Hope After Betrayal: Is Healing Your Relationship Still Possible? (Episode #113)

Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Something's around. Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michalis, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne, last week we were talking about courage, and today we want to emphasize a concept that I think is really important, and it's related to Hope. And as I was thinking about hope, we talked a little bit before, something that came to my mind is a statistic I saw that kind of concerned me a lot. And it was about 55 to 58% of all divorces are related to some kind of sexual betrayal. And so it's got me thinking about, is it possible to have hope for couples who've experienced betrayal? And what have you seen and what have I seen that has led to positive outcomes? Because I think people want to know, is it possible for us to work through this? Your initial thoughts, Marianne.

This is a really great season to talk about hope, especially last week, talking about the courage and the hard work that it takes to move forward. And my initial thought with this is that I think about my own experience. I think about with betrayal trauma, oftentimes we don't hear stories of hope. Oftentimes we experience it and, you know, we're looking around going like, who, like, where can I find hope? Where's a model for this? Where's a template? Who has made it through this so how that I can hold onto and go, oh, well, they did it so I can. And I remember not having that and it's so painful. So because of that shame and the cultural implications of that, We usually stay quiet about it. So we don't have lots of beacons of hope. And so I point that out because I remember sitting in a group for the first time and hearing people talk about hearing the therapist talk about sharing a little bit of their story and going, oh, this is the first person I've ever heard of who's actually made it through this. And, and then we go back to, I know last year, I think it was in the Forbes magazine in January of 2025 that it had a whole lot of statistics about divorce and the causes of divorce and relationships. And it's kind of bleak. It is bleak. And, and if we're just looking from that perspective, there's not a lot of hope. In this profession, in the work that we do, we often talk about the death of a marriage, the death of that relationship that you had before, because there was usually secrecy, because there was hiding, because there was dishonesty. Because it wasn't reality, that marriage is over. It's done because now we're starting to see things with a new reality. And so I'm celebrating Easter this weekend. And so I love looking at how do we take this death and then look at rebuilding a new relationship and looking at it as there being a resurrection, a resurrection of being able to see each other differently, newly, and being able to move forward with something new that has to grow.

And recently I've had some incredible experiences. I've done a lot of intensives recently. And as I was working with multiple couples in this, in one of these intensives, many of the women had not had support and felt kind of isolated and alone in their own healing. And the men as well. And we get together and we're starting to just role play and walk through situations and they're starting to understand how to rebuild trust. And you start to see the hope coming in. And it's so incredibly powerful because by the end of 3 days, they have support, they have connection, they're reaching out to each other. And one of the interesting things, and this is one of my bigger concerns, is for so long people fly solo. They try to do it on their own. And in that isolation, you don't get other people's perspectives. So you're living in a silo. And that silo, sometimes it can come, and I'm gonna caution here, this is so incredibly important to me to share. I've recently seen people going to ChatGPT and getting their advice from ChatGPT on things. And the consequence of that is ChatGPT is designed to affirm, oh, good idea, this is good. And so what it's doing is it's recycling, really validating in some ways, unhealthy concepts. And so when people are going there and that is their loan source, I've seen that as a problem recently in my office. And so that's just a concern for all of our listeners. But now let me get back to the intensive. So now these couples are coming to the intensive, they have support, they have tools, they have resources, and there's— and the hope meter is starting to go up. And what I found, Marianne, is when people have the right information, they can heal, they can rebuild, they can have hope. But when you don't have the right information and either, A, you're flying solo or you're getting bad information, it can feel hopeless. And today I really want to emphasize the hope that I have seen, and I personally have experienced with multiple— I mean, 30 years of doing this, Marianne. And I'm going to tell you, not only is there hope, but you can have a life where recently I was talking with somebody who'd been to one of our intensives And this person said, I don't think we've been this close ever. Ever. And to me, that is the joy of seeing people with hope because they realize we can do this.

