“Call Me Irresponsible…”

The song by Bobby Darin highlights what is far too common in our world—people who have not grown up.

“Call me irresponsible
Call me unreliable
Throw in undependable too

Do my foolish alibis
Bother you?
Well I’m not too clever
I just adore you (YIKES! But of course he does! YOU ARE responsible and reliable)

Call me unpredictable
Tell me I’m impractical
Rainbows I’m inclined to pursue

Call me irresponsible
Yes I’m unreliable
But it’s undeniably true
That I’m irresponsibly mad for you.” (RUN!!!)

Should you come across one of the aforementioned…rather, I should say WHEN you run across one such—don’t walk—RUN. It is not because these folks are not worthy of breathing or existing in the world. They have their own wounds that have contributed to their narcissist behaviors and have their own path toward growth. Pray for them. Wish them well. But DON’T allow yourself to become emotionally close to them. And for heaven’s sake–don’t marry one!

What I am suggesting is that you do not need to carry their baggage or allow it to negatively effect your life.

As a young woman I, like far too many other young women, allowed myself to be blinded to the ‘red flags’ of just such an immature, wounded individual. I was caught up in the ‘love to be in love’ feeling and allowed those strong, real feelings to overcome good common sense.

“When someone shows you who they are—BELIEVE them the first time”. -Maya Angelou

If someone will lie to you about using your money. If someone will hide important information from their family. If they do not follow through with promises, large and small. If they rely far too much on you to do for them what they can do for themselves. Don’t walk…RUN from entanglement with them beyond polite, surface interaction.

To tell yourself they just ‘made a mistake’ (over and over), or that they will grow and change under your loving care, is to live in the denial of magical thinking.

There are plenty of people, even very young ones, who live their lives in integrity. They say what they will do and do what they say. They live in the vulnerability that transparency requires when it means respect for you and your right to exert agency over your own life and decisions.

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”

― Brené Brown

People who are not willing or who are unable to live their life in integrity will not be good for you in yours. They will sap you of time and energy. They will break your heart. You will be signing a warrant for your own arrest into a world of secrets and lies. If and when you do finally wake up and focus your personal lens to see reality clearly, the portion of your life you have spent with and on this person will be as warped as the lenses you wore to allow them into your life. The history you had with them will forever be corrupt. You will never know all of what really happened behind your back.

What was ‘real’ and what was ‘not real’? will forever be your new reality. You will place yourself into the unenviable shoes of a person who has been used for all the love and goodness you offered. Duped over and over again by someone who has never learnt the reality and value of real love. To give without expectation. To offer one’s heart open to all that may befall it. To live in truth.

To be a person of integrity.

You, baby girl, have allowed yourself to stumble into the arms of a person who does not deserve your love unless or until they choose to do the hard work of ‘know thyself’ to repair the wounds that formed them into a person who uses unethical means of getting what they want. They have learnt brilliant (then) coping mechanisms that saved them when young from some harm and/or abuse, but have not chosen to see those coping mechanisms for what they are–disasterous ways of living a life in adult integrity.

And it is not your job or within your capability to teach them. You can not change them.

That is their work to do.

Pray for them. Wish them sincerely well.

Do not take them on as a project or allow them into your inner circle.

You just may wake up ten, twenty or thirty plus years later living a life you never dreamed, not knowing what was real and what was not. Picking yourself and the million and one shards of what you thought was true, off the metaphorical floor and hopefully—possibly for the first time in your life–begin to live, eyes wide open.

You are worth the truth–always. You deserve to have agency over your life and decisions without having reality twisted or hidden from you.

The good news in all this? You now do have that agency. You decide what is good for you and what not. You steer your own ship, free from lies and manipulations. Ahhh…breathe the sweet air of truth, of reality, and of your own personal integrity.

Was-band

There was a time so long ago when you travelled over land and sea

Travelled to enjoy my company

There was a time your face lit up when I entered a room

There was a time you promised me your everything

Even though we had nothing of earthly value

We belonged to each other

We relied on each other no matter what

And then you changed. Ever so slowly

You kept the mask of good, fun guy on

You were everyone’s favorite

But you abandoned me. You abandoned ‘us’

My husband became my wasband

He used to be the one who would share his dreams and disasters

He was the one who reached to hold my hand

He was the sunshine in my day

He was the one I would and did do anything for, to ease his way

He was the only man I saw

The only man I wanted

He was my everything. My true north. My heart.

