Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 79: Healing From Betrayal Trauma: One Couple's Story of Safety, Stability, and Grieving Together

Transcript

79: Healing From Betrayal Trauma: One Couple's Story of Safety, Stability, and Grieving Together · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:00
  Welcome to our podcast. Today, I am very excited.
• 0:02
  We're going to be talking about 3 distinct phases of recovery,
• 0:06
  specifically phase one and phase two.
• 0:08
  Phase one being safety and stability, where each person
• 0:11
  gets their footing individually. And then once that foundation is
• 0:17
  in place, then we talked about phase two, which is where does a
• 0:19
  real relational healing happen and that's the grieving
• 0:22
  together. And I am extremely excited
• 0:25
  because I have a couple here with me today that has walked
• 0:28
  this journey and they know what this journey looks like.
• 0:31
  I can tell you that there has been betrayal, there has been
• 0:34
  lies, there has been secrecy, deep level of hurt.
• 0:37
  I'm excited for you to need them.
• 0:41
  Welcome to Beyond the Facade podcast.
• 0:43
  I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and I'm thrilled to have you join me
• 0:46
  in the space today. What we're going to be doing is
• 0:48
  diving deep into the trials and triumphs and truths of seeking
• 0:52
  authenticity. Becoming your true self isn't
• 0:55
  about a single action or a moment.
• 0:57
  It's a relentless pursuit, a commitment to self that reveals
• 1:00
  a rich connection and meaning that our life has to offer.
• 1:03
  So whether this is your first time tuning in or you're a
• 1:05
  regular listener and know this, what you're building here goes
• 1:09
  beyond a conversation. You're here to challenge, to
• 1:11
  change, and to celebrate the incredible journey of becoming
• 1:15
  your authentic self. Because when you dare to show up
• 1:17
  fully, the rewards are immeasurable.
• 1:19
  So welcome to Beyond the Facade. Let's get started.
• 1:24
  Chance and Crystal welcome. So glad to have you here.
• 1:29
  And what? So let's just start off with
• 1:31
  this because it feels like it can help us kind of shed some of
• 1:33
  the emotions tied to it. How are you guys feeling about
• 1:35
  doing this podcast today and sharing some of your story?
• 1:39
  I'm nervous. Yeah, what's the nerves like,
• 1:42
  Chance? I think it's just nervous
• 1:44
  because to be honest, not a whole lot of people know about
• 1:48
  my story, just like most, most people that are going through
• 1:53
  recovery process don't necessarily talk about their
• 1:57
  story. I mean, yeah, you do in the safe
• 2:00
  groups, but it's just a little different.
• 2:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're willing to and
• 2:06
  appreciate that so much. I know one of the questions that
• 2:09
  we were asked in the beginning was do people actually make it?
• 2:13
  Do couples make it? Is this possible to come back
• 2:16
  from this kind of destruction? Yeah.
• 2:18
  Thanks for being here, Crystal. What do you thought?
• 2:21
  So I've been ready to share our story for a really long time,
• 2:25
  but that doesn't mean that it is not coming with a lot of nerves
• 2:30
  and about being vulnerable and how that's going to be
• 2:34
  perceived. And so that's scary, like how
• 2:38
  people will perceive us after this.
• 2:42
  But it also creates a sense of, for me, I personally have lived,
• 2:48
  I feel like in a lie for 17 years of our marriage.
• 2:53
  And so like getting this out there and not having to feel
• 2:58
  like I'm living untruth, you know, like.
• 3:02
  So then now we can step into our truth and really own our story
• 3:07
  and help others own theirs and know that there is light at the
• 3:10
  end of the tunnel if both are willing to put in work and.
• 3:17
  I hear that you're like, I want to own my store and some of my
• 3:20
  story on me, right? Yeah, So what?
• 3:23
  Give us one more thing if you wanted, OK.
• 3:26
  You have people listening to you, our audience listening to
• 3:29
  you. What is one thing you want them
• 3:31
  to know about you? Could be anything.
• 3:33
  And you weren't ready for that question.
• 3:34
  I didn't prep you for that question.
• 3:36
  So either one of you, what do you want is people are listening
• 3:39
  to you. What is the one thing you just
• 3:40
  wanted to know? That's like really tough.
• 3:46
  I would say that I personally, myself, I'm a fighter and
• 3:59
  probably that I'm pretty resilient and I'm willing to
• 4:08
  fight for something that I truly want.
• 4:12
  Oh, I got. I'm going to.
• 4:13
  You got I got chills going through my body here and you say
• 4:16
  those words. What do you want, men?
• 4:19
  I'm talking about men because that's why I work with the train
• 4:21
  partner. What do you want men to know,
• 4:23
  Crystal, about the women that are in this place?
• 4:30
  That they are probably some of the strongest, most resilient,
• 4:38
  most powerful women that you will ever meet.
• 4:42
  What should they do with that information?
• 4:45
  Make sure that they acknowledge that about their partners and
• 4:51
  realize that they have chosen at this point not to leave or not
• 5:00
  to step away like completely. I obviously I understand some
• 5:04
  have, but women in general want, I feel like just want to be
• 5:09
  acknowledged and want that emotional vulnerable side of men
• 5:16
  that that men actually see women for who they are deep down and
• 5:23
  not just looked at. Yeah, Thank you.
• 5:28
  I appreciate that so much. So good a chance.
• 5:31
  What do you want people to know about you?
• 5:33
  Just one thing. So one thing is honestly just
• 5:36
  that it doesn't matter how tough it is to and how hard it is,
• 5:41
  it's not easy. It's not easy to go through
• 5:44
  recovery. It's definitely, I've been on
• 5:46
  this journey for well, 17 years and it's definitely not easy.
