RE-RELEASE | Betrayal Trauma Workshops

RE-RELEASE. This episode originally released September 24, 2024.

What is a sexual betrayal trauma workshop? And why - if you are a woman going through the pain of having been betrayed by your husband/partner - should you consider attending one? In this BONUS episode, Greg & Stacey are joined by Paige and Brittney, two friends who are part of our Awaken community in Birmingham AL, to talk about their experiences in recovery and having attended our workshop.

Like we did when we addressed our Roots Retreat Men's Intensive in Episode 6 (with Adam, James, and Jason), we talked about the shared experiences of people who attend these weekend events, and why they can be so helpful in the process of recovery.

In this episode, Greg, Stacey, Paige, and Brittney talk about the two primary focuses of the Roots Retreat Women's Workshop: Understanding trauma and  addiction. Trauma is an experience shared in some way by basically everyone, but many of us don't recognize the parts of our life that introduced us to trauma long before we were in relationship with our partner. Women who are sexually betrayed often experience that trauma "stepping on the exposed nerve" of unprocessed trauma they already carried. And coming to understand addiction can help women see that the inexcusable things their husbands/partners did often came from patterns that started long before they were together. All of this new or fuller understanding can help her as she heals and moves forward.

If you are a woman struggling in the aftermath of what you've discovered about your partner and are trying to determine what you need to do, and you think the Roots Retreat Women's Workshop may be helpful for you, please reach out to us. We'd love to help you in any way we can!

Check out our links below (including the workshop), and PLEASE give us 5-stars and write a positive review wherever you get your podcasts!

#betrayaltrauma #trauma #healing #affairs #sexualbetrayal #therapy #counseling #gospel #recovery #sexaddiction #pornaddiction #sexualaddiction #awaken #awakenrecovery #awakenpodcast #whatwereallywant #wwrw #grace #connection #conversation

Transcript

Eyes Opened To A New World

Brittany 0:00

For me, it was like my eyes were just like open to this whole new world. My husband and I were into such a specific, small world. And once I went, I was just blown away with like just stuff that I had experienced in my life. And then understanding him and understanding where the addiction and where the trauma comes from. My eyes were open to the world in a brand in a new way I'd never seen it before.

Announcer 0:24

Welcome to What We Really Want. Conversations about connection. Settle in and get ready for a great conversation. Let's talk about what we really want.

Greg Oliver 0:36

Hello, friends. Welcome back to What We Really Want. Today is a re-release of one of our most listened to episodes. We're going all the way back to number 17 called Betrayal Trauma Workshops. Stacy and a couple of other ladies from our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community here at Awaken got together to talk about the value, the benefits of women who have gone through sexual betrayal trauma participating in a retreat, a workshop, as a way of helping to process the trauma, the experience of being married to someone or in partnership with someone who struggles with unwanted or addictive sexual behavior. We thought that it would be worth getting this episode out for those of you who have started listening more recently. And we're releasing it now because on the date that it comes out, which is going to be March 31st, we are only about a week and a half away from our next Roots Retreat women's workshop, and we still have spots available. You can go to awakenrecovery.com and click the intensives link on the front page and find out more information about how you can be a part of the workshop. It's April 10th and 11th. It's a Friday and Saturday here in Birmingham, Alabama. And you can send us an email at info@ awakenrecovery.com if you have questions. We'd be glad to answer those for you and help you decide if this would be a good fit for where you are in your betrayal trauma healing journey. So I don't want to take up any more time. I want to let you get right to the conversation that Stacy and her friends Paige and Britney got to have a while back about their experience in betrayal trauma recovery and their experiences attending the Roots Retreat Women's Workshop. Here it is. It's a re-release of our episode Betrayal Trauma Workshops, and it starts right now.

