…for everyone. We’ve endured a global pandemic, novel in living memory. For some of us it has intensified our gratitude for that which we have taken for granted. Healthy, blessed individuals have the bandwidth to absorb inconvenience, illness and even the death of a loved one, looking upon the loss as part of living.
For those who has suffered childhood wounds, for those who are living under the burden of trauma the shift toward loss is more than an impediment. It can push our mental state from borderline to unmanageable. Our human limitations by definition, can reach a breaking point. That point is different for each of us, but it can and does place us in the untenable position of dis-ease.
Disease is not always the stuff of bacteria or virus. Mental disease is inevitability when the threshold is reached wherein the individual is no longer capable of handling the situation with clear thought and action.
For those of us experiencing betrayal trauma, the inciting incident is clear. We discover or are told that the person we counted on most to have our back, did not. Our world shifts into a morass of quicksand instability inherent in the sudden loss of personal history. Unexpected, unearned, undeserved, yet real. A new reality we never dreamed possible.
For those who have betrayed, the shift leading to their devastating choices may have occurred over years. The wages of childhood abandonment, abuse, loss—real or perceived–can yield an individual ill equip to manage their life. By betraying themselves and their values first, they move toward the cliff of irretrievable harm to self and others. The one person they swore to love and honor becomes expendable to the unmanageability of their emotions. The stories they tell themselves loom like dark shadows over reality, eventually swallowing even their most beloved. The harm inflicted on them is reborn in the form of blame shifting, denial, lies and deceit. All in the name of escape. Recognized or not, the wounded betrayer takes steps into a world of justification and entitlement, the fruit of their own loss and pain.
Hurt people hurt people.
In such life changing circumstance as these it can seem impossible to ever regain the health and joy of a good life. How do we break the chains of the stories we tell ourselves?
Byron Katy, author of “The Work” tells us we must take a fearless inventory of reality by asking ourself if the story we tell is true. No…is it really true? How do you know? Have you checked with the source? Have you done due diligence in uncovering reality? Are you absolutely SURE it is true?
I quiver to think the amount of pain this one step would mitigate in the world. Imagine if every time you came up with a reason someone or something has disturbed you, upset you, disappointed you–you took the time to research the validity of your belief, your ‘story’. Even we who have had a relatively manageable life with little drama find ourselves in the midst of our own illegitimate tales at times.
Something as simple as assuming the reason your spouse is late is an everyday story many of us have told ourselves. “He doesn’t care if I wait. He’s more interested in going to that after work meeting than in me. The traffic was light tonight. No, it’s me he has no respect for.” On and on our story goes, blooming into full resentment by the time we find out the true reason for his tardiness. SO many times he actually had something come up he could not have seen or avoided. SO often the other’s actions are about them and have nothing at all to do with us. He actually may well have been busting his chops to get out of that meeting and home to you. Or lost track of time without any forethought or malice. The wisdom statement that what people do is more about them than you proves true much more often than not.
Take a minute next time you tell yourself a story, even a plausible one. A pinch of give the benefit of the doubt mixed with a large portion of research and fact checking can save you and others from the pain of assumption. And the world will shift toward gratitude as you discover time and again that things are not as dreary, negative or dismal as you may think.
Your world can shift toward the positive, toward safety, security, even joy as you discover that so many of the stories you tell yourself are at worst, exaggerations, at best downright wrong. The world is not against you, nor are most people in it. Circumstances are what they are and seldom to never have you as the target of their wrath.
Believe you can enjoy something in most every situation, most all days, even every hour. As we surface from the difficulties of this pandemic world, may we all look for that silver lining, seriously check out any dark lining in that silver cloud and rebalance ourselves into this wonderful world of people who are (mostly) just like us—doing the best they can.
For so much of my life I worked myself toward the edge of exhaustion trying to be the best me I could be. A big part of that ‘work’ was taking care of my family. Subsets of that were childcare, home maintenance, bringing in extra income, yard maintenance and advocating for my learning challenged son.
Whew. Just listing those is tiring. When I look back I can clearly see that I was trying to have it all, do it all and thus, feel accomplished/needed. My purpose in life was to be an excellent me. Any sacrifices, I thought to be natural to the season of life in which I found myself. Being a mom meant sacrificing. Surely I would have years after they flew the nest to explore ‘me’.
I am now in that empty nest place and indeed I did for a time, explore the new career of writing. It was a true joy, now morphed into blog writing rather than novel creation. And yes, there are many hours to spend in self care and the search for purpose. Sometimes too many.
It seems life is often like that. Feast or famine. I remember Oprah talking about the lie of ‘you can have it all’. Her conclusion was that each of us can have it all, just not all at once. There is deep wisdom in that. Yes, I could be a great mother, before I took on outside work. There simply are not enough hours in the day nor enough energy for any one person to do it all and have it all at the same time, if that means undertaking motherhood (a 24/7 job) and full time employment. It took my intense investment in becoming a published author post empty nest that highlighted the truth of this.
