I’m re-airing one of the most powerful conversations I’ve ever had on this podcast. This is my conversation with Michelle Mays, author of The Betrayal Bind, and it is one of the most in-depth explorations I’ve done of betrayal, attachment, and the very real, very complex reasons it can feel so impossible to leave or to stay and repair when trust has been broken at this level.
“Divorce is common, and cheating is common. Because they are common, it doesn’t mean they’re not tremendously significant and have enormous ramifications for our mental and physical health,” says Michelle. During our conversation, we discuss the importance of understanding what happened, explore betrayal through the lens of attachment systems, and unravel what happens to us when we experience this enormous injury.
What you’ll hear about in this episode:
- A new attachment-based model for understanding the impacts of cheating in relationships (7:52)
- Some of the binds in relationships that we can get stuck in including the shame bind and relational binds (12:55)
- Healing and repairing relationships: what it means to stay, and what it takes to repair the fractures betrayal has caused (23:25)
What gets in the way of leaving when we want or know we need to leave (35:39) - The difference between rebuilding emotional connection and rebuilding sexual connection (48:30)
Learn more about Michelle Mays:
Michelle Mays is a Licensed Professional Counselor and expert in treating sexual betrayal and trauma. She’s also the author of the new book The Betrayal Bind: How to Heal When the Person You Love the Most Has Hurt You the Worst. Michelle has created The Braving Hope™ Treatment Model to address the devastating dilemma that betrayed partners face when their significant other is unsafe to connect to, yet connection is the key to healing.
Michelle is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Supervisor in Virginia and Washington DC, and a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist and Supervisor. She was trained by Pia Mellody in the Post Induction Therapy model for treating developmental trauma and is currently completing her PhD in Clinical Sexology and certification in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples.
Resources & Links:
Kate Anthony’s Complete Parenting Plan
Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!
Seven Step Mindset Reset for Divorce
Connect with Michelle Mays:
Michelle’s website
Michelle on Facebook
Michelle on Instagram
Michelle on YouTube
Books:
Michelle’s book, The Betrayal Bind
Facing Codependence, Pia Mellody
Show Transcript:
Michelle Mays: [00:00:00] Divorce is common.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. And
Michelle Mays: cheating is common. Because they are common, we have lost the fact that it doesn’t make it… It doesn’t mean that they are not tremendously significant and have enormous ramifications for our mental and emotional and physical health- Yeah … when we go through them.
Kate Anthony: Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about co-parenting, separation, divorce, and the hardest question of all: should you stay or should you go? I’m Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I’m here to help you navigate some of the roughest waters you’ve ever swum in and answer some of your toughest questions.
I’ve been to hell and back, and now it’s my mission in life to help you get to the other side of this process with your sanity and your heart [00:01:00] intact.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back. So as you’re listening to this, I am on my honeymoon. So I am soaking in all of the joy and the rest and the connectedness that all of that will bring. Talking about everything that I talk about healthy, connected relationships, I am practicing right now on my honeymoon with Ethan.
I will be back next week with brand-new episodes, but in the meantime, I wanted to re-air a conversation. Is- it’s a really important conversation about what happens when your trust is broken. So this is an episode that I recorded with Michelle Mays, author of The Betrayal Bind, and it’s one of the most powerful conversations [00:02:00] that I’ve had about betrayal, attachment, and the very real and very complex reasons it can feel so hard to leave or to stay and repair when there has been this level of betrayal.
So if you’ve ever questioned your own reactions to betrayal, if you’ve ever felt stuck in that push and pull between knowing something isn’t okay and not being able to walk away, all of those things, this episode is for you. And I will see you next week with something brand-new. But for now Enjoy this, and I will see you next week.
Take care.
So today I have with me Michelle Mays, and I am really excited about this conversation. I’m excited for you guys to hear it. When I first read Michelle’s bio, I did a really geeky fangirl [00:03:00] because Michelle is tr- has- was trained by Pia Mellody in the post-induction therapy model for treating developmental trauma.
And if you know anything about my feelings about Pia Mellody, they are extreme. If you have not read Pia Mellody’s book Facing Codependence, get it today, and then also Michelle’s book as well. So she is a licensed professional counselor and an expert in treating sexual betrayal and trauma, and she is the author of the new book, The Betrayal Bind: How to Heal When the Person You Love the Most Has Hurt You the Worst, and she is the founder of the Center for Relational Recovery in northern Virginia outside of DC.
Michelle has been… was trained by Pia Mellody. Her book [00:04:00] is phenomenal. You must get it. If you have been betrayed, then this book is 100% for you. This conversation is for you. This conversation is for everybody, whether you’ve been betrayed or not. It’s a really wonderful exploration of all sorts of things.
So without further ado, here is my conversation with Michelle Mays.
Michelle, thank you so much for coming on and having this just What is going to be an amazing conversation. Oh
Michelle Mays: I’m really excited to be here. I’m excited for the chat we’re gonna have.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. So as I was telling you before we hit record, so I’m a huge Pia Mellody fan. You are trained by Pia Mellody, and so I’m having a little fan girl by proxy kind of situation.
Michelle Mays: I’ll just fan girl with [00:05:00] you for Pia.
Kate Anthony: My God. One of the things just that I think is really important is that, so it’s the post-induction therapy model- Yeah … is what Pia teaches, and I feel like so few people are trained in this, and yet it is, I think, one of the most powerful therapeutic models out there.
Can you just talk a little bit about what that is? Total sidebar for what we’re talking about- Okay … but not really.
Michelle Mays: Yeah. No, I’m happy to, and I will try to represent her model as well as I can. So I think, what she did, and s- did it so brilliantly, is that she really understood that everything that we were starting to talk about back wh- during the day when she developed her model, everything we were starting to identify as codependence and talk about as codependence, what she really recognizes that is actually a response to childhood trauma.
