I Matter. {Healing Self-Worth After Betrayal}

I was sitting on the steps of the front porch. The heat of the summer rose from the concrete as I pressed the palms of my hands into its rough texture. I sat there feeling such turmoil, having one of the most difficult conversations I've ever had with my husband. At this point, we were a year past his first disclosure, and I was weighing a decision to move toward divorce.

During our separation, any conversations about our relationship were in text or with the therapist present. A year passed, and there was no evidence of genuine behavioral change or long-term recovery efforts. He was on step nine of the twelve steps, but at this point, I was still experiencing behaviors that left me confused, dismissed, and emotionally destabilized. I knew it was unusual to move through the steps so quickly and even more so to not have any changed behaviors at that level. Our conversations were chaotic and unsuccessful. As I was developing emotional resiliency, he was unable to stabilize during our discussions. It left me feeling hurt and confused. I felt awful talking to him because he wasn't changing and seemed to be getting worse. I wasn't experiencing him differently. Not enough to make me want to work on reconciliation, at least. He was still not safe.

Eventually, he said something that made more sense to me than anything he had said up to this point. "When we met, things moved so fast, and I hoped I would grow to love you, but I didn't." He confessed. I was stunned. Hearing him say he hadn’t truly grown to love me confirmed a painful truth I had long suspected but never wanted to believe. He validated me. All these years, I never felt like he loved me. I was right. I was angry. How could he marry me and want kids with me, only to not love me? "I will always love you as the mother of my kids, and I hope we can be friends," he continued. Did he really say that, too?

I still don't know if he was offering me the opportunity to continue in our marriage as friends or if he was offering me a divorce. Everything was so blurry, and I don't remember much of the conversation afterward. However, I did leave that conversation with more clarity on what I knew I needed to do next.

He hurt me not only with his actions up to this point, but also with his words to me. At this point, I didn't think this man could wreck my soul any worse. I didn't even understand how badly he wrecked me until a few days passed. I continued to process the conversation and realized the depth of betrayal went far beyond his pornography usage. I felt profoundly violated, emotionally and spiritually used in a way that served an image I now realize wasn’t aligned with the truth. Without my consent, he took me to be his wife while being deceptive with his intentions, and he kept that lie for over sixteen years. I never felt like he loved me, especially when I compared my experience to what the Bible says love is.

The more significant issue is the unknown damage of loving someone who doesn't love you back to your self-worth. My marriage reminded me of that desperate girl (we all know one) trying to get her long-time crush's attention, yet he never looked her way. Everyone tells that poor girl to stop trying to win over someone who doesn't see her. But what do you do when it's your husband? When I stopped trying to win him over, things took an unexpected turn. I didn't think he was capable of walking away from us when "we" weren't serving him anymore. I always saw marriage as an opportunity to serve someone else, but we weren't aligned in our values. I couldn't keep doing the work of two people, hoping to get the results of a fulfilling marriage.

I say all this to explain how this played a role in my efforts to heal my self-worth wounds. I can't entirely blame my ex-husband for causing this damage, as it originated from childhood and the men who were in my life since birth. But it played the most significant role because my marriage was the longest-running and most intimate relationship. No one else can claim that. Sometime around ten years ago, I started to focus more on developing a solid sense of self, and that journey led me to work with a therapist and a pastor counselor. In a session where my husband was present, we discussed a stronghold I developed over the years. I had internalized the belief that I wasn’t worth the effort it would take for someone to change in order to build safety and connection. I am not referring to the kind of change that asks someone to abandon the things that are important to them. I asked for the type of change that brings safety and connection to a relationship; a heart change. I wanted integrity in our marriage. On that day, we concluded that this stronghold was coming to the surface for me because my husband was working to change. Or so we all thought. That is a story for another time. With any stronghold, the enemy will fight for the right to keep it from you.

