Feeling betrayed by the person you love can be one of the most difficult moments to move through in a long term relationship or marriage. 

Today’s guest wants you to know it’s not your fault as no one enters a relationship thinking it will happen to them.

Linda Vida offers coaching to relationally betrayed adults, adults who grew up in homes affected by alcoholism and addiction, and couples repairing their relationship together after addiction or infidelity.

She knows each client has a unique betrayal story and she meets her clients where they’re, helping them create stability and safety, supporting them through grief, and encouraging them in their post-traumatic growth.

Learn more and connect with Linda:

https://www.onebraverlife.com

The Association of Partners of Sex Addicts and Trauma Specialists: Linda Wajda

Instagram: @onebraverlife

Want Linda and I to discuss more in another episode? Suggest a topic here!

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a written review wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect with Molly on Instagram @reinventingthearena

Interested in working with Molly after listening to this episode? Check out her services or apply for 1:1 coaching.

Linda is thrilled when she gets to witness women and LGBTQ adults embrace their resilience, grow stronger, gain clarity, and not give betrayal the final word in their life story.

She graduated from the University of Virginia and The Institute for Excellence in Professional Coaching (IPEC). Linda also holds a certification from APSATS, the premier organization helping partners create relational safety and heal from betrayal-induced trauma.

Linda works virtually with clients locally in New York City and Northern New Jersey while still seeing clients throughout the country and internationally.

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TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE

Molly Connolly (00:00.59)

Hey there, lady. Thank you for joining you today on the Reinventing the Arena podcast. If this is your first time joining, welcome. I am so glad that you are here. Today's guest offers coaching to relationally betrayed adults, adults who grew up in homes affected by alcoholism and addiction, and couples repairing the relationship together after addiction or infidelity. Linda Vida knows each client has a unique betrayal story and she meets her clients where they are at.

helping them create stability and safety, supporting them through grief and encouraging them in their post -traumatic growth. Welcome to the podcast, Linda. Thank you, Molly. I'm really honored to be here and I'm excited to talk to you. This is going to be a fantastic episode just because I want the ladies that are listening right now to know that Linda and I probably went on a fun little tangent for like five, 10, well, we'll just say five, 10 minutes.

Just discussing some really great things. And I was wishing, I was like, shoot, I should have recorded the podcast already, but we're going to get to some really good things today. I promise. Okay. So I just want to start off and say that I'm extremely grateful. Like I mentioned to you earlier of women like yourself working in these areas of relationships, because my personal experience of betrayal in my first marriage, redeveloping my trust with my ex -husband was just unattainable.

to be honest for me, even when I tried to work on myself through therapy. So overall, it's been, you know, it's never easy and, you know, we can have numerous underlying issues to work through. So what led you to be of service to those suffering from relationship betrayal? Sure, that's a wonderful question.

I'm just so thankful that we get to talk about this today. I want to preface what I say with that because this is an incredibly common experience. And every woman I ever speak to is just sure that she's the only one in her friend group or in her church or in her workplace or what have you. And it's really common. And so I love talking about it so we can normalize it, that it's not a part of life that's fun or that we want.

Molly Connolly (02:12.43)

But it happens. And, and so knowing that there's a place you can go, that there's other people that can relate, that's extremely helpful to de -stigmatize it and get rid of the shame. There's no, I always say to my clients, there's no shame. We can talk about anything. and I love what I do because like many coaches, my career chose me, many years ago and I had an incredible

a group of women who very wise women, some of them much older that, that really helped me navigate the circumstances of my life. So when I had an opportunity as a coach to get some additional training and pay it forward, I'm really happy to do that. It's a privilege to hear somebody's story. Yeah. And I love how you put that to the wise women. I feel like we are all wise in different areas of our lives. And so

when we come together and collaborate and we just share our own stories and open up our hearts and be vulnerable with other women, it really helps diminish that shame and normalizes our experiences, even if they were at different stages of our lives. So once again, thank you so much for really coming onto the podcast and being able to share these situations with the ladies that are listening. Thank you. Well, so please.

you know, share how working with those who are experiencing betrayal induced trauma is different than, you know, from typical couples therapy or relationship coaching. Sure. So a woman who finds herself, so I want to define relational betrayal if we can just so we have a good working term for that. So this type of betrayal can be a financial betrayal in the relationship, it can be infidelity.

It can be deceptive sexuality where their husband or the boyfriend or fiance has a compartmentalized compulsive sexual behavior like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So it really ranges the gamut. Sometimes I'll see now it's becoming more common sports betting where the partner won't know that there's a problem until money's missing or something like that.

