When the Body Speaks: A Story of Betrayal, Illness, and Coming Home to Myself
The Sister I Never Had
Since I was an only child, I never knew what it was like to have a sister. Shortly after I moved to Maui and got married, I found a friend who would step into that space. I was enamored with her from day one. She was taller than me, thinner, and more beautiful. She knew how to dress well, and her hair and makeup were always spot-on. I had always been athletic and somewhat of a tomboy, and I had never quite felt comfortable in my own skin, so I was drawn to how “put-together” she seemed.
In the early days of our friendship, she taught me how to do my makeup, and I helped her learn how to be active and enjoy movement. I still remember our first walk together and some of the hilarious comments she made. Over time, we became so close, that not a day went by where we didn’t text, talk, or spend time together.
Our lives were incredibly interwoven. Over the course of a decade, we each became mothers to three children. We were so close, that I was even there to support her during two of her births. As our friendship deepened, we shared everything - everything. Even our most private thoughts and feelings - some we hadn’t shared with our husbands.
I remember when her second child developed serious health issues, and she was no longer able to breastfeed. At the time, I had an abundant milk supply, so I began pumping to feed her baby for several months.
I have no doubt that if life had ever called for it, I would have died for her. My love for her was that deep.
I also remember when her third child was born prematurely.
I flew to Oahu to be with her because Maui didn’t have the equipment to care for a baby born that early. I stayed overnight with her in the hospital - it was just the two of us—and the baby of course.
They taught us how to give baby “hand hugs” since he couldn’t be held. I loved him from the moment I saw him. To me, he was family.
A Friendship Rooted in Faith
We were part of a religious practice that taught us anyone who adhered to its beliefs and teachings was as close as family - if not closer. I believed our bond was eternal; and while we weren’t biological sisters, I truly held her in my heart as though she was mine.
Within that faith, I was taught that a woman’s highest calling was to prioritize, honor and submit to her husband if she was married.
Failing at that meant failing to honor God and since we were both pastors’ wives there was even more pressure to model this teaching. No matter how hard I tried, my husband gave me consistent signals that I wasn’t measuring up. This was through his words and tone but mostly through his cold silence. There was an ongoing sense that I was disappointing him, which only deepened my belief that I was disappointing God. Meanwhile, my friend seemed to embody everything that was expected of us. She made it look effortless: respectful, productive, supportive - she appeared to be everything a godly wife should be.
The Subtle Erosion of Self
Over the course of a decade, our lives became so interwoven that we even began to look similar. In one of our last pictures together, someone commented, “You guys look exactly alike.” We wore our hair the same way, our makeup was nearly identical, and though she was significantly taller than me, our physiques shared many of the same features because I had taught her how to lift weights. Our lifestyles mirrored each other so closely, they were nearly indistinguishable.
Our children were best friends and even our pets played together. Everything about our lives felt naturally aligned because we lived on the same church-owned property. We homeschooled our kids side by side, and there was hardly an area of life that didn’t overlap. If she was there, I wanted to be there too.
I couldn’t even count how many days and nights we spent together with both of our families - double dates, game nights, or simply sharing space under the same roof. It felt so good to have that sense of family, especially for someone like me, who came from a broken home and a childhood filled with turmoil. I used to tell my kids, “Hey, look at your friends,” referring to the other family’s children. “These are people who will be in your life until you’re grown. Friendships like this are rare. Treasure them.”
I can’t fully describe how much that friendship meant to me. In many ways, it began to define who I was and gave me a sense of security. But beneath the surface, something always tugged at me - a quiet discomfort that drove me to seek her approval almost daily.
That quiet discomfort?
My body sensed what my mind couldn’t yet articulate. Her words—disguised as playful remarks—had been chipping away at me for years.
I can now see those underhanded comments for what they were. They were subtle - so subtle that my mind often missed them, but my body felt their sting. Little remarks about how I dressed, how I showed up, how I performed… even comments about how big my arms were. Her go-to phrase was, “Bony is beautiful.” The only way I could achieve that was by starving myself - so I did, for a while. The thinner I became, the more impressed she seemed. So did my husband.
When the Body Speaks
Looking back, I can see I was drowning in a sea of toxic energy—ongoing disapproval and an undercurrent of criticism—not just from her, but also from my husband. I couldn’t fully grasp it at the time because I had been conditioned to believe my heart was deceitful, I couldn’t trust my feelings, and that I always needed to believe the best about others.
These foundational teachings came from the pulpit—where my husband preached every Sunday—and were echoed in our home daily. They were rooted in very specific Bible verses and truly seemed to make sense. Now I look back and can see that I was like a frog slowly boiling in water, unaware of the danger until it was almost too late.
On November 1, 2021, I woke up with severe digestive issues that didn’t stop for seven months. I had never been more sick in my life. At my lowest weight, I was a very unhealthy 88 pounds.
