Living and Loving After Betrayal: How to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Deceit, Infidelity, and Chronic Resentment

Betrayal has many faces, including anger, abuse, deceit, and infidelity. These feel like betrayal because they violate the implicit promise of emotional bonds, that your loved one will care about your wellbeing and never intentionally hurt you. If you've recently left a relationship where you felt betrayed by your partner--or if you want to repair one--it can seem impossible to view the world without the shadow of past betrayal hovering over you. As a result, you may struggle to create meaning in your life, find the strength to forgive, or build new, loving relationships.

InLiving and Loving after Betrayal, therapist and relationship expert Steven Stosny offers effective tools for healing, based on his highly successful CompassionPower program. He founded the CompassionPower agency on the belief that we are more powerful when compassionate than when angry or aggressive, and that true strength comes from relating compassionately to others and remaining true to your deeper values. In this book, you'll learn practical strategies for overcoming betrayal-induced trauma and the chronic resentment and depression that result, using this innovative compassion-empowerment approach.

Most books on betrayal only focus on the obvious issues, such as infidelity, abuse, or sex addiction. This book explores the effects of those kinds of betrayal, as well as less-talked-about types, such as emotional manipulation, dishonesty, deceit, and financial cheating. In addition, the book helps you regain a sense of trust in others so that you can eventually find another compassionate person to share your life with or, if you choose, to rebuild a relationship with your reformed betrayer.

Recovering from the betrayal of partner isn't easy, but Living and Loving after Betrayaloffers potent ways to heal, grow, and love again.


About the Author
Steven Stosny, PhD, is founder of CompassionPower, a successful anger-regulation program that he has directed for more than twenty years. In addition, he has treated more than six thousand people through his organization. He has appeared on many major media programs, including several appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is author of Love without Hurt and You Don't Have to Take It Anymore, and coauthor of How to Improve Your Marriage without Talking about It. He has taught at the University of Maryland and at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and he currently has a blog on www.psychologytoday.com.