Greg Oliver 2:16

If you listen back to episode six, you will uh hear a conversation with Adam Calvert, James Horne, and Jason McNaughton and myself talking about men's recovery intensives. And we mentioned during that episode that we also we not only have a Roots Retreat men's recovery intensive for men who are seeking to recover from compulsive or unwanted or addictive sexual behavior, but we also offer a Roots Retreat women's workshop, and that is designed for women who are spouses, partners of men who struggle. Its emphasis is on helping them with sexual betrayal trauma. And so today we've got Stacey and two of our friends, Brittany and Paige, who have been through the Roots Retreat Women's Workshop and now serve as volunteers just to have a conversation about it. So we're so glad that you're here. Brittany, thanks for being with us. Thanks. Paige, thank you.

What Early Betrayal Trauma Feels Like

Paige 3:09

Thank you. Glad to join y'all today.

Greg Oliver 3:10

I think it would be a good idea just to maybe share a little bit about what it's like to be a woman in recovery from sexual betrayal trauma so that our listeners know kind of what you're talking about. So I don't know if everybody would be comfortable sharing a little bit of what brought you to be connected with Awaken in our community and to realize that that betrayal, trauma, recovery was something that you wanted and needed. So that might be a good place to start.

Stacey Oliver 3:36

Yeah. Well, I know that I've shared on the probably the first episode a good bit of my story. And so I shared what, you know, from my perspective, what it has been like. But I would say pretty much to a person, I think we would all say it's horrible being in recovery. We would not have chosen this. We always joke in our we have a recovery group that meets weekly, and we always joke about how we're glad we're friends now, but because we met through Awakened, but we wish we would have met at a fun book club or something. But we are grateful for the friendships that we can make and have made.

Paige 4:12

I've been in recovery for nine years. So I probably would be one of the most naive people who began this journey not knowing anything. So I had a lot to learn. And I can just remember early on just thinking, telling my counselor, I just need you to tell me like the 10 things to do. I want the fast track to get well. I just need all this pain quickly. I I was just so clueless to what rec I really didn't even understand. I didn't even know what betrayal trauma together really meant. I just I just had so much to learn and just having to open my heart and just my willingness to stay in recovery and learn about it. And it it just took me a long time to realize there is no easy way out of this recovery journey. I think I spent the beginning of my recovery more focused on my husband and his recovery. After all, he was the one struggling an addiction. He was the one with the problem. So let me make sure he's doing his recovery work while still not even understanding all that all what my recovery work was going to entail. Because I the I didn't the focus was not on me, I was thinking of him.

Stacey Oliver 5:19

Mm-hmm.

Paige 5:20

My codependency showing up. That I didn't even know what that word meant either. Right.

Greg Oliver 5:27

Just for clarity, when we say the C word, we mean codependency.

Paige 5:32

It isn't even a cuss word.

Greg Oliver 5:34

Oh my codependency. Not the other C word.

Brittany 5:39

Yeah, I remember I wouldn't say that I was like, he needs to do his work. I was just so in shock of everything that had just had happened. So I remember it was D-Day, and then that next Tuesday we were at Awaken. Um, so I don't I really don't even I can't, I can recall a few things. I don't recall a lot. I just remember walking in and being like, what is this? And then a lot of it was really scary. So I didn't even I just didn't know I was in such a I was very naive and I was also just like, what is this? Where am I? What is going on? And I got in the car and cried and we left. Yeah.

Stacey Oliver 6:15

I went to a group that was not a faith-based group. There were like three or four people in there, and several of them had set really hard boundaries, which now I understand were really good boundaries, but they were some divorcing, some asking for separation or whatever because their spouse wasn't doing the work. And I just couldn't even handle it. I cried the whole way home. I don't know how I got home because I cried sobbing. I called Greg and I'm never going back. And so I understand because it's scary to see to be around people who make decisions different than yours. And then I I think for me it was like, oh, that's probably what I'm gonna end up having to do, which isn't true, but I think that's sometimes what we think.

Why A Workshop Helps More

Greg Oliver 6:53

Thanks everybody for for sharing that. I I already am pretty confident that people listening have already heard things that they can relate to. So thank y'all for helping people realize that they're not alone. Where the workshop comes from is recognizing that as critical as having a meeting or support community is, it's not everything that we need. There are things that we can get from friends and peers in our support community that we can't get at church and that we can't get from a therapist. But then there are things that we can get in those other contexts that we can't and aren't meant to get from a support group as we started awakened, became aware that, you know, there's such a thing as a as a betrayal trauma intensive. And and so we decided that that that was something we wanted to offer.

