Check out her site.
And tell your story, whether to a trusted person in your life and here, among so many of us who've experienced your pain.
The kickass survival site for anyone who's ever been lied to, cheated on and left for dead.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
It's Infidelity Awareness Day (And We All Thought EVERY Day was Infidelity Awareness Day!)
Kudos to Christina Ferguson, a Washington, D.C. woman who aims to pull our culture's romanticized notions of infidelity into the spotlight and reveal cheating as the destructive and devastating choice it is. Declaring today – May 30 – Infidelity SPeaKS Awareness Day, she's working hard to change what she calls the normalizing of infidelity.
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Thank you.....
ReplyDeleteI shared this in Books for the Betrayed as well...
ReplyDeleteNot knowing Saturday was Infidelity Awareness Day, I stumbled on this article (http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/your-first-marriage-is-over-would-you-like-to-create-a-second-one-together-rbsk/) and in the article was a link to a TED talk by Esther Perel on Rethinking Infidelity (http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved).
Read and watch. Share these with others.
Esther's message is powerful- my H and I are creating our second marriage. I think we both realize that our first is over and we now get to choose how we want our second marriage to be. So while I still am sad about the death of our first marriage, I am looking forward to the second marriage. I think Esther's talk helped me and I'm sure it will help others on this site. We need more conversations like this.
C.
C,
DeleteYes, I'm waiting for her book with anticipation. She's a straight talker, which is so refreshing.
I didn't have time to watch that but I did anyway. A few sentences were triggering to me. I HATE the thought that my H felt so alive during his affair. I hate it. But damn that is an amazing amazing Ted talk. Worth watching more than once. Thanks C
ReplyDeleteSteam,
DeleteI finally found time to listen to. It's very powerful. I'm going to listen to it more than once. There's a lot there to take in.
I hated that idea, too, Steam, but I thought that when she talked about how the wayward souse had sacrificed their values...yes. What a powerful message for them to hear and for those of us who have been betrayed to remember. I said this early on to my H- that he was going to have a harder job to recover from this because he had betrayed not just me, but himself, and what a terrible thing it must be to know that you were not true to what you fundamentally believed. Today, I am much better, but I still sense the damage my husband has done to himself- and will he ever be able to forgive himself or live with what he did? That's a pretty heavy burden for a repenting and transforming spouse. I still haven't decided whether to share this video with him...I'm just not sure where he is in HIS recovery.
DeleteC.
I told my story on FB and I had one friend call me a hypocritical Christian who was casting stones at my husband for watching porn which won't make his d**k fall off.
ReplyDeleteIt upset me for days. I've known her for 8 years. If people can't handle the REAL me, they can shove off.
Anne,
ReplyDeleteI hope you can see the hypocrisy in someone calling YOU hypocritical. We are called upon to not judge each other but rather to extend our hands in support and compassion, especially to those vulnerable and in pain. Your "friend" isn't acting like one.
Just an fyi, I am formerly the other Anne....decided to change the screen name as there appears to be someone else with the same name. We will probably all get mixed up. I am the Anne whose husband had a 9 year affair, I had multiple melt downs last week and my husband tried to commit suicide twice and recently started cutting. I will be going under this name now. Thanks all
ReplyDeleteHi Lizzie
DeleteHow are you (and he) doing?
Hi Elle, We are doing better. Thanks for asking. We celebrated our 28th anniversary on Saturday and had a really nice time. I have chosen to not say a word about "it" since Tuesday evening and it was him that brought it up a few times...not me which actually helped a little. Not much was said but it helped that he brought it up instead of me. He came on here and printed out all my posts and told me he keeps them so he can remember. That is another reason I changed my login name as I don't want him thinking someone elses posts are mine....especially if he isn't discussing what he reads with me. He is calmer also which I believe is due to me being calmer. I write questions and some of my feelings that I want to bring up with either him or my therapist in my notes on my phone and he has my permission to look whenever he wants but I asked him why he is looking if his therapist says he needs a break from my feelings for a bit. He can't really answer, he says he is still afraid that every day is going to be his last day with me. I have told him that I have every intention of making this work but he believes that I will never get over it. I have told him that I probably will never get over it in the truest sense of the word and I will never forget but as my therapist has said to me, I will get over it enough and be able to forgive enough at some point. He believes that he has caused too much damage and the pain is too deep for me. I see how much better the good times are now and unfortunately the bad times are really bad and am trying to concentrate on the good and how the future will hopefully be that good. I am sad a lot and I know that it is probably temporary so I try to ride it out and distract myself. I know I need the following to happen: I need him to want and be willing to find out the answers to how and why it happened and what he/we can do to make sure it doesn't happen again. I need him to be willing to share all the information of what took place and be able to tell me the entire truth about the relationship (feelings etc) he was having with her if he isn't being completely honest now. I need him to feel like he can tell me if there were any others- right now he says there isn't and I don't know if I believe it yet. I need him to be able to have an honest discussion about how our marriage was or wasn't meeting his needs without censoring due to his guilt. I need to know how it all went wrong. If it has nothing to do with me or something he wasn't getting or feeling in our marriage then I need him to be able to tell me what was happening with him or I will never believe that it won't happen again. I am trying to remain calm to let him do the work with his therapist and am hoping to keep it bottled up for a little while until he feels he can assist me without going to the dark place and trying to hurt himself again. It sucks that I have to be the strong one when I want to crumble up and cry like a baby sometimes. Reading these posts and talking with people with the same issues as I have now is so helpful, i can't correctly express my gratitude.
DeleteLizzie,
DeleteYou do need a place where you can let out your pain and anger. I think trying to bottle it up until you feel like he's strong enough is too much pressure for you. Is there anything you think you can do to release some of it? Journalling can be incredibly cathartic -- I wrote on a post today about Morning Pages. Three pages each day to just let it all out.
He does like a bit of a "glass half-empty" kinda guy. Isn't it just as possible that you two can co-create a stronger, healthier marriage? That you can both recognize that each other will never meet ALL your needs/wants but that's okay?
As for wanting all the information, I've generally fallen into the "you should have access to all the info you want" camp but, frankly, I'm rethinking that. Listening to one of the podcasts someone on this site recommended (The West Coast Trauma Project -- Omar Minwalla), I heard this trauma expert say that people who go through "full disclosure" sessions are often re-traumatized by all the info. I actually refused to participate when our couples counsellor wanted us to do a "full disclosure" session. I realized at that point that I knew everything I wanted to know. More would have felt like torture. But that was MY choice, which makes a difference, I think.
So...think about what you really need to know. The time might be helpful to you in that you can parse out what's helpful to know and what's hurtful to know.