There were more days than I can count when I could barely get out of bed.
I couldn’t cook or care for my kids the way they needed me to. I was emaciated, disoriented from dehydration, and couldn’t find answers. Still, my husband pressured me to keep homeschooling our three children while running a cleaning business. I kept asking for a break, but each time, I submitted as best I could and kept trying to juggle it all. I genuinely believed that going against his wishes would mean dishonoring God - so I kept trying.
During one of my early exams, the medical office noted that my pH balance was off and asked if I had recently had any new sexual partners outside of my marriage. The question stunned me - it caught me completely off guard. At the time, I assumed I had either picked up a bacterial infection from a public restroom or maybe the doctors were completely off base with what was really going on.
It never once crossed my mind that my husband would cheat. He was a conservative Baptist pastor who had preached from the pulpit for nearly a decade. If I had placed my friend on a pedestal, he stood on an even higher one.
What I didn’t know then, is that when someone is sexually active with multiple partners, it can (but doesn’t always) disrupt the natural balance of their partner’s body. This disruption can trigger health issues or infections that seem to come out of nowhere. Looking back, it’s painfully clear - my body was responding to something my mind wasn’t ready to face.
I'll never forget the day my husband casually asked me where I’d want to be buried if I didn’t get better. I told him I would like to be cremated, with my ashes spread on a beach on the island of Lanai. Instead of seeing his question as strange or unsettling, I brushed it off - conditioned to believe the best about others. I convinced myself that his faith in God was just so strong that nothing shook him.
Of course, now I know—none of this behavior from him was normal and none of it was okay.
That season—when I was at my sickest—was, without question, the hardest time of my life. Everything felt dark, and deep down, I knew something was terribly wrong.
I remember one day in particular when both of our families met up to go to the beach. I can’t even recall exactly what he said on the drive there - I just remember thinking, I want to throw myself into this busy road and end my life, just to make the nightmare stop. As much as I had once placed my husband on a pedestal, I could no longer lie to myself. I couldn’t pretend that he was treating me well. I could no longer believe the best.
The Day My World Shattered
On May 16, 2022, I was having what, at the time, I would have called a “good week.”
That meant I was attempting some light movement—just a bit of bodyweight exercise—because I was incredibly frail. I was in the garage, trying to move my body early in the morning before the kids were up, when I got a phone call from my husband.
He said, “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed…but I’m gone.”
I hadn’t realized he was gone. I’d heard the door open earlier, but I assumed it was our housemate heading to work. I still thought my husband was in the house.
So I said, “No, I hadn’t noticed. Is everything okay?” I assumed there had been some kind of an emergency at the church.
He replied, “Everything is not okay…but it’s going to be.”
A chill ran through my body. He had been a police chaplain, and I recognized that exact phrase. It was the same one used when delivering traumatic news to families who had just lost a loved one.
Then he said that he was leaving, and he wasn’t coming back.
My first thought was that he was suicidal - or having some kind of mental breakdown. The idea that he would simply leave his family wasn’t something my mind could process. It was so far outside the realm of what I believed possible.
I said, “What? I’ll come to you. Everything’s going to be okay - just tell me where you are.”
But he said, “No, I’m not going to tell you where I am. And don’t take money out of the accounts - it will not go well for you.”
That’s when I realized he hadn’t just stepped out - he had truly left us. My realization was confirmed when I said, “I don’t know you, do I?” He responded in a tone I’d never heard from him before: “No, You don’t.”
That’s when it hit me: our three children were going to wake up and realize their father had disappeared - and we had no idea where he was.
The pain I felt in that moment is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It was as though my soul was ripped from my body.
To this day, I can still see myself in that moment - but not through my own eyes. My perspective is from above, as if I am floating outside of my body. I detached completely; the pain of watching my entire reality collapse was more than my mind and body could process.
The moment I hung up the phone, I knew my world had shattered. But I also believed that if I could just get to my friend—my best friend, my sister—she would comfort me and help me find a solution. I knew she would hold me, give me hope, and tell me what to do.
So I ran through the backyard to her house and started banging on the door.
To my surprise, she wasn’t home - her husband answered the door instead, looking like he had been in shock. That’s when he told me: she had left her family too. My husband and my best friend had left together.
The story is long—and maybe I’ll tell it one day—but over the next two weeks, we uncovered the truth: my best friend, the woman I called my sister, had been sleeping with my husband for six of the twelve years of our marriage. As if that betrayal weren’t devastating enough, I would soon learn she had become pregnant - and they had chosen to end the pregnancy.
Coming from a conservative religious background, where abortion was considered unthinkable, this revelation sent another shockwave through me. I remembered a time when she stood in front of the church, tears in her eyes, passionately sharing her pro-life convictions.
