2. Getting An Emotional Divorce; Healing After Betrayal

  Hello? Hello, my amazing listeners.

Welcome to the empowered divorce podcast. Thanks for listening today. I am talking about something that is, oh, so hard, a really hard piece. So you've gotten divorced or maybe you're on the tail end of divorce. And yet. There's another piece. There's another divorce. That I want to talk about today and that's the emotional divorce.

Now when you've experienced betrayal, trauma and or abuse in the marriage, which let me just take a moment and speak to the abuse piece and In fact, I am really. So proud to be a part of an incredible resource. With therapist's Kimberly date who created safe I'll put a link in the show notes, and I'm going to talk a lot more about, about this.

In future episodes. In fact, I'm totally going to have Kim on, but I am. I am very much. Trauma. Abuse informed. And have also experienced abuse in my previous marriage.

One of the most valuable pieces of research. Is identifying the destructive behaviors that accompany addiction, sexual addiction, more specifically in the relationship. This podcast addresses those who are divorcing, because this was a part of your story. Be trail. And sexual addiction by your partner.

And when someone is hiding an addiction, when someone is hiding their life from you. You were being deceived, lied to Gaslight, and many of you. Have had those behaviors escalate. Over the years, the longer they've been addicted And I'm not afraid to call it abusive. In fact, I think we skirt around calling it what

I understand that no one likes that word. That it can scare a lot of people off shut people down from really hearing the message. But that's not going to stop me from speaking the truth, the trauma that you've experienced when there's been betrayal and hiding and destructive behaviors because of an addiction to.

To pornography.

And masturbation. When you have experienced that, I am not going to minimize what your experiences, because of that behavior. And I think by minimizing the abuse that's experienced because of that from the betrayer. Then we minimize the effects that you're having. So. When this is the reason behind divorce and.

And that is again why I started this podcast and the divorce that I'm talking about here. But when this is the reason behind divorce, most often.

I will see clients who have high emotionally charged divorces, because there is not closure from the trauma. You most likely will.

Not know the truth or the extent of his acting out behaviors when you're divorcing because of betrayal. And so you're going to have missing pieces of the puzzle in your brain and your human brain is trying to figure it all out. And then leaving you with intrusive thoughts. There's an injustice when there's no accountability or very little admission of guilt.

Or taking ownership of their behaviors and leaving you, feeling anger and possibly rage. That you're not getting the truth or maybe even an apology. You're probably feeling more of those abusive behaviors now that you are divorcing or divorced because. They aren't trying to win you over anymore. They're not trying to show you that. They're Mr. Nice guy.

And hiding,

To try and convince you that they aren't

What your instinct is telling you that they are.

So there's no more of this. Mr. Nice guy act with you. That's turned off and probably turned way up for others to see. Because now he's got to save face with other people. Which just is probably making you even more angry. You're most likely having a really hard time healing from betrayal because you're still missing those pieces of information

And probably living in survival mode. So today I want to address a very important piece to healing and empowerment. And.

It's the idea that yes, you might be divorced. But we need to emotionally divorce from RX. Your divorce decree is only one step.

In moving to a new life after divorce, the real divorce is cutting the emotional, mental, and physical ties that still bind you to your ex-husband. This is the real work of divorce recovery. Becoming an empowered woman. Who possesses confidence. Self-esteem. And starts to become the creator of her life and most important.

Having a complete break from the emotional trauma. And turmoil that led to your divorce in the first place. All too often women experience the same. Conflict with their ex that originally led to the divorce there's constant arguments. We're reacting to our emotions rather than feeling so we've got reactive behaviors leading to emotional.

Blow ups and upsets. We've got old patterns. That are repeating themselves still after the divorce. And in some cases, a reliance on the ex in a lot of ways. And when betrayal has occurred. There's still no ownership, accountability, restitution on the part of the betrayer. And . A lot of women will continue to feel hurt and self-destruct because

So to truly be divorced, requires a lot of intentional effort and work. That inner work. That will really break the ties to your ex. Do you find yourself leaving? Every drop-off and pick-up scowling at them or arguing feeling like you just wanna punch something cause camp one CHAM. Or when you have a conversation with him about the children.

It leads to anger or frustration, or when you see him posting something on Facebook or social media about a new girlfriend. And you're allowing that to consume hours of your time or even your entire day. Are you still talking about him to friends and family and just gasping at every decision he makes? Like how can he, I can't believe he's doing

Are there still some of these deep resentments and hurts suffered. In your marriage and actual divorce that are remaining at the forefront of your mind. Perhaps on, on a daily or weekly basis. When you've been married for a long time. You each know each other's hot buttons. And so maybe your age continuing to push those hot buttons. And now you've got more.

