The Army I Assembled While Rebuilding My Life: Part One

Surviving Betrayal and Learning the Language of Trauma

What I’ve learned about healing is that it’s constantly evolving.

Every time I gain new insight, I shed a version of myself that operated without that awareness.

Sometimes the knowledge comes as a new perspective.
Sometimes it’s a tool.
Sometimes it’s taking a theory and actually putting it into practice.

And sometimes the insight is realizing I need to let something go — a belief system I didn’t even realize I was carrying, a theory I had unconsciously subscribed to, or a story I had been living inside without ever questioning whether it was even mine.

With each new awareness, something cracks open.

Or something falls away.

I learn.
I shed.
I evolve.

It sounds simple when I write it like that.

Clean. Linear. Almost graceful.

But the lived version of it?

Not even close.

If someone had watched me during those years, it probably would have looked less like a healing journey and more like a woman frantically collecting tools and trying every single one of them.

Because nothing about my healing journey was poetic.

It was not linear.

And it was definitely not graceful.

It was chaotic.

Actually, it was very chaotic, with a heavy dash of neurotic and obsessive sprinkled in.

Sometimes I questioned if I was on the wrong path.
Sometimes I wondered if I was doing too much.
Sometimes I was absolutely certain I had lost my mind.

And when I say “sometimes,” what I really mean is…

all. of. the. time.

Healing isn’t a perfectly designed roadmap.

It’s more like wandering through the woods with a flashlight that only shows you about ten feet ahead.

What matters most is learning to meet yourself where you are — with curiosity, not judgment.

That curiosity eventually led me to a long list of people — therapists, coaches, teachers, and a few unexpected guides along the way.

Some stayed for years.
Some only crossed my path briefly.

But every single one of them helped move me forward when I felt completely stuck.

This is the first half of the roadmap of the army I assembled during seven of the hardest years of my life.

Phase One: The Discovery

Darcy (2019)

Darcy was the first therapist I worked with after discovering my partner’s affair.

At that point I was in pure survival mode. I didn’t know what I needed — I just knew I couldn’t carry the weight of it alone.

She specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy, and initially I saw her individually. Eventually I brought my partner into sessions so we could attempt couples therapy.

That arrangement ended when I discovered my partner was still having the affair while telling our therapist he wasn’t.

Spoiler alert: couples therapy doesn’t work when one person is lying.

I continued seeing Darcy individually for a while, but over time I started realizing something important.

My body was holding onto trauma, and talking my way through it wasn’t enough.

Until I addressed what was happening physically, the mental work could only take me so far.

Erik (2019)

Darcy referred us to Erik, a therapist based in Texas. Because this was during COVID, our sessions were over Zoom.

Erik had a very direct approach.

His belief was simple: if my partner had truly ended the affair and was remorseful, then taking a lie detector test shouldn’t be an issue.

My partner… was not enthusiastic about that idea.

Around that same time, another coworker relationship surfaced that Erik believed was inappropriate and a barrier to rebuilding our marriage.

He asked my partner to call this coworker in front of me to establish boundaries.

He made the call.

But it was obvious he had warned her beforehand that it was coming.

We stopped working with Erik because his approach required radical honesty.

And radical honesty only works when both people are willing to participate.

The irony?

That same coworker eventually became my ex’s final affair partner.

She is now his current girlfriend.

Life has a way of writing plot twists you couldn’t make up if you tried.

Phase Two: Trying to Save the Marriage

Bri (2020)

By the end of 2019, I truly believed the affair had ended.

Then on December 28th, while celebrating Christmas in the Bahamas with our family, I discovered a secret email account that proved the affair had not ended — and was actually far worse than I had imagined.

I asked my partner to move out.

Around that time we attended a couples retreat with Bri centered around a program called Hold Me Tight.

The retreat itself was powerful. It improved communication and gave us exercises to work through together.

But in practice, the work often fell on me to push my partner to participate.