Molly Connolly (04:36.718)

So it can, a whole range of experiences. Most of my clients I work with are women who found out that their husband or their boyfriend had compulsive problems with pornography or with serial infidelity or all kinds of different sexual behaviors. And it just overwhelms your system and causes physical symptoms and emotional symptoms. So that's the...

the big difference. So when you go to a traditional couples therapist, the therapist is treating the couples, the marriage or the coupleship and it pre -supposed she or he will pre -suppose that, you know, I did some things that were less than nurturing in the relationship and you did some things that were less than nurturing in the relationship. This is a whole different ball game. This is like, I was in my yard on my side of the street.

and you were in your yard on your side of the street and without me knowing it, you've secretly been filling a dump truck with sugar honey iced tea and bringing that across and dumping it in my yard right on me without me knowing. And that's a really graphic analogy, but I think it's really important. So I, a lot of times we'll meet women who've gone to traditional couples coaching or counseling and they've been harmed because

When you have addiction and deception in your relationship until you stop that bleeding, that safety betrayal, you don't really have any other issues in the coupleship to address until safety and integrity are reestablished. yeah, I can definitely agree with this. And I know we're probably gonna get to this later, but I'll just say from my personal experience,

no level of therapy was going to repair our marriage until he addressed his own infidelity issues and accepted them as mistakes or, you know, admitted to people more than just myself of like why our marriage was not seeming to be working. Like why was I not showing up to family functions? Why was I not participating in XYZ moment? You know, those are all those things that couples when they have situations like this don't realize.

Molly Connolly (07:02.83)

affect not just the marriage itself, but it affects you. Like you mentioned physically. Yes. I was constantly depressed and then I would shift into anxiety whenever I would be gone or whenever he would leave because, my gosh, I can't trust him. And if I can't trust him, then I can't trust his family. If I can't trust him and his family, then what are, what's going on? Like all those things are like, who's helping him do what or.

I can't trust him with finances because I don't know if he's going out and doing X, Y, Z in order to take this woman out on a date. All those things that just your mind starts to go. Yes. That's exactly it, Molly. If it's okay, I'll share a brain -based reason. Trauma is a real experience. The term gets used a lot and I think it's really important that we...

And so, you know, I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that's the biggest thing. I think

So if your reality is shattered because you've discovered some deception or your partners confessed some deception to you, immediately because your brain's trying to protect you, you go into survival mode and that hippocampus is gonna go 24 hours a day, seven days a week, trying to put that film back in order, trying to take that new information you have and integrate it into what you live.

And the reason this is so devastating, I would say, is if you think of an iceberg, you know, nobody enters marriage thinking they're going to be betrayed or any relationship thinking they're going to be betrayed. And really, we can only see what's above the water. So if we are married to someone or dating someone who is who is shaping our reality through a process called gaslighting, sometimes.

Molly Connolly (09:22.478)

our defenses are gonna be even more down. And what we really have is we have a partial reality, because they're trying to conceal the bottom part of the iceberg that's under the water from us. And all of that shatters. So it's a process for your brain to heal and to get the hit. We have like, there's protocols and coaching and clinicians have protocols that to work with people who've been portrayed.

to help them heal that brain injury. yeah. And what I love how you mentioned that because I can actually flashback to myself right now. And I can remember when I figured out what was going on and I would sit there and I was like my own detective and I was like, so when he did X, Y, and Z, that was probably what this was. And it really is exhausting of your mental energy. And then it exhausts you physically. So,

It's just so mind -blowing to think how much our mind plays a role in how we deal with betrayal in a variety of types of betrayal. When I think about it, I said obviously I started going back and trying to put those pieces back together. What do you think are some of those underlying issues or even red flags that can lead a woman to being affected by betrayal in the relationship?

The first thing I want to say to anyone who's listening is if this is your situation or you've been in this situation, we say you didn't cause it, you can't control it, right? And you can get help for yourself. This is not your fault. And you have choices that you can make about how to get to safety and what you need. That's really important because I meet so many women who are shaming themselves.

And that inner critic is just, you know, what did I do wrong? And think about the cultural messages, like in really toxic, we, and I use that word on purpose, cultural messages. like, why couldn't she keep her man? And it's just, that's positively abusive because when we're talking about someone who has a compartmentalized reality, they don't want their partner to know.

Molly Connolly (11:47.086)

And they're doing what they have to do either consciously or subconsciously to hide that reality. So I really want listeners to not experience shame. And, you know, as far as red flags, I'm thinking that can be complicated. Usually there's little signs that don't make sense. Like there's a gut feeling that something is just off or something is just wrong.

Sometimes a woman will discover something on her husband's cell phone or boyfriend's cell phone. Sometimes like he's just not accountable, you know, saying he's going to do like there's content truth, which is what he is telling us. And there's behavioral truth. And so often we will ignore the behavioral truth because we want to believe the person we love and we want to believe their

explanations for things. So always believe what a person does more than what they say to you is probably the biggest piece of safety I would have for someone. And we're responsible for our safety, even in a healthy relationship, we're responsible for our safety. So and that's important, you know, to, to, to trust our gut. Yeah, that's one thing that I love.

that you bring up because it takes a while, especially in betrayal, to go back to trusting your gut. Women have really deeper connection, I believe, to intuition than men not trying to segment off of gender or anything, but I just have noticed this in the past. And when you're really in tune with your body, we get that amazing cycle until we get to a certain stage of our lives where we don't have that anymore.

