Post Betrayal Growth with Stacey Smith

If you're day one, day two, day three, day four, after D -Day, you know, you can't see anything good. Everything's black and white. Let us hold your hope for you. We've all survived betrayal. Let us hold on to hope for you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Betrayal Recovery Transformation Podcast, where we talk about all things betrayal, all things recovery, and all things transformation. I'm your host, Chris Rocha, here with my fellow lover of metaphorical alphabet soup and co -host,

Jen Howey. Hi, Jen. I just looked at the script. Okay, folks, many of you know that we have a script of some sort. It says wing woman. Huh? I changed it up. Yeah, you're keeping me on my toes, girl. Yeah. Metaphorical alphabet soup. Because we love, we love a podcast guest with some letters after her name. And our guest today has some letters. Yes, she does. Highly certified. Yeah. You want to introduce our guest, Jen? Yeah.

So Stacey, Stacey Smith is somebody that I met this year at the Sexual Integrity Leadership Summit. And Chris, you met her in a different way, and you can share about that. But our guest is Stacey Smith, and she's the Chief Clinical Officer and Clinical Therapist at Daring Ventures. With a personal recovery journey from betrayal and stinking thinking, Stacey uses her lived experiences and professional expertise to guide betrayal partners and those suffering from addiction

toward healing. She's a certified EMDR therapy. She is certified in EMDR therapy and specializes in helping people overcome attachment wounds and shame. Stacey is passionate about creating a healing partnership with her clients and believes in the transformative power of therapy. Oh my goodness, Stacey, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. It's just a great pleasure to be here with you, the wonderful ladies. Thank you. We're so tickled. We've been looking forward

to this day because you are a savvy, savvy. therapist and businesswoman and trainer, APSATS trainer and all of those things, but you are also a barrel of monkeys. You are a lot of fun and we just love your joy. So Stacey, introduce yourself to our audience a little bit. Let's learn a little bit about you. I am Chief Clinical Officer for Daring Ventures. I run a team of counselors. I also have a betrayal retreat returning to you. I'm the program director for that through Daring

Ventures, which is fabulous. Let's women come for a week and have a spa -like experience with some great trauma therapy and some great group experience. And just am loving that. I'm recently married a little over a year ago and just loving the redemption that comes from that relationship. It's just a joy. My life is in a really good place right now. I can tell from your Facebook pictures and you've got little grandbabies and you're off on adventures traveling and yeah,

congratulations on your marriage. We're living life and that's why I am so happy to be talking about the subject we're talking about today. Beautiful. I'm so excited to learn from you today about post -traumatic growth or post -betrayal growth. So looking forward to this conversation. Me too. I think a lot of us haven't even heard of that. Many of us that even started in this process understood that somewhere inside of us, we wanted this to be a thing. Turns out it really

is a thing. And here we are going to talk about that. So Stacey, share with us, what is post -traumatic growth? And really, where does it start? Well, It starts when you realize that there's got to be life after what's happened to you in betrayal. And I was thinking, Chris, when you introduced your title, the word transformation is in it. And that's what we're talking about is the transformation that happens. And people might say, oh my gosh, betrayal? What do you

mean transformation? It really is an opportunity to become a different person. and to transform what harmed you and what hurt you into something that's good for you. And, you know, I don't ever tell a client that on day one when they're coming into my office and they're falling apart. Oh, this is going to be great for you because that would kick me out, right? But what we do know is we know the secret. We do know that good things can happen as a result of the work you do and

the experience of betrayal. And so it's a new normal. It is learning that life goes on after betrayal because betrayal blinds us so much that sometimes we don't think there is life after betrayal. And it's about starting to build your confidence little bit by little bit, little bit, one thing at a time. And, you know, for me, it was fixing things around the house. It was just

starting with something small. and saying you know oh I can do this and funny thing I went to my hairdresser this morning and she just lost her husband from cancer and she's in her 50s and I said how you doing and she said you know she said I am doing some things that I didn't know she told me one story about how you know she had a water leak and her husband did so much around the house she didn't know what to do she goes I figured out how to turn off the water

And at first, I went to panic and thought, I can't do anything. I can't do anything. And then she realized, she got the water turned off, and then she called people for help. And they helped her financially, and three men showed up and said, we'll do whatever it takes to help you. So she learned how to take care of herself and that she could survive something like that and that she could ask for help and receive help.

And another example that she gave me, I said, I'm going to talk about that today on the podcast that I'm on, because it's the same sort of a thing. It's coming back from what you think has been taken from you. Like you just can't take another step. And that's what it feels like when you're in the middle of betrayal. But she also said that she had to go get an oil change. And I happen to know she's scared of driving, but she also was going to go to the car dealership

that her husband worked. And she was like, I am avoiding this and avoiding this for so many thousands of reasons. And she got there. She got the oil change and she bawled and she was miserable. And it was, you know, she thought he should be here and she's feeling all the feels. And her mother told her when she got home, you did it. And she was like, no, I was a wreck and I was miserable. And she said, but you did it. And she said after a few days, she realized,

you know what? I did do that. And that was a big deal. And so in the beginning, it's really little things. It's really little things. Also, traveling was one thing for me. I had never traveled by myself with kids or without kids. And so it was like, oh, maybe I can go here, which was a little bit of excitement, adventure. Like, oh, you know, life can be different now. And

so it's always little scary things. But, you know, for my daughter, we took a trip to a little amusement park where my son, my son was in school. And I said, we can go here. I don't have to ask anybody else for permission. Now, some people don't end up single like I did in my story, but still discovering a whole new way of building confidence in yourself. You can do that when you're married, too. Yes. And sometimes it's