• 5:52
  And to just know that you have to have compassion for yourself.
• 5:57
  And I think for me, that was the hardest thing was to actually
• 6:01
  have some compassion and be like, no, I can, I can make it
• 6:04
  through this and I can have some compassion for myself because
• 6:08
  for me it was always about perfection.
• 6:10
  Like I got to be perfect and with perfection, there's no
• 6:16
  empathy for yourself. There's no compassion.
• 6:18
  It's always like, no, it's always a task.
• 6:21
  And so to allow myself to, yeah, there's time, there's slips,
• 6:27
  there's all kinds of things that happen.
• 6:29
  And to have some empathy for myself and some compassion when
• 6:31
  those happen and just own up to it.
• 6:34
  Yeah, I appreciate yourself. That's a scary subject right
• 6:37
  there, right? Because it's like we just none
• 6:40
  of us. Crystal, I'm thinking about the
• 6:43
  betrayed partners here. Like they don't want to touch
• 6:46
  with a 10 foot pole. Just like, can we not do this
• 6:48
  pain ever again, right? You know, So we're going to talk
• 6:51
  about that today. If you could speak to the
• 6:54
  betrayed partner, what would you say?
• 6:55
  Chance, It's one thing. I would say that make sure you
• 7:01
  take care of yourself. I feel like Crystal hasn't
• 7:07
  always taken care of herself. She's always tried, but with her
• 7:11
  finding the help and the resources that she needed, she's
• 7:15
  actually finally being able to take care of herself and
• 7:17
  understand what she actually really needs.
• 7:21
  You're talking about like, don't put it yourself on the back
• 7:23
  burner. Don't let him come first.
• 7:24
  Make sure you take care of it. Yeah.
• 7:27
  Put yourself 1st, 100%. And also like, do your own, do
• 7:32
  your own work, your own healing. Your husband's not going to
• 7:35
  heal. He's not going to heal you.
• 7:38
  Yeah, I can only work on myself and my spouse.
• 7:44
  My wife is. She has to work on herself.
• 7:46
  I can't change. I can't change her.
• 7:49
  Yeah. I hear that often remember
• 7:53
  hearing men going I wish you could get some support.
• 7:55
  I wish you could get some help and then also noticing what it
• 7:58
  was about Crystal, what you have to say about.
• 8:00
  That I'm so glad you asked because I have a lot to say
• 8:02
  about this because I remember very first when we were very
• 8:06
  first married because I found out within three months of our
• 8:11
  marriage. And so we were going to a
• 8:16
  program and we were like I, it was separate and I was in a
• 8:20
  group with women and he was in a group with men.
• 8:25
  And one of the women there said this is his problem.
• 8:28
  I don't know why I'm here. He needs to fix this and now
• 8:35
  looking back on that I always knew that that was wrong but now
• 8:39
  looking back on that it makes me so sad and have so much empathy
• 8:46
  for her that she felt that way. But at the same time recognizing
• 8:51
  that since we have done our journey because both of us have
• 8:56
  looked numerous times for help. We went through countless
• 9:01
  therapist but truly finding help.
• 9:04
  We have found that working separately on ourselves has
• 9:13
  helped to rebuild and heal the relationship between us with it.
• 9:22
  Like organically and naturally started to heal.
• 9:28
  But I think if one of us is like, if I was doing the work or
• 9:31
  if he was doing the work, it wouldn't it wouldn't be that
• 9:36
  way. It wouldn't there wouldn't be
• 9:38
  that natural organic healing that we've been able to do.
• 9:44
  And I think a lot of women don't want to, you know, if he just
• 9:48
  fixes himself, then I'll be OK. But that truly is far from the
• 9:56
  truth because we had some really deep wounds and traumatic wounds
• 10:03
  that have happened because of our spouses, that if we don't
• 10:07
  repair or heal those wounds, then it doesn't matter what our
• 10:12
  spouses do. We will not heal organically
• 10:17
  together before the couple's therapy starts.
• 10:23
  Yeah, that's so true. OK, let's talk phase one here
• 10:26
  for a moment. OK, so a phase one is safety and
• 10:29
  stability. And you put that so well.
• 10:31
  Both of you did. What is safety and stability
• 10:33
  look like? So Crystal, let's come to you
• 10:35
  first for the betrayed partner. So if you think about those
• 10:38
  early days, what did safety mean for you?
• 10:41
  What is that? And what did you need in order
• 10:43
  to feel stable enough to even function?
• 10:45
  You talk to us about that. Yeah.
• 10:47
  So for me, it was truly about finding healing as far as what
• 10:56
  my nervous system needed in the early days.
• 11:00
  Like I was so dysregulated and just trying to figure out what I
• 11:07
  personally needed as far as making my own body feel safe.
• 11:15
  It was, it looked like setting strong boundaries that came from
• 11:24
  my values, really looking into my values and like what my
• 11:27
  values were, what I wanted in my household, what I wanted for my
• 11:33
  kids, what I wanted for myself and really setting strong
• 11:37
  boundaries around my values so that I myself.
• 11:44
  Because creating safety comes from if your spouse isn't
• 11:50
  creating that safety, you have to create it for yourself.
• 11:54
  And so some of my personal boundaries were you have to
• 12:00
  check in every night before 9:00.
• 12:06
  But I was not going to come to you and ask you to check in.
• 12:11
  I was not going to initiate that.
• 12:13
  That was a request of mine. And because of that request, if
• 12:17
  that wasn't met, then I would ask him to sleep in the other
• 12:22
  bedroom. If he didn't sleep in the other
• 12:25
  bedroom, then it was up to me to create that safety for myself.
