning that and acknowledging it, not in a defensive way, not in a, like, this is what I did, in a kind of minimizing it, but in an authentic, this is what I did and this is how I did it. Again, this is going to take time because I don't care for approval. I don't need approval because I now know who I am. And that's a differentiated self. I was doing it because I wanted your praise, or I was serving in the community because I wanted the praise in a religious setting or whatever it may be. And now it's like, I know myself well enough. I don't care about the praise. I want to be the best authentic person with integrity that I can be.

So I hear that wording that you just used to me sounds like it's a change and based on the humility, the transparency, and the accountability.

That's when I see people do that, right? It's, that's what they're doing. They don't care whether people accept them or not. You almost have to give up the concept of validation from people, because I really do believe it's the fear of social rejection or the fear of isolation. And so I'm putting forth this part, which isn't accurate because it's not how I feel inside. And I know that it's not who I am.

So I'm hearing you talk more about a spiritual rebirth here where I am, I'm really shifting and changing from Actions, outward, the facade, what other people are seeing. And even though I often say like, listen to your gut, sometimes because of the outward appearances, it can be really difficult for a betrayed partner to, to get a good bead on, on that. But once again, I'm hearing you really talking about this feels like a change because it's the humility, the transparency, and this accountability of Being able to say like, I, here's where I am now. And I don't, that outward approval, that, that's not my goal. I'm not being fed by that. And because that's a driver oftentimes, I think in this scenario that we're talking about.

In my career, many, many times I will talk with people about what's called the Recovery Capital Scale. I talk about it in my book, Treating Sexual Addiction. That scale, we know what successful people do in recovery from drugs and alcohol because that scale basically, here's research of what people do to succeed. Well, 2 of the core things there is I have people to talk to and I have a sponsor, right? When I have that type of accountability. So if I'm going to a group, that usually means that I'm getting some kind of group feedback. One of the most common hesitations that I get to going into a group is I'll meet somebody else or What if something gets out and my story is told in our community? When people give up that fear and they actually engage in it, and I've seen this over and over when I've faced that resistance from clients, they're concerned about those questions I just said or others, and then they're like, it doesn't matter anymore. When I see that shift into I don't care, that's when I see the greatest progress because I'm no longer trying to protect an image. I'm actually becoming more transparent, talking in a group, opening up. And that is where I create— I've seen incredible forms of community because these people get me. These people finally understand me. And now I don't feel like I'm hiding, isolated, alone. And that's exactly what's needed when you've been living in this deceptive place.

And I agree with that. And I also have betrayed partners come to me and say, yeah, my husband's doing great in his group. People are calling him. He's like leading and He's getting all that outward approval from how he's showing up in the group. And sometimes he's missing that humility component that we're talking about, that accountability, because it just is carrying over into the group. Oh, people like me. Yeah.

Validation.

Yeah. Outward validation from everybody there. And so it still is just feeding into that same balance of look at me. Here I am.

Well, I think there's so much complexity to this because there's this side of this where there is that humility, that transparency. But in her book Dopamine Nation, Anna Lembke addresses it in another direction. She says sometimes people are looking for that outward validation as a way to compensate for what's actually happening. And so they're trying to get validation of this is, oh, look at me, look at me. I'm not doing this because I want to be seen. I'm doing this because I want to be a better human being. I want to have deeper connections. And so the byproduct of that kind of transparency, if it's not leading to at least honesty in the relationship, then I don't think it's serving its purpose.

I think coming to those spaces where we have that internal self-assessment, where am I? What am I really doing? Some of those really hard questions. It's easy to skate by on outward approval. On outward appearances versus that work of really looking and taking a lot of insight and really digging deep down inside. That's where the change comes. 'Cause it's gotta be that, I think summing up some of what we're talking about today is that intrinsic versus extrinsic change. The intrinsic is it's coming from an inward place that this is really motivated versus extrinsic, which is based on outward.

Mm-hmm.

Influences that are influencing the change.

I truly tell my group members, you need to get to the point where you're so confident in what you're doing that you're not— again, it's not for praise. It's not for the validation. It's, this is the person I'm striving to be. And I say, when you're at that place, you will be confident. So if there's conflict, if there's tension, if your spouse is criticizing, putting you down, whatever, the confidence is, is you know where you're at in the recovery journey. And you're not, you don't have to rely on your spouse to say, hey, good job, you're doing well. Or a group member or a sponsor, hey, good job. Those are nice, but it's not why I'm doing these things. I'm doing these things because I want to be the best human being I can possibly be. That's rising up to what our potential is. And I think that's what I'm finding when I see the greatest success is when people are like, I don't care. And it came from a group member. He literally for 2 or 3 years, I went through with this individual things that successful people do. Finally, he said, what am I missing? I said, do you have a group? Do you have a sponsor? Nope. I've tried a group. Didn't work for me. I said, okay, this is what successful people do. Are you willing to put some skin in the game and go confront that part? And that is the greatest change. When he did that part, all of a sudden he was engaged in a process that was actually very admirable. Because he's like, I went and talked with my religious leader. I found a group that I'm starting to connect to. I'm starting to open up to, because even in a group, you can attend a group and not connect with the group. So again, why am I doing it? Is it for image and appearance, or is it to be the best human being I can be and do it for connection?

