How I Took My Life Back After Betrayal Shattered It

Today is a big day in the Broadbent house. We’re letting go of some emotional baggage.

After a painful betrayal discovery, I realized I needed a release-badly. The exercise equipment in our garage became a huge trauma trigger, so I covered it all with blankets and made plans to sell it. But one thing I couldn’t put away was the punching bag. I kept it because I needed it.

I hit that bag with everything I had—sometimes with gloves, sometimes without—until my hands bled.

I cried into it, clung to it through waves of grief, anger, and confusion. I even considered taping my husband’s photo to it, just to have something tangible to hit. But I couldn’t bear the sight of his face, so I wrote his initials in blue Sharpie instead.

It felt good to push all that painful energy out of my body—onto the bag, onto his name.

Some nights, that bag was the only thing that could exhaust me enough to sleep.

This year, for my husband’s birthday, he asked if he could get a new punching bag.

It felt like the right time.

We now have a brand-new punching bag, and I can still box whenever I want. But that old, raggedy bag wasn’t just equipment—it was a container for my betrayal trauma, a constant presence through some of my hardest days of healing after infidelity.

Old things sometimes need to pass away to make space for the new.

Today, I’m thankful for both—the healing I’ve done, and the chance to move forward.