just making a choice. Making a choice that you can have choices because betrayal sometimes makes you feel helpless and powerless like you have no choices. So sometimes it's just one little choice at a time. I think sometimes we forget that we even have choices. Absolutely. Because it feels like everything's been ripped away. All your aces that you had in your hand, they've been ripped away. And now you're left with this crappy hand of cards that... that I can't play

any of these. And the reality is we do have choices. There are little things that we can do to, even while staying in the marriage or staying in the home or while we're trying to decide what to do, there are these little tiny things when we identify our needs and speak those needs and then start to draw boundaries around those needs, you know, that help us really start to activate that part of us that's like, oh, okay, I'm not powerless here. There's something I can do. We

might not like the choices we have. That's the problem. Some people go, there is no choice. And it's like, yeah, there is. You just don't like the choice you have to make. Like, maybe I have to go back to work. Yeah. Or I choose not have to, but choose to go back to work if I want to live in a certain lifestyle or if I want to be self -sufficient, even if I am staying in my marriage. But we don't like the choices,

so we don't feel like we have any choices. And also, there's that part about breaking routine. You know, when we get into that comfortable, like, this is how my husband and I did it. And this was how we spent our weeknights. And this is what we did on the weekend. And, you know, that was protected space. But there's that routine. And so having the landscape napalmed by betrayal. And then having to create a space for safety. I remember in the beginning stage for me, my

therapist said, what are your hobbies? And I was like, I don't have hobbies. Being a mom, that's what I always have done. Being married is my hobby. Right. Yeah. And I found out that I had so buried myself into my husband's identity or the roles that I had under the roof of my home that I hadn't invested. or investigated who I was or what I wanted to do. So even those little micro things of like, I think I'm going

to take a watercolor class. Or I think, I've always said I can't garden, but what if I can? Maybe I'll try that. So having those little micro choices or those little, like I love what you said about, you know, oh, just going to the airport and traveling alone or being able to say, I can do this. I'm making the choice to do this. You know what? Guess what, ladies? We can do that even if we're married. That's right. We can go travel alone. We can make these choices as well.

You know, one of the things that you talk about, Stacey, I've heard you mention is grit. So talk to us about how to develop grit. What is it, first of all, and how does it help us recover or get through this post -betrayal situation into a growth state? Right. The definition for grit that I like is unyielding courage in the

face of hardship. So it doesn't say... don't do it scared it says just have the courage to do it you know and in the face of something difficult so I use an acrostic that I I wrote a book on single parenting it's called understanding and loving your child as a single parent and co -authored it co -authored it with Steve Arterburn and I use an acrostic in there called empower and so Grit comes from these elements in my mind. Embracing

change. We're doing this personality assessment thing for a team building here at Daring Ventures and I found out that I'm a nurturer and I don't like change. And I'm like, wait a minute, I thought I did. But maybe that's why it was so hard in my journey to embrace change. Like you said, the habits, you said it so well, Chris, we are so used to routine and habits. This is the way we've done things. This is the way for so long. And by the way, women cry when I ask them that

question, what are your hobbies? They're like, or who do you have to talk to? Like who's in your support system when there's nothing there? So back to that, but embracing change. and saying, you know, I'm going to yield to the process. Acceptance is yielding to the process, even if we don't like it. Acceptance doesn't necessarily mean approval, but life can be different than you think it could be. So the next one in empower is movement. Dr. Jake Porter always says we're

never stuck. We're always moving in one direction or the other. So doing the next right thing, is it detrimental to me or is it positive? We're really never stuck. We're always going one way or another. So just taking the next step, doing the next right thing, breaking it down, because sometimes it can be overwhelming. How am I ever going to trust this man again? How am I ever going to have sex with him again? embrace it

one little bitty thing at a time. Let's talk about maybe, you know, being in the same room with him, you know, just one little bit at a time. The next one is the P and it's thinking in a more positive direction. You know, ask yourself, am I a positive thinker or do I come from a victim mindset? We have been victimized by betrayal,

but we don't have to stay in that mindset. If you find yourself saying things like, I can't, it's not my fault, I can't do it, it's someone else's responsibility, I can't do it, the opposite is I can. I can make choices. I can take responsibility. I can choose this. I can choose that. The next one is own your life. The O is own your life. So, this is so funny. In the middle of my betrayal,

I always tell this story. I was driving down the street one day, and you know those road signs that they can program with lights to say whatever is next that's very specific, right? I swear to y 'all, it said, this is your light. Wow. This is your light. Because I kept saying, but God, him. But God, him. He, if he would just, okay, he, he, he, he, he. And God put literally a road sign saying, this is your life. And I

was like, I have chills. Gosh, okay. And I realized that I was not, when I got to heaven, I wasn't going to have a t -shirt on that said, I'm with stupid. Like, this was my life. This is what I had to answer for, which meant. My speech, my attitude, my choices, it involved so much. Yeah. Can I just pop in there? Own your life. I remember talking with a coworker. I have two daughters and they were in high school and there was something so stressful going on in their

lives. And Mama Bear came out in me. And I later have learned that I just I want to fix it. I need everybody else to be happy so that I can be happy. If they're not at peace, then I'm not at peace. And I need to get all my ducks in a row, all the little ducklings, right? And yeah, otherwise, yeah, it is a boundary issue. I've learned. I've learned since then. But I remember my coworkers, I was discussing this situation with my daughters and like they weren't in any

trouble. I was just wanting to help them out of a difficult situation. She said, you can't change their reality. Essentially, this is their life. These are the cards they've been dealt and you've got to just support them while they learn how to figure that out. And I took that into my own heart, in my own mind, and just thought, gosh, this is my reality. So I can't change it. I can't wish it away. No one's going to fix it for me. So what do I need to do? I love the conciseness