• 12:29
  And so then I personally would sleep in the other bedroom.
• 12:33
  And that did happen. There were times also that he
• 12:36
  would come in in the middle of the night and be like, I'm so
• 12:39
  sorry. I forgot to check in.
• 12:41
  And I'd be like, Yep, you did. Sorry, but I'm creating the
• 12:45
  safety for myself and really making sure.
• 12:49
  And it's hard. It is not something that is easy
• 12:52
  to do. It's probably setting boundaries
• 12:55
  and sticking to them. So we had a really hard one like
• 13:00
  early on and I had set a boundary that is he slipped up.
• 13:07
  If he relapsed, he had 24 hours to come and tell me and if he
• 13:14
  did it within 24 hours then I would ask him to sleep in the
• 13:19
  other room. If he didn't come within 24
• 13:23
  hours and it was later, then he had to sleep outside the house
• 13:27
  for 24 hours and I had asked him.
• 13:34
  He lied about a relapse and it was like 3 days later or two or
• 13:44
  three days later we're taking our boy to football practice and
• 13:47
  I said this will never work unless you are honest with me.
• 13:54
  And he said you are right and I haven't been.
• 14:02
  And he came clean and I said, OK, I need you to sleep outside
• 14:08
  the home. You'll have to get a hotel room.
• 14:11
  And he was like, OK, I will. That night was one of the
• 14:16
  longest nights in my life because he also made some pretty
• 14:19
  poor choices that night. And he was resentful and he
• 14:24
  resentful of me making him leave the house.
• 14:28
  And so he, and this is in like I think October, middle of October
• 14:34
  last year, the end of October. So it was a cooler night and I
• 14:38
  expected him to go to a hotel. He did not.
• 14:42
  He shut off his phone so I couldn't see his location.
• 14:46
  I thought for sure he was going to go to his work and stay at
• 14:49
  his work. And it was a night full of
• 14:54
  extreme anxiety, being upset, mad because I ended up having to
• 15:04
  leave our four kids and try and go find him because there have
• 15:08
  been times that he wasn't in a good place and he was wishing
• 15:16
  that this would go all end and trigger warning, a little
• 15:20
  suicidal and it was hunting season.
• 15:24
  I made sure that he had all his guns out of his truck before he
• 15:27
  left, but I couldn't find him. And he called me that next
• 15:32
  morning at 6:30 in the morning or close to 630 and was like,
• 15:39
  well, I just shut off my phone because it wouldn't charge.
• 15:42
  And I called his BS and I said that bull crap, you had a
• 15:49
  charger, you shut it off because you didn't want to leave the
• 15:53
  house. I called him out on it and later
• 15:59
  that day he came to my place of work and broke down and just
• 16:04
  said, you know, that was, you know, owned up to it and said
• 16:07
  that was emotionally abusive. That wasn't OK.
• 16:11
  And I am so sorry. I will work through it.
• 16:14
  And I said, yeah, you're right that I, that wasn't OK.
• 16:18
  And you had some. It was like you that were just
• 16:21
  fairly first meeting with him and you had some choice words
• 16:26
  and he can say what you said, but you had some choice words to
• 16:30
  say to him. But I will say that those harsh
• 16:34
  choice words lingered and are what he needed to hear.
• 16:43
  And so we have like boundaries are hard.
• 16:50
  They are so incredibly hard. But from that point I felt a
• 16:56
  sense of empowerment for myself which I hadn't felt in years.
• 17:05
  Empowerment that like I can do this.
• 17:08
  It is going to be extremely hard and there are going to be
• 17:12
  extremely hurtful times and recovery I personally think is
• 17:19
  sometimes just as hard in those early days as the addiction and
• 17:27
  the lying and cheating. If there is some, it's just as
• 17:33
  hard in those early days because you are setting boundaries and
• 17:37
  you're sticking to them and it hurts.
• 17:41
  Yeah, pick your heart right? Yeah.
• 17:43
  Pick your heart and chance. I want to hear what you have to
• 17:45
  say about this. There was one thing I want to
• 17:48
  give this back to you, Crystal, and I want to let know that I
• 17:51
  don't think I'm. I want to give it back to you.
• 17:53
  Tell me if I heard a couple things right.
• 17:55
  OK. Can I give this back to you?
• 17:57
  OK, So what I heard you say is I needed an environment that felt
• 18:01
  safe. And what safe looked like was my
• 18:03
  partner coming to me proactively and telling me what's your
• 18:05
  truth? What's your real chance?
• 18:08
  Wasn't ready in a place to give you that.
• 18:10
  So you had to do this thing where you stuck to what you said
• 18:13
  you were going to do and trust your intuition first of all and
• 18:16
  say it doesn't feel right. Yeah.
• 18:18
  And then you, I want to cry when I say this and good for both of
• 18:23
  you guys for navigating this all the way through, But that was
• 18:28
  you doing that hard was not the easiest thing to do.
• 18:31
  It was. And it wasn't a punishment you
• 18:32
  were trying to give up. In fact, it created more chaos.
• 18:37
  It created something with heart. But that's what allowed the
• 18:40
  pattern to start to be broken because you said, Nope, this
• 18:44
  doesn't work. It's not enough.
• 18:46
  And it all, it was so hard for you and then I wanted to just
• 18:49
  set this up. Did I hear that right?
• 18:51
  By the way, Crystal. Yeah, we're.
• 18:54
  Going to take a quick break for a moment.