I did the best I could during those years I mothered and worked. Most women who find themselves in this place, do the same. Truth is, doing either of those full time undertakings is doable and enough to occupy any human. Doing both requires sacrificing somewhere. Usually that means streamline-ing, prioritizing, and/or allowing your selfcare to languish. Balance is doable just so far before the balancing act requires something to give. ‘Good enough’ becomes vital. Imperfection.
Balance. The goal of a life well lived. Even now in my Covid quarantine isolation, I spend my days balancing housework with gardening, with exercise, with painting, with reading, with cooking etc. The blessing of retirement/quarantine is, by its nature, the ability for balance without great sacrifice of any of the undertakings needed or desired.
SO what does this all have to do with betrayal trauma? Oh so much. Most women feel the pressure to be and do it all. Often their marriage is called upon to absorb some reduction of time and attention– a sacrifice in service of the unbalanceable demands of motherhood, home maintenance and employment. If you are fortunate enough to be married to a healthy spouse, they are ‘on the page’ with the sacrifices required during this lengthy season of life. They realize and accept that they will not get the same amount of uninterrupted focus as they did B.C. (before children), not what they can anticipate in empty nest years. They communicate the inevitable difficulties and strains of this season and work with their spouse to mitigate the challenges as best they can. Teamwork. Balance.
An unhealthy spouse who builds resentment, has unrealistic expectations and creates unenforceable rules about what their spouse should or should not be doing —all without discussion–can and does set himself up to betray his values. Add in a measure of entitlement formed from a less-than ideal childhood and you have the perfect storm for infidelity.
“Tale as old as time,” are the lyrics from Beauty of the Beast. In that story the ‘tale’ refers to boy meets girl. In the case of this article, I refer to the no-win set up of a stonewalling, quietly resentful spouse meets the season of high demand inherent in childrearing/working outside the home.
“You ‘never’ had sex with me”. (Notice the black and white thinking). If I’ve heard that excuse for taking on a mistress once, I’ve heard it hundreds of times. Entitlement. Silence. Unrealistic expectations unmitigated through communication, compromise or support. Wham-o.
Tale as old as time. Lives shattered. Hearts broken. Marriage destroyed.
All in pursuit of fun, fast and easy escape. Escape from reality. Raising a family requires compromise, sacrifice and intentional attention paid to the marriage. Anything less and someone, something suffers.
Now I am more than okay with being an imperfectionist. I have found it vital to my sanity, my contentment, my self care and my quality of life. “God grant me the serenity…” I crave, nay, I deserve serenity in this lifetime. Contentment. Purpose without burnout. And the energy to be relational too.
And so do you. Practice, not perfection. That is life. A life well lived.
Before you cross that seemingly enticing and ‘glamourous’ line–and in doing so betray the one person you vowed to love, honor and cherish—know that that choice will not only shatter your sacred vows, it will forever rupture your partner’s dreams of their one and only special partner in life.
While they will one day move forward, your actions will freeze them in the knowledge that you chose fun, fast and easy over them. Over your promised ‘us’. Nothing you are telling yourself they are doing, or not doing justifies your decision to betray them. Integrity demands you speak about your struggles and any disappointments WITH them. You can work out any perceived ‘problems’. You can not through silence and acting out.
While they may one day learn to forgive, a process that is for their mental health, not yours– it will be a long painful process lasting years. And in that forgiveness will never come forgetting the mortal wound you choose to inflict on your relationship. Your marriage/committed relationship is dead—contract broken. You will be living in a lie. For as surely as you betrayed them, you ended that promised loving, exclusive and precious relationship with them. Their life, and yours, will never be the same.
Through their grace, you may one day build a new relationship, but it will never be the same, never allow them or you to say you chose love over your self centered desires. They, and you will always carry the burden of that fact.
If you want to end your marriage or committed relationship, choose to do it in a loving manner with integrity, truth and respect for your partner. If you do not wish to end that relationship–then don’t betray your vows. Because if you do cross that line, you are ending your marriage. You are abusing the one person you swore to love. Whether your partner knows it or not, they are no longer being protected, loved and cherished. They are being used, manipulated and duped. You are controlling their ability to have agency over their own life and decisions, fundamentally disrespecting their human rights.
You are playing God with their life….possibly their very life should you pass on an STD to them. When they find out, you are the cause of the greatest traumatic pain they are likely to ever experience.
Should you wish your ‘cake and eat it too’, know it comes at a very high price– not only to your partner, but to you; to truth, to intimacy, to transparency and to integrity.
You may claim to love your partner.
You do not.
You are telling yourself yet another lie enabling you to justify leaving your marriage unilaterally.
Infidelity is not a victimless crime.
Choose better.
Choose love.
_____________________________
Here is another perspective from ‘author unknown”
Before You Cheat On Her Know This
You will break her. Like the violent shattering of glass as it crashes to the ground.You will not just break her heart. You will break her trust. You will break her spirit. You will break her joy. You will break her belief in love. You will break her sense of self.
