The Incredibly Slow Painstaking Heaviness of Healing from Infidelity

It's taking a l-o-n-g time, isn't it? You thought you'd have been over this agony months ago. Years ago.
But here you are, sobbing in the bathroom because your husband said something thoughtless over dinner. Or you're hyperventilating in the condiment aisle at the grocery store because, for a minute, you thought you'd spotted the Other Woman pushing a cart of groceries. Your heart is pounding because your husband is a half-hour late getting home.
What the hell, right? This shouldn't still bother you so much.
After all, you've done everything humanly possible to move past this:
Therapy. Check.
Establishing clear boundaries. Check.
Reading every book about infidelity ever written? Check.
Devouring web sites and blogs. Check.
Watching videos by marriage counsellors. Check.
Self-care, including the occasional massage. Check.
So why? Why can a forgotten photo bring tears to your eyes? Why does a certain song, one you haven't heard in a long time, suddenly transport you back? Why is this so goddamned hard?
I'll tell you why.
Because betrayal is an injury that calls into question everything we thought we knew about ourselves, about him, about our future. It shakes us to our core.
There's a saying about football, that it's a game of inches. Well, my secret sisters. That applies to healing from infidelity too.
We heal from it inch by barely perceptible inch.
I know, I know. We want dramatic finishes. We want healing to be like smashing through the ribbon at the finish of a marathon. Applause and accolades. The incredible high of having done it.
Yeah. Doesn't work like that.
There is no chorus of angels singing hallelujah. No miracle cure. No trophies. Not even a certificate of completion.
There is only a little by little lightening. As if you've been lugging a sack of rocks and someone is removing them, one by one, so that each day the load feels just a teensy bit lighter. There are days when you'll be convinced someone is actually putting rocks back in. Those, perhaps, are the days you check her social media account, or your husband seems evasive and you wonder if he's lying, or you can't shake the bitterness. Days when your arms and heart ache from the strain. Days when surely you're actually being pulled backwards.
That, my dear warriors, is when you rest. That is when you respond to yourself not with recrimination (What's wrong with you! Why aren't you further along by now?) but with kindness and tenderness. The way you'd respond to a friend or child. An afternoon ignoring the messy house in favor of a good movie. An early bedtime. A visit with a friend. A perfect piece of chocolate cake. A romp in the woods with a four-legged friend. Anything that reminds you that you are worthy of attention, that your pain matters. Anything that gives you permission to tend to your wound.
It isn't magic, of course. You might still feel sad. Or lost. You might feel mired in the worry that you've made the wrong choice. If it was the right choice, wouldn't it feel better than this?
Probably not.
Cause the right choice isn't always the easy choice.
And there is nothing easy about healing from infidelity, no matter what choice we make.
Inch by almost invisible inch.
But only if we continue to do the work.
Like enforcing clear boundaries that keep us safe and are rooted in self-respect. Like ensuring that we only allow those into our lives that treat us as if we have value. Like taking care of ourselves, both out outsides and our insides. By prioritizing our healing.
Just as we can't outwardly watch a wound heal, inward wounds also heal imperceptibly.
But I guarantee you that healing is happening.
Inch by barely visible inch.