Many women experience Post Traumatic Stress symptoms after discovering their partner’s involvement with porn. The percentage is even higher if the porn habit is not resolved, or if there’s an escalation in acting out or repeated lies.

This type of Post Traumatic Stress is also know as Betrayal Trauma, and it’s very common when porn or other unwanted sexual behaviors enter a relationship.

You’re Not Crazy – You Are Normal

Dr. Kevin Skinner, LMFT, CSAT-S, author of “Treating Trauma from Sexual Betrayal”, tells us that these symptoms are a completely normal emotional response to a situation that has caused trauma. In his research across socio-economic, religious and cultural divides, he’s found that women experience their partner’s porn problem as a serious threat to their current and future well being.

In this most intimate relationship, safety is an absolute necessity. When trust is broken, the bond between partners becomes questionable. The betrayed spouse may then experience anxiety, depression, flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and avoiding reminders of the problem.

Assessing Post Traumatic Stress

If you are experiencing any of the above mentioned symptoms, you may want to take this diagnostic test at DiscoverandChange.com. Especially if your emotions are making it difficult for you to function normally, you have difficulty sleeping, racing thoughts, increased anger or reactions, please take the test and get help. There are 7 key areas used to assess Post Traumatic Stress:

1. Actual or perceived life threatening experiences
2. Reliving the events
3. Aviodance
4. Mood and cognition
5. Emotional Arousal
6. How the symptoms are affecting daily finctioning
7. How long the symptoms persist

Women are very skillful at learning coping skills and suppressing emotions just to get through daily life. This doesn’t solve the underlying trauma though, and it doesn’t help us feel secure in the relationship. A small misunderstanding or incident can then trigger an avalanche of new symptoms. You don’t have to have symptoms in all 7 areas to be experiencing some degree of PTS.

Betrayal Trauma Support

It’s important to get professional help managing PTS, so that it doesn’t escalate over time. If you don’t think self-help will work for you, please seek professional counseling that’s specific to Betrayal Trauma.

Here’s a few we can recommend:

• Addo Recovery (Dr. Skinner)
• Bloom for Women (Dr. Skinner)
• Heart 2 Heart Counseling Center
• Life Star Network

If you’re ready to move forward, let’s explore how you can help yourself.