Survivors' Blog

"You have to trust the process." I've heard this mantra of sorts from many research-based and well-respected betrayal recovery sources. It is the very backbone and lifeblood of expert help such as what is offered through Affair Recovery's Programs and Courses. It is so hard to do when your heart is shattered into a million fragmented pieces, and all you want, all you need, is to escape the horrendous pain. A pain like no other. There are many necessary elements of successful recovery. Just as there are many spaces on the canvas of a paint by number. When you look at them up close, they appear to be oddly-shaped islands in a sea of other strange shapes. Or they could be compared to jigsaw puzzle pieces: when observed apart from the others, they are just weird shapes without congruent meaning. I have found that the road to recovery is much like trying to make sense out of a million little pieces. "Why do I have to do all this self-care work, reading, therapy, workshops, blogging, podcast listening, etc., etc., etc.? I'm not the one who caused this chaos." The refrain of every victim of crime or injustice rings down through the eons. We who have been cheated on are, indeed, victims of injustice. We did not ask and do not deserve to be in this position. But here we are. We will never have a better past. That leaves the only realistic choice. To move forward. But how? Acceptance. Herein lies the wisdom of those who have walked this path before us, those who have dedicated their lives to helping other heal from the same wounds, whose scars remain on their hearts. We who have survived, in this case, intimate betrayal, are the most powerful sources of compassion and empathy. Those who have chosen to make their mess their message and studied the proven process of healing so as to be a guiding light on the pathway forward, are full of supportive hard-earned wisdom and care. Those individuals can help us take each piece of evidence-based wisdom and learn how to fit them into our own situation. When I am painting by number, I focus on each weirdly-shaped area. I carefully choose the right sized brush as my tool. I follow the directions scrawled on the canvas. I check and recheck to be sure I have the correct color to apply to the correct 'piece'. I carefully apply the paint in patience. I work the canvas like a puzzle. Even when I sit back and look at my progress it can appear distorted. I can get discouraged, especially if I look at the whole too often. It can seem overwhelming, like a weird concoction of colored blobs that will never make sense, let alone create something of beauty. It has been my experience that if I follow the path—the directions—with patience and persistence, if I suspend judgement, if I am tenacious, careful and committed, I will eventually have a beautiful, painted picture. It has happened every time. Even when the painting still looks odd when viewed up close. Even if the colors were not what I would have chosen or expected. When they come together in the chorus of the finished product, they are surprisingly, rewardingly beautiful. Every time. So too is this path toward healing from betrayal trauma. If I grow impatient, or cannot see how this mess will ever come together into a semblance of a new beautiful life, I remind myself of my painting. I remind myself of all the thousands of couples who have walked through the valley of the death of their marriage from infidelity. (For, no matter if you remain together or split up, that pre-disclosure marriage is dead. No way to put the genie of innocence back in that bottle. You wouldn't want the disfunction of that marriage anyway. It is gone, done, passed.) It is up to each of us–unfaithful and betrayed–to commit to the process, work with diligent intention and consummate patience toward that day when we can stand back and look at our new life and smile. We can make something new, something never seen by us before, something we could not have ever imagined—a good, new life. Contentment. Serenity. Together or apart, we can heal and become whole.

