In my healing journey from betrayal, I remember feeling so overwhelmed and confused. I felt like I needed someone to hold my hand through each step and really tell me what each step was. I recall telling my therapist that exact thing. Please don’t leave me alone in this. She was a lifeline. It was painful and a little bit embarrassing to feel so uncertain and reliant on someone else.
If you’re finding yourself in the middle of a painful marriage, there are a few crucial steps to start on the path to healing.
Name it
This is such a hard and scary part and also the very first steps to whatever your healing will look like. And by that I mean, with or without the person who betrayed you. You can and will find healing either way. But first we must call it what it is. This might involve seeing a counselor. This might mean getting on the internet to read about it or listen to other women share their stories. Is it addiction? Is it emotional abuse? Psychological abuse? Marital rape? Whatever it is, you cannot take the steps you need to heal without naming what is happening in your marriage.
Create Safety
If he’s had an affair what would help you to feel safe? Most importantly ending the affair, but after that asking him to go to counseling, having access to his phone and computer, and having a weekly check-in are just a few of the requests that help a wife to feel safe. If he has been emotionally abusive, treating you with kindness and respect will be top priorities, but what do you need to feel safe in addition to that? For some circumstances, it’s leaving the house and/or marriage.
Find Support
People who will walk beside you, not judge you and not tell you what to do are not as easy to come by as you’d hope. But this is what you want to find. A few close people who have your back and won’t throw scripture at you like a weapon. Who are there if you need them and give you space when you need it. Who say they don’t know when they don’t know. These are the keepers.
Allow your Feelings
There are stages of healing and in all of these stages will be big, vulnerable, overwhelming, scary feelings. And at times, good, hopeful, encouraging feelings. Initially most people feel a mix of shock, disgust, and confusion. Later grief and loneliness, and eventually hope. Allow the feelings to be heard. Allow them to inform you about how this betrayal has impacted you. Allow them to tell you what you need. Feelings are what make us human, and they can be a guide to where we go next in life.
Begin to Seek Truth
Often in destructive marriages, we have become conditioned to beliefs about who we are as women, about what marriage is supposed to be, about what God thinks about us. Healing is about undoing so many of those beliefs. Not enough, too much. God would be angry. Marriage means submission at all costs. Forgive and forget. Are there lies you have come to believe? Do you find that somehow they don’t sit right, but maybe you haven’t had the courage to question them? Or you’ve worried you’d disappoint God if you did?
When I began to seek after to God in my pain and allow myself to be still and listen, He spoke kind, loving, gentle things to me. He reminded me that I didn’t have to figure it all out. He reminded me that He was fighting this battle for me and I could rest.
Remember this is a process and like any process, you take it one step at a time. And we certainly move back and forth in these steps, so know there isn’t one way to do this. Just be willing to take the first step.
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