He was the man who vowed to be my one and only.

He was my one and only.

But now that time has slipped into the past.

His face no longer lights when I enter the room.

He avoids the person he swore to love and protect

Because I remind him of his choices

Choices to abandon our love, our vows, us

In favor of false love

In favor of Betrayal.

He was once my husband.

now my wasband.

He was my light, my devotion, my love.

I thought I was his too.

That was a lie.

‘Husband’ was a lie

Replaced by a doppelgänger pretender

who looked like my husband

But was not.

In reality he was my betrayer, my manipulator, the abuser of my love.

Hungry for all I provided him.

The entitled one who lived two lives, both false.

The broken one who broke my heart.

My wasband.

Still my wasband all these years later

Because he does not change. He does not choose to see me, value me, love me.

The husband left when he choose another woman over ‘us’.

In walked the wasband who complained things were not as they should be.

The wasband who profited from all the benefits of marriage, but did not invest in it.

The wasband who used my love to escape into a fantasy world of his creation rather than be present in the real world with his once upon a time treasured wife.

Now she, an object of gratification for all the good she provided

But resented for not being more, and more, and more. Not enough.

Does anyone want a wasband?

Who would choose to marry one?

I didn’t think so.

Not the marrying kind.

Not the man who fixes what he broke.

Not a man who one could respect.

Not a man to be trusted.

Not reliable.

Not a man of integrity. No, not husband material.

Because he chooses to remain a wasband

Ever wanting to be a husband without living like one.

Wishing it would all go away so he could pretend to be a husband again.

And benefit from all the gifts of marriage

Without having to invest in those gifts.

A wasband.

Cruel

Five and a half years (and four days shy of what would have been our forty third wedding anniversary–had I actually been in a real marriage) from my unfaithful spouse’s confession of a twenty seven year affair and I still hurt down in the core of me. The anger and devastation still live there, uninvited and despite all the self care and self value deeply felt. It still is beyond my ability to understand how someone who swore undying love and protection could inflict the cruelest actions against everything promised as sacred. How could I have been such a transactional commodity?

That said, I happily report that this does not occupy my days anymore. I am mostly free of the soul withering effects of betrayal. And yet the reality of it is never too far away. The reality of it will always live deep inside me.

cruel

adjective. Willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others.

Enjoying the pain or distress of others.

Causing or marked by great pain or distress.

How can a betrayed spouse define their betrayer as abusive or cruel?

abusive

adjective. Using, containing, or characterized by harshly or coarsely insulting language.

Treating badly or injuriously; mistreating, especially physically.

Wrongly used; corrupt.

Let’s unpack why.

“Willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others.”

Many have said that betraying one’s spouse is not meant to hurt them. ‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her’. This is delusional thinking and a lie of the highest degree. A betrayer knows what they are doing is wrong and harmful or they would not hide it. They know they are harming their marriage by nullifying it. They know their expenditure of time, effort, emotions, money on another subtracts that time, effort, emotion and money from their spouse, family, and home. Their actions and emotional investment are spent on another.

As limited human beings how we invest our time is where our heart will be. It demonstrates commitment to another that directly denies and disinvests in the primary relationship. That investment leaves the faithful spouse to live life alone—physically, emotionally, financially, during all episodes of betrayal including the incessant thinking/planning/daydreaming involved in betrayal. The betrayer is not present for enormous amounts of time, if only emotionally. They are actively building a house of cards making their spouse the villain in contributing to the necessity of its construction.

The distress suffered by the betrayed, even and especially when they are unaware of the secret life their spouse is carrying on, is of the deepest most destructive kind. The lying and gaslighting involved in all affairs has the effect of detaching the betrayed’s gut from reality. The betrayed knows their spouse is not invested in their relationship in a healthy way. Even if the betrayer is showering the spouse with guilt gifts, the lie behind them is felt in the saccharine disingenuousness. The gut feel that the giving has strings attached. In my personal case, it was not guilt gifts, rather it was withdrawal of presence, both physical and emotional. Our relationship grew increasingly surface with day to day interactions all about responsibilities or planning of some future vacation. Bait and switch. Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

“Distress” is an understatement. I was a taken for granted, overworked, over-giving betrayed spouse who was secretly resented for investing so much time and energy in keeping the home and kids afloat. Catch 22. I was blamed for being tired and not responsive enough sexually. What woman responds to sexual demands and score keeping/shaming? CRUEL.

