Betrayed But Not Broken: Infidelity, Anxious Attachment & the Courage to Walk Away

In this episode of the Love Better podcast, host Shazmeen Bank addresses various themes surrounding love, healing, and emotional well-being. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's pain, navigating betrayal, and understanding attachment styles. The conversation also delves into the complexities of infidelity, the journey of self-compassion, and the courage needed to leave toxic relationships. Throughout the episode, Shazmeen encourages listeners to validate their feelings and seek support within the community.Takeaways

• The importance of feeling seen and validated in pain.
• Pain is a part of life, but suffering is a choice.
• Emotional healing requires self-compassion and understanding.
• Betrayal can lead to complex emotional responses.
• Attachment styles play a significant role in relationships.
• Forgiveness is essential for personal growth.
• Setting boundaries is crucial in toxic relationships.
• Self-love is foundational for healthy relationships.
• Community support can aid in healing.
• Recognizing red flags is vital for emotional safety.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Life Better Podcast
• 6:05 Emotional Healing and Validation
• 23:02 Navigating Betrayal and Trust Issues
• 32:55 The Complexity of Relationships and Infidelity
• 37:02 Understanding Anxious Attachment and Healing
• 45:57 Navigating Dating After Healing
• 48:47 The Complexity of Trauma Bonds
• 56:47 Finding Courage to Leave
• 1:04:28 Dealing with Divorce from a Narcissist

Transcript

Shazmeen Bank (00:00)
Welcome back to another episode of Life Better. I am your host Shazam Bank and you know that you can bank on me. And this is part of the Love Better podcast. You know that every Monday we drop an episode on how to love better. And every Thursday is now the Q &A that is dedicated to answering all of your questions that come through on TikTok and all of your questions that come through on Instagram. And obviously,

I answer as many as I can, guys. I love you. I'm loving the flow of conversation. I'm loving the connection and I am loving the community we're building. And most importantly, I want you to know that when you listen to this particular episode or these episodes every single Thursday, the point of them was so that you didn't feel alone in your question. So you could.

feel that if I'm somebody that was too shy or I felt like I have too much shame to ask some of the questions I want, there are other people that are going through exactly what you're going through and they're asking these questions. And so in answering them, we get to life better and therefore we love better.

And before I go ahead with the rest of the questions coming in, I want to read something really beautiful that my son sent me just now. And I thought it actually brought me to tears. And I thought that whoever's listening to this would really touch them as well. So it's by Charlotte Freeman, and it's called Growing Through It. I hope you are learning to give yourself the credit you deserve.

I hope that you are beginning to recognize just how strong you are for pulling yourself through each and every difficult time in your life. I hope you allow this realization to walk with you alongside any obstacles or roadblocks you might encounter along your journey. I hope you know how capable you are and that no matter how challenging a situation may seem.

You have the courage to keep moving, to keep growing, and to keep healing. I hope you can look in the mirror and say, I am proud of you and really mean it. And above all, I hope you realize just how incredible you are and just how much you deserve your own life.

beautiful by someone called Charlotte Freeman. I've never heard of her before, but my son sent me this beautiful

TikTok earlier on and it put me into like little tears with obviously some of the beautiful life thing that I'm going through at the moment as well. And I just thought for anybody going through a really hard time, and if you're listening to this episode, I really want you to know that you are so seen. Your pain is so valid. And if you've ever just been in a space in your life where you have felt you've never deserved to be seen.

or your tears never had room to make it outside of the shame of a bathroom wall or your pillow. I just want you to know that your tears belong in this incredible world. Your tears are a sign of life. They're a sign that there's a beautiful heart inside of you that is aching and feeling and yearning and there's nothing more beautiful than knowing that you have

the ability to feel emotion, even sometimes to the capacity that it feels it's overwhelming. I know that you rather sometimes be in a place in life where you are overcome with feelings and emotions, as opposed to sometimes being so extremely numb that you painfully need to cry and you can't. You painfully need to feel.

And you just simply cannot anymore because your body has shut down and your emotions have parked themselves so deep inside of you to protect you. But I feel that when we are hurting, when we are in pain and when we are grieving, there's nothing more beautiful than knowing that all of that comes from your heart.

It comes from the place that gives love. It comes from the place that always wanted to receive love. And it comes from a part of you that has never felt validated. And so this podcast and this episode is truly dedicated to you. It's dedicated to the person that cries silently and suffers silently.

It's dedicated to the person that is in pain. And I want you to know something, pain is inevitable. We can never be certain we won't get hurt, but suffering is always our choice. And I feel that it's only in going through that pain and finding the strength to go through that pain do we ever build the muscle to deal with the things that we have to. And it's okay when you cannot as well.

It's okay when you have exhausted days because no one knows your story. Nobody knows your hurts and your ability to still have to get up every single day and show up to the entire world. Nobody knows what you go through better than you do. Nobody knows the exhaustion of having to put a smile on your face, to show up for the other people hurting around you, to have to have

and make conversations you simply just do not want to. You are truly a hero and we've just never crossed paths. You're my hero and I've just never had a chance to meet you. And so I want you to know that you're seen, you're not alone. And I want you to sit back and maybe grab a beautiful cup of tea.

and we can slowly start to get to know each other and maybe with a little courage and a little faith, destiny awaits and you will eventually come into my DM or my TikTok or send me an email and we will slowly get to know each other. And if you are watching this on YouTube, thank you. If you're watching this on Spotify, thank you. And if you're listening to this on Apple or

any other platform, I want to say thank you. We are 22 episodes into this podcast and I'm feeling so alive to serve you. So I hope that this service is reaching all the right people. Now, question number one, and we got a couple of them.

