Guest Post: We Can Be The Alchemists

by Chinook

Last week, someone new to Betrayed Wives Club posted a message. She is only a few weeks (weeks!) past D-Day and, as we all know, the pain at that early stage is horrific. 

I was struck by so much of her post but most especially by the excruciating hope in this question: “Is there a chance that we could get help for our issues and carry onto an even better relationship than before?”

The question broke my heart with its familiarity, which is what prompted me to write something on this website for the first time. I only discovered Betrayed Wives Club six months after D-day. By then I had done a remarkable amount of learning and growing. Still, I gobbled up the posts here, ordered Elle’s book and read it straight through in 24 hours (highly recommended). I was so, so hungry for narratives of couples who had made it through affairs and were happy.

What I have come to understand, on the doorstep of my one-year D-Day antiversary, is that what I actually needed to read (although I didn’t know it at the time) were stories of women who had made it through being cheated on and were happy; not couples who had made it through. Sure, it would have been more comforting to read the narratives of couples who were happy. Part of me clung to the argument put forward by Esther Perel that it is possible for couples to use the trauma of the affair as an opportunity to do a post-mortem, figure out what went wrong in their marriage, and decide to have a new and healthier relationship together. (If you haven’t seen or read or heard Esther Perel’s stuff, start with her TED Talk entitled “Rethinking infidelity”.) But it was more helpful and realistic and empowering for me to read/hear the narratives of women who made it through. 

I can’t control what happens in my relationship — it take two to make it a success — but I can control what I do with my own mind and heart. 

What I wrote to this newly wounded woman is this: 

Yes, I did find one or two narratives of people who made it through infidelity as a couple and thrived, although I’m not sure how much I trust their exuberance. The best example is Beyoncé. Her entire video album, Lemonade, is about the experience of being cheated on and recovering from the trauma. (Making lemonade out of lemons.) The introductory poetry for each video, written by the great poet Warsan Shire, is haunting (example: “So what are you going to say at my funeral, now that you've killed me? Here lies the body of the love of my life, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head.”)The extraordinary power of the last song, Redemption, will give you chills. (“True love brought salvation back into me. With every tear came redemption, and my torturer became my remedy.”)

As a side note: if Beyoncé can be cheated on, literally anyone can be cheated on. Her decision to make Jay-Z’s betrayal into a story in which she, Beyoncé, is the hero, is brilliant and it’s also what I’ve tried to do. I am the hero of the story of my husband’s affair. Why? Because I choose to be. Why should I let anyone else — the other woman, my husband, societal expectations — be in charge of the narrative?

Getting back to stories about couples who lived through affairs, I found a lot more narratives of people who tried to reconcile but ultimately the marriage ended. But just to be clear: these are not stories of failure. “Love Warrior” by Glennon Doyle is a great example. (Another side note: Part Two of the book describes the experience of the trauma of infidelity in a way that was bang on for me. Did anyone else find that?) Glennon Doyle has spoken about the fact that when she put herself back together again after the betrayal, she discovered that despite all the love she and her (now ex-)husband put into reconciliation, she just didn’t fit her old life.

Mostly, what I found were narratives of people for whom reconciliation wasn’t even an option, sometimes because the cheater wanted out and sometimes because the betrayed would not consider it. But again: those can be empowering stories, too. I have five friends and acquaintances who have been cheated on and were in this camp (which sounds like a lot but I know a LOT of people): two had no interest in reconciling because the betrayal was so horrible, and the other three had spouses (one was a man whose wife cheated, two were women whose husbands did) who just wanted to leave. 

And you know what? All of those people are really, genuinely happy now. Things didn’t go the way they wanted, but they still ended up happy. Three are happily in new marriages or marriage-like relationships. (And actually, now that I think about it, all three are with people who are way nicer but also WAY HOTTER than their exes.) The other two are happily single by choice.

The most useful narratives for me, regardless of the outcome of the marriage/relationship, came from people who used the experience of being cheated on as a catapult that propelled them to enormous growth. 

Pain can be rocket fuel if you let it be. 

Those are the narratives I chose to emulate. How is it working out for me? Nearly a year later, I feel more powerful than I have in years and I feel more grounded than I ever have. 

You can’t know how your marriage—or indeed any marriage—is going to turn out. All you can do is take the next right step, as Glennon Doyle writes. It’s like driving in fog: you can only see as far as your headlights. I’m tempted to extend the metaphor by saying that something you can control as you make your way through that fog is the grace with which you are driving.

Of all the lyrics from Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” album, these are my favourites: 

Grandmother, the alchemist

You spun gold out of this hard life

Conjured beauty from the things left behind

Found healing where it did not live

Discovered the antidote in your own kitchen

Broke the curse with your own two hands

My fellow warriors, we can be the alchemists, too.

Let’s spin gold together.