22: Relational and Betrayal Trauma - Part Two
The Addicted Mind Podcast
Duane Osterlind, LMFT
4.7 • 655 Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2018
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marnie Breecker joined me for the second part of our discussion on relational and betrayal trauma. She walked us through the Six Dimensions of Relational and Betrayal Trauma as well as the steps in the process of partner healing.
Learn More About The Shame To Resilience Workshop
Is your relationship struggling to recover after betrayal? Have individual therapy, group sessions, or other recovery programs left you feeling stuck? My program, Shame to Resilience, is specifically designed to help men step up for their partners and support true healing. Having worked with hundreds of couples navigating the aftermath of infidelity, I’ve found that shame is often the biggest obstacle to rebuilding trust and connection. This program addresses that barrier, guiding couples toward meaningful repair and growth. Learn more at the link below.
10-week Shame To Resilience Workshop For Men
The Six Dimensions are:
Shattered Inner World – In this dimension, four core beliefs (the world is safe and enjoyable; the world is fair and controllable; people are trustworthy; and the self is worthy and competent) are shaken by the trauma of betrayal. It’s been likened to losing everything in a house fire.
Life Crisis – The gap between belief and reality that forms after discovering the addiction can cause trauma symptoms, which we discussed with Marnie in Episode 21. This stage can involve figuring out who to tell and where to find help, arranging childcare, managing other shaken aspects of daily life, and facing uncertainty about whether the threat of betrayal is ongoing.
Existential Trauma – The partner loses faith in their ability to make decisions and questions their core beliefs. They may start to see the world with distrust and fear, and their relationship with themselves is damaged. This dimension can take the longest to heal.
Emotional Trauma – This includes patterns of emotional abuse (lying, deceiving, manipulating) used by the addict to hide their secret. Emotional trauma can be overt (rage, yelling) or covert (subtle attacks like blame or gaslighting that make the partner feel unstable).
Sexual Trauma – Neglecting to address the partner’s sexual trauma makes later restoration and healing more challenging, so it is crucial for their feelings to be validated and their responses to be normalized.
Relational Trauma – In this dimension, the addict must develop empathy and understand that relational healing requires significant time and patience.
Shame To Resilience Workshop
Is your relationship struggling to recover after betrayal? Have individual therapy, group sessions, or other recovery programs left you feeling stuck? My program, Shame to Resilience, is specifically designed to help men step up for their partners and support true healing. Having worked with hundreds of couples navigating the aftermath of infidelity, I’ve found that shame is often the biggest obstacle to rebuilding trust and connection. This program addresses that barrier, guiding couples toward meaningful repair and growth. Learn more at the link below.
10-week Shame To Resilience Workshop For Men
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. I wanted to give you a quick note before I started this podcast. Both of these |
| 0:07.4 | episodes with Marnie Breaker and myself, we got such a strong response that Marnie and I both |
| 0:13.9 | decided to start a new podcast called Helping Couples Heal, specifically about betrayal and relational trauma. So after listening to these two |
| 0:25.0 | episodes, if you want more information about this topic, check us out. You can go to helping couples |
| 0:32.3 | heal.com or you can just do a podcast search in your podcast app and search for helping couples heal |
| 0:39.9 | and get more information about betrayal and relational trauma. |
| 0:44.8 | Thank you for listening. |
| 0:50.8 | Hello everyone. |
| 0:52.1 | Welcome to the Addicted Mind podcast. |
| 1:03.3 | This is episode 22. And this is part two in our series about relational and betrayal trauma with Marnie Breaker. |
| 1:11.8 | This podcast is a little bit longer than most. We just had so much information to share. But in the first part of the podcast, we're going to talk about the six symptoms of relational and betrayal trauma that a partner will experience |
| 1:18.8 | when they're going through this. And then in the second part, we're going to talk about the |
| 1:24.4 | steps that a person goes through as they move through this process of |
| 1:29.5 | healing. So I really think you guys will get a lot of really good information from this episode. |
| 1:34.9 | There's a lot of knowledge and wisdom and experience here. And Marnie Breaker really is |
| 1:40.9 | able to share that in a way that is understandable, clear, and precise. |
| 1:46.1 | So let's start the episode. |
| 1:52.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Addicted Mind. This is episode 22, and this is the second |
| 1:58.9 | part of our series on relational and betrayal trauma with Marnie Breaker. |
| 2:04.8 | Marnie, welcome back. |
| 2:06.2 | Thank you. |
| 2:07.1 | Great to be back. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Duane Osterlind, LMFT, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Duane Osterlind, LMFT and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.