Before you cheat, know this: She will not sleep—not through the night, as she counts the cracks in the walls at 3 am, seeking answers from a God she didn’t think she believed in.She will not eat—not by choice, but because she can’t stomach her reality or the thoughts of texts and images that haunt the corners of her mind. She will not smile—not because there’s nothing to smile for, but because she doesn’t know what these things are anymore.
Before you cheat, know this:It will teach her to hear “You are beautiful,” as “but not beautiful enough.” It will teach her to hear “You are brilliant,” as “but not brilliant enough.” It will teach her to hear “You mean the world to me,” as “but one person is not enough.” It will teach her to hear “You are the love of my life,” as “but I don’t love you enough.”It will teach her to hear “You are enough,” as “but you are still not good enough to satisfy me.”
Before you cheat, know this:She will cry. She will sit at her desk until 7:30 pm too embarrassed by tears streaming silently down her face to get up and go. She will curl into a ball on her best friend’s living room floor, cheek pressed into the carpet—She will get a lump in her throat anytime she walks past places that used to be yours until she decides to avoid these places entirely. She will rage. She will snap at friends, family and colleagues for no apparent reason at all. When they are stung by her anger, her cheeks will burn red with shame. She will curse at her reflection as she’s brushing her teeth, and think if only she were prettier, funnier, smarter—if only she were more, it would have made a difference. She will throw a picture frame at the wall, and be too dumbfounded to clean the blood off her finger when she cuts it picking up the pieces. She will scream into the wind by the river, wondering what she did to deserve feeling this way, hoping her words will carry far enough to be heard by someone—anyone—who can tell her. She will not feel. She will be turned by shock into the same stone she uses to build walls to keep people out. She will be numbed in new ways that her hopeful heart had not known to be possible. And then she will feel everything at once. She will feel devalued, discarded, disassembled, disillusioned, distraught—she will feel bewildered and betrayed. She will feel foolish, frenetic, fraught and full of fear. She will feel hate—toward you, toward them, toward herself. She will choke on her own confusion as she tries to hold on, yet yearns to let go.
Before you cheat, know this: She believed in you. She believed in romance—and that a chivalrous manner meant chivalry in all manners of the heart. She believed in honesty—and that being honest with your partner first meant being honest with yourself. She believed in respect—and that a love respected meant not being gaslighted, nor played a fool. She believed in goodness—and that being good meant working on being good together, even when it was not easy to do. She believed you would protect her—and that being protected did not mean hiding the truth. She believed in you—and that believing in you, believing in each other, meant the mutual support of a two-person team through the ups, downs and everything in between.
Before you cheat, know this: These are all avoidable. You have a choice. You can choose to walk away. You can choose to let her leave, on her own accord. You can give her a choice.
But if you cheat, know this: You will break her, but she will grow back stronger.You will dim her light, but she will shine more brightly in the dark. You will lower her expectations, but she will raise her standards. You will cause her to hate, but she will find relief, release, and beauty in the breakdown. You will make her question her sanity, but she will learn to trust her own intuition better than before.You will crush her ideas of love, but she will never settle again. You will burn her world to the ground, but she will pour her heart into becoming the best person she can be—and this time, it won’t be for you; it will be for her.
Isiaisis the hurricane loved to blow wind and rain. He took great pleasure in watching the trees bend, the grass of the fields sway. Staying out over the ocean can become monotonous even if the waves, the sea are his life and family. Even though the sea supports his life, feeding and caring for him so he has the ability, the energy to visit the shore and all the thrills that await there.
“I can’t wait to caress the shore, dive deep inland and witness my power. It’s so much fun”.
Many have witnessed what happens when the hurricane comes ashore. If that hurricane could decide to come ashore, Isiaisis would be full of glee in anticipation. “Nothing bad will happen. The people onshore know how to take care of themselves. I provide them life giving rain for their plants and drinking. They will be fine on their own.”
Even though it is known far and wide by all the people the potential destruction of a hurricane, Isiaisis denied it would harm anyone or anything. And before the people’s ability to forecast such a storm, they were well and truly blindsided. No warning. No ability to prepare.
No matter how vital and strong the people, they can not protect themselves against most of the destructive power of the storm. They are witness to the dark clouds and rain, but before forecasting, had NO idea what was coming. Thye lived in the (approaching) rain, the inconvenience of the downpours.
But Isiaisis was hell bent on the shore and all the fun there. He knew he had the potential of destruction but he told himself nothing would come of it. His rain would indeed help. So he came ashore dashing one town and one state after another–leaving a path of destruction far and wide. Some of the people lost their roofs, some their homes, some their lives. The newspapers would talk about him for many days, weeks, months and even years to come. He would be the topic of much discussion. Human experts on how to prepare for a hurricane, how to limit damage would careful dissect the harm he caused. They would learn how to better recover and protect.
