Broken Vows: Healing From Spousal BetrayalSýnishorn

Your Feelings and Your Healing

Doctors spend years learning about the bones, organs, and systems of the human body. This is because they know the best way to treat a body is to treat it as a whole. They can’t treat the head without thinking through repercussions for the lungs, or recommend a treatment for the legs that ignores potential effects to the heart. When it comes to healing from betrayal, we should keep the doctor’s approach in mind. The temptation many betrayed spouses give into is to separate themselves from their emotions. They try to heal without dealing with what they feel. This never works. We have to allow ourselves to heal as a whole—emotions and all.

On the surface, pushing deep and difficult emotions aside makes sense. Emotions can be exhausting, so stuffing down a never-ending stream of emotions can seem logical, if not simply practical. You might be more productive and able to stay on task if you suppress and disregard your feelings. However, this is not sustainable. Much like a wound you ignore, expecting it to heal on its own, unprocessed emotions become infectious and end up contaminating all areas of your life.

Of course, you don’t want to give in to every emotion you feel, either. Especially when there are days when you are so overwhelmed by pain and grief, all you can do is cry, or days the anger you feel reaches a pinnacle and erupts on the people around you. After the shock of betrayal, you feel intense emotions—extreme highs and lows, some of which you’ve never felt before. So, if hiding from your emotions isn’t the answer, and giving into emotions isn’t the answer either, what should you do?

Begin to develop emotional awareness. This is imperative to your healing and will help you gain a sense of healthy control in your life. Learning to identify and make sense of your feelings takes time. Thoughts and feelings logs are helpful tools when trying to grow your emotional awareness. You write out your thoughts (in one sentence) and your feelings (in one word). This can help you to name what you’re feeling and process those emotions in a healthy way. You can also pray, speak to a friend, or write out your thoughts and feelings in a less structured way in a diary or a journal. Do what works for you. Anything that allows you to face your emotions is a great place to start!

Thought of the Day: God wants to heal the whole me, so I’m not going to run away from my emotions or let them control me. I will trust this area of my life to God and use the tools available to me to better understand how I feel as God helps me to heal.