That created a frustrating cycle where I became the focus of the problem because I was constantly “nagging” him to do the work.

It felt like being stuck on a hamster wheel.

The codependency wasn’t relieved through this type of therapy.

In my experience, it actually made it worse.

Phase Three: Learning the Language of Trauma

Something began to shift for me during this phase.

I started realizing that while everyone around me was focused on fixing the relationship…

I needed to start focusing on understanding what was happening inside my own body and mind.

Candace (2020–present)

Candace has been the one constant through this entire journey.

She was a dear friend before I started seeing her professionally, and she has walked with me from the chaos of 2020 all the way through today.

Candace specializes in family systems and their dysfunction, and she helped me understand something that changed everything for me: even painful experiences can be teachers.

From Candace I learned how my body and brain interact. I learned how to pause instead of reacting.

And most importantly, I learned that my partner’s behavior was not mine to fix.

After filing for divorce, Candace also worked with my children as they navigated their complicated relationship with their dad.

She helped them process grief, set boundaries, and understand something incredibly important:

Just because someone is your parent doesn’t mean you have to tolerate their behavior.

Candace remains one of the most important guides in my life.

She is also one of the reasons I feel inspired to become a trauma-informed life coach myself.

Liz (2021)

Liz introduced me to EMDR therapy.

Through her guidance, I was able to release some of the trauma my body had been holding onto.

It reinforced a truth I now believe deeply:

We cannot outrun our trauma.

What we carry inside eventually grows louder if it isn’t addressed.

EMDR was incredibly helpful for me, though I believe it works best when you already have some understanding of the nervous system.

Trish (2021–2022)

Trish is another dear friend who brought a very nontraditional perspective to understanding both my behavior and my partner’s.

Eventually my partner began working with Trish one-on-one, which allowed me to focus on my own growth elsewhere.

I still work with Trish on and off today.

She is one of the wisest and funniest trauma-informed life coaches I know.

And sometimes humor is exactly what healing requires.

Jennifer (2022)

Jennifer was someone I found during one of my many deep dives researching infidelity recovery.

She had experienced infidelity herself and created a program to help women navigate the aftermath.

I quietly completed her program for three months without telling my partner.

At that moment in time, she gave me something incredibly valuable:

Validation from someone who truly understood what it felt like to be cheated on.

But when the program ended, I realized something important.

I was ready to stop focusing on the affair.

And start focusing on me.

Casey (2022)

As my understanding of trauma deepened, I also realized how uncomfortable the sensations in my body had become.

Around that time I recognized that drinking had become a coping tool.

Before the affair I had always been a social drinker.

Afterward, alcohol became a way to shut my brain off and avoid feeling.

It numbed the pain.

But it also amplified my anger.

Casey helped me understand why I had been gravitating toward alcohol and coached me through taking a break from drinking.

Since then I’ve been very intentional about my relationship with alcohol.

For the past few years I’ve spent six to eight months of each year not drinking at all.

Right now I don’t drink.

And I’ve come to realize that the life I want to build simply doesn’t include it.

Evie (2023)

Evie is what I would describe as an old soul in a young body.

She works with energy and vibrational awareness, and my sessions with her brought a sense of lightness during a very heavy time.

Because she later moved out of state, our sessions became occasional treats whenever she returned home.

But those moments always reminded me that healing doesn’t always have to feel heavy.

Sometimes it can feel expansive.

The Turning Point

Looking back now, I realize that the roadmap to my healing was part brilliant and part avoidant.

Whatever scared me the most in that moment, I found someone who could help hold space for it.

At times, if I’m being honest, I was also looking for someone to hold my fears so I didn’t have to face them fully on my own.

But healing has a way of quietly shifting the responsibility back to you.

Over time, the work those people helped me do slowly became my own.

And somewhere along the way, something began to change.

I stopped asking how to fix the relationship.

And started asking a different question:

What would it look like to rebuild my life?

That question changed everything.