When Trust Breaks: Understanding Betrayal Trauma with Mr. Jay
Healing After Betrayal—A Guide for Co-Parents
Divorce attorney Seth Nelson and co-host Pete Wright welcome relationship coach and betrayal trauma expert Mr. Jay for an insightful discussion about healing and co-parenting after profound betrayal. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience, Mr. Jay helps people navigate from devastating betrayal to healing, offering unique perspectives on how this specific trauma affects every aspect of life.
The conversation explores what makes betrayal trauma distinct from other forms of trauma—particularly how it reshapes not just our present and future, but also our understanding of the past. Seth and Pete dive deep into practical strategies for managing ongoing relationships with former spouses when children are involved, while Mr. Jay shares powerful insights about healing personal wounds first. The discussion covers everything from financial betrayals to infidelity, examining how different types of betrayal trauma affect co-parenting relationships and personal recovery.
Questions we answer in this episode:
How is betrayal trauma different from other life challenges?
What steps can I take to co-parent effectively after betrayal?
How do I protect my emotional health while dealing with a betrayer?
Key Takeaways:
Healing requires addressing both current wounds and past trauma
Self-love and boundary-setting are crucial for emotional recovery
Effective co-parenting starts with personal healing
The episode provides essential insights for anyone struggling with betrayal during or after divorce, offering practical tools for healing while maintaining necessary relationships for the children's sake. Mr. Jay's approach emphasizes personal growth and self-care as fundamental steps toward building a healthy post-divorce life.
Links & Notes
Find Mr. Jay on Instagram, X, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or his other links
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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'Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships on TruStory FM.
Today, your toaster is the betrayer.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody.
I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright.
Today, we're digging into one of the toughest emotional knots in a divorce. How do you co-parent with someone who's betrayed your trust? Whether the betrayal was infidelity, abandonment, or something else entirely, the wounds run deep and still the kids need both parents.
Our guest today is Mr. Jay, a betrayal trauma practitioner and interpersonal relationship coach, who specializes in helping people move from heartbreak to healing.
Mr. Jay, welcome to the toaster.
Mr. Jay:
Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate your time.
Pete Wright:
We're getting to... We've talked about infidelity, we've talked about... We talked about a lot of the things that cause betrayal, but I don't think in all of our years we have ever really addressed betrayal as a subject in and of itself. And I am fascinated by it.
I'm fascinated by first of all, how you ended up in this role focusing specifically on betrayal in your career.
Mr. Jay:
Well, Pete, to that-
Pete Wright:
You're dying to talk about it.
Mr. Jay:
Yeah, because I'm just saying like, "Mr. Jay. Oh, what do you do?" "I'm an expert in betrayal."
Pete Wright:
Right.
Mr. Jay:
"I'm a betrayal."
Pete Wright:
"Hey, you coach what you know? Isn't that right?"
Mr. Jay, first of all, just give a... Set the table for us. How did you land in this role of wanting to help people through this very specific, very sensitive part of their mental and emotional healing?
Mr. Jay:
I was very, very close with my father and he died a couple years back and he died abruptly. When I mean abruptly, that means I was talking with him one day, we were laughing, telling jokes, and four days later, we were lowering his casket into the ground and it was just a very abrupt shock to my system.
It was probably about three or four days after that, I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and I smelled smoke and I have young children, so I immediately got up and I'm smelling my bedroom and I'm going into the kitchen and I'm opening up my door thinking maybe my neighbor had a fire or a barbecue or whatever, and try as I may, I could not find the origin of this smoke whatsoever.
I finally went back to bed and I put my head on the pillow and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was physically transformed to when I was six years old, I was standing next to my mother hearing her scream because we had a house fire. We went away for the weekend and we didn't know this was before cell phones and all this other stuff and when we came back, we pulled into our driveway and the only thing we saw was the chimney.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Mr. Jay:
Everything was burned to the ground and we just started to rent to own. We had no insurance, we had no... Nothing. We were completely destitute, homeless, you name it.
Anyway, when I heard my mother screaming, that's where my body was transformed to and that's when I had my very first panic attack.