Upsets and arguments happening as well. It's the old marriage still running the game and you continually get

Sucked into this abyss. That is affecting you and your ability. To be empowered and move forward.

So if this is the case, if you were experiencing some of those things, then you know that you've not divorced on that emotional Somewhere inside of you, they're still an attachment of some sort to either your marriage or your So you really need to look inside and determine where you're still tied

I just want to validate how hard this is. Okay. When you haven't had closure. When you have unanswered questions. Like I said, your brain is still trying to figure that out. And so we have to practice interrupting those thoughts and redirecting. Because more than likely you're never going to get the truth.

I had a client ask me. Cause she's moving towards divorce. There wasn't a full disclosure. And I guarantee you without a full disclosure you're not going to have all of the pieces of the truth. And she senses that as well. And it was just frustrating and she was thinking I'm never going to heal. I'm never going to feel okay or accept this because I'm never going to know the truth. And as much as I can relate to that, like completely.

I know that you can heal. I know that because of the amazing way that our brain is designed with that neuroplasticity, we absolutely can rewire it. Right now it feels impossible. And I, and that's what I want to validate. Right now when you experienced betrayal and you know that there's other pieces, there's things that you don't know.

We're happening. That you might never get answers to. It feels like, you're never going to be able to heal that part. And I get that.

This emotional divorce is so imperative to your healing. I hope you can see

I also want to talk briefly about the possibility of being trauma bonded with your ex. When there's been abuse in the relationship. This is an unhealthy attachment. And even though you may not even want to be married to him, you may be very aware of his behaviors and how destructive they are.

But you will still be maybe quick to rationalize those actions. Or instead of fighting or fleeing, you remain frozen. And as Patrick Carnes says, you're clinging on with this insane level of loyalty. To an impossible unresolvable, toxic, overwhelming, or cosmically doomed bond. Person chain to this type of bond, disbelieves, the obvious.

And accepts the impossible., if you are feeling like this might be a part of your story where you've got some trauma bonds happening, just be sure to check out the episode on trauma bonding, where I discuss more of this. But this too is possible to heal from and I'll offer tools to practice. Around that and get you to that place of empowerment. But like, I would just remember constantly thinking, well, maybe next time, well, maybe this time he's really being,

We're he's really not going to yell or blow up, or maybe this time I can have a conversation. Well, maybe. And every single time, the pattern just kept repeating itself over and over. And like I was mentioning earlier. Part of this emotional divorce is stopping that emotional pattern of destruction.

That was part of the marriage.

So I want to offer some tools today. To help you start navigating this emotional divorce piece.

Everyone will have differences in their divorce. But there's enough similarities that I feel like everyone goes through. And if you find that you're divorced, but thoughts of blame, resentment, and denial, that this really happened. I just, I want to validate that for you. Remember denial is a powerful coping tool.

But it's going to keep you stuck if you remain in denial. So the first step here is acceptance. Accepting that you divorced, accepting that your marriage is over. That what you expected to be when you got married is no longer. And you get to grieve. You get to validate the loss. Of all of those beautiful expectations.

But getting an emotional divorce requires also the acceptance of your new place in life. New goals, purpose and intentions. It's a new life and a new you. Acceptance allows you to live in a way that, that. Reveals a freedom from this past life that you had, it means living in the present moment. And not in the past.

And in living in the present moment with goals for your future, and this takes work. It absolutely takes work and being intentional.

Acceptance also includes accepting the emotions and working on processing them in a healthy way. So accepting the grief that comes with loss. That means accepting the emotions of anger and depression and pain. Accepting that you need time to grieve. And kicking your ex out of that journey of your grieving journey is essential.

And what I mean by that. Is not blaming. Not blaming him for your emotions. But accepting that I'm feeling this way because of what I'm thinking about my life, about my divorce, about what I had thought my life was going to turn out and it isn't. And so because of that, I am feeling anger. I am feeling depressed. I am feeling paint and that's okay.

An emotional divorce is not about not having emotions. It's about owning your emotions. We stay emotionally attached when we're blaming them for our current life experiences. You're divorced. And even if his life choices impacted you, you are not subject to his power over And now you get to choose how you think and feel about your new life.

Except that you are feeling. The way that you are because of your own thoughts. When you believe that you're feeling overwhelmed and it's not fair, and he's off living a high life and you're left with kids and driving them all over the place and caring for their emotions. And still trying to maybe get settled into a new place, new environment, and now working.

If you're blaming him for all of that. You're handing him over your power of emotion.

When you think thoughts? Like, I can't believe he's already with someone new. And here I am. Trying to create stability for the kids, then I can't date and have to just be alone because he did this. You're handing him over the power to your emotions. So when I say accept your emotions, you're owning them. Remember the tool that I offered you in episode one about the control bubble.

