Healing Trust After Betrayal: How the Attachment Injury Repair Model (AIRM) Helps Couples Reconnect

What Is an Attachment Injury?

When trust is broken in a relationship, the emotional wound can feel overwhelming. Research from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) describes these moments as attachment injuries. These injuries happen when one partner desperately needs emotional support, and the other is unavailable, dismissive, unfaithful, or even hurtful.

Common attachment injuries include:

• Infidelity or emotional affairs

• Significant lies or hidden behaviors

• A betrayal of vulnerability or emotional abandonment

• Not showing up during a crisis or major life event

• Any moment that created a rupture in safety

These moments don’t simply “blow over.” They create long-lasting emotional echoes that can significantly disrupt connection. These emotional echoes can show up as fear, insecurity, anger, or doubt.

At LifeWorks Mental Health Counseling PLLC in Islip & Commack, our clinicians specialize in helping couples repair these deep wounds using the Attachment Injury Repair Model (AIRM) within Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).

What Is the Attachment Injury Repair Model (AIRM)?

The Attachment Injury Repair Model is a core aspect of Emotionally Focused Therapy, which is an evidenced-based therapy created by Dr. Sue Johnson. AIRM is designed to help couples process deep betrayals and restore emotional safety within their relationship. 

Research shows that EFT has a 70–75% success rate in helping couples rebuild trust, heal after infidelity, and strengthen emotional bonds. 

AIRM focuses on:

1. Naming the injury

2. Understanding the emotional impact

3. Reprocessing the meaning of the betrayal

4. Allowing the injured partner to express the depth of their pain

5. Helping the offending partner show accountability and compassion

6. Creating a new emotional experience of safety and repair

This process is structured, gentle, and guided by an EFT-trained therapist to make sure both partners feel safe and understood.

Why Attachment Injuries Hurt So Much

Attachment research tells us that humans need emotional connection to feel safe. When that bond is ruptured, especially through betrayal or abandonment, the nervous system perceives it as danger.

This can lead to:

• Hypervigilance

• Anxiety around the relationship

• Emotional shutdown or avoidance

• Difficulty trusting

• Repeated arguments

• Feeling “stuck,” confused, or numb

• Fear that the relationship can never recover

AIRM helps couples understand why the pain is so intense and teaches them how to move through it together.

Signs You Are Experiencing an Attachment Injury

You may be navigating an attachment injury if you identify with any of the following:

• You feel like you can’t let go of the painful moment, even years later.

• You replay the event in your mind, looking for clues or answers.

• You desperately want reassurance, but it never feels like enough.

• The relationship feels different: less safe, less close, less trusting.

• Conversations about the betrayal turn defensive, explosive, or shut down.

• You fear being hurt again.

• You want to move forward but don’t know how.

These reactions are normal. They are rooted in your basic attachment needs, and you are not alone if you feel like you are not able to “just get over it.”

How the AIRM Process Works in Therapy

Here is what clients can expect when they work on attachment injury repair at LifeWorks Mental Health Counseling PLLC in Islip & Commack:

1. Identifying and Naming the Injury

The therapist helps the injured partner clearly express the moment the injury occurred and what it meant. This is not about blame; it’s about understanding the emotional reality of the situation.

2. Exploring the Emotional Impact

Partners examine:

• What the injury felt like

• What fears it brought up

• How it affected the relationship bond

• What emotional needs were not met

This step allows deeper clarity and validation.

3. Empathic Engagement from the Offending Partner

Using EFT tools, the therapist guides the offending partner to:

• Listen without defensiveness

• Understand the emotional meaning of the injury

• Offer accountability and heartfelt repair

• Validate the pain rather than minimize it

This is one of the most transformative parts of the process.

4. Reprocessing the Meaning of the Event

The couple works together to reshape the story of what happened, not by erasing it, but by understanding it differently through secure connection.

This creates a new emotional experience that weakens the power of the injury.

5. Creating New Bonding Moments

Once validation and emotional safety are restored, couples begin forming new patterns of closeness, trust, and responsiveness.

This rewrites emotional memory and allows healing to be lasting.

Why AIRM Works (Based on Attachment & Neuroscience)

AIRM works because it aligns with how humans heal relational trauma:

• The brain calms when emotional wounds are acknowledged, not ignored.

• Repair requires connection, not distancing or intellectual solutions.

• Validation reduces defensiveness, making new emotional responses possible.

• Accountability increases trust, neutralizing fear.

• A new emotional experience rewires old pain, helping the bond feel safe again.

Couples who complete AIRM often report:

✔ Feeling closer than they did before the betrayal

✔ Reduced anxiety and reactivity

✔ Increased communication

✔ Greater emotional responsiveness

✔ Renewed trust

When to Consider Attachment Injury Repair

This model is especially effective if your relationship has experienced:

• Infidelity (physical or emotional)

• Major deception or hidden behaviors

• Addiction-related betrayals

• Emotional abandonment during a crisis

• Broken promises or ruptured expectations

• Repeated cycles of distrust or disconnection

If you and your partner want to heal, but feel stuck, AIRM can help.

How LifeWorks Mental Health Counseling PLLC Can Support You

Located in Islip and Commack NY, LifeWorks Mental Health Counseling PLLC is an all-specialty practice, meaning our clinicians are extensively trained in evidence-based modalities, including:

• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

• Gottman Method

• Imago Relationship Therapy

• Trauma-informed care

Our couples therapists provide warm, nonjudgmental support to help you repair trust and rebuild emotional connection.

You don’t have to navigate the aftermath of betrayal alone. Healing is possible, and we’re here to guide you through it.

You Can Heal After Betrayal

Attachment injuries are painful, but they do not have to define the future of your relationship. With the right support, couples can repair the bond, rebuild trust, and create a stronger, more secure connection than before.

If you and your partner are ready to heal, grow, and reconnect, our team at LifeWorks Mental Health Counseling PLLC in Islip and Commack is here to help.

Book a session today and take the first step toward repair and reconnection.

Free Consultation Call