We can use that just to tune into our body to even so much more to tune it into our mindset and all those other things that we can start paying attention to things that affect us and say, what is that? Get curious about it. Yes. Yeah. That's so, so important because betrayal destroys that intuition. Right? That's one of the reasons it's important to find whether it's a coach or therapist who's trained.

Molly Connolly (14:08.974)

in this type of modality of understanding you're a trauma. It's one thing to be a people pleaser or a fixer. That's incredibly common. And most people have some level of co -dependence. It can be just human nature, especially if you grew up in a home with addiction or deception. But it's a whole nother thing altogether to experience betrayal.

And that just destroys our intuition. And so you need someone who understands that you're a trauma survivor and that your brain is trying to tell you you're in danger and you are actually responding appropriately to relational danger. Cause the person who's betrayed you is your primary attachment figure who was supposed to have your back. Yeah. So that's devastating for someone. And it's a process to read, to get that intuition back.

And we have a whole process that I'm something called a full disclosure guide. I'm getting a certification. So for people, whether they want to leave or whether they want to stay, it can be helpful to get something called a guided disclosure where I help the person who's been betrayed and then the therapist for the person with the, I'm going to say with addiction.

gets breaks down those compartments and gets that information. And then we have a time where the four of us come together and the person who's been betrayed gets a full accounting of the truth. And whether that's a separate thing from whether you want to stay or go, this is about restoring integrity, giving you a baseline of reality so you can know what was actually going on. And that can be really powerful and really healing for both parties. Yeah.

And I want the women listening to understand how valuable that is. I will tell you it took me years to get my integrity back for myself to where I wasn't then, you know, shaming myself, blaming others, like I would be like, well, he's this or she's that. And I would just start projecting on certain things. And I wasn't accepting of the betrayal. I wasn't like,

Molly Connolly (16:26.542)

I mean, I was, but in the same sense, like I wasn't doing the real work to make my re like to understand and see the reality as well as being able to say, okay, here's where I stand now. I'm allowed to move forward and in a way that's healing, and a way that keeps me in a sense of reality that is my own. If that makes sense, it makes a huge amount of sense. And it's something that's just,

really touched by that, Molly, because that's not easy for people to do. Because I'll meet women and, and you maybe you can relate, I want you to speak to that. But the idea that you've experienced so much loss by the discovery of this of what you thought your reality was. So to get yourself to a place of clarity and bravery, to be able to move a muscle and set a boundary and say, No, I only want to be in a monogamous relationship.

That's hard. Sometimes girlfriends will inadvertently add to, to a person's shame by saying, you just need to leave him. Well, sometimes people can know that. And then the trauma, you know, that fight, flight or freeze, you can be frozen. And so that's something that coaching or therapy can be really helpful with to help you get a little bit unfrozen.

I'll tell ladies who are soon after discovery, you know, all you have to do is say for today, left foot, right foot, breathe. Cause forward is forward no matter how slowly. that right there. I almost, I'm getting a little bit of like delayed glute goosebumps because it's, it's a real thing. You know, the frozen part. I mean, yes, I could definitely speak to that because you have this

As women, you know, we grew up being like, this is going to be my wedding and this is what I'm going to have. And I'm going to have a white picket fence and we're going to have dogs and five children. Whatever your dream is that you grew up with wanting and you slowly but surely have it. And then it's never been that at all. And so from there, you're just like, I've been dreaming about this since I was six and I'm 25 or whatever.

Molly Connolly (18:43.854)

You're having to really, you are stuck in that frozen stage. It is time to defrost. So you got to challenge these beliefs. You have to review the assumptions, break all these down and be like, you know what, that belief really isn't mine. You know, I don't need to stay married and be unhappy for the rest of my life because my mom wants me to, or I don't have to.

keep the house because they're going to tell me that women can't buy a home like whatever they are, like all those random things that we are told and become our beliefs because someone else said them and our own expectations that are actually other people's. They are the ones. Those are the things that keep us frozen. And if we don't do the work, the happiness that you desire, that you truly want that happiness, that love that you are looking for, you have to find it in yourself. And I know a lot of people tell me that that's not true, but it is true for me.

And in my case with working with clients, if you can't find the happiness and love within yourself, it is going to be extremely hard for you to find a partner who is going to help you put that cherry on top to truly make that happiness come in full circle for your dreams and your vision and your love life and for yourself. I agree so much. my gosh. We have to become a self, right? We have to figure out who we are.

And, and love ourselves and accept ourselves, right? To, to, we're not looking for someone to complete us. We're looking for someone to complete us. We are incredibly vulnerable if we haven't done our work from our past relationships or from our childhood. That's seeking from a place of want and lack as a play, as opposed to going out there and building a life for yourself.

There's a different energy for that, right? Like to, to know who I am. I've created safety for myself. I've grieved my losses and now I'm ready to grow post -traumatically and, and look at that cultural messaging and the messaging I received growing up and to construct beliefs and lived experiences that serve me better. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, you have this one life, you have your reality and not someone else's.