Picking up Pieces and Pulling Out Shrapnel
Nothing in life prepares you for a bomb that drops like that. My entire reality—my marriage, my closest friendship, my deepest belief systems about God and the world—were shattered. Ultimately, we had to say goodbye to our home in paradise, and the entire church community that had once been the center of our lives. The impact on my children was, and still is, unspeakable. Watching them carry the pain of this experience—shouldering grief they never asked for—has, at times, felt almost too much for me to bear.
Nothing prepares you for that kind of disorientation.
Nothing prepares you for the grieving process.
Nothing prepares you for that kind of trauma.
For the unwanted but necessary deconstruction of your worldview.
For stepping into single motherhood.
For building a business from the ground up.
For learning how to trust in new relationships.
All of it has been messy as hell.
But it’s also been beautiful - because now I’m free.
Now I get to be me.
And I know, without a doubt, that I will never hand my power over to anyone again.
I understand the importance of establishing boundaries for my children’s sake and mine.
My old friend returned to her life with her husband and if you judge things by social media, you’d think their family had never been happier. My ex-husband sought to reconcile our marriage as well, but my body spoke - and she told me loud and clear that I would never be safe in that space again. This time I listened to her.
As for me, there are no more shiny, happy photos of a traditional family unit dressed in coordinating church clothes.
No, the life I’m living now isn’t tidy. It isn’t effortless.
In many ways, I’m still pulling out the debris - shards of emotional shrapnel embedded deeply, years after everything exploded.
But this life?
It’s real.
It’s mine.
And it’s something I can be proud of - because it’s a life I’m building with authenticity.
Restored Health
Only a couple of weeks after my husband and best friend were out of my life, something unexpected happened - I began to digest food again. My health returned, and it returned in full.
People around me were confused. I had just gone through an incredibly traumatic experience, and yet, I was healing. Not declining. Not getting worse. My health was being restored. And that’s when I started to understand something no one had ever told me: toxic relationships can literally destroy your body.
When the truth came to light, my doctors told me with certainty: it was his relationship with her that made me sick.
Not metaphorically - literally.
The imbalances in my body, the unexplained digestive issues, the months of extreme illness - all of it was traced back to exposure from a partner who had been sexually active with someone else. Although they had been involved for six years, I learned that during the months I was at my sickest, they had been together more frequently. It’s the kind of thing I ever imagined I’d hear from a medical professional, but I did. And in that moment, something inside me clicked:
My body had been trying to tell me the truth all along.
For years, I had been conditioned to silence my intuition. To override my instincts. To endure the chronic stress. My body’s alarm system had gone off again and again, but I had been trained to trust the scriptures, the elders, the leadership - to not lean on my own understanding. Over time, I became completely disconnected from myself. That disconnection led me down this horrific path.
Two days after everything fell apart (picture on the left) compared to six months later. I had gained 20lbs and my health had been fully restored.
A New Passion
I remember my very first workout after everything happened. It was just a week later. My life and soul felt torn apart - but underneath the devastation, I sensed something deeper:
I was free.
And that feeling has never left me.
Grief is messy. It’s never linear. I lifted weights and cried through my workouts for months. But once my health returned and I saw the truth clearly, I wanted to care for my body in a way I never had before. I wanted to listen to her. Respect her.
I had neglected my body for so long, but she had never abandoned me. She was sending me signals from the beginning - warning me, protecting me, even when I didn’t listen. I’ve spent a lot of time apologizing to my past self for ignoring her cries for help.
That’s why I’m passionate about self-care now. I don’t expect many people to relate to the exact details of my story, but I know this: it’s common, far too common, for women to run themselves into the ground. Many are living disconnected from their bodies, silencing their inner voice, and pushing through pain without ever stopping to ask why.
Fitness became my healing ground. The science behind it, the structure it offers, and the way it empowers people to reconnect with their bodies—it became my purpose. Helping others build strength, both physically and emotionally, is now the heart of my work. I love helping people carve out space for themselves and reclaim their health.
I love to help people fuel their body right, develop a balanced body composition, and become strong and fit in every way possible.
I don’t share my story to evoke pity. I’m not a victim - I’m a warrior.
And I believe every woman has the power to be one, too. I think many women are suffering silently and may also be like frogs slowly boiling in water. I’m hoping some will wake up before it's too late and I hope they will choose themselves.
Most women don’t need new bodies. What we really need is a stronger connection to the ones we have.
This is why I’m so passionate about body positivity. Our bodies deserve love and respect–not just because of how they look, but because of all they do for us. They carry us, alert us, and protect us—even when we don’t listen. The more we reconnect with our bodies, the more we’ll want to care for them, speak kindly to them and feel at home in our own skin.
My deepest hope is that more women will stop silencing themselves. I hope they’ll stop ignoring the quiet signals.
And most of all–I hope they will listen when their bodies speak.
If you found this article helpful and are interested in getting more tools for your fitness journey, connect with me here or with the information below.
Email: brittneysmithfitness@gmail.com
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