Question number one, and we got a couple of them, and I have a bit of a runny nose because I gave myself tears. But how to heal from a betrayal triggers inevitably as there is a child from that incident. So I'm going to assume that because you continue to write to me saying you are trying to make your long distance marriage work.

I'm going to only assume from this that your partner cheated on you and there's a child and now you are hurt. You are triggered and there's nothing you can do to literally distance yourself from the other woman because there's a baby. There's a child involved and that is really painful. First of all, I want to just commend the fact that

you're still trying to work on your marriage in a long distance situation. And I want to first commend the fact that after writing to me to ask about how do I heal, you're also writing to ask how do I make this marriage work? And I want you to take a moment to breathe first because it's a pretty heavy situation. And I think sometimes when you wrote that you're also anxiously attached,

We never pause to recognize those anxiously attached people when we get betrayed and when we get hurt. We can stop and take in the shock. We could stop to take in the pain. We can stop to feel the anger. But then within a couple of days or sometimes even hours, your empathy and compassion and longing

for their connection again, longing for their validation and reassurance that they still love you is very much there. And so we can sometimes be betrayed and then move straight away into how do I fix it? How do I make it work? How do I move past it? How do I get over it? And when you're dealing with betrayal, there's so many different layers to it. There's a phase one where the person that has betrayed you

has to come to terms with a different part of you coming out, a different part of your anger, a different part or version of you that they never experienced and saw. They're used to somebody that they could take for granted, that did show up, that was always around. They sometimes cheated on the person. created a story that you were also extremely busy or you're not so present or...

You've just had a baby or you're caught up at work, whatever story they came up with that allow them to do what they needed to do. That story has now come to an end and they now have to face and see what they've done. Culturally, sometimes we have partners that don't do that. Culturally, sometimes people cheat and you continue your life.

And you understand in some tribes and some cultures that you learn it was nothing about you. And it's now about dealing with the fact that you just feel you've lost your face. You've lost your spot in standing in that tribe, in that culture, in that community. And you're building off that because you've always grown up with the mentality of someone would cheat on you. Or you could have a partner.

that turns around and expects you to move on because now you've caught them, they've apologized, you have your own family, they've told you they love you, they want to make it work, but the person not making it work now is your pain.

Their inability to hold room, their inability for the compassion towards what has just happened to your world and to the relationship that's been completely shattered is not something they're willing to dive into and go into. And then we also have the other side of betrayal where you are hurt and you find out that your partner has cheated on you.

And they have to face it. And not only do they have to face the betrayal they've put you through, but they have to now face the consequences of how you see them. Their ability to have always said, I would never be that person or to have prevented this or to have shown this perfect persona, this put together woman or man. And that image that they managed to project out into the world has been shattered.

And a lot of times people cannot face how you are seeing them through your eyes because now they are seeing themselves through your eyes as well. And it is heartbreaking for them to know that not only have they shattered your world and your image of that relationship, but they have shattered their image in your eyes. so betrayal and cheating is such a heavy topic.

But how are you going to deal with it is honestly to feel it and to have a lot of compassion. Now I don't know what kind of a partner you have. I don't know if you're with somebody that expects you to move on. I don't know if you're with someone willing to go and get help. And I don't know if you're with someone that has the patience for your anger and your pain, for you to oscillate between wanting to forgive and move on for your

questions and the triggers that come in such as the distance, are they still doing it? Is they somebody else? The triggers every time they possibly are with you that the phone beeps and you're wondering is that somebody else? The triggers that are now also getting you to be a detective that you never thought you ever were? Having you use technology in a way that you never thought was possible to track them and their phones and who they're talking to and

become the expert on their GPS locations and figure out all these things that you would have rather not be spending the time to do. And do they have the patience for that level of pain that you're going to go through? And I don't think that people crumble in one go. I think when you've been cheated on, I think you slowly crumble. And I feel that

Each time you crumble to your lowest, you either have a partner that's willing to catch you at each and every level and say that I got you and I'm sorry. And when your anger comes out at them, they are going to end up also getting angry back because remember they don't want to be seen as this person that you're now seeing them as. And they don't want to.

break this Chinese wall in their mind of really accepting a version of themselves that they probably said they would have never been, or they grew up watching their dad cheat on their mom and say, I would never be that guy. And now they're having to face that they are that guy. And in your anger, you're absolutely letting them know that their father's genes lay inside of them and that's who they've turned out to be. And do you have a partner that

can go through that anger and recognize where your pain, you're provoking them and your anger is coming from. Or let's say you don't have a partner that's willing to emotionally hold you. Then it's a different scenario. Then you working through the triggers is going to be slower and more lonely. And I would not be scared as those triggers come up to voice how you're feeling.

to ask the questions of who messaged, who just called, why didn't you pick it, why did you put the call in silent? I want access to your phone. I want access to your emails. Are you willing of the betrayal that has happened and the fact that a child is now existent that I cannot move away from and neither can you? So it's not that you've only gone and cheated on me and broken me, but now you've brought something into my world.

that I have to now deal with and I have to give you the permission to be a part of because I'm only assuming you're not going to tell them to cut off the baby from their life because this is an innocent child and I don't know who that other woman is and what she could probably be leeching on to sometimes to ⁓

hold onto him a little longer through the child. And sometimes there's also a very good woman on the other end that absolutely had no idea he was even married. So cheating and betrayal is so complex and the levels can be so complex, but how do you heal from it is honestly, I really think it takes time and I would get support and I would get help.