Then, fast-forward to the present day. The stronghold was very real for me. This man, who claimed to love me, was not changing, so of course, I internalized that and made it about me and my worth. Over time, strongholds will change your behaviors and, ultimately, your way of life. I had to realign my beliefs with the truth that self-worth does not come from man, and it's not developed when the man with you starts to change. Self-worth is about your relationship with yourself and your beliefs about who you are.

As with any belief, we develop it based on our experiences. In my experience with men, they didn't change when the woman in their life asked for change. I spent more years with this man sitting in front of him, begging for his heart towards me to change so he would stop hurting me. His actions were deeply hurtful, but over time, I came to understand they were more about his unresolved pain than anything I had done. I did so much in my mind and heart to change on my end so that he wouldn't hurt me anymore. Nothing was working. I wasn't worthy of his time, love, and faithfulness. I believed this.

I was doing it all wrong. I was looking for worth and value in a person who should not have had that power. I forgave myself for that. You do the best you can with what you have. Self-worth has always been modeled for me in unhealthy ways. So, I decided to start the hard work of redefining this essential aspect of my healing from betrayal.

Here is what I did:

As soon as I initiated a therapeutic separation, I returned to doing the things I was naturally good at. Before I met my husband I loved writing, gardening, DIY projects, and sports. His existence in my life took the joy of those things away from me. I had years of journals tucked away from his view and reading them brought to life a passion for story sharing. This inspired me to write intentionally to share as a blog. The first month he moved out, I hung drywall in my basement to finish a project we had started a year before. I upcycled old things to make them work with my style of keeping the home.

I started exploring new things I had never tried and gained new skills. I did hard things and had fun learning to overcome the fears that came with them. The week I built garden beds and hauled the dirt into them was a life-changing experience. Not only could I do hard things, but I could do them well on my first try. I explored rock climbing and discovered a love for bouldering. Using my body to take me places felt amazing. I always walked out of that gym with a grin, and my curls were a fuzzy mess. I signed up for challenge courses that covered you in bruises and mud, but a strong sense of self-accomplishment.

I made new friends in new circles. I learned that there were good people out there who wanted me to win in life. They encouraged me, and I encouraged them in return. We shared our healing journey and found growth and accountability. We became sisters and fighters for each other when one was feeling weak from trauma. We rose together through tears and laughter.

I discovered that I love being a mom. I took my kids on adventures and watched their curiosity take over as we did new things as a family. I spent time with each of them, learning about them as they grew older. I shared my dreams with them, and they shared theirs with me. They were watching me, so I stood tall and strong with each step of healing.

I bought myself a red lipstick, and I wore it every day. I wrote "I matter" across my bathroom mirror. My girls wanted their affirmations, so I handed them the red lipstick. My mirror was a daily reminder that not only was I finding my worth, but I was now modeling healthy self-worth for my girls. I incorporated healthy daily habits into my busy life. I had some non-negotiable activities I did each day, such as prayer and worship. I consistently showed up for myself and made gratitude a priority for myself and my kids. We started having conversations about our emotions each evening at the dinner table.

More importantly, I did these things without a spouse by my side. I stopped waiting for him to show up so we could move forward. I moved forward because I wanted to, and I made no more excuses for not doing these things. All of this caused a shift in my brain. I felt more connected to myself and, ultimately, to God. My relationship with God started to become real. I saw Him in each moment of the day.

Then something else started to happen. God was giving me a message. He was showing me my purpose. He brought meaning to everything I went through, and my story became a way for me to help others. I had to go through every little detail to understand what God was trying to show me. That alone is priceless. It is far beyond the kind of worth a human can put on a person. Only the type of worth our Creator had placed on me. My price tag was not something my husband could afford. I could not have seen any of this with him by my side, unwilling to change. I had a choice I didn't even know I had.

I decided to believe the man telling me he never loved me. I let go of my grip, and he drifted away. I lost so much, but losing him opened me up for God to come in and be everything my husband couldn't be for me. Now, knowing I am loved. I have also found my worth not in a man, but in my Heavenly Father.

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