Anchor Notes

Finding out that a partner has been unfaithful can be paralyzing and challenge your trust in yourself and others. Many women describe it as feeling like the ground gave way: the person you trusted most suddenly feels like a stranger, and the story of your life together no longer makes sense.

If you’re feeling shaken, on edge, or not like yourself, that makes sense. What you’re experiencing has a name.

What is betrayal trauma?

Psychologist Jennifer Freyd introduced the term “betrayal trauma” to describe harm caused by someone we depend on and trust.¹ Today, the term is often used to describe the deep pain that follows discovering a partner’s infidelity, whether that’s an affair, a secret emotional relationship, hidden pornography use, a hidden addiction, or a pattern of lies.

What makes betrayal so painful is who it comes from. Our partners are often the people we turn to when something goes wrong. When that same person is the source of the hurt, you lose your usual place of safety.

Betrayal can also shake your trust in yourself. Many women find themselves looking back and questioning everything: the late nights that didn’t add up, the gut feeling they talked themselves out of, the times they gave the benefit of the doubt. It’s common to blame yourself for signs you feel you missed. Over time, that self-questioning can leave you second-guessing your own instincts, which can feel just as disorienting as losing trust in your partner. Psychologist Jennifer Freyd describes something called “betrayal blindness”: when we depend on someone, it can be hard for our minds to fully take in signs of betrayal, because seeing them threatens a relationship we need.²

Why it can feel like trauma

Discovering infidelity isn’t “just” heartbreak. Many betrayed partners experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress, along with depression and anxiety.³ Research suggests that 30% to 60% of people betrayed by a romantic partner experience post-traumatic stress, depression, or anxiety at clinically significant levels.⁴ Even among young adults who weren’t married, nearly half of those who experienced a partner’s infidelity reported symptoms consistent with probable PTSD.⁵ In one study, people described feeling clarity, validation, and relief once they understood their reactions through a trauma lens.⁴ Your body may react as though you’re still in danger. This is your body doing the job it’s meant to do: keeping you safe. Your sense of safety has been shaken, and that can be rebuilt.

Signs of betrayal trauma

Research on betrayed partners describes effects that reach every part of life: emotional, mental, behavioral, and physical.⁶ Common signs include:

• Replaying the moment you found out, or picturing what happened
• Trouble sleeping, eating, or concentrating
• Feeling on edge, jumpy, or constantly on alert
• Checking phones, emails, or bank statements to find out more
• Swinging between anger, sadness, numbness, and wishing things could go back to how they were
• Doubting your own judgment, or wondering how you didn’t see it
• Pulling away from friends and family, or feeling ashamed to tell anyone
• Physical symptoms like headaches, stomach issues, or a racing heart

It’s not your fault

Many women turn the blame inward: “If only I had been more…” or “Why didn’t I notice?” What your partner chose to hide from you is not a reflection of your worth. Learning to quiet that inner critic is often an important part of healing.

How healing begins

Healing from betrayal trauma takes time, and it rarely moves in a straight line. Some things that can help:

• Caring for the basics (sleep, food, movement, and rest), even when it’s hard
• Leaning on one or two safe people, rather than carrying this alone
• Giving yourself permission not to make big decisions right away
• Noticing your triggers with compassion instead of judgment
• Rebuilding trust in yourself, one small step at a time: noticing what you feel and need, honoring your boundaries, and following through on small promises to yourself, so your mind and body learn they can rely on you again
• Working with a trauma-informed therapist who can help calm your nervous system and make sense of what happened

Moving forward

Healing isn’t something that simply happens to you. It’s something you get to shape. You decide the pace, what you need, and what comes next. Each small choice you make for yourself is a step toward reclaiming your voice, your instincts, and your sense of who you are. Betrayal can shake the foundation you’ve built your life on, but it doesn’t have to define the rest of your story.

Jamie

Learn more about infidelity and betrayal trauma therapy

“You knew what you signed up for.”

If your partner is a firefighter, police officer, paramedic, or another first responder, you’ve probably heard some version of this. Maybe it came from a relative at a holiday dinner your partner missed. Maybe it came from a friend when you admitted you were tired. Maybe you’ve even said it to yourself at 6 p.m., doing bedtime for your young kids for the third night in a row, after days on your own, when you’d give anything for an extra pair of hands and someone to hug you. It’s usually meant kindly, but it lands like a door closing. It suggests that because you chose this life, you’ve given up the right to find it hard.

You haven’t. Every time the person you love leaves for work, you know their safety isn’t guaranteed. They show up on the worst day of other people’s lives. They see things most people never will, and to keep doing the job, they learn to become numb to some of it. They go days on little sleep and high stress. And then they walk back through your front door, where family life is waiting.