Molly Connolly (20:57.55)

So why don't you just live the vision that you're looking for? Go out and seek it. Do it, do the work. And men are not investments, right? Like we can change our mind at any time. You know, sometimes when people experience loss, like betrayal and loss, it can be almost compulsive to think if I can just get him to change this.

And you think of how much time you've invested and it's not an investment, it's your life. my gosh. Right? You have to create what you want for yourself. yeah. I'm literally going to just say this right now. I had this conversation with my mom in a very different way, like with a friendship, but at the same time, the sunk cost of a relationship is time. Time is valuable.

So why are you investing in something that is not going to give you the version of reality that you want? It is time for you to make a choice and the choice is to choose yourself first. Do what makes you happy because at the end of the day, at the end of your life, are you gonna wanna have that sunk cost factor where you're living in someone else's reality just because you didn't want to upset them? Just because you were living someone else's expectations of what they thought you should be? No, you won't be happy.

That's it. That's so powerful, Molly. That's in and that's a process, right? We have to we have to heal. We have to grieve. We have to grow into that. And that's a process. But we have to keep going. And and no one's coming to do it for us or rescue us. We have to do it for ourselves. Yeah. And building a team of other people that want to help you as well. Like Linda obviously has a lot of experience helping women do this and like

Having one like that on your team is extremely impactful. Like I've said this to other women that have been guests on the podcast before, but that's because each and every one of you that I've asked, I'm like, gosh, if I would have had you when I was like freshly divorced, because I got married at 25, almost 26, and I got divorced at 28, 29. And I mean, I was quick to learn like, I can't fix this. This is bigger than me.

Molly Connolly (23:19.086)

but the decisions after that, it took me. So I got divorced in 2011. I didn't figure this stuff out until 2016. That's a five years that I wasted of my life. Hypothetically, I'll say wasted because that sunk cost was actually, it's actually valuable because that's what I'm doing right now, right? But if I would have had women like you, I can't imagine what I would have done where I would have accelerated.

where I would have grown and like really come full circle into loving myself so much that the men that I had chosen to date, not saying that they were bad men, but they just were not good for me. Right. I would have learned so much faster, but I also don't regret because I met my husband that I'm married to right now at the right time. So everything happens for a reason. Well, I think that's true. And I just would challenge that term wasted because you know, you didn't waste it. And, and.

everything we go through, even the worst things shapes us somehow. And sometimes, especially with trauma, it's a process of we have to heal. And we can't just, it's not a mindset. We have to heal that injury over time by returning to our body so that we're able to cope with more, so that we're able to be self -regulated.

so that we're able to accept the reality of our situation. And that's the process. And I love Maya Angelou. I did the very best I could. And when I knew better, I did better. yeah. And you know what's wonderful even? I just got chills. I love these quotes because I was a quote junkie. Me too. When I was going through my divorce, I swear I was on Pinterest till like, this is going to be really funny.

I would be on Pinterest and scrolling to the point where it's like, you have no more pins to pin and be like, what? I got to the bottom of Pinterest? How's that possible? But like, I would pin so many things that I would think would be motivating. But some of them were the things that put me back into gaslighting and shaming and things. Like I didn't realize that's what they were doing.

Molly Connolly (00:00.334)

And with these quotes, what's really interesting that once you've worked through this and it's a process and you get to the place where you do know better and you release, you know what you do? You make room for joy and love and connection to come in and fill that open space that was once a spot of like depression, despair, betrayal, everything.

And that is a beautiful moment to get to. It's powerful, Molly. That's so powerful. And sometimes I know we can return to pain just because it's familiar. Right. It's what we know. So to be brave enough to let go of what's familiar and trade that for something, the promise of something we want to build, it takes a lot of courage and, and,

I'm grateful that you do that. I get to do that. And hopefully I keep living that for myself. I can see that you will. I can see your smile over here. And I'm like, yes, we both love this passion. It works so much because we've been there and we like, we know we can help these women do these things. That's it. And the idea, the determination, like to be able to say not, it will be okay, but I am going to be okay.

Yeah. And there's a big difference because I don't know what it will be. It could be horrible, but I'm going to be okay. And I'm going to keep going. And I'm going to surround myself with people who can support me. And, and I'm going to rest and keep going because I'm worth it. Exactly. Ladies, hear that right now and repeat it to yourself. I am worth it. Seriously, if you have to, you know, another good trick that I used to use,

I would go into the mirror and I would say that to myself every morning that I am worth the decision, the journey, the path that I'm on. When I was leaving my ex -husband, I was like, I'm doing it for me and no one else. And getting to that sort of determination for yourself or choosing yourself is a good first step. But you know, I was going to ask you, because we've been talking around it, but like in what ways for the ladies that are listening, like how can they start healing through these issues?

