POSA™ Blog
PoSARC or The Partners of Sex Addicts Resource Center educates, nurtures and helps partners work with the challenges of being coupled with a sexually deceptive, chronic cheater.
Your Questions Answered (Video): What To Do When Friends and Family Don't Believe You
What can you do when you are brave enough to share your story as the victim of infidelity, and you find that your friends and family don't believe you? Or, worse, blame you? Lili talks about how to cope when you feel like you're in a free fall.
Does this ring true for you? Who has earned the right to hear your story? Please let us know in the comments below.
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Comments 3
Hi Lili,
I'm commenting on the video "What to do when friends and family don't believe us". Truly, the lack of support from my friends and my "spiritual" community after I lost my relationship with my partner of 12 years (a sexually compulsive and relationaly dishonest man whom, prior to D-day, I saw myself spending the rest of my life with) was another full-on level of betrayal trauma that just about did me in. I lost my spiritual community, because even as they told me they were going to support me and be there for me they didn't actually believe me and they wanted to hear his side of the story, because they told me "there's always two sides in a relationship". I was so traumatised by their doubt and wanting to remain "neutral" (which really amounted to siding with the perpetrator) that I had to back away in order to protect my own sanity. Thank you for video-blogging about this topic, which is one of the most difficult things to deal with...and one of the most hurtful and devastating...that is, to not be believed and supported by one's own friends when one has already been crushed by the worst betrayal and manipulation.
- Nona
I'm glad this topic spoke to you, Nona.
I agree with you, this experience is incredibly hurtful. And we already know that the dishonest man portrays the end of the relationship as his partner's fault, shirking any and all responsibility for any part of it himself. So then one deals with the betrayal trauma of friends/family on top of his further gas lighting as he rewrites and retells the history of the relationship to everyone he wants to save face with.
I have a sign on my desk from Dr. Seuss that says:
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind."
It's a helpful reminder that this experience also ends up assisting us to discern who will remain our friend and who we may ultimately let go of. This experience separates the wheat from the chaff very efficiently. But first it hurts like hell.
As I said in the video, it can help take the sting out of it somewhat to realize most people (thankfully) have no idea what manipulative partners do until they themselves have been conned by one, as we were. I don't wish the high level of ongoing relational dishonesty on anyone. Ever.
I hope you're able to find a new spiritual community to connect with. Meanwhile, we're glad you connected with us. Your story matters here; we all get it!
Be kind and compassionate towards yourself Nona, as you go through the healing of these deep wounds caused by others' ignorance.
I love this idea Lili. Thank you for trusting your idea! I can relate to Carol's experience all too well. I can say honestly the few rejections/challenges I received came from very close loved ones. In 3 cases of lifetime love and friendship I had a strong intuition my Story came too close to insecurities these women were experiencing in their own marriages. The first friend embraced my story very quickly after rejecting it and wanted sorely to minimize it and get me healed so we were no longer talking about it. I believe she behaved this way so she no longer had to look at what may be in her life(childhood sexual abuse). The second friend confessed two years later she had to dismiss this because intuitively she felt there was something in the sharing that was meant for her. In fact there was a suspicion of addiction and her spouse would not permit any discussion around her intuition. The last friend, could not tolerate the duplicity, the double life, impression management piece and largely because of what she tolerated in her own marriage. It made her question whether there was some kind of problem in her marriage( sent to ER several times in 20 years right after intercourse that was never ending in marriage). So there you have it. Many reasons one may not be able to tolerate the Truth.
My children deserve my Trust today and are the only people who I am willing to repeat the story to when the time comes. Please do not get me wrong. In fellowship and the sisterhood of all this loss I am confident and free but no one else gets in unless there is demonstrable evidence they are trustworthy. I want to add that even my children could " betray " me on this one day but I can almost accept that because of the horror they were thrown into and the need for their own healing.I take complete comfort,solace and trust n knowing God knows the truth And in His Timing the children will come to know it too.