How To Overcome Grief And Trauma While Having Broken Trust | Marriage Q&A | Ep431

Cass Morrow, Author of Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man. Saving Struggling, Sexless, and Toxic Marriages.

Kathryn Morrow, Author of Behind The White Picket Fence.

Two miscarriages. A porn addiction. A husband who wasn’t there.

How do you even start to heal when everything is broken at the same time?

Shirley called in carrying exactly that — grief from two pregnancy losses, betrayal trauma from her husband’s porn use, and a marriage that’s been slowly disconnecting through all of it.
Cass and Kathryn answer the question nobody else does: what do you do when multiple bleeds are stacking at once?

In this episode:
Why grief and betrayal trauma are two separate issues that amplify each other — and why you can’t fix them at the same time
Why your husband couldn’t show up for your miscarriage (it’s not what you think)
Why waiting for an apology won’t heal betrayal trauma
The one thing that determines whether a husband changes his behavior — and it’s not consequences
How transparency about porn reduces secrecy (and why confrontation often creates more lying)
What Kathryn did that became a turning point — and how Shirley can do the same

If you’re in this — you’re not alone. And there is a way through.

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Join Cass Morrow and Kathryn Morrow, the resilient couple behind Morrow Marriage. Together, we share our unscripted, raw, and against-the-grain journey of saving our marriage from the depths of Hell. We battle narcissism, emotional abuse, reactive abuse, and physical and sexual assault, offering lessons, actionable steps, and real-life examples to inspire couples worldwide.

Our journey is a testament to overcoming adversity, with challenges including Cass’ restraining order, seven separations, and two divorce lawyers. If we can survive and thrive in toxic, abusive, and sexless marriages, what’s your excuse?

Both books are searchable on Amazon and often purchased together:

Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man by Cass Morrow: https://a.co/d/31vm4bV 

Behind The White Picket Fence by Kathryn Morrow: https://a.co/d/f0diMvp

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MorrowMarriage.com | Disrupting Divorce With The “New” Marriage

Cass and Kathryn came back from the depths of hell to save their marriage and keep their family together.  Battling narcissism, abuse, reactive abuse, emotional, physical and sexual assault. Listen as they share their lessons, actionable steps and real life examples from even the worst of their story. 

Unscripted, real, raw and against the grain from society’s example of marriage - currently leading to the demise of nearly 78% of all marriages today.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You. We've got Shirley Grief, Overcoming Trauma and Marriage After Broken Trust. All right, let's bring her on. All right, Shirley, welcome to the Morrow Marriage Podcast. And you have, can you break that into a real question? You say grief and overcoming trauma in marriage after broken trust. Can you can you break that down, please?

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Yeah. So um in the last year and a half, I had two miscarriages. One of them was later and one of them is really early on. And throughout it out, throughout all of it was kind of broken trust due to porn addiction from my husband. And yeah, so I think it's just kind of taking, I guess the question is, how do you overcome one barrier with grief and trauma when you also have like broken trust on top of it?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Okay, let's dive into this a little bit. So if I don't know if you've heard about our seven human bleeds that me and a colleague of mine are teaching on, but bleed six is grief and loss. Okay. And what that is all about is like if we start to understand how that really affects you, you have to start really addressing it in a couple different ways. Okay, because that's gonna tie into bleed one, where it's coming between you guys, right? And I think um I have to know a little bit more really quickly, like how much did he make the loss about him? How much he was he not there or there for you with the miscarriages? Start right there, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Uh first one, not really so much. I guess the second one, I think it was it hit harder because it was so later, but I think it was after that it just I felt alone.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Okay, I got you. So, you know, typically, so I this is a statement I'm really trying to get out there for people right now. So people don't know their self-worth, especially men, I believe. Okay. And so they make it about them and take it personal. So in the meantime, of you trying to get through what you're going through, he's feeling less like he can fix anything, he can heal, couldn't do anything wrong with miscarriage, can't take away the pain. And so that's the first thing I think you have to do is compartmentalize things. You can't address bleed six with the grief and loss and work on your marriage when we're trying to just get through one, right? Yeah, and so we don't have a partner that's supporting you through that, then you're you're kind of stuck, you're in a rock and hard place. So your first thing to realize is because we know he has no self-worth and he can't fix you during this, then it's not that he doesn't care, it's that it it attacks him, it makes him feel ashamed, it makes him feel guilty. Okay. And that's why that's why he might defend himself if you say, Well, I really need you know a hug right now. I don't need you to talk about this. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