And if you cannot afford a therapist or you cannot afford a relationship coach, then I'll do my best to be there for you through the DMs as much as I can. But I would turn around and tell you that you've got to be able to really be honest with your feelings. And one of the best things you could do is truly start to journal everything because it has to come out somewhere. Either it's coming out in an email or in voice or text messages.

or in a journal. And if you don't have the ability to send it to them because you're just going to get more pain back from them, then at least write it and send it to yourself. Write that email and send it to yourself. Write that voice message and send it to yourself. The one thing that does help with healing, and it's not ever making behavior excusable, but the one thing that truly

eventually brings comfort is first of all, holding a lot of room for your pain, allowing yourself to really understand they're not going to be great days, being unbelievably kind to yourself where you might slack off, and then being able to really reassure yourself that it had nothing to do with you, that you are

somebody that is whole and loving and start to reassure yourself that whatever they are trying to fulfill inside of them, whatever void, hollowness or trauma they have not dealt with results in them having to have an affair that can leave you really wounded and it really, unfortunately has nothing to do with you, but is now spilled over into your world. And

This betrayal has come into your world and your light so that you can start to build the muscle of self-validation and self-reassurance. Now, not in excusing painful behavior, but this works for anyone that is going through pain, is to be able to really see that bad behavior stems from a lot of pain someone's going through that they cannot face.

And so the affairs, the numbing, the addictions are all ways that they never have to deal with knowing that there's very much something they have to deal with, but they don't go there. They don't even know how to comprehend there's somewhere to go to have to heal. And in knowing that this person has caused me this level of pain. And then on this hand is my pain here. They have pain and here I have pain. Both.

pains exist. And if I start to understand that they've hurt me because they are hurting, doesn't make my pain less, doesn't make me have to pull away and only caretake for them. I can very much say that I'm hurt, I'm broken, and I don't know what to do with this level of betrayal except to feel it. And very much that they're in pain.

And that's why they've done what they've done. And a lot of the times we're not able to hold space for someone else's pain. And in holding space for someone's pain doesn't mean you need to do anything with it other than just understand it for your own healing. But you very much on this side need to give a lot of tender love to yourself and a lot of patience to yourself and start to ask yourself a lot of the right questions.

Do you want to go through this betrayal on your own? Do you want to involve someone, which is the person who's hurt you, to very much be a part of this journey? And I would start stepping up for yourself by saying, I did not ask for this pain and yet it is here, so I'm gracefully and ungracefully at times going to go through it. But I think now's the right time that you start setting boundaries in your life. Boundaries with

the long distance and it's not about you're anxiously attached in a long distance marriage. You know, what do you do? You're more anxiously attached because they've just cheated on you. Your anxious attachments probably just popped up like a really ripe pimple. And it's sometimes one of those ones that pop and they give you no notice of where they're going. I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but you didn't ask to pop and that

Pop is your anger and your shock and your hurt and different trauma coming up for you too. But this is a very good time for you to start getting more secure and healing the anxious attachment inside of you. instead of wanting to hold on more to them, you start to be able to say, if you need space and you need to go and you're not going to address what you've done to me, we're not going to sit down and I get to ask all the questions I need to ask, then I'm going to put a boundary to

how much also you come towards me and can take off me because all this energy goes into healing me right now. And it is terrifying and scary because you already feel like you lost them to the betrayal. And it's brave to allow someone to walk away because you start to value yourself and set boundaries for yourself. And as your self-esteem grows, so does your ability to deal with the triggers because then they can be doing things and

It will no longer trigger that part of you because there's a part of you that understands I cannot control what they're going to do. But if I'm going to stay in this relationship, I can control how I'm going to show up and how I'm going to be treated and what I'm going to allow myself to be treated as. Have they taken me for granted? Have they not? Have they thought that I'll never leave and I'm going nowhere because I'm fully dependent on them? What parts of this relationship need to be

fully cracked open and what parts of your eyes have stayed closed to this relationship that now need a deep opening. And so I would go out tomorrow and buy this journal and start to look back at my relationship. And I hope you have a partner that wants to work on this with you. And if they do, then you guys can truly work on something to either build it up from the scratch, from scratch up again, sorry.

Or you might end up working through some times like I have with clients worked to the point where they're both feeling so much better, but it's just no longer going to work. And so you can never guarantee where it will go, but the healing has to come forth. And in betrayal, you want the other person to know your head. So I really hope that this person has room for you. And if they don't, your journal is going to stop being your best friend.

or you can DM me anytime.

The other question is, I'm 27, dated a married man for a year. He's everything I've ever wanted in a man. Should I stay? Now, here's the thing. When you've dated a married man and he's everything you've ever wanted, it's easy for him to be everything you've ever wanted. If you were to ask his wife, is he everything she wants right now? Her answer is probably going to be no.

He's not the man she married. He's not the man she fell in love with. He's not showing up for his family. He's pulled away from the relationship. He's probably not even sexually active. She's seeing sides of him that are breaking her and hurting her. And I never want you to be the person that's on the other side of someone's karma or someone's trauma or someone's pain. And...

sometimes there's a void and emptiness or an exhaustion of being alone. And so we settle for saying, I fall in love with someone and they're hitched to someone else, but they're saying all the delicious right things to me. But what if it's easy for him to do this to her with you and he's not going to leave her? Or if he does, leave

somebody who put her faith, hope and dreams into him and he shatters all of that by leaving her for someone else, then what guarantee do you have that he won't do that to you? And you've got to understand when a man is having an affair, sometimes they stay longer out of guilt and other times they're never letting the other person go because they love that person and they want

to hold on to that person and they know what that person has given up to be with them. But there's another side of them. There's another part of their personality that just gets to come out and explore and have fun with somebody without having to really tie those strings down. In his marriage, the knots are tight, but with you, they get to be flexible. He gets to be different parts of himself.

and open different parts of himself and awaken different parts of himself that if he was guided correctly in his marriage, he would have been able to do with her too. Because we all have these dark and light sides to our energy and our sexuality. But when we are gifted enough in a relationship to take the light and the dark sides into that marriage, that marriage gets to experience all sides of us. Our dark and our light energy.

our masculine and our feminine energy. And so there's probably a part of him that he gets to run away from. And it's so easy to show that vision to you. And this is sensitive because there's feeling for you, I hurt for you, I hurt for the wife and I hurt for him. Because all of you are wounded and sometimes she has no idea she's about to be wounded.