And it is really about what we would call developmental trauma, which is trauma that happens when we’re developing throughout childhood. And [00:06:00] so she took that understanding and really looked at, what are the core issues, core areas that are impacted for us when we experience childhood trauma? And then when those core areas are impacted, what are the behavioral patterns that we tend to manifest in some way in our lives as we cope with it?
So her entire model spells that out in gorgeous detail, helps, train therapists on how to work with clients in that model, and she really broke amazing ground there, and I’ve been using that with my clients for, I don’t know I don’t know, 15, 18 years now, and- No.
Kate Anthony: So- …
Michelle Mays: will continue ’cause it’s so effective and so beautifully- Your clients-
articulated
Kate Anthony: by her … it is. Your clients are so lucky. And I know that, it’s not the most widely known model, therapeutic model, but I think in my experience and my understanding of [00:07:00] it having gone through a little bit of it at the Meadows, I think it’s one of the most effective. Okay, so we’re gonna shift gears somewhat.
Yeah. But you have a, you have written a book Congratulations.
Michelle Mays: Thank you. Thank
Kate Anthony: you. I just did two. It’s like-
Michelle Mays: I know. I was gonna say, this is gonna be coming out, yeah.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the book, what it’s about, what it’s called.
Michelle Mays: Absolutely. So the book is called The Betrayal Bind: How to Heal When the Person You Love the Most Has Hurt You the Worst.
And so it is dealing with the topic of infidelity and cheating, so sexual betrayal, adult sexual betrayal. And it’s really written for the betrayed partner, so it’s really written to help the person who has experienced betrayal understand what has happened to them. And in particularly in particular, I’m looking at that through the lens of our attachment systems and how our [00:08:00] attachment systems, how we connect and bond to others impact what happens to us when we experience this enormous injury that happens because of sexual betrayal.
So the book walks through all that and looks at it from a whole bunch of different perspectives.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. It’s funny in reading the synopsis, which was a very robust synopsis, like you break down each chapter really… it’s great. And in reading that I almost, I was struck by wanting the betrayer to also read it.
R- I feel like if we’re gonna go through a therapeutic healing process, if you’re gonna… If the person who betrayed me is actually going, wants to do the work and wants to understand how this impacted me, please read this book, right? That’s sort of- Yeah … that was my thought.
Michelle Mays: And I have a ton of clients whose partners, the cheating partner- has read the book.
Kate Anthony: Yeah, good. I’ve
Michelle Mays: got- I love it … I’ve got emails from them. I’ve got a whole [00:09:00] host of cheating partners that subscribe to my blog and read all that. They’re in it to understand it and to- … understand their partner’s experience. If they’re trying to repair the relationship, they really have to understand what’s happened.
Kate Anthony: That’s right. That’s
Michelle Mays: right. With the harm that’s been created, and it helps them navigate what’s happening, too. Because it’s as confusing for the cheating partner as it is for the betrayed partner in many ways.
Kate Anthony: Is it, though?
Michelle Mays: I do think if we take the secret keeping off the table, then I think everything that follows from there is confusing for them, too.
Kate Anthony: No I say that facetiously because I do. I do. Listen, I, you know- … I know many a sex addict and- Yeah … a love addict, and, and it is. It’s once you get under it, and again, like if you’re going through sex or love addiction recovery, or you know someone who is or is looking to recover, The Meadows has, I think, probably the best program in- I would say, the world as far as I know. And because it really does the layers that you uncover- [00:10:00] And the depths of the trauma that it’s based in is i- incredibly intense. Like I said that facetiously, but I do understand that it is. There’s a lot of- It’s good … there’s a lot of complexity at play.
Michelle Mays: Yeah. Very.
Kate Anthony: In your book, you have a new attachment-based model. I think this is really fascinating. You have a new attachment-based model for understanding the impacts of cheating in relationships. So when we factor in our attachment systems, how does that change our understanding of what’s happening in relationships with cheating or toxic relationships, right?
Yeah. Like-
Michelle Mays: Yes. Where I wanna kinda start answering that question is just to acknowledge that we’re in a mind-based culture. We’re all up in our heads, we’re thinking all the time, and we often forget that we’re living in a body. And that we are embodied creatures, and our bodies are dictating much of what we are experiencing.
And so when we start to factor in our [00:11:00] attachment system, we’re actually factoring in our bodies more. Yeah. Because what happens when we experience betrayal is that our entire body goes into a profound state of distress because our primary bond has been now damaged, and often destroyed. And so for us as adults, our primary attachment figure is our romantic partner.
So they’re the person that we want to be around, and that we run to when we are stressed or we need comfort. They’re the person that they’re our launching pad to the world, they give us that sense of safety that we launch out into the world from. So our adult partner is our primary attachment figure.
And when the bond to them, our sense of safe connection to them, gets wiped out by betrayal, by… And I, I think of [00:12:00] sexual betrayal, but we can also think about emotional, and financial, and all these different forms that betrayal can take within a relationship. At the core, what it is doing is it is annihilating this bond and this sense of safety.
And often I think we understand that’s what happening, but happening, but we don’t understand how does my attachment system function, and how does that impact me, and then w- how do I see that showing up in my behavior and in my trauma symptoms- …
Kate Anthony: and
Michelle Mays: all of that. So that’s what I really wanted to look at in the book.
And what ha- happens is when our primary attachment figure becomes dangerous because of betrayal, it puts us in a bind. Because they are still our primary attachment figure, even though they’re dangerous.
Kate Anthony: Yeah So
Michelle Mays: that is where the title of the book came from- Ugh … kind of spills out- … all the different binds that we look at in the book that spring from this attachment [00:13:00] bind that is happening.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. And the way that you lay out or map out the attachment injury we’re wanting to go towards the per- like, like we’re so deeply devastated, and the person that we normally go to for comfort is the person who hurt us. It follows the mapping of a trauma bond, but it’s almost like a micro trauma bond, right?
Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah. Yeah, it is, and it is… So I call this dynamic attachment ambivalence. And so the word ambivalence means to feel two opposing things at the exact same time. So normally in life with our romantic partner, our threat response system and our attachment system sync up really well.
Michelle Mays: And we have a, fight with our sister, we wanna go tell our partner about it. We have a bad day at work, we wanna go tell our partner about it. So [00:14:00] our attachment system, the way that it functions is that it, it prompts us to reach for connection when we feel stressed. Because connection is the fastest way to regulate ourselves, and our most optimum connection is our partner, when our bond is functioning really well.
So what happens with betrayal is that our attachment system and our threat response system, which normally function well together, actually now start to come into conflict. Because our attachment system, we’re now in distress, the biggest distress that we’ve probably experienced in many ways in our lives, and now our attachment system is saying, “Hey, sister, you are in distress.
Reach for your partner.” But our threat response system is saying, “Hey, you are in danger. Run away- … or fight.” But somehow you’ve gotta get away from the danger. So now these two systems in our bodies, that are in our body, are in conflict with one another, and they’re sending messages at [00:15:00] the exact same time that conflict.
And so what this looks like for a betrayed partner is that they feel crazy, and they f- feel like they’re on this rollercoaster because, one minute they’re like, “I hate you and I never wanna see you again,” and the next minute they’re, like, in bed making love. And
Kate Anthony: the
Michelle Mays: next minute they’re, like, calling the divorce lawyer, and the next minute they’re calling the couples therapist.
And then, and so on and on it goes, right? So this back and forth between- I’m trying to come towards you, and I need to get away from you And that just unfolds in a minute-by-minute drama after this discovery of betrayal that is really a wild emotional ride for people
Kate Anthony: It sure is.
And then I think that leads into the shame, right? And you talk about the shame bind, right? Because we’re, like, th- there’s, there… I think there are so many [00:16:00] sources of the shame, right? Yes. Part of it is obviously he, they, whatever, cheated on me. What’s wrong with me? Yeah. But also, what’s wrong with me that I still wanna go towards them?
What’s wrong with me that I wanna divorce them? What’s wrong with… there’s all of the shame. Can you talk a little bit about the shame bind?
Michelle Mays: Let me, before I do the shame bind- Yeah … let me talk for a minute just about that first piece that you said, ’cause I think it’s so important. That piece where the shame of the betrayal comes onto us- as a betrayed partner.
Kate Anthony: Right
Michelle Mays: And there’s this place where immediately, especially if it’s cheating, I am somehow, not sexy enough, I’m not desirable enough, I’m too much, I’m not enough, I’m unworthy. In some way, the shame of the other person’s choices comes over and attaches to us, and so that’s called carried shame.
So when you carry the [00:17:00] shame, ’cause as the betrayed partner, you haven’t done anything wrong. You didn’t engage in these behaviors, right?
Kate Anthony: Not your shame. And
Michelle Mays: yet the shame from the other person attaches to you. And I always say it’s like black tar. It’s so sticky, and it’s so hard to get rid of, right?
But the thing that we have to know about carried shame is that we can’t heal carried shame, because it doesn’t belong to us. We can only give it back. That’s how we heal from it, is we give it back. So we have to actually figure out how the shame has attached to us, and then give it back to the cheating partner.
So that kind of shame is one thing.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: And it’s a big piece of work for betrayed partners to deal with it.
Kate Anthony: I think it’s a big piece of work for anyone to deal with, right? Yeah. Because carried shame is a part of our codependence. It’s, you know- … it’s the trauma. We carry the shame of our parents from childhood, right?
And so that it is the process of giving that back, it’s certainly one of the most powerful pieces of work that I [00:18:00] did at the Meadows. Because, and I wanna talk more about that. It’s so what happens with carried shame is that the person who, to whom the shame belongs, and in this case, the cheating partner, right?
They can’t be with their own shame, and so they project it outward onto you, and we absorb it, and we take it on. So I just wanted to like a s- like I guess-
Michelle Mays: Yeah, connect the dot there. Yeah …
Kate Anthony: connect the dot that like how do we take… what does it mean we take on someone else’s shame?
Michelle Mays: What, right? Yeah. They aren’t c- they aren’t connected to their own shame because they’re actually behaving in a shameless manner. … U- to use Pia’s language. Yeah That’s the language Pia would use, right?
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: They’re actually behaving in a shameless manner, so they aren’t connected to their own value system, and they aren’t feeling their own guilt and remorse that would keep them within their boundaries.
Our guilt helps us stay within our value system. And so because they’re operating in a shameless way, [00:19:00] their shame o- often comes onto the person that is being perpetrated against. So whether the, whether you’re a child and your parent is behaving in an inappropriate way and the shame comes onto you, or whether you are in a romantic relationship and it’s cheating or it’s financial abuse or it’s tox- toxic emotional stuff, whenever a person is behaving in a shameless way, unless you have dynamo emotional boundaries, it’s gonna really easily come over and attach to you.
Kate Anthony: And so how do we heal that? How do… like we c- like you said, you can’t heal carried shame. You have to give it back. What does that- … what does that look like for people?
Michelle Mays: So we have an exercise in our coaching program for betrayed partners that we have everybody do, where what we have them do is really identify the beliefs that the carried shame has created about themselves.
Because the biggest way [00:20:00] that shame attaches to you, it is, it impacts how you, what you believe about you. What you believe about your worthiness, what you believe about who you are in the world, your value, your lovability, whether you matter, all of those core, core emotional needs that we have, that’s where shame goes.