Molly Connolly (02:26.318)

in their relationships if they are suffering from betrayal of any kind. And then when do you think they would need to turn to an expert like you? Sure, thank you. I'm a big believer that everyone can benefit by having their dream team and people on their team. So whether it's me or someone else or some people find help in community groups, 12 step groups, I think we heal in community.

I think that's very important. And so that's number one. So that's find someone you can relate to that has the training and skills and empathy and ethics that you need and then do the work. That's so important. So I'm trained by IPEC and also by an organization called APSATS. And that's the Association for Partners of Sex Addicts, Trauma,

specialists. And so people who are trained by appsats, we look at betrayal as surviving relational trauma. And so we conceptualize it that way. So that's a great credential because we're, I'm not going to pathologize you that you chose to be in relationship with someone who betrayed you. You're not inherently something's not inherently wrong with you that you find yourself in this situation. That's really important.

And if you're in the relationship and the gaslighting is going on and the deception is going on, it becomes really, really hard to trust your own compass. So by having somebody else on your team who you can talk to and you can put things through a filter of healing and of trauma and sort through the different options, that's incredibly important.

And I'll meet women sometimes if the trauma symptoms are so overwhelming, you know, the negative thoughts, the depression, the flashbacks, like real body symptoms of not being able to eat or not being able to sleep. Sometimes those women benefit from having a therapist and I will see them while they're in therapy or, you know, alongside or afterwards. So it just really depends.

Molly Connolly (04:50.414)

But the bottom line is if you're suffering, there's really help available for, for, processing this stuff and you, you don't have to suffer. you know, betrayal doesn't have to claim your story. Right. And like, I love how even, you know, you brought it back before, like community really helps. And sometimes the communities that we're in already might not be the communities that we need for healing. I think that's sometimes really important for

people to know. That could even mean maybe your family's not really supportive of your decision to mend the relationship or to get a divorce. It's trying to find people that aren't going to sit there and maybe they are close to you, but they're not going to project or shame or whatnot. They're just going to hold space for you. Finding those communities as well as finding an expert can be very, very life -changing for you.

I think so. And for coaching, right? To be able to, I love your reinventing the arena, right? So to be brave enough to get in the arena in an unfamiliar place with someone who has some expertise, who has some training, gives you the possibility to really explore.

limiting beliefs, things that you've experienced and sort of look at them through new eyes and make space for that. Because sometimes the people, like parents love us, friends love us. Sometimes they see us in a particular way. And when you're working with a coach who doesn't have an agenda and gives you that freedom to be able to...

challenge beliefs and to explore that can be very, very helpful. yeah, I can definitely say that just even for myself as well as clients that I've had. You know, it's surprising sometimes when I have women come to me where they're like, I just want to find a happy relationship. And what ends up happening is of course we do the beginning of like challenging those limiting beliefs and we have to be like, well, what does a happy relationship look like? Well,

Molly Connolly (07:05.55)

It looks like my parents or my grandparents and like, you don't know what their relationship really is. You just got to see it in your own reality. Right. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but you did when you were a kid. But at the same time, like there's still so much there. Like what would make you happy? Not what you make sure dad or your mom or your sisters or brothers, what makes you happy and unique so that you can find the love that you want? You know, so. It's so important.

I would extend that to, you know, beyond happiness. Like, if it's okay, talk sexuality. Like as women, we are so habituated to, to thinking our sexuality is in service to the relationship or in service to the man. And when you find yourself in a situation where the man has compulsive sexuality or deceptive sexuality, the first belief is

Well, wasn't I enough? And to realize it doesn't have anything to do with you. Compulsive sexuality is nothing like the healthy sexuality we have in healthy relationships. So that's something, you know, when women are growing post -traumatically to be able to define for themselves, you know, what, like you said, what is a healthy relationship? What is happy? What is healthy sexuality? And I love

when I get to work with clients in that phase of the healing that, you know, healthy sexuality is the part of our love we can't express with words. And it's something that builds us up. It's not a service we provide to someone so they won't stray. So we'll get attention or something like that. And it's very...

I say in this type of healing work, it is possible to live two lives in one lifetime. And don't be so hanging on to what's familiar that you're afraid to go after what's possible. Yeah. That your heart truly desires. And that intuition really is pushing you towards. Yeah, definitely. Before we move on, I want you to tell me.

Molly Connolly (09:26.19)

Just because I know that probably listeners are thinking the same thing. Can you talk about those two? What was it? Compulsive?

Molly Connolly (00:00.302)

Yeah. sure. I use terms interchangeably. So you'll find that that in the treatment industry, if you will, there's no real agreed upon definition of what constitutes sexual addiction. So what's addictive and problematic for one person may not be addictive and problematic for another person. And it has to do with

are the behaviors that the person's engaging in causing problems. Obviously, if they're unethical or harming other people, that's something altogether different. But it becomes deceptive when it's secretive. So I call it compartmentalized deceptive sexuality. So that's a term coined by Dr. Omar Manwalla.

because people will say, well, I'm not a sex addict. And I've had women whose boyfriend or husband will go to therapy and they'll say, well, he said I'm not a sex addict, but the sex is compulsive. It is deceptive. It is harming our relationship. It is creating trust problems in our relationship. So it's not the label. It's the, it's the,

behavioral truth and reality of what's going on in the relationship. And I have couples that I'll meet with and they'll fight, well, I'm not a sex addict. Well, that's beside the point, right? You're not giving us the full revelation of who you are and taking responsibility for all of your behaviors in the relationship, including your secret sexuality.

