Happily Even After Betrayal with Life Coach Jen

190: Healing After Betrayal: How Forgiveness, Letting go and Reconciliation May or May not Happen.

• Jennifer Townsend • Season 4 • Episode 190

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Betrayal scrambles your mind, hijacks your nervous system, and floods you with advice that often makes things worse. We slow everything down and separate three paths that get tangled under pressure: forgiveness, letting go, and reconciliation. Each serves a different purpose, follows its own timing, and protects your well-being in distinct ways.

I share why forgiveness is an internal process you do for yourself—not a pass for harm, not instant, and never on someone else’s schedule. We explore letting go as emotional release, the practice of ending the fight with the past so you can reclaim energy from rumination and intrusive thoughts. Then we turn to reconciliation as a rigorous, two-person rebuild that demands transparency, accountability, and repeated repair behaviors over time. You’ll hear honest stories of one-sided “rebuilding,” the traps of wishful thinking, and the relief that comes from naming reality and choosing your own safety.

If you’re asking, Am I ready to forgive? Should we reconcile? Is my partner doing enough? you’ll get practical signals and skills: regulate your nervous system before big decisions, tell the truth about what happened, separate the act from your identity, release the fantasy of a different past, and stop waiting for a perfect “why.” You can forgive and still choose divorce. You can let go without forgetting. You can heal fully whether or not your partner changes. Forgiveness heals you. Letting go frees you. Reconciliation only works when both people show up, consistently.

Ready to protect your peace and chart your own path forward? Listen now, subscribe for more trauma-informed guidance, and share this episode with someone who needs clarity today. If you found value, leave a review—your words help others find the support they deserve.

Please follow me on instagram and facebook @happilyevenaftercoach and if you want to see what coaching is all about I offer a free 45 min. clarity call via zoom.

Email me: hello@lifecoachjen.com for any comments or questions.

Thanks for listening, please like and review as well as share with your family and friends.