• 18:55
  I want to let you know of some things that we have coming up at
• 18:57
  Choose Recovery Services. The holidays are coming and this
• 19:03
  is a time where if you're trying to heal from betrayal can be
• 19:08
  such a emotional, hard, difficult time.
• 19:13
  It's a time where there's often so many external and internal
• 19:18
  pressures and expectations and triggers can be higher.
• 19:22
  And so as I thought about the holidays, I thought, how can I
• 19:26
  support you during the holidays? And so this year I am going to
• 19:31
  be offering a webinar series called A Season of Support.
• 19:37
  It's a free holiday series for couples.
• 19:40
  You can come as a couple, you can come by yourself.
• 19:44
  But what it is, is it's a time for you to really have some
• 19:50
  support to not only get you through the holidays, but help
• 19:55
  you not start out in January feeling further behind.
• 19:58
  The amount of people who come to me in January in crisis mode
• 20:04
  because they had put aside their healing work and they had just
• 20:07
  been. In kind of a state of functional
• 20:10
  freeze through the holidays is so many.
• 20:14
  So what I would like to do is help support you to be able to
• 20:18
  keep doing your work, have support, have tools and feel
• 20:21
  like you can make it through the holidays.
• 20:24
  So there'll be 4 weekly sessions.
• 20:26
  They're on Monday nights. It will be through a Zoom
• 20:29
  webinar. It is completely free.
• 20:33
  Some of the topics that will be included is holiday triggers,
• 20:37
  understanding, preparing and staying regulated, staying
• 20:41
  connected with each other in the chaos, tools for daily emotional
• 20:45
  bonding, preventing backsliding, accountability repair, keeping
• 20:51
  your healing work alive, and also how to enter January
• 20:55
  strong, how to enter that new year with a momentum in your
• 20:58
  healing. So we would love to have you
• 21:00
  there. You can find everything in the
• 21:02
  show notes and sending all the love and support this holiday
• 21:06
  season. Let's get back to our episode.
• 21:12
  So chance, I wanted to notice, and I want the men of the
• 21:16
  betrayed partners to really hear this.
• 21:18
  How did her stability create just chaos for you?
• 21:22
  You tried to suck her into and then what happened?
• 21:26
  Yeah, so for me it was like instant resentment.
• 21:31
  Why the hell should I have to leave my house?
• 21:33
  I pay for the house. There's all these these things.
• 21:35
  And it was like, OK, I'm leaving the house.
• 21:37
  Well, if if you don't want me to the house, then why the hell
• 21:40
  should I leave my phone on? If you don't want me around,
• 21:42
  then I'm going to be completely gone.
• 21:45
  Does that make sense? Like I got, I think it's just
• 21:49
  one of those things where it comes from a place of
• 21:50
  resentment. It doesn't come from a place of
• 21:52
  actually being able to think it through and say, well, what the
• 21:54
  hell is this going to cause for her on the back end?
• 21:57
  It's it's essentially it was like taking care of my needs,
• 22:00
  which my needs very maladaptive in the aspect of, well, she
• 22:06
  doesn't want me around then I'm just going to, I'm just going to
• 22:09
  throw it right back at her. Yeah, it was extremely.
• 22:12
  Hurtful. And you just had this chance
• 22:15
  because Crystal wasn't going to buy into the chaos.
• 22:18
  She was like, no, I'm going to stay in safety over here.
• 22:21
  So you're just swimming in it, right.
• 22:23
  And I'll just point out that wasn't that wasn't bad.
• 22:27
  Like that was important because chance, you had a chance to just
• 22:30
  sit with your parts that were yelling and saying this is bull
• 22:34
  crap. She's not being fair.
• 22:36
  So we don't get a chance to heal unless we actually get a chance
• 22:39
  to address our parts and know what they're saying and what
• 22:41
  they're talking about. So what was this like chance
• 22:44
  learning to Whether you knew it or not, what did you?
• 22:48
  How did you work with these parts?
• 22:51
  Honestly, like I didn't, I didn't sleep all night.
• 22:54
  Like not one, one ounce of sleep.
• 22:55
  And then it was like still the resentment was there and then
• 22:59
  there was frustration and it was just been on the process through
• 23:03
  all those honestly, like the time away and her setting this
• 23:07
  boundary and essentially me leaving the house allowed for me
• 23:11
  to like, I could either have gone one of two ways.
• 23:14
  I could have went right back into my addiction or I could
• 23:17
  have said, you know what, hey, I'm going to create some safety
• 23:20
  for myself and I'm going to leave the house because that's
• 23:22
  going to create safety for her and my kids.
• 23:25
  And then I'm going to process through all my emotions and
• 23:29
  everything I'm feeling. And then in the morning before I
• 23:33
  walk into work, I will, I'm going to give her a call.
• 23:37
  And is there was there still some very hurtful stuff that
• 23:41
  happened in that? 100% not.
• 23:43
  I'm not going to say that there wasn't.
• 23:45
  It definitely caused a lot more trauma for her than it did for
• 23:49
  me because for me and my addiction, it was always chance
• 23:53
  got to come first. His chance has never been first.
• 23:57
  Yeah, essentially me doing that, like I was just proving that,
• 24:00
  hey, like I'm still, I'm still tied up in I'm still tied up in
• 24:04
  my addiction. And but then allowing for us to
• 24:09
  come back and have a conversation and and then
• 24:14
  understanding that that is her boundary and that's 100% like
• 24:17
  she's going to follow through at those boundaries.
• 24:21
  Created safety for myself. Now, now, yeah, you got a chance
• 24:26
  to really sit with those parts and under you got to you make a
• 24:31
  choice. And that's why I think so scary
• 24:33
  for the betraying partner is like they know that there's a
• 24:36
  choice. We can go back to maladaptive
• 24:38
  coping mechanisms and just go ahead and just lean into it and
• 24:42
  or we can go, I'm tired of this. I'm tired.