Dr. Manwala uses a term called secret sexual basement. And I like that term because it's like everyone else in the home is living upstairs in the home. And sometimes the person with the deceptive sexuality is up there too, but they keep things down in the basement. And that has an energy that reverberates through the whole system and through the house. And women will frequently say,

Molly Connolly (02:18.158)

Well, I knew something was off, but I just couldn't quite put my finger on it. And it's only after life explodes that the person will be able to go back and correlate to the different events and reinterpret them in a new way. So I like the idea of, I use the term problematic compulsive sexuality.

And compulsive, because most people, I say compulsive because a lot of times men who struggle with this, it started, many of them are trauma survivors themselves. A lot of times it starts at a really young age. And it usually starts with, especially with internet pornography a lot of times. And some people can view internet pornography and it's not a problem.

For some people, it can be compulsive and addictive. And I think it's just my issue that I'm passionate about. If there's any mothers listening, talk to your kids about pornography. It's not the morality that I want you to talk about, although I respect that some people have a certain set of values around the pornography. It's the fact in 2023, you cannot be sure that the people in the pornography have consented.

that it's ethical or that it wasn't illegally uploaded or that they're of age. So it's far riskier than what most parents realize. Yeah, it's not 1970. Right. You're not going to the store and picking up a Playboy or a Hustler. It has become completely different. It's Wild West. It's just, yeah, it's the Wild West. You know, even just to say this on a different

kind of segue here, but I was listening to a different podcast where they're talking about our generations. Like if you are, you know, born between a certain timeframe, we'll just even say the seventies to the mid nineties. We didn't have the internet. So we're the first people that have lived in the non internet world. Yeah. And now an internet world and we can see the difference. We can see how people changed. We can see the easy access. We can see the distraction, right?

Molly Connolly (04:39.118)

And we can also see how that affects our identity, our relationships, our career paths, our, you know, comparison issues. So I feel like we are sometimes the generation that's going to be able to make the biggest difference because we're going to be able to say, you need to discuss this with your kids. You need to see the boundaries that you had in place. Maybe they were right. They were wrong when you were younger, but take a lesson learned from that to show your children or show your friends and family, like how things can be.

recreated in a way that's still going to be successful in their eyes of like the individual person, like what they think a successful healthy relationship looks like versus, you know, what everyone else is doing. So it's so true to consciously create that. Cause like our, our generation and the generations coming after us, we're a self -medicating society. And you know, if I use the term sex addiction, sex addiction is

what's known as an intimacy disorder. So it's about using sex as a way to, to mitigate your feelings of discomfort or, or fears of abandonment. And it, and it's a self medicating behavior that doesn't actually have very much to do with sex itself. and it can be very destructive in a relationship, but it's, it's, you know, we there's,

There's food addiction, there's shopping addiction, all of the ways that we can not be present to ourselves. Right. So part of our healing and growth is to be comfortable with ourselves and to be fully present with ourselves. Yeah. And even just right there, you even made me more buying part of my journey here. I used to, and I'm going to probably do a podcast episode on this alone, but I used to be obsessed.

with watching The Bachelor. I used to be obsessed with watching The Bachelorette, romance movies, all that after my divorce. It was an escape from my reality that I was living, that I wasn't chosen, I was shameful. It was my fault we got divorced because why would he go to the other women? So for me, I was numbing myself with all of this hypothetical romance. And I have mentioned this before on the podcast that

Molly Connolly (07:03.374)

These things are not real because they are here to entice the emotions of a roller coaster up and down and keep you hooked and stay in tune on the TV and the movie fall in love with this idea. That is nowhere near real life. And that right there until you remove yourself from that, I'm being honest, you are not going to have a really great vision or reality of what your love life can and will look like.

I mean, my husband is on a trip, he's coming home today. We're going to talk about a grocery list. We're going to talk about what should we, should we make some time for taxes, like prepare for that because you know, we're individuals, I'm an individual and you that have a small business like, right, prepare. But we've got to prepare. So it's like, that's real life. It's not taking a hot air balloon in Paris. Like, no. Yeah. Knock it off. Get your reality set here and get that vision.

Well, in TV, like the bachelor, right? They're selling us intensity. They're not selling us intimacy. my goodness. Right? To be hooked on romantic intensity as opposed to intimacy. Cause sometimes intimacy is like you said, taxes, grocery lists. It's managing the routine pieces of adult life and building a life together.

And I love, there's a, I don't have a picture of it, but it's a intimacy pyramid. There's a young couple called, let me think, Matt and Joanna Rapsmith are their name. And they wrote a book. And in the book, it's trying to think, the name of the book is Intimacy. And they have an intimacy pyramid. So at the foundation is honesty, that our relationship has to be built on honesty.

