Tag: betrayal trauma

When I Didn’t Hold Firm

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Yesterday morning, I didn’t hold firm to one of my boundaries. I felt myself becoming very triggered, and instead of walking away, I stayed in the conversation. I knew I was becoming overwhelmed, but I kept talking and trying to work through something when I was already too flooded to work through it well. I let myself spiral into an emotional place I haven’t been in almost a year, and honestly, it is a place I never want to see again.

When I finally started to come back to normal, I felt ashamed. I had failed to keep a promise I made to myself. I don’t like saying that I failed, but that is what happened. I had hoped that after everything I have learned and all the work I have done, I would respond differently. I wanted to recognize what was happening, pause, hold my boundary, and walk away before I fell that far. But I didn’t, and I was disappointed in myself.

I think part of what hurt so much afterward was knowing that I had let myself down. These boundaries are important to me. I didn’t make them casually. I put them in place because I know what happens to me when a difficult conversation goes too far and I become overwhelmed. I know how quickly fear and hurt can take over, and I know how difficult it can be to climb back out of that emotional pit once I am there. I had made a promise to myself that I would step away before I reached that place again, and this time I didn’t keep that promise.

So I went back and read my boundary statement. I needed to remind myself why I had written it in the first place. I am a child of God. I am beloved and valuable. I am free and responsible to choose what I will participate in. My boundaries help me live in that truth.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” I don’t think that means I should build walls around myself or avoid anything difficult, but I do think there is wisdom in recognizing that I have a responsibility to guard what I continue participating in. For me, sometimes guarding my heart means recognizing when a conversation is no longer productive and stepping away.

Holding my boundaries is part of being good to myself. They are not about punishing my husband or controlling his behavior. They are about recognizing what is mine to choose. I can decide when a conversation is no longer healthy for me. I can decide when I need to stop talking and walk away. I can choose not to keep participating in something that is pulling me farther and farther away from being grounded in truth.

I wish I had done that. I wish I had recognized sooner how overwhelmed I was becoming and stepped away. I wish I had kept the promise I made to myself. I don’t want to brush past that or tell myself it didn’t matter, because it did. There is something here for me to learn. I need to recognize the warning signs sooner. I need to listen when I know I am becoming flooded. And when I know I need to step away, I need to actually step away.

But I also don’t want to take this failure and turn it into shame. I can be disappointed in the choice I made without condemning myself for making it. Romans 8:1 says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That doesn’t mean I pretend I did everything right. It doesn’t mean there aren’t things I need to own or do differently. It means my failure does not change who I am in Christ.

Hebrews 4:16 tells me that I can approach God’s throne of grace with confidence so that I can receive mercy and find grace when I need it. And I needed it yesterday morning.

I am so thankful that God is near to me even when I mess up. I don’t have to come to God only when I have responded perfectly. I can come to Him when I am disappointed in myself, when I wish I had done better, and when I know I need His help to make a different choice next time. His grace doesn’t excuse what happened. His grace gives me somewhere to go with it.

I am reminded about something I say to my two-and-a-half-year-old grandson when he is learning something new. Sometimes he gets frustrated when he can’t do something the first time. I look at him and say in an encouraging voice, “Try again.”

I don’t say it because it doesn’t matter that he didn’t get it right. I say it because I know he is learning. I know that not getting something the first time doesn’t mean he can’t learn how to do it. He may need another attempt. Maybe several more attempts. So I encourage him to try again.

I think I need to give myself some of that same grace.

I failed to hold my boundary. I don’t like that, and I want to learn from it. But I get to try again.

And I’m sure there will be a next time. There will probably be another difficult conversation, another trigger, another moment when fear or hurt starts rising inside of me. I cannot promise myself that I will never feel that way again. What I can do is keep learning to recognize it sooner and make a different choice when it happens.

Maybe next time I will recognize what is happening a little sooner. Maybe next time I will stop the conversation before I am completely overwhelmed. Maybe next time I will keep the promise I made to myself.

