239 - Women's Takeover #1: Healing From Betrayal w/ Dr. Barbara Steffens

You're listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal, and relationship issues.

Hi, I'm your host, Ashley Jamison, and you are listening to episode 239 of the Pure Desire podcast, Women's takeover. Here joining me is my lovely co host, Heather Kolb.

Of course I'm the one joining you. Who else would join you when the women get to take over the podcast again? Even though it's been a while?

It has. And we're very excited to take it over today. Today we have Dr. Barbara Steffens on our episode and we are very, very excited because she is the author of your sexually addicted spouse and she is just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to healing from betrayal trauma. So we're excited to get to dive in and talk about healing today.

Yeah, and she really is one, really one of the women who blew open this idea that when. When women experience betrayal, that there's so much trauma that goes with that. And I think really it was her that that paved the way for a lot of us when it comes to now having more of a trauma informed approach when it comes to helping women who've experienced betrayal.

Yeah. So for those of you who have heard and, you know, have gained this knowledge and understanding of the addict brain, this is going to be so good to have this other side of what's happening with the partner of somebody who's betrayed them. And there's been trauma. Um, so we get to dive into that. And I really think if you are the person experiencing betrayal trauma or if you're the spouse of somebody experiencing it, you will get a lot out of this episode. Before we get into today's episode, here's a few things. Subscribe to the podcast. If you're not subscribed to the podcast, do it, don't wait. You can find us on all major platforms and please give us a review. It helps more people see the podcast and it also means a lot to us. Follow us on social media. You can do that by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, @uredesire, pdmi. And if you like to consume video content, the full episodes are available on YouTube. Just search Pure Desire Ministries. All right, well, here's our time with Dr. Barbara Steffens on healing from betrayal. Okay, well, Today we have Dr. Barbara Steffens with us. She is the author of your sexually addicted spouse and she gets to be here today to talk to us about healing from betrayal trauma. So thank you for being with us, doctor. I know that a Lot of our women and men are excited to hear from you today.

Oh, thanks so much for having me. Looking forward to it.

Yes, so are we. Well, let's just jump in. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do for absats? And better yet, what is absats?

Okay, well, I can start with me and my work. So I am a professional clinical counselor. So licensed in the state of Ohio, been doing counseling since about 1990 something early 90s. I'm also a board certified coach. I'm also working at becoming semi retired. So I'm doing very little clinical work now. I don't have an office anymore. I work all virtually and I'm doing some coaching with partners. Very limited. And then I do a lot of training and educating professionals and religious leaders around betrayal trauma. And I do that through APP sets, which is the association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists, which is why we say epsats. I was part of a group that formed that organization. I guess we were officially formed in 2012 and we started doing trainings for clinicians and then later we added coaches on how to help betray partners and then the entire system from a trauma informed perspective. So other just personal things about me I'm a mom. I'm a grandma and wife. And this July will be our 49th wedding anniversary.

Wow. Well, congratulations.

That is amazing.

Wow. Wow. Great. Well, thank you so much for being here to share with us about ABsats and your work and we're just really excited to dig into this episode.

Yeah, there's just so much here that we could cover. But we're going to try and stick with our questions and see where that takes us. So can you tell us a little bit about specifically the multidimensional partner trauma model?

Sure. When we were starting to look at how do we help people understand and then respond to the trauma that partners were experiencing. Let's see, the whole trauma perspective really started when I did research back in 2005 that's the basis for your sexually addicted spouse. I was really looking for a trauma informed way of helping the partner. I started reading Judith Herman Trauma and Recovery and really found that her three phase approach to helping people who've experienced, you know, complex trauma, and we can talk about that in a little bit what that is. And so I worked at trying to kind of adapt that model to working specifically with partners and that became the multidimensional partner trauma model. So it's a three phase model where we start with safety and stabilization for the traumatized person and then once they feel safe and stable. Stable means they're finding ways of managing how they're feeling. And their behaviors then move into the deeper trauma work, the grief work, those kinds of things. And then phase three is more than now. What. What do I want to do now with my life or in this relationship? Can I remain in this relationship? It's the moving on and then post traumatic growth in that three phase. So that's the multi dimensional partner trauma model. And we apply it to the partner, to the person with the addictive behavior, and. And really the entire system.