“Enjoying the pain or distress of others.”

As the ‘other’, I do not believe my spouse was Snidely Whiplash cartoon villain, wringing his hands in delight as I struggled to run the home. Not that kind of sadistic villain. He DID however enjoy the freedom of time my distress afforded him. He escaped home and responsibilities with his mistress both physically and emotionally—-enjoying that escape at my expense. So yes, he was gaining enjoyment from my pain and distress.

… “causing or marked by great pain or distress.”

I was greatly pained and distressed at my inability to measure up to my spouse’s sexual expectations. I thought it must be something wrong with me. So much so that I sought medical advise as well as read about low libido. The greatest cruelty of all is distorting another person’s reality. Not only was I made to feel at fault and shamed for it, I was kept track of on a calendar as to my performance or lack thereof. I was made an object of sexual gratification rather than a living, breathing human with emotions and needs of my own. I was emotionally and physically abandoned for another, yet held to account for not performing adequately often sexually. CRUEL & ABUSIVE

“Using, containing, or characterized by harshly or coarsely insulting language.”

Not to my face, but to his mistress and his brother who was in on the charade—I was to blame for his actions. I was a sexual disappointment not fulfilling his estimation of ‘enough’. I was made a performance value, not a loved wife.

“Treating badly or injuriously; mistreating, especially physically.”

But he never laid a hand on me in anger—no bruises no abuse? Even the most naive of us know this is not true. Emotional abuse is every bit as harmful and often much longer lasting than bruises. Sleeping with another, de facto exposes the unwitting spouse to potential sexually transmitted disease—some fatal. That is playing Russian Roulette with the betrayed’s life and wellbeing. ABUSIVE.

How did he treat me badly? His withdrawal physically and emotionally – secretly blaming me for it.

“Wrongly used; corrupt.”

If gaslighting, manipulating another’s reality and using them to escape responsibilities is not a corruption of marriage vows and basic human dignity, what is?

Am I the abuse victim? Not anymore. I was. It is forever realty I was cruelly abused and betrayed.

What was I really? A naive, over trusting, over giving, accepting far too little, spouse who was, yes, taken advantage of for those qualities.

I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor.

The World Has Shifted

…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.

Living In The Shadow Of Trauma

“It must have been cold there in my shadow…”

Lyrics from the Bette Midler song, Wind Beneath My Wings, are written to reflect the reality those who support another are likely to experience in that role. We betrayed who chose and loved to played the role of supporter of our spouse were left particularly gobsmacked to learn that our unfaithful felt unloved by us.

What?

The lament of those who gave and gave in joy to uphold the life path of their spouse in attaining his aspirations and dreams. We, the unrecognized spouse in the shadows, did surely feel the chill on occasion or even often, as we toiled to make their life more manageable, their path a bit easier. We just put on a sweater and carried onward. Out of love, we showed our love through the thousand and one actions required to keep a household running, a dollar to be stretched and/or augmented through our own employment, and perhaps even those little extras we made happen to make our spouse feel special.

I remember loving to plan fun birthdays, saving for a dreamed vacation, planting bulbs and trimming bushes to make our yard pretty, cleaning the bathrooms before the weekend so we could spend more unfettered time together, cooking and baking for the enjoyment and health of all. None of these activities were required or even necessary. But they were given out of love. True love.

Not the stuff of show off or extravagance. Not anything that would earn accolades, awards or extra pay.

No.

In the shadow of my husband’s career, I basked in the glow of my self perpetuating joy in giving. It was not the sunshine of glory on my face. Not the warmth of trophies or raises. It was the calm satisfaction I got from watching my husband and children leave the house each day well fed and well supported. The wealth of travel undertaken with our kids experiencing Europe for the first time. The happiness no money can buy when I saw their faces in the glow of the birthday candles on the home baked and decorated cake at the table we sat around every evening for dinner.

All this was invisible to a spouse warped by the loneliness and abandonment of his childhood. Abuse at the hands of a situation his parents thought good for him, yet perceived as rejection by a little boy who couldn’t possibly understand why he was the only child sent away to boarding school. A boy who grew into a man full of resentment that morphed into entitlement.

