Survivors' Blog

Before what we in the infidelity community call "D-day," my life was full—full of gratitude, challenges, and mostly good. My life was nowhere near perfect—punctuated with the losses one experiences when we are lucky enough to live long enough. I had lived a largely intact existence blessed with friends, a beautiful place to call home, and good food on my table. As a function of my positive, benefit-of-the-doubt attitude, I'd taken difficulties in stride. I mostly found solutions or learned to live with, and even celebrate reality. And then came D-day. Yes, I was aware of my unfaithful husband's (UH) tendencies to procrastinate, to not follow through, to leave me to fill in the gaps. Yes, I knew he was, at times, uncomfortably focused on sex, how to get more from me and frustrated that I was not sexual enough for him. The beautiful, sturdy vase of many colors that was my life still shone day in and out as a testament to my positive look-forwardness and super energy to make things work, even if to 'work' was not what I'd imagined. I was resilient, flexible, and forgiving of the world's imperfections and mostly happy. My UH's choice to blow up my world shattered that vase of beauty–scattered the fragments of what I thought had been my beautiful life–into a million smithereens. In the space of time it took him to utter the words, "Affair," and "Since 1989." My love-lit, light- lit world detonated into darkness, dust, and the scattering of those lovely shards of happiness that used to be me. How could this happen? Hadn't I played life in all sincerity—giving and loving to the best of my ability? Why would the world deal me such a blow? Why would the man I thought loved and protected me instantly be exposed as my life's greatest threat and heartbreak? I reached for the pieces. I fell to my knees and tried to gather as much of what remained as I could. I wept over the pile of sparkle and dust in my lap, knowing I could never glue it all back together. My life as I knew it was gone forever—in one horrible moment. Even now, as I write, my throat tightens, and the weight of the truth presses against my chest, and a tear is brought to my eye. I grieve for the woman who gave everything she had to a dream that was not real—a dream that was being manipulated to look pretty. In reality, it was actually infused with the evil of addiction and the thinking/actions such emotional immaturity brings with it. Such brokenness disguised in a coat of many colors as a faithful husband. Beneath that cloak were lies and justifications and resentments. >ver the past six years, I have searched for the fragments of my life. I've looked through the many dark nights of my soul, through the vail of tears, through books, blogs, and workshops of experts helping thousands such as myself try to make sense of the fragments that used to be their lives. The experts helped. The books helped. The workshops, mentors, helpers, and counselors helped. Yet no one and none of it could help me piece together what was once my heart. None of them knew my intimate heart...but me. And so, I have worked tirelessly to reconstruct our finances after he decimated them on the altar of self-aggrandizement and bottomless need for adoration. I realigned the money ducks into that metaphorical row. And then two and a half years later came the sexual infidelity bomb that made my re-gluing all the more complicated—and impossible. No neat rows of numbers, no methodical counting and saving would do now. I had to come to terms with the fact that there was no way to glue together this level of destruction—no way to EVER have a better past that was protected and cherished by a healthy faithful spouse. That would never be my reality. It was smoke and mirrors. I hit rock bottom of my soul. I was never loved as I had loved. The beautiful, colorful sparkles and beauty of my life vase would never be able to be reconstructed—never look anything like it had. I spent three and a half years collecting what was left: the sparkly bits, the raw umbers, and rich golds; the bright, sunny, yellow pieces, the deep lapis, and pearly whites. And so painfully, slowly, on bended knees—bent over the cold, barren, hard floor of my new existence, I began to lay down one tiny shard at a time. I began forming a new pattern of broken pieces into some semblance of a new world: A reality that still held beautiful cloudless days, soft summer nights, tall golden grass on rounded California hills, gardens that sprouted tender new life and the birth of new faces into my day-to-day. The shards meandered like a lazy stream seemingly in a ramble toward an indistinct future. Slowly, so painfully slow on the hard floor of reality, a pathway, a stream, a new life burst of a million colors began to form something that might even be called exquisite: My new life–my mosaic never dreamed of, never courted, never meant to be in my mind's eye–a reality. My new reality that can and is still something good...even beautiful. My mosaic. My life.