Yeah. I remember in my early days of disclosure, my husband's disclosure, just feeling completely irrational, like my nerves were on the outside of my body that I just had this constant energy running through. I was crying, I was throwing things. I was completely not myself. And I remember my husband just feeling like I was overreacting. I was crazy. I went to our church back then and asked for help and. And they would say, you know, like, everybody deals with this and you just need to forgive. And. And I felt completely insane until one day I heard about betrayed spouses experiencing a chemical shift as well. And. And that they needed healing from trauma. And so when you explain the PTSD in partners, it's just, I think it brings so much understanding to the addict and the spouse because a lot of addicts and even clinicians, they don't understand what a betrayed spouse is experiencing. So can you explain some about PTSD and partners and how this shows up in their brain and behaviors?

That's such a big question. First of all, not all partners will experience post traumatic stress disorder, which is ptsd. But we do find the majority have some level of trauma symptoms. Like I said, In 2005, I did my research and I found that 70% of the women met all the criteria for post traumatic stress disorder, except maybe there's this one pesky one where it says where it has to be life threatening. And I always say, tell a partner that finding out about your loved ones hidden sexual secrets aren't life threatening because it threatens every part of life. So anyway, there's this shock usually around discovery, or maybe the person with the addictive behavior discloses, but it's previously unknown information. And then it's a shock to the system. All of a sudden, that individual does not feel safe. There's a threat. It's a perceived threat. It's a real threat. And it can feel life altering and life threatening. Yes. And that's why it sets up that trauma response. So in our brain, I'm not a Brain person I am, I like to help people. But I understand that God created us with the capacity of protecting ourselves and reacting to threats. Really? Really. And so that's what happens is just automatic response. Am I safe? What do I need to do? Do I need to run away? Do I need to collapse? Do I need to fight? So that's something that we were created with. And that's what gets triggered in the partner when all of a sudden she says, am I safe with this person that I thought was my safest person? I thought this was the person that had my back. And now they are putting me in great risk and in great jeopardy. So it feels crazy. It can look crazy to the outside, but it's the whole body's nervous system responding to that threat. That's what it is. And so once partners understand that, they can give some grace to themselves. And for the person with the addiction, it really helps them to understand that, first of all, to understand she's not crazy, she's reactive right now, but it's with good reason because she doesn't know she's safe. And for the person with the addiction, I think it's helpful too to understand that because it's just another way of understanding, you know, the reality and the consequences of our behaviors. They do have consequences. And this is a tough one. It traumatizes the relationship as well as the partner.

Exactly what you were saying reminds me, even yesterday, was it yesterday? Day before yesterday, before I was about to fly out, because it's always about. It's always right before I'm about to leave town that something like this happens. But I was telling Heather that we were setting up a computer for my son's 3D printer and all this. It did an update and then when the update finished, all this porn popped up on the computer. My 10 year old was sitting there and he went and told dad that there's tons of inappropriate images on the computer. But I subconsciously was. Went like triggered. And the great thing is that because my husband now understands more about betrayal trauma, where he didn't before. He doesn't use language. Like, I don't know why it's such a big deal, what's wrong with you? Or. And I just, I had the grace for myself too, because I just kept doing life like normal and understood I'm triggered. There's something in me that's triggered by that. And I'm sure it's old history that there's, you know, familiarity in that, but we were able to just kind of go through life and recognize you're triggered, I'm triggered. And he was able to say, I bet that was really triggering for you because of the past. And I said it was, and I am triggered. But then we're able to just kind of like breathe. And we prayed and, and it was just an acknowledgment, but it wasn't controlling like it would have been in the past where I would have probably shut down and got suspicious and those kinds of things. So I just think if everybody who's going through betrayal or affairs or anything like that can, if they both can understand, like you said, that family healing, that systems healing, it just does amazing things without blame. You can just recognize the trauma.

Yeah, it's just part of reality that that's going to happen. It's a wound, it's an injury, and if it gets triggered, then there's going to be a reminder of that original injury. And it may recall some of those thoughts. Am I safe right now? What is this? And then you probably, as you've worked through that trauma, figured out ways of managing it for yourself, what helps then do those things? And then the trigger calms down. But it's just part of the reality. I think a lot of partners are surprised how long, I mean, in terms of years, you can still experience triggers after a traumatic event. But if you think about any other kind of traumatic event, it makes total sense that if that was a time and a space where you didn't feel safe and you have a reminder of it, that it's going to evoke that. Again, I always say to partners, do not shame yourself. Don't let anyone else shame you if you're triggered. Normal physiological emotional response. But it does get better over time if you address it, attend to it, find ways of managing it. Especially if the people in your family, the people in your system, especially the betrayer, can get that and understand. And that's part of deep part of the healing, Right?

