That single lie changed everything. Whether it was D-Day (Discovery Day) or a slow unraveling of deception, betrayal trauma creates wounds that go far deeper than broken trust - they live in your nervous system, your body, your sense of safety in the world, and your reality breaks.
Every memory feels contaminated. Every conversation becomes evidence. Your body knows this is more than betrayal—this is psychological warfare to your entire system. One word, and your entire nervous system erupts. Hours pass with you trying to get regulated, arms wrapped around yourself, praying the dust will settle so you can breathe again.
The Secret Sexual Basement: Like a car crash that's left you on the side of the road, betrayal trauma doesn't have to be the end of your journey together.
Healing From Betrayal & Deceptive Sexuality Trauma
And you feel you still can't breathe.
The torture of interacting with someone you thought you could trust—the one person you loved who has hurt you most—is devastating. You’re expected to continue living life with this new reality with the person we fear most in the world. We're expected to heal with someone we know to be unsafe, someone who betrayed, tricked, and lied to us constantly.
It's no wonder you feel you can't breathe. But breathe you will.
Yet there is hope, because couples CAN heal. With trauma-informed approaches and somatic healing work, many couples who fully commit to the process successfully rebuild their relationships into something more authentic and connected than what came before. You will survive this and build the better life you deserve—for you and your family—despite the enormous obstacles along the way.
The trauma manifests through:
Integrity Abuse: Ongoing psychological manipulation, gaslighting, and blame-shifting designed to protect their secret world while making you question your own sanity.
Somatic Imprisonment: Your body gets stuck in threat mode. Your nervous system doesn't know the difference between a predatory animal and a betrayal. You stay hyper-alert, constantly scanning for danger.
Triadic Core Wounding: Betrayal wounds three core areas—your sense of self (body), your gender, and your sexuality (including your spiritual connection and how you see yourself in this world). All three need healing.
Many betrayal trauma experts understand that traditional healing approaches often misses the depths and intensity of trauma from betrayal or minimizes it. The hypervigilance, intrusive thoughts, feeling like you're going crazy—these are normal responses to an abnormal situation.
What is Deceptive Sexuality Trauma & Why Does This Hurt So Much?
Deceptive Sexuality Trauma (DST) isn't just discovering infidelity—it's uncovering a "secret sexual basement," a hidden reality your partner constructed beneath the life you thought you shared. As Dr. Omar Minwalla, founder of the DST model, explains: this is intimate partner abuse that systematically destroys your sense of reality, safety, and self.
This is not just about sex addiction or infidelity. This is about integrity abuse.
For many, unlike a single affair, DST involves calculated, long-term deception, creating what Dr. Minwalla calls "Reality-Ego Fragmentation" (REF). Your past feels contaminated. Your memories become question marks. The person you trusted most was living a double life, and discovering this fractures something fundamental within you.
- New headaches, stomach issues, or chronic pain since discovery
- Panic attacks, hypervigilance, severe sleep disturbance
- Feeling disconnected from your own body or sexuality
- Exhaustion that doesn't improve with rest
Physical Symptoms
Drawing from clinicians in the DST field. Here are the hallmarks:
In betrayal trauma, these aren't signs of weakness—they're evidence of profound injury requiring specialized care.
- Difficulty trusting your own perceptions
- Withdrawing from friends and family
- Feeling unsafe even in familiar spaces
- Fact-finding behaviors related to discovery, trying to figure out truths vs any sort of deception
Relational Symptoms:
- Constantly replaying conversations or searching for clues
- Living in fog or feeling like you're in a dream state
- Overwhelming shame despite knowing it's not your fault
- Profound isolation—feeling no one could understand
- Conflicting emotions that seem impossible to resolve
Emotional Symptoms:
How Do I Know if This is What I'm Experiencing?
Hope lives in the space between the crash and recovery
What Makes My Approach Different?
My approach is trauma-informed, partner-sensitive, and somatically focused. Where others focus solely on their sobriety or push premature forgiveness, my first priority is stabilization (and safety)
3. Culturally Responsive Healing
I have extensive experience with mixed-faith, multicultural, blended family, and even deeply religious dynamics in relationships. Your healing path must honor ALL aspects of your identity, not just your trauma, and still honor the generations before you while healing the wounds that may have continued on within you.
Guiding couples from Christian, Catholic, Jewish, LDS, multi-faith, deeply religious, multicultural, immigrant, or secular backgrounds is something I honor and specialize in. Spiritual and cultural identities are integral to healing and understanding. Whether you're navigating religious community pressures or finding meaning after spiritual betrayal, I recognize the impact these parts have on your healing and recovery journey.
Many clients come to me carrying not just betrayal trauma, but the additional weight of cultural or family expectations about what healing "should" look like.