She has no idea the betrayal she's about to experience. She has no idea what's coming for her. And lo and behold, her world is going to be shattered if she finds this out. And it's already being shattered with what she's probably experiencing in her marriage now. Because a lot of the times you're experiencing this beautiful, all-encompassing, easy side of him.

where he gets to be, according to your words, he's everything you've ever wanted in a man. And he gets to be that vision with you. But what's the stories that he's told himself about his relationship now that he's going into that marriage, fighting, screaming and confusing a wife or sometimes in many cases I've dealt with with clients also physically abusing them because of their anger and their guilt.

especially when you have a wife that's still kind and loyal and loving. And no matter what you throw at them, they are still very much present and very much there for you. And so I want you to take a moment to realize there's a part of you that is seeking to be seen, loved. There's an exhaustion inside of you that probably just doesn't want to do this alone anymore. And you want to be taken care of.

But who in your childhood was not fully present to love you? Who in your childhood's love did you crave so much? Was it your mom or your dad that loved you and made you feel so seen and cared for and yet couldn't fully give you that love in the way that you needed it? And you have just replicated this man in your life. He is representing a core wound.

that you've not healed from your mom or your dad in your childhood or whoever your caregiver was. And so your journey is to start looking at the core wound that you have inside that has felt that you are worthy of just this level of love. And his healing would be to look at what parts of himself are so buried and so steeped in shame that this is

the kind of place he comes to express and feel free. And then I hope for the wife or any women that are listening to this right now saying, or men saying, I was the other person that, you know, found out my husband or wife was having an affair. And it's actually heartbreaking because on TikTok,

I did post something about cheating and I had a really amazing man write saying that 15 years of his marriage is gone. Just like that. I had another man write to say his world is shattered and he just can't seem to reconcile how she would go for someone else like that. And now doesn't even care or take care of the kids. And he's in a different country.

just trying to hold on to his children who are getting brainwashed not to even speak to him on the phone. This gets messy. And I don't want you to carry the karma of that energy. You deserve so much more. You don't deserve someone who shows up their best to you because it's convenient. Be married to him. See him in all his phases. See him when he's not brushed and woken up. See him when he loses money.

See him when he's tired, see him when he has the runs after eating something bad. And that's why he won't leave his wife. She's seen all those sides to him. And he doesn't realize that he's so comfortable in that relationship and has opened up himself to her. But with you, it's the fun, easy phase one romance stage to the affair. And

These affairs can last years, but at some point, these men do choose their wives or these women do choose their husbands. And when they don't, it's a very tiny percentage of relationships that thrive from being built on no foundation. So I really hope that you find somebody that sees you for who you are.

and wants to love you for who you are. And this is not an easy place to be, but I hope that you encourage him to be honest about what he's doing and let her get broken and shattered, but get a chance to make a decision about whether she wants to stay or not with him as well.

So one person wrote in saying, will it ever get better? I feel so numb sometimes, especially after confrontation. So I'll give you some depth to this particular situation because ⁓ my heart goes out to her completely. sorry.

cut that out. ⁓ My heart goes out to her because she's sorry. ⁓ talk about keeping real. ⁓ She is going through a really hard time and she has young children and she's most certainly with someone that's narcissistic. So she's slowly learning how to move out of her anxious attachment.

and not get so triggered and not get involved in the confrontation that he needs to feed off from her. And she's so trapped in shame and she's so trapped in the pain that she cannot leave. So proud of her for taking up this job and for working and being brave enough to not sit at home and

allow your self esteem to grow in one part of your world because you really deserve it. But the context to her question is because she's with somebody that will control her and has controlled her young children to not like her. And he's having an affair. And she had her young daughter read a lot of these messages. And when the young daughter came to tell her the young daughter was crying,

And then she went to confront him and he physically was abusive. And let me tell you, there's nothing more painful for people who get slapped, punched, or hit. And the person doing that knows that they don't have enough money to leave. Or the person doing that knows that they have control and will keep the children and so you won't leave. And

They have it all mapped out. So they get to have the mistress. They get to treat you really, really badly. And where are you going to go? Because sometimes your parents are old and you can't go back home because they can't take care of you. Or culturally, you don't know how to tell your parents this is what's going on. Or sometimes culturally, you come from background where they expect you to make it work. And sometimes...

You're just solo. You cannot go back home. What is home for you? It's with probably a parent that is also narcissistic and is waiting for you to fail so you can go home so they can probably do the same thing to you. This is real life. And that's why this episode is so important because we have to bring to light that

people are hurting and people are making hard decisions in life every single day and people are fighting to have a voice and people are fighting.

to be seen. But most importantly, I want people to get empowered to see themselves. When you stop looking for someone else to validate what an incredible human you are, and you can do that for yourself, will you wake up and start to make decisions from a place you never knew you could?

So to answer your question, you feel numb sometimes? Yes, a lot of the times I can imagine, sweetheart. And I'm just privileged you write to me and you share your journey and we can help you. And privileged you've allowed me to share this with so many other people that you have no idea are going through this right now.

and your story is going to inspire them. And so the confrontation she had left her feeling a lot of shame because she felt I knew I should have walked away. And you've told me not to give in to the triggers. And this is the thing I want to talk to anyone that's anxiously attached is a lot of the times we think that

You are going to start getting secure or learn when you're feeling triggered and you're just going to stop in that millimeter of a second to not react. Healing anxious attachment takes time and then it will come a day where you do not react and you go, holy, I am proud of myself. But until then, you should still be so proud of yourself for now knowing

I should have walked away. That's where you're proud of yourself the whole journey. It's not just when you become securely attached. It's the journey to healing this anxious attachment. It's your ability to know that I lost my temper. I lost my cool. I said things I probably shouldn't have.

