Hello, LV&Co friends! The holidays are packed away, the house exhales, and the noise of togetherness gives way to quiet evenings and early mornings. This time of year has a way of highlighting the stillness, the cold, the things that have gone dormant and no longer burst with colorful energy. In West Michigan, there has been a fair amount of snow to shovel already this winter. The individual flakes are fascinating, the fresh blankets of snow are illuminating, and the ice formations on the lakeshore are down right magical. All of that can quickly turn into melting brown slush and frozen ruts that make walking treacherous if you’re not paying attention. Winter holds both beauty and hazard at the same time. What looks pristine and peaceful on the surface can conceal instability underneath.

I’ve been noticing that contrast more this year. After my son returned to university and my daughter stepped back into her adult life, the house grew quiet in a new way. I’m discovering that the quiet can be both grounding and self-orienting. There are moments of grief for what once was, and moments of unexpected steadiness with small pockets of peace that don’t depend on anyone else’s choices or presence. And it was in this season of contrast that a reader’s question landed heavily with me.

Today's Question: I've been divorced for one year now. It was a 20 year marriage. He was involved in multiple affairs during the marriage. I also discovered that he'd been involved in risky sexual behavior (prostitutes/escorts) over several years. So well hidden that I never saw anything, hence my decision to finally divorce him. I'm battling to get a grip since he's now in a new relationship with one of his affair partners and seems to be happy. I'm struggling with bitterness and unforgiveness. Help!

Susan’s Response: First, let me say this clearly, of course this is challenging to navigate. You’ve made it through the first year of divorce which is often the most disorienting. Each holiday, milestone, and familiar calendar marker carries its own layer of grief. Even though anger may still be close to the surface, the loss of hopes, expectations and shared history after 20 years runs deep.

There’s another layer here as well. When the person who violated the relationship appears to move on easily, particularly with someone connected to the harm, it can feel like the injury is happening all over again. This isn’t just grief. It is betrayal trauma, and your reactions make sense.

When infidelity includes chronic deception and risky sexual behavior, the injury goes far beyond broken trust. Years of hidden behavior shapes the nervous system. You were making decisions, giving consent, and building a life based on information that was incomplete or false. That creates a particular kind of injury where your sense of safety was compromised, your ability to trust your own perceptions was undermined, and your body learned to stay alert even when nothing looked wrong on the surface. So when you see him “happy,” your nervous system does not register relief or closure. It registers injustice and threat.

Anger often lingers when betrayal is left unresolved and it has nowhere to go for relief. Left unattended, that anger can turn to bitterness, which begins to cost you more than it costs the one who caused the harm.

Isaiah 43:18-19 offers a reorientation, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.” Please know, “remember not” isn’t a command to forget what happened; that would not only be impossible but unwise. Instead, it instructs you where to focus your thoughts when it says, “Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” This is your invitation to stop living into what has already been lost and toward what God is slowly rebuilding.

Scripture never asks us to ignore harm nor does it equate forgiveness with denial, reconciliation, or continued access. In fact, the Bible places truth, justice, and safety before full restoration. We see Jesus Himself practicing this kind of discernment. John 2 tells us that although many followed Him, “Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, for He knew what was in each person.” Jesus loved people deeply, and still He did not offer unrestricted access where trust was not warranted.

This is an important distinction for those healing from betrayal. Forgiveness does not require entrusting your heart or your future to someone who has shown themself to be unsafe. It was your wisdom that led you to create legal distance in the relationship in order to find safety.

One of the most painful parts of betrayal is not just what happened to you, but what appears to still be happening now. He appears to be happy, unbothered, and with a partner while you are alone, holding intense emotions and doing the difficult work of healing.

In moments like this, it can be a real challenge to trust that God is a just Father. Scripture is clear (Deuteronomy 32:4 and Isaiah 30:18, along with many others), God is a God of justice; yet betrayal trauma can make justice seem delayed, invisible, or entirely absent. When consequences don’t appear immediately or public, it can feel as though you are bearing the cost of someone else's sin while they walk free. That experience can fuel bitterness because it is unfair.

Scripture steps toward this tension in Psalm 73 when the psalmist confesses in verse 2, “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” This is similar to what betrayed partners can feel when it looks like the one who caused the greatest harm is doing just fine. The psalmist started to notice a perspective shift in verse 17, when he went to the Sanctuary of God for understanding. God does act and He does bring justice. However, it happens in His time.

The weight of harm has gravity. While God does not minimize what was done to you, He also does not intend for you to continue to carry it indefinitely. Until it is named, fully processed, and released, it will continue to press down on the one who was wounded, not the one who caused it. That's where forgiveness comes in. True forgiveness could also offer you something really important for your healing, your growth, and your future.

Forgiveness does not mean pretending the damage doesn’t matter or you must resign yourself to the consequences of his behavior forever. It means slowly and intentionally refusing to let his choices continue to define your inner life. Forgiveness creates space for detachment, reorientation and re-engagement with your values, your faith and your purpose. God’s healing often shows up not as sudden peace, but as gradual reorientation.

God’s justice is not measured by how happy someone looks after causing harm or how easy their life appears. And your pain is not evidence that God has left you and is favoring him. It is important to remember, what looks like peace on the outside might simply be more deception and avoidance, patterns that always collect their cost over time.

Moving forward after betrayal is not about becoming indifferent to what happened. It is about becoming anchored again. Learning to stand steady and walk in your core strengths can help you let go of reactivity and move you toward internal stability.

If you would like more support, join the LV&Co coaching group experience, Walking in CORE Strength. It isn’t about fixing emotions or rushing forgiveness, it’s about learning to live from the inside out, developing emotional steadiness, spiritual discernment, and relational clarity after you have been knocked off balance by relational destructiveness.

Healing doesn’t happen in isolation, friends, and it won't happen by whiteknuckling your way through bitterness or pressure to forgive. It happens as you experience a new way to live and trust your footing, one step at a time.

Be well!

Beloved reader, when you notice bitterness and unforgiveness rising, what do you think they are trying to communicate to you? What helps them soften?