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So you mentioned this briefly when we started this conversation, but can you explain to us then the difference between complex PTSD and how that's different from other forms of ptsd?

Sure. I think we tend to think of more traditional PTSD as like a single event. You know, it's a one time thing surviving a hurricane or tornado or being assaulted and that event has ended with complex trauma that feeling unsafe or there's many events where that sense of not being safe and feeling traumatized continues. So it's usually thought of within the context of relationships. Think of a Child growing up and their caregivers continually neglect them or occasionally abuse them. But it's the environment becomes traumatic for complex trauma. For a partner, it can be two things. It can be either they've had prior stuff in their family of origin and here's just yet another time where they're not safe in a relationship. Or it could be that there's been this chronic feeling unsafe even before discovery where the partner is already not feeling safe is triggered, but doesn't understand why, doesn't know why. Maybe there's some kind of manipulation going on, but it's more this chronic sense of not feeling safe. Think about a partner with a one time discovery. Her loved one says, okay, I've stopped. But everything in her body, in her gut, in her soul is saying, but something's still going on, they still don't feel safe. If that goes on for a prolonged period of time, then that's much more the complex trauma that makes sense. It affects not only the kinds of symptoms that we see in what we call classical trauma or ptsd, but it also affects, impacts how they feel about themselves, how they view the world, their other relationships, not feeling safe anywhere with anyone. So it's much more globalized rather than specific to that, that single event. And I think most partners, it's much more the complex trauma, especially the longer that someone has been acting out secretively and the partner didn't know about it. I think that increases that level of trauma and increases that time of not feeling safe.

Right. Yeah. I remember you saying during the ABSADS training that when a partner is stuck to see where they're still not feeling safe. And I thought that was, that really just resonated with me. That just was such good advice. Yeah.

A lot of times what partners here is why are you stuck? Why are you not doing your own work? Why aren't you focusing on your own healing? It's put on the partner when I really want to know what else is going on. Are there conflicting messages that they're receiving? Is everything inside of them still not feeling safe and their loved one is not doing things to help them know that they're safe, but to explore that if someone's stuck, there's a reason.

Right. How can a partner, what's the best way for them to begin the healing process? And what does that look like when they're first starting?

Well, I think for a lot of partners that first inclination is, I can't tell anyone this. They feel a sense of their own shame, like what's wrong with me? That this happened to me. What didn't I do? What should I have done differently? Am I not not enough? Whatever those kinds of words are that are going in their head. And so that sense of shame keeps them from telling. So the first thing would be to find a safe person to talk to about it. There's so many fears there that partners have of connecting and telling someone. They're afraid people are going to think differently about them, think differently about their loved ones. I usually talk about share small things first. Just say to someone, hey, I'm having a rough time. Will you pray for me? Then if that person says, okay, I'm glad to do that, how can I help? Rather than being intrusive and asking a lot of questions, you're testing safety. But find someone now. There are so many more resources for partners. So by the time someone contacts me, they've usually been online and they've looked at all different options and places, which is wonderful because 20, 25 years ago, there was very little if nothing for partners. So. But the first thing is to acknowledge that you've been wounded and that you deserve support.

Yeah, that's so good. And another reason why I'm so thankful to have you on the podcast, because I remember when I was first looking, a lot of the things. Things you're saying, you know, applied to me, that I was, you know, people are going to think I must be a bad wife. I must not, you know, keep him happy or my. They're going to think my husband's a creep because they don't understand things. But I didn't know what it was called. So then you just start, you know, googling, and you have no idea what it's called. And now there's so many people sharing that this is. This is a thing. It has a name. There is. There is healing. And what you're experiencing is real. And many other people experience it as well. So I'm just so thankful for the work that you do in ABsats and the podcast and everything that's out there and training leaders, you know, to be more aware.