• 24:45
  Like I want something different. Yeah.
• 24:47
  OK, that's good chance. You want to say anything else
• 24:49
  about that, about that experience?
• 24:53
  I know there's so much to talk about.
• 24:54
  Oh yeah, 100%. I'd say through this whole
• 24:59
  thing, through this whole thing of recovery is like, you can do
• 25:02
  hard things. And just because it's something
• 25:05
  that just because there's a boundary set by your partner
• 25:10
  doesn't mean that you can't, that you can't follow through
• 25:12
  with it and you can't do that hard thing.
• 25:15
  Yeah, I was just going to say, and maybe you were going to ask
• 25:20
  this, something around this, but luckily I also see somebody from
• 25:25
  Choose and she kind of put me in my place and made me realize
• 25:33
  because I always thought I had some control.
• 25:37
  And when you have men in this type of addiction or an
• 25:44
  addiction in addiction in general, you don't have any
• 25:48
  control. The betrayer, they have the
• 25:51
  control and it's like a pendulum.
• 25:53
  So they have all this control for so long and it almost has to
• 25:59
  swing the other way for the one that's been betrayed so that it
• 26:06
  can eventually swing back to the center and where it's nobody has
• 26:10
  control that you work together. And so like when this happened,
• 26:15
  it was, I think it was a sense of he wanted that control so bad
• 26:20
  because he'd had it for so long. And he was living in this life
• 26:25
  of I can control what the outcomes going to be because I
• 26:29
  can hide all of this or I can, I can change this.
• 26:32
  I can in fact gaslight her to believe what I want her to
• 26:37
  believe. And when I finally started
• 26:40
  taking control, when I finally started being like, no, I'm
• 26:43
  taking, I'm creating the safety for myself.
• 26:46
  If you can't do that, I'm doing it for myself.
• 26:49
  And I'm taking back control of myself.
• 26:53
  And that's very scary for the person that's always had the
• 26:58
  control. And so they're feeling like
• 27:02
  they're constantly out of control.
• 27:05
  But really that's that's when healing on their end really
• 27:11
  truly starts to happen because like you sit like you're saying,
• 27:14
  they have to decide what they truly want and it has to be for
• 27:18
  themselves. Yeah, I love this.
• 27:21
  So if you, if we look at because there's so many things to talk
• 27:23
  about in phase one, which is safety and stability.
• 27:26
  Ultimately you have two people that are working their own
• 27:29
  journey that have realized safety comes from inside of me.
• 27:32
  It doesn't cover my partner. Yep, nobody let me create that
• 27:35
  safety for you. Nobody else can.
• 27:37
  So I'll decide what safe looks like and I might be able to be
• 27:39
  in a relationship. That other person creates a
• 27:41
  level of safety for them that feels like they got fit into
• 27:43
  this dynamic. So Phase 1, I don't want to say
• 27:47
  it's as it's as scripted as once I feel safe inside of myself.
• 27:52
  Now I can be seen by my partner, OK, If I feel safe inside of me,
• 27:57
  then I can what we call integrate, which is now that
• 27:59
  I've seen all my parts, the parts that are shameful, the
• 28:02
  parts that are sad, the parts full, all these parts, then what
• 28:05
  I can do is I can show them to somebody.
• 28:07
  So that's where the Full disclosure comes in, which is I
• 28:11
  can stay grounded and connected to my partner and let them see
• 28:15
  all the parts of me that have existed and then we can
• 28:17
  integrate. So I wanted to just go on to
• 28:19
  this phase, to part of the journey, which is once you have
• 28:23
  truth, which is what's actually been a part of an experience,
• 28:27
  whether the betrayed partner knew it or not, then you can
• 28:30
  move into grieving together. That's like when meaning making
• 28:34
  grief for pair of men's and understanding each other's parts
• 28:38
  really matter because it's my job as the betrayer to make
• 28:43
  friends with my partner's bodyguard to their parts.
• 28:47
  And to say, hey, I can never say this without tearing up, but I
• 28:51
  didn't like their bodyguard forever.
• 28:53
  I didn't even know they existed. And now I'm thankful for their
• 28:55
  bodyguard because guess what? Their bodyguard kept them safe
• 28:58
  when I couldn't. So I'm going to stop disliking
• 29:01
  them. I'm going to start the value.
• 29:02
  So Crystal, let's have you go 1st.
• 29:04
  I have a question on this face to this grieving together stuff.
• 29:07
  So when you when safety was in place or started to come in
• 29:10
  place, what did it feel like to finally begin like grieving and
• 29:14
  like really grieving what had been lost?
• 29:20
  I'll say that I didn't realize so I personally had a lot not
• 29:25
  firmly our relationship, but I had a lot of grief that I had to
• 29:31
  process through that that things that happened during all of
• 29:35
  this. So it compounded the grief that
• 29:39
  I was feeling that I had never true.
• 29:43
  I thought I had agreed, but I hadn't.
• 29:46
  I spent a lot of time in bed. I was so tired and I slept and I
• 29:58
  just listened to my body. I listened to what my body
• 30:02
  needed and I was mad too. I, I will be honest, like I
• 30:12
  looked back at my life from the point that chance came into it
• 30:19
  and I had given up a lot. I'd given up a lot to try and
• 30:24
  make him happy, to try and appease him.
• 30:27
  Maybe if I did this, he would quit acting out.
• 30:29
  Maybe if I did this, maybe if I quit this.
