When Betrayal Invades Your Garden: What Dodder Taught Me About Healing

I had a vision for my flower meadow.

I imagined wildflowers and my beloved zinnias blooming freely, colors scattered across the landscape, bees moving from flower to flower and something truly beautiful emerging from the intentional work I had put into the soil. I had tilled, planted, watered and waited.

And then, unexpectedly, dodder appeared.

If you have never encountered dodder, consider yourself lucky. It is a strange, unsettling plant that I think traveled in with the seeds I had ordered. What had begun as something small and seemingly insignificant invaded my garden, attaching itself to my tender plants in order to draw nourishment from them. In a short time, delicate strands of dodder had spread and begun choking out an entire section of my garden.

I didn't plant this pest.

I didn't invite it.

I didn't see it coming.

And yet, there it was—woven through something I had carefully nurtured.

As I stood looking at my meadow, I thought about dodder as a metaphor for betrayal as an unexpected invasion that wraps itself around everything it touches.

It doesn’t stay in one place.

What begins with one relationship wound winds its way into everything else.

A quiet evening becomes an opportunity to wonder what your partner is doing.

A late text becomes a trigger.

A change in tone becomes a warning.

A phone turned face down becomes a reminder.

An ordinary question becomes investigation.

Your world becomes smaller while your mind becomes louder as you desperately try to 

feel safe again.

But You Are Not the Betrayal

This is where the garden metaphor becomes especially important.

When I looked at the mess in my meadow, I had to make a choice.

And I’ll admit that I first whined to anyone that would listen that the entire garden was ruined. I was ready to light the whole meadow on fire after I read online that this was a solution.

But when I took a beat and calmed down, I realized 

The plants were still there under the dodder. They had roots planted in soil that were still capable of growing.

Although the dodder had changed the garden, it had not become the garden.

Similarly, while betrayal may have changed you, betrayal is not you.

What someone else chose to do does not determine your worth.

Their secrecy does not mean you were foolish.

Their choices do not prove that you were inadequate.

Their betrayal does not make you less beautiful, less desirable, less intelligent, or less worthy of love.

You did not cause someone else to betray you.

And you do not have to carry the shame for choices that were never yours to make.

If you find yourself in a season when the invasion feels too overwhelming to manage alone and you need someone to sit with you in the messy middle, you’ve come to right place.

The Dodder Is Not the End of the Story

It’s the end of the season and I’m happy to report that the flower harvest was bountiful! But there’s still work to do. 

There are strands of dodder to remove. Plants to protect. Areas that need tending. Plans to be made for next year.

And I no longer look at the dodder and see only destruction.

I see a reminder that although life has a way of introducing hardships we never would have chosen, unwelcome invaders may come and undermine our confidence, relationships, identity, and dreams for the future, we get to determine what grows next. To decide what stays and what needs to be removed. We get to choose what we want to protect. We get to plant something new.

Betrayal may have changed your garden, but it doesn’t get to determine what grows there next.