Stacey Oliver 7:40

The initial, I don't know, months probably of therapy were understanding addiction, how we got here, and then like you said, Paige, didn't not even knowing what betrayal trauma was. I I know I told my therapist, like, I cannot har I can hardly get out of the bed or shower, or I don't know what to do when people bring food. I don't know what to do with it. It's like my brain is gone. And she said, You are having PTSD symptoms. And I'm like, that's only like people that have been in wars and stuff. I didn't ha have a box for that either. Initially, I think it's really important to focus on the trauma. Yeah.

Greg Oliver 8:17

You know, a lot of the research that's out there is showing that when a woman is sexually betrayed by her partner, something like 75% of those women exhibit legitimate PTSD symptoms.

Stacey Oliver 8:30

He has rewritten your story. So the whole story that you have believed your marriage to be, I think all of us probably who have experienced this, we we question all the things leading up to that, like events or we see pictures and we're like, you look so happy in that picture. Like I thought everything was great. And so they're rewriting the story because it's your person that was supposed to be the one person that would protect you and look out for you, never lie to you, never betray you. And then this happens. It's just it turned your world upside down.

Greg Oliver 9:04

And yet it's not the first trauma that you've ever encountered.

Stacey Oliver 9:08

Right.

Greg Oliver 9:09

And that's one of the things that we came to understand is that when I dumped this truck full of all of my addictive story that I'd kept from you for so long, that alone would have been enough to constitute serious trauma, but it attached itself to other things that had happened to you even before we were in relationship, and it just amplified the effect that it had on you. And you know, a lot of a lot of women who walk through this think they're going crazy because, like, okay, well, he did this, and like I'm acting like he murdered somebody. And and so just having some context for why those those feelings make sense can be really helpful.

Stacey Oliver 9:47

And all of that leads us to why we thought a workshop would be helpful.

PTSD Symptoms And Rewritten Reality

Greg Oliver 9:52

Let me back up for a second and just talk about like for people who may not have heard the episode on intensives or just don't really even know what we're talking about. The difference between going to therapy and going to like a therapeutic intensive or a betrayal trauma recovery workshop is not so much a difference in the work that you do, but it's doing it for a long period of time in an uninterrupted environment. So the men who come to the Roots Retreat Recovery Intensive, they're there from Thursday afternoon through about lunch on Sunday. And so in those three and a half days, they get roughly three to four or maybe even five months of content that they would get by going weekly for a 50-minute session with their therapist. It's so concentrated and it's so uninterrupted and like they don't have their phones, they don't have any of the distractions. For the workshop, it is similar work. We just don't go as deep because you and I lead it, Stacey. We're not licensed therapists. And so we don't go as deep into some of the therapeutic work, but what we do is we encourage them to continue taking the things that we cover in the workshop and go back to their therapists. We focus on two main things. We focus on trauma and we focus on understanding addiction better. So do you want to kind of talk about some of the perspectives and some of the the focuses that we have?

Stacey Oliver 11:13

One of the things that we want women to understand when they come to the workshop is that this isn't the first trauma that they have experienced. And when they find out their husband has betrayed them this way, that there are things in their past that were traumatic that those nerves were already exposed. And so when this happens with their husband, it's like it's stepping on those nerves. And so I think having a big reaction, angry, sad, whatever it is, is it is understandable. But I think sometimes, well, maybe all the time, it is it is that trauma and then probably trauma from a past that has not been healed. Because I know I didn't address any of the trauma that I had when I was young. I didn't know I needed to.

Greg Oliver 11:58

So with what you're saying right now, it might be helpful to kind of understand that one of our working definitions of what trauma is is something that happened in my past that causes me to think or act irrationally in the present. And so that's what we mean when we talk about stepping on the exposed nerve.