“Isiaisis” was on the tongue of the people. Recovery was not about Isiaisis, even though the storm was what caused the damage. Recovery of the people, their homes and their lives was not about the storm. It was about tender care, attention to all the details of healing. PRepart=ation and protection learned for the future.
Did anyone miss the storm Isiasis?
“Good riddance”
Did the people still desire the benefits of the rain? The soft caress of a warm summer storm?
YES.
They needed to attend to the damage of the rain and wind gone wild first. The storm’s name was used often. It was the topic. The damage had to be the focus.
And what became of Isiaisis? He blew up the cost, weakened, gained humility when he saw the havoc his ‘fun’ had caused upon the people and the land. And he turned around, regained water and power from the sea. He looked carefully at all the damage and learned what his ‘fun’ had cost. He wept over the pain his choices had caused. He returned to the land in warm summer rains, soft caresses and care for the land and the people. He brought healing and rebuilt trust over many many months with the land and the people because they saw through his loving, helping actions that the storm can protect and care and love.
The people will always be wary of the dark clouds and wind. They will need the loving reassurance and actions of the caring Isiasis who has changed his heart to never again lash the shore in ‘fun’. He would never again look upon such actions as ‘fun’. No pleasure would the memories bring. Deep regret and sadness, embarassment and grief now power Isiaisis to tend to all he had destroyed–and for the rest of his days when the people talked about him, he would know it was the fear, the trauma and the damage of which they spoke–not him– the rain and wind when he returned in love and repair.
The land and the people tended far and wide to the destruction his choices caused, but it was not about him, the rain and wind. It was about tending to the pain. The wind and the rain of Isiaisis needed to do their own reflection and change, for the people had zero power over his healing. Isiaisis knew he needed to keep his destructive power, even a whisper or hint of it, far away from the people while they healed. It was not about him and his pain of regret, his difficulty in learning how to rein in his power. It HAD to be about the damage, the loving tending to repair in soft, gentle, understanding reassuring actions of life poured down on all he’d destroyed.
It indeed was not about him. __________________________________
A man and his wife drove along winding roads toward a celebratory dinner for the beautiful new car the wife had bought for him. She’d spent many hours working to pay for the car, but wanted to give it to the husband because it was the model and make of his dreams. She’d lovingly sacrificed to make the car possible.
“Slow down,” the wife request as he sped along the curves. “We want to arrive in one piece.”
But (And) the man thought nothing would happen. He knew this road well. He thought his wife was too careful–a stick in the mud. So he didn’t listen to his wife’s pleas.
Well you know what happened. He drove that car with his wife off the road, down into a deep gorge, rolling over and over.
The man shook his head, took fast inventory of his body, pushed and crawled out the shattered window. A painful gash at his temple stung and his body ached with bruises.
He looked back at the wreckage of his beautiful fun dream.
“Oh shit,” he realized his wife was still inside the wreckage.
He wanted nothing but to run away. How could he ever face her again? He’d ruined what she’d so carefully worked to give him. He’d not listened to the danger he knew his careless driving might cause. He’d willfully and selfishly driven with the wind in his hair, laughing at the power and speed. Should he dare to look at his wife? He didn’t even want to know what his actions had caused. He sat on the side of the hill, aching head in his hands until the ambulance arrived. He watched as the EMT’s extracted the bloodied, broken body of his wife. One of the EMT’s checked him out. He rode in the ambulance with his wife as the EMT’s tended to her, their expression belying the seriousness of her condition. He waited for hours in the waiting room, his head bandaged and aching.
“Oh my poor head. It hurts. I was so stupid to drive so fast. Now I’ll never have that beautiful car. We’ll never enjoy that special celebratory meal at that expensive precious restaurant we’d always dreamed of enjoying together.” Nearly all his thoughts and energy grieved his losses, thought about his pain.
The doctors told him to go home because his wife would be in intensive care for a long time. The man used their suggestion to justify not visiting his wife. In truth he did not want to see her pain, her brokenness, the pain in her eyes he knew his poor choices had caused. He stayed away for month as his wife recovered in a recovery facility. The doctors told him of the process his wife was required to go through, the pain, the long hours of rehabilitation.
“Don’t you want to visit your wife?” a nurse asked.
“I have to go to my traumatic brain injury classes”, he said. “I’ll come see her in the evening while she is sleeping. I don’t want to cause her any more pain in seeing me, who caused this accident.” He made the accident all about him and his pain, his process.
He did visit a few times when his wife was asleep. He could barely look at her. He felt so ashamed and guilty. One time when she woke, she cried.
” I hurt so bad,” she said. “But(AND) I am working hard to recover. I am making progress.”
“That’s good,” he said, filled with self hatred. All he could think about was his shame. He touched his head and winced.. He thought about how he was driving his old clunker again and his beautiful fun new car was in the junkyard. He hated having to go to TBI classes and the headaches he still had. He was so focused on himself he could not really ‘see’ his wife’s pain, let alone tend to her pain.