• 30:31
  So I had quit a lot of my passions.
• 30:35
  I'd quit jobs that not even jobs, but businesses.
• 30:41
  I had businesses fail because of circumstances and the emotions I
• 30:52
  chose. But at the time I didn't have a
• 30:54
  choice because I didn't know my reality, I didn't know my truth
• 30:59
  and so I was mad. I was really frustrated at
• 31:08
  chance and when we did our Full disclosure, I, I was able to
• 31:12
  give my impact letter and it was long and it was very vulnerable
• 31:17
  and it said things that he had never heard before.
• 31:20
  And that was very empowering. But I truly just listened to my
• 31:29
  body and my body told me it needed rest.
• 31:33
  I was so tired from the constant trying to please, trying to fix,
• 31:41
  trying to make my marriage work when I didn't even know the my
• 31:46
  reality. Yeah, didn't even know my
• 31:50
  reality, the anger, the Yeah, all of that there.
• 31:54
  There's traditional textbook. It's not fair to put anybody in
• 31:58
  this situation, but technically there's a level of grieving that
• 32:01
  can happen that's shared grieving.
• 32:03
  So did it affect you when he began to show like any remorse
• 32:07
  or he felt grounded and consistent in your grieving
• 32:10
  process? Did you notice that at all?
• 32:13
  Not trying to give him credit for anything that doesn't exist
• 32:15
  but just I don't know because when you have that place where
• 32:20
  it's a shared grieving or at least that person is present for
• 32:24
  you so you can grieve or either is nothing with the grieve.
• 32:28
  OK, so and I think what you're asking is like, how did he
• 32:34
  respond to my grieving? So then it became a shared
• 32:37
  grieving. Yeah, there's this thing you're
• 32:39
  like, this is what I lost. Like my business is like this,
• 32:43
  all these aspects. I gave up so much.
• 32:45
  And you can do that by yourself. You can go grieve that way
• 32:47
  because your partner just can't hear that.
• 32:49
  They're like, I can't hear about businesses.
• 32:51
  I can't hear about this. I don't even want you to be in
• 32:53
  the bed because I got to do stuff.
• 32:55
  So I recognize that there can be this.
• 32:57
  And nobody's perfect through this.
• 32:59
  Nobody's just like watching their partner going, oh, yeah,
• 33:01
  just take all the time you need all the energy, all the space.
• 33:04
  But what did you notice about when there was a level of
• 33:08
  remorse showing her there was some groundedness and maybe more
• 33:11
  consistent there was anyway. I knew that he was truly healing
• 33:19
  and it created so much safety for myself when before if he
• 33:26
  came home and I was laying in bed or I was louching or I was
• 33:30
  doing just sitting because the weight of our family was on my
• 33:35
  shoulders. He would normally be mad or
• 33:38
  resentful or angry. And I knew that it truly had
• 33:43
  changed when I literally was spending most my days still in
• 33:51
  bed or any time I got I was in my room and he didn't care.
• 34:02
  Came home and I didn't feel the egg shells.
• 34:05
  Didn't fill the egg shells. I didn't feel like I had to
• 34:10
  hurry and get out of bed and be doing something or that it was
• 34:15
  OK. And he actually had said he was
• 34:18
  concerned, like he was worried for me and wondered if you know,
• 34:25
  are you going, are you OK? Can I get you anything or.
• 34:31
  And he like not catered to me, but cared and it and it's a
• 34:37
  feeling that when you actually start to like when it is truly
• 34:47
  authentic, it's a different feeling.
• 34:51
  Yeah, yeah. And that's what it became.
• 34:57
  OK, so there's a chance I want you to go here, but I got I want
• 34:59
  to set something up really quick.
• 35:01
  OK, so I think back in the day, I used to like take that and I
• 35:05
  would be like, OK, let's really let's just notice how chance did
• 35:10
  show up for you that way, Crystal.
• 35:11
  But I kind of want to expose a little bit more and chance.
• 35:15
  I'm going to act like, I don't know, you kind of to a sense
• 35:17
  talk more about textbook. But Crystal, I want to be
• 35:21
  sensitive. The fact of I want to ask chance
• 35:23
  some questions around what was that like?
• 35:25
  Because you still had parts, like your parts, not like they
• 35:27
  went away. Just because you know, you hurt
• 35:29
  Crystal doesn't mean you're just like, Oh yeah, fine, you can
• 35:32
  just do whatever you need. Like he still would have
• 35:35
  textbook is he still would have had a battle with those parts,
• 35:37
  right? Actually, yeah, there was.
• 35:40
  There was one thing that happened.
• 35:42
  So chance can. So that I what I want to do is I
• 35:45
  want to find out from chance what that was like.
• 35:48
  But Crystal I don't want to like, I want to just get
• 35:51
  permission for you on that to find out what his parts were
• 35:53
  like. Absolutely.
• 35:54
  OK, Cool. Crystal.
• 35:56
  I mean Chance, what did your parts do?
• 35:58
  Fade my parts were like screaming at me.
• 36:01
  I have all these different parts are like here I am out working,
• 36:05
  I'm doing extra in the house. I'm pretty much I'm taking care
• 36:09
  of everything, essentially taking care of everything in the
• 36:14
  house and what kids and I get just compounded.
• 36:19
  It just compounded on top of it was just really heavy for me and
• 36:24
  my parts were just screaming at me like why can't she get out of
• 36:27
  bed and and what's going on with her?
• 36:31
  So what I'm going to, I'm going to jump here.
• 36:32
  What wound did it activate? Did it so it have activated some
• 36:36
  for me. It was like the wound for me was
• 36:39
  abandonment. Here it is, here it goes again.
