Moving Forward After Betrayal

April 11, 2023

Do you feel lost since discovery? Do you feel like you’re not yourself anymore? Living through the emotional trauma caused by your significant other’s secret obsession with pornography changes you. You internalize the betrayal and wonder what you did to cause it or how you can fix it. You worry that you are not enough. Over time it drags you down. Your fun and outgoing personality is lost. Your confidence is gone and you are full of shame and embarrassment. 

When you start to heal, you realize how disconnected you are from your true self. The experience shaped who you are today and part of healing is uncovering exactly who you are now. It’s an inside job. Discovering who you are on the inside will transform your life on the outside too.

5 Steps to help you connect with your true self

Here are a few things that will help you on this journey back to yourself. 

  1. Connect with other partners. They’ve been where you are and understand how his compulsive porn use has affected you. You don’t have to share the backstory and all the crazy details. They just get it. Being able to talk openly about how you feel and what you want, in a safe place, is powerful. You can learn how others have moved forward and try some of their strategies for yourself. 
  2. Get back in touch with who you are. Who are you? All of you? How do you spend your time? Is it how you want to spend your time? Assess your relationships. Think about your coworkers, friends, family, significant other, etc. Do you get value from these relationships and do you want to keep them? What sets your soul on fire? What are your dreams for the future? What do you enjoy doing? What do you like to read or listen to? It might seem trivial, but when you’ve been consumed by betrayal you lose touch with the answers to these questions. 
  3. Focus on moving forward from recovery to healing to thriving in life. Really understand what you’ve been through, how it has affected you, and how you’ve coped with it. Heal the pain and rebuild your inner strength. Make your wellbeing a priority and build a life that supports you. 
  4. Strive for acceptance. Accept that his porn use had nothing to do with you. It was always about him. Stop letting it steal your self-worth. Accept that you deserve to feel better. You’ve spent enough time stuck in the negative emotions and worrying about the situation. Giving so much of your time and energy to his porn use meant you didn’t use your time and energy staying connected to your authentic self. Tap into your resilience and let go of the betrayal for your own sake. Accept that you are responsible for your life and go create one that lights you up. 
  5. Enjoy the journey. You didn’t ask for this and you certainly didn’t want it. It happened though and that can’t be changed. Lean into what it has taught you and how it has made you stronger. Focus on self-love and creating true happiness for yourself. 
moving forward after betrayal<br />

In summary

It’s time to move forward. The steps won’t always be easy but they are necessary. Don’t let his porn use and betrayal define you. Restore the parts of yourself that were lost. Embrace the new parts of you that have emerged as a result of this experience. Love and accept your whole self and live your most authentic life.

Download this 14 day journal here to help you reconnect with yourself.