Recovery After Betrayal: What You Need To Know

After the discovery of betrayal, life may feel overwhelming. Here’s what I learned about recovery after betrayal from interviewing four women who experienced betrayal in their marriage.

Recovery After Betrayal: 15 Things No One Tells You

1) It’s important to name What HAppens when You’re Betrayed

Across the stories, women started to heal when they correctly labeled his chronic lying, gaslighting, and manipulation as abuse. Recovery after betrayal speeds up when you realize what his betrayal actually involved.

To find out if you’re experiencing emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test. It has a lot of emotional abuse examples.

2) EMOTIONAL Safety AFTER BETRAYAL SHOULD BE the goal

Women who were betrayed felt pressure to “save the marriage.” Shifting the goal to their own emotional safety created clarity and momentum.

3) You’re NOt the reason he lied

Every woman wrestled with misplaced shame. But her healing accelerated when she realized she didn’t do anything wrong.

4) Watch behavior, not words

The women learned to track patterns: secrecy, blame-shifting, financial control, image management. Observing her husband’s behaviors helped them take the next right steps.

5) You’re Surviving The Best Way You Know How

Many women were in survival mode for years. Her gut warned her, but she didn’t understand what her gut was telling her. She experienced insomnia, chest tightness, anxiety. Naming reality felt worse at first, then brought relief.

6) Anger can be a gift

One woman called anger “a gift.” That anger helped her take action to find a betrayal support group she could trust.

7) Grief From Betrayal comes in waves (and that’s normal)

Tears at the sink, breaking down mid-chores—grief is the nervous system releasing what’s too heavy to carry alone.

8) Community reduces confusion

When the women found The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions, they finally felt validated and seen. The support of women who totally understood helped them heal.”

9) Beware “help” that blames you

Several tried couples therapy or programs that encouraged her to fix her own “character defects.” That re-traumatized them and didn’t actually improve her marriage.

10) Healing From Betrayal Is Sometimes Best in bite-sized Pieces

Trauma brains struggle to read, plan, or decide. The women made progress listening to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast.

11) You Don’t Have to Decide ANything Right NOw

You don’t have to commit today to stay or to divorce. Safety decisions can be iterative.

12) Boundaries protect even when outcomes don’t

After betrayal, some women decided to divorce and still faced custody or co-parenting harm. Strong boundaries reduced exposure and preserved peace, even when he kept choosing harm.

13) Kids can thrive in truth

Multiple women noticed deeper closeness with their children once the home aligned with reality and safety.

14) Faith + action = traction

Believing that you could have a peaceful life mattered. And so did picking up your feet. Like walking through the parted sea, safety required steps.

15) Meditations help release regret

Guided meditations and somatic tools helped women unclench, sleep, and stop ruminating. If you’re in this situation, try this free mediation for betrayal trauma.

Quick FAQ on Recovery After Betrayal

How long does recovery after betrayal take?
Longer than you want, shorter than you fear. It’s nonlinear; measure by stability and peace, not calendar dates.

Do I have to leave to start healing?
No. You can start with simple emotional safety strategies and see what the next day brings. To find out more about emotional safety strategies after betrayal, enroll in The Living Free Workshop.

What if therapy made things worse?
You’re not alone. That’s why we have our daily, online Group Sessions. You deserve emotionally safe support to recover from betrayal.

Reducing The Overwhelm after betrayal

If you’re overwhelmed and need a small, do-able starting point, I’ve packaged the same bite-sized tools these women used into the Living Free Workshop, including meditations to help you find peace when peace seems impossible.

Transcript: Recovery After Betrayal

Anne: It’s just me today. I want to go back in time to when I was completely overwhelmed. Then I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know where to turn. Doing my dishes seemed impossible. Being a single parent, trying to have a job that would support my three young children. My oldest was six, then I had a three-year-old and an 11 month old. It was almost impossible to even function. I was so overwhelmed.

At the time, I went to S Anon and did 12 step. Even though he was arrested, my sponsor told me I was too prideful. And then I had all these character defects that had contributed to my husband’s addiction. And that if I focused on asking God to remove my character defects, maybe somehow I would solve my half of the equation. In my mind, I thought maybe this could save my family. So I was unnecessarily traumatized, even more.

At first, some days I would start crying and I couldn’t stop. Then one day my six year old son pulled up the vacuum. He pretended like the vacuum was a microphone. And I have a recording. Of what he sang to me that day. And you can hear his three-year-old brother interrupt him. Then my three-year-old decided to stop interrupting his older brother. And just drum to make his contribution. It takes me back to that time.

A Touching Moment AFter Betrayal

6 Year Old Son: Oh, it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to cry. If someone’s mean to you,

3 Year Old Son: Telling you to do, it doesn’t know if no one finds you crying,

6 Year Old Son: If you cry,

3 Year Old Son: Ends up crying this year.

6 Year Old Son: Whenever you’re feeling sad, it’s okay to cry. Whenever you’re feeling sad, it’s okay. And if you are a little baby, you can still cry. If you’re really, really old, you still can cry. If you’re really, really, really young, you still can cry. Yay! I love you, Mom.

Anne: He was so brave and so strong. Now he’s over six feet tall. And he’s doing well. And he is such a good person. I love my children, they are so close to me. I don’t think I ever would have had the relationship I have with them if my ex-husband would’ve stayed in our home. It had to start with healthy boundaries. So if I’m reaching out across the void to you and you’re overwhelmed. Just let me sit here in this overwhelm with you.

So, if you have no idea how you’re going to pay the bills, if you have no idea how you’re going to protect yourself. If every option seems terrible. I’ve been there, it felt like I couldn’t even say anything. Speaking the truth was getting me in trouble. And I didn’t know how to do anything else. There was no other option for me. It was maddening.

Realizations AFTER BETRAYAL

Anne: So today, remembering how it felt. So grateful that I had that experience. After a year of 12 step I started realizing that it wasn’t addiction. My husband was abusive. And then I started podcasting and I started interviewing you. Women who listened and wanted to share their stories too. Thank you for sharing your stories with me. Through all the interviews, I started seeing very clear patterns. And then I started experimenting on those strategies.

I prayed and pondered how do I set boundaries. I followed those strategies, and I got myself and my children to safety. And the start date will look different now, because I’ve removed a lot of episodes. At first, I was giving bad information. And I needed to remove that. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Like I’d been hurt. And now. I’m not overwhelmed anymore. My life is beautiful and peaceful. Even though now I have confident, funny teenagers.

And even though my life is peaceful. I want to be here with you in your overwhelm. Right now, when you’re going through what I went through, I can be here with you now. You’re not alone. You’re not alone. Thank you so much for supporting me. On my journey as I’ve been healing. And we’re here for you too. We have the best emotional abuse support groups online. We can help you because of my experience seeing what actually works.

Steps to Recover From BETRAYAL

Anne: So there are three steps. For recovery after betrayal. And I put them on a downloadable PDF, so you could see them and click on it. So go to btr.org/steps it’s just a free downloadable PDF. Start there, we all had to take one step at a time. We’re here for you.