2024~8 The Betrayal Bind

Michelle Mays. 2023.

This was a really interesting read. I was pretty skeptical before I started it and even more so when she disclaims at the beginning that she is going to be talking about the topic in the context of her relationship with God in such as way that she means to convey she is Christian and that the book should be taken in that context. This was pretty off-putting to me, since I recommend books like this to many clients and here in Oregon, this type of an introduction immediately eliminates a huge portion of the potential audience. The fact that she did this was so odd because she does not come back to this theme at all until the very end of the book and she could have entirely eliminated it and the book would have been no worse (and probably better) for it.

The book has a lot of things going for it and I particularly like two things. First, it does not conflate what she calls "relationship trauma" with post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a current pet peeve of mine as I see more and more people with a PTSD diagnosis who have had bad things happen to them, like having their spouse serially cheat on them (which is what this book is about), but who have not experienced intimate partner or sexual violence. To me, these are not the same thing and we take away from the experience of survivors of intimate violence when we equate experiences of violence with other types of hard things that people go through. I really liked how this book was able to situate betrayal as something unique and different than violence, not by minimizing it, but also by not equating it. She has a lot to say about what it is like to experience betrayal and I found much of it to be a new take that many people in these situations will find helpful.

The second thing that I really liked about the book is how she situates healing from betrayal in the context of attachment theory and in the context of the data that we have about attachment theory. Since betrayal is a rupture in attachment, healing has to be done in relationship with people as you examine and find new or different attachments. This part of the book I found particularly insightful and contained ideas and information that I will likely convey to clients and friends experiencing and healing from relationship betrayals.

For folks thinking about relationship ruptures and how to help people move beyond those, I think this book has a lot to offer.

​Recommend.

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