of that statement, own your life. Basically, own your reality. Stop putting energy into wishing it was the way it used to be or wishing I had what so -and -so had. Instead, this is it. So what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do within it? It is so hard. So scary. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in that corner of my couch and said it wasn't supposed to be this way. It was not supposed to be this way. And talking to God about that, God's like,

you're right. This is not, this was not my best for you. And here we are. And here we are. We are still here in this position. So what are we going to do next? But I also know that for me, while cognitively I understood that my marriage was not my life, there was still this element of feeling like the status of my marriage, being in limbo, was occupying my life. It was occupying

my thoughts. It was occupying my next step. It was occupying the way I behaved, the way... I engaged in all of my relationships as I was waiting in this perpetual, how will this turn out? That also is not living, you know? And so it's really difficult to really conceptualize this concept of what is our life? And it's exactly what you just said, Stacey. It's what are you going to do now? What are you going to do today? What step are you willing to take? To move towards

something. Chris, I love that you, I think you said, I wrote it down. I buried myself in the roles I played under my roof. What other roles are there in my life? There's more to me than this marriage, you know? And I think you have to go through a lot of grief to get to the place of letting it go and accepting the new normal. And I did. I had to because I couldn't define

myself that way anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So just to get us back on track, we've got empower, embrace change, movement, positive mentality or mindset, own your life. And then Stacey, what's the W? The W is welcome power. Yes, please. How scary is that? I mean, sometimes it's scary, but it's the power to choose what I want. And that can

be scary. You know, a lot of people. Not every betrayed partner has a dysfunctional family of origin, but sometimes I run into partners who don't know how to make decisions or have power. It scares them because two things. One, they were given too much responsibility as a child. and they were responsible for things that they should never have been and felt very incapable as a result. So, like, I remember one client

sticks out in my mind. She was seven years old and was in charge of her four -year -old brother, and he ran out into the street, and she got in trouble because he almost got hit by a car. I mean, imagine the powerless helplessness. And so that kind of person isn't going to welcome power because power is scary to them, right? The other people are people that have been betrayed partners or their parents helicopter parented

them. And so they never knew how to come into their own because they never had to make a decision for themselves. So it's really scary. They don't know how to trust themselves. They're inside gut and to like fail and it'd be okay. So some people are really scared of power and it's just a foreign, foreign object. But I help them start small. start small in those kinds of things. Stacey, as your clinician as well, a therapist,

right? So do you find that it, I've always thought that that inner voice, that gut that we have, that feeling that, you know, again, inner voice is something that we're born with. I've never thought about the development of that. As a therapist, do you find that family of origin situations or traumas or whatever will impede? The development of that? Okay. All the time. I was working with a lady yesterday, and she said to me, my mom used to say, I'm the only one you can trust.

And she said, well, what I'm figuring out now is she's the only one I can't trust. Not the only one, but she says, I can't trust my mom. So she's saying one thing, yet my sense says something else. And the truth is, I really could trust my dad. He was my protector. He was my safe person. How do I trust my sense of self when mom says this over and over and over and over again? So again, it's eroded her sense of self and belief in herself and her voice. And

we may not realize that. When I was 19, my boyfriend at the time had come home from the military and I was getting my nails done. We were going to go on a date. It was New Year's Eve. And this is back in the day when there were no cell phones, there's no texting or anything like that. And I get a phone call at the nail place. And everyone's looking around like what kind of client gets a phone call, you know, at these nail places.

And so they hand the phone to me and my mom proceeds to tell me that he was going to propose to me. And she wanted me to know this in advance because she was afraid that I would say no. Oh. And so I knew that whole night, you know, just kind of going through the process of watching him be all nervous and all that. It was kind of fun. It wasn't until years later, really until my recovery and my second marriage, that I really realized the impact that my mom had had on my

life in teaching me not to trust my gut. That was one example. Like, I wouldn't have told you that I didn't trust my gut. People always told me I had great instincts. But what I grew up with and didn't know until therapy. was how much my mom had influenced and had essentially passively told me that I don't have the ability to make good decisions on my own or to make best decisions on my own. So therefore, I must listen to her

or others. And so for so long of my life, and Chris, you know this about me because we've been friends for a very long time, I need a committee to make a decision. Almost always. And I hate that about myself because I'm intelligent. But at the same time, when it's been so embedded in you, so if you're a woman listening to this podcast, if you're a man listening to this podcast,

welcome. But if you're anyone listening to this podcast, if you find yourself continually going to others to help you make a decision, that's a great opportunity to hit pause and really consider. your family of origin? And are you acting in an empowered way when you are continually needing an audience to help you make a decision, even if it's good, trusted people? The Lord has gifted you with his Holy Spirit if you are a believer. And if you're not a believer, hey, let's talk

about that. But we do have the ability to make these decisions for ourselves. And sometimes we need to grow into it when it hasn't been nurtured. Yes, so true. So true. Yeah. Thank you for sharing, Jen. Okay. Welcome, Power. What's the E? E is elect a choice. Make a choice. Just make one. Just make it happen. So we're resolving to choose something. And maybe it's a small thing. But some people, choices are scary and hard. And so we fear failure. A lot of times we fear failure.