I had to get this anger out because I'm looking for justice. I'm looking to just find the answers as to why I'm looking to shake them, to see that they love me and I'm valuable. I'm looking for them to tell me I'm worthy and try and understand why they would just keep me around. I'm looking to be like, do you care? Is they a sign of life inside of you because you feel lifeless?

because you've stopped caring about you, because you've never fought for yourself. And this other person, especially, especially, especially narcissistic people, when they come into your world, it is the biggest whirlwind of a romance. And then when they are done, they are out and they dismiss you and devalue you and you cannot believe what just happened to you.

So it's about knowing that each time you reacted, you recognized you did, and then it's slowly building this muscle to breathe and notice what's going to trigger you. So now I notice that my daughter told me what she did, reading all these messages between him and his mistress. And now where you get better is you start to think, if I go confront them,

and tell them how I feel. It's not going to make a difference. They are waiting for you to react. They are waiting for you to poke them. They're waiting for you to hit them. And so they can go and tell people, at how crazy you are. And the worst part is you end up believing it and thinking it and you live in shame and you think it's true. And now you're no longer focused on the fact that they're having an affair. Everyone's now focused on why did you behave like that? Be calm. You shouldn't have done that. And you're

sitting there in shame thinking, right, because adults and normal people shouldn't behave like this, right? Adults and normal people shouldn't ever experience such deep levels of betrayal. Adults and human beings shouldn't live with a man who won't sleep with you because he's got a mistress that he openly travels to go see and talk to. Nobody can imagine what it takes for you to even show up at work right now. No one can imagine what it takes for you

to have to be around your children in this existing state. No one can imagine as someone who is anxiously attached how painful it is when you just have never learned how to see yourself, love yourself, nurture yourself, regulate yourself and do things for yourself and feel whole.

and fulfilled because you've just fully always relied on someone else to do it for you because you grew up never gaining or being taught how to reassure yourself and regulate your own emotions. You grew up always needing reassurance and validation from everyone else outside of you. And now is the time you really reparent yourself. And does it ever get better when you gray rock them?

When you stop giving into what they want, when you start getting cleverer about their methods, when you start to notice that either they want you to be praising them or they want the confrontation from you, but either way they want your attention. So you're either making them feel on top of the world and if you're not, then they're coming for you. So it's about you getting clever about their moves. It's about you starting to bite your tongue and watch them.

And let me tell you something, narcissists never want you to know that they have very low self-esteem because of how they project themselves. You are the only intimate person in their life that has access to powerful emotion, powerful information that they do not have a high self-esteem. They view themselves poorly and they think that they can do whatever they want.

Because no one holds them accountable. And sometimes not holding them accountable is what scares them. Because when you hold them more accountable, it's how they get to justify and fight back more and point out how you're wrong. And when you just stop feeding their attention and you start to answer them with the noted, okay, that's good. And they come for you. They come to fight with you because, now you're going to give me attitude, wait and see what I'm going to do for you.

they start to scare you. And when you just start to look at them and make a face and go, okay, and you still continue to walk away, even though your heart's beating and you don't know what reaction you can get out of them, that's how you slowly start to win. Because they will claw and claw and caunt until they realize they cannot claw that out of you. And then guess who starts to suffer? The mistress. Because now they're not getting

their feed from you, it's gotta come out on somebody else. And I would slowly start to pull your children in by nurturing them, loving them, kissing them, and letting them know that they're safe and you see them and they are your world. So they might be confusion with how the triangulation's happening with dad telling them or making them feel something's wrong with you, and then children can feel.

They can feel when they're loved, they can feel when they're wanted, and especially when someone fights for them and doesn't give in to the fear of father because then they can end up growing up feeling like, wish you fought for me. So my advice to you would be, it's okay. Don't be ashamed when you still lose it. Don't be ashamed when you get upset. This is not an easy situation, but start.

to get better at regulating yourself. Start to get better at thinking. Instead of anxiously attached to having the reaction, start building the muscle of journaling, thinking about it, not reacting and just going for it. Pause, breathe, let the 90 second pass. After 90 seconds, if you are so fired up, give your body 30 minutes to regulate yourself with the walk, with music, with the shower.

doing something, cooking, anything that will not allow you to engage in it. And then in your sensibility now, when your body's back in a ventral state, now ask yourself, what do I need to do? This is how you start to grow and train your nervous system that you're in charge of it.

You've worked on yourself, but you still don't know how to interact on dating because you've been out of it for so long. I love that. And I think honestly, I think you're in such a sweet place. You're in such a beautiful phase where you've worked on yourself. You're in such a beautiful place in your life where now you're just going out and you're going to date and you're going to meet different people. And you get to just see that this person I've worked on, who am I attracting?

Who am I inviting into my life? Who am I, you know, still pulling? Do I still need to do more work on myself? Because I love that when I have clients that are securely attached and it's taken work, let me tell you something, this is not something they grow over three months time. But now when they start to pull partners that are avoidantly attached, dismissive or fearful,

The minute they get dismissed the first time, they immediately go, not for me. Cause it doesn't mean as you're healing and you do work on yourself, you won't attract ⁓ different kinds of people. But it does mean that you notice it more, you get better at not wanting to engage in that level of, you know, ⁓ a relationship. But I would say that if you've really worked on yourself, enjoy this process, enjoy putting yourself out.

there. I would not take rejection as something's wrong with you, or I would not take not meeting somebody immediately as fear of, I going to be alone? Is the right person out there? Is there the one? Because they never really is the one. I love the concept of you coming whole, even though your whole is not fully healed. And then finding someone that's also whole.

And their whole is also not fully healed. But then when you come together, you both bring and enrich each other's lives in such beautiful ways. And so it's not about you being whole when you find somebody. And it's not about you being perfectly healed and whole before you go out into the dating world either. So you're in a really beautiful space. And I would go with the flow.

and enjoy it. would ask my friends to hook me up with somebody. I would be open to meeting different people and just see what comes. You're in such a beautiful place. Somebody else says, I am glad that I came across your video. My ex girlfriend who's a fearful avoidant and is aware of her attachment style has left again. And

For the second time jumped within days to a rebound relationship. She says she's like a homing pigeon and always comes back to me. I already have a gut feeling that she will be back. I think that we are both trauma bonded. Now here's the thing. I remember the guy that wrote this video because I actually asked him for permission to share this. ⁓ So when your ex girlfriend who you know is fearfully avoidant

I'm, you know what I find fascinating first of all is when a fearful avoidant dates a dismissive avoidant, they really experience the extreme of the pain of being anxiously attached and discarded. And when an anxiously attached person dates a fearful avoidant, they really date the extreme part of the avoidant. And

You almost end up feeling that fearful avoidance should find secure people. They should find more anxious people because of the loyalty and the ability for that attachment style to more hold more room for the other person. But I don't know what your attachment style is. But if this person's already gone, if they keep leaving all the time and they feel that they're a homing pigeon, then they need

to get comfortable making their home somewhere else. You need to destroy the nest that you've allowed inside of your heart for them to keep coming back into. Whether that means you take the nest out completely and you gently put it somewhere else that this beautiful pigeon can land and heal in that nest but no longer in the vicinity of your pure heart.

because you end up getting really hurt. And you are nurturing and nesting somebody that when they feel full and ready to fly again, they're out. And then you're left thinking, I gave you the home. I gave you the shelter. I gave you the care. I wounded your broken wing. And now you're out there flying. And the thing is, when they rebound, it's because

You took care of them, that they did not have to deal with what they keep causing to break them. And then they rebound or go into addictions because whoever wants to do the hard work and look within, if you're not anxiously attached or securely attached, who wants to do that hard work? Fearful avoidance are not inclined to sit around and think about their life. They're not inclined.

to sit around and just naturally pick up self-help books and listen to podcasts. Something happens in their lives that will have them turn the key and decide enough. I'm tired of feeling this way. I'm tired of running. I'm tired of feeling lonely. I want to experience a love. I'm tired of hurting the good people I meet in my life. But you have to stop allowing them to nest inside of you. And that means that

When you shut off that part to them, you've got to clean out something within you too, that allows you to feel that they can keep coming back. Someone's only going to come back when they know you're going to take them back. And a lot of the times we feel we're trauma bonded is because we get addicted to the trauma in that relationship. We get addicted to them leaving and we get addicted to them coming back because of

the highs and lows that that relationship leaves you feeling, you actually get addicted to the emotions of the withdrawal of this person. And then when they come right back, the addiction is filled. And so you're now breathing and you feel like you, like any other addict have had your fill, even though the relationship's toxic and there's nothing resolved.

but you're emotionally satisfied on the wrong high. And that's why we think trauma bonding is from trauma. It's not. A lot of the times it's the trauma in that relationship, reigniting the trauma. Their ability to put you on a pedestal you've never experienced before that high, that's delicious. But the discarding of you, that low is also addictive.

That low is when you're supposed to connect with self and you're supposed to come back deep down into yourself, but you're searching aimlessly, looking for them, waiting for their love to come back so they can put you on a pedestal and make you feel high again. The only way to break these relationships and these cycles is by not being available when someone comes back to ring the doorbell. No one is home.

The old person isn't there anymore. You have moved. You've moved to a place where you want to recognize your self-worth and you've moved to a place and don't tell me sometimes I stay in this relationship because I don't think I can find anyone and at my age and don't know. No, no, no, we're not. We're not doing any of those things. When you heal.

The first relationship that's the most important one is the one with yourself. You have to madly fall in love with who you are and not madly fall in love with how someone makes you feel. You only do that when the relationship's healthy and you meet someone that sees you and loves you and you know that love is so pure. They're not asking for anything back. You're not counting on when they're going to take that love away.

So you have to perform and do something so that love never gets taken away. And then if you're anxiously attached, you will still perform, you will still do, you will still be needy and that love will be taken away. That's the side effect of being trauma bonded. And I did cover this episode in one of my earlier podcasts. So if you're looking to understand trauma bonding, then you can go check out that episode and maybe I'll do another brand new fresh one because I had a lot of questions.

⁓ about codependency and trauma bonding. But remember, the most important part of when someone's constantly leaving is the only consistent person staying in that trauma is you. The only person saying that I'm willing to be bonded is you, but they cannot trauma bond onto you if you are not existent anymore to allow that pattern to happen. I rather you exit that relationship.

and then go and heal somewhere curled up in a lot of pain and allow that pain to come through and not have to rely on that kind of a love. And maybe, just maybe, you will finally invite the damn eagle instead of a pigeon. You will finally invite an eagle that wants to soar the skies and soar your heart, amongst many other beautiful things inside of you.

I am trying to find courage and strength but feels like I'm stuck. Can't leave. I don't know if it's attachment or dependence, but I feel like I don't know anymore about the world outside. I just know to be a wife and a mom. ⁓ okay. I remember this one was somebody that had been cheated on five times. Five times. And I asked her that.