Lamentations 3:22–23 says that because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, His compassions never fail, and His mercies are new every morning. Those verses have always been especially meaningful to me because Great Is Thy Faithfulness is my favorite hymn. I have loved that hymn for years, but today the truth behind it feels a little more personal.

God’s faithfulness is not dependent on mine.

I failed to keep a promise I made to myself, but God did not fail me. His mercy was still there when I finally climbed out of that emotional pit. His grace was still there when I was disappointed in myself. His faithfulness did not change because I had a bad morning.

Maybe that is part of what “try again” means for me. It isn’t me promising that I will get everything right next time. It is knowing that because God is faithful, I can get back up and keep growing.

I want to be good to myself by keeping the boundaries I have set and I never want to see that emotional pit again. I know how dark it feels down there, and I don’t want to willingly keep walking toward a place that I know is harmful to me.

One bad morning doesn’t erase the progress I have made, but I also don’t want to waste what happened by refusing to learn from it. I failed to hold my boundary. I let myself down, and I don’t like that. But God was still near. His grace was still available. His faithfulness never changed.

Tomorrow His mercies will be new again. And when the next opportunity comes, I can remember what I so often tell my grandson.

Try again.

Choosing Light … Again

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There are some entries that are easy to write because I can clearly see what God has been teaching me. Then there are entries like this one. The ones where I almost don’t want to write because I wish the story had gone differently.

This weekend I hit a breaking point. Not the kind where everything falls apart all at once. It was quieter than that. It was disappointment on top of disappointment until I didn’t want to carry it anymore. One of the deepest lies God has been exposing in my heart over the last several months is the lie that I’m not enough. Not enough to be chosen. Not enough to be pursued. Not enough to stop having to prove my worth. This weekend I realized another lie had been quietly growing right beside it: I’m optional.

I don’t want to be someone’s option. I want to be someone’s choice. I want to know what it feels like to be chosen over and over again.

Saturday felt like little sparks of connection that kept going out before they ever became a fire. Every time I thought we were connecting, it disappeared just as quickly. By the end of the day, my heart was exhausted. Instead of taking that pain to Jesus like I’ve been learning to do, I reached for something that would numb it.

For a little while, I drifted.

I let go of the anchor that had been holding me steady and reached for something else to quiet the pain.

I’m not proud of that. But I want to be honest about my own journey. Healing isn’t a straight line. Sometimes it’s beautiful. Sometimes it’s incredibly messy… and this weekend was messy.

What surprised me is what God did in the middle of that mess.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, walls came down. Conversations became more honest than they’ve been in a long time. I finally found words for the ache I’ve been carrying. The ache of feeling unseen. The ache of wondering if I will ever truly be chosen. For the first time in a long time, I think my husband didn’t just hear my words. I think he heard my heart.

There wasn’t one big dramatic moment. Instead, it was soft and slow. We missed church because we overslept, then spent the afternoon building our new chicken coop together. At one point I was kneeling on the ground stapling chicken wire while he stood above me fastening the sides. I reached up and flirted with him in a way I haven’t in a long time. He looked down and asked if he was in my way. I smiled and said, “No.” He smiled back, and we went back to work.

Later that evening we made a frozen pizza and sat on our bed having a little picnic while we talked. There wasn’t anything extraordinary about those moments, and maybe that’s exactly what made them so meaningful. They felt normal. They felt like friendship again. They felt like the kind of connection I’ve been missing. I felt seen, and maybe for the first time in a long time, he understood why this journey has been so painful.

Today I find myself holding two things at the same time: hope and caution. Part of me wonders if this was just another flicker that will fade away. Another part of me wonders if this is the small spark that God will gently breathe into a steady fire. The truth is, I don’t know, and I don’t have to know today. Real change isn’t measured by one conversation or one good day. Real change produces fruit over time.

So instead of trying to predict the future, I’m choosing something else.

I’m choosing light.

Again.