I want to respond to your comments about the AI because I think that's so important. Before we had AI, what would we do? We'd either be silent or else we would turn to somebody. And the challenge with AI is that it's counterfeit. It's not another human being that we're turning to for connection. We all need intimacy of being seen, being heard, being validated. And while there can be some practical and helpful uses for AI, I recently testified in the state of Washington on some legislature. The AI that we use, it is all information. It's all built off of the models of what's been, what it's been trained on. And so information dumps in and then it turns that back out when somebody asks a question. And the legislation that I was testifying on was basically saying we'd like to have the ingredients of AI aware to the user. So if I'm going to go to this AI, I actually want to know what it was trained on. Was it trained on child abuse materials or things like that? Or abusive materials? Because we don't really always know what, what we're turning to for our information. And so we need to be really careful with that, especially when we're talking about our relationships, our most important relationships. Am I turning to something that's a counterfeit to get advice, to get help, to get support versus how can I turn to support groups, to trusted people who I know have my very best interests? I think that's so important. There's so much happening right now with our technology. And I think it's important to be wise and look, what sources am I turning to? And is this a trusted, helpful source that's going to help me get where I, where I really want and need to get to? I think we need to really pay attention to that. I also, just like you, have, have, we see the gamut. We see the full spectrum in our work. And just yesterday, I started my day out with some clients doing an impact letter. And so they had gone through the disclosure. It was a really hard disclosure. And this couple doing the work, I, I watched them both making eye contact, connecting, using their emotions. And I just thought, this, this right here, I wish that other people could see. This is what recovery looks like. It's not easy. And, and there were very hard— my client did such a good job of using her language to paint her pain and paint her rage in a way that honored her emotions, but it wasn't shaming or blaming. And her spouse did such a good job of sitting there and receiving it, not dissociating, but being there with her. And it was so powerful. But I ended my evening yesterday with a disclosure, which was the beginning of the pain, the Here's everything you didn't know. And, and just seeing those two contrasts in a day. This is work. This is really, really hard work. But when couples step into that work and they've got good resources, they can have such better relationships. I think we all can when we're, when we're doing that work.

And contrast that when we talk about hope and building hope in this process. Obviously, it requires two people who are willing to step into the arena and do that kind of work because it's not easy. But when people and couples do it together, there is a refinement, a refiner's fire, so to speak, of taking out the impurities, taking out the elements that are not going to be helpful for this relationship. Obviously, that's a self-work first. And you and I have been talking, and for the last few months, I have been— well, literally most of my career, I've been most concerned about— we work with individuals, we work with them dealing with betrayal, we work with them dealing with the trauma, and then the addictive behaviors, the unwanted sexual behaviors. But most models are not working for the couple healing. I have the opportunity to train therapists all over the world as part of my responsibilities for ITAP. And so I trained licensed therapists. I mean, I'm supervising licensed therapists every week and I've been doing that for 10 years. And so I hear about maybe their most difficult cases. That's usually what they bring to supervision is their most difficult cases. And Marianne, I'm telling you, when they come with their cases, there's one question I always go back to: what's going on in the relationship? Because if you work with healing from trauma and you work with your own unwanted sexual behaviors, it does not mean you know how to be relational. And so I've been working on this model, the Intimacy Repair Method, and really focusing on it the last 6 months to a year. And I'm getting ready to publish a book that's gonna be going with this, that is going to be introducing the Intimacy Repair Method. That's my next practical, like, application of this. But I've been using this model in intensives. And what I have found, Marianne, is when I apply these principles with couples, the lights start clicking on, they start to see what's happening. And it's information. If you have the right information, healing is possible.

Understanding. I think this is so important to say there are better and different ways to be relational. And, and as you're saying, we have to teach them. We have to have places to learn them and for couples to learn and say, oh, I grew up that way, but that wasn't actually healthy. Even though it was the norm, even though it was the culture.

You know, as you describe that, obviously generationally we are having these differences, but I'm convinced that we still have to learn relationship skills.

Yes.

And we have to learn how to have— and we've had a conversation on empathy and compassion and really understanding maybe the differences there. But not only that, but how to listen. I was working on a project related to the Intimacy Repair Method, and I've got a scale called the It's called the Betrayal Defensiveness Scale. And the concept is, after betrayal, the defensiveness kicks in. And when the defensiveness kicks in, what happens to the coupleship when defensiveness kicks in?

And this is defensiveness for the person who has betrayed.

Right, right. So I betrayed my spouse, and now they're angry, they're upset, they're frustrated, and I'm getting defensive because it's a biological function.

Because I'm being attacked, so my walls are going up. I got to protect myself.

And so as I was working on this defensiveness scale, trying to help understand, am I becoming defensive, and do I know what to do when I'm becoming defensive? Because what I've done is I basically observed couples for all these years, and where do they get stuck? And that's really what this whole model is about, is where are they getting stuck and do they know how to get unstuck? And so this whole betrayal defensiveness scale is really predicated on here's the interaction with— because I know based on my research that 98% of partners are angrier than they've been. 98% after discovery report being defensive, or angry, I mean, becoming angry.

And so 98, 98% of betrayed partners report being, feeling anger.