Stacey Oliver 12:17

So we've talked about my reactivity to things and how I get angry, and I have cuss words that I say now for years, even in recovery, when Greg and I would argue, we're both reactive. And so he would stay calm longer and had a lot more words that were that made sense. And I'm just like spewing things because I don't I can't keep everything straight. And I so I start yelling. And I came to understand, and I felt crazy. I will say that. I felt crazy and I felt panicky. And so, in a lot of work that we've done and the marriage intensive that we went to, I came to understand that what was happening was my fear of abandonment, abandonment was showing up when I thought he had abandoned me, even though he was still standing right there, which was why it didn't make sense. But he was no longer on my side or he was not on my team or whatever. And so when I understood that from when I was little, there were some experiences I had where my parents did have to leave me. They didn't do it to be mean or to abandon me, but they left. And as a four-year-old in the hospital, when my parents had to leave, I didn't understand. And so, even though this is different, that is what my system was doing in the moment when Greg was do having his way of showing up, how he did in conflict.

Greg Oliver 13:32

And your current age self is not the one showing up when you're triggered. It's exactly taking it all the way back, maybe even to that those four-year-old emotions that were terrified.

Stacey Oliver 13:43

I will say, when I now that I know this, I would say I felt like a child when I was freaking out, you know, in our arguing. And so honestly, since understanding that, I still feel that panicky feeling. It does not go away. But I know how to talk about like, hey, when you said that, I feel it, but I but I'm just talking. I don't have to yell and like go freaking out crazy like I'm chasing them to come back. And so that to me is a huge it's not that's not even about addiction, but like you need to understand addiction and how you got where you got. And I need to understand stuff about myself.

Triggers, Past Wounds, And Reactivity

Paige 14:20

I think for me, there there is growing up in my family, to me, it was a very stable environment. But one thing when I look back on my growing up years, it was just just more of the surface level living where the deep down things that we probably really needed to talk about, harder things were never addressed. So we just kind of stayed up here. Everybody's good, everybody's okay, and hard things just weren't ever really talked about. I never saw conflict in my family, especially like between my mom and dad. So I just didn't learn those kind of skills. And I can when I think back to my teenage years, my mom and I started butting heads, but our the way I kind of watched her is we would just be silent and just not ever talk about it, just kind of go our separate ways. And so I bring all those things that I don't really think are unhealthy. That's just part of my and then when all everything just I kind of bring that into my marriage, and then we're doing okay, or I think we're doing fine in our marriage, and when everything implodes, I just go back to all those things. These, these, these emotions don't feel good. These these aren't good emotions to have. And I don't know how to talk about them with you, this person who's just betrayed and blown up my world. And so I'm just gonna get quiet. And I just realized I really didn't have healthy coping strategies for anything like this. I didn't learn anything growing up, but I didn't know that.

Greg Oliver 15:45

Sure, because if you never saw conflict, then you also never saw conflict get healthily resolved.

Stacey Oliver 15:50

Correct.

Greg Oliver 15:51

And so you went into adulthood lacking that skill of knowing what it's like to lean into conflict with the goal of resolving it.

Stacey Oliver 16:00

Which fascinates me because I Paige and I are very different, and I always think about how much more godly you seem because you're calm and you're quiet. But I've learned from you, not that those are bad things to be, but just being calm and quiet and not talking about things isn't always healthy.

Paige 16:17

No, because there's stuff simmering below. And I just don't know how to, I just at that point had no idea how to even talk about this in a healthy way.

Greg Oliver 16:25

How do you access it to know we even want to talk about it?

Brittany 16:28

I think I noticed just a lack of really what pornography was and just what sexual addiction was. Again, it happened very I was married maybe two years when all this came out, and I was really, I feel like what, 25? So I feel like that's pretty young for something like this to happen. So I was just so unaware. I do remember trying to just care for my husband in that moment, like when he told me and seeing his reaction, and then just seeing like what was at stake if he were to come out and share it, which he did. I was just trying to like patch up, I don't know, like what like I'm trying to patch up like these little cracks that like is eventually gonna explode. And I was just very naive. So I did I didn't know. And so I was still trying to make sense of it all of like what even is this? Do you just stop? Can you stop? Like and you really can't, and you know, so at least in the beginning not without help, not without yeah, yeah. So it was just it was something that I was just like I I think I was very cod I still am, I was very codependent and trying to make sure that he was okay.

