What Betrayal Taught Me About Trust, Marriage, and Dating With Intention

This content is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflects personal experiences and perspectives shared on Sherley’s Show. It is not a substitute for professional therapeutic or medical advice.

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To hear this conversation in real time, listen to the full episode. Make sure you tune into the show. You’ll get all the raw, unfiltered moments and deeper insights.

Podcast Blog post: Betrayal, Trust & the Truth About Relationships: You Never Really Know What’s Happening Behind Closed Doors

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I have been doing this podcast for a long time, and Kira and I had never sat down to talk about anything like this. A few women who have been on my show have lived through situations close to what I am about to describe, and it stayed on my mind. So we picked a series I have been watching on Hulu called Betrayal and talked it through.

Before we get into it, I want to be clear about something. This is not me telling you what to do. I am not a therapist or a counselor, and I have never been through the worst of what these women lived. I am a woman who sat with these stories, got angry, got sad, and came away with some thoughts about love, trust, and how we protect the people we care about.

The one that keeps coming back to me is simple. You can do your best and still get blindsided.

A note before you read on: this post talks about infidelity and the sexual abuse of children. Please take care of yourself as you read.

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Please Do Not Idolize Anybody’s Relationship Online

Our talk started with social media, because it shapes how we see love now. A couple posts the new house, the trip, the funny video, the anniversary. We scroll, we smile, and some of us quietly compare. What we never see is the argument from that morning, or the silence in the car on the way home.

That is why I try not to make my own life look like a fairytale. People write to me as if I have a blueprint. I do not. I am not a relationship coach, a counselor, or a psychiatrist, and I do not want anyone handing me a title I never asked for. I am Sherley, sitting behind a mic, telling you what I have been through, what has worked, and what has not.

Think about it. A couple can look perfect and be hurting in private for a year before anyone finds out. Sometimes much longer. A pretty page tells you nothing about what is happening inside the house.

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The Women Behind the Stories

I found this show the way I find a lot of things: by listening to other people’s podcasts. Betrayal started as a podcast from Glass Podcasts and iHeartPodcasts, hosted by Andrea Gunning, where real women shared what happened in their homes. ABC News Studios later turned several of those stories into docuseries on Hulu. Three seasons, three women, three different marriages. The thread running through all of them is a hidden life, and the pain of watching it come to light.

The first season, Betrayal: The Perfect Husband, follows Jenifer Faison. She and her husband dated in college, went their separate ways, and found each other again years later. They married. Then she learned that the man she married had been living a double life. He was a celebrated teacher who had cheated again and again, and he was arrested for sexually assaulting a teenage student. That student later spoke in the series. I admire her for that, because telling a story like hers, in front of people who may judge you, takes more strength than most of us know.

When people hear a story like this, a lot of them ask, “How did she miss it?” I understand why. I also think the question misses something. Some people are gifted at wearing two faces. One person at home, another person everywhere else. Jenifer said she had no idea, and I believe her. Nobody walks into a marriage planning to play detective. If you have to go through your partner’s phone just to feel safe, something is already off. You should be able to begin with the belief that he is being honest with you.

There is another side of infidelity that people rarely stop to think about. It can put a partner’s health at risk. She can be exposed to infections she never agreed to take on, which is one more reason deception does so much damage. If that is something you are worried about, please talk to a doctor.

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Who Prepares You for the Marriage?

We spend months planning the wedding and almost no time preparing for the marriage. We grow up on “happily ever after,” then we get a ring and a date. Nobody sits us down to explain what it takes to stay with one person for decades while you both keep changing.

And you do change. The person you are in your twenties is not the person you will be in your forties. A good marriage leaves room for both people to grow into someone new.

Kira talked about her premarital counseling. Hers covered money, children, and how to handle conflict, which matters. But it did not fully prepare her for the harder things: someone losing a job, someone getting sick, money getting tight, trust being broken. Her point was that couples need to talk about the hard seasons before they arrive, not after. Marriage has peaks and valleys. It is not one long honeymoon.

The Gottman Institute, which has studied couples for decades, puts it in a way that matched our conversation. In their article on building trust, a certified Gottman therapist explains that trust is built slowly over time, through paying attention to each other and responding with care. He also says betrayal shows up in every relationship, sometimes as small dents that add up and sometimes as a sudden crash. You can read it at How to Build Trust in Your Relationship.

I will say this plainly. That does not mean every betrayal is the same, and it does not mean you should accept anything. It means love needs more than a good feeling to hold it up.

If you want to hear more of my thinking on growing together over the years, I talk about it in Growth in Marriage: 11 Years Later.

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When the Danger Is Someone You Let In

The second and third seasons go somewhere even harder, because children are at the center.

In Betrayal: A Father’s Secret, Ashley Lytton, a mother of three in Utah, finds a hidden folder on her husband’s account. What she finds there, including recordings he secretly made of her daughter, leaves her fearing for her family’s safety. Her fight to protect her daughter becomes the center of the season.

In Betrayal: Under His Eye, a single mother named Stacey falls for a charming doctor, Dr. Justin Rutherford, and builds a life with him. She later learns that the man she trusted around her family had sexually abused her son and another boy. He went to prison, and the case grew even darker when he was accused of plotting murder to silence a key witness. ABC News Studios shares the overview of each season on its press release for the series.

As a mother, these stories are hard to take in. These women brought a man into their homes and trusted him around the people they love most. And afterward, people still ask the same thing: “How did you not know?”

Blaming the mother lets the real offender off the hook. The responsibility belongs to the person who did it. Men like this study how to charm, how to groom, and how to keep the adults around them looking the other way.