He made the inevitable consequences of his ‘fun’ driving all about him and his painful consequences. “If she’d just not bugged me about my driving, I wouldn’t have had the accident. I could have kept driving and having speedy fun long after our celebration dinner. I would still be on the winding roads having fun.”
The wife came home. The man brought he meals as she healed more. He continued to go to his TBI classes, did his self care fun and exercises, watched tv–escaped from the reality of his recovering wife. Even when he heard her moan or cry at night, he turned over and went to sleep in his bed. He could no longer sleep next to her–it was too painful for her while her wounds healed.
He held it against her that he had to sleep in the extra room. He blamed her injuries, knew she needed to heal, but still felt deprived of his own bed and his beautiful fun new car.
She wanted to talk about the car, his driving, the accident. She wanted to understand how the accident happened even though she knew it was his carelessness that lent to it. She needed to know what curve, what blind spot, what speed, what mechanical factors if any had led to this horrible lifechanging crash. She felt she may never be comfortable driving with him again. Surely not unless and until he had dug deep to understand everything that led to the crash. Not until he learned and choose to tend to her, care for her and her recovery, be there for her in the years of painful recovery. The physical pain may never allow her to sleep in the same bed with him. The emotional pain and fear may never allow her to feel comfortable with him driving especially with her in the car. She may never be able to earn enough to buy another new car. He might not either. They’d have to do with the old clunker. Or someday get a better used car, but (and) never the shiny special one.
“Poor me. I’ll never have that fun new car. She will never be able to sleep next to me. She will have pain in her eyes and her body for years, maybe forever. It’s too hard to face her and the consequences of the crash. But (and) I don’t want people to judge me as a bad guy so I will do a little to look like I am helping. But (and) I will escape whenever I can from her and our reality.”
And he made it all about him, his pain, consequences and discomfort in seeing and living with his broken wife.
When she wanted to talk about the accident, to understand, to make sure it would never happen again by hearing his understanding of her pain and the reasons the accident happened–he stayed silent.
He made it all about him and his pain.
“How is this not about me?” He asked when his wife kept on and on about the crash. “I caused the crash.” Oh woah is me. You talk about me and my driving all the time. You talk about all the specifics of what led to the crash. It is all about me and my fuck up.”
“The topic is you and the consequences of your choices. The pain and life changes, yes. You and your choices are the topic”, she said. But (and) the reality is I need to heal, you need to heal and if we are ever going to get along, WE need to heal. That will take a long time and lots of dissection of the why’s the how’s the where’s, the what’s. We MUST understand so this will never happen again and so your driving and attitude will be changed through action. So I can see and experience your change of heart and actions for a LONG time.. So YES, you are the topic. HEALING and CHANGE through reparative action is the focus, the action.
You see this is not about you. It is about healing the pain, the consequences– and understanding, a change in behavior and heart. Repair to me, to you and to us. It is about the critically wounded who will take much longer to heal–ME. And the dead relationship that is traumatized. Your name will be the topic, your behavior will be the topic–the healing will be the focus, the recipient of the care and love and patience.”
Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence
I have lived many months suffering the effects of my Unfaithful’s silence. He has built a stonewall between us to protect himself from feeling the shame and guilt of his betrayals. “This is sadly normal”, I am told again and again by those who make their profession in helping marriages recover from the atrocity of infidelity.
I reached the end of my rope in June. I told my unfaithful that I could not go on living under the same roof with him if he were not to talk to me daily. I need to hear that he is processing. That he is working on recognizing his thinking patterns that led him to betray me, his family and everything he professes to love. “Without this,” I said, “I have no way to rebuild safety. I have no way of knowing if you are unraveling the stories you have told yourself all these years, that have enabled your justification.”
I need this.
There is no moving forward in relationship without.
Beginning the day after communicating this to him, he has daily filled out the tool recommended in “Worthy of Her Trust” by Jason Martinkus and Stephen Arterburn. This tool is wonderful, but any tool requires investment and practice to make profitable to the cause in which it was created.
And my UH stumbled. In spite of all the work we have done in the Retrovaille program with emotions, and his individual counseling, he has trouble stating feelings. He still tends to lean on creating newspaper headlines with no story to follow. He makes statements.
That said, he has kept at it. He is moving ever closer to demonstrating actual feelings. The hard shell of his defenses has some cracks. His voice cracks every now and again as he reads his own words. He still has an easier time empathizing with sad news stories or television commercials, but he is trying.
Why has it taken four years four months for him to do this, even though I have clearly stated it as a need? Fear. He is afraid of facing these feelings–mine and his. He is afraid of plunging into the depths of grief. Actually not an unreasonable fear, yet it has been so overblown in his mind as to become paralyzing.
And paralysis does no one any good.
I think he may actually be seeing this. Through his working the program(s), he is seeing that he does not perish with the acknowledgement of costs and pain. He has slid back down the slippery slope into making it about him and his shame a couple times. But he recognizes it now and is willing to come back and try again.