Greg Oliver 17:38

Um so the the trying to make sure he was okay, m attend to his needs, was that something that was new to you, or was that something you already knew how to do?

Brittany 17:48

That was something I I have known how to do very well. Yes, just care for others.

Greg Oliver 17:53

So something you could jump into. Yes, yes. And what did that allow you to not really focus on? Myself, the reality of what was going on. Yeah. And so just in slowing things down long enough to talk about the things that y'all have been talking about for the last few minutes is critical because don't we have a tendency to just blow right by them? Say, well, I do this and I know I probably shouldn't. Okay, so I'm gonna do better. Well, but why do we do them? And what are we getting for ourselves by doing those? What are we keeping ourselves from? And so just slowing things down to understand trauma better. And in doing that, you're you're allowing the focus not to be a hundred percent on your husband and what he's done, which I would imagine is a really hard thing to do because his unhealthiness is a lot more big headline than yours.

Stacey Oliver 18:42

Yes. Yeah. And nobody asked if I wanted to address all of my past. Yeah. I'm thankful, like now that like we have gotten in touch with so many things. I mean, I can say that I don't think I can ever say thank you for cheating.

Greg Oliver 19:01

Would not expect you to.

Stacey Oliver 19:02

I can say I'm grateful for what we have learned and how we have grown in in our marriage now. I mean, I am grateful. And honestly, separate from you, I am grateful for who I am now. Like, I don't want to be the Stacy that I was before.

Brittany 19:19

And I would say too, when sex is just not talked about like in this way. And, you know, I just remember, at least for my husband and I, like once everything blew up, it was just like, okay, let's just figure it out so then we can stop and we can just move on. And that just wasn't possible. Because if we were to have just moved on, then you know, he wouldn't be doing his work, I wouldn't be doing my work, and then we probably just would have gotten a divorce later in life.

Greg Oliver 19:45

So Or not gotten a divorce and just settled for uh for disconnected, unhappy life together. Yeah.

Brittany 19:52

Yeah.

Greg Oliver 19:53

So the other thing that we focus primarily on at the women's workshop is helping women understand the addiction that their partners are struggling with. Because a lack of understanding about his addiction could fuel either, well, it's just an addiction, he can't help it, I'm gonna let him off the hook, or it could fuel, don't call it an addiction, like he just can't keep it in his pants. And and just really the anger-driven behavior modification strategy. And neither one of those is really helpful for a woman's healing, but to understand addiction is not to let your partner off the hook or to say that he isn't responsible for what he did, but understanding that A, what he did, even though it was sexual, it probably wasn't primarily about you. I don't know if I said A or one, so either B or two. Second thing, second bullet point, is that it really wasn't even about sex. It was about something broken underneath the surface. And at some point in his life, he did he discovered that pursuing something sexual could make him feel like that was being dealt with, or it could numb him out to forget about the problem that he had. And the and the sexual strategy grew along with him. And so he had a relationship with broken sexuality in most cases before he had a relationship with you. And so just recognizing it's not about you primarily, it's not about sex primarily. And if his experience is truly, you know, somewhere around that blurry line of this has become addictive, it would be helpful to know that because you said earlier, Brittany, like he couldn't stop. Well, he couldn't without help, because the strategy that we all do is try not to let anybody find out, fix it on my own. Well, if it's addiction, you can't, whether it's addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping, food, whatever, you can't fix that problem in isolation. But when you expose it to light and when you engage with the right kind of help, there can be recovery and sobriety and freedom from that. And so helping women understand what addiction is and how it shows up and how so often it preceded even his relationship with you can be really helpful.