That’s what shame attack- attacks. And so we have them do an exercise where they really lay out, “Here’s the beliefs that I have adopted- Yeah … about myself as a result of shame attaching to me.” And then we have them give all of that back. So they write a letter giving back the beliefs and releasing the beliefs, and then we also have them do work on what are the new beliefs that they actually wanna be- claiming as their own- … so that they can really stand in something different that is opposite of the shame. Yeah So I think that kind of work, I know you probably did it with with chair work at The Meadows.
Kate Anthony: I did it with the tissues at The Meadows. Oh, yes. And that was- [00:21:00] I love the tissues. Yeah … oh my God.
That was, it’s it’s so bizarre. It’s it’s, it, you know- … it sounds so weird, but it was so incredibly powerful. We did do chair work as well, but the- Yeah … tissues was… So can you describe the tissues and the chair work for-
Michelle Mays: So I think- … people … if you do it the way I know how to do it- Yeah
right, the tissues are, you are literally throwing tissues. So you can’t really, if you ever try to throw- Yeah … a tissue, give it a try, you guys be- It doesn’t
Kate Anthony: go
Michelle Mays: far … it doesn’t go far, right? So you can just whip those things as hard as you can, and it doesn’t go very far, but you can whip a tissue for every piece of shame you’re giving back.
And there’s something about that bodily based- Oh, God. Yes … energy releasing from you that is really amazing. It really is. And so what you’re doing is you’re actually holding the tissue box at your heart. And then you’re ripping each tissue out away from yourself and throwing it at the, imaginary person.
Kate Anthony: Take, take- Yeah … your shame. This is not mine. [00:22:00] My self-esteem, my body image, right? Like, all of it, and it’s really wonderful. It’s really wonderful.
Michelle Mays: It’s really power- It’s a really fun thing to do. We do this also at our… We have a intensive that we do where we work on the sexual injury, and we have people do it with sexual shame- … there, but we also do have them bring the imaginary partner into the room.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: And that to me is always one of the funnest parts of this because you see… You wouldn’t think that it works in the way that it does, but it’s like the person’s there.
Kate Anthony: Sure,
Michelle Mays: and then you see them lose their voice.
They lose their posture.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: They lose their… And so then the work on standing straight, speaking from your grounded self, using your voice to give back the shame, all that is such an amazing part of the work as well-
Kate Anthony: Yeah …
Michelle Mays: of really reclaiming your sense of self in the face of what, what has happened.
Kate Anthony: Absolutely. This is, I think, a good time perhaps to- … think about [00:23:00] if you’re healing this, right? There is work now that is… The, you talk about this in your book, that there, the mistake that we make is “I don’t have the problem. You have the problem. You’re the cheater. You’re the sex addict. You’re whatever, so you need to go to therapy and figure your shit out.”
Ignoring the fact that we are now a trauma victim. Yes. And that we actually have to address- our own trauma, and that and this is why it’s so important, right? The carried shame, the s- like, all of that has been put onto us. It’s not ours, but we’ve absorbed it. And so it’s so important to not skip over our own healing in this.
Michelle Mays: Yes, and I think the other thing I think I see partners do is think because I’m leaving the relationship, I must not need to.” I’ll ju- that’s how I solve this, but the reality is if you’ve been living with somebody where there has been ongoing [00:24:00] beha- betrayal, I work with people where it runs the gamut from a year to 30 years, of betrayal that they’ve been experiencing.
But no matter what period of time that is, betrayal is always accompanied by lying- … and it’s always accompanied by gaslighting and reality manipulation of some sort. And because it’s hidden, the dynamics in the relationship, the sexual dynamics are hidden, but you’re still living in them. And so even though you don’t know it, it’s impacting you, and it’s actually altering your behavior.
Very subtly, very slowly, you are changing in response to this thing in the relationship that you don’t even know is there.
Kate Anthony: Yes, and that was 100% my experience. This is why so many women, I think, or one of the pieces when we get out of our marriages and we feel like a, a, quote, “shell of our s- our former selves.”
Yeah.
Michelle Mays: Yes.
Kate Anthony: Because th- the [00:25:00] gaslighting, the manipulation, the lying, I didn’t find out about the infidelity until years after my divorce.
Michelle Mays: Oh, wow.
Kate Anthony: There was a significant amount of willful denial happening because there was a lot of information. But I just-
Michelle Mays: Okay we can talk about what that’s called, but yeah.
Kate Anthony: Oh, yes, please, right? I… the blindness, right? I just- Yeah … I didn’t wanna see it, I didn’t wanna know about it, but yet I was carrying all of it. All of it.
Michelle Mays: Carrying it and adjusting to it.
Kate Anthony: Oh absolutely. Yes.
Michelle Mays: And so even though you don’t realize it, you’re adjusting to it. You’re accepting things that you didn’t realize you’re accepting.
You’re lowering your bar-
Kate Anthony: Oh …
Michelle Mays: of what you expect in the relationship. You’re dealing… Most people have what’s called free-floating anxiety.
Kate Anthony: And
Michelle Mays: it’s a sense that something is wrong, but they don’t know what it is. They can’t put their finger on it.
Kate Anthony: Yep.
Michelle Mays: But that creates [00:26:00] anxiety, and now you’re adapting to that.
And so really taking the time and spending the energy, the time, the money, the, all the things on, “I have to heal from this.”
Kate Anthony: Yes …
Michelle Mays: that I get to reclaim myself and really rebuild this relationship with myself so that I know who I am again. And I have trust with myself again. That’s
Kate Anthony: right.
Michelle Mays: Because we often lose our trust in ourself in this process- very profoundly. So I have to do all of that in order for me to go out into the rest of my life and live my life in the best way I can, and have a life of joy and, flourishing.
