I grew up in a world where infidelity was all around me, stemming back generations.

On one side of my family, there was a man everyone loved—the kind of person who lit up a room, who people wanted to be around. He was smart, funny, deeply devoted to his family in his own way. And he was also deeply wounded.

He came from poverty and chaos. His early life was marked by neglect, by a mother who couldn't attach, by circumstances that would have broken most people. He never got help for any of it. He just survived.

And survival looked like rage. Control. Affairs that spanned decades. A wife who suffered in silence.

When I think about her—this woman who stayed, who made herself smaller, who lost some of her aliveness in the wake of his betrayals—it still brings tears to my eyes. She was strong and wise and beautiful. And I watched her doubt her worth. I watched her take care of her betrayer at the expense of her own dignity and power.

I could feel her pain on a visceral level, even as a little girl. I'd been born into the chaos of infidelity unhealed for generations. And it shaped my sense of self and relationships in ways I'm still unpacking.

This is where my identification with the betrayed partner started.

How I wish she could have had good therapy to heal this wound. To fully believe that she was not to blame for his cheating. That her aliveness and strength could stay intact.

When I work with betrayed partners, I'm working to offer the world what she never had.

And here's the other piece—the part that's harder to say out loud:

Despite his hardest parts, he was also someone I loved deeply.

He softened as he aged. He was capable of real attunement, real love. When he died, the entire family was wrecked. I sobbed through his funeral. We all did.

I'd never want him to be written off as just a monster. He was so much more than that.

I know that if he'd had the right tools and support to heal his trauma, he could have changed. He could have offered her what she needed. They could have had golden years and felt closer than ever.

I saw how deeply he loved, how much he wanted to be good for his family. His trauma just kept getting in the way.

So I do this work with cheating partners to offer the world what he never got.

Because people like him deserve to be set free. And their families deserve the best of them too.

When we heal the trauma, we allow the person's essence to be seen again. We help them feel the deep pain about what they've done without shutting down in shame. We help them reclaim their humanity—so they can feel their empathy, own their demons, and show up for their partner in the ways that actually heal.

That's why I hold space for both sides. Because I come from both sides.