And making choices means you might make a wrong choice, but it's empowering to make choices even if they are wrong because you will recover from them. And the last one is R, I already said it, resolve to choose. So just resolving to do that. And again, I have a picture that my clients have given me is on my walls and they are so meaningful. And this lady many years ago, I was very depressed, and I asked her. I was a practicum student. I wasn't even an intern yet. And I was counseling

as part of my schooling. And I said, who were you before someone took it away from you? And she said, oh, I liked art. And I said, okay, well, I want you to start getting back, you know, again, what's your hobby? You know, and she got back to painting. But she said to me before that, she said, I can't afford to paint. She said, canvases are expensive. I don't have any space for it. She was finding all the reasons she couldn't,

kind of some victim thinking. And I said, I want you to paint over all your old canvases and just put it up in your kitchen, find a way. And she did. And so she gave me this beautiful piece of art that's sort of looking at it right now. It looks like stripes of green and yellow, kind of a sunset, sunrise kind of picture. And so I said, this is going to be the first thing for my counseling office when I get it. And so I went and I put it in my window at my office,

my first office. And all of a sudden, Jesus came through. There was a picture of Jesus behind. Wow. And I was like, what in the world? I called her and I said, what in the world is this? How did you do this? And she said, what are you talking about? And I said, there's Jesus in my picture. And she said, what do you mean? And she goes, oh, I painted over an old picture of Jesus that I didn't like. So when a client is struggling with. Fear of failure and making choices because

they're scared they're going to mess up. I go and I get that off the wall and I hold it up and they gasp because it's like finding Jesus in your toast. You know, there's people that, you know, it's a shrine or whatever. Potato chips. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And. And I say, you know, I talk about that verse that says. We're like fragile clay jars. And when we're flawed and

fragile, Jesus can shine through. But when we're like a terracotta pot and we got this and we can do okay, he doesn't get the chance to shine through us. But it is such a risk and it is so scary. So that's for all my perfectionists and all the perfectionist listeners out there. You've got to send us a picture of that painting, if you would. And I will either use it in the social media or find a way to link it in the show notes. But I would love to see that. You too, Jen, right?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great story. Stacey, so as we're looking at this acronym, what are some of the shifts that can happen in betrayal trauma that can lead us to some of that post -traumatic growth? Well. priority shift. Like we were saying earlier, you know, I focused so much on my kids and who they were, my marriage. All of a sudden, it's like, you know, maybe I

don't need to be on the PTA team. You know, a lot of people come in, they're just, they don't have time for therapy, they don't have time to do this. They're traumatized, completely traumatized, and they're trying to hang on to all the offices they hold and all the things they say yes to, and I have to tell them, hold up. What would happen if you just said no to being PTA president or whatever it is? But maybe what is most important

is spending time with kids. So they start to see that these habits or things they've been used to may not be what serves them well, and that's okay. So I'm going to shift from being a volunteer at school to spending more time with kids. Sometimes we reevaluate our goals. What is it I want in life? Maybe I haven't thought about who I truly want to be in life. We do a lot of work on value systems. You know, like we do this at our retreat. Like, what do you

want your future to look like? If you were to draw it, what do you want it to include? What do you want it to look like? And it can look radically different than you thought it was going to be. One of the shifts that I call people to in couple therapy and couple work is protecting the relationship. We call it a couple bubble. Protecting the couple bubble. And I'll tell you, that's a hard sell to some people early on, but

it's truly what they want. They want a good marriage where we tell the truth to each other, where what's good for the relationship is what's good for me. And so priorities have to shift. Goals have to shift. So there are a lot of things that will change and grow as we go into this post -traumatic growth. Also, our purpose. And my favorite moment in therapy is... When a client is sitting on my couch and they look at me and they go, okay, I'm ready to give back. I'm ready

to start a support group at church. I've got to tell somebody about this. And that's really the 12th step. It's carrying the message to others. And some people go like, okay, all of us, y 'all, who wanted this to be in this field? Who wanted a podcast on betrayal, right? No, thanks. Yeah, we did not sign up. No one's raising their hands. Okay, y 'all, I was on jury duty the other day, and they asked, you know, during war dire, they asked, like, does anybody advocate for addicts?

And I'm like, oh, crap, should I say this? And I'm like, I'm a therapist, and I work with addicts. And they go, okay, drug addicts? And I go, no. And they said, what kind? And I said, sex addiction. And the whole courtroom of 60 people burst out in laughter. Really? you don't pick this as a thing, but you had to be, I had to be truthful, right? I swore that I would tell the whole truth, right? Did you tell them the statistics of how many of them were probably in the room? Seriously?

No, but like people came up to me afterwards and were telling me stories. I'll tell you that. Wow. But we don't pick this. It picks us. And the only good that I can find, and there is a lot of good I can find, is the good that we're doing, that we're giving back, we're educating people, we're telling people. So that's a huge shift, I'd say. Boy, is it. Yeah, make your mess your message. Yeah, I love that. What would you say, Stacey, to the woman who is afraid of growing?

As an individual, I was just talking with a gal the other day who was so afraid and felt disloyal to her to grow past her husband or to grow without her husband. And her husband is not identifying that he has a problem. He's blame shifting. He's minimizing. It's the, you know, every guy does this kind of thing. And she's in pain. So she wants to grow, but she's afraid to grow without him because she feels like she's being disloyal. She said, I feel like that will make us unequally

yoked. What would you say to that woman? What if it does? What if it does? Because I remember like all of a sudden looking in the mirror and it's when I finally started working. I went back and got my graduate degree and I looked in the mirror and he was being so abusive. It was psychological abuse. And I just said, you're too much for him. I mean, I just looked right at myself in the mirror. And he's intimidated by that. But my mom used to say it was like he had a butterfly

in his hand and just crushed it. So, you know, what I had to understand with my faith background is that God did want me to be that butterfly. He did want me to soar. And that that wasn't being disloyal to my marriage. That I had a duty to God because of everything that he had done for me to be the person. And that's this person today. Back then, I couldn't see it. That person was so downtrodden. She was such a martyr. She was such a mess. And this is what he wanted to

see me do. And that's not being disloyal to be the best person that you can be. In fact, your partner should want that for you. And when I say should, that's a hard word. But if he can't tolerate that, then what are you going to do? What are you going to do? You have choices to make in the marriage. It's a good question. What I shared with her was that oftentimes, and I'll never forget, on D -Day, I was at Dan and Jen Howey's house. And I remember Dan telling me