Kate Anthony: And I will tell you that from personal experience, it doesn’t go away over time if you don’t address it. And, what happened for me was that I didn’t really know about it.
I star- about two years post-divorce, I started to see [00:27:00] some things and go, “Huh. Maybe. Oh, you know what? I think that definitely happened.” But then I still was not aware of the magnitude of it, but I just went, I was like, “Yeah, I’m done. I’m out. I’m good.” A couple things happened. First is that my drinking increased over time- over 10 years.
Michelle Mays: Yeah.
Kate Anthony: And then I finally got sober, and I was, and then I was left with all of it. And then about a, I think… gosh, it was maybe six months later or so, or maybe, no, maybe this was another year or so later. It doesn’t matter. Something happened where it, the pattern was repeating on his side- Yeah
in another relationship, and I suddenly saw all of it, and I- … and I was suddenly made aware of everything, and that’s when I went to the Meadows. ‘Cause I was, and it was a good 12, 13 years post-divorce, and it was [00:28:00] s- all still there, all of it. And I was, and I had this fracture where I suddenly saw absolutely everything really clearly, and I was given a lot of information.
I was in such a trauma response. I was in a freeze state where I couldn’t function for a weeks.
Michelle Mays: Yeah.
Kate Anthony: And I finally took myself to the Meadows because I was like, I’m not, I’m actually not functional.”
Michelle Mays: Good for you. Good for you. And also I’m glad, I’m so glad you’re telling this and sharing this story because I feel like we have people come in that are eight years, nine years out, and they’re thinking, “What’s wrong with me?”
Kate Anthony: Yes.
Michelle Mays: And the answer is nothing is wrong with you. If you did not get the help you needed to really deal with this, and especially from somebody who knows how to help you work it through, understands what is actually happening to you and how to help you with it, there’s nothing wrong with you.
This is what happens when it’s [00:29:00] left untreated. It’s still there. It’s still inside of you, and- Now you’re just coping with it. It’s become your emotional home-
Kate Anthony: Yeah …
Michelle Mays: that you’re just living in. And so I think it’s a great example for people, and to normalize anyone who is having that same experience, that this is a normal thing, and this is why it’s so important for betrayed partners to get the help that they deserve.
And one of the things, one of our goals is to change the way the treatment field understands betrayal, because I think a lot of treatment providers don’t realize this is actually a specialized area of treatment.
Kate Anthony: That’s right.
Michelle Mays: And you do actually have to know what you’re doing. And you do actually have to understand exactly what the injuries are, how it unfolds, and what is going on for the person, and how you heal them, how you help them heal from it.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: And so I really want the treatment field to get this so that… ‘Cause I think right now people think any old therapist will do.
Kate Anthony: Nope. And that
Michelle Mays: is not the
Kate Anthony: case. Nope, it’s not the case. I say [00:30:00] it all the time. I say it all the time. My audience is gonna be like, “Here she goes, the broken record.”
You have to find a therapist who specializes in what you are going through, and that’s… I didn’t know that, and I didn’t do that. I was in tons of therapy. I was doing 12-step work. I was in… I was, like, 20 years in Al-Anon. I’d been doing kind of codependency recovery of one- Many things … form or another, right?
All the things. But I wasn’t doing the thing, and it’s so important. I think about the money that I spent in therapy with well-meaning, wonderful, probably wonderful people, but I would be like, “I feel like I have trauma. I feel like I have… there’s something wrong.” And it was like, “There’s nothing wrong with you.
You’ve just been through a lot of stuff, and, and it’s “But, okay, but do you know how to actually heal that?” Like…
Michelle Mays: and even just that “Oh, no, you’ve just been through a lot,” is this minimization of what actually happens to us when our primary attachment, [00:31:00] that is what regulates our entire nervous system, right?
We’re in a co-regulatory relationship with our partner. We actually function as one physiological unit with them. They regulate our heart rate, our blood pressure, our hormones. So when that goes wrong, when that breaks bad- … it’s not a small thing. No. It’s actually a very big, significant trauma that affects every system in our body.
Betrayed partners have enormous amounts of physical health issues as a result. And so just that is even a minimization of, I think because divorce is common-
Kate Anthony: Yeah … and
Michelle Mays: cheating is common, because they are common, we have lost the fact that it doesn’t make it… It doesn’t mean that they are not tremendously significant- And have enormous ramifications for our mental and emotional and physical health-
Yep
Michelle Mays: when we go through them.
Kate Anthony: Also, even if you don’t know it, right? And you talk [00:32:00] about this in the book, right? Even if you don’t actually know it, f- it’s still impacting you, right? There’s, because your partner is behaving in ways that are informed by the infidelity, but you don’t know that this is happening, so you don’t understand.
You’re co- like, constantly chasing something that you don’t understand ’cause you don’t have the information.
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Michelle Mays: You can sense it. You can sense that something is awry.
Kate Anthony: So
Michelle Mays: it creates that feeling where you keep coming around and checking in with your partner … to see. “
Kate Anthony: I
Michelle Mays: feel like something’s off. Are you okay? I feel like something’s wrong. Are you all right?” The other thing that happens too, though, for betrayed partners, is their body knows.
At the level of your body and your threat response system pick up that there is danger in the relationship- Yeah … even though your mind doesn’t know. So even though you don’t cognitively know, you’re not in cognitive awareness there’s cheating, [00:34:00] there’s betrayal, your body knows that you’re in danger.
And so then you can start to experience more anxiety, more stress. You can see drinking, eating, shopping whatever escalate because you’re just trying to manage this bodily based sense that something is wrong. You can see your sexual desire for your partner diminish profoundly-
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: because it’s very hard to feel desire when you also feel danger- … in your body. And you can feel like, “Where’d my libido go?” But your body is just actually responding to the fact that there’s danger present. So this thing about- we don’t consciously know it, but our body does know it.