What caused this change, you ask? I believe it was my willingness to move on alone. And he knew it. I was dead serious.
How sad that it took coming to walking out on a forty three year relationship for him to realize what he was about to lose. Too many addicts have to reach their bottom. Some even go further into the pit than my UH has. They end up in the streets, penniless, sick and broken.
I am still reticent to trust. Reticent to believe this is permanent change toward willingness to communicate. It simply has not been long enough for me to feel safe.
We are beginning a class through Bloom for Women and Path for Men “Rebuilding Trust, Rebuilding Your Relationship”. Online, 12 weeks. So many other attempts have been made at therapy, workshops, groups, classes. So many failures as he was so limited in his investment. Doing the bare minimum is not the stuff of relational healing. Even when both partners are all in, this path is difficult with no guartenees of success for the relationship.
I will heal. I am well on my way to personal healing. Most of my days are good. My self care is top notch. I revel in the joy of my home, garden, dogs, reading, learning, painting, baking. I am me again. More me than I have been in many years of struggling in a relationship without full investment from my ‘partner’. I have struggled too long. I am tired. I will struggle no longer. I want to be me. I like me.
I choose to enjoy my life regardless of how this class or our relationship turns out. I hope we can be friends. I hope we can grow close. I hope he turns over a new leaf of proactiveness, responsibility and reliability. I am not holding my breath or counting on it. Not anymore.
I will be okay on my own. I am okay on my own. *Pat myself on the back* Well done Christine.
“Fools, ” said I, “You do not know Silence, like a cancer, grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you” But my words, like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells, of silence
A man who would betray his wife is the ‘bad guy’, right?
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Scrooge trembled more and more. “Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!”
A guy who works hard at a lucrative career affording his family the niceties of life and a great vacation each year—goes to church on Sunday and votes in every election. Good guy—right?
You may have just been caught up in the same sort of black and white shallow judgementalism that pervades most addicts thinking. And the thought patterns that lead to destructive choices, such as betrayal.
No one is born ‘bad’, as most of culture defines it. We are molded through our upbringing mostly by people who have likewise been molded–to have strengths and weaknesses, good and bad qualities. And you know what? Most of this modeling has no nefarious intent. It is the result of the unexamined life. The failure of generation after generation to do the difficult work of realization, responsibility and change.
It takes courage and fortitude to break old patterns that are ingrained from childhood. Old, rusty, ponderous chains. Often these patterns were survival mechanisms that allowed us to adapt to scary or difficult situations when we were powerless youngsters. Coping mechanisms that did the job as kids, but when carried on into adulthood reek havoc with selfhood and relationships.
A little boy who is sent to military school run by nuns, ostensibly to gain a foothold on the path to college by parents who struggled to pay for this schooling, but could not see their way to making any other choice when overwhelmed by multiple siblings, one of whom was deaf, and an alcoholic dad. Bad people? Hey, they sent their seven year old to boarding school where his tender heart was terrified by a system meant to mold young boys into men. There he learned to hide and lie and cheat to survive. Fly under the radar. Don’t get caught or reprimanded. Bad kid?
No matter the good intent of the parents. No matter the innocent child turned to manipulative survival skills. No matter. The intent to pass on destructive life coping skills was not there, yet it happened…worked like a charm.
“The best laid plans of mice and men.”
Where was the introspection of the parents when they made those decisions, convincing themselves that discipline and structure would be to their eldest son’s advantage? Where? When Dr Spock was touting ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’– and ‘let them cry it out’? Where was the language of the heart that could have looked into the innocent eyes of the eldest of four and seen a young boy who needed his family so much more than a structured college bound education in isolation? How else could that tender heart have taken it, but to feel rejected and punished. A human doing, not a human being any longer. Straighten up and fly right, boy.
We are not born to lie and cheat, steal and break vows. We are carefully taught –mostly by people who are justifying their choices by convincing themselves they are doing what’s best. Until and unless they figure otherwise, the legacy goes on. From grandfather to father to son the story continues. Until and unless someone can look deeply into self and reality to say ‘no more’.
How do you break the cycle of learned self-deception?
Why? via the opposite. Truth. Vulnerability. Hard conversations. Courage like one has never before had to muster.
Breaking the code of silence.
Breaking the chains of addiction’s mandate. Secrets and silence.
Breaking away from passive, looking the other way existence.
Unabashedly sharing one’s heart and the pain overflowing from all the mistaken choices made and enforced in one’s own childhood. Grieving innocence lost. All those years missed in the loving bosom of an imperfect, but caring family. The message internalized: ‘I am not worth loving.’
And so the same story, different scenery and timeframe, but the same broken story is repeated again and again.