My website is www.lifecoachjen.com



SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to my podcast, Happily Even After. I'm Life Coach Jen. I'm passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I read the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It's the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes, and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal, but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today's podcast. I thought this might be a good podcast during Christmas time because, you know, we're thinking about Christ and Christmas and lots going on. And a lot of people ask me this question. And I myself have wrestled with forgiveness for a long time. And I'm gonna really talk today about forgiveness, letting go, and reconciling after betrayal and what the difference is, because there is a difference. And I think I know for myself, I kind of lumped it all into one, right? And I really focused on forgiving my former spouse instead of forgiveness is really something personal, not something you do for someone else, right? And so I'm just gonna talk about that and try to clear up some misunderstandings and just know like I'm not asking you, you don't have to forgive someone if you don't want to. I just want to tell you what might be helpful with anything in your life, right? Regardless of if betrayal or with a friend or a sibling, or, you know, there could be lots of reasons why we might want to forgive. Some questions that I get asked a lot is do I have to forgive my spouse? If I forgive, does that mean we reconcile? And if I let go of the anger, am I letting them off the hook? And we could add a lot more questions, but I think these are just normal questions. You're human. You are thinking about these things. It feels very scary, emotionally scary to forgive someone. Forgiveness and letting go and reconciliation are three totally different processes. So I think sometimes when we mix them up, we create a lot of guilt or pressure or shame. And it's not necessary. It's like we're adding layers that we don't need to be adding in an already difficult emotional state. So I just want to break these down and so that you can understand what you want to work on, what you want help with. I think forgiveness is about healing, your healing, not theirs. And reconciliation is a relationship decision, not a spiritual or moral requirement. So I think we combine them, the two, and it becomes complicated. So I'm just gonna share some different things that have helped me and mistakes I've made. The thing is, with all these podcasts I do, I'm like, oh my gosh, where was I five years ago? Where was I 10 years ago? Because I'm like, I needed this advice because I made all these mistakes. Anyways, so why forgiveness after betrayal is so confusing? When you've been betrayed, forgiveness is often weaponized. You might hear things like, just forgive and move on. If you're a good person, you should forgive them. Time heals all wounds. And this is what I like today that someone left in my Instagram comments. The Bible says we need to forgive, right? So they use scriptures to tell us we need to forgive. Betrayal trauma doesn't work like that. Forgiveness isn't instant, it isn't linear, and it isn't required on anyone else's timeline. Forgiveness after betrayal is complicated because your trust was shattered. Forgiveness feels impossible when safety is gone. When you do not feel safe, it is really hard to forgive. You don't have all the answers. Many betrayed partners never get the truth, the why, or any accountability from their partners. Forgiveness feels like minimizing the harm. But the truth is, forgiveness is not approval, it is not forgetting, it is not saying it's fine, everything's gonna be okay. You don't want to be hurt again. Forgiveness can feel like opening the door to reconciliation, even when you're not sure you want that. So, what forgiveness actually is. And I want you to think about this when you're thinking about like forgiving everyone in the story, meaning yourself, your partner, your spouse, and possibly the affair partner. If that is unhelpful for you to think of it like that, you don't have to. But I just want you to consider everyone in the story. And it could be also like the mother-in-law, right? They're the people, the coworkers at work who covered it up, the friend who covered it up. So you don't have to just think of it as one person. You could think of it as several people. Forgiveness is internal healing work. So it is your own work. It's a release of the emotional grip that betrayal has on you. Forgiveness is choosing not to let resentment run your life anymore, releasing the need for revenge or justice from them in order to heal, creating peace inside your nervous system, reclaiming your energy, your power, your identity. Forgiveness is not saying what they did was okay, reconciling, forgetting, becoming friends, giving them access to your life, and pretending it didn't hurt. So make sure you're focusing on what forgiveness is and what it is not, because I find most people are focusing on what forgiveness is not, and then getting stuck. I always tell my clients: forgiveness is something you do for yourself, not the person who hurt you. And I think this is really important to recognize. It feels contradictory. It feels like, no, that that can't be. But really, forgiveness will set you free and really is for you. It's letting go of the emotional contract that keeps you tied to their choices. Forgiveness often comes much later in the healing process. And I for sure made this mistake so many times because I was the good girl. I'm like, oh, I'll just forgive you, right? And then didn't even take into consideration any of my feelings. I just thought, oh, that's gonna make our marriage better if I can just forgive him. Sometimes years later, it can come up. And so just remember like, if you're like, wait a second, I thought I forgave them, but like maybe you just were pretending to forgive them. You really didn't. You forgive when your nervous system is ready, not because a church leader, a spouse, or a family member said you should forgive them. So make sure you're really clear that it's your choice, not someone else telling you you should do it. Even me. Okay. So really pay attention to your body and what it's saying. But you will know if you're ready. You will start feeling a pull that maybe I'm ready to forgive. What letting go means, okay? And how it's different than forgiveness. Letting go is not the same as forgiveness. Letting go is releasing the repeated intrusive thoughts. Not replaying the affair story daily, not letting anger or grief dominate every corner of your life. Choosing to stop obsessing over the why. Letting go is about emotional release, not moral release. There's a difference. Forgiveness says, I'm no longer carrying this burden. Letting go says I'm no longer fighting reality. Letting go is acceptance, not approval, not agreement, but acknowledging that it happened and it's no longer going to control you. I really like I love the saying when we argue with reality, we lose only 100% of the time because letting go is really accepting that this happened, now what? And it takes time. It feels like it should be so much easier, but betrayal is just complicated. And there's so many emotions tied to it, and it pricks a lot of wounds that we have inside of us that haven't been healed. And