He's Better, But I Still Feel Bad
"Leo has been in "good recovery" for almost two years. He is participating in meetings, makes regular phone calls, sees a therapist and has not acted out in his addiction. He is working on learning more about himself and how to have a successful relationship moving forward.
Cathy is married to Leo and has committed herself to her own "recovery" including group meetings, seeing a therapist and performing good self-care. When she found out that Leo had been cheating it devastated her and really had her feeling like her world was upended, but now she feels better most days, but some days, out of nowhere, the trauma memories return and she finds herself sad or angry."
This scenario, with a few circumstantial changes, can apply to many partners that are in the process of recovery. Interestingly, it appears that whether a partner stays with their spouse after betrayal, or decides to leave the relationship altogether, the process remains much the same.
The initial trauma (and potential subsequent ones) resulting from either discovery or disclosure (see prior post) contains multiple parts to it and may result in a form of PTSD for some partners. This presents itself in many forms, but the most recognizable being sadness, depression, anger, and fear. Triggers can happen at any time and are not exclusive to those in early recovery from the trauma. These can happen well into the healing process, and may be upsetting to the level of the original trauma. This can also cause residual anger, grief, depression or feelings of giving up ie: "Is all this work really worth it?"
Most of the time, these triggers will lessen in duration and strength over time. How long? I wish I could tell you an exact time limit, but this is very individual to the person and the particulars of their lives. The disturbing part to women that have begun to experience healing is to find out that they can still be extremely triggered so quickly and with such voracity. Triggers are actually a complicated thing, but one of the factors is that they act as a safety for the mind. Your brain automatically correlates a highly negative experience as having caused deep hurt to the mind, body and the spirit, and it then wants to protect the whole from further trauma....just doing it's job so to speak.
These auto-responses are normal and are part of the process after betrayal trauma. It helps to understand why they occur to allow us to move proactively through the healing process. Bottom line? Give yourself time. Whether he is in recovery or not, you deserve to feel better and you will if you keep the focus on your own self-work and mindful healing processes. For most, triggers, bad days, residual sadness and anger from the grieving process continue to happen for some time. It's when we get stuck in that model that we should seek out further help from a Certified Partner Coach, like myself or a Clinician experienced in SA protocol.