• 36:41
  Like she's going to completely give up on this and Chance is
• 36:45
  going to be left on its own. Yeah, yes.
• 36:48
  So your parts are active around that.
• 36:49
  Extremely activated. I have these, this part that
• 36:54
  like abandonment, a huge thing for me.
• 36:56
  It's a huge part and I pursue perfection because if I'm not
• 37:05
  perfect, nobody's going to be attracted to me or or want me
• 37:08
  around. It's all about what I can do for
• 37:10
  everyone else. And in turn, it's the same with
• 37:15
  like, I push that back on on Crystal, like I, I push that
• 37:19
  back on her because it's like, well, if I got to do it, then
• 37:21
  you got to do it too. And if I and if I give Crystal
• 37:24
  anything she wants, then she'll do what for me.
• 37:27
  Yeah, then she's going to give me what I want, which
• 37:29
  essentially is like sex. I mean, let's just let's just
• 37:33
  put it out there because that's that's, that's.
• 37:35
  Then. You're right.
• 37:37
  I mean, that's the, you know, and we used her for essentially
• 37:41
  I was using her. Yeah.
• 37:43
  So you're, you're doing things to to get an outcome that helps
• 37:48
  you. But Crystal, you're noticing
• 37:50
  like, so here's the part that I want to understand chance, even
• 37:54
  though your parts are doing that, that's not how you're
• 37:56
  behaving completely. So Crystal's saying, hey, it's
• 37:59
  the difference as before, it's authentic.
• 38:01
  So your parts are a work. So help me guys understand that
• 38:05
  it's authentic, but you're still battling.
• 38:07
  Can you help me understand that why you were doing that?
• 38:10
  I think it was like I, I'd come to the realization that I
• 38:16
  created this mess, right? I did all this stuff, her losses
• 38:21
  of businesses, and I created all this.
• 38:25
  Well, I started to feel some safety by doing some recovery
• 38:28
  work. And it was like, hey, I can
• 38:30
  create safety for myself and I don't have control over what she
• 38:34
  was, whether she lays in bed or whether she doesn't.
• 38:37
  What I can do is I can create my own safety and I can take care
• 38:40
  of the things that I need to for myself.
• 38:46
  Yeah. So I can feel it.
• 38:47
  I can. Yeah, Go ahead.
• 38:48
  I and I just want to jump in because I think what I was
• 38:51
  trying to say is we did have a point where he did come to me
• 38:54
  and he was like, I started today.
• 38:57
  I, I felt like, like my part started coming out and I, I
• 39:01
  started to resent you and I started to, you know, and I
• 39:04
  would like that made me be like what?
• 39:10
  Hold on like I'm trying to do my recovery process.
• 39:15
  I'm trying to recover. I'm listening to my body.
• 39:19
  I understand that you might be feeling like you resent me, but
• 39:23
  I don't need to hear about that. And so with communicating with
• 39:27
  my coach, I was able to come back and say hey and, and, and
• 39:32
  we're able to communicate in a much different way now.
• 39:36
  I was able to come back and say, hey, like I, I understand that
• 39:41
  you feel resentment at times. I understand that those are
• 39:45
  feelings that are going to come up for you and you have every
• 39:48
  right for those feelings. But I've got a set of boundaries
• 39:53
  so that I can keep myself safe and in a safe place that when
• 39:57
  those feelings come up and they're they're surrounded like
• 40:02
  around me, I need you to take those to your sponsor or to your
• 40:07
  coach or to your groups. Instead of bringing them to me,
• 40:12
  I need you to share that with your safe space so that I can
• 40:18
  keep my safety for myself. OK, so I'm going to, I'm going
• 40:22
  to tie in a few things together here.
• 40:24
  There's this place, which is very much part of phase two,
• 40:26
  which is shared. There's a shared grief
• 40:29
  experience re there's integration, which is there's
• 40:32
  parts starting to be seen. But Crystal, you're not taking
• 40:35
  care of Chance's parts like, but you're seeing them, right?
• 40:39
  And chance, you got space. So you're having ownership,
• 40:42
  you're owning what's going on. You're not hiding like you're
• 40:46
  sharing. But that's not crystals to NA.
• 40:48
  And I can see chance why that produces safety for you to go in
• 40:52
  like, hey, I can breathe outside of crystal.
• 40:55
  I don't need crystal to show up, certainly for me to breathe and
• 40:57
  not turn back to maladaptive coping mechanisms.
• 41:01
  Because I'd like him to be vulnerable.
• 41:02
  We want our spouses to be vulnerable.
• 41:05
  But there are things that like about yourselves, like those
• 41:10
  parts about yourself, even though you're wanting to be
• 41:13
  vulnerable, can also cause damage and create damage to your
• 41:21
  significant other. As far as just like, hey, I know
• 41:27
  you're trying to heal, but I'm resenting you for healing.
• 41:32
  So it's you want that vulnerability.
• 41:34
  And now I struggled with that because I wanted him to come to
• 41:38
  me and tell me and tell me like how he was feeling and tell me
• 41:42
  what was going on. And then when he did, my nervous
• 41:48
  system was going off. And so being able to come back
• 41:53
  and be like, actually, if it's something to do and I'm creating
• 41:59
  this part to come up, but I need you and maybe you can clean this
• 42:06
  up for me, but I need you to take that to your coach and work
• 42:10
  with your coach on that instead of me and.
• 42:14
  Well, I think that she created a boundary with that.
• 42:17
  It wasn't necessarily like, yeah, like the boundary is like,
• 42:21
  hey, when things come up and, and it's extremely hurtful for
• 42:24
  her when I, when I would say that kind of stuff to her.