Hurt people hurt people.

That hurt boy grew into a man who expected to make up for all the perceived deprivation of his childhood. No, he was entitled to more. More excitement, more food, more money, more sex, more support from the hands of the woman to whom he had promised himself . It was her role to give it all to him. What he could not do for himself or what was more difficult or boring to undertake, he relied upon me to accomplish.

And I fell for it. Hook line and sinker. I joyously gave with no awareness of his thought processes. No awareness he felt entitled to it all. Clueless he would do anything to fill in any gaps in perceived deficits in what one human being, me, could provide for him. After all, I was giving out of love. Blind, trusting love.

The perfect storm.

Over giver marries over taker. Over taker hides behind the mask of fun, good guy. The guy everyone loves because he is so endearing. The guy who participates in all the fun dinner parties and church events, wearing a smile. The guy who lavishes his wife with affectionate demonstrations of hand holding, arm around the waist and kisses at the cheek. Nearly flawless image management.

Imagine their chagrin and disbelief when they heard about his overspending and philandering—all disguised while on business trips where no-one could see.

Imagine the utter destruction of my history when he glibly told me of his 27 year affair. The shock so severe it produced reactions of those who suffer trauma in wartime, or famine, or natural disaster. The most personal attack by the person least believed as likely to do the damage.

Plunged into the frigid shadow or his manipulations and deception. This time no joy in the realization I’d provided such loving support. This time in full realization I’d been played the fool by supporting his ability to carry out his betrayals. Unknowingly, unwittingly, unaware me. Shattered on the rocks of a betrayal so profound it was never imagined.

Now I live in the shadow of trauma. The very real manifestations of betrayal trauma have haunted my life for the past five years. The shadow of his financial betrayal for eight, and for the foreseeable future as we pay off the deep indebtedness of his foolish and hidden overspending.

I will never be the same. I can never again fully trust that he will not choose himself first, let alone revel in the warmth of a devoted spouse. I will never have a long term faithful marriage where I was cherished, protected and valued above all.

There is a lot to grieve.

When I think I’ve done enough and wept enough and suffered enough, there is a new wave of memory or a new trigger in present day reflecting the shadows of the past. I must forgive and forgive and forgive each and every cost—to maintain my sanity. To enable me to experience all that is truly good in the world. To free myself to be grateful for much and many.

I will live the rest of my life in the shadow of this most profound of life traumas. It will never be forgotten, never be just a bad dream, never stop washing up on the beach of my days or in my sleep. It is a permanent feature of me and my history. That makes it a permanent part of my present and future. I can never have a better past. I can never have a free and clear present or future. One in which I am the grateful recipient of a lifelong faithful marriage.

So I am left with no choice but to move on as best I can. My choice. I now have agency over my own life and choices. I live as a free woman. Freed from the bondage of manipulations and lies. It is a breath of fresh air. It is a kind of freedom one can not experience as deeply if she had not known the bondage of living inside a spouse’s lies. I am free.

A freedom I never imagined or asked for. A world reality I never wanted or chose. But a reality that can be as good as I choose to see it. And I choose to give freely, deeply and in love. I choose to support those with whom I come in contact, those who live under my roof or whom I seek out to spend time.

I choose to love.

Lust Selfishly Takes – Love Selflessly Gives

There are few realities as diametrically opposed as Lust and Love.

Lust seeks self gratification, caring little for anything or anyone else.

Love gives joyfully and without expectation of return.

There is something strangely soothing about these realities. It puts into perspective how shallow the behaviors of lust were in my, and other’s, unfaithful partners. It casts a new light on the self absorbed, devoid of meaning place my unfaithful was as he pursued his drug of choice–lust. The negative impact of the suffocation of love is truly pitiful. Lust rots the very core of human growth and meaning, replacing it with toxic self centeredness. Lust requires the luster look for fault in his legitimate partner in order to enable emotional distance and fuel the justifications necessary to betray.

Lust consumes the mind of the luster, building in focus and desire until quenched. It cares not for anything other than the use of the other’s body as a selfish tool towards physical self gratification. The soul of the lust object is seldom considered, of interest or concern. What an empty pursuit, squelching all growth.