that it was Jen's growth. It was Jen moving toward her healing and the changes he was seeing in her that got him to move. And that's where I think, you know, one of the things I share with women is that these are our husbands. Yes, they're also, you know, if we're believers, they're also our brothers in Christ. And we're part of the body of Christ. And there is that iron sharpening

iron aspect to this relationship. And maybe it was something that God told me throughout my healing process was that part of my calling or

part of my purpose, as we're talking about. a priority you know purpose shift is um is to be here with my husband while he while he grew while god worked in his life and sometimes to stand by but sometimes to maybe carry the load a little bit more and move forward because as we heal it's got to change the dance steps it absolutely if you're playing tug of war with someone and you let go of the rope it changes the dynamic so yeah yes Yeah, thank you for answering that

quick side question there. So how does post -betrayal growth affect our spiritual growth, Stacey? Because I know for me, the roots went deep. The roots went deep. I feel like prior to this, I was baptized when I was eight. I've been a person of faith for a long, long time. But I felt like I had a really pretty tree, lots of great leaves, but

my roots weren't very deep. It was the adversity of betrayal and then having to dig into my family of origin, the baggage I brought into this relationship or even outside of the relationship, just who I was needed some healing. And God used this opportunity. And I'm thankful that I did own my life and I did welcome the power, a shift. And the roots have gone deep and they're still going deep. And I'm so grateful for that. Yeah.

How does this affect? I know for me, it, it, it, it, whoa, I don't even have words for it to quantify it, but it, it woke me up and changed me on a molecular level, I feel like. And, and for me, God was oxygen. My reliance upon God, he was the firm foundation. He was the one thing that I could count on. And I knew that I knew that I knew that was solid ground. And so. That's where my faith grew. That's where everything

changed is. And even today, as I get into these routines with my new husband and we are just like, I love you more every day and we feel it and we experience all these amazing things together in our growth together. I get a little panicky and go, I'm getting used to him. I'm getting used to him being there. I'm getting used to him being in bed next to me. But then I say. Lord, you're above all this and you're what I really need. And I, and I just surrender my sweet

John to you and what we have. And I'm so grateful for it today, but I know that I'd be okay without it. Boy. Yeah. Yeah. But so in betrayal and injustice occurs, it's a true injustice and maybe even abuse. And so. As a Christian, we say, okay, how do we respond to abuse? How do we respond when somebody wrongs me? So some of the things that I misunderstood is I thought I should be silent. Just be like Jesus, just silent before his accusers, right? And I zipped my lips because

that's what the word said. Win him over without a word. And I tried that. I did that, right? You know, and then we ask ourselves, should I respond like Paul did? You know, and he just robustly defended himself. But there is no simple answer like that. I tried everything. I tried to be quiet. You know, my attachment style probably went all over the quadrants because I was just trying desperately for something to work, right? But this is when prayer becomes your lifeline.

Again, surrender, I use that word a lot because that's what it is, is just giving it to God, surrendering to him, to bring your cause before him, to voice that out of this isn't fair. You know, if you read so many of the Psalms, this isn't fair. My oppressors are there and I had to. make my husband an oppressor in my mind in order to detach from him. I had to do that. And to just say, give me wisdom and give me justice,

Lord, because this isn't so unfair. So when I allowed God to meet me there, my soul became settled. And sometimes we want to just be still and be quiet about it and push it away. And that would be a travesty to not talk to God about it. He's there. He understands. He gets it. But I would get a sense of, and he could give you a deep assurance of his love and his presence and knowing that in time, he'll set everything right. He'll set everything straight. And I'm

a testament to that. And I thought that might be a marriage, right? But it wasn't. It was my life. I know that God gave me a reign of promise that said, he who began a good work in you, being confident of this, he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. I thought that was about my marriage. And I had somebody say, that's about you, honey. And I went, no, it's not. You know, you can't tell me what God told me, but you know. Yeah. Hang on to what

we can hang on to. But understanding spiritual growth and so much of that, we have to let go of some of the anger. Romans 12, 19 says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave the wrath to God, for it's written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. You know, there's some people who have a very overactive part of their brain that says, this is just not right, and I won't rest because it's not right. And that is truly something we have to leave and

surrender to God, the injustice of it all. It is an important stage to grieve. But it is just so hard to just finally say, okay, I let it go. I don't understand it. I don't get it. And I give it to you. Yeah, that's good. In my first marriage, I did that pretty well. His stuff was top of the news, so it was very public. And so I will admit it was a little bit easier because of that. But in my second marriage, that's when

I came to a crisis of faith. My spiritual growth, I had gone from having solid faith to really wanting, really trying to determine whether or not God was real. Because if he was real, why would he put my kids through another potential losing a father, right? And so I had reconciled that maybe God wasn't real. But if he was real, he was cruel. And why would he let me go through this type of suffering again? Why would he let my kids go through this type of suffering again?