So recently I was observing some work that a couple was doing and what I had been told was the acting out partner was really solid, that he was in a really solid, really supportive place. Just what we're talking about here. I don't know if I've seen that solidness in a, in a, in recovery, just to the extent that I saw that. And I remember talking to you about it and we talked about a lot of the shame work that had been done. I saw somebody who was really in recovery and their spouse was struggling, was really struggling. And because of the work that it appeared that they had done, they were able to sit with their spouse. They were able to sit there and hold the emotions and they were so steady with it. And it was such a beautiful example of what we're talking about. Can I sit with my partner's emotions? Even when they're dysregulated, because I've done my shame work and I can sit here in this space and I can support and I can be here because that's my change. Instead of trying to get accolades, instead of sinking down into my own shame storm, that cannot be done unless we have groups, unless we have therapy, unless we have places where we're working through all of that stuff. Because when a partner is dysregulated and cussing at you and calling you names and saying all sorts of things and really, really dysregulated, to be able to stay steady in that space, there's gotta be a lot of work and a lot of support to get there.

And I think that that's a very— what I've seen in my career is when I've seen people do that kind of work, that they actually create an environment that is stabilizing As the betrayed partner works through that stuff. That takes a lot of time and a lot of effort for everybody involved. As long as we are truly learning to be authentic, that's when the progress occurs and not really before. Because if I'm putting on a facade, if I'm doing all these things because I'm trying to cover something up, that lack of congruence, lack of integrity, saying it another way, It always is gonna either betrayal withdrawal or putting on a show because I'm afraid of what you might know. If you really knew, you wouldn't want me. So I'm doing all this trying to cover up this part of me, hide. And that's really my shame. And in that situation, shame is being put out there to protect me.

So are we calling this overcompensation? Betrayal compensation?

Maybe it's betrayal compensation, overcompensation. But if you're listening to this and you would like to share with us what you think you would label it, info@humanintimacy.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. And if you've experienced it, Mariana would always love to hear your stories. So feel free to share whatever you want to share with us. We would love to hear, you know, if you go back and listen to betrayal withdrawal, if you want to share with us whatever you want to call this betrayal overcompensation, whatever you want to call it, we'd love to hear your stories. And if these podcasts have been helpful to To you and giving a language to what you're experiencing. Marianne, your final thoughts today.

I love that invitation. And for me, these conversations have been super helpful. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we weren't using the language of betrayal withdrawal. And I've been surprised at how many places it's come up that I've said, oh, let me put a label on that for you. Some words for that. And Because betrayal trauma is such a new area, we have a lot of gaps in the research. We have a lot of gaps in a lot of areas. And so being able to give things names that make sense, I think is really important because we just want to understand and create understanding and meaning and a pathway through.

Yeah.

The more we can make sense of what we're experiencing, Oh, okay. This is normal. Okay. Yeah, that fits. I think that's such an important part of creating our trauma narrative and just the healing process. It's kind of like climbing up a mountain and we need those handholds. We need those things to hold onto that help us get a foundation and a footing to build off of and go from. So this has been, you know, we stepped into this today knowing we're going to talk about this other side of betrayal withdrawal. And I think it's been a great conversation, but there's still a lot more, I think, conversation around it to be had.

I think giving it a language, trying to give these experiences a language. When I first looked at betrayal as a PTSD symptom, trying to give language to what people are experiencing and very validating for the betrayed spouse. There's more to the relationship dynamics that we're now talking about. The withdrawal. Yes, I experienced that. Or now the overcompensation. whatever terms we're using here, you can't change what you don't understand. And we're trying to give a language to what we don't understand or haven't put a— be able to put a finger on. Change then is, well, okay, now here it is. What do I do with it?

So I think it's really important before we wrap up though today, Dr. Skinner, with betrayal withdrawal, we talked about what happens with the partner who's withdrawing because of their acting out. And then we also talked about what happens for the partner. When they sense that, they give up, they hit hopelessness and they withdraw. I think we need to make sure we're also looking at this from the betrayed partner's perspective as well, of oftentimes because of what's going on. Like we've been focusing on the acting out partner, but I think there's also that overcompensation that I know that I've been guilty of, especially early on before I had words or tools or had really begun my own recovery work. My house has to look really clean. Things have to look like they're put together. So I may be compensating as a betrayed partner because there's such, once again, deep shame that if anybody knew, or I don't have the language, or I don't have the places where I can talk about this, I don't know how to. And so I'm stuck in a silo pretending like everything's fine. And it's not. And I think that fits here as well. Yeah.

And that's very much a feeling incongruent with self. Like I'm feeling this inside, but in public I'm trying to overcompensate for the underlying feelings that I'm having. Yeah. That's a great point, Marianne. All right. So thank you to our listeners. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. We genuinely appreciate you listening and giving us feedback. It keeps us going and we hope that you'd be willing to share this with others. Who might benefit from these podcasts. Maryanne, thank you so much.

Thank you, Dr. Skinner.