Paige 22:06

I was going to say Greg at the retreat when you're explaining this to the women or to the ladies that come, when you speak of that, you're also really good at helping them understand or helping us all understand. You're not trying to make excuses for our spouses or our partners. You're just helping us understand some of those underlying things. Yeah. And that feels good for us to hear that you're not excusing them, letting them off the hook. You're helping us understand addiction.

Greg Oliver 22:32

Well at the same time in the work we do with the men, we're trying to help them understand it too. And the protest that comes up a lot of the time is doesn't matter why you did it, you just shouldn't have done it. Or it doesn't matter why I did it, I just shouldn't have done it. And nothing could be farther from the truth. But it does matter if we don't understand our experience and our story and what contributed, then why would we think that it's not going to just keep repeating?

Stacey Oliver 22:59

Right.

Greg Oliver 22:59

And I say all the time you cannot own something that you don't understand.

Stacey Oliver 23:03

That's right.

Greg Oliver 23:03

And so if the goal is ownership, we've got to dive deeper into it. That's why, you know, in recovery we encourage people not just to make apologies, but to make amends. The difference between an amends and apology, I mean you could give a more complicated answer than this, but an apology is I'm sorry. And and an amends is hey I want to I want to say I'm sorry for this way that I hurt you. I've come to understand that with this going on, it it put me in a place where I made these choices and I understand that it hurt you in this way. You didn't deserve that. I am so sorry for hurting you in that way. I'm doing my work so that I won't ever hurt you in that way again. And I want to know if there's anything I can do to make it right. You know, that is so much more meaningful for the person who got hurt than just I'm sorry. Right. Well do you even know what you're sorry for? Right. They need to know.

Stacey Oliver 23:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Understanding Addiction Without Excusing It

Greg Oliver 23:54

Paige you you just mentioned what you notice when I'm sharing from my experience with addiction with the women at the workshops. When you hear what we cover at the workshop, does it click? Does it connect with oh so like when we had this experience or this interchange like maybe that's something that was going on. Did it help to give any depth of context that was helpful in what you do day to day with your partner after the workshop's over?

Brittany 24:22

I would say for me, it was like my eyes were just like open to this whole new world. I would say I feel like my husband and I were in just such a specific small world because he was serving in ministry. So it was like this one world that we were in and then once I went I was just blown away with like just stuff that I had experienced in my life and then understanding him and understanding where the addiction and where the trauma comes from. So I feel like when I went I was just exposed in all the right ways to just seeing my husband in addiction but then also like just brokenness all around whether it is addiction or it's something anything else. Like it was just I my eyes were open to the world in a brand in a new way I'd never seen it before.

Stacey Oliver 26:41

Do you feel like and Paige I feel like you've shared enough to where you would probably identify with this I think the way the environments a lot of us grow up in we we talk about somebody who's sick very sick and we take care of them. Addiction I don't remember talking about it very much. It was kind of a hush hush thing. Sexual things by no means were they talked about and so it's like we don't even know what to do with these hard things.

Paige 27:14

Yeah and so when I I'm thinking back to when I came the first time to the workshop and now that I volunteered with several it just for me it just I'm I all I feel safe in that environment and we're talking about hard things but I'm sitting here with all these women who have done I have been through all this hard stuff like me. And it and we can talk about it and you feel safe and just the things that I learned from what you and Greg bring to the workshop with the teaching but then what the other women share about their experiences you I just leave feeling just every time I hear something different every time just feeling so full of just encouragement and hope and community and it it's just it's been life giving to me.

Brittany 27:59

And I would say too it feels very safe. I think one of the I love is that everybody just comes in they're like super comfy and we have like our snacks that are around and our drinks like it's just nice to sit down and I love that there is no judgment there's no quick fixes like there's no Bible verses that y'all are shooting to us when we like share this certain struggle it's just like we can just sit in the hard and be okay with sitting in the hard which I really so good.

Stacey Oliver 28:27

If anybody should feel uncomfortable it's probably Greg.