Comment from a faithful wife posted on a recovery forum:
“I am in a phase that I hate when people talk in terms of their “happiness” in life. We all desire some happiness in life, but let me try to explain….. When my husband was cheating, he was telling himself that he “deserved to be happy” and he sometimes uses that excuse now when he is avoiding during the hard stuff. There was nothing wrong with the marriage or me, but he was dealing with work stress and the death of a parent and some other personal, unresolved childhood issues. I agree that he probably wasn’t feeling “happy” everyday. BUT…. The unfaithful often use happiness as an excuse and justification for their cheating. Happiness is a fleeting emotion – comes and goes. Nothing on this Earth guarantees “happiness” at all times, but the unfaithful seem to think it is the only thing to base a marriage and lifetime commitment on. They have the expectation that it is somehow their spouse’s job to make them happy. Happiness. No wonder so many marriages fail. Trust me- I am not “happy” right now (over 4 years past D-Day). I am not cheating in my marriage because I don’t feel happy right now. I am not staying in this marriage and holding our family together because I feel “happy” right now. If I was only committed to my husband or kids when I felt “happy’, I would have left multiple times and betrayed them (especially during my kids’ teenage years). Life can be hard, but you don’t run. My happiness is not why I have stayed and continue to fight for my marriage. It’s much more complicated than that. My happiness from moment-to-moment is not how I determine my love or commitment to the people that mean the most to me. Similarly, if I only went to work on the days my job made me feel “happy”, then I probably wouldn’t go most days. I go to work, even when I’m not having my best day.I have a commitment to it, a commitment to my colleagues and team, and I have a greater purpose because of my job. Think of the healthcare workers during this pandemic. They go to work in the crisis because of the need to be there for others and their duty to the cause- Not because they are loving their life right now. So, I have come to hate the term “happiness”. It feels like such a selfish word and not something that feels like commitment and love. I am not bashing the happy feeling. We all do deserve some level of happiness, but you can’t base your love and commitment on feeling “happy” at all times. If that is the case, what’s the point of commitment ? When happiness becomes consuming it’s selfishness.
For me, happiness is helping and giving to those I love. That makes me happy. It is unfortunate that my unfaithful had to go outside the marriage to try and find happiness.”
My heart hurts even approaching this subject. Maybe it is because I have never read nor have I been able to come up with a list of things an unfaithful can do to repair the life altering damage their selfish choices have inflicted.
But I can not find it in my heart to excuse the absence of attempts.
My unfaithful does not even attempt to repair the damage. So I can tell you what reparation does NOT look like.
My first inclination is to think that he is overwhelmed with the enormity of the task. But then I remind myself that thinking this is assuming his response and thought patterns are like mine. As a healthy person, one would be overwhelmed. But he is not a healthy person. I find it astounding that even an addict can attend meetings and be in therapy for four years and still not be able to deal with the inflicted pain they have caused.
Yet I see it—every day.
I see him joking with our adult son. I see him laughing with our housemate. And I see him avoiding interaction with me. How does he handle the gaping wounds he is fully aware of in me?—- He avoids it. He avoid me.
In marriage counseling he admits to reading, hearing or knowing well the steps and tools to repair. He also admits that he does not use those tools. WTF?
I mean really. WTF.
Our Marriage counselor commented yesterday via online meeting that I look resigned. Not as in grudgingly resigned, but as is living my life fully engaging in what remains that is good. YEs–I do. Yes I am.
In my heart I still hurt. I still grieve the loss of my marriage. A marriage that I increasingly realize has been a mirage for years. He has been pretending to be my spouse for so many years and is so good at the mirage that I grew to believe the lie. I lived in the false flattery and upbeat jokes. I tolerated, I lived inside the lie believing it was his way of communicating his care. When in reality it was his way of hiding his duplicity. His life as a two faced cheating liar.
Small wonder I now carry a visceral gut reaction to his mask behavior. I have no way of recognizing if or when he is sincere. It all feels false. Yes–after four years since d-day, his joking and laughter all feels false. Because he uses it to avoid looking at himself.
And I feel sad that this is my reality.
How could he repair? (Ostensibly the topic of this blog)
Admit each and every damaging action and behavior he has chosen. Talk about it ad naseum. Talk about it as much and as often as I am faced by his actions to think about them. Talk about it until I am tired of his expressed grief and deep understanding of the damage he has caused.
Tell me specifically the lies he told himself about me that allowed him to justify betraying me. Each and every lie. Tell me specifically what the truth of me is. What is the truth about how I supported and loved him? Verbally appreciate all the love and care I gave. Enumerate the specific behaviors I did throughout all the cheating lying years that demonstrates the absolute lies he told himself.
Ask me about myself. Demonstrate that he is interested in ME. Me the person. How are you interested in ME? Do you want to know what my dreams are? What my struggles are? You demonstrate zero interest in me because you avoid me.
That is not love. Love ACTS. Love cares. Love demonstrates interest, investment, involvement.
The best I can come up with to repair the unrepairable theft of the precious exclusivity that was our marriage is to consistently undertake the above. For as long as it takes which, if it lasts as long as the repercussions of betrayal will most likely be– for the rest of my life.