I’m choosing to bring my failures into the light instead of hiding them. I’m choosing to thank God for the good moments without demanding they become guarantees. I’m choosing to anchor my hope in Jesus instead of another person’s ability to love me perfectly.

One of the reasons I started Rooted & Anchored was because I didn’t want to pretend that following Jesus means having everything together. It doesn’t. Sometimes following Jesus means admitting that I let go of the anchor. It means admitting that I drifted and tried to quiet my pain in a way that could never truly heal it.

But letting go of the anchor does not mean I can’t reach for it again. The good news is that Jesus never lets go of me. He is still inviting me back. Still reminding me who I am. Still replacing lies with truth. Still teaching me that my identity isn’t found in whether someone else chooses me. It is found in the One who already has.

So today, that’s what I’m doing. I’m reaching for the anchor again. I’m choosing light again. And tomorrow, if I need to, I’ll choose it again.

– Aimee
July 20, 2026

Even the Smallest Thread

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I am currently in the messy middle of healing from betrayal and infidelity. Some days I can see how far God has brought me. Other days I still feel like I am standing in the middle of all the damage trying to understand what happened and what comes next. Healing has not looked the way I thought it would.

I think I expected there would be a point where I would feel better and then just keep moving forward. But it has not been like that. There have been good days and hard days. There have been days when I have felt peaceful and days when something small has brought all the pain back again.

One thing God has really been showing me lately is that this suffering has not been wasted. There were times when I felt like I was barely hanging on by a thread. I did not feel strong. I did not feel rooted. I did not feel anchored. I just felt like I was trying to make it through the day.

Looking back now, I can see that even in those really dark moments, there was still a tiny thread connecting me to Jesus. Deep down, I think I knew I needed Him. I knew I could not do this on my own. But I had not fully laid everything down at the foot of the cross yet. I was still trying to carry too much. I was trying to understand everything. I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I was trying to manage my emotions and the healing process. And, if I am honest, I was also trying to manage my husband and his recovery. I wanted to know what the outcome was going to be. I wanted to know if everything was going to be okay. I wanted to know if all of this pain was going to lead somewhere.

But God has been teaching me that I cannot carry all of that. I cannot control another person. I cannot make someone change. I cannot force healing. I can tell the truth. I can make healthy choices. I can listen for God’s direction. But I cannot control the outcome.

When I finally reached the point where I stopped trying to carry everything myself and truly turned toward God, that connection started growing stronger. John 15:5 says: “I am the vine; you are the branches.” I have read that verse many times, but it means something different to me now.

A branch cannot live on its own. It cannot produce fruit by trying harder. It has to stay connected to the vine. I think I have spent a lot of my life trying harder. Trying to be strong. Trying to fix things. Trying to earn love. Trying to hold everything together.

But Jesus does not ask me to do any of that on my own. He asks me to remain in Him. I can honestly look back now and see how staying connected to Jesus has slowly changed me and started producing fruit in my life again. I am learning to trust God more. I am learning to surrender things I cannot control. I am learning that my worth is not determined by someone else’s choices. I am learning that peace does not come from knowing how everything will turn out. It comes from knowing that God will be with me no matter how it turns out.

That does not mean I always feel strong. Sometimes I still feel like I am barely holding on. Sometimes my prayers are short. Sometimes all I can say is, “Jesus, help me.”

But even that matters. Even that is still a connection. Even that is still turning toward Him.

I think there are times when we believe our faith has to be big and strong for God to meet us. But maybe sometimes faith is just a tiny thread. Maybe it is simply saying His name. Maybe it is opening the Bible when we do not feel like reading. Maybe it is choosing to pray when we do not know what to say. Maybe it is trusting that He is still there, even when we cannot feel Him.

If you feel like you are barely holding on right now, keep holding onto Jesus. You do not have to pretend you are stronger than you are. You do not have to have all the answers. You do not have to know how the story is going to end. Just keep turning toward Him.

Looking back, I can see that the thread was never as fragile as it felt. It was holding me to Jesus. And Jesus was holding me too. Even the smallest thread matters.

-Aimee