There are so many more trained people now that can be there, online groups. A lot of coaches. Abscess has trained a lot of people who have excellent training and certification as coaches, and they can provide a level of service a good clinician can who has training in this. A lot of times what happens is people will think, well, this is a marriage problem. So I'm going to go to a marriage counselor. And unfortunately, a lot of marriage counselors don't know a lot about this. And so they may approach it as if it is a marriage issue rather than a compulsion issue or an addiction issue or a betrayal issue. And sometimes then partners feel harmed, they feel misunderstood, and then they pull away from getting support. I am always amazed at the courage and the tenacity for partners who continue to look for the kind of support that they know they need and that they deserve. You're not getting support because there's something wrong with you. With you. You're getting support because something happened to you.

That's really good reminder. Yeah, that's true. That's good encouragement for people that if you don't find the help you need or you get hurt or experience some institutional trauma or anything like that, to keep going, and that there are people that can help you and continue to look for that help.

Yeah.

So good.

So when it comes to safety, because we've talked a little bit about that, how does a partner go about establishing safety when they really don't even know what's happening to them? And they don't. They can't explain why they're feeling what they're feeling? What does it look like for them to start establishing safety?

Another big question.

All the hard ones, all the good ones.

All the good ones. Well, I think the first thing is recognizing that you don't feel safe. Just helping a partner have words around that is that I don't feel safe. And then you ask the question, well, what would help you feel a little safer? So start small. What might help you feel a little safer? Maybe it's some distance. Maybe it's, I know I need an hour to myself just to go in my room and not be disturbed and read or talk to someone. But to have a little space. Sometimes it's surprising for partners when they realize that the greatest trigger is their loved one. So maybe his face, his voice, his hands, whatever it is. And so taking some space away from that kind of trigger for a period of time, especially early on. I'm not talking about separation. I'm talking about taking it upon yourself to say, I need some space for me, to help me feel safer, to calm. Those kinds of things. It may start just as simple as that. Another thing might be to start to think about, okay, you didn't know you weren't safe before. Now you know these things. What are important essentials for you going forward in the relationship? If safety means it is not okay with me that you look at porn, that's never going to be okay with me, then part of safety is saying that letting that person know they're not going to read your mind to know that they probably have a good guess but to state it and then say but. And if this happens, it's so important to me to protect myself. I will need to do something to take good care of me. So that's. We call that a boundary. It's just basically saying, I can't control what you're going to do, but I can let you know if you do it. I am going to have to do things to protect myself. So that may mean I'm going to sleep in a different room or I'm going to ask you to sleep in a different room. Or it may mean I'm not going to talk to you for a little while because you have really put me in jeopardy. Or I'm not going to keep your secret. I'm going to go to our church and ask for some support or I'm going to go to my friend and talk to my friend and invite them to come and talk to both of us. There's a whole fun list of things that they think that they can do. Sometimes partners think that the only way to be safe is to say, I need to know where you are every moment of every day. And if you don't let me know, then you're out of the house. That's kind of a big leap. So start small and start with something that you know you can do and that. That you have control over. I can't control another person's behaviors, but it is my responsibility to do something if someone's putting me at risk. And that's usually distancing myself or making a change in the routine. But doing something, talking with someone who's trained to help you figure that out is so helpful. That is so hard to do all by yourself. Again, there's more resources out there, but really having a dialogue with someone around. When don't you feel safe and what's the first step you can do in setting that kind of. Kind of line or boundary for self protection is really helpful. Sometimes I have partners think that setting a boundary or staying safe is about having consequences or punishment for their loved one. That doesn't work. It does not work. So it really is. What can you do to protect and feel safe yourself? Yeah, but that's why you need the support around that process.

Yeah, I think it's good too. What you said earlier about sometimes the, the complex trauma causes the environment to be really unsafe and triggering. Because early on in my recovery or healing from trauma, I did think, okay, If I just know everything you're doing, everything you're looking at, everywhere you are, everybody you're talking to, then I'll feel safe. And then later, again, that importance of having somebody outside of your traumatized brain to help you. I realized it was that environment. I couldn't think clear. And so now, you know, the last time that we went through something, I. I just took my kids to the hotel because I know that when I'm traumatized, I shut down. As a parent, if I stay in the environment, I just kind of swirl in it and get deeper. And so it's so good for me to just say, kids, we're going to hotel. I can focus on being a parent. I can feel this lightness of not being in that environment. And then I have more of a rational brain. And it's really helpful. But I don't think early, early in my years I would have thought that was a good idea because it seems counterintuitive to a partner to say, I need some space, when what you really want to do is cling on and feel like you have every ounce of knowledge you could possibly get. And. And it's just so important to have those outside voices to help you see where you're feeling unsafe and stuck and create safety there.

