Understanding Betrayal Trauma Part 1: This is My Betrayal Trauma

Note from the Writer:  This article is in no way, shape, or form intended to be used as a way to "man bash" or condemn my ex-fiance.  In the past year of my life, I have felt complete forgiveness towards him and the decisions that he made at that point in his life.  I truly hope the best for him and wish him well.  I share my story today in hopes to reach a point of understanding and compassion for everyone who is going through, or who has gone through something similar.  I know I am not the first woman in the world to be betrayed, therefore I feel a deep connection to all of my fellow sisters who have been hurt.  This is to all of you who feel dreadfully alone... You are not.  You are understood.  You are loved.  Heaven is watching out for you and God is aware of your tears.  There is hope and happiness ahead. 

I have always been a very religious person. Religion has always been the core and center of my life and actions, and I grew up being taught true principles of the institution of marriage and family. I was always taught God’s purposes for marriage and family, and how to seek for and live in such a way that we can be blessed with an eternal family and an eternal marriage.

​“Families can be together forever.” That was my dream since I was a young girl observing my older siblings lives and watching them marry in the Temple and find joy through obedience to the doctrines and principles of the gospel. I wanted a marriage that would last forever. I wanted a love that was governed by God’s law, therefore making it the only true and pure form of love that exists in our world today. I dreamed of children and my joy being made full by raising a generation of strong and faithful children of God. These were all righteous and worthy goals and dreams. There was just one problem with this vision: I thought it would be easy.

Not only am I single as I write this article, but I’m THAT girl. That girl that spent 6 months with a ring on her finger thinking that I had finally found what I'd been looking for. The girl that was about to step foot into the journey of her "dreams coming true.” That girl that planned an entire wedding only to find a week prior that it was all a lie from the beginning. That girl that has a story to tell. That girl that believes that experiences like this MUST BE TALKED ABOUT because keeping quiet only leaves blank spaces for deeper wounds and undeniable scars. So today I’m finally talking about it. Because my hope is that someone else out there that reads this knows that she's not the first one to go through something similar, and it’s okay to hurt for a long long time. It’s okay to take time to grieve. It’s okay to feel broken for a while. And there IS HOPE FOR HEALING, even if in the moment, the healing that you seem to desperately be seeking for seems unreachable.

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​It’s been one year.  One long year where I’ve had the opportunity to experience a cleansing process that has left me feeling like I’ve shed my old skin…  And the funny thing is that at times I still feel like I’m trying to get used to my new skin.  The new me.  The me that was born out of indescribable and insurmountable levels of pain that I never thought I’d experience.   It’s been one year since my entire world came crashing down within seconds, and my whole life changed.  

I still remember that night as if it were yesterday.  I was sitting on the couch with my fiancé, and everything seemed blissful.  I was to be married in a week, and I loved this man very much.  We had spent four years building a friendship, and almost a year cultivating a relationship of love that is patient and kind.  A relationship that I thought to be above any other relationship I’d ever find.  My life seemed like pure bliss, but even so, I felt a distant sting and fragility in the air that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, so I stubbornly pushed it in the back of my mind and tuned my thoughts to visions of wedded bliss.

I expressed to my fiancé the thoughts and concerns that seemed to buzz through my mind, but he assured me that all was well and that all would continue to be well.  I believed him.  I trusted him.  And I resolved in my mind that I was just being paranoid with my own worries that were irrelevant and irrational.  
I resolved to keep busy, concluding that my worries would subside.  I suggested we go and run an errand for the long-anticipated wedding we’d been planning for the past six months.  And for whatever reason, I stood up and reached for his phone instead of mine to inquire as to when a particular store would be closed. 

That’s when I found it.

Three words on his search bar that changed my entire visage.  Three words that concluded that he’d been searching for pornography possibly just hours ago.  My entire demeanor must have changed in the brief second when I read those words because he inquired of me what was wrong.  I asked why those words were typed into his search bar, and I looked at him with pleading eyes hoping that there was some logical explanation.

Somewhere within the course of those events, I exited out of that window on his phone, only to find multiple windows open of sick and twisted ideas of what women supposedly look like.  I felt sick to my stomach.

He did a great job.
He put on a show.

He reassured me that his brother had a problem, so the only obvious answer was that his brother got a hold of his phone and it wasn’t him.

The coldest thing I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life is the lying eyes of the man I love gazing deep into the windows of my soul as multiple lies rolled from his lips.  He knew it was all a lie, but for some reason, he could look at the woman that he claimed to love so dearly straight in her eyes and lie straight to her face.  I never knew until that moment how unconsciously cold a single person could be.