I recently made this family favorite. The first two batches came out perfectly. On the third and final batch, the kitchen timer did not go off. I use this timer for all sorts of cooking and baking projects. It is the type where you rotate the dial past the time you want and turn back to the exact number of minutes desired. It ticks like a time bomb and rings as a school bell at day's end. My internal timer went off before I smelled burning, but the cookies were definitely a few moments past the point of no return. What's this metaphor got to do with life and infidelity recovery? Just this: even when we, the betrayed, have used our best ingredients from the supermarket, when we have followed—carefully and with lots of love—the recipe for cookies (or life), sometimes the timer doesn't work, and the cookies don't turn out. There is joy in the doing because we know we will enjoy the cookies, and so will our family. We set the trusty timer, put the cookies in preheated oven and continue to go about our life at earshot of the timer's brrrriiiiiinnnnngggg. But it never comes. And we're left with burnt cookies. Was it a mistake to count on the timer's reliability when it had not been unreliable in the past? Perhaps the most doubtful baker would keep an eye on her wristwatch to be sure that the timer goes off. Or maybe those of us who have had timers fail us in the past would be more likely to use the backup plan. Regardless, our cookies have been burnt. Our marriage as we knew it is over. It will never be the same. Even if we are fortunate enough to have a spouse who eventually takes full responsibility, makes amends on an ongoing basis, and becomes the person we thought we married (or better!), we might never trust completely, tenderly, innocently again. We will never have a marriage untainted by betrayal. We have been changed down to a cellular level.1 It's an end, a loss, and it's sad—like saying goodbye to our kindergartner on his first day is difficult and heartrending, like tossing the final rose on the coffin of a parent or beloved friend is unimaginably painful. Endings can be anything from bittersweet to just plain awful. Grief. Sucks. Sure, there are those first two batches of sweet, delightful memories. But this dark, bitter batch leaves an aftertaste in our mouth, even if it is still edible. We never want to go there again. We have been burned—badly. About as deeply and painfully as any experience in life. Infidelity changes you. The next time I make peanut butter cookies, even if my timer has resumed its apparent reliability, I will be more careful, more watchful, use a backup plan. Even if I was to throw out the old timer and get a new one, I would be reminded to be careful. I would not trust completely, perhaps for a long time—maybe forever—that the timer wouldn't fail me. I am more clear-eyed, more realistic, more mature. We will surely and truly never be the same. We will be wiser, more careful, less trusting. We will also be more appreciative of all the batches of cookies that are to come. We are grateful for the timer and even more grateful for the sweet results. We have been forewarned. No timer, no man, no woman is failsafe. We can do everything right but still have those we rely on fail us. It is part of life: Disappointment. Death. Birth. Growth after betrayal. Growth after the longest winter of discontent. There is hope. As we grieve the losses, as our formerly unfaithful repairs, as we invest in listening, empathy and compassion, we can once again grow as individuals and as a couple. We can also choose to use this as an opportunity to grow, regardless of the outcome of our marriage, to be even better, stronger, wiser. Would I ever consider quitting my love of baking because I had a bad batch or even a season of oven failures? No. Love and cookies are too important, too vitally special to me and my life. Even if our post-pandemic world looks different, even if we are fundamentally changed by disappointments and losses, we can grow into more loving and compassionate human beings. We can choose gratitude for all the blessing of this life. We can savor the fruits, the cookies, of our labors again if we let ourselves risk failure. We all risk when we love. We all risk every day when we get out of bed in the morning. Life is inherently risky, especially if we have the courage to reach for our dreams, if we choose to love. We all risk for what is good. We all hurt when what was good disappoints us. Especially when we did everything we could to make it right. But peanut butter cookies—and love—are worth it. See The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk for more information

What do the words 'I'm sorry' really mean? They are used so frequently that they don't seem to carry much weight. If you are like me, however, they are the first thing we mutter when we realize we have made a mistake or done something wrong. When it comes to the pain of infidelity, the words 'I'm sorry' have to feel downright insulting to a betrayed spouse. As they should, because it isn't enough. The truth of the matter is, it will never be enough to undo the damage that is caused by breaking marital vows and by the deception that comes with being unfaithful. 'I'm sorry' is something we say when we bump into someone accidently or something we offer when we are running late. Most of the time, just uttering 'I'm sorry' comes across as selfish, because it has more to do with ourselves than what we did to the other person. This brings us to amends. What is an amend? For starters, amends are much different than saying 'I'm sorry.' Amends cannot solve the problem of infidelity, but they differ from an apology in that they are a stepping stone on a different path. Amends are the ways we, as unfaithful spouses, start the process of understanding what we have done and beginning to change course. Here are some additional thoughts on what an amend is and what it is not. Making amends is a lifestyle, not a one-time choice. It is about the beginning of becoming a new person. This will require that we not just hit repeat on the amend we are trying to make on any given day but, instead, commit to a process of letting our hearts be turned inside out and seeing our spouse with new eyes. Amends require discipline and consistency. My favorite definition of discipline is deciding what you want most instead of what you want right now. I sometimes struggle with a "right now" mentality. I confess that I still get caught up in what will make me feel better instead of what will help me to be better. Making amends must be done with a long-term vision, not for short-term satisfaction. Seeking short-term satisfaction is what got us into trouble in the first