Resources for Partners of Trans People

Betrayal is treachery, deception, and violated trust. It can appear as a broken promise, duplicity, lies, sexual affairs, and even affairs of the heart. The injury is so great that some people seem to never recover. Author: George S. Everly, Jr., Ph.D.

Sara Schulting-Kranz shares how unexpected, life-changing events led her to self-discovery and a realization that we need a new definition of forgiveness. Sara Schulting-Kranz is a professional coach, natural energy healer, wilderness guide, represented writer, single mom of three amazing sons, and executive producer of “Walk Through This,” a documentary feature in production about her healing journey in nature. As a multiple trauma survivor herself, Sara coaches individual men and women through their own life-shifting journeys of healing and transformation. When not working with individual clients, you will find her guiding retreats in the Grand Canyon and mountains of Southern California offering coaching, hiking, adventuring, meditation and breathwork. Cool Fun Fact: Sara served as a guide for female, blind Paralympian and adventure seeker, Shawn Cheshire, as she set the world record on October 8, 2018 as the only blind woman to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim to rim — 42 miles in 24 hours and 15 minutes!

A spouse transitioning genders is an experience like no other. In this Solo Showdown Comedy & Solo Performance Workshop, Julie Feinstein Adams brings the heart, the nuance, the complexity and the heartbreak to watching a husband transition into a wife.

Founder of Body Spartan and WWE Superstar, Gabbi Tuft, along with her wife Priscilla Tuft, chronicle Gabbi’s gender transition from male to female.

She’s Not There was one of the first works to present trans experience from the perspective of a literary novelist, opening a door to new understanding of love, sex, gender, and identity. Jennifer Finney Boylan inspired readers to ask the same questions she asked herself: What is it that makes us—ourselves? What does it mean to be a man, or a woman? How much could my husband, or wife, change—and still be recognizable as the one I love? Boylan’s humorous, wise voice helped make She’s Not There the first bestselling work by a transgender American–and transformed Boylan into a national spokeswoman for LGBTQ people, their families, and the people that love them. This updated and revised edition also includes a new epilogue from Jenny’s wife Grace; it also contains the original afterward by her friend, novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo. “Love will prevail,” said Boylan’s conservative mother, as she learned about her daughter’s identity. She’s Not There is the story that helped bring about a world in which that change seems almost possible.

In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jennifer Finney Boylan asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships between fathers, mothers, and children; people’s memories of the children they were and the parents they became; and the many different ways a family can be. With an Afterword by Anna Quindlen, Stuck in the Middle with You is a brilliant meditation on raising—and on being—a child.

Morgana Bailey has been hiding her true self for 16 years. In a brave talk, she utters four words that might not seem like a big deal to some, but to her have been paralyzing. Why speak up? Because she’s realized that her silence has personal, professional and societal consequences. In front of an audience of her co-workers, she reflects on what it means to fear the judgment of others, and how it makes us judge ourselves.

Twenty-five years ago, I was barely conscious that the gay world existed. Today, after having been married for more than a decade to a woman and having fathered children who still live with me, I know that I am a gay man. I’ve come out and now identify myself as gay. I decided to write this book because I run into a lot of men who are just like me as I used to be—married to a woman, often with children, and dabbling in having sex with other men. After starting to write this book, I decided to include the stories of women as well, primarily because I noticed that the lesbians I know who had been married to men handled the transition to homosexuality more gracefully and with more integrity than my male friends and I did. The idea for this book occurred to me one night a few years ago at a bar on Pittsburgh’s South Side. I was with four friends. We met there every week to watch Will & Grace. As we drank our beer, I realized that we were five gay men, all divorced from women we had loved, and among us, we had fourteen children. Even though I had met plenty of married men on gay sites on-line, up until that night I had considered myself an anomaly. I had lived life as a heterosexual man and didn’t realize I was gay until after I was married and had children. Before that night at the bar, I had been vaguely aware that my friends and I were meeting a lot of married men—men in straight marriages—in gay bars and other venues in which these supposedly straight men were looking to hook up with other men. That night in the South Side, it hit me that I was not an anomaly. There is something happening in American culture. People are questioning their sexual orientation. They are questioning whether they are who they thought they were. Right then, I decided to write this book. I would write the book I wish I had been able to read years ago when I was married to a woman and had young children and was starting to question whether I might be gay. – Michael Testa, Author

Have you or someone close to you experienced infidelity? Infidelity is not going to go away, Dr. Kevin Skinner poses the question, will we rise up as a society and help those suffering from the trauma of sexual betrayal? Dr. Kevin Skinner is a recognized leader and authority on sexually compulsive behavior, infidelity and trauma from sexual betrayal. In addition, Dr. Skinner has Co-Founded Discover and Change, an assessment platform providing assessments specifically to those struggling with sexual trauma, sexually compulsive behavior and relationships. Dr. Skinner’s treatment is based on his own research stemming from more than 250,000 assessments and over 20 years experience. He’s spent the last 15 years researching how sexual betrayal creates PTSD-like symptoms in the betrayed spouse.

For individuals and couples who are dealing with the aftermath of sexual addiction or chronic betrayal, trauma is not merely one element in the mix. Trauma permeates the experience and dynamic of these relationships such that it is inescapable — in the foreground and background, as the origin and end, as the fuel and engine, both the root and the fruit. In most cases, trauma underlies the emotional experience and behavioral tendencies for both addicted and betrayed partners, and together their individual experiences of trauma create a perfect storm of isolation, pain, fear, shame, and conflict. In this video, Dr. Jake Porter explains some of the ways that betrayed partners experience trauma neurobiologically.

In The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Van Der Kolk uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity.

Dr. Debi Silber, founder of The PBT (Post Betrayal Transformation) Institute is a holistic psychologist, a health, mindset and personal development speaker, author and mentor who helps people heal from Post Betrayal Syndrome. Her recent PhD study on how we experience betrayal-what holds us back, what helps us heal and what happens to us (physically, mentally and emotionally) when the people closest to us lie, cheat and deceive led to three discoveries around how women experience and heal from betrayal.