So if you can under if you understand what he's going through, then you can start to deal with it as a separate with what it feels like. And in in my world, um, I would actually be harsher to you because I struggle with empathy, as you might know. Okay. So I would say, but don't don't you want to do it again? Don't you want to not give up? You still want that baby, right? And so um, when you start to look at that, that's still now a separate issue of well, crap, we're not connected. How are we gonna even do that now? Right. And then you start to add in the betrayal, the third issue here, because you probably know my take on betrayal, it's a lot more than actual having affair. Horn is also considered betrayal, right? So you start to look at all of these, and then I would spin you over to like how Catherine is, right? So who do you want to be? So if I talk to any one of my clients, I talked to one of my uh three three and a half years he's been with me, this guy Pete. His mom just died, he was taking care of her, and dad's just around the corner. And when he talked to me, he said, I'm having the best day of my life. So when you understand who you are, surely you're not gonna feel the same heaviness. You understand it's a fact of life and purple process, and actually you can find the good, right? Like um the baby probably wasn't gonna be healthy, is one thing I would look at in that situation, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah, now it's the realization of all of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, yeah. And so if you're if you're adding and stacking all these different bleeds, right, and then you guys get further from disconnection or further from connection, you start to disconnect really, because he still, you know, expects and is entitled to all these things, but he's doing things that just automatically hurt you, like watching porn.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Well, keep in mind that like this was his baby too, and everybody has their own way of coping. So I'm not justifying his behavior at all. I think he should have been there for you, and I think that obviously he shouldn't be watching porn. If you're listening to us, you know that that's our stance. But if that's his coping mechanism, then he doesn't know how to handle it, he doesn't know how to be there for you, he doesn't know how to handle his own grief, and he's coping in a way that he's probably coped for longer than you know. So, yes, it's a betrayal trauma, and there's also the grief, but what about him? Right? So, what I'm seeing here is there's a there's a total lack of connection because he's he's hurting you by betraying you, you're hurting, he's hurting, you're both hurting separately instead of hurting together, and then he's using this shitty way of coping in different ways, sure. But you're both hurting, and he might not be able to express that, but like these were his babies too. Do I think that it hurts him as much as it hurts you? Fuck no, I don't think for I don't think any like even a little bit, but it does affect men.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Right, and so it's like whether he's it's how we both show it, like I'm more like emotional and he's more like bottle up kind of thing. And I think for me, bottle up and like it's I I try to not um like carma carmentalize everything. I try to like kind of just like tackle as it comes, but I think sometimes like burying things and not like addressing like issues of all of that trauma and everything like that kind of has affected long long term for us. Like we we moved completely and like three succeed our lives after, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, and you know, and that's so important to understand, okay. So, because all of these other things are real life gets in the way, it's when they put in a four-stage marriage, right? And if you think like spinning it to Catherine, I'm glad you jumped in, that's exactly where we wanted to go. You start to empathize and think differently because for you, maybe you're focused on the porn, for example, and the pain of the loss, and yeah, it should hurt more for you, right? Let's get real. But then what was leading up to that as well? I mean, if you moved, maybe there was financial stress that's like involved in 72% of homes, even if you're making six six figures, okay? Um, and below it's even higher, if you're making less than six figures, okay. What is the workplace stress like? What is what was the actual connection like when you were trying to make those babies? Was it force? There's so many other factors that we stop and we we start to focus on these symptoms rather than going back to what Catherine said, which is the connection.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah, that's it. So it's all about the foundation. Yeah. Because the betrayal trauma is there with or without the miscarriages, and the miscarriages are there with or without betrayal trauma. So you do actually need to compartmentalize them into two separate things. Yes, they stack and they exacerbate the pain, they make the pain worse, but they're two separate issues. Would you agree, Shirley?

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Oh yeah. I don't know. Oh totally. And that's that's the part of uh not the word triggers, but um like looking at it separately and then and then it blending together somehow because of the thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

It makes them it makes each thing worse because it's already like it's like porn salt on the wood, you're already hurting, and then there's this other thing. Yeah, right.

unknown 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

So if you could if you could rephrase your question now that you've heard us say a little bit, what what is your actual question? Because if if if it's getting through trauma, that's one question. If it's getting through betrayal trauma, that's another question. What like how could we actually serve you and help you? Because I'm hearing two separate things.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Maybe like given the circumstances of like when I had the miscarriage and and stuff that happened before I had the miscarriage, I think betrayal trauma is probably the best one.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Well, I think we we talk about this a lot. I think that the easiest thing to understand is you have to want to trust again. Your uh insecurities could get in the way, your just resentment of him, you know, especially if he slips and he cheats. We often look for an apology when it's any form of betrayal, okay, not just affairs, not just porn, things like that. We look for some sort of apology. We don't realize that's not actually going to get us through it, that that won't actually make it better. The last, very, very last covert or invisible contract I ever had with Catherine was actually recent. I didn't know it, but Catherine hurt me around the holidays with some of the things that she said to me. And I expected her to heal me and apologize for how she made me feel, in fact, make me feel better. Exactly against what I teach. It was because some of the things were very, very hurtful. That's betrayal in my mind because of the ways that she treated me. Some of the things that she said. How you get through that is to know who you are. The fact that he's using porn, the fact that he didn't support your right to miscarriage, anything that we talk about is actually about who you want to be and the person that you stand in. And that's actually a lesson I learned from Catherine. When we talk about her being the catalyst for my growth, no matter how far I abused her or pushed the limit abusing her, she decided to be the woman she was supposed to be. That none of my behavior was her fault, but she could be responsible for loving me differently. And that's how I think you get through betrayal. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah, it makes sense. It sounds, it sounds it sounds challenging, but it sounds like something like I I want to do, if that it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Good, good.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