It's also empowering. One thing about trauma is it can feel disempowering. It happens to you. You don't have a say in it, you didn't ask for it, you didn't give consent for it, and it just invades and you feel like powerless. Good boundaries and a sense of being able to take care of yourself is empowering. And that's what we want after trauma, any kind of trauma, is to start to experience that sense of, I am not out of control of what happens to me. I mean, some things happen and I can't do anything about it, but I can control how I'm going to respond and how I protect myself going, going forward. Very empowering to be able to do those things. But early on, it makes total sense that the partner is thinking, well, if I know more, then I'm going to be able to protect myself. Because what they know is what I didn't know hurt me. So I never want to not know again. But finding other ways, other strategies over time so that they can feel safe based on what they choose to do, rather than, I need to find out everything he's doing. But that's a process. So again, I never, ever shame a partner for looking for more information, asking a lot of questions. We really frame that in terms of you just want to know if you're safe or not.

Right.

How can you help yourself be safe?

Right. Right. Yeah.

But it's a great way to say slow process.

So slow. So can you tell us how. How does a support group for a betrayed partner help and play into this healing process?

Oh, I just think support. A good support group is a lifeline because you're going to be with other people going through very, very similar things, and they're going to get you the moment you walk in. I remember I started doing this work by running groups, and I remember a woman walking in and saying, what are you all doing here? You're beautiful. Which revealed her belief that there's something wrong with me or this wouldn't have happened. But every other woman in that group, you know, could understand why she would say something like that. And then another thing we would talk about in group is welcome to the sorority. You never asked to join. I love that there's a bond. There's a bond that happens because it's a shared experience and they get each other and they can speak truth to each other in ways that someone else can't because they're walking the same walk. They're experiencing a lot of the same things.

Right.

So it's a great place to share wisdom, to be safe, to learn new things, to try new things. So I just really think group for partners is a lifeline.

Well, I remember you talking about how the language center goes offline and all these symptoms that can happen. And I found being part of a group that somebody else would say something, and I'd be like, that's what I. That is exactly what I was feeling and trying to say. But you can't articulate it either.

Right, right, right. Yeah. So they're going to help you with language. They're going to help you with skills. They're going to help you just feel heard and understood in ways that if you're trying to just share with the person who's betrayed you and they're really early in their recovery, they're not going to understand the kinds of words that you're saying or you're trying to say. So in a group, they will. And a trained group facilitator can help that process and to keep it safe for everyone in the group. Yeah. Group is, I just think, essential. And I'm so grateful that we have so many wonderful groups now. More all the time.

Yeah.

So good.

So we know that it's not just women who experience betrayal that men can also experience betrayal. And so in what you've seen working with partners, have you noticed a difference between maybe the responses that you would see in men compared to women? Or is it basically that when somebody experiences betrayal trauma that symptomatically they behave the same? What do you think?

I think that we don't know a lot yet. There's not been. We can say anecdotally, you know, just based on observations that mostly it's very, very similar because trauma, trauma. But there may be some things just culturally for men that are a little different than women. It may be harder for men to reach out. We find that in mental health anyway, that men don't approach others for help when there's, you know, an emotional wound or relational wound. So I think that's a difference. And so having more resources for men who are betrayed, I think is really important. So that's an area where we need. Yeah, much more information, much more support. Just in terms of my own experience with male partners that I've had contact with, it looks very, very much the same. Maybe they're a little bit more in touch with anger, but that trauma and the kind of hyper vigilance and those kinds of things are very, very similar. I've heard from men who have read our book, you're sexually addicted to spouse who said, I wish it was written to me, but if I just change pronouns, it really, really helped me. It matched my experience. So again, we hear that anecdotally from people, but we really need people that love to do research. To research, definitely, but to offer specific resources for them, I think would help them reach out for assistance. And we've had more people go through the appsets training who really want to focus on helping male partners. So I think we're. We're growing in that direction.