Faith communities may pressure quick forgiveness. Families may minimize the severity of deception to preserve appearances. Cultural messages about loyalty and working things out can overshadow the legitimate need for individual trauma recovery. Your healing journey must honor both your cultural identity AND your need for safety and authentic recovery.
4. Partner-Sensitive Framework
Unlike approaches that blame partners or label you "codependent," my work is firmly partner-sensitive. You're not responsible for their choices. You're not sick because you're responding to sickness. You are wounded, not flawed.
1. Trauma-Informed, Not just Addiction-Focused
Using Dr. Minwalla's DSTT model, I understand this isn't primarily "sex addiction"—it's integrity abuse. We focus on healing the profound impact of deception on your system, not just managing behavior.
2. Somatic Integration
Traditional healing work addresses your thoughts, but trauma lives in your body. As a Somatic Practitioner, Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Clinician, DV Advocate, and Betrayal Trauma Coach, I help you understand your nervous system's language. We honor that your anger is healthy protection. And we will work with your trauma with both top-down and bottom-up approaches to release stored trauma so you can feel safe again.
Drawing from Dr. Gabor Maté's wisdom: safety is not the absence of threat—it's the presence of connection. It’s time to help your body learn to connect safely, starting with connection to yourself.
Can Couples Heal After This Kind of Betrayal?
My role is to help you discern the difference between genuine change and performative recovery. Some relationships can be restored to deeper intimacy than ever. Others are safer when you are able to heal and thrive on your own. Your body needs to learn that your environment and your partner is safe for you. From a place of safety and clarity, you choose your next steps. The choice is always yours, made from your strength and truth and not from your trauma.
This isn't about returning to what was - it's about creating something that never existed before.
Your nervous system knows something catastrophic happened. Betrayal trauma creates measurable physiological changes that flood your body with stress hormones, keeping your internal fire alarm constantly activated. But your body also holds an innate capacity for healing when given the right support and authentic connection.
Healing requires more than sobriety—it requires completely dismantling power, entitlement, and control dynamics.
For couples' healing to be possible and long-lasting, there needs to be:
- Radical Honesty: Complete disclosure with no more secrets, trickle truth, or omissions.
- Authentic Accountability: ownership without defensiveness or blame-shifting
- Sustained Integrity: where actions consistently match words through time
- Deep Empathy for the betrayed partner and the impact of the betrayers’ choices
Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget
This is why traditional talk therapy sessions alone often fall short. Your shoulders carry the tension of hypervigilance. Your breath holds the shallow patterns of ongoing stress. Your nervous system oscillates between fight-or-flight activation and protective shutdown. Somatic healing approaches help both partners learn to regulate together, and create safety in each other's presence, even or especially during difficult conversations.
The couples who successfully rebuild after betrayal understand they're not trying to return to what was, but courageously building something entirely new.
How Do I Begin to Trust Myself Again?
We start by honoring what you know to be true:
- Your body's responses make sense
- Your need for safety is not negotiable
- Your healing timeline belongs to you
- Your reality matters
Vulnerability and Courage
I see your struggle, your truth, and your pain, and I am here with you through the traumatizing situation you're still in, getting re-traumatized over and over by the emotional rollercoaster and continued trauma from the person who hurt you, especially when there has been treatment-induced trauma.
When you feel that intense anxiety, fear, and pain overwhelm you in your heart, put your hand on your chest, take deep, slow exhales, and repeat:
"I feel anxiety in this system, and I know I need safety. I am going to separate all of the overwhelming moments and memories and focus on me. My body belongs to me, and anxiety and fear are valid, and I am still breathing.
Parts of me are scared,
Parts of me are clear,
Parts of me are confused,
Parts of me are brave.
All of this is part of me.
(Deep breath in, exhale out)
All of this is part of me, and I am strong and taking my power back. I am worthy, and I will stand in my truth."
Growing up where women's intuition was dismissed, I understand betrayal trauma's intersection with silencing and invalidation. Whether cultural expectations or family pressure to 'work it out,' your healing is yours to own. The path forward isn't about fixing what was broken - it's about courageously building something entirely new together.
Your intuition has been silenced by gaslighting. As Jay Shetty reminds us, “Clarity comes when you listen to the voice inside that’s been whispering the truth all along.” We’ll turn down the noise so you can finally hear your own wisdom again.
The path through betrayal and emotional abuse can feel impossible, but there is a way forward. Reach out now to take the next step toward healing, clarity, and support.
Your recovery is not just possible—it's inevitable when you have the right support in place. Let's find your path back to yourself, honoring both your healing, your truth, your voice, and your future, and I’ll be here every step of the way, walking with you and shining light on your path.