Does that mean we could never be easygoing friends again. NO. I can foresee being friends. I have been able to treat him in friendship even under the weight of lack of repair. How much more could I feel safe enough to be friendly if he showed care for me and the consequences his choices have inflicted upon me?
For now I choose what I have. My garden, my painting, my writing, my dogs, my granddaughter, my life as it is.
Investment in your relationship is like the “grass is greener” myth– NOT greener elsewhere
“When I use only the sprinkler system, it quickly becomes obvious where the sprinkler system is not watering. The grass which is not adequately watered quickly turns brown and dies. I become dissatisfied with the dry patches in my lawn, but I know they are only dry for lack of my attention and effort. The grass is simply greener where I’ve watered it.
The lesson my lawn teaches me every summer can be applied to relationships as well. Nowhere in our relationships does this little rule of nature seem to be more true than in marriages impacted by infidelity. Individuals involved in affairs frequently complain of their miserable lives, but close observation generally reveals a severe case of under-involvement. It is true, they are miserable; but their misery isn’t generally the result of working overly hard on the relationship. They may be putting effort into their children, but when it comes to their romantic relationships, they invest far more energy into their affair partner than they ever put into their marriage. They write cards to the affair partner, spend hours on the phone, and plan surprises for him or her. In addition to that, they spend hours dreaming of the next time they get to see their lover. In fact, it’s not unusual for them to spend up to 70% of their thought life focused on some aspect of their secret relationship. Given that sort of time investment, is it any surprise that they fail to feel any connection in their marriages? There tends to be little strength, interest, or time left to devote to the marriage. Considering their behavior, no wonder the grass doesn’t seem very green.
In the end, it’s not that the grass is truly greener elsewhere, it’s just greener where it’s watered. If you find that you’re dissatisfied with your marriage, you may be tempted to look for greener pastures. You may even think you’ve found them, if all your efforts and attention are aimed at your affair partner. But you’ll also find that your marriage will be greener if you make the same type of investment in your marriage. Think about it.”
For our unfaithful to have one iota of resentment, expectation or entitlement to any marital benefits after THEY have chosen to break the marriage vows and de facto abandon the marriage is the stuff of crazy making insanity.
In my case, my UH told himself he was entitled to more sex during a dry spell when our kids were 2 and 5 years old. ENTITLED!! If that was not baffling enough, he actively worked to coerce and shame me into sexual performance WITHOUT emotional investment on his part AND while he was actively sexually betraying our marriage.
I’ve used this example before: We went to a Catholic marriage retreat for a number of years each spring. It was similar to marriage encounter. We were given questions to write about and then share. He abandoned no opportunity to write about his ardent wishes for me to be more ‘intimate’ (in his mind, and much of our cultures minds, that meant sex) He would often ask me why I wasn’t, to which I responded “I truly do not know. I am just not feeling it”.
Well duh…..no wonder I wasn’t feeling it. He had abandoned our marriage emotionally and sexually. I couldn’t get him to engage. No one can force another to engage. I could only request. Requests that fell on deaf ears…as he probably felt his requests for more sex did. Thing is most women, myself included, have to feel emotionally connected to a man before entrusting him with their body. Me too.
I did not feel emotionally connected and therefore not emotionally VALUED. I could not perform like a trained circus animal. I needed connection.
Pice de resistance? He stood up with all the other retreat couples, as part of the vow renewal at retreat’s end—held my hands and looked me in the eyes while repeating wedding vows—knowing he was actively sexual with his affair partner. Arrogance? Entitlement? Manipulation? Lies? Insanity.
For him or any unfaithful to EXPECT sex with their betrayed spouse is ludicrous and in fact requiring them to have sex UNINFORMED (non consensually) is a crime. In other circumstances many would define non consensual or uninformed sex as rape.
No wonder I was shut down most of the time. I did not have the ingredients of emotional engagement, trust and support that I needed to feel sexual.
And he EXPECTED me to be sexual. Not only that, he resented me for not being more sexual. Resented and blamed. He blamed me for purposely withholding sex and abandoning HIM.
Sick, sick, sick destructive and unfair thinking.
But isn’t that the hallmark of an addict?
Yes.
Completely baffling to a healthier person.
The arrogance and the entitlement are baffling and in fact the very cause of the reduced libido of the betrayed. That and the NORMAL exhaustion of an over burdened with responsibility young mother AND/OR a woman going through peri-menopausal hell. Normal seasons of life that a healthy man would undertake to help mitigate through emotional and physical support garnished with a huge serving of compassion, empathy and understanding.
But my UH was not healthy. He was arrogant and entitled. Arrogant, entitled and a consummate liar.
I hate addiction. I hate being used, duped and controlled for years. I hate being judged as somehow defective or vengeful through intentional sexual control. I hate being misjudged and betrayed because of it. I hate being in this non-marriage place. This place where a marriage contract sits in the legal vaults, yet I have not been honored as a wife. I hate it.
Christine Renewed 