Now, I've been in the coaching field for a long time. I talked about panic attacks, I've coached about panic but boy, there's no substitute for experience. So it was when I had one... I was like... I did some research and reflection and wanted to understand why this happened to me, this panic attack happened, and really it led me down the road of a tremendous amount of unhealed childhood wounds.
That's the long and short story of it. I basically started getting into various organizations and communities until one time I tried to stay anonymous in this community, I really tried to stay anonymous and the CEO wind up reaching out to me saying, "I see that you're really helping a lot of people in this community. Would you like to go through the betrayal trauma practitioner course and get certified and actually help?" And I said, "Oh, okay, sure."
Seth Nelson:
That's all you got to do to, Mr. Jay. Dangle a certification in front of him and he's in.
Pete Wright:
You like so much you joined the company. Yeah.
Mr. Jay:
And that was my carrot.
It's a fascinating field because non-betrayal trauma is different from betrayal trauma. I think a lot of times when couples...
Now, listen, betrayal trauma just doesn't have to happen in couples absolutely. You can have betrayal from a boss. You can have betrayal trauma from your spouse certainly. It could be from your body, yourself, your Creator.
I'm speaking to a woman currently who's like, "Mr. Jay, I am very healthy and I drink my shakes and I exercised and I was still diagnosed with breast cancer. I feel my body betrayed me," or "I feel my Creator betrayed me."
I'm dealing with a lot of people that have had those around them unalive themselves, their suicide. That's a betrayal. That's betrayal trauma.
Betrayal trauma... Now, certainly, 90% of my clients are going through some type of infidelity betrayal, but betrayal does not have to be a spousal betrayal because as long as there is a reliance dynamic, you can be betrayed by someone, if there's a reliance dynamic.
Pete Wright:
I want to focus in specifically, accepting the fact that betrayal can happen in any reliance dynamic, for the purposes of our show, we're very interested in the betrayal that happens between couples that leads to divorce and reconciliation and what that looks like. For these purposes, can you define betrayal trauma specifically for us and explain the kind of emotional and relational impact people have to work through?
Mr. Jay:
Yeah. First, let me give you an analogy.
I want you to imagine that there is a bridge, a mile above ground, and it's a mile long and it's a very thin bridge. Underneath this bridge is volcanoes and fires. You're on this bridge and let's just say you're holding the two things nearest and dearest to you. Let's just say it's your two kids, or let's just say it's a child and your animal or your mother, whatever. So you got one child in one arm and one child in the other or whatever and you need to go to safety. You need to walk across this bridge for about a mile.
As you're walking, what's under you is so hot, the fire and the lava is so hot that you can feel the burn through the soles of your sneakers. That's how hot it is and oftentimes, as you're walking, the smoke is so blinding that the only way you can move is by touching and having the person in front of you lead the way, guide you, and this person is the person you trust the most in life. Your spouse. Your significant other.
And as you're walking out of nowhere, the bridge collapses. Now, your brain is hijacked. You go into a primal panic. You're trying to look around for anything that you can catch onto, but you can't catch onto anything because you got the two most dearest things holding in your hand. You know when you fall, you are going to die. It's imminent danger.
And as you're falling, you look up to the bridge and you see the person you loved and trusted the most has a hammer. They're the ones that made the bridge collapse.
Now, your mind is so confused and angry and completely distraught. Then you hit the ground and you die in every way. Emotionally, mentally, psychological, physiology but not physically. That's betrayal trauma.
Betrayal trauma is trauma where you feel helpless, hopeless at the hands of somebody that you depended on.
Seth Nelson:
I like that last statement because it allows us to talk about how you get past it without saying, "Well, one betrayal is different than another," because ultimately it's still betrayal.
Mr. Jay:
Yes. No. Let me just say this right off the bat.
There are some key differences between trauma and betrayal.
For instance... Well, let me just give you a quick difference.
Trauma could be you witness a car accident. Trauma could be you're in a car accident.
Betrayal trauma, again, there's a couple key differences. I'm just going to give you three just for this, but there's a couple key differences.
Number one, it's the personalization of it all. If you're in a car accident or you see a car accident, or let's just say that your parents pass away, that could be traumatic but unless you killed them, you don't take it personally.
Seth Nelson:
You walked into a little sensitive area there. So let's not talk about murdering parents, right, Pete?
Pete Wright:
Well, not today.
Mr. Jay:
Okay, okay. We won't go there.
But when it comes to betrayal trauma, we personalize it. "What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I enough? Why wasn't I worthy?" We personalize it. That's betrayal trauma other than non-betrayal trauma.
The next way is that it's a secret society. If one of our parents passes away or we get into a car accident, we hear from our co-workers, we can call in and get bereavement time from work, our friends are going to check in on us. Maybe our neighbors might bring us some dinner or whatever. You don't find phone numbers under your bed to prostitutes and then say, "Hey, everybody, guess what happened to me?" It's a very private secret society which adds to the challenge of healing because it is a secret society.
And the last thing that I'll just say where betrayal trauma is different from non-betrayal trauma is that trauma affects the here and now and the future. If you get into a car accident for the rest of your life, you're going to be like, "Oh, if I get into this car, I'm going to remember..." Whatever.
But betrayal trauma not only affects the present and the future, but it also affects the past because once you find out that you are living with secrets or your significant other cheated on you or whatever, now you're forever going to be affected by the past. You can't look at family vacation photos anymore the way you're used to. You can't drive by certain restaurants or certain hotels, or certain places.
Seth Nelson:
Let's talk about that because I've had a lot of clients that either have had infidelity, have been cheated on, trust has been broken financially, "I thought we were very well off and we're not," so there's a whole host of it. Does it matter whether you still care about that other person?
Because I've had some of my clients be like, "We were having problems for years. The fact that he cheated, I don't care." Or, "You know what? I knew she was fooling around and it was fine. At first, it hurt but I'm over it. I'm ready to move on. I hope she finds someone or stays with it."
They have this almost disassociation with the person where I've seen it with clients that say, "Whatever. It is what it is," and they've already moved on and it doesn't really seem to impact them as much as other clients and I always wonder is, "Well, were you still connected? Are you still hurt? Do you still feel like this person should have done these things?" Where other clients are like, "Yeah, okay, I learned about it. Turns out I was fooled and I've moved on." How do they go from one to the other? Because it's pretty extreme.
Pete Wright:
I find myself... I'm wired to be someone who experiences betrayal trauma in my life when I've been betrayed just as a human being. It hurts me a lot. But I totally recognize what Seth is saying.
There are some people who just seemed... Have they already acclimated to the betrayal before the betrayal happens? How do they miss it?
Mr. Jay:
Well, you guys ask four different questions, so let me try to answer it-
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. But mine's the most important.
Mr. Jay:
Yeah, I hear you. Seth's is more urgent and more interesting.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
Take them in any way you see best to explain to our listeners, Mr. Jay.
Mr. Jay:
Number one, if somebody is privy to the betrayal, then I don't know if I would consider it betrayal trauma because betrayal trauma is a shock to our system. Betrayal trauma is I was playing by this set of the rules assuming you were playing by the same set of rules and I was shocked and blindsided. That's betrayal trauma.
If somebody has suspicions or somebody confirms that somebody is seeing somebody and they're like, "You know what? I'm just going to keep living because we're financially stable and I don't want to change that." Or "We have kids and I don't want to disrupt them." It's a different type of trauma or possibly different type of betrayal trauma and certainly, you would handle things differently.
I'm going to tell you something as I'm sure you know. There's no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to healing after trauma, because I'll tell you what, and there's no study on this, this is just Mr. Jay's theory. Take it or leave it.
Seth Nelson:
Good enough for us.
Mr. Jay:
I believe when somebody experiences betrayal trauma, about 40% of how they're affected is the trauma of here and now, 60% of what they're dealing with are the unhealed childhood wounds, that sleeping giant that that betrayal trauma woke up.
Seth Nelson:
Let me give you a thought on this, because I think Pete and I are different. Because I've been what I felt like have been betrayer/betrayed.
I get over it pretty quick. I beat myself up a little bit like, "Man, I gave someone the benefit of the doubt too much. I had a blind spot there. This person snowed me," and then to me, I'm done, move on, and I just don't look back.
I think, Pete, you have a different experience.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, go ahead. I can't wait to hear you say this. Go ahead.
Seth Nelson:
I was asking what your next experience is. I wasn't going to put words in your mouth. I was being-
Mr. Jay:
I'm going to sit back and enjoy my popcorn.
Pete Wright:
It's the number one thing you want to do right now. I know.
No, I'll tell you.
I live with my own healthy dose of rejection sensitivity. That betrayal lingers for me for a long time. I feel it manifests physically because trust is... I think you said something, you put words to something that I've long felt or intuited, which is not only does the betrayal affect the here and now, it affects the past because you recontextualize the time you spent with this person. Was it ever authentic? Was it ever real? And if I can't trust that, what can I trust? And suddenly, you're in an eschatological crisis because nothing is real.
That's just where I go. I can spin myself up pretty quickly. Yeah, it's a very real... It feels like a real physical pain to lose that trust.
Mr. Jay:
Oh, without question. It is a physical pain. It is absolutely a physical pain.
Let me tell you now that you just brought that up.
One of the reasons why it's important, what you just said, Pete, is because predictability gives us safety.
Pete Wright:
Yes. Yes.
Mr. Jay:
In life, we know, "Hey, my spouse comes home at 6:00. We know on Tuesdays we have tacos. We know on Saturdays, it's our daughter's soccer game." Predictability gives us safety.
In our hippocampus, which is the part of our brain that is in charge of recording time, location, memory, things like that, what happens is that's a filing cabinet. We remember certain milestones in our life. "Hey, in January 2011, we got married. In February of 2016, we had our first child and I graduated high..."
Our memory gives us a time stamp of what happened accurately and what's predictable.
What happens when we discover a betrayal in our life, and we can talk about spousal betrayal since this is what we're talking about, what's happening is that that big huge filing cabinet of strategic files that we have, that we are predictable that keeps us safe, what happens is somebody pulls that filing cabinet out of our brain, walks up a tall mountain on a very windy day, and empties that filing cabinet and all the files get scattered.
Now, you don't know what happened when, you don't know what's real, you don't know where goes what, you don't know who you are.
This is what makes the healing process challenging, many things make the healing process challenging, is that now when you go to put those files back into your drawer, number one, you're like, "Well, wait a minute. Was this..." Because the other thing too is since the hippocampus is so affected, now you're screwed up on not only the betrayal time, but you get screwed up with things in your childhood you don't certainly remember because your hippocampus is all screwed up now.
Now, when you're trying to put files back in, I was like, "Well, wait a minute, did this happen then?" Or "Oh, when this was happening?" "Wait, when we were in Florida at Disney World and my spouse said they had a meeting, so they had to leave for four hours, were they actually working or did they go hook up with somebody?" "Oh my gosh, where's this file go? Is this real?"
Then when you're trying to repair or rebuild, if you are doing that, which by the wayside note about 80 to 90% of all couples can and will if there's a willingness, but we can get on that later, now you have to decide, "Is this file important enough to put back in my drawer or is it not?" [inaudible 00:18:18]
I like what you said, Pete, because predictability keeps us safe and one of the things that we have to get back after broken trust is some sense of safety.
Pete Wright:
Yes. All right, and this leads to the two most important things to me about the rest of our conversation.
One, you have been spousally betrayed and yet you have to find a way to move forward with the co-parent, in the context of co-parenting, and try to find a way to be healthy again with that person. And the other side, you were the betrayer and you also have to continue a journey with this person.
From the perspective of divorce and couples, those two seem like pretty important engagements when kids are involved. How can we help people think through this mental model of healing after betrayal?
Mr. Jay:
Number one, like I said before, what betrayal trauma does is it wakes up the sleeping giant of all of your own insecurities, which is why a lot of times, just very quickly, if I am talking to, A, let's just say I'm talking to a male-female couple just for the sake of this podcast and let's just say the male's the one that stepped out, oftentimes, what I'll hear in session is the female is like, "I can't believe you did that. Am I that unworthy?"
Or the next couple might say, "I can't believe you would do that. Do you think I'm that ugly?"
Or "I can't believe you would do that to me. Do you have that little respect for me?"
Basically, what they're sharing is what are their core insecurities. Somewhere, somehow they felt ugly, they felt unworthy, they felt whatever the case may be.
The first thing you have to do is you have to really start healing your core wounds, your developmental trauma, whatever it is that was brought up, the sleeping giant of wounds. That's number one. Because regardless if you're going to go your separate ways or come together, you need to heal for you because if not, it makes your world very small.
I'm going to quickly just say something about that.
What I mean by that is, for example, let's just say there's a couple and one of them works in the medical field and they have an affair with a doctor, which I'm actually talking about a real client of mine, but for HIPAA purposes, that's about as much as I'll go obviously.
Seth Nelson:
That's like every doctor, ER show we've ever seen. All right.
Pete Wright:
We've ever seen, yeah. You're safe.
Seth Nelson:
No one's given this away.
Mr. Jay:
What happens if you don't do the healing, what happens is now you start hating all doctors. Then if you don't do the healing, now you hate all medical professionals. Then if you don't do the healing, now you hate the color blue and green because they're scrubs. Then if you don't do the healing, now you hate all hospitals. Then if you don't do the healing, now you hate all medical complex. So see, your world starts to get very small.
Regardless of what somebody does with their relationship, you got to heal for you.
Seth Nelson:
This is more about healing for you and even though you were the one betrayed, then you're going to have to... Because we're talking about co-parenting but also... I've had couples that were partners that were betrayed financially and the kids are all out of school and on their own and they're 65 years old and they're like, "I thought I had retirement and I don't." There's real aspects to it that's more than their childhood. They're like, "I was never insecure about money. Now I am."
Pete Wright:
Now I have to retrain my entire life.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Mr. Jay:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. There's absolute financial infidelity, there's no doubt about that.
But one of the things I will say is that money still represents something to someone. Absolutely. There's the here and now in how you're going to be affected.
But I would still work with somebody and say, "What exactly does money symbolize to you, represent to you? What have you. What does the relationship in general?" Whatever. And then certainly, yeah, now you have a future that looks pretty bleak financially because of financial infidelity. Absolutely, no doubt about that.
But the point I want to stress is that regardless of where you are in the party, you have to do your own healing because that will absolutely grossly affect the dynamics between your parenting.
Seth Nelson:
Do most people that do the betrayal acknowledge that they did the betrayal? Do people come to you and say, "I betrayed my family because I was financially not insecure, but financially unwise and I lost all the money in Vegas." Do they come to you and say, "I'm the guy that blew it all on red when I should have put it on black?"
Mr. Jay:
With about 95% accuracy, yes. However, the reasons under it, usually, they don't have a grasp onto and certainly, the harm that they've caused from it, they don't grasp. Once they do grasp that, then they come to the reconciliation table with a lot more compassion, which helps the healing process If a couple is going to heal and repair and rebuild.
Seth Nelson:
You have a couple, whatever the betrayal is, they divorced, and now you have your kid's soccer game and you got to be around them, or the graduation, or you're doing an exchange because they're little, how do you deal with that?
Mr. Jay:
Let me just say this without sounding cheesy, everybody is completely different because everybody has different childhoods, different childhood experiences, different examples, different support systems, different faith walks, different belief systems.
I will answer your question but keep in mind, there's no one size fits all with healing.
If one person who is like, "You know what? This sucked. It sucked badly, but I'm a person of faith and I know God's got my back," or whatever. Well, now they have a strong resource or what have you.
Or if I'm talking to somebody who is like, "You know what, Mr. Jay? I marinated in betrayal all my life and now I found somebody who I thought was going to be my person and they betrayed me," they're going to have more challenges to go to that soccer game on their weekend.
But let me just say this, one of the things that I highly recommend people do, and I may not answer your question and I apologize, but one of the things I have people do is this.
You have to, number one, define what forgiveness means to you, because you can ask 10 different people what forgiveness is and you're going to get 10 different answers. We like to throw away these terms such as forgiveness. People have to define it for themselves.
Pete Wright:
What is that question asking sort of implicitly, explicitly? Are you asking, "What do I need in order to be able to practically approach a relationship?"
Mr. Jay:
What do I need to start healing so I don't turn into a monster when I'm around that person on the weekends at the soccer game?
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Mr. Jay:
What is your definition of forgiveness? Once you come up with your comfortable definition of forgiveness, then you need to first apply that to yourself.
I'm not talking about forgive yourself for anything you did for your spouse to betray you. I'm saying forgive yourself starting in your childhood for any of the lies that you believed. "I'm going to forgive myself for believing that I was a nuisance to my father."
Seth Nelson:
I was thinking about forgiveness. I thought a cool 50 mil would do, then I'll-
Pete Wright:
Well, that's restitution. That's a little different.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, oh. My mistake. My mistake.
Mr. Jay:
I forgive my mother for making me feel like I was ugly or I forgive myself for the lies that I believed. I forgive myself for the lies that I believed.
Pete Wright:
No matter who perpetuated them in our lives.
Mr. Jay:
Yes.
I forgive myself for believing I was unworthy when I found out my spouse was unfaithful. I forgive my...
Then you have more capacity to apply forgiveness towards the other person because no matter what...
Listen, you're talking to somebody who marinated in betrayal and abuse and trauma all my life. I get it.
The bottom line is how do you want to present yourself in this life and how do you want to leave your legacy for your next.
I'm not going to have somebody else's decision dictate my mood. I'm still going to live authentically. I'm still going to live with love. I'm still going to express joy and happiness because that's who I am. I'm not going to allow somebody's wounds...
Keep in mind, for my career purpose, I believe wounds are very similar to cutting. When people cut, they do it to numb, distract, escape, cope with something.
I like to change the narrative of affairs. I don't believe once a cheater always a cheater, and he's a dirty dog and he just wanted his whistle wet. I don't believe all that nonsense.
I believe that affairs are coping mechanisms for wounds. They're just like cutting. And the betrayer deserves just as much healing as the person betrayed.
Now, if they want to be a butthead afterwards and not own up to it and not be remorseful and all this stuff, that could make it difficult to come to the table with compassion and understanding, but they're equally as hurt just in a different way.
And I know I probably just pissed off a lot of your listeners saying that, but that's the truth.
Pete Wright:
No, no, no. I actually think it's really important to acknowledge that. But even more important is this idea that if you are doing the forgiveness part for yourself, it's going to... At least it sounds like what you're saying, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like what you're saying is that you're going to be better equipped at dealing with somebody who might be just living in their own practical dome of assholeness and not owning up to their own behavior.
That can help you approach court practically. It can help you approach your relationship with your attorney. It can help you approach your relationship with your kids of just doing the work yourself, just being able to come to terms with the words that define your experience more clearly rather than just the raw nerve of emotion and betrayal.
Mr. Jay:
Oh, yeah. Because, listen, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't even like the word forgiveness, I use self-love instead of that because forgiveness is all about, "I'm going to put me first and not let what you did control me."
Seth Nelson:
We talk to our clients a lot about that. We talk about, "Hey, it's deciding how you want to show up. What are you going to do?" And lower the expectations, because so many people, rightfully so, are very emotional and reactive when they're going through the divorce process.
But if you lower your expectations and say, "I'm going to respond, not react," which gives it some thought and be like, "Okay, this is what I'm dealing. This is what I expected. This has been going on for years, how he treats the kids, how she does X, he does Y, whatever that X and Y is in your life, but I'm going to respond differently."
That actually freaks the other person out because they've been with you for 10, 15 years and you've always responded the same way, and they know how to push your buttons. But when you stop allowing them to actually push the buttons, because they're your buttons not theirs, they don't know what to do. It gives you the sense of empowerment, and they'll try harder and you just get quieter. I've seen it year after year after year.
But really what it is someone practicing setting up their own boundaries and saying, "This is what I'm going to do for me." When they set up those boundaries, I've seen people come out the other side, they're controlling their money for the first time in their life. They are going back into employment maybe and they're getting a sense of, "Hey, I can do this. I found a job. I've gotten back out there." There's a whole host of things.
Every client, every client that I talk to is a potential client. Do you want to feel the same way you feel now two years from now? And the answer is always no. So well, then you got some work to do because when you got to get through this process, but then you got to figure out on the back end, once you get through it, how did you get where you were and what do you need to do to change it.
And that's, to your point, Mr. Jay, is self-love, right? Setting those boundaries, take the time, figuring it out, going from there.
Mr. Jay:
Yeah. Yeah.
Unforgiveness just leads to hostility, which leads to resentment, which leads to animosity, which leads to resentment. I always say resentment corrodes its container so you got to get it at its root because...
I'm talking to many people now that are 30 years out of betrayal but never did any work and now there's physical ailments, psychological ailments now, because trauma, in my opinion, is like a ball of lava. It's in our body and if you don't heal it, it's slowly going to move around and just like lava, it'll kill everything it touches. You really have to work to get that trauma out of your body so you are free.
I'll tell you something. When somebody does the work to release trauma from their body, from their mind, body, and soul especially when it comes to betrayal trauma, I say all the time, it's like throwing a boulder in the middle of a pond. The ripple effect touches everything. Once somebody goes through betrayal trauma, there's not a part of your existence, I don't care if it's financial, emotional, mental, psychological, spiritual, that's not affected. But if you don't get rid of this, it'll start long-term affecting you physically.
Pete Wright:
Sure, sure.
Well, I think the physical, the emotional, the mental, the practical, the fact that doing this work and focusing on your trauma allows you to think more clearly about the fact that your future co-parenting relationship is about the relationship you have with your kid, not a requirement to have a relationship with your former spouse. Those kinds of moments of clarity are, I think, critically important and only possible after you've asked yourself those very difficult questions and moved through some of that work.
Seth Nelson:
And it's really interesting, which I haven't thought about the long-term effect of not dealing with stuff physically. You can see it.
When I run into a client that has been post divorce a year or two years, if they've done the work, they're great. Physically, you can tell. But I haven't really thought about that before on the long-term aspects of it. That's an interesting point.
Pete Wright:
This has been fascinating.
Mr. Jay, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation, for teaching us a little bit and giving us lots to think about. We sure appreciate it.
I will say in the chat room, if you aren't joining us live, you're listening to this after the fact and you haven't started joining us for the livestream, please do.
I have a shout-out. A special shout-out to Bob the Lawnmower guy who is at the Lake of the Ozarks and went swimming for three hours yesterday and has a really bad sunburn on his back and arms. But it was fun. And now watching us and playing Roblox. I haven't heard a better story. It has some very nice things to say about you.
Seth Nelson:
We'll get our listeners any way we can.
Pete Wright:
Mr. Jay. Absolutely.
Bob says, "You're great."
Mr. Jay:
Awesome.
Seth Nelson:
But before you go, Mr. Jay, where can our listeners find you?
Mr. Jay:
Oh, I believe I have the easiest website. It's mrjayrelationshipcoach.com. Simple, plain.
But I want to tell you something, even if people never want to hear from me, see me, talk to me, whatever, that's fine, great, and dandy. I have a lot of nice free resources on my website. Again, mrjayrelationshipcoach.com. If nothing else, just go to get the free resources.
Pete Wright:
So really, really appreciate that.
Thank you everybody for hanging out with us. Thank you for downloading and listening to this show, for joining us for the livestream, and on behalf of Mr. Jay and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll catch you next time right here on How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
How to Split a Toaster is part of the TruStory FM podcast network. Produced by Andy Nelson. Music by T. Bless & the Professionals and DB Studios.
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce & Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida.
While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction.
Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce & Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