And honesty is more than not lying. Honesty is about being committed to the truth, being authentic and being a real person and transparent person that you're known. And that allows us to go to the next level of the pyramid, which is safety, that we can have relational safety with one another, that what you say is what you do and I can count on you. That provides a context that we can be vulnerable.

Molly Connolly (09:29.198)

And that's when we start to get to the good stuff of being able to connect with one another more deeply that I can show you who I actually am. And that's the foundation of intimacy and, and, you know, and that's also the foundation of great sex. That we can be safe with one another, right? That we can express our love and we can experiment together because we belong to one another safely.

Yeah. And you know, there's two things that came up when you talked about that. Well, three, one, I need to buy that book because that sounds fascinating. Number two, I feel like what you and I do is getting women to that, you know, authentic, transparent self after their, you know, after the betrayal for you. And for me is just making sure that if they didn't have betrayal or whatnot, that it's just like, let's make sure we get to your authentic self so that you have that foundation when you meet your partner. Right. And then number three,

And number three, you've been talking about it all along and you kind of hinted about the arena part. I'm going to guess that you are a Dr. Brene Brown fan. I love her. Yes. So there is a part in my, she, she is my favorite. Like I will tell everyone if you haven't listened to episodes, any episodes before this, Daring greatly changed my life. I got to chapter three, which is all about shame. And I put that book down for eight months.

I was not ready for that book. Holy cow. But it was the process, like the beginning part of like having the awareness of, that's where all this comes from, right? And so there's a part in that book which brings out sexuality. And she was holding, I don't know if she was a professor at the time, I can't remember where she taught, but she was having a discussion about sex and women are like,

We just want to make sure that we look good during sex. Like I'm sucking in my stomach, making sure that you find me sexually attractive. And a man's like, I just want you to like me. And both people start crying. And when I gave my husband, so I'm going to be honest too, like I gave my husband Brad this book before we were even living together. And for those that don't know, I met my husband Brad in 2019 of November, the world shut down and I moved in March 13th.

Molly Connolly (11:51.694)

2020 without being fully like, am I going to get a ring out of this? Like that was a goal for myself. But like, I told myself I was never going to move in with a man again until I had a ring on my finger. But I'm like, pandemics like once in a lifetime thing, I guess we can see. But at the same time, like I had him read that book. And he was like, this is probably one of the most powerful parts of that book for as a man, because she wrote that book for women, right. And there's so many men that come up to her and say,

you have no idea what this shows or what this means to me because this is really how I explain, I just want you to like me during sex. Like I just want you to love me and like me, whatever it is. And sometimes as women, we don't even see that. We just like, you're so focused on, do I look okay? Does he still find me attractive? You know? Yes, that's it. Well, and empathy, that's empathy that you're describing that guys have insecurities too. And

they, you know, like men or women, we don't want to be personas. We don't want to be false selves. We want to have the courage to show up as we are. Yeah. Now I'm getting more chills. I swear we could be talking forever, but I want to talk about one last thing here before, you know, we have been talking about betrayal and like staying or going and all that. And like I said before, my case is maybe like other women's where I was like, I can't do this. I need a divorce, but divorce isn't

always the answer. So how do you help couples who are going, you know, going through these situations and like, how do you help them get into that new place where they can start the healing process together? Sure. So the modality I use for that is, it was a woman, her name is Carol Jergeson Sheets, and she developed a method called early couple empathy model.

And because regular couples counseling or coaching isn't really appropriate. So this is more psycho education. And the first thing is if the person who is doing the deception is not willing to stop or there's still active addiction going on, this is not for that person, right? Like that's a totally different situation.

Molly Connolly (14:12.014)

This is for the person where the maybe you've gone through what I call the right of truth. You've had formal guided disclosure. You've created safety boundaries together. You're starting to come together and you're both getting care and you're both growing and have some at least to explore whether there's something here we could build on a new foundation. You're not going back.

to what you had because painfully what you had wasn't real and you've got to grieve. And so a couples therapist or a coach can help you sort out, you know, she needs to grieve, he needs to grieve, we need to grieve together. We need to restore reality. And then now we have this elephant in the room called betrayal. What are we going to do with it? And the person who's been betrayed is getting triggered and

a lot of times has very explosive anger. So how are we going to learn skills to, to be safe for one another? And it's not, I'll just tell the guys, it's not going to be balanced for a while because for the longest time, there was an enormous power imbalance in the relationship that so much of reality has been concealed. Well, now just temporarily, we're going to reverse that, that balance of power.

And are you willing to do things to demonstrate that you're for real, like going to therapy, going to recovery meetings, having boundaries, right? Like I know couples, for example, I have one couple I'm working with that every time he travels for business, the first thing he does on the Zoom call is he shows her that the room is empty. And that's really important.