We talked for hours… it felt like days… And somehow, he managed to semi convince me it wasn’t him.
I came home that night with a pit in my stomach.  Feeling like there was darkness all around me, and for some reason, it wouldn’t leave.

I’ll never forget when the truth finally came out.

I called him on the phone and asked for reassurance again.  I pleaded for the truth, but I didn’t believe it was him until it finally came out.

Those words still sting.  “It’s me… I have a problem.”

At first, I thought it was some sick joke.  It never occurred to me that pornography addiction would ever leak into my life or affect me in such a deep and excruciating way.  I’d never thought too much about that particular aspect of people’s lives until it glared at me in the face through dark and wicked eyes.  At first, I thought maybe I called the wrong number.  I thought there isn’t a way in the world this could be true.  I pleaded with God: “Please no… No. No. NO!  Please don’t do this to me!”

The phone fell out of my hands and hung up before I had a chance to say much more.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to kick and punch the wall.  But in that moment, I felt paralyzed. I had a sudden frightening sensation of someone grasping at my neck as if someone or something was attempting to suffocate me to my death.  

​It wasn’t long before I found myself sobbing and screaming uncontrollably.  Between sobs, my heart felt morbidly dysfunctional and stone cold.  Little did I know it would feel like that for a very long time.  I firmly called my wedding off as I sat across from the man I loved who suddenly seemed to be a stranger.  I spent the night restlessly in a panic with uncontrollable tremors from my head to my toes.  Everything felt dark and empty, and I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the sun wasn’t going to come up in the morning this time.  Maybe I’d be swallowed up by this suffocating darkness for the rest of my life. 

The occurrence of events after that is irrelevant.  Looking back, everything seemed blurry and painful for days and weeks on end.  It was all over with him.  But the pain wasn’t.  And it wouldn’t be for a very long time.

The days passed in everyone else’s world, while my time seemed to have stopped.  Time for me was now measured by all of the different kinds of agony I was feeling.  It seemed to change so frequently.

At times I felt as though someone had taken a dagger and fiercely pierced it into my heart.  Over time it would then slowly be yanked out and then thrust back in again.

​I almost always felt on the verge of tears.  And no matter how hard I tried to keep them inside me, my tries were futile.

I couldn’t eat.
I couldn’t sleep.
Everything felt lonely.
Everything reminded me of him.
Everything made me feel overwhelmingly sick to my stomach.
I felt paralyzed.
I felt traumatized.
I felt worthless. 
And I felt incredibly afraid.
There were lots of times where I felt uncontrollably numb.

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​I’ve scrolled through Facebook countless times and have seen all of my friend’s wedding announcements and happy wedding days.  When this whole journey began, I didn’t understand why the whole world seemed to be able to marry the first person they were engaged to.  And I didn’t understand why everyone else deserved love and happiness, but I didn’t.  I felt like I’d been robbed…  Robbed of my eternal marriage and cheated out of my eternal family.  And unfortunately, this feeling of being robbed was accompanied by emotional pain and suffering I never even knew existed. I didn’t even know that all of my extreme thoughts and feelings had a name.  But for some reason, once I found a name for it, I felt less alone.

Dr. Jill Manning, a marriage and family therapist and Certified Clinical Partner Therapist, defines trauma as “a deeply distressing or overwhelming experience that is commonly followed by emotional and physical shock. If left unresolved or untreated, traumatic experiences can lead to short and long-term challenges.”  Dr. Manning then goes on to state that “betrayal trauma occurs when someone we depend on for survival or are significantly attached to, violates our trust in a critical way.”

Considering the fact that there’s a clinical name for it, I don’t believe that betrayal trauma is a rare condition.  Nor do I believe that the number of people that are affected by it are small in number.  Unfortunately the world we live in is filled with evil influences, traps, and snares that lead people to make poor choices, and therefore hurt the people that they are supposed to be loving the most.  I suppose that’s why it’s so important that we cling to a loving and merciful Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ who is always the way back to hope and healing, no matter how far you’ve strayed, or whether you are the victim or the perpetrator in any given situation.

​For my particular situation, I was the victim.  And in such cases as mine, I had to reach the point where I stopped seeing myself as a victim, and saw myself as a woman of God with innate power and ability to experience healing and wholeness once again, which is exactly what I intended on doing…

Click HERE to read "Understanding Betrayal Trauma Part 2"
Click HERE to read "Understanding Betrayal Trauma Part 3"