When Life is a Ghost Ship: Finding your power after betrayal

In time we will be given the opportunity to either contract around the old version of ourselves and our world — insular, self-interested and tribalistic — or understand the connectedness and commonality of all humans, