By Jake Porter, LPC, NCC, CPC

PACT Level 2 Therapist

You’ve been betrayed. Or maybe you did the betraying. Either way, your relationship is on life support, and you’re wondering if the only answer is to say goodbye and pull the plug.

Maybe. Maybe the cut is too deep, the hurt too great, the brokenness too extensive.

But maybe a relationship can survive the trauma of betrayal, and even thrive afterward. I believe this because I see it every week in my office.

Betrayal’s Many Faces

Take Mark and Rachel. After 16 years of marriage, Rachel discovered that Mark had been with more than a dozen other women, two being long-term emotional and sexual affairs. Rachel was devastated to learn that her perfect, fairytale story was a figment of her imagination based on partial truth of her actual reality.

Or consider Liz and Dave, a young couple in their early 20s. They’d been together since they were 16, and Liz found herself pregnant. Now, two children and a...