And so then I had to try to determine, do I even want to serve a God like that? That is a cruel God, the kind of God that keeps you under his thumb or constantly sends you to this emotional emergency room. where you can rely on him and feel comforted. I didn't want, I was not interested in a God who would put me through suffering just so that I could rely on him. Like, can you like meet me in a happier place where I can experience you that way? Because this version of you, God,

I didn't like. I had this whole wrestling. And I don't want to say it was a deconstruction of faith because that word has its own connotations in today's society. But I will say that there was a necessary deconstruction of faith that was taking place. We know that thoughts and beliefs create emotions that drive behavior. And so there was an entire belief system behind who I believed God to be and what he would do in my life that

I had to wrestle through. And then eventually, I remember I was in a group setting and I told this woman, actually the entire group this, and she looked at me with so much compassion in her eyes. and said, I'm going to pray for you. And I remember thinking, oh, all right, sister, you just go ahead and do that. Because, yeah, apparently you've got a good relationship with God. So you just talk to your God about all these things

and pray for me. All right. Well, now my youngest son at the time who I'd been very concerned about is a pastor. And he's a pastor of prayer and outreach. And she is on his prayer team. And every time I see her, let me just tell you, first of all, I'm very in love with Jesus. But I had to go through a reconciling to get to that point.

to understand who he was. And now I see this woman who my son, who she had been praying for, you know, back when he was just a child, was now over her and mentoring her in her own prayer life. She had prayed for me and it changed my life. It changed my life to have someone who cared that much about my spiritual growth. And so if you're out there and you're struggling

in your faith, It's okay. That's okay. As a matter of fact, it might actually be a really, really great thing because God wants to reveal himself to you. That song, Pieces, man, when I got to a point where I was like, I'm so tired of my husband not being able to fully give himself to me. I'm so tired of the emotional withholding and the lack of surrender. I'm so sick of these

things. When I started to realize, that Jesus actually encompassed everything I've ever wanted in a husband, I was like, oh my gosh, this dude Jesus is amazing. Mindset shift. So want to be in love with this guy. That is one of my favorite songs. I love it. It is so good. It is so good. And I just, once I realized that, I was like, no one compares to Jesus. And then my appetite. For that type of connection started to shift toward him instead of my husband. And let me

just tell you, that changed everything. So healthy. I just want to interject. And I know before Friends pre -roll, we were talking about how we try to keep the podcast to 45 minutes to maybe 60. And I don't think we're going to meet that mark. And that's OK, because this is a great conversation. But Jen, as you were talking, we're going to have the gentleman that taught me this on in. in a month or so, Pastor Paul Goulet, he taught

me in Bible college about God concepts. And as you were talking, Jen, you were describing the cruel chess player. So in a quick nutshell, there are four main wrong concepts of God that we develop usually through our fathers, but it can be through our mothers if they're the primary caretaker. um, or other, uh, authority figures. But the first one is Zeus that God is sitting up in the heavens, just waiting to throw a lightning bolt at us when we mess up. Uh, he's just, he's the

punisher basically. And the next one is, uh, the one you were describing, Jen, is the, the, the cruel chess player that we're just pawns on a board game. And he's just moving us around to his, you know, board delight. He's a little sadistic. And he doesn't care about the outcome. It's almost like he's doing some cosmic experiment. Like we're lab rats. If I put her here and her kids here, what's going to happen? OK, now what happens if I double up the trauma? You know what?

Now what's going to happen to them? Angels gather around. Let's watch. You know, it's going to be fun. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another one is the absentee landlord that he created all of this, this world, these people, these animals. He just kind of threw us all down here and then took off in the cosmos for some, you know. vacation. We don't know if he's ever coming back. He's just gone. And he just left us here to figure it out for ourselves. And then the one I struggled

with is the harsh ruler. And that one was because I grew up in a family system that was very image oriented and results oriented. So that one says that if you don't measure up to God's standards, then he's going to reject you. And it's a very works -based faith. too, that you have to be the good girl. You've got to be the good guy, you know, and if you don't, if you fail, if you screw up, God's going to cross his arms and turn

his back on you. And so just to wrap up this little section of how post -betrayal growth affects our spiritual walk. Again, we'll go into this deeper with Paul in the future, but Lord willing, but 1 Corinthians 13 verses 4 through verse 8. is God's resume. That is who he actually is. And where it says love or charity in your Bible, you can replace that with God. So God is patient. God is kind. God is slow to anger. You know, God never fails. God doesn't keep record of wrongs.

That's who he really is. And so reconciling that in the midst of this betrayal trauma can be mental gymnastics for sure. But God is patient in that with us, right, Stacey? Yes, yes. And we could talk, I mean, this subject, I've done many a podcast on spiritual trauma, spiritual abuse, spiritual everything, including Sills at Sexual Integrity Leadership Summit. And there's so much

here. And I just say to the listeners, work through it with someone that's healthy and can help you walk through your anger, your questions, all of that about God, and he can take it. Okay. Well, that's just an invite back then, Stacey. We're going to have you back to talk about that. I'm making a note right now. Okay. All right. So Stacey, you know, here we are talking about all of this post -traumatic growth and you kind of spoke of new opportunities that open up after

surviving betrayal trauma. That can be scary. That's a scary, like, well, new opportunities. Do I really want them? Because I just really want what I have right now to heal. Talk to us a little bit about that. Are there really new opportunities? What does that mean? What does that look like? Well, you know, we've talked about a few of them, like family of origin work. I mean, of like, it's painful, the chiseling,

like you were just talking about, Jen. I didn't want to go through this so I could become closer to God. But yet now, you know, the gift that it gave you. And we don't, we usually get that through adversity. And so. Looking and understanding where we came from, it's an opportunity to go to some of those places. Again, I don't want to pathologize betrayed partners. Not everyone has family of origin issues. But Lord, we live in a world where we can get trauma very easily

from a lot of sources. And so getting the opportunity to look at that stuff. Attachment. I mean... What a great gift it is to all of a sudden understand how we become attached and what secure attachment looks like. That's been such a gift for me to be able to understand relationships in terms of attachment and how people attach and when an attachment rupture happens, how devastating it is, how it blows your life up, like you said,