Love revels in the other with a passionate and considerate affection and care that expresses itself in the desire to give to and protect the beloved. Love longs to be with the beloved for the depth and beauty of the other’s soul – a never ending mystery to explore. Love honors, cherishes and protects the beloved with a deep concern mirrored equally only in care for self. Love thy beloved as thyself.

Lust delights in short lived conceited passion that burns hot and consumes the attention of the luster to the exclusion of all positive loving pursuits. Lust kills love. It smothers any spark or ember of thoughtful caring for the individual, leaving the luster focused on one thing—self gratification.

Love grows in the many paths of exploration into the complexities of the beloved. Love thirsts, not for momentary physical release, rather for deep connection.

Lust is centered in the physical, the corporeal.

Love adores the body and the soul.

It is only when I truly felt these deep truths that I could gain a new perspective.

I feel sorrow for the time and wasted energy my unfaithful spent in such a shallow destructive pursuit. Thing is, lust not only destroys love, it destroys the genuine self esteem and growth of the luster.

How sad is that.

I grieve not only for all the years lost that we might have had a genuine love, I grieve for a life wasted in such self consumption. I truly did not know the person I married. He hid himself from me and from himself. He betrayed his own life and growth before and during all the days, weeks, months and years of his acting out betrayals. His self destruction is greater than all the devastation wrought upon me. What a pitiable waste.

And still he fears to feel the weight of this reality. I can’t say I blame him. Who would want to face so much wasted life? And yet it is necessary for him to grieve the loss of his true self—to the black hole of lust. He must recognize and feel the truth of all the losses in order to grieve them and move on. I pray he will be able to accomplish this personally terrifying work so he might salvage the balance of his life to turn away from the meaningless, destructive shallowness of lust—and toward the light of love. The salvation of love. The blessings and growth and joy of genuine caring for others.

I pray.

The Four S’s of Infidelity’s Effect on Children

“It only takes one safe adult for children to heal and have safe attachment.

As you go though recovery you can show up in new and better ways for your kids.

The pain and the trauma of infidelity can be used in post traumatic growth.”

The Power of Showing Up – Dan Segal

___________________________________

The experiences I provide will shape my children–from this day forward. If you, the parent, are reliably present they will learn who they are..what they can be. Positive self. Grit strength. No matter their age, what you model will influence them, reassure them. This does not mean they need to be shielded from the effects of trauma. They too will someday need the resources to survive and thrive their own losses.

It has been said- Not every traumatize child is an addict, but every addict is a traumatized child. Your presence can model resilience over time.

It is not the infidelity itself that causes brokenness in children. It is how the parent handles the trauma of infidelity. Children, ney, all humans need to feel

Safe

Seen

Soothed

Secure

These four S’s of healing are immensely important in the lives of children, in the presence of infidelity in their parents relationship and in life. When their world is rocked by the effects of the trauma of their parent’s struggles, their needs are much the same as the traumatized parent.

Safety needs to be reestablished, reassurance offered. They will be safe, no matter the outcome of their parent’s marriage. You know this and will find a path to provide all the loving care they need to thrive. They will need to see and feel it. Take care of you so you can provide for them.

To be ‘seen‘ is all of our human need. Making sure children feel seen and heard is especially important at a time when there are immense stressors in the family unit. It is a huge part of feeling safe and important.

Speak soothing words of their safety and demonstrate it through maintenance of as familiar a schedule as possible will go a long way toward stabilizing their world. They will see in you the ability to survive and move forward even in the aftermath of the most severe losses.

When your relationship has regained balance, the unfaithful would do well to let the children know how amazing the betrayed spouse is. How resilient. When children have knowledge of betrayal while the spouses are still recovering, the majority will suffer trust issues. Spare them the trauma of dealing with betrayal in real time. Reassure and model safety through ‘seeing’, soothing and securing their place in the world to the best of your ability. You will heal and so will they…in the presence of your love.

Model forgiveness. Be an example of growth. Create a safe environment with or without your spouse. Safe, not perfect. Love will win the day, as it always does.

Parental conflict is a high predictor of distrust in children, no matter their age. Avoid triangulating the kids. Children, regardless of their age, need us to be caregivers of their souls. They do not need to, nor should they be our caregivers.

Show up for your kids in a way that can help them. You can change for the better. Different then you’d imagined or dreamed, but strong and loving. History is not destiny. Show them emotional regulation. Make amends when you fall. Be present. You only have to get it right a third of the time for them to return to secure attachment.