The very skills that make them good at their job, like staying calm, setting feelings aside, and compartmentalizing, don’t always switch off at home. The same steadiness that gets them through a call can feel like distance across the dinner table.

That shapes your life too.

Research is starting to show what partners have known all along. In a study of partners of police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and military personnel, about 1 in 5 showed signs of moderate to severe secondary traumatic stress, the strain of absorbing a loved one’s trauma. Nearly half said they had little or no support for what their partner’s work brought home.¹ In a survey of 4,500 police officers, 43% said their work frequently interfered with family life,² and in a survey of nearly 2,000 wildland firefighters and their partners, almost 8 in 10 regularly felt stressed by long absences during fire season, and 6 in 10 often felt secondary to the job.³ In other words, this work affects you too, even if it’s rarely acknowledged.

So if you love your partner, and you are also exhausted, lonely, or angry sometimes… of course you are. This lifestyle is hard. And the truth is, none of us really knew what we were signing up for. Every family’s experience looks different, and this is one of those things you can’t fully understand until you’ve lived it. Even if you thought you knew what you were signing up for, that was never the same as knowing how it would feel. And you deserve support too.

Jamie

Learn about therapy for first responder families

Pregnancy and new motherhood are often called the happiest time of a woman’s life. For many women, it’s also one of the hardest seasons. Alongside the joy, there can be worry that won’t quiet down, sadness that doesn’t lift, or thoughts that feel scary and unfamiliar.

If that’s you, you’re not alone.

What does perinatal mean?

Perinatal refers to pregnancy through the first year after birth.^1,2 It’s a season of enormous change for your body, your hormones, your sleep, your relationships, and your sense of who you are. For some women, symptoms can continue past that first year.⁴

What are perinatal mood and anxiety disorders?

“Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders,” often called PMADs, is an umbrella term for the mental health conditions that can show up during pregnancy or in the year after birth.^2,3 They include:

• Depression: Persistent sadness, hopelessness, or emptiness, often with exhaustion, guilt, or losing interest in things you used to enjoy.
• Anxiety: Excessive worry, fear, or nervousness that’s hard to turn off.
• Panic disorder: A form of anxiety with sudden, recurring waves of intense fear, often with a racing heart or shortness of breath.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): Repetitive, unwanted, intrusive thoughts, often about the baby’s safety, along with an urge to do something, like checking or avoiding, to ease the distress.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Trauma symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, or avoidance after a frightening or distressing pregnancy, birth, or postpartum experience.
• Bipolar disorder: Mood episodes that cycle between lows (depression) and highs (unusually high energy, little need for sleep, or racing thoughts).
• Postpartum psychosis: Rare, occurring in about 1 in 1,000 births. A medical emergency involving a loss of touch with reality.^2,3

These are simplified, everyday descriptions, not clinical definitions, and they don’t include every possible symptom.

How common is this?

More common than most people realize. At least 1 in 5 women experience a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder,^1,5 and since many women never tell anyone how they’re feeling, the real number is likely higher.¹ Partners can struggle too: as many as 1 in 10 fathers experience postpartum depression or anxiety.⁵

Baby blues, or something more?

Up to 80% of new moms experience the “baby blues”: tearfulness, mood swings, and feeling overwhelmed in the first few days after birth. The baby blues come from the sudden shift in hormones after delivery, and a lack of sleep can make them feel even harder. They usually ease within a few days to two weeks.²

It may be something more if:

• Your feelings last longer than two weeks
• Rest doesn’t help you feel restored
• You have trouble sleeping even when your baby sleeps
• You’ve lost interest in things you used to enjoy
• You feel numb, hopeless, or disconnected from your baby
• You have thoughts of harming yourself

What it can look like

Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders don’t always look like sadness. They can also show up as:

• Constant worry about your baby or your own health
• Feeling irritable, angry, or on edge
• Racing thoughts or panic
• Scary, unwanted thoughts about something bad happening to your baby
• Flashbacks or nightmares after a difficult birth
• Pulling away from the people you love
• Lack of self-care
• Physical symptoms like headaches, stomach issues, or a racing heart

Help works

Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are treatable,³ and you don’t have to wait until you’re in crisis to reach out. Therapy can help you make sense of what you’re feeling, learn practical tools to ease anxiety and low mood, give you language around your experience, and process a difficult birth or loss. For some women, medication is also part of the plan, which can be a meaningful conversation with your doctor.

Where to turn

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988, anytime.
• National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: Call or text 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262). Free, confidential, and available 24/7 in English and Spanish.⁶
• Postpartum Support International: Call or text 1-800-944-4773 for support and local resources, and visit postpartum.net for online support groups.⁷

You deserve care in this season too, not just your baby. If you’re in California and would like support, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.

Jamie

Learn about perinatal therapy