Kira said it best. It is rarely the stranger in the white van. More often, it is someone already in the family’s life. When my own children were growing up, I was strict about where they went and who was around them. I wondered sometimes if I was being overprotective. Watching this, I am glad I trusted my gut.

Think about who has access to our kids: teachers, coaches, relatives, family friends, people at church, the new partner. Safety talks with children have to include the possibility that someone they know and like could cross a line.

I am not an expert on this. If you want to learn more, Darkness to Light is an organization that offers research and prevention training for adults who want to help protect children. I also talk about helping kids feel confident and heard in Raising Confident Kids in the Age of Technology.

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Can You Still Trust Anybody?

When we finished all three seasons, Kira said what I think a lot of viewers feel. It makes you feel like you cannot trust anyone.

I get it. I do not want that to be where you land.

Love is a good thing. I still believe that, and I believe people can find real partners and build good lives. What changed for me is how I walk in. When I was young, “that’s my man” was as far as my thinking went. Now I move with my eyes open.

Here is what that looks like. I ask questions, and I stopped worrying about whether I am being nosy. If I am thinking about building a future with someone, I want to understand his past relationships. I want to know how he thinks about money, sex, family, fidelity, and marriage, and what he wants his life to look like. I would rather have the information so I can make an informed decision about my own life.

That is what infidelity really takes from you: your say. When someone hides the truth, you are making choices about your heart, your body, your money, and your children without all the facts.

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Ask the Questions Anyway

Now the frustrating part. Questions are not a shield. You can ask everything, watch closely, give someone time, and trust them, and they can still lie. There is no perfect formula.

That is not a reason to stop asking. It is a reason to stop believing in a checklist that guarantees safety.

What I have found helpful is watching for patterns instead of only listening to promises. Do the words and the actions keep lining up over time? Does the story stay consistent? Do hard questions get honest answers, or do they get anger and excuses? Patterns take time to show up. That is part of why time matters. Asking questions also helps you see whether someone can keep their story straight. People can lie, but not everyone can keep up with their lies. If you stay curious and connect the dots, a slip up often shows.

And then I have to accept something else. Love still asks for vulnerability. You cannot take every bit of risk out of it.

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What Healing Can Look Like

I do not want anyone to read this and decide that every relationship touched by betrayal is doomed, or that every one should be saved. My own marriage has been through infidelity. When I look at where we are now, I am proud of how far we have come. Sometimes there is life after what felt like the end.

But I want to be honest. What these women faced is on another level, and some situations you have to walk away from, especially when they are unsafe or no longer serve you. Walking away is not a failure. You live and you learn, and hopefully you come out wiser about what you need and what you will not accept.

If you are in the middle of this right now, I talk about it more in Infidelity Recovery: Key Steps to Rebuilding Trust, Why Do People Cheat?, and Why Forgive?. Please also consider talking with a licensed therapist or counselor. What you are carrying is real, and you deserve support from someone trained to help.

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My Takeaway: Date With Intention

If you take one thing from this post, take this.

Key Takeaway

Love is still worth it. Move slowly, ask the questions, watch for patterns, and remember that nobody can hand you a guarantee.

Do not put anyone’s online relationship on a pedestal. A page does not show you a home. People change, and relationships take work. You are allowed to gather all the information you need before you decide who gets access to your life, your heart, and, above all, your children.

There is no guarantee in love. I still think it is worth it. I just want us to walk in with open hearts and open eyes.

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Where to Watch and Listen to Betrayal

All the credit for these stories goes to the women who shared them and to the team behind Betrayal. If you want to see or hear them for yourself, here is where to find it. Please remember the content is heavy, so go at your own pace.

Watch the TV docuseries

Hulu: Stream all seasons of the Betrayal docuseries on Hulu, including The Perfect Husband and Dirty Secrets.
Disney+: You can also watch the full episodes on Disney+.

Listen to the podcast

Apple Podcasts: Listen to the episodic anthology on Apple Podcasts.
Spotify: Stream Betrayal Weekly and the full seasons on Spotify.
Amazon Music: Catch up on the latest seasons on Amazon Music.

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Tell Me What You Think

Have you watched Betrayal? Which story stayed with you? And if you went through premarital counseling, I would love to hear whether it prepared you for the hard seasons of marriage, or whether there were conversations that never came up.

Kira and I talk through all of this, and more, on the Conversations series. Real talk about infidelity, healing, and heartbreak, with no judgment. Listen to the full episode in the Conversations series on Sherley’s Show, subscribe, and join us for the next one.

We are rooting for you. We always are.

Sherley’s Show

P.S. If you are in the middle of the stay or go question, I put together a free reflection guidebook to help you think it through. You can find it on the relationship resources page.

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Sherley’s Show is learning and growing every single day. We aim to uplift all marginalized voices both on this podcast and in real life. Please note that we are always striving to change the problematic language that society has internalized in us. Thank you for your patience as we aim to strip certain phrases from our vocabulary.

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Sherley’s Show provides an atmosphere where every woman is comfortable growing into their best self. Sherley’s Show is a no judgment podcast where we discuss how to rise strong out of all types of obstacles that come with relationships. Through personal life experiences and discussions ranging from infidelity, trust, forgiveness, sex, heartbreak, self love, therapy and more, we offer words of empowerment as you strive to build and maintain all of the relationships in your life. You may be going through something that is unique and difficult. Sharing your story gives others comfort and could also be helping someone else. Let them know they are not alone. Everyone has a story, do not let fear hold you back.

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