Remembering

They say that memory is a fickle thing. That each of us colors what was real and stores the memory in our own unique way. This is why the same event can be recalled differently by each individual who witnessed it.

None of this reality—the reality of the unreality I know is likely to be each of our recollections, can touch the agony of the mind’s eye when ‘seeing’ our spouse in bed in the throes of passion with another. Nothing can ever change that reality or those images branded with the searing hot iron of trauma.

We must give up all hope of ever having a better past.

A huge order. Probably–no, absolutely the most painful thing I have ever undertaken.

PTSD. No one who has ever suffered from it will EVER get over it. The memories are inextinguishable. The reality that we were thrown away for a lie, manipulated to remain in a marriage made null and void, yet made to remain as a full participating partner, even in the bedroom, when most of us would vomit, not made love to a spouse who was using our goodwill and trust for their own benefit.

PTSD is forever.

It can be managed, but like the past that can never be changed, neither can the presence of the dark and painful memories right beneath the surface ready to be triggered.

And it is incumbent upon the betrayed to manage their PTSD. No one can do it for us. We were tried, judged, convicted and sentenced to a lifetime of trauma in varying stages of remission….by an unfaithful partner. That is the cost with which we have been saddled against our will. We were never given a choice.

Not like the war combatant, rather like the civilian caught in the war zone. The combatant consented to be present to atrocity. The crying child in a burned out shell of his home, did not.

We are the children of betrayal. We, the widows of infidelity. We the unfairly sentenced to a life term.

Reality.

The question is—Will you let it be the central feature of your life? Or will you disallow the interminable perseveration of pain?

Steely determination to NOT be defined by the choices of another. Even if that other was the love of your life. We are not so vilely betrayed by strangers. No, our greatest love held the knife.

What do I choose to remember? That once upon a time I was the beloved child of two parents who gave me everything important–the most important of those gifts, self respect, love and …gratitude.

I choose gratitude.