This is a question that almost all of us have asked or heard at some point during recovery from infidelity. It might have been screamed in anger, or muttered in a barely audible cry of exasperation. And it is a question we often hear over and over again, "How could you?" It is a good question, and it lies at the heart and sum of all of the pain created when people like me have affairs. It is as if we look to the heavens and we cry out in our pain, a guttural "why?" While this is an important question, there is rarely an answer that satisfies the need to understand this type of pain. After the aftermath of my own infidelity came out, my husband did not sleep for months. He lost over twenty pounds. He threw himself into work and disassociated from the world. He did not tell anyone and he lost any resemblance of joy in our home-life or hobbies. He retreated into a coma of what appeared to be complete non-existence. The pain was so deep, it was if he had detached himself from life itself. Even his looks towards me silently and contemptuously shouted, "how could you?" Making sense of what I had done was like trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack. I wanted so badly to do something. I wanted to reach him somehow. But no matter what I did or didn't do, I could not begin to touch his pain. To him, I was pain. Never in his life had he felt the kind of rejection I had handed to him. Justice for my actions demanded inner protest in him. This was difficult to understand as an unfaithful drowning in my own shame. I had cut him so close to his heart. I had gutted him. And out of that gutting came a primal rage within him. I believe most people react in one of two ways to such pain: They will either lash out in an attempt to cause the same kind of pain that was done to them (screaming, anger, revenge) or they will go to the other extreme of complete withdrawal and isolation, even contemplation of suicide. My husband went the withdrawal route—he shut down. To say a betrayed spouse's heart is broken is an understatement. Over the course of days that turned into weeks, months that turned into years, he started to find his center. His center was deep within him, next to the same heart that had been shattered. And he discovered he no longer wanted to hurt me back. Was it the riskier choice? Possibly. But, back to the question of "how could you?" We have never answered that, but it is a question that's importance has faded over time. Recovery has shown us how deeply broken we BOTH are. And through the years of going through this, we have gotten pretty good at stopping the scorekeeping. A personal example for me is what happened recently—and yes, this was recent. One of my favorite sayings from Rick Reynolds is, "you can be miles down the highway and still just a few feet from the bar ditch." I was out and about and ran into an acquaintance that is friends with my former affair partner. Mind you, I have really tried to follow all of the wisdom Affair Recovery offers to not give airtime to any thoughts of the affair partner. However, this particular day, the woman mentioned him. I brushed it off, but then my dreams were haunted for several nights about him. I consciously did not want to give it airtime, but the triggers kept coming; until one night, a few days later, I did something really dumb. I looked up on the internet something the woman had mentioned to me in the conversation. For no other reason than stupidity and wanting the satisfaction that he was a loser. My pride won. What happened next? At first, there was a really awful and broken part of me that instinctively wanted to just hide that information about my conversation, the dreams, and the computer search. I suppose that part of me may always be there. But, I now know God can give me the strength to be different and change. I know that, as crazy as it sounds, I want to tell these things to my husband. I did by the way, and we usually can now handle conversations like this with grace and ease. They usually end with something like, "I know that is hard to admit, but I'm glad you were honest with me." My former life and ways of handling issues is over. Am I still broken? Yes. I just choose to be honest, above all else, in small things and big things. I think this is the only way our marriage will survive. "How could you?" for me, always, always, always starts with dishonesty. Period. Many of you write in and ask what to do if your spouse isn't safe. What do you do if your spouse won't forgive? All are many versions of the same "how" and "why" that are often far bigger questions than one person can answer in a single day. If that is you, I leave you with this: What is your center? Who were you before your spouse broke your heart? If you are the unfaithful, who were you before you started heading down a path that took you from fidelity, integrity, and honesty? Who do you want to become? This will require continuous digging to deeper places. If you haven't taken Hope for Healing or Harboring Hope, I suggest you start there. If you have taken those courses, what is keeping you from leading or mentoring? In all of the times I have taken Hope for Healing, I learn something new every single time. And with each new class, I am reminded quickly of how I came to a place of choosing infidelity. It is a reminder to me that I want to love people closest to me, not cause them pain. How could I? I did. All I know is I don't ever want to go back there again. Elizabeth If you'd like to read more on this topic, please check out the Affair Recovery series titled, "How Could You?" It might help answer questions that have popped up for you in the recovery process. Harboring Hope registration opens January 22nd. Subscribe to be notified. Harboring Hope is our online course for the betrayed to heal after infidelity. Our courses often sell out within a few short hours. Don't miss it! View Harboring Hope Registration Status Hope for Healing registration opens January 29th. Subscribe to be notified. Hope for Healing is our online course for the wayward to heal after infidelity. Our courses often sell out within a few short hours. Don't miss it! View Hope for Healing Registration Status