Safety, Shame, And Trusting Your Gut

Paige 28:29

Yeah he was your only male which I will say I had a lady once who was I was encouraging to come and she said well you know I'm new in my trauma and I don't really even trust men any men right now. So how do I know that I'm even going to feel safe and I said well I can just tell you from when I've been there and I think God has just given you this unique ability Greg to I I mean you you just have to let God do his thing but how you make women feel safe so quickly it's just a God given gift he's given you. That that lady ended up coming and she loved it so much and I could tell she felt at ease but that's that's something you do beautifully and then you and Stacy up there together and your teaching and sharing just makes the whole thing work.

Greg Oliver 29:18

Well thanks I I think a lot of times the the the fear is just because we're comparing what our experience has been to what well this like I've been hurt by a man and there's going to be a guy there talking and so of course like that's going to be scary. It's a very vulnerable thing to go to a weekend like this. There there is a lot of shame that goes along with even having been betrayed you know and and some of the typical forms of shame are if I was pretty enough, if I had sex enough or if I was exciting with my sex life enough or it could just be like if I were smarter I would have seen this sooner. Right. And none of those things are true.

Stacey Oliver 30:00

Well and people a lot of times tell me that they feel stupid just like what you were saying because they didn't see it or they you know he said he used to struggle but he didn't anymore. I'm like you're not stupid because he's a good liar. I mean and I'm not trying to like throw the addicts under the bus but that's what goes along with addiction and that's how it goes on as long as it does is because you have to be good at lying to keep people from knowing.

Greg Oliver 30:24

That's part of it. But another part of it could be a strategy on her part to like there's a there's something inside me that doesn't know if that's true.

Stacey Oliver 30:32

Right.

Greg Oliver 30:32

But it sure is scary to engage that. So I'm going to make a choice to take him at his word and just hope that it's true. Yeah. You know that so many women that we hear from who's like I mean I I figured something had to be up but like he said it and so I just it was easier to just act like it was true. Yeah. And so there's I think there's the combination of his dishonesty and her really wanting to believe it even if a part of her doesn't because we didn't know that word back then be curious.

Paige 30:59

Just ask some questions I would I would have just asked something that would have probably sounded controlling or bitchy or and so I I didn't even want to sound like that so I just didn't say anything.

Brittany 31:09

If I'd known that word to be curious and ask some questions when I is that really I I remember for me like I wouldn't even allow myself to ask those questions because my husband was serving in ministry and I just thought like oh he's a he's a minister like ministers don't do that. Right. I almost felt like he had this like extra protection because he's serving the Lord like you know we're not going to go through anything really hard. And he's not going to struggle with that at all. Like there's just no way that you know ministries is protection. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was a that was a big like eye opener that like that actually has nothing to do with it.

Stacey Oliver 31:46

Right. Well and I know a lot of people have asked me over the years like what would you if you could go back and change anything? I hate that question because we can't but for people who are in it or think they're in it or have suspicions like we're talking about we might have had I say ask your questions and if you feel in your gut that you're getting a what's the what's another word for the belief.

Greg Oliver 32:11

Yes the belief if you feel like you're not being yes you're not receiving a completely forthcoming honest answer.

Who Should Come And What You Leave With

Stacey Oliver 32:18

And I say go talk to somebody you know find a counselor go to your pastor your pastor may not be helpful. You may not know what to do with this but I think that's what I would do differently. I would have gone further but again I didn't know who to go to yeah I didn't know who I could talk to about it because in my mind kind of like what you just said Brittany well nobody on staff struggles with this. Yeah. You know so when this happens it's not your fault. Like there's just not it's just not even all the things that I may have said to Greg or I don't know things that made him feel rejected or maybe had helped put him in a place of feeling like entitled to go and do whatever to get his needs met over here. He may have felt those things and I might have said things that helped him feel those things but like he still didn't have the right to go fix it that way.

Greg Oliver 33:09

You know and I couldn't blame you for my stuff just because you did some unhealthy things.