You know, and remember that his coping mechanism has nothing to do with you. I don't I have there's a woman in the women's program, and I was just coaching her the other day. He's always on dating sites. Dating sites. He's not dating anybody else, but he's always looking at other women. He's on Instagram, he's on dating sites, he's watching porn all the time. And I said, part of so the best thing is to bring everything to the surface, having a relationship that's transparent enough that you can have conversations about it. Because what happens oftentimes women find out that their husbands are watching porn and they lose their shit on their husbands. So, what does that do? Does it cause their husband to not watch porn? No, no, it causes him to lie about to hide it. So now you have two bad things you have porn and you have lying, which breeds even more disconnection. So now it's a trifecta of shit.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

And it causes more lying in general, actually.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

It does.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

And so 100%. That's that's that's our situation is so it needs to be brought to the surface.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Right. So then so then it has to be where you have some level of acceptance. It doesn't mean that you come into alignment with these what with what he's doing. You can still think it's vulgar and disgusting, and you can think whatever you want, but realizing that there's a difference in perception, he's doing it to cope, he's doing it because his core values are different, and he doesn't believe that there's anything wrong with it unless you impose a consequence. If you can have it be more transparent and you can start building your connection, ultimately you want to be able to influence your husband so he's not doing that. Right now, there's no connection, so why he has no motivation to not do it. He thinks it's okay, you don't. You think it's a betrayal, he doesn't. He thinks he's just doing it just to cope and just to relax and just to get his rocks off. You think that it's a betrayal and he's cheating, and you guys have two different perceptions. I agree with your perspective. I think that it's cheating and I think it's vulgar and disgusting. He doesn't feel that way. So if you guys can't actually have conversations and connect on it, when you connect on it, that's the only time he's gonna be influenced to want to do things differently for you. Right now he doesn't want to do anything differently for you. He's like, Well, if I don't have her and we don't have a good relationship when we're fighting and I'm lying and she's accusing, and this and that, and this and that, which is what most marriages go through when they're in crisis, he's like, Well, I'm just gonna do what makes me happy. I'm gonna do what I need to do to go to sleep. I'm gonna take care of me because we get into this selfish nature when we're not actually one with our partner because he doesn't care. It's not motivating for him to be corrected by you. So I want you to try to bring it to the surface so that you can have conversations about it. Because while it's still taboo, you can bring it to the surface. It doesn't have to be taboo. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with it. Does that make sense? Am I making sense to you?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Oh no, no, no, it it it it makes sense. I've just been on this circle for a year and a half of all of that, of like, like, like be honest, be forthcoming, like tell me like you have a slippage, as he says, and like don't lie about it. Like, because I'll be more about a mad about the lie than.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah, but we're we're gonna let you go right away. But you you're gonna have to understand that you you can't parent your your husband. Husbands can't parent their wives, right? Yeah, you're talking to a person with no self-worth, and we know that because he's calling this addiction, and I know that because not that you said it, because he called it a slippage. So he he's he's not a porn addict, he's using it to to hide. That's why Catherine called it culprit. So you you can't teach him, you have to connect with him. He has to want to like, oh my gosh, why would I ever do that? That's not who I want to be. He has to believe and understand the reasons that we would teach white porn is for himself. He'd have to want to find himself. And by the way, this isn't just porn, it's gonna be a lot of other masks, a lot of other layers. But you start with the process for you, you know. So, for example, you don't just pick a podcast of ours and about porn so hoping he hears it in the background. You focus on the ones that matter to you, and you start implementing and changing the ways that you treat him and the way that you love him.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

I have done that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Perfect. And then if it accidentally bumps in a one that's got porn and says you're fucking supporting human trafficking, maybe he wakes up. But hopefully he wakes up from your your influence from the woman that you're you're does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

No, I get it. Yeah, I know 100%. Thank you so much, you guys.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

You're very, very welcome, sure. Good luck. Let's hope we can help you further.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

I will. Thank you. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And you too. Bye bye.