You've been cheated on five times and you're in so much pain. And why would you stay? Why is there going to be a sixth time? And she says, I'm trying to find the courage and strength. Let us never mock how real that is. Courage and strength and the financial means to leave a relationship is not a joke and sometimes takes years.

like the other woman that got hit. It's not easy to know that someone hits you, devalues you, and you have to stay in that same home. And it almost makes you feel that you should instantly run and move and you know that you can't. And imagine the trauma of knowing you have to continue staying in a situation as you just get the strength to move on.

And we don't factor in the exhaustion of having to build that courage and strength. There are some people that have access to the finances that allow you to leave, the government support that allows you to leave, the family members that will give you financial support to leave. And there are other times you can't even think of the financial side to leave because you are just trying to harness and deal with the shame of

How am I still here allowing this and chasing them for love? This is really complex. And the reason I wanted this podcast to be so different to, know, you should know better and you should leave. And if you haven't left, that's on you. No, these are real lives. Children, a lot of the times are involved. Sometimes people are terrified about their lives and sometimes people

have lost so much of their self-esteem and self-confidence, they don't know how to go out into the world and ask for help because they have been made to believe no one is there for them and no one will love them and no one sees them except the person that they're with. So you are trying to find the courage and the strength and it feels like you're stuck. First of all, I commend you for trying to find the courage and the strength. Well done.

And everyone else listening to this podcast commends you too. And then you are stuck and you can't leave. A lot of the times you think, it dependence or attachment? A lot of the times it's uncertainty and fear. A lot of the times it's dependence on familiar. You know, it's familiar to know you'll cry this way. It's familiar to know they will not love you. It's familiar to know they'll scream and shout. It's familiar to know you'll beg to

have someone sleep with you and they will ridicule you or have you chase them and beg them for basic human needs in a marriage or a relationship. And it takes a lot before you ever even reach a place where you're able to garner the strength to walk out. And I had heard an Oprah a long time ago that it takes people seven tries before they leave.

What I can tell you though is a lot of the times you are so aware of the relationship being something you shouldn't be in. But because you know you have to be in it, you have to try and make it livable. You have to try and make it be something you can wake up to every single day and be a part of. It is not easy at all. And so in a situation like this, you don't know anymore.

the world outside, I only wonder if they've cheated on you five times, how much of your world they have taken away, how much of the world outside you feel you cannot face. And I want you to know that you deserve to have the life that is full of, even if it's being alone and single for the rest of your days, that you deserve peace.

Your nervous system deserves peace. Your children deserve the version of you that is alive, that plays with them, that laughs with them, that jokes with them. Your children deserve not the version where they are wondering what's wrong with you and that's become familiar too. For them, it's easy to see you broken and hurt and be a zombie through life. And then they're going to go and find a partner like that later on in life.

So right now, your focus is getting the strength and courage. Leech onto people that can help you. Guys, sometimes make a call to the person you never thought would help you. Trust me, sometimes call the person you never thought would pick up. But when they hear your story and they know where you are, they will move mountains to help you.

Sometimes reach out to the helplines, reach out to your family, take the bravery to be seen as, you guys all saw my life as perfect and it's not. And here I am naked, because I'm already naked and ashamed in my relationship. I might as well just be naked in front of the people who actually want to help you. Nobody deserves to be cheated on five times, especially with someone who knows

Each time it has taken a brightness and a love and a laughter and a sparkle from your world. And the fact that you wrote to me on TikTok shows you are alive. There is something beautiful inside and you are just calling for direction and help. And it is here. You are.

a strength and a voice for so many people. Do you know how strong other people would want to rally next to you and help you to get out of a relationship like this, including the other lady who's now started working to start earning? How many people would want to help people like you? But sometimes it's the vulnerability and the bravery of sharing our stories and saying that we're not okay so that people can

Help. And it's okay to sometimes feel that you're weak. It's okay to be human. And it's okay to not know. And it's okay to feel lost. And I really believe in you. And if you are feeling sad and weak, and you're in a place where someone can do this to you multiple times, I would start telling you the first strength is just in noticing.

that you are still alive inside and there's a fight inside of you. Setting boundaries, telling them not to do this, sometimes that's too exhausting for some people. Sometimes some people are in fight mode and flight mode and they can do it. Sometimes people are truly in the dorsal state. They cannot move, they cannot function, they are exhausted, they are broken. But

That doesn't mean there's no light inside of you. That doesn't mean there's a part of you that isn't alive and is willing to fight. And sometimes the fight is just knowing, I deserve better, I'm gonna leave. And sometimes the small fight is in starting to do the little things for yourself that bring you love and light again. And you know what? Your children deserve the best version of you. And sometimes your children are the motivators for you to be able.

to get through this hard time.

I am going to take the last question because we're already an hour in, but right. So this question was dealing with the guilt of staying long years after seeing red flags. How do you deal with divorce from a combative narcissistic person? Kids, how do you stay strong yet you are breaking dealing with grief? You moved out.

physically with the kids, but there are many flying monkeys, including your own kids. Forgiving, yet this is me. Forgiving, yet this is me, if the hardest thing to do. So I guess forgiving is one of the hardest things to do. Again, my son somehow sent me this beautiful thing from TikTok and this is what he said, Forgiving.

Sometimes you can go through the same situations over and over again until you finally decide you want to do things differently. Please don't punish yourself for taking your time to figure it all out.

And be sure to forgive yourself for the mistakes you made while you were growing. I'm going to read that again, guys. Sometimes you can go through the same situations over and over again until you finally decide you want to do things differently. Please don't punish yourself for taking your time to figure it all out and be sure to forgive yourself for the mistakes you made.

while you were growing. This just means that you were growing. When you saw the red flags, you were growing. And you need to be kinder and more graceful and more loving about that fact. You need to be proud about the fact you left now. And sometimes there's this deep remorse and pain about the fact that I've lost time.