Resilience is not inherited. It is learned. It is so much more than recovery. It is transformation.

A reality of life: building character without loss and pain seldom happens. Help them learn the hard life lesson of growth through adversity.

Transform.

Breathe.

Take one day at a time.

Be good to you.

They will witness your resilience– and grow.

The Betrayed: Widows Without Life Insurance

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

The bottom dropped out of my marriage on February 29, 2016. It had already been severely rocked by financial betrayal and the emotional abuse/isolation of living with a man who had a secret life and multiple addictions. The revelation I had been cheated on since 1989 informed me of my widowhood. In reality I had been living in a one sided marriage for those twenty seven years. To find out brought the darkness of death to the man I thought I knew. In an instant, my husband died.

I was plunged into a grief I have never imagined. Real life demanded I hide behind a mask of isolating secrecy and the shame that brought. I was weighted with an unrepentant partner who had betrayed me in hundreds of ways for years, sexually, emotionally, physically and financially. I felt violated, dirty. No choice whether to expose my children to this ugliness. He dropped the d-day bomb on me in front of them. I was cast into silent agony.

Grief stricken, broken and burdened, I struggled to breathe at the loss of everything I thought my life would be.

The husband I believed I knew was dead. I was a widow.

I stared out at an unrecognizable world with hollow eyes, uncomfortable, fearful, confused and frozen in heartbreak. Nothing made sense. Nothing was clear. Tears forced their way out from behind my lashes, blinding me, yet demanding I speak my truth. I yearned for it to all make sense, for it all to be a lie, for it to stop hurting.

My body coursed with adrenaline right down to my fingers. I hid to keep others from seeing them shake; struggled to keep the tone of my voice calm even as cracks broke through. I was desperate for affirmation where none was to be found. I risked reaching out to my new co-worker, hoping she might help stop my merciless pain.

“Thank you,” I said. Words impotent to convey the gratitude I felt for this woman who validated my grief.

“I’m glad you are here,” she offered in authenticity.

As my story unfolded in fits and spurts over the weeks, I hesitantly spoke the words ‘affair’, ‘lost retirement funds’, and paused to see her response. Would she flinch? Roll her eyes? I added, “grooming another woman” and waited to see if she’d recoil in disgust. No, in fact, she offered encouragement, even in her gentle silence.

“That sounds devastating”, she said.

I felt heard. No criticism, advise, judgement or deflection. Just her empathic ear welcoming me into what would become my only safe place.

Days turned into weeks turned into months. I looked to move on with one therapist, then two. Nice women, but not trained in betrayal trauma nor experience with its devastation. I will never know if the one local friend I had turned away from me because she too had experienced infidelity or whether she feared being tainted by the lurid nature of my now life story. Did she flee under the guise of her life challenges or simply avoidance of the discomfort of my story? No matter the truth, I now feel she is repulsed by my story.

I was alone. Unlike the kind of widow recognized by the general public as they understand the term, I have no compassionate support system. My husband has not left me with a supportive life insurance policy and the promise of financial stability. My new reality promised quite the opposite.

As the months passed, the sum of fears grew. I worried about my own health. It was so hard to eat, sleep, exercise or do most things approaching ‘healthy’. I worked daily with what felt like a fifty pound weight strapped to my body. Immense, invisible, it was tightly bound. No one saw the veiled burden I carried. My heart physically hurt. Palpitations now common.

It is exhausting to smile at clients, at people in the store. I wondered what they might be thinking of this shell of my former self so obvious to me.

Church used to be my safe place. Attendance now brought nothing but unwelcome tears and silence from my higher power. No peace. No comfort. I felt like an outsider.

Ever so slowly over the months, nay, years, a glimmer of who I am began to return as a flicker in my eyes reflected in the mirror. A slight uplift at the corner of my mouth as occasional smiles of real joy filtered across my face. I was, I am beginning to wrap my arms around the strong woman I have always been, now stronger through the gauntlet of betrayals.

I knew this fight consisting of support group meetings, deep reading, writing, research would determine my life, my future, my very being. I still see the dark shadows under my eyes representing the grief and exhaustion.

“When will this be over?” I ask myself, I ask Google, I ask the universe.

“I don’t know,” the reply.