Yeah, that'd be so good. Because, you know, part of my job at Pure Desire is overseeing the women's groups. And before we had our online groups, we would hear that a lot of women who were the addict or the struggling spouse saying, I just feel more shame when I'm given a male resource. And so more female resources for strugglers and more betrayal resources for men is just going to be. I think it's like you say, we're going to see more people reaching out when they don't have to have that extra shame of using a girl resource or a men's resource or having to.

Translate, you know, if you're reading a book, having to translate it to them so that the scenarios, the stories match who they Are. I would love to see more groups for male partners.

Yes. Yes. Well, I have, I think, a million dollar question. What is gaslighting? We hear the term gaslighting and I know that betrayed partners are probably saying, yes, please explain what that is because nobody wants to experience it. So can you tell us what gaslighting is and maybe give us a couple examples?

Okay. Well, gaslighting is kind of a. We think of it as focusing on you. You're the one with the problem, as a way of deflecting from my problem. So that's a description. So if a partner comes to their loved one and says, I'm really feeling hurt, I'm triggered. I'm thinking, maybe you're acting out. And he goes, well, there you go again, always assuming bad things and assuming I'm bad. That can be a form of gaslighting, because what's happened is he's deflected, don't pay any attention to what I'm doing, and then he's putting attention back on the partner, that, this is your problem, not my problem. And there's degrees of that. You know, there can be. I think a lot of people who are trying to hide secrets, they're going to gaslight, they're going to try to again, deflect. But the serious type of gaslighting is more that prolonged. This is. This is their way of managing life and managing relationships is not taking ownership of the. Or not even being aware of their own things and always deflecting on the other person. And if someone's in a relationship where that is ongoing and kind of a normal part of how their loved one protects themselves, that can be really destructive for the person on the receiving end of it. So not everyone who says, you know, I'm tired of you bringing this up is gaslighting.

Right?

But the prolonged, if this is a primary way of protecting themselves and protecting their secrets or keeping the other person off kilter, then that's a serious form of gaslighting. And it's really important to get some help with that, because if you have someone telling you you're bad, you're wrong. It's all about you. You're the one with the problem all the time. You really start to believe that. And then that person starts to shrink and get smaller and trust their perceptions and their ability to test reality much less. So it's on a continuum. There's, you know, kind of. We pretty much see it pretty common when someone's trying to hide, you know, their sexual secrets, and then we can see it to this other extent where it really becomes a form of psychological abuse for the person on the receiving end.

Yeah. And I'll get women that will say, I just, I just wish something would. I wish you would hit me. I wish I would see an affair. Because they get to this point of feeling crazy that they. But then when they try to explain it, they look crazy and like you said, they start to believe it and, and they're just, they just want something concrete to put a name to what's going on in their marriage. And it's, it's a really subtle form of abuse.

Sometimes it really can be a subtle form use. And that's another reason why I really promote groups. Because within a group, a partner starts to describe what the conversations are like. Someone else on the outside can say, wow, that sounds like that would really be hurtful for you. Yes. Sliding and doing some education in a group about what that looks like so that the person can step away from it. It's not like you're going to stop the other person from doing it. But just like we talked about safety and boundaries, it's the kind of thing where if you can recognize it, you can say, oh, this is happening. I can feel it. And I am going to opt out. I'm going to step out of it. I don't have to stand here and defend myself when no matter what I say, it's not going to make any difference.

Yes. Amen to that.

Yeah. And so can you just kind of piggybacking off that, describe what it looks like, what emotional or psychological abuse looks.

Like in terms of the person who is doing the abuse or on the victim's end of it, probably just for.

Partners so that they can recognize what it looks like. Yeah.

Yeah.

For partners, I think emotional abuse or psychological abuse is going to look like and feel like it is all your fault. You are the one responsible. You feel crazy, you feel misunderstood all the time. You may find yourself trying to have these long conversations to get your point across or to be heard. And if it's always deflected and you're not getting a response back of understanding, then that can be abusive. There's so many different forms, but the byproduct is always that the person feels hurt, not heard and wounded, rather than listened to and affirmed and understood. If it's chronic, where that person just does not want to understand you, that's what it feels like. Or you leave conversations feeling crazy. If you feel demeaned and put down, held responsible for things, you're not responsible for Then those are signs of abuse.