And I should have seen things and had I seen things earlier and you know what, we beat ourselves up so much and the relationship has already done that. Sometimes the relationship has already beat us down so much we don't need to beat ourselves anymore. Forgive yourself for ignoring red flags because you believed in love. Forgive yourself for loving someone so tenderly and unconditionally.

Forgive yourself for being a human that saw potential in someone else and wanted them to be more and raised to the person they showed you that they were in the beginning. Forgive yourself for trying so hard for your children. Forgive yourself for wanting to make a family work because that was like your life goal. You never wanted to be a mom that was driven by career. You never wanted to be the mom that went out and became an entrepreneur. Even damn it, now you should. But

Forgive yourself for just wanting the picket fence and to be the mom that cooked and made food for your family and nursed your husband and took care of your kids. Forgive yourself for being the light in all of their lives. Because if you're going to forgive yourself for the painful things, you better forgive yourself for the incredible ways in which you showed up for yourself too. You better forgive yourself for being the woman no one could ever believe you are. You better forgive yourself for putting a smile

on your face because I know you. You are the softest, most kindest, most sincere, most loving person and everyone can rely on you. So forgive yourself for being wonderful while you ignored all these red flags. Like seven billion of us on the planet.

And right now you're dealing with a divorce with a narcissist. And this is just not easy. I would turn around and say one of the best people you can learn from honestly is Dr. Ramani. She talks about narcissism in so many different ways on YouTube. And she's the queen of narcissism. I don't know if she personally went through a really

hard relationship and marriage herself, but she definitely to me comes across like the mother of narcissism and wanting to protect people who have gone through it. So first I'll tell you what some of her videos because she gives a lot of advice on how to handle situations, especially the depth of dealing with someone narcissistic and going through a divorce with them because remember they've lost you.

You don't understand how strong you are to have got away. To have left a narcissist, that is not a joke. Many people cannot walk away from that relationship. And the fact that you did, they are not going to just let you go like that. So what are they going to pry their claws into? The children. And unfortunately, they use the children. And it's exhausting because you just want to move on and never have to deal with them and never have to see them. Or if you do just hope to be able to do it in a more

less acrimonious way, but the more you show them that what they do hurts you, the more they do it. And that's why with a lot of the women I work with, I turn around and I tell them, be stoic, stoic gray rock in front of them. Then we cry in our sessions, then we break down in the pillow, then we take a bat to the journal and beat the crap out of that. But

With the narcissist, the minute you show them the little tear, the little quiver of your lip, the little temper, they thrive on it. They want to know they can still trigger you and rile you up. And it fills them up because they don't realize that that's a pain inside of them from a lack of love they got in their childhood and not being seen. It's like they just stay the bully.

When there's no one left to bully, the bully has to go focus on someone else. So it's not easy when you have children, but I would start to really take Grace out. Just hug yourself, pat yourself on the back like my son tells me. I think about three weeks ago, I was telling him about something I was going through and I was feeling tired, exhausted, overwhelmed.

a little burnt out and he goes, mom, want you to lift your hand, lift your right hand. So if you're watching this, lift it with me, lift your right hand. If you're listening to this, lift your right hand. And then he goes, I want you to lean it over and touch your left shoulder. And then I want you to pat yourself on the back. And I did it. I felt so ridiculous and silly doing it on the phone. But when I did it, I...

patted myself on the back and honestly, you know what? I really reassured myself. And that's what you need to be doing right now. Reassure yourself, guys, that we are life-ing and life is sometimes so hard. And we make it and we show up and we forgive the people that hurt us. And we are trying to bring empathy and compassion into situations when sometimes that empathy and

passion needs to be fully given to you first. You are such a giver that you just give. Sometimes it's okay to be able to say, give me too, because only when I fulfill and give myself and my heart can I overpour it back again into the universe and serve the right people. So right now, yes, you missed a lot of red flags. It's okay. So did

7 billion of us on the planet. Right now you're in a tough relationship and you ended up picking up someone narcissistic. I don't think you realize how strong you are to have left and if you're strong enough to have left a narcissist, you can get through this divorce. I'm telling you with the right support, the right lawyer, the right strategy, the right boundaries put in place that they cannot break by the law.

the support you need to hold on to your children and keep them at bay as well.

So I want to say thank you so much for listening to this Q &A and I just felt like this was a really heartwarming one and I'm loving these. I'm loving that I feel even though I don't meet you that I connect with you if you're listening and I connect with you if you're watching. So I want to just say thank you so much and please support me with just subscribing whether it's on Apple or Spotify.

or YouTube, it means so much to me to help this channel grow and to just know that there are people out there that want more of this and each time you subscribe it just it also feeds me. It feeds the part of me that also needs reassurance. It feeds the human part of me that feels so validated that this work is being seen. So from one human being to another, I hope that you go into this weekend strong and weak.

I hope you go into this weekend seen and loved by yourself. I hope you go into this weekend with grace and compassion for how you're just trying to keep your head afloat in some really tough situations. And if you're dealing with shame, then we all deal with it together because we're going to build a community. And in this community, we all get to feel what we feel, whether it's shame, whether it's neglect, whether it's hatred or anger, whatever emotions were humanly

really feeling. We feel it, but we also, at the end of the day, grow stronger for ourselves, for our children, for our parents, for God, and to be able to eventually just serve humanity and impact one life. So I love you. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Life Better. And until we meet again on Monday, where I will dive deep into fearful avoidance, their traits,

their traumas, their childhood, and sometimes the toughness of being in a relationship with them. I will see you then. This is the Life Better segment in the Love Better podcast, and this is your host, Shazmin Bank, and you can bank on me.