Anger in many cases more than they've ever been.

Like more than I've ever been in my entire life.

In my entire life.

Such a blatant outright betrayal that can't be ignored, that can't be explained away, that can't be rationalized or minimized. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

So 98%, and that goes from sometimes all the way to almost always, right? But only 2% said never. So 90, that's a really high number for any statistics. So I know that they're angry. What's happening in this spouse? And right after discovery, well, What we know is they don't have the skill set to know how to respond to it. They're in shock. They've been caught. They're exposed. We know the shame is now kicking in if they feel shame, which usually kicks in at some point in this process. So how are they responding? Do they have the skills to do that? So the skill is just really looking at, are you currently being defensive when your partner is dealing with a trigger or emotions? If we can break the loops, the cycles of that, then we begin to feel hope because the pattern is being interrupted. And so that's what I've been doing in my intensives is actually take this assessment and then implement it in the coupleship. So we take the core issues that most couples are getting stuck on and we implement it so they understand in these moments if this happens. And really what we're doing is focusing on what's happening in the body. Because when I feel physiologically, I see the anger. Physiologically, your body's going to protect itself. That is a biological necessity. I feel the need to defend myself. So it's usually going to be fight or flight. We're trying to tap into not just the cerebral, but the head-heart connection and stay present with a partner. And in the beginning, most people don't know how to do that. But when they learn to do it, that's where hope is instilled.

And I love this concept because One, there's the shock, there's the confusion, there's the, how could you do this? Like trying to make sense of it. And then the anger, the rage usually comes in because I'll call it rage. That's what a lot of times it's, it's not just anger, it's, it's rage like I've never felt before. And I might feel crazy because this is so high, but I think what's so important to understand under that one, I want to validate that rage and that anger because so many times, and you and I've talked about this numerous times, so many times where We're taught, hmm, nice girls don't get angry. You know, it's not ladylike or polite, or it's a sin or whatever. But underneath that anger is pain, is hurt. And so if a betraying partner can learn to recognize, hold on a second, yep, I can feel my walls going up, but can I see that my partner underneath that anger is actually the pain? And if they can learn to hold the pain and to validate that pain, that is where the real connection can come. And, and, and that, that's what needs to be, that's what needs to be validated. Just like in that impact letter I did yesterday, to have somebody hear the pain and hear the anger and to be able to sit with it and say, I did that. You're right. I hurt you so, so deeply. And you did not deserve that. That is where we go. Oh, we feel, felt. And so I love that you're saying we've got to teach people how to sit with that, how to manage that, how to understand it, see and understand what it really is and be able to still find connection and work with themselves to get there.

And so what's interesting about this is when you take a pattern, on the second day of my intensives, I basically take and identify the pattern of how we fight. And it doesn't matter what issue it is. We take it and then we role-play it so they can actually see it live. They can see it as they're doing it. And if they're doing it in front of other couples, the other couples are like, oh, we are doing that too. Because we typically fight in patterns and we respond in the same ways. We withdraw, we become aggressive.

There's a script. It's like, oh, I'm going to say this and they're going to say this and I'm going to say this and they're going to react this way. We know. Because we've got years of building in these grooves of these ruts of where our wills go.

So we take the script, we then unpack the script by literally having them act it out and show it. And the reason why is because once you understand it, if you fight afterwards, which you're going to, you will understand what you're doing. Hope then comes when we start to interrupt the patterns, you can call them loops, scripts, whatever it is, and you start acting in other ways. And, and interestingly enough, when both partners understand their script, that's when the interruption can occur. But knowing how to do it when we're in that old loop, old pattern, and transitioning that to a new space— so instead of becoming defensive, I recognize the pain, the hurt. But being able to do that from a physiological perspective, you have to learn how to do that. Because your natural tendency is actually to leave, to withdraw, which makes the betrayed spouse feel abandoned, which usually is gonna trigger higher intensity and higher rage.

More frustration. You, you're not even here for me now. You can't hear me. You just exited and I'm so hurt and I just wanna connect with you and here's another disconnection. Yeah.

And if you don't know how to do that, you're gonna rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And that goes back to where I've been most concerned. What if the true numbers are 55 to 58% of divorces are related to infidelity and sexual betrayal? I wonder, Marianne, if couples had that information, if they would actually be filing for divorce. If they knew how to do it, would they be jumping ship?

And I think, Dr. Kevin Skinner, that most of my clients don't show up in my office saying Hey, I think I want a divorce. They're there because this is a last-ditch effort. They are willing to try anything. At least one of them is willing to try to do anything. And I want to go back to, as we're talking about that script, I don't know if you're familiar with Napoleon Hill, but he was an author years ago, but he talks about hypnotic kind of like rhythms where we get into these ruts where our brain just has these neural pathways where we just go, and that's kind of the scripts that we get into in our relationships. But there's another thing that he says that I really, really appreciate. Well, first of all, he says we've got to start learning how to disrupt those, those ruts or those patterns. We got to see what they are and start to disrupt them. But he also says that when you can get a husband and a wife working together on the same page, he says there's nothing more powerful. There's nothing more powerful anywhere than two people who have the same vision and mission, who are working together towards that. He says there's this incredible synergy that happens. And I really believe that's true. And it takes a lot of humility and it takes a lot of, a lot of tools to be able to, a lot of personal insight. And I think that's where earlier we were talking about the power of individual work. We've got to be able to see ourselves and be honest. With ourselves and even be able to show up and say, I'm not— I can see how I'm showing up right now, and I'm not sure why I'm showing up this way, and I need to figure that out, or whatever it is that we need to do to see ourselves and the patterns that we're showing up in, in the relationship. We can't change them until we do.

That's right. And there's, as we go down this path of creating hope, one of the interesting things that I've observed, and I'm sure you have, Marianne, is when people come into the office, they don't know if there's hope. They don't know if it's possible. I've, throughout my career of doing intensives and doing therapy, I can't tell you how many times I've had people say, you're, you're our last effort. I mean, last ditch effort or last hope. No pressure. No pressure. But, but you're the last, you know, I've had people come in, they've actually been to the attorneys and have divorce papers filed. One of my favorites many, many years ago. Was a couple after coming to an intensive. Literally, she tore up the divorce papers as a part of, like, signifying her commitment. And my point then, Marianne, is not only have I seen hope, I've seen people understand the principles. And when you understand principles— and this is a very important part— principles are fundamental truths. It doesn't change. It doesn't alter. A truth is a truth is a truth. And when people understand true principles, and that's the relationship skills that have to be learned, then we can apply things that we know work. For example, I've got, let's just say I've got a pen in my hand and I, our listeners won't be able to see this, but right now if I drop this, I guarantee you it's not going to go up. Should I try it? Oh man. Okay. It went down. A principle is like that. But what are the relationship principles that are unalterable? Kindness, validation, loving kindness, honesty, compassion, honesty. And when we apply these principles and we understand why they work, then that's the kind of person that I can choose to be because I understand if I do it this way, the outcome is going to be no different than defying the law of gravity. I'm going to be able to go with the gravity in a positive way.

The, the place that I feel like I want to go with this is also talking about hope when there has been divorce, when the relationship doesn't work out. We might have some listeners or viewers who are saying, but, but that doesn't fit for me. My spouse wasn't willing to do the work. And I want to, to speak to that a little bit as well, because there is still hope. I have a client that I've been working with that I'm specifically thinking about who The marriage hasn't been able to be salvaged. However, I have the, the, my favorite thing of my job is to watch people change and grow and patterns that haven't been healthy have been arrested, have been changing, and to see individuals grow and begin to have a voice and begin to learn how to have self-mastery and express themselves and to bring in these principles that you're talking about, even if it didn't work with this, with my marriage relationship, because both parties weren't willing or able to, to do the work that was needed, there still is hope and growth and change in the future. There is hope for a brighter day up ahead. And I think we can bring this into all of our relationships. I think as you're talking about these principles, these principles aren't only for our most intimate marriage relationships or with our partners, but, but they also apply to our children, to our friends and family everywhere.

So interestingly, you bring this up because I was just thinking the other side of that is, is there hope if our marriage doesn't work? And I, throughout my career, because I've been doing this for 30-plus years, I have had many individuals come through the difficulty of the betrayal, the divorce, the relationship ending, and I've observed them. And it's not uncommon for them to say, hey, if I start dating again, you're going to be on my list of— we're going to talk with you first. Like, you're going to be our marriage counselor, pre-marriage counselor. And so I've done that multiple times in my career. And some of my favorites are where people have been divorced for 3, 5, 10 years or more, and they bring in this person that they've met. And I've had some phenomenally sweet experiences where people have come back and said, I didn't realize I could be this kind of happy. And so I've seen the spectrum. And again, when you're in this career long enough, you see the good, the bad, and the ugly. And sometimes that's in the same, with the same individual, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then back to the good.