Yeah, I think that's a really good way to describe it because I can get in an argument with my husband or a disagreement. And no, we are not seeing eye to eye on this. But I don't feel like he's trying to demean me, put me down, you know, so there is a difference. And I know, you know, once a woman is or part a partner has been in a situation for a long time. So when I've led my, you know, women's groups for betrayed partners, a lot of times by the time they get to group, have a hard time putting in boundaries because they're afraid the person will leave. They're afraid it will create too much conflict, they're afraid for their kids. There can be so many reasons, or they see it wrong. As a Christian spouse, and so I've, you know, I've experienced that in my groups. And I'm curious, what do you do and how do you help a partner see the significance of a boundary and that it's a good thing if they've.

Experienced prolonged sense of not being important, not being heard and not validated? Setting a boundary is a major feat that takes a sense of internal strength. Someone who's been living in a chronically unsafe environment, it's going to be a while before they feel strong enough to say, I want to use my voice, I want to make a choice and take a stand with something. So I approach it slowly and gently around. What's one small thing you can do where maybe only you can tell you're doing it, but you are taking a stand for yourself, and then that's boundary. So take it small, take it slow, but understand that. But again, in these more abusive kinds of situations, which is not every situation, but it's often enough we need to talk about it. If that's been going on chronically over a period of time, it's going to be really hard for that person. Go slow, take small steps, don't jump to the big boundary of if you yell at me again, you have to leave the house. You know, if he's been not emotionally caring and kind, it's not likely he's going to leave the house because you tell him to. So what can you do if he starts yelling at you again? What's one thing you can do that's really that way? Sometimes I think we, we expect partners, especially if it's been in this prolonged environment, environment of not feeling safe, we expect partners to be able to just do these boundaries immediately. And it's like, you know, going to the gym for the first time, you have to start small, and you pick up the small weights and then build up to something bigger. So understand that they're starting from a place of not believing they even have a voice.

Yeah.

So again, a plug for group. In group, you have a voice and everyone hears you, and that those are wonderful places to start working on. What's the next small step that I can take to take good care of myself?

Yeah.

Really think of boundaries as that. I'm taking care of myself. I'm honoring myself. I'm honoring this body and this person that God created by doing things to take care of me.

Yeah.

So good. So we've talked a lot about really good things to help the partner. And so what. Is there anything else that you would add for somebody who maybe is sitting in the sidelines and they're watching one of their loved ones going through betrayal trauma, how could we then encourage that partner? Do you have any other suggestions for that scenario?

Okay, so this is a friend, family member. You can observe these things going on. First of all, make sure you're praying for them. It's a horrible place to be all by yourself. Right. Can be very isolating. And then the next thing would be to make sure they know that you see them. You know, I see what you're going through. I can see this is a really hard time. And then ask, is there anything I can do? Or what kinds of things might help you? What I hear from a lot of partners is just someone saying, I'm here and I will listen. And I don't blame you. This is not your fault that that goes so far in helping them feel seen and heard. Betrayed partner feels neglected, tossed aside. So practically just be that listening ear, that safe person. A lot of times partners need practical help. So they're in betrayal trauma. Their body, their mind, their nervous system is on fire. And so thinking about, what am I going to make for dinner? Or what in the world am I going to do for my kids? Bring them a meal.

Yeah.

Have the kids over and feed them. Give them a break. Do things that are very practical. Because again, for a betrayed partner, especially early on, those kinds of things might be a nice distraction for a period of time, but they also might feel impossible to attend to. Just like if there had been a sudden death or a significant illness. We know how to respond when that happens. Do the same things.

Yeah, that's good advice.

Practical support, as well as being a listening ear that's safe and doesn't share with other people.

It's really good.

Yeah, really good.

Great advice. You're just full of wisdom. I told Heather when we were writing these questions, it's not enough time. We were going through the Abstats book, you know, and highlighting all of our favorite parts. And we just really appreciate you joining us today and. And just sharing about what you do and getting the word out there about betrayal, trauma, and how real it is, and that there is hope for it, there is healing, and there is hope for it. So thank you for joining us today.

Thanks so much for what you're doing and for this conversation because I know that it's going to be encouraging. Yes. For women who don't feel encouraged right now.

Right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And remember, wherever you're at on your journey, pure desire is here to help create a roadmap for healing. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual brokenness or betrayal trauma, go to PureDesire.org and let's start the healing journey today. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Each week we put out new content to help you on the road to healing and freedom. And lastly, never stop being healthy.