“Will I be strong enough?”

I have grown to believe, emphatically, YES!

I am another widow of betrayal. My kind of widowhood is unique to the normal definition. Sadly all too common in reality.

We don’t receive benefits from a life insurance policy. No unconstrained hugs of empathy from our community. No casseroles brought to our door.

But I am amazing. We widows of this kind are amazing. I am tenacious, resilient, courageous, reliable, brave and so much more.

“Strength is not having the strength to go on; it’s going on when you don’t have the strength.” This, a precursor quote attributed to Teddy Roosevelt… and the beloved “Man in the Arena”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

We widows epitomize the woman in the arena. We are “going on.”

If you know one of us—the invisible widows, offer a loving ear—and a casserole.

Being Okay with Being an Imperfectionist

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.

Counterfeit

adjective

made in imitation so as to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine; not genuine; forged, pretended, unreal.

noun

an imitation intended to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine; forgery.

Is my marriage an imitation? Is a person who has lived under the belief that their spouse is faithful and operates in their best interest living a counterfeit life?

I grapple with this concept—this reality.

While it is paramountly unfair to control another person’s reality through deceptions and lies–it is real. It did happen. I was betrayed hundreds and thousands of times over the twenty seven years my unfaithful spouse partook in feeding his bottomless need for praise and affirmation and control (even if that praise and affirmation was also false–offered by another person who would sell their soul to get the same counterfeit affirmation in return.)

I was living in a relationship that was being controlled by my unfaithful spouse. I could have caught an STD at any time from him. The reality of his betrayals could have been discovered at any moment, shattering my heart and my children’s world. (But that is what made it so exciting and forbidden for him—sick) He could have lost his commission in the armed forces and his retirement pay through court-martial. He could have been prosecuted for embezzlement. All could have’s. All should haves. All, through pure dumb luck, did not come to fruition.

The news has been full of talk of accountability as of late. Should the person who abused his power be held to task? Should he lose his ability to ever run for office again? Should he lose his retirement benefits?

Our human justice system is inherently flawed. No human being can know the heart of another or the flawed, distorted thinking that led them to choose destructive actions. When we judge we always run the risk of judging inaccurately.

Does that mean we should excuse the inflicted wounds of others if they cause life altering damage, even death? What is appropriate accountability? How does a perpetrator repair unrepairable damage? He can not bring back the dead. He can not restore years lost to deception. He can not restore the human rights to self determination lost through those years. Some choices are unrepairable.

So how do we limited and flawed human beings hold another limited and flawed human being to account?

In my experience, it is an imperfect and incomplete undertaking. That does not mean it should not be undertaken. Damage that will effect the victim’s life for the rest of their life demands equal reparation. An adulterer owes a lifelong debt to their victim(s) as there is no way to restore them to their pre-perpetration selves.

I will always have triggers–reminders that I was used like a disposable tool in dozens of ways–for years. He can never fully repay me—not monetarily, not emotionally, not spiritually, not physically. I am an altered human being—damaged, scarred for life. I can not un-remember or unknown how I was intentionally put at mortal risk and my supportive trust used in my own wounding. There is no way for a human being to repay such atrocity.

So where does that leave me?

Bitter… or

Compassion.

Grace.

Walking the hard road toward forgiveness. Learning to remind myself with each trigger, each reminder, each metaphorical gut punch, that this damage was forced upon me by a severely damaged person.

“Don’t allow an old wound to close your heart.”

My wounds will heal. They will leave scars. Lifelong scars. I will never be able to look upon my marriage as mutual. I will always remember I was betrayed in thousands of ways that are bound to come up in the normal course of my life in the form of triggers/reminders. And it is my imperfect, unreachable job to forgive each and every one as they happen.

Forgiveness is not a one time event. It is a day in, day out, hourly, sometimes minute by minute choice to remind myself that the wounds I have suffered were inflicted by a damaged, broken person. Another human being who needs compassion—like every human being does. We all need to be treated with compassionate kindness. As imperfect persons who inflict our own damage, we need compassion if we are ever to be able to improve ourselves. To have space to do better. The human right to grow—to live.

So yes–my marriage was counterfeit from the moment my unfaithful spouse crossed the line–onwards. The contract was broken irregardless of my ignorance of the breech. And that is also my job to grieve. It is supremely unfair. It is reality.