That you were invited to practice. This is now. How to put this tool in place. It's you have control over your thoughts and feelings and actions But when you blame him for your feelings, then you're giving him power over, over your thoughts and feelings.

Because now he has to do something different in order for you to feel different. Like what? Hell Own your thoughts. I'm not telling you that you can't be angry or sad or stressed. But emotionally divorcing is seeing that your thoughts about his actions are creating your experience. I'm going to say that again.

Emotionally divorcing is seeing that your thoughts about his actions are creating your experience. And this is just so good to realize because now. You can change when you're ready. It doesn't rely on him changing or him apologizing or him not showing up like a jerk or whatever. You've kicked him out of your ability.

To create your life. How would that be? Wouldn't that be amazing.

To really see that you can change the experience when you want to. Remember again, this isn't about. This isn't about going through divorce, happy, having an empowered divorce. Isn't having a happy experience. It's being in charge of your experience. It's about knowing that you got this and you get to think and feel whatever you want about it.

But we're taking our power back. I remember so many times getting upset and just fuming mad at my ex when I thought, dang it. I shouldn't have to be doing this right This shouldn't be my life. He did this to me and now I'm barely making it, not sure how to provide and he's rarely paying child support. And I just can't do this.

So just notice with those spots I had, I'm not in acceptance of what is. What is that he did make those choices. And I did choose divorce or divorce. Did. Become the outcome of his choices. And this is my life. And I was trying to figure out finances and how to provide. And he was choosing not to be consistent in child support.

That was the reality. I needed to accept an order to shift from a place of disempowerment to empowerment. From that catabolic energy where I was being weighed down. And had little to no energy. To a place of choice and power and agency giving me more energy. To create something new, to figure out how to work and provide.

I needed energy to do that. And so I had to step into my power. Okay. So another thing I want to offer you after acceptance. Is creating an environment that supports you. So. You've got to build a new structure for your life that empowers you versus disempowering. You. And creating an environment that will help not hinder your progress towards real true healthy independence. This means.

Removing all the temptations to stay connected to your ex. So that you can really do the inner healing work on yourself. This might mean really being diligent to sticking with the divorce decree on custody for a few if he wants time outside of that decree, Right now, stick with the orders. In fact any good lawyer will tell you to do that anyways. Especially if you don't have healthy boundaries with your ex.

And he's not respecting any boundaries you do have then. Please stick with the decree. This will help create an environment. I have more stability and less energy going toward deciding how your respond, if you should respond. What if he gets mad at your response? Just eliminate all of that and stick with the boundaries. The divorce set.

You paid a lot of money to have that in place for a reason. And this is the reason. Ideally one day you can get to a place maybe where you're amicable and you can communicate and make adjustments when needed. But right now, Especially if you were not emotionally divorced, just stick to the decree. I know that sometimes there's extenuating situations or circumstances.

But at all costs. And that might mean reaching out to someone else to get some help or, whatever to get your back. If you can't pick kids up, it's maybe asking other people, family, friends, rather than him, just so that you can stick to that Is so imperative here. Okay. Did I. Did I beat that one hard enough in.

It's detective a divorce decree in truly, it will help you right now. Create enough of this consistency. And again, just eliminate a lot of unnecessary stress. That you just don't need right now. Okay. All right. Another way to create an environment that supports you. Is to request that those who were still bringing up your ex around you.

Stop. Like, please. Please stop filling me in on his comings and goings. And perhaps, maybe you need to block him on social media, maybe ask. Requests because we can't demand. But request that maybe others block him so that they're not seeing it. And now informing you Of what he's doing. We this.

Totally is going to help with this emotional divorce. Okay. Now, Because you can't stop others from bringing it up.

We're gossiping. Then you will need to create boundaries if they don't adhere to your request. So this might look like if you bring him up again, I will not be able to go to lunch with you anymore. And you have to be in charge of your healing. Having an empowered divorce is not letting others impact your healing when you can help it.

And in these situations you most often can help it. Now, this will require you to step into your power and believe that you are worth healing. And the space to heal. That you have the right to create a safe environment for you to heal and that you are in charge of that experience. And you want to have a safe space to experience healing.

So let's just start with these tools to practice this week. Acceptance. And creating a safe space. Remember, you get to feel all of it, but own your emotions. Feeling as not judging yourself for the emotions that are

It is not feeling shame for the emotions that are coming and it's not blaming your ex or others for what you're feeling either. It's okay to feel. In fact, this is how you heal.

You are absolutely capable of healing. And remember that you were 100% of worth and value, no matter what. Divorced did not take away. Your infinite lovability either.

And doing these things, these tools really working on acceptance and creating safety is how you love yourself. Okay, everyone. Thanks for listening. And I will see you next