Napalm. And so the opportunities that open up is, man, we can get You know, we ask couples all the time, we can get better than before. Would you ever want to go to this reality? You know, we talk to them about the reality before betrayal. And they're sitting here asking, like, how can I reconcile having children and all this while he was acting out this entire time? And now that I know what I know about that acting out, but we always ask them, would you go back

to that couple before betrayal? And they say, nope, nope. So this is an opportunity to become a deeper, richer, closer couple, or in my case, a deeper, richer, fuller, healthier individual, right? But we don't know which way it's going to go. But when we do our own work, we start to get there. And that's definitely an opportunity for me. It was an opportunity I never spoke up. Like I told you, I didn't feel like it was my

ground to stand up, my place to stand up. And I learned that that was mistruth that I had learned along the way. So there was an opportunity to use my voice. And one of my core values now is boldness. And I have to have it. Managing this team here, you know, they want me to be a leader. They don't want me to just sit back and shrink down. You know, it's challenging for me. to be bold and do the hard thing, but it's an opportunity for growth. You know, if we're not growing, we're

dying. I mean, recovery is a lifelong process and I love the process. And of course, empowerment, you know, just being able to be the person that God created me to be. And it wouldn't be if I hadn't gone through the hard stuff. And resilience is just such a great word. Resilience, the word to me means taking us back to the shape we were before. I always try to say, like, maybe even better than before. And usually that's what I find with people I work with, that they are better

than before. One of the ways that we can measure resilience, and we do measure it with betrayed partners on the IPAST, it's an assessment, and it's the Inventory for Partner Attachment Stress and Trauma. And it's made specifically for partners of sex addicts. And we ask them these questions. I feel I am an emotionally stronger person because of my experiences. Yes or no? My relationships with others have deepened and become more meaningful.

Yes or no? I believe there are positive things that will come out of learning about my partner's sexually acting out behaviors. I am better to adapt to challenging situations. Better able to adapt to challenging situations. I have more confidence in myself now because of what I've experienced. I want to take this assessment. Isn't it great? Yes. I'm just going, yes, yes, check, check, check. Find it easier to find humor and enjoy life now that I know what's going on

with my partner. So I know really quickly whether a person is resilient. That helps me. And if not, I help them get there. I help them move into resiliency. The opportunity for resiliency is a great thing because then you don't fear what's going to happen. You know, post -traumatic growth reestablishes the baseline, like the baseline of like what I want to be. And the bar usually moves up. I want better. I don't want to go back to how I was before. I want better. What kind

of behavior will I accept? What is healthy? All of a sudden, now I have this opportunity. What is self -love all about? Is that? What did she say she thought was disloyal to her husband? Is self -love disloyal? Is it biblical? And so now, all of a sudden, there's opportunities for all kinds of things in life that you never thought of before. And I don't want to say, oh, go out and get betrayed so all these things can happen to you. But these are some gifts of what can

happen in good recovery. Go ahead, Jen. You were going to say something? Oh, girl. Girl, this is just such a great conversation. It's sparking so much. That list that you have there needs to be plastered on so many of our mirrors. It needs to be plastered on our hearts. Because for many of us that have been in the process for years, you know, a lot of us have bought into this, oh, it's a two to five year process. Well, here's the truth that some people it's

longer than a five year process. And some people it's less than two. Yeah, well, good for them. Happy for that for you. But regardless, that list, sometimes when we get stuck in the muck and the mire of the heaviness of this type of recovery, we lose sight of that list. And so I had written down, I'm not back there. I'm here. Look at that list. Look at who I am today. Are you talking about the assessment questions? Yeah,

the yes, yes. Yes, because we lose sight of that and the enemy wants to blind us and keep us focused. It's like smoke and mirrors. It wants to keep us focused on the parts that are challenging, forgetting where we were and how far we've come. And the Lord wants to speak to that. He wants to shape our identity around that. Look at you. Look what I've created in you. Look what I've done in you. Yes, these other things might still

be taking place. but friend sister daughter this is who you are and this is evidence of me working in your life and boy that shifts one's thinking and perspective and it talk about power like it shifts your power yeah it's supernatural yeah that's right it's good stuff that's right and we're vision casters in the work we do where we have to point this out to them because you forget You know, you've got blinders on. You've been going at this two, three years. You forget.

Four years. You forget. I tell couples all the time, look where you're at. Not very many couples get here. And being hope givers and being aware of, yes, how far you've come. We're always focused on where we're going. But looking at how much we have accomplished is so important. Okay. I know. I don't even know how to present this. I'm one of those weirdos. Yes, you are. I will. I will. I know. I know. Jen's like, mm -hmm. I know. 25 years. There's a Z -snap in there.

I saw that. I'm one of those weirdos that my... Okay. I did this program where I did a bunch of assessments, found out that I have an incredible sense of adventure. And... It was something I thought I needed to apologize for because I thought it was a coping mechanism that had become a crutch or a way of life. And when our coping mechanisms become a way of life, friends, that's dangerous

if it's an unhealthy coping mechanism. But what I was so grateful for when I took this class was that my sense of adventure is part of... who I am. It's something that God created into

my being. And so to circle back, I was one of those weirdos that when I was going through healing, after I stopped vibrating from stress, after my heart calmed down and my blood pressure came down and I was able to sleep again at night and I was able to eat again and all of those things, I kind of started getting into that phase two of the APSATS model where we're grieving and we're creating boundaries and there was some

stabilization happening. I saw adventure in this, and it wasn't about the ick, the hard, the gut -wrenching, the destructive nature of betrayal. It was when I shifted away, just like you just said, Stacey, from what was going on with my spouse into what's God doing here? How is he not wasting my pain? And I found that to be such a grand adventure, and I'm still on it. I feel like I'm like, do you remember that Stephen Curtis Chapman song, Saddle Up Your Horses? The great