• 42:27
  And it's like, well, there's somebody outside of this
• 42:30
  relationship that I can talk to. They don't have to give me any
• 42:34
  guidance. There's I just need somebody to
• 42:36
  listen. And I think that the boundary
• 42:38
  that she sat with saying, hey, like when you're talking like in
• 42:42
  all these feelings you have towards me, like it puts her in
• 42:45
  a bad place. And then in return, it doesn't
• 42:48
  allow for our relationship to grow because there's this that's
• 42:50
  hindering it. When these feelings come up,
• 42:54
  like I either talk with my coach or I have a conversation with my
• 42:57
  sponsor or even guys I do groups with, I'll reach out to one of
• 43:01
  them. Like it just, I think it's just
• 43:03
  a whole different aspect there instead, because I'm so used to
• 43:07
  putting things back on her that it allowed for me to just talk
• 43:12
  about it, have a conversation with somebody that that's going
• 43:14
  through the same thing. And there's no judgement on
• 43:18
  either side. And it doesn't make her feel
• 43:19
  like feel worse. Yeah, Oh my goodness.
• 43:23
  It's what you guys are talking about here.
• 43:25
  Just the complexities of navigating.
• 43:28
  Sometimes I show up and I'm like, I'm transparent.
• 43:30
  And then your partner says actually your parts in charge
• 43:34
  right now. I can't be around you when your
• 43:36
  parts running the show, but I do want to know about your part.
• 43:39
  But let's create some self energy difference between that.
• 43:43
  So there's just there's so many good things guys like I am, I
• 43:46
  have such mixed emotions. We've gone through 4 of like 20
• 43:49
  questions. That is good news.
• 43:51
  Means there was some real richness inside of some of this.
• 43:54
  But guys, the purpose of this episode is I got a chance to be
• 43:57
  around Crystal and Chance and saw the beautiful job they were
• 44:00
  doing working their journey individually and as a couple.
• 44:02
  And I wanted you to be able to see it specifically around the
• 44:05
  lens of phase one and two. Phase one being safety and
• 44:07
  stability, 2 individual journeys, being seen by the
• 44:10
  other person, understanding what that safety looks like and then
• 44:14
  getting to a place where we do have meaning making by
• 44:17
  integrating our parts in ourselves and in the
• 44:20
  relationship. So you've heard about that.
• 44:23
  Appreciate you letting us witness that today, guys.
• 44:26
  But and then the part we never got to, which is OK because I
• 44:29
  wasn't planning on it so much as just, but just to share with
• 44:31
  you, Phase 3 is the reconnection, is the emerging
• 44:35
  new identity. It is the growth aspect of life
• 44:39
  of the journey. So we don't talk a lot about
• 44:42
  that in Phase 1 and 2, but it does exist and it's farther down
• 44:46
  the road. But I just wanted to say that,
• 44:48
  OK, what messages do you guys have to close out today?
• 44:51
  Any thoughts? Either one of you first?
• 44:53
  Yeah, I just, I want couples to know that whether they stayed
• 44:59
  together or whether they choose to separate and leave, that
• 45:06
  there truly is healing. Yeah, either one.
• 45:10
  There can you can find your true authentic self that you lost
• 45:18
  years ago, even before you became a couple.
• 45:22
  You can start to find your true authentic self and truly start
• 45:28
  to live while healing. And even though it's an
• 45:36
  incredibly tough and hard journey that there is hope, for
• 45:46
  sure there will be happiness come back.
• 45:50
  Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that there.
• 45:52
  And I love the fact that you said whether the marriage,
• 45:55
  whether the relationship lasts or their separation, there is
• 45:59
  healing, yes. And that is hard to see if
• 46:01
  that's everything you're fighting for, that feels like
• 46:04
  that's the only way it can go. So thank you.
• 46:05
  A chance anything you say before we wrap out?
• 46:08
  I'd say I do your work from the betraying partners perspective
• 46:16
  and even from the betrayed partner.
• 46:18
  Like I, I feel like if you do your work and and don't put the
• 46:25
  expectation that the relationships going to stay
• 46:27
  together. Like I think that if you heal on
• 46:31
  your own and then whether or not, like Crystal said, whether
• 46:36
  or not the relationship stays together, I think it's a, it's
• 46:40
  individually like we all have to heal ourselves and there's a lot
• 46:45
  of healing that has to happen. And it's a very, very hard, it's
• 46:50
  very intense. Like we have to help for
• 46:55
  ourselves and being being the betraying partner in in our
• 47:01
  relationship. Like there's a lot for me to
• 47:05
  learn. Like I'm essentially like, I'm
• 47:08
  still emotionally, I'm still really, really young.
• 47:11
  So I, I never really grew up. So for me, there's a lot of a
• 47:17
  lot of learning that I have to do to make our relationship.
• 47:21
  Work for sure. Extremely powerful, y'all.
• 47:25
  I wish I could spend three more hours just having this
• 47:27
  conversation. It's been rich.
• 47:29
  Thanks for your vulnerability. It's been beautiful.
• 47:32
  And and please, thanks for sharing.
• 47:34
  Hope and yeah, thank you for your time.
• 47:37
  Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Luke.
• 47:41
  Hey, thanks for joining us today.
• 47:43
  If this is something that you connected with, I'd love to meet
• 47:46
  with you more and talk about it. So what you can do is go to
• 47:48
  chooserecoveryservices.com or check the show notes and there
• 47:52
  what we can do is set up a quick conversation meet.
• 47:55
  Thanks so much for listening to Beyond the Facade where we
• 47:57
  unmask the up end itself.