Right? Some, if he views that as degrading or I'm not doing that or that's controlling, that is a huge red flag because someone sincerely interested in trying to create something new will have remorse and will at least be getting the beginning of developing some empathy for the pain they've caused. So we don't want the couple to be in a one down where he's one down forever, but we've got to have some

Molly Connolly (16:37.422)

time where there's psycho education and where we're making sure kind of testing the waters. Like, are you serious? Because I always tell couples the decision to leave or stay when it's time to go, you'll know. yeah. You'll know for sure. And it is possible for couples to heal together. It takes time. You know, it takes at least

very optimistically, 18 months to three years. It's not uncommon for it to take longer. That doesn't mean the time of the healing and the restoration are awful and painful. Like you don't have to tolerate relapses or more deception. It's a bumpy road. But life in general is a bumpy road. Yeah. And you have two people who are willing to become

fully actualized human beings, right? You can create a lot. Yeah. And you know what? What I love too is like, if I just want to flip it to the man's perspective, like the betrayal that's happening, like you said, is based off of other issues, right? Thinking of, basically you're searching for a love that maybe you never felt was there. And maybe in your childhood, we're going to use that as an example.

And then envisioning that if you took the time, made the effort to work on yourself and work on this relationship, you're going to find a love that you had never experienced before. Because now you've healed those parts of you and you are able to be open and love a woman in such a way that you've never experienced even from another woman, even maybe from your mom, ever in your life. And that is literally the why you do things.

The thing that you never think you can attain is why you go through the healing journey, the work on yourself. 100%. Well, and you have to want to get well for yourself. Right. The guys, you can't go through recovery and heal from this stuff for your wife. At the end of the day, this is hard work and you have to want to do it for you because you want to get well.

Molly Connolly (18:58.19)

And it's a journey that most of these guys that I meet, they have so much shame and so much self loathing and the ones that don't, they usually leave because it's, it's too hard to, to come over to her side of the fence. And remember at the beginning, I said, you came over and you dumped a dump truck load of sugar, honey, iced tea. Well, are you willing to get your shovel and help clean up my yard? That's the real question. And some people don't have.

the ability and some people don't have the character. But there are people who do have the character and they do have the ability and they do persevere. that people get well and they, they can make it. Yeah. This is fabulous. Linda, I, I think we could talk for another hour. We could do five episodes, Molly. I loved it. I, I am thinking like,

I could see myself sending you clients after they go through this because I don't do the part where people are ready to date again. Right. I'm about getting people up on their feet and, and, living their life. Yeah. And, but there's, I'm just thrilled that we've met because I could totally have people to send your way. you are so sweet. I just even love the fact of like how you help men and women together.

You know, what you do is such a unique and tricky space that a lot, it takes a lot to get two people in that room. Yes. I want women to know that right now. And if he doesn't want to go with you, it says nothing about you. It's tough. I will tell you, I begged, I pleaded, I did everything I possibly could and it just didn't work. So getting two people in the room is hard enough.

To get two people in the room to do the work together is another layer of work. And being able to trust you, Linda, both of them, where they don't feel like maybe you're going to pit one against another is huge. It's so much effort. It's messy. It's so true. And you know, I mean, it works in reverse too, that I'll meet women who will say, that's his problem. He has to deal with himself.

Molly Connolly (21:21.71)

And, there's an author I love Michelle Mays and she uses the example of, look, you just got hit by a bus and you're in the hospital and you need help. Right? Like it's not fair that the bus hit you, but don't make the mistake of thinking that, you know, the, that you don't need the help. Right. Or that you got hit with the wine bus. And so you're going to take what's in the bus to make you feel better. And like,

numb yourself with it. Like, yes, going into a shame spiral and like, I mean, all of that stuff. So once again, Linda, this has been amazing. And I want women to know like, where they can find you for in case that they are in a marriage that needs help, or maybe they do want to work on betrayal that they've, you know, been pushing away or not wanting to work through because they're like, I'm just going to deal with it on my own. Like,

Where can they reach out to you for assistance? My website, my name of my business is onebraverlife .com. And you can reach out to me at Linda at onebraverlife .com where they can schedule my calendar pops right up where it says schedule a complimentary consultation. You can contact me there. And I'm also listed on appsats .org. A P you can see, I have to think about it. A P S A T S .org.

There's a directory there. So if not me, there's other professionals, including therapists who were certified in this modality. Fantastic. And ladies, I'll be getting all of her links in the show notes that you can find her. I will also be posting a real later of our conversation and, making sure to tag her Instagram too, so that you can find her on that as well. This has been a pleasure, Molly. I feel like we could do like,

so many different topics. We might have to. So ladies, if you're listening, if there was anything that you heard in here that you're like, I wish they could talk about this more, please reach out to me so that Linda and I can get back on here and have more discussions. I think we want to have just a great time sharing these experiences, sharing our lessons with you so that we can make sure that you live the life that you want in your love life and you know, have the stability in your own life too.

Molly Connolly (23:44.494)

I love it. Thank you, Molly. This has been a pleasure.