Understanding the Emotional Carnage that Accompanies the Public Betrayal of a Wife’s Trust and Marriage

By Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S

Congressman Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, is probably receiving all kinds of advice on what to do right now. Adding to the weight of whatever decision she makes is the news that she is pregnant with the couple’s first child. While the advice given by friends and family to spouses on the wrong end of sexual addiction and/or porn addiction is often to quickly end the relationship, cut your losses and move on, experience has shown that in the early stages of such kinds of emotional trauma it is usually best for spouses to not take any actions right away.

Sexually betrayed spouses and partners are filled with every challenging emotion imaginable, often including shame and self-blame, a trauma that is only made worse when it paraded in the public arena as has been the case with her husband Abedin is most likely grieving the loss of intimacy and commitment brought about by her husband’s actions. Experts in the treatment of sexual addiction say that spouses make better decisions for themselves and their children when those decisions are made privately, over time and within the safety of therapy, treatment, clergy and family support. Reactive decisions evolving out of intense shame, trauma, anger and hurt are rarely good ones. The way to best care for spouses grieving this kind of loss is to offer non-judgmental support and validation for all of their feelings, gently encouraging them to slowly grieve their losses and decide how to proceed over time.

While none of us at the Sexual Recovery Institute knows Huma Abedin personally and as such can’t specific offer her direction or therapeutic opinions, we do specialize in the treatment of sex and porn addiction along with ongoing support of their betrayed spouses. We have a great deal of insight into how those situations affect the wives and loved-ones. Uncovering the extent of a trusted spouse’s sexual secrets is a devastating form of emotional injury to self, home and family. Like the after-affects of a major physical trauma, it may be many months, if not years, before this kind of injury will fully heal and trust restored. It is important to note that in the early stages of this process it is both insulting and injurious to a betrayed wife or partner to suggest that their relationship problems might have been related to some psychological defect on their part. Serial infidelity and sexual betrayal are issues that even the healthiest of adults have trouble resolving.

Spouses and partners who are experiencing profound recent betrayal often have symptoms mimicking or meeting clinical criteria of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) and as such can be highly reactive to what seem on the surface to be unrelated and mundane events. Wives like Huma Abedin can frequently become hypervigilent, becoming detectives in their own home as they desperately search phone records, computer histories and bank statements for some clue whether to trust or not trust again.

In the rollercoaster of emotions betrayed spouses and partners experience when first learning of betrayal, we stand on the side of their attending first to their own healing. Group support can’t be underestimated and those who have had to resolve similar losses are excellent sources of encouragement and empowerment for each other. At SRI we work to provide a safe, non-judgmental space for spouses and partners to work through their stages of their grief, establish healthy boundaries, and become clear on what decisions (if any) lie ahead. Advice about what a person should do in such a situation, however well intended, can be detrimental to someone suffering such an injury, and we instead simply encourage respectful support and validation.