And that is having a huge impact on us. So when we, let’s say, find out about this, when we’re hit- … with this the trauma, then it’s like, what do we do? Do we stay? Do we go? And I think this [00:35:00] is this is what I do, right? Should I stay or should I go? One of the hardest decisions- anyone will ever make. It’s, it’s so hard right? Especially people have kids, right? It’s one of the hardest decisions to make. So what do you feel like gets in the way of leaving when we kn- and I’m thinking of a client that I have right now who she knows it. She absolutely knows it. She doesn’t have sexual trauma. It’s not sexual betrayal but a lot of abuse, right? She knows in her, intellectually in her head that the right path is to go, but she can’t do it. She’s, first of all, she’s terrified, so- Yeah … which makes sense. What do you feel like gets in the way at that point?
I think this is such a big topic, yeah, I know.
Kate Anthony: We could do a whole episode on it. It’s such a big
Michelle Mays: topic.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: We could do… Yeah, we could have a long conversation about it. So- Yep … our cultural story is that it’s easy to leave. The story that you see in the movies and in the media and everything is that it’s easy to leave.
You get over one attachment by replacing it with another attachment, all that kind of stuff. [00:36:00] And I think the reality is we don’t have cultural language for how truly difficult and devastating and heartbreaking it is to sever our primary attachment. And so we don’t have that language to help us feel supported by the culture at large in this endeavor, right?
We just, we don’t have that piece. And then along on top of that, we have this enormous uncertainty about what will happen to us. If this is my primary person in the world, this is the person that helps me feel okay in the world, how am I going to function and survive by myself? How am I going to function and survive without them?
And for most people, that puts us into a very big amount of fear. It puts us into a pretty, pretty [00:37:00] significant terror.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: For some, I would say fear for some and terror for others.
Kate Anthony: yep.
Michelle Mays: And depending mostly on your level of childhood trauma, quite frankly. Because if you’ve had a pretty good childhood and you’ve got a lot of resources and resilience inside of you, you’re gonna be able to navigate through that fear and uncertainty better.
And you’re gonna be able to take the leap and go out into the process of leaving and severing that attachment and grieving in a, in an easier way. Easier being relative, right?
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: But if you have experienced abandonment or neglect or abuse in your childhood, then the fear of leaving your relationship is gonna be enormous.
It’s gonna be really more at the level of terror. Yeah. And it’s gonna… Because leaving this person makes you… brings up all the times that you experienced being left alone as a [00:38:00] child. Not getting your needs met as a child, not getting the support you needed, not getting the physical nurturing.
Whatever it is, it’s gonna bring all that up, and so it creates this enormous amount of terror for people. And often that is unconscious. They don’t, they aren’t- Totally … really connected to how scary it is. So I know my clients say things like I just, I can’t leave ’cause of the kids,” or, “I can’t leave ’cause of the this,” or, “I can’t leave ’cause of that.”
They attach their decisions to other things because they’re unconscious about the fact that really what’s keeping them is this enormous fear of severing the attachment and going through loss.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: They don’t wanna go through the experience of relational loss that they’re going to go through.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: And they feel like if they lose their partner, they’re gonna lose them.
Kate Anthony: Yes. In
Michelle Mays: some spots. It’s this-
Kate Anthony: Yes …
Michelle Mays: this sense of by the, by severing this relationship, I li- I’m going into annihilation terror. I will not [00:39:00] exist anymore. And that’s enormously big fear, enormously big terror, and it will keep people stuck for a really long time, and they cognitively will know, “I need to leave.”
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: But they won’t be able to leave. The very first thing we have to do is we have to get that terror conscious.
Kate Anthony: Yes.
Michelle Mays: We have to actually get, become aware of it- … and start to feel it and start to hold it hold the fear, know what the fear is about, and we usually need somebody holding it with us, a trained professional holding it with us and helping us go close to it and make contact with it and start to understand how big it is and how scary it is and what it’s really about.
And that’s a process. Yeah. That’s a process to do for most people.
Kate Anthony: With a trained professional.
Michelle Mays: With a trained professional. With a trained professional. And I think-
Kate Anthony: Important …
Michelle Mays: I think one of… Yeah, one of the things I would want everybody who’s listening, anybody who’s resonating with this to hear is that this fear is normal when [00:40:00] we lose our connection to our primary partner.
Anybody is gonna feel enormous fear and go through enormous heartbreak. And you’re normal if that, when that feels like a big deal, and it feels like it’s ripping your world apart, and it feels like it’s breaking your heart, you are normal.
Kate Anthony: That’s right.
Michelle Mays: And that’s just how the experience of heartbreak works.
Kate Anthony: Yeah.
Michelle Mays: And if you are feeling the bigger terror, like the bigger terror because of your trauma, that’s also normal- … if you have childhood trauma. And there’s no shame in that. You need to get the help and support that you need to actually help you work through it.
Kate Anthony: And I think often people will attach the fear or terror to I’m scared that, I’m scared of m- you know, money and how will I be able to afford to live,” and all of these things that are absolutely important to look at and think about and talk about.
But they’re also the easier things. They’re the more logical, intellectual [00:41:00] things, right? And and it makes sense that you would be scared for all of these reasons. B- but also, we have to look underneath those reasons, right? ‘Cause they- they’re masquerading as the reason, right?
Michelle Mays: Exactly.
Kate Anthony: But there’s usually- That’s right
the terror underneath, which is a lot harder to access and not as obvious. They’re not, it’s not as overt.
Michelle Mays: It’s not as obvious at all, and i- it’s very personal because it’s about you. That terror is about, “Am I going to be okay?” At the core of my being-ness, am I gonna still exist and be okay and have a self and a life that I can be in-
Kate Anthony: Yeah
Michelle Mays: after this, after I, sever this relationship and lose this, go through this loss? And that is a big deal. I remember when I got divorced, when I separated, I remember moving in with these friends of mine, and I would wake up in the morning, and I literally felt surprised that I was still [00:42:00] there.