Yeah. I recently had an interaction with a client I'd worked with several years before, and I was in a situation where they were there and it was like, oh, oh, hi. Okay. I know you, you were my client. And, you know, I have to maintain their confidentiality, but she came up to me and said, oh my goodness, I want to introduce you to my husband. And husband, this is Marianne. And she was so helpful. And And then she said to me, I bet you don't have a lot of opportunities to see the joy and the happiness and the growth that happens when, you know, when people finish working with you and they move on and life changes. And so there is so much hope there. As you were talking, Dr. Skinner, I want to come back to something that, that's, that's years and years and years old. When I first started back in 2015, I remember discovering, you about your website Bloom, Bloom for Women. And Bloom for Women was and is a website that has a lot of resources for betrayal trauma and for partners who have acted out in sexual ways as well. But I love that idea of blooming, and I think that's what we're talking about today is, is, you know, when we look at the growth cycle of a plant, it starts out as a seed, it goes through this really violent process, this eruption from the seed, as it's growing. And then there is the bud that eventually blossoms and it blooms. And I think as we're talking about this hope, my hope for our listeners is that you can see far enough ahead to see right now, maybe I'm in this violent space, but it takes time and it will take time and it will take effort, but there is so much hope ahead. There's hope for something that's beautiful. And that I can look forward to. And I would say also, as we started out, where I talked about that despair of feeling like there's no template, I don't know anybody who's done this and made it through. I just want to add my voice to say there are so many couples who make it through. There are so many, and there's hope ahead.

And my final thoughts on this, not only is there hope, but whether that's individually or as a couple, But what I know is we long to have a belief that it's going to be okay. There's something inside of us that we want, we want that outcome, we want that positive outcome to really come to fruition. And I believe that that comes through information and knowledge and then application. You can have all the knowledge in the world, but ultimately it boils down to in those moments of crisis, in those difficult times, Am I applying the things that I've learned? And do I have the new script of how to do it? With information and knowledge applied, you can have great outcomes. And that's been my experience throughout my career. And that's why I still do this. So to our listeners, I just want to say thank you. And Marianne, you had a final thought.

I do. So I think that's a really good cue-up as a teaser for our next several podcasts that we're going to do. Because Dr. Skinner, when I first started getting trained as a therapist, I got trained in EFT, which is Emotional Focus Therapy with Sue Johnson's work, which is research, which is validated. And this is a tool that we often use for couples. But what I've been hearing, what I know you've been talking about, you talked about at the Human Intimacy Conference, but I know that we're going to be talking more about it. You're, you have created a resource for betrayed couples to work through repairing the intimacy, and you're calling it the Intimacy Repair Method. Yeah. So do you want to talk about what we're going to be doing with that the next several—

Yeah, so I'm going to outline, I'm going to be— an assessment will be available to our listeners and those who are viewing it, and it really is going to be the foundation of everything that we do. And then on May 7th, I'm going to be launching this to the public with an online 12-week course for couples who want to apply this. And it will be very in-depth. Like it will be a one-on-one with me going through the assessment results. And then there will be 12 weeks of practicing and applying this. What I'm in essence doing is taking a lot of the intensive material and putting it into application. So it can be more than just for people in intensives. It's going to be spread out because again, this takes practice. And so I'm going to be launching that May 7th. And really try to reach as many couples as possible because my goal is, is to get the right information out there. So couples, if they want to repair and they really have that desire, they'll have that knowledge.

And let me take that a little bit deeper. You're also going to be training therapists so that they can become certified or trained in this method so they can then have this format and these tools. And, and the one thing that I heard you say and that I know you've been talking about is This isn't just based on theory. This is based on assessments. And so it's, it's giving the individuals and the couples like, here's your data. Here are your patterns that you need to be able to recognize. If you can't see them, here they are. They're showing up here. And so we're using that as markers to help say, here's what needs to change. And so there's this tangible tool that, that will be part of this as well. So this is really exciting. This is fascinating.

It is getting ready to launch. I mean, I feel like the plane's getting ready to take off and I'm absolutely thrilled.

Right, so hold on fasten your seat belts and stay tuned and we're going to be diving into that in the next couple of weeks.

And if you want to learn more, we'll put a link in where you can just start reading and learning more about it in today's show notes. So again, May 7th is going to be launch time. We are headed down the runway.

We are loading passengers in. Yeah.

My desire for each of our listeners is that you feel that there is hope. And as you apply the concepts and do the things that we talk about in this podcast, I guarantee you that when you apply those things, you're going to find at least individual hope. But my deepest desire is that there's couples hope.

Thanks, Dr. Skinner.

All right. You guys take care and we'll talk to you next week.