To forgive somebody is to say one way or another "You have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. Both my pride and my principles demand no less. However, although I make no guarantees that I will be able to forget what you have done, and though we will both carry the scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us. One day, I still hope we can be friends". -Frederick Buechner This is one of my favorite definitions of forgiveness. I don't know about you, but I don't think there is anything easy about forgiveness. Neither the betrayed or unfaithful spouse can get very far into the recovery process without having to confront this issue. For the betrayed, they must choose to ultimately offer forgiveness for what seems unforgiveable. But what does a betrayed spouse do when they keep getting hurt? How do you forgive when someone seems to care less about you? For the unfaithful (and that would be me), forgiveness gets pretty complicated because it requires me to look in the mirror. I have to choose to face all of the seemingly "unforgiveable" things I have done and said and ultimately choose to forgive myself. I personally found the biggest stumbling block to my own forgiveness has been pride. It took a long time (almost two years) for my husband to forgive what I have done to our marriage. He admits to me he has always wrestled with his pride. Pride told him that he did not deserve what was done to him. Pride also told him he shouldn't forgive me, because there was to be no guarantee I wouldn't do this again. Pride told him that he had a right to hold onto his anger and make me pay for what I had done. It was only God who quietly kept asking him to exchange his pride for forgiveness. It has taken equally as long for me to accept and believe his gift of forgiveness. I first have had to forgive myself. Which looking at what I had done, seemed impossible. Because I have to admit, when I first started to accept the reality of the awfulness of my choices, all I wanted to do was run and hide. Shame was my ammunition to fight pride. It took a lot of months for the fog to lift and once I became curious about my own actions instead of judgmental towards them. Once I started to let go of some of the self-hatred, I was able to see and release myself all of those things I had actually been running from for so many years. Pride was the ugly little voice that kept whispering lies that I was somehow better than what I had done. Pride was behind the mask of my pretending. Both the unfaithful and betrayed will wrestle deeply with pride. I think to be human is to be prideful. And I once heard, if you have no idea what your faults are, it is likely pride. Like a cancer, pride can be a secret, destructive force that slowly eats away at our relationships…whether we stay married, we are separated or end up divorced. Pride is the ugly, silent, contemptuous whisper that says "I am really better than you because..." You can have forgiveness or pride but you can't have both. One of the reasons I can't wait to meet Jesus face to face someday is that I am fascinated by the idea that we will get to encounter someone that has absolutely zero pride and ego. And another reason I can't wait to meet Him is that He is able to offer complete forgiveness. Scripture tells us that God is able to look at us and not remember our sins at all. He doesn't see them. While I thank God for that, it is unfathomable to me because as mere mortals, we each have this thing called a memory. We have all heard that you can forgive, but you can't forget. Which is why one of the most helpful concepts I have learned of late has been the idea of "redemptive forgiveness". And this is the idea that we can (and must) simultaneously acknowledge what happened AND forgive. The memory of our affairs, the turmoil, the aftermath and the pain will always be with us. For all of us reading articles like these, infidelity is likely one of the most devastating things we will ever face in our lifetimes. Only when I am able to forgive myself, I can say "never again to I want to be in such pain and agony nor cause such pain and agony". Therefore, I choose to offer forgiveness of self AND receive my husband's gift of forgiveness. Today I am really grateful for that gift. Elizabeth

Today I am sharing with you something that someone sent to me after my dad died years ago. I have never forgotten it, and I share it with you today for encouragement wherever you are within the waves and wreckage of infidelity. (This was originally posted on the website thatericalper.com by someone unnamed) "My friend just died. I don't know what to do." A lot of people responded. Then there's one old guy's incredible comment that stood out from the rest that might just change the way we approach life and death. "Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents." "I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people that can't see." "As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that it was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang onto it for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive." "In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between the waves, there is life." "Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you'll find the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, and for the most part, you prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out on the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out." "Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks."1 Here's to finding life between the waves. -Elizabeth originally posted on the website thatericalper.com by someone unnamed