I remember waking up thinking, “Oh, I’m here.”
Kate Anthony: Huh.
Michelle Mays: Because I think I thought that when I left that I was gonna quit existing ’cause I have childhood trauma and all of that made the terror so big. And so it really is such a big… It’s such a big deal- Yeah … to try to leave when you have that kind of fear and terror that makes you question whether you’re gonna still be here.
Kate Anthony: Not just are you gonna be okay, but are, do you exist? Do you exist? Am I gonna even be here,
yeah. Do I exist outside of the relationship, right? Which is the childhood trauma- Yeah … the codependence, that that’s-
Michelle Mays: All of
Kate Anthony: that … all of that.
Michelle Mays: All of that. Yeah.
Kate Anthony: Oh, my goodness.
Michelle Mays: And can I just say one more thing about this, is that- Absolutely
also I think we have, because we have this cultural idea also that if somebody’s abusing you, cheating on you, et cetera, you leave them. You should leave them. Then we don’t have a lot of compassion and understanding about why it’s hard for people to leave. And this whole fear dynamic and childhood, how childhood [00:43:00] trauma co- contributes to that, we- it’s very easy for us to look at our coworker, relative, friend, and say, “What is wrong with you?
Why aren’t you leaving?” “I would’ve been out the door by now. I would’ve been out the door so fast,” and all of that without-
Kate Anthony: Not sure
Michelle Mays: you would have. … really reckon- yeah, right? You never know what you’re gonna do until you go through it. But we’re not really in any kind of acknowledgement of what it is like for people to actually have to go through the loss of their primary attachment figure and their primary relationship, and what that entails for people.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. So let’s talk about what it means to stay. In, in, in just five minutes. … Because it is possible to heal these fractures. Yeah. What does it take?
Michelle Mays: So what I see happen for the couples who are repairing their relationship after [00:44:00] betrayal, and I see couples who are repairing 30 years of acting out and secrets, and I see couples who are repairing, 12 months of an affair.
So I see the whole gamut- Okay … of couples who are doing the process of going through repair. And what it takes is it really takes both people to be all the way in on the repair-
Kate Anthony: Yes.
Michelle Mays: Say that- … of the relationship, to be fully committed …
Kate Anthony: say that again, Michelle. Say that again. It
Michelle Mays: takes both people being all the way in.
So if you are dragging your partner along, that is not a good sign. I always say to my clients, the cheating partner will put you through whatever you will tolerate.” So once the cheating comes to light in the relationship, you have to get really clear as the betrayed partner about what you will and will not tolerate, and what your expectations are if you do want to try to save the relationship, what your expectations are about what it looks like for both of you to [00:45:00] be all in on the process.
And that means getting the help you need, the right kind of help, the right experts on board, investing the time and energy. It’s gonna feel like a part-time job at first to do the work that is required, but it’s the willingness to go through that process together and to not short-circuit it in any way.
Kate Anthony: And you talk about in the book the importance of full disclosure. And I love the way you talk about it in terms of having edges, right? Because when you don’t know… can you… I’ll let you talk about it, ’cause I think it’s really… It made it really clear to me in a different, on a different level w- the way that you put it.
Michelle Mays: Okay. Okay, great. So there’s a difference between discovery and disclosure. Let’s just start there. Discovery is when you discover something or your partner starts to trickle out some information to you. That’s all discovery, and discovery can trickle out and go on and on. Disclosure is a very intentional [00:46:00] process.
It’s hopefully a therapeutically supported process where the cheating partner comes and intentionally discloses the full scope and depth of the cheating. So when did it start? How many partners has it been with? What are the behaviors that have gone on? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For the betrayed partner, the reason why disclosure is so important is that until they know w- exactly what has happened in the cheating, they’re, they cannot contain their experience.
So there are no edges to the experience, ’cause all they know is they have found out X, Y, and Z. They found out about this prostitute, and they found out about that massage parlor, and they found out about these three lies. But what else is there? And how long has it been going on?
And so there aren’t any edges to it, and it isn’t contained until you get disclosure, and that contains your experience for you. ‘Cause it’s okay, now [00:47:00] this is what I am dealing with. And even if it is a horrific amount of things that you’re dealing with-
Kate Anthony: Yeah …
Michelle Mays: having it contained helps you start to put your head around it and bring it into your understanding of your life story and make sense of it.
When it’s uncontained, you can’t make sense of it- … ’cause you don’t know what else is coming.
Kate Anthony: And that’s if you’re working to heal it, right? You may never- Yeah. If you don’t actually get that level of commitment from your partner, you’re not gonna be able to heal the relationship.
Michelle Mays: Yes. I absolutely agree with that. And I would also say this, if you are leaving your relationship and you’re never going to get disclosure I have people ask me this all the time “I’m never gonna get disclosure, so how will I heal?” And my answer to that is- You apparently got enough information to know-
Kate Anthony: That’s
Michelle Mays: right
that this was not a relationship that you could stay in. So you got all the disclosure you [00:48:00] needed-
Kate Anthony: that’s right …
Michelle Mays: to make the right decision for you, and the rest you can let go, and it is not gonna limit your healing in any way.
Kate Anthony: Yeah. Thank you for saying that, ’cause I was sitting here going, “Wait a minute, do I need to go back and actually get full disclosure 15 years later?”
No, I don’t. I don’t. No. No, you would onl- you would just be pulling pulling the scab off or whatever,
yeah. Exact- yeah, I really would. And back to the meadows I go.