adventure, right? I got that in my head as I'm saying that. Talk to us a little bit about how there's a sense of adventure after trauma. Yeah, and you can feel it in your body. Yeah. Do you know that, Chris? It's a little exhilarating. Oh, yeah, I feel it right here. Where the heaviness in my chest used to be, now there's an exhilaration there. Yeah, and it is a resource. It is a resource of, oh, what could be? Oh, what is possible? Now I'm hearing Dr. Seuss. Oh, the places you'll

go. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But and that was for me in the beginning, the places you'll go. I was still in my marriage and there was a graduate class that I wanted to take and it was offered in Athens, Greece. And we were so broke and student loans out the kazoo I was taking. But I realized that I could go to Greece and I probably shouldn't have because I still owe a lot of money today. But what that did for me, I went to Greece by myself, not knowing anybody. But I proved to

myself that I could do that. And at that point, I knew I wanted to stay in my marriage. But I started building up me and thought, you know what? You're not doing anything wrong by doing

that. Even walking around the block. My husband used to say, that neighborhood's not safe don't go further than this and I thought really I gave judgment about what's safe or not and I thought this is he was very controlling so this was something I could control for myself and it was an adventure oh I found this new neighborhood oh how about this oh I went a little further and that was infectious inside me it was like oh I can do this and it really built my self -confidence

so from travel to just even trips alone speaking and work with new life. And I would travel and speak with them and then spend a couple extra days in Laguna Beach or a couple extra days in Washington, D .C. And it was exciting. Like, maybe I can find the great restaurant. I'm such a foodie. And, you know, maybe this would be maybe this would be fun and the greatest beach. And it was like, you know what? This is what living life is about. And it felt great. So then.

The ultimate adventure was love, risking again in love. I just made a sound, sorry. I know. I know most people do. But people say, after what you do for a living, how can you even begin to trust men? And I said, because I knew it was out there. I knew what I was looking for was out there, a good, safe, secure relationship. And I kissed a lot of frogs. But I'll tell you, dating was an adventure. And I had to learn how to do it scared. A lot of those things were very

scary for me. The Greece trip, while I was there, I almost had a panic attack, but I learned how to deal with it and move past it. I didn't have any panic attacks in dating, but might as well have. And so just going forward and anything is possible. And that's what I want to say. Betrayal doesn't have to end your life. It can be the beginning of something amazing and beautiful. I love how Brené Brown talks about that this doesn't have to be the ending. And you can write

the ending of your story. Yes. And that just speaks back to taking your power back or welcoming that new power that maybe you've never had before. Right. So I hate to get to the point where we are starting to close this episode because I honestly just don't want it to end. There's so much good conversation that we could have. But in closing, what is a word of encouragement that you would like to share with our listeners? Who would say, let us be your, let us hold your hope

for you. Let us be your hope. Because if you're day one, day two, day three, day four, after D -Day, month one, month two, month, year one, month two, you know, you can't see anything good. Everything's black and white and everything's bad. Let us hold on to hope for you. We've all survived betrayal. And I've watched many, many, many women and men survive betrayal and have a much better life afterwards. So just remember our voices, even if you can't see it right now.

And if you're on the track and you're relating to what we're saying and you're feeling it inside and you're just wanting to dance, you go girl. That's what I want to say is just keep doing, taking, doing the next right thing and taking the next step because. recovery is in your hands and you can be which one to be. I love what you just said there. Do the next right thing. My dad used to say, inch by inch, everything's a cinch. And how do you eat an elephant? One bite

at a time. And betrayal, that napalming, your life can be so overwhelming. So overwhelming. And friend, if you're there, I love what you said, Stacey. We will hold hope for you. In the meantime, you just keep doing that next right thing. Get out of bed. Feed your kids. Take a shower. Feed yourself. Call a friend. Show up for work. Just do one thing at a time. But the day will come where that adventure will be there. You'll see those measurables. You're going to

see the growth that you've experienced. And you will laugh again. You will rejoice again. You will have good things to look forward to again. Renee Brown said something really cool. I don't know if it was recent, but I heard it recently. But she said, our worth and our belonging are not negotiated with other people. We carry those inside of our hearts. I know who I am. I'm clear about that. And I'm not going to negotiate that with you. Because then I might fit in for you,

but I no longer belong to myself. And that is a betrayal that I'm not willing to do anymore. So there's this aspect of, yes, betrayal has happened to us, but we do not need to continue to perpetuate that within ourselves by negotiating who we are in this season of life. We can stand firm in who we are. There's an element of in this process when we're trying to fix our marriage

that sometimes we lose sight of that. And so let's not... shift towards betraying ourselves but really press into what god has for that so thank you stacy for that hope that when we can't carry it ourselves there are people out there who can and help us not to abandon who we are in this process it's a super important piece of post -traumatic moving towards post -traumatic growth right it's not abandoning who we are in that process Yeah, and one of the takeaways for

me was that as you were talking, Stacey, about the healing of the relationship, the healing of your own identity, etc., I was thinking, but what if relapse? But what if what I think is true isn't true? One of the things I'm so grateful for that is a huge measurable is I have identified my inner circle. I have women. I have men. I have experts. I have people that love me. that I can go to, that I can do life with, that will

carry me through that. Stacey, thank you. This has just been a joy -filled, very validating conversation and we're so grateful that you joined us today. It's been a treat. I love you gals so much. It's just been a treat to be on here. Thanks for asking me. Absolutely. And we will have you back talking about spiritual abuse. All right. Friends, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Betrayal Recovery Transformation

Podcast. We sincerely hope you found today's discussion insightful, empowering, and uplifting. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. This helps other people find the healing and help that they deserve and need. Your support helps us reach so many other people. So until next time, be kind to yourself and keep pursuing healing. Please contact Chris or Jen for transformative coaching. This episode has been brought to you by HealingWithTheHowies

.com, WatermarkCoach .com, and with the support of Pure Life Alliance Ministries.