Stacey Oliver 33:14

And I think it's helped for for me trauma is not my fault but healing is my responsibility. So part of my healing is okay that wasn't actually a nice thing to say to Greg. So I don't want to keep saying it. That's not saying oh that's why you did that oh okay I'm sorry I won't say that anymore. No, it's just okay I don't want to say that anymore because it's not help it's not helpful.

Greg Oliver 33:34

So the the Roots Retreat women's workshop is not the only option out there for women who are looking for an intensive or a retreat or an event to help them better understand and process what you've walked through. But you guys all know about the Roots Retreat because you've all been there and you've all worked it. If there's a woman listening who is going through either the early or maybe maybe she's into the journey a little bit more of healing from sexual betrayal she's thinking about would a weekend like this be a good idea for me? I mean without this becoming like full on commercial but but also acknowledging that we this is a weekend that we feel good about what why would you say it would be a good idea to consider doing this or something like it.

Brittany 34:22

I would I would say whether it's whether you're a woman who's like choosing to stay in her marriage or you're a woman who is choosing not to because the betrayal is just very hard and very traumatic. It's good to go because there is work for us to do that is going to be helpful in life whether you stay with your spouse or not. A lot of the work that I've done has nothing to do with my husband and his addiction. Some does but a lot of it has nothing to do with him at all to do with me and the things that I've been through so it's just very helpful to come in tune with myself. I was not in tune with myself when I went and then just to realize what helps me be at peace what helps me have a clear mind. I didn't know how to do that for a while. You know and then so once I went to the retreat it was almost like it was it was it felt it was like more for me than it was my husband.

Registration Info And Closing Thanks

Paige 35:19

And I think another question I women have asked me about the Roots Retreat women's workshop is like when should I come? Like is it when I'm new in my trauma? Is it when I've worked through my betrayal trauma like and so for me I think it was like two or three years into my healing journey before I even went and so I just I just think sort of just listen to your what your bot I don't your spirit saying I don't know but there is no no really right time I'm putting that in quotes. It's just it is something that will just add to whatever recovery work you've done whether if you've been with a therapist or you've you have say friends or you have some sort of a recovery community that you have weekly meetings but this is like a more of just a comprehensive workshop learning. You're taking notes there's you're interacting with each other there's kind of these small group like breakout sessions and just all of it is just excellent and you just leave with with so much more understanding and knowledge and Greg said earlier in the podcast that you can just you've got stuff with you to take back and unpack with your therapist as your healing journey continues. Yeah.

Stacey Oliver 36:28

And some people who come don't have any community where they live there have been a a number of them who have told me that they have connected with another person who was there and like they stayed in touch for years. Yeah. You know and that became a person that they exp they share the same experience. So when they talked about things they were using the same language.

Greg Oliver 36:45

And for people who don't live in our area who come to the workshops we do have a virtual support meeting that they can be a part of so they can continue to stay connected to a many of the women who have who do that virtual meeting have been as well.

Stacey Oliver 36:57

So currently we're having it at a beautiful lake house the it's quiet and just looks out on the water it's very peaceful. So yeah very relaxing. Yeah.

Greg Oliver 37:08

And our our next one is we've got one scheduled for October 11th and 12th 2024. You can find out more about the workshop and how to register for it by going to awakenrecovery.com and on the front page choose intensives and then you can you can find out you can read all about it. You can contact us through the website with your questions. You can register right then and there we do keep these small it's limited to eight participants or less and so that's that's by design so that we can make sure that everyone has the ability to really engage with their story and not just kind of sit back and let everybody else talk. So it's a pretty intimate setting it's a Friday night and all day Saturday so it's not overwhelming if you have young kids. You don't have to be away from them for very long and so we try to make it logistically and then financially as accessible for the mo the biggest number of people possible.

Stacey Oliver 38:04

Right. Right. Yep and you get to meet some of my amazing friends so I think it's worth it.

Greg Oliver 38:09

Ladies thanks for taking some time and being a part of this conversation we're so we're grateful for you guys and and just really thankful that our our stories have overlapped with yours and that we get to be a part of this community with you.

Stacey Oliver 38:22

That's right. Thank y'all thank you. Thank you