There was one more thing that I wanted to ask you about. I know we’re bumping up against time here, but I really wanted to ask you about the difference between rebuilding emotional connection and sexual connection, and you talk about this in your book about how we often think that we can’t reconnect physically and sexually with our partner until we feel completely emotionally safe- to do but yet we often don’t, [00:49:00] right? We’re not sure. We’re scared and “If I have sex, am I gonna get triggered again?” And but you have some interesting advice on that. Can you share what that is?
Michelle Mays: Yeah, so this is always a tricky topic- Yeah. … because I think for some people, even though the betrayal has happened, if they’re staying in the relationship, they’ve been able to continue being sexual with their partner.
Then there are another big swath of people who are not able to keep being sexual, and sex really comes off the table because the partner feels so unsafe. And it can come off the table for a short period of time. It can come off the table for a really long period of time. What I see happen for people who take it off the table for a longer period of time, this tends to im- be really about th- these folks that take it off and it’s been a year, it’s been a year and a half, it’s been two years- is that they are waiting for there to be enough emotional safety-
Kate Anthony: Yeah …
Michelle Mays: built back into the relationship to [00:50:00] feel safe to be sexual again. And they are not wrong. There does have to be enough emotional safety to be able to take that risk again. What I see happen for some people, though, is that they keep waiting for emotional safety.
They think that at some point there’s gonna be enough emotional safety that it won’t feel risky to reengage sexually. They’re almost waiting for the risk to go away. And they just keep pushing that out and pushing that out and raising the bar on the level of emotional safety in the relationship.
And to those betrayed partners, what I think is important to understand is that there’s no amount of emotional safety that the cheating partner can rebuild that will eliminate the risk- … of connecting sexually or eliminate the process of re-engaging sexually- … and going through things that you’re gonna go through.
‘Cause when you reengage [00:51:00] sexually, most betrayed partners have to go through a period of time of working with intrusive thoughts coming into their head, or images flashing in, or doubts and insecurities surfacing. All of those things are going to have to be worked through in the relationship.
And postponing it and just saying somehow there’s gonna be th- there’s a magic moment- … where I won’t have to deal with that, and I won’t… and it won’t feel scary, and it won’t feel risky,” that’s not true.
Kate Anthony: It’s
Michelle Mays: not true. At some point, you do have to take the leap.
Kate Anthony: As you say in the book actually bring those…
Like, when the images surface, when you have flashes, that you actually bring it to your partner in the moment, right? Yeah. And allow your intimacy to be rebuilt in that way.
Michelle Mays: Yeah. I think the worst thing that partners do when they’re in that, they’re caught in that moment, and they’ve got, this [00:52:00] image of the affair partner, or this image of porn, or this…
whatever is flashing in for them. The worst thing they do is they try to ignore it and just push through the moment. Yeah. And the thing about that is so not helpful is that they’re creating another unsafe sexual experience, because they’re pushing through the sex while they actually feel unsafe in their body and their emotions because of this thing flashing in.
Kate Anthony: That’s right.
Michelle Mays: So what we want is for people to have conversations outside of the bedroom with your sexual partner about, “How are we gonna handle this when this happens? ‘Cause I’m gonna need to pause. I need to not push through this moment.” “But I need to let you know it’s happening.”
Kate Anthony: Yeah. “
Michelle Mays: When these flashbacks are coming in, we’re going into the past.
We’re leaving our present moment and going into the past, so I’m gonna need help coming back into the present.” And your part can… partner can do that with you in different ways. You have to figure out what works for you, ’cause it’s a little different for every [00:53:00] person. Sometimes that is your partner rubbing your back and talking to you.
Sometimes that’s looking in each other’s eyes. Sometimes that’s grounding yourself by looking around the room. Sometimes that’s turning on the lights and changing things up for a few minutes. It just, it’s different for everybody. But whatever it is that helps you come back into the present moment with your partner.
And then you can either resume or not resume, whichever is best for you. In that moment, either way, whether you’re able to continue being sexual or not- … you’ve created safety there. You’ve worked on it together to recreate some safety and to work on the safety in the relationship in that moment and the emotional connection.
So now you’re having a safe sexual experience even though this thing was flashing in and messing you up and stuff. As you work on it together, it rebuilds safety.
Kate Anthony: That’s so gorgeous. I love that. I think we could talk about this all day. It is such a big [00:54:00] topic, and I love talking to you about it.
Tell everyone where they can find you.
Michelle Mays: Yeah.
Kate Anthony: And do you… as a therapist, you’re state specific, but you said something about a coaching program, so I’m assuming you also work with women all over. Can you just tell us- Yeah … everything about
Michelle Mays: you? Yeah. So I have a counseling center outside of Washington, DC, called the Center For Relational Recovery.
So if you’re in Northern Virginia, that’s where our team is at. And then we have an online coaching program called Braving Hope: Become the Hero of Your Betrayal Story. Also have a ton of free videos and blogs and resources to help you with betrayal at the michellemays.com website. And also on that website, under the resources, we have a free Facebook group- for betrayed partners.
Kate Anthony: Great.
Michelle Mays: Where you can get a lot of help and support as well, and information about the coaching program’s on there. All the stuff you need is on that michellemays.com- Perfect … website.
Kate Anthony: Amazing. Yeah. Michelle, thank you so much. Your book [00:55:00] is available everywhere?
Michelle Mays: It is out there in the world.
It’s in the wild, so you can order it wherever you get your books.
Kate Anthony: Amazing. And
Michelle Mays: again, it’s called The Betrayal Bind.
Kate Anthony: Yes. Get it everybody. Thank you so much, Michelle.
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Divorce Survival Guide podcast. If you like what you hear, head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen in and leave me a review. And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram at kateanthony_divorcecoach. I’ll see you next time, and until then, remember that you, my love, deserve to be happy.
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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.
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