Heart Work After Betrayal | Infidelity, Marriage, Forgiveness, Loneliness, Trust

Are you finding yourself feeling stuck trying to rebuild trust with your spouse and wondering why nothing seems to produce the lasting change you are longing for?

Do you find yourself so triggered in certain moments that you don’t even recognize yourself anymore and then feeling ashamed or guilty why you cannot hold it together or why you are not further along?

Are you stuck in your head, thoughts going around and around like a hamster wheel, putting in what feels like so much effort but not getting anywhere and longing for someone to tell you there is actually a way out of this?

This is Part 2 of a practical and very encouraging conversation with my brother, a licensed marriage and family therapist. During it, I ask him three more questions most women have who are recovering from broken trust. Today you will learn about:

This is Part 2 of a two part conversation. If you have not yet listened to Episode 53, Part 1, go back and start there first.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***ALMOST OPEN***

A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get on the waitlist now  to → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Have you ever walked into a room with your husband and felt your whole body tighten, even before anything was said, even before anything happened?

Have you wondered why you cannot just decide to relax and trust?

Do you find yourself lying awake at night with your heart racing even when nothing has happened and maybe even feeling guilty about it like you are being unfair or not trusting God enough?

Have you tried to decide in your mind to trust again and found that your body simply has not gotten the memo, that no matter how much you know theologically your body still responds to him like a threat?

In this Monday Heart Check I am giving you a simple practice called "The Body Check",  so you can begin to notice what safety actually feels like in your body, what threat feels like, and how to invite God's peace into the places where fear has taken up residence. Drawing on Colossians 3:15, "let the peace of God rule”, this practice brings that invitation out of the theological and into the physical. Where healing actually has to happen.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE *** OPENING UP THIS WEEK***

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Have you been asking yourself whether you will ever be able to trust your husband again after the betrayal and wondering where you even begin to answer that question?

Have you been watching his every move, waiting for him to prove himself, tracking whether he follows through and secretly wondering why that approach is not bringing you the peace or the clarity you were hoping for?

Do you find yourself unsure whether rebuilding trust even starts with him  or whether there is something that has to happen inside you first before any of that is possible?

Can you ever trust again after betrayal or infidelity? It is one of the most asked and most feared questions in the entire healing journey after betrayal. And today I am sitting down with someone whose answer is going to reframe the whole conversation.

In this episode I am joined by my brother, a licensed marriage and family therapist and someone who has walked alongside me personally through some of the hardest seasons of my own healing journey. Together we are having an honest and practical conversation about where rebuilding trust actually has to begin. And it might not be where you expect.

We cover what rebuilding trust actually means and what most women get wrong about it from the very start. We talk about the strong connection between trusting God trusting yourself and trusting others and why you cannot fully separate them. And we begin to explore what rebuilding trust actually looks like in the day to day reality of a marriage touched by betrayal.

This is Part 1 of a two part conversation. Part 2 drops next Thursday.

 RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: Want more personal support? HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***: A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get on the waitlist now: → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Have you been so focused on watching what your husband does, whether he follows through, whether he is telling the truth, whether he is proving himself, that you have completely lost touch with what you actually want?

Have you become so organized around avoiding pain and protecting yourself from what might hurt you again that you have also stopped moving toward what is good and life-giving?

Do you find it hard to answer the simple question "what do I actually want?”  - what you are genuinely experiencing, desiring and needing as a whole person before God?

In this Monday Heart Check I am giving you the other side of the self trust practice because rebuilding self trust after betrayal is not only about saying no to what feels wrong. It is also about learning to recognize and say yes to what is good wise and life-giving.

In this episode I am sharing a simple three step practice called "The Yes” - so you can begin noticing the small moments this week when you sense a genuine desire or preference and learning to bring it honestly before God and choose wisely without fear, guilt or dismissing yourself. Every small God-anchored yes you make becomes a deposit into rebuilding that trust, one honest step at a time.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Have you been doing everything right, maybe you are praying, trying, working on the marriage, but you still feel stuck in a way you cannot fully explain?

Do you find yourself waiting for your husband to finally change, finally apologize the right way, or finally understand before you feel like you can begin to be okay?

Have you ever had a moment where what came out of you in the middle of the pain shocked you? Maybe where your reactions did not look anything like the person you want to be and you wondered what was wrong with you?

This is our closing episode of July, a month of Sabbath, celebration, and reflection. And I wanted to end it with the most important turning point in my entire healing journey after betrayal.

In this episode I am sharing the moment that changed everything: when I realized I was powerless over my own reactions and responses, when I stopped asking God to take away my pain and started asking Him to transform my heart, and when I finally understood what it meant to get off the throne and let God be God.

This is the most personal episode I have ever recorded. And I think it might be exactly what you need to hear today, especially if you are wondering why nothing seems to be moving no matter how hard you try.

