What the Past Can Teach Us
Rising Phoenix explores reclaiming the truth of a shared past after betrayal, refusing to let infidelity erase or rewrite decades of real love, struggle, and life built together.
Steps To Authenticity
How rebuilding after infidelity wasn’t just about salvaging a relationship, but about learning to trust the body, understand triggers, and show up differently for yourself. Rising Phoenix tells how healing became a slow return to self rather than a rush to restore what was lost.
My Favorite Season
Christmas seasons after betrayal became quiet markers of grief, survival, and slow rebuilding, shifting the holiday from something lost to something redefined. Love and joy now come from presence, honesty, and a steadiness earned through pain.
The Apology Casserole
Attempts to help, to heal, to apologize… they don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be sincere.
Healing My Nervous System
Rising Phoenix’s body began healing only after she named her Complex PTSD, reclaimed her boundaries, and stopped abandoning herself to feel safe in relationships. The real recovery turned survival into stability, and self-protection into self-trust.
The Anniversary that Wasn’t
After his affair, he forgot their anniversary. On purpose.
What If They Do It Again?
Rising Phoenix considers the fear of giving someone another chance after betrayal, how forgiveness doesn’t erase distrust, and how transparency alone can’t rebuild safety. Real healing begins when the focus shifts from monitoring them to reclaiming yourself.
The “Why” Was Never About Her
Rising Phoenix sees the affair as a symptom of deeper, unaddressed pain and emotional avoidance rather than a relationship with another person. The true shift comes when she stops comparing, faces the truth, and begins rebuilding from the inside out.
The Smell of Safety: Small Triggers Matter
A betrayed husband’s admission that his wife’s perfume triggers him leads to a quiet shift between them.
Choosing Myself
The story of a year after infidelity, moving from total emotional collapse to slow, self-directed healing. As Rising Phoenix’s husband begins his own work and gains diagnoses, she discovers the real breakthrough is forgiving herself, not just him.
The Quietest Part of the Storm
How infidelity shattered Rising Phoenix’s sense of self, plunging her into fog, panic, and eventually a diagnosis of complex PTSD. She describes the painful tension of staying, breaking, and slowly beginning to heal while still unsure of what remains.
Forgiveness in Aisle Seven
A chance encounter in the frozen food aisle brings two separated spouses together for the first time since betrayal. Their awkward exchange demonstrates how forgiveness often begins in small, ordinary moments.