Discovering a partner’s sexual betrayal spins your world out of control.
In a split second, your sense of safety is shattered, your trust is gone and everything you thought you could count on is in question.
Betrayed partners, whether dealing with an isolated infidelity or sexual addiction, need the answer to this pivotal question: what happens when your partner, your lover, your primary person cheats on you and, in an instant, becomes a source of danger, pain, and threat?
Betrayed partners need immediate support to navigate the new terrain of their relationship. They need a clear articulation of betrayal trauma, a thorough education about their normal attachment-based reactions, and a proven path to healing.
By focusing on how a partner’s attachment system functions in the wake of sexual betrayal, The Betrayal Bind offers a new, game-changing exploration into an age-old problem and connects the dots from research to the lived experience of betrayed partners.
Michelle Mays is a Licensed Professional Counselor and expert in treating sexual betrayal and trauma. She is the creator of The Braving Hope™ Treatment Model providing attachment-based coaching, training, and certification to heal partner betrayal.
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Michelle Mays provides a well-grounded process for healing and restoration following one of the most devastating life events possible: the intimate betrayal by a loved one. Such a trauma shatters everything, including a sense of self, sense of safety, sense of connection with self and others, and our higher power or God. Betrayed partners will find hope within this comprehensive book that provides well-grounded tools and a pathway toward healing and post-traumatic growth following betrayal.
[The Betrayal Bind is] one of the most useful and comprehensive books on identifying and healing emotional betrayal. Michelle Mays’s examination of these painful issues is laced with generous doses of practical advice and hope for the future. Relying on her personal and professional experience, she has created a must-read for betrayed partners, cheating loved ones, and the therapists who treat them.
In this landmark text, Michelle Mays provides a path to healing from the pain of relationship betrayal. She candidly shares her personal experience of recovery and renewal from the trauma of partner betrayal. This transformation provided her with the understanding and empathy she expresses as a therapist, speaker, and author. The Betrayal Bind offers new hope for individuals and partners seeking to move beyond the hurt of their past to experience the life and relationship they desire.
In The Betrayal Bind, Michelle Mays uses attachment theory to explain, educate and empower hurting partners. Through her compassionate use of storytelling, Mays shares profound insights, normalizes partner’s experiences and provides encouragement and support. It is a must read for any person experiencing betrayal.
Michelle Mays weaves personal insight, beautiful writing, current attachment science, and clinical expertise to share this gift with us. With gentle respect for the busy brain, The Betrayal Bind reaches her reader where the heart is, guiding us to a deeper understanding of why sexual betrayal is so devastating. Michelle helps us hold ourselves, our friends, our family, and/or our clients with the utmost compassion in the aftermath of betrayal. I recommend this book for not only those swimming in the deep water of sexual betrayal, but also for adults living with the intimate betrayal that happens when our first caregivers are abusive.
Mays speaks the unvarnished truth about the impact of intimate betrayal with warmth and compassion as she guides the reader on a hero’s journey from pain to grace. She accurately describes the emotionally harrowing, complex experience of betrayal trauma without pathologizing either party. With neuro-scientific accuracy, Mays explains why fear, shame, and powerlessness drive attachment ambivalence and how to shift out of it. The Betrayal Bind illuminates a clear and empowering path forward toward creating safety, sexual healing, and reclaiming an authentic sense of self. This book is a must-read for the betrayed, betrayers, and therapists.