If you have struggled to make sense of the pain and you are even loosing hope - today’s message will give you the hope that sometimes in the midst of the greatest pain and suffering it is the very place where God begins His deepest work.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Have you opened your Bible after a hard day after the betrayal in your marriage and read the words on the page and couldn’t even really comprehend them? 

Do you feel guilty that Scripture does not seem to be landing the way it used to or you even wonder if something is spiritually wrong with you because you cannot seem to receive comfort from the words you know are true?

Are you longing for a way to come to God in His word that goes deeper than just reading because you feel desperate for Him to speak to you in your pain?

In this Monday Heart Check I am encouraging you to try an ancient practice that has been used by followers of Jesus for over fifteen hundred years and that completely changed the way I came to Scripture in the hardest season of my healing journey.

"Lectio Divina” or sacred reading is simply coming to Scripture to encounter God.

To listen.

To receive.

To be transformed by what He wants to say to you personally in this moment.

We will read Lamentations 3:22-23 written by Jeremiah in the middle of complete devastation and yet full of some of the most hope-filled words in all of Scripture. As we are reading I will introduce you to the four movements of Lectio Divina:

Read - lectio

Reflect - meditatio

Respond - oratio

and Rest - contemplatio.

This practice takes a few minutes and I believe it is going to open something in you that is going to prepare your heart for God to speak to you directly and exactly where you are at today. 

Great is His Faithfulness!

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Do you find yourself replaying conversations with your husband trying to figure out what you could have said differently to finally get the response your heart was longing for?

Does his bad day become your bad day, his silence your panic, his healing your project and no matter how hard you try to stop this pattern it just keeps showing up?

Have you tried every strategy and every technique to get back to peace after a hard moment and found that nothing seems to produce the lasting transformation you are actually longing for?

This episode is for the woman who is exhausted from the emotional roller coaster and ready for something more than just another strategy to manage it.

In this episode I am naming a very human and very predictable pattern that shows up in every marriage touched by betrayal. When your sense of okayness becomes dependent on another person's choices, behavior, healing, or response, your inner world feels out of control and you find yourself scrambling to gain back control. 

The good news is there is a way out. The answer is not to try harder or apply better strategies. The greatest trap in the healing journey is trying to fix yourself or your spouse leaning on self help instead of asking for God's grace to be activated in you. Drawing on Colossians 3:15 "the peace of God as the umpire of your inner world”, this episode offers one simple question followed by a prayer that is the real and lasting way out of this pattern.

This episode is practical encouragement to stop seeking more information but instead find true transformation which starts in your own heart first. 

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: Want more personal support? → HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

After betrayal, one of the hardest moments isn't always the conversation itself but it mostly is what happens afterward when your husband's response isn't what you hoped for.

In this Monday Heart Check, we will practice how to help you

If you've been carrying disappointment, longing to be understood, or feeling stuck in the cycle of striving, this short episode will help you pause, reconnect with God, and begin guarding your heart with wisdom and peace.

Contact → [email protected]

Are you struggling with rebuilding trust after betrayal in your marriage?

Do you wish you felt confident again in your own voice?

Do you wonder how to reconnect with others again even if you feel like retreating or isolating because of the pain?

In this episode I am building on last Thursday's story of the four false beliefs and turning it toward you. Because the renewal of the mind is not the destination. It is the beginning. And what grows from a renewed mind is what I call Leading from the Heart.

I am sharing what Leading from the Heart actually is: a heart anchored in God, honest with itself, and clear about its values and needs and five practical everyday ways to begin building it after betrayal:

- getting curious instead of judgmental with yourself

- saying no to small things

- tuning into your body

- bringing it all to God

- letting yourself be known by safe people

This is Part 2 of our rebuilding trust series and it connects directly to Episode 45. If you have not listened to that one yet go back and start there first.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia her

CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: Want more personal support? → 

HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***

Have you been second guessing yourself constantly after the betrayal doubting what you feel, doubting what you sense, wondering whether your perception of reality can even be trusted anymore?

Do you find yourself dismissing your own instincts telling yourself you are being paranoid or oversensitive or dramatic even when something deep inside you knows what it knows?

Have you been waiting for one big dramatic moment of clarity that tells you it is okay to trust yourself again and wondering why it has not come?

In this Monday Heart Check we are continuing our July series on rebuilding trust and today I want to give you the most important truth about self trust that I wish someone had told me sooner.

It does not come back all at once. It comes back in small moments. One small honest step at a time.

In this episode I am sharing a simple three step practice called One Small Act of Self Trust so you can begin making deposits into your own self trust account this week. Because rebuilding trust in yourself after betrayal is really just the accumulation of evidence that your heart can be trusted. And you start building that evidence one small moment at a time.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

: CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS

Contact → [email protected]

Next Steps:

Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me

Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question

Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***