place. An amend is not a confession. While confessing what we have done is important, it is not the same as making amends. Confession is still about us, the pain we caused, and the details of our brokenness and sin. If we are standing on opposite sides of a river, confession is on one side, where we are. The hurt party is on the other side. To make an amend is to take the first step across the bridge in order to see and reach out to the person we have hurt by our choices. Here are some ways that I have tried to avoid making amends. Perhaps they will resonate with you as well: In the midst of a painful conversation, I will shut down and cry. My tears will tell me that I am hurt and being vulnerable, but I often need to give more. As a woman, I find it difficult in these moments to rise up and be strong. Instead of saying what needs to be said, I let my tears speak, and they confuse my spouse even further. I cannot confuse my shedding of tears with making amends. While my tears demonstrate the attitude and posture of my softening heart, they don't take the place of real words, which my husband needs. He is not a mind reader, and my tears, while important, can never take the place of saying what I need to say. I confess that I have used sex in ways that aren't helpful in our marriage. I need to look at this area more closely, even as I type it, but it is a starting point and a confession that I have not always gotten this area right. I have had the tendency to over-apologize and take too much responsibility, instead of carefully looking at what shortcomings I actually need to own. This is a blanket attempt to not do the careful moral inventory that is necessary for recovery. I think it far better that I sometimes say nothing instead of filling the space with half-hearted attempts at over-apologizing. Keep growing. To Healing, Elizabeth

My husband and I have two teenagers in our house, and we are trying our best to raise them into responsible and caring adults. For those of you that have already been there and done that, I'm hoping you can look back on that time with a smile. You survived it. Teenagers, after all, can be quite fun, and they can add a lot of energy to the house. For those of you that haven't or might not ever get a chance to raise these strange little people that look like adults and make you think they are adults (when in fact they are not), it really hasn't been as bad as some people will tell you. The hardest part, I have found, is that teenagers are brutally honest when it comes to their ideas about you as parents. You rarely can "fake" it with them. They will sniff out insincerity and hypocrisy like nobody's business. And they are like little mirrors reflecting back to you the areas in our lives where we still need to do our own "work". The challenge that we keep running into is that we really don't know what we are doing most of the time--especially with our oldest. We have never done this before so we often have no frame of reference. And winging it doesn't exactly feel like good parenting. What has been heart-wrenching for us at times is just how much dealing with teenagers has been like trying to deal with the aftermath of infidelity. Not long ago, our teenage daughter went over to a friend's house on a Saturday night. The ever-evolving tandem of growing responsibility and trust has made its bumps in our family before, but this night the wheels definitely fell off the bus. All seemed to go according to her plan, and she came home at midnight when she was supposed to. However, the following morning, when we went to use the same car that she had driven the night before, there was mud all over the rearview mirror and on the tires. That was really strange, because the friend she went to visit does not live on a dirt road. When we asked her about it, she told the partial truth. Insert trigger number one: lying to my husband. After what I have put him through with my affairs, the man truly needs a lifetime of truth and nothing but the absolute truth. He handled the situation with grace, but lying is definitely a trigger for us. Not the kind that keeps us stuck like they used to, but the pin-prick "ouch" feeling is still there. Trigger number two would be my shame. It is interesting raising these teenagers, because while I am not proud of it, I completely understand their tendency to only share what they want us to see and know. Share the good; hide the bad. I did that most of my life. While I chose not to let shame take over, it does rear its ugly head in situations like this, and that feeling of wanting to run and bury my face in a rock started to rise up in my chest. Before you think the obvious, let me say it: I am an adult now. I need and want to act like one. I am not a teenager, and while a lot of my development got arrested there, I am eternally grateful for the gift of being able to choose a better, more mature and lasting perspective on love and relationships. As the story unfolded with our daughter, we finally got to the bottom of what happened. This took several hours, and we ran the gamut of emotions: anger, frustration, silence, tears, repeat. She ended up going to a place where she had no business going so late on a Saturday night. She and her friends got stuck on a dirt road because they got lost. In order to hide the mud, they went to the carwash at 11:00 pm. However, they left mud under the car and on the mirrors, because, I'm guessing, it is pretty difficult to wash a car in the dark. Seems like a whole lot of effort to cover their mistakes when the truth is so much easier. This is where it hit home. I cried as I saw my daughter start to confess. I know that had to be very difficult for her, because the shame was written all over her face. I cried even more when my husband gently told her that there would be a punishment but that we love her and she is allowed a do-over. He reminded her that we only care so much because she is so valuable to us and that we want her safe. He also told her that next time she finds herself stuck on a dirt road in the mud with her friends, we would come and get her instead of her panicking and fearing the loss of love from us. We forgave her. I hate to think of my daughter alone in a carwash in the middle of the winter late at night. She forgot how much she was loved and how much she mattered. Today, I hope that despite whatever you face, you can choose to know you matter. You can choose to remember you are loved. You can stop running and hiding and covering up. Or you can choose to let go and start to forgive. This won't necessarily mean you will get what you want or that you can change or control the outcome, but you can start to choose differently. To Healing, Elizabeth