so just really be curious. I think just being curious, like what would that feel like to me if I could let go of that story? Letting go is often the first step towards forgiveness, but people can let go without fully forgiving. And that's okay. For some clients, letting go is enough. I think letting go is almost more important than forgiving. Because when we can let go of those emotional, like the emotional baggage, it feels so freeing and just this big release. And then if you want, you could consider forgiving, but it's not totally necessary for you to move on. So reconciliation. This is separate, right? Reconciliation is a relationship rebuilding process, not an internal emotional one. You can forgive someone and still not reconcile. You can let go of the wound and still choose divorce. You can fully heal and still say, I don't want to continue this relationship anymore. But the thing with reconciliation, it requires two people, not one: consistent transparency, true accountability, repair behaviors from the betrayer, emotional safety, shared effort, and shared responsibility, a willingness to do the deep work over time, a pattern of trust, not empty words or promises, and what reconciliation is not, the betrayed doing all the emotional work, sweeping everything under the rug, telling yourself you just gotta move on, staying married at any cost, loving them enough to change them, wishful thinking, and one-sided effort. So I am the poster child for what reconciliation is not and pretending I'm reconciling my marriage. Because in 2018, when I was going to get divorced, and then we decided to call off our divorce and reconcile, I spent the next five years in my mind reconciling. But it was very one-sided. And I couldn't see it probably because I didn't want to, probably because telling our kids, I'm sure it was for the kids. My former spouse for sure stayed for the kids and not me. He wasn't interested in reconciling our marriage. He was interested in continuing having affairs with other women while still having his life, uh, his comfortable, safe life, the looks of his happy family, right? And so I think I was just in denial. I was in, it was a protective mechanism for me. I didn't, I didn't have emotional safety. I just didn't have all the tools that I needed to leave. And for sure, financially, that felt terrifying. So I was in a lot of fear. So I can totally see it now. And I love me that I was just doing my best, but I don't want that for you. If you see this in yourself, I want you to see that there's other options. And we do all this work thinking, like, oh, if I I for sure was in the bank, like I could be a better wife and love him, do all the things, you know. He walks in the door and I greet him with a smile and a happy face and dinner on the table, and he will stop having an affair. You know, it's just a lie. It's not true. Even though they're telling you, well, if you lost 20 pounds and worked out every day, I think I could be more attracted to you, right? Like all the lies that were told to me. I just I think I wanted the idea, the fantasy of what my marriage, what I thought I wanted in a marriage. And anyways, so yeah, I did all those and I don't want you to do them. In my marriage, this was the missing piece. I was willing, I tried, I did the work, but reconciliation was for sure one-sided, and no amount of forgiving, hoping, loving, or working could compensate for someone who wasn't willing or able to meet me in the healing process. Forgiveness happened, letting go happened, reconciliation did not. And that's okay. And I believe it's not a failure, it just was finally me choosing me and my kids over my marriage. Oftentimes, many people, when forgiveness happens, reconciliation doesn't necessarily just happen as well. It's very common for my clients to have a desire to rebuild, a willingness to forgive, hope that their spouse will join them in the healing, but the spouse refuses accountability, minimizes the affair, wants quick forgiveness, wants to move on, says, I said I'm sorry, what more do you want? Won't attend therapy or coaching, and won't follow through consistently. So this is very common. And I want you to recognize if this is you, and if it is, just be curious, right? Don't start judging yourself or judging them. Be curious. Forgiveness does not restore safety within you or the relationship. Forgiveness does not rebuild trust. That takes your partner, right? Forgiveness does not fix the marriage. Forgiveness is what makes your heart lighter. And reconciliation is what makes the relationship stronger. And it requires both of you. So don't confuse them. Don't think, well, I forgave them. So we should be able to, unless you're okay with just sweeping everything under the rug and moving on. And I did that for 26 years, and I can't change my past, but I don't want that for you. So some signs that you're ready to forgive. So if you're curious, like, do I even want to try? If the story isn't consuming your daily thoughts, if you're not still replaying the affair over and over again in your mind, you might be like, you know what, I'm gonna try it. I'm might be ready. You're more curious than reactive. You feel compassion for yourself, right? And you could have compassion for your spouse if you're there, but for sure, compassion for yourself. You're no longer trying to change the past. You feel tired of carrying the resentment. I call this clean pain and dirty pain. Like there's a lot of clean pain, a lot of really difficult emotions you need to feel in betrayal. But eventually, when it becomes like muddy and I call it dirty, meaning like it just it's not a lot of negative like resentment, like you're having a pity party on the daily and you want to be super like mean. That's it's just not helpful. Those are not helpful emotions, they're not helping you get through the betrayal. And the last one is you want emotional peace more than emotional justice. Forgiveness is a symbol of your healing, not theirs, right? And so, and we can't force someone to forgive us. It has to be an internal thing. And I know it is not fair. Betrayal and divorce are never fair, and so but life was never meant to be fair. So if you get stuck on, well, it's unfair, that's gonna be a really tough spot for you. And just be curious about it. Like, do you want to die on the hill of life is unfair, right? Because you're just not gonna get anywhere with that thought. So, what else could you do? How can you move toward forgiveness safely? First of all, you need to learn to regulate your nervous system, right? You can't, forgiveness does not happen when you're stuck in fight, fight, or freeze. So when you're you're in the trauma, you just you have to be more regulated to be able to forgive. And you have to be able to name what you're feeling, name what happened. When you pretend, it just minimizes your pain and slows your healing. So we just have to be honest with ourselves. That's challenging sometimes. We have to separate the act from your identity. Okay. What they did, the affair does not define who you are. It has nothing to do with you. It was always about them. We have to release the fantasy of a different past. This is where letting go begins. Okay. We have to be very aware, like that wasn't our real life. Like, we can hold on to any memories. That's okay. But they were slightly distorted because our partner was living a double life. They were lying to us.

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SPEAKER_00:

To stop waiting for the why. The why rarely satisfies us and it often isn't truthful. Practice forgiveness in layers. It's rarely one big magical moment. It's little decisions over time that say, I choose me, I choose peace. And I totally believe this because for me before, when I was like, I think I've told this story, but I was on a plane coming home from Disney World with my boys. And when I was there, my former spouse called me and said, I want a divorce. And my response was, who is she? And he's like, There's no one. I just want a divorce. I'm unhappy. And on that plane ride, the five-hour flight home, in my mind, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna forgive him. I I know there's someone else, right? I knew he was lying to me and forgiving, but I I didn't, I forgave, but I for sure didn't do it right. Like I, because it was more painful for me. And I just didn't do the steps that I really I just thought I could say, I forgive him and I would be okay. But in now, my now journey for the past eight or so years, I've been divorced now for like three and a half years. Like I really feel like the story, I know it didn't, my story does not define who I am. And I've really forgiven. Like I don't have a lot of ill feelings. Like every now and again, especially when it's my kids, I can get irritated. But for the most part, I feel very that I have forgiven. And it's been in little moments throughout all those years and all the healing I've done. So just remember forgiveness, letting go, and reconciliation each have their own timing and purpose. Remember, forgiveness heals you, letting go frees you. And reconciliation can only happen if both of you are committed to rebuilding something new. Remember, you have to kill your last marriage. Your marriage died. Now we have to build, rebuild a new marriage. So you can forgive without reconciling, you can let go without rebuilding the marriage, and you can heal fully with or without your spouse. Your happily even after does not depend on their choices. It depends on your healing, your clarity, and your courage. So if you're listening and you're wondering, am I ready to forgive? Should I reconcile? Is my partner doing enough? And what does healing really look like for me? I would love to talk to you. This is what I do as a coach. And you don't have to figure this out alone. There's help out there. Whether for me or someone else, please get help. Please reach out. Please get support so that you can heal because you are worth healing for. Anyways, thanks so much for listening to my podcast. Have a beautiful day. And if you liked this episode, please share it with your friends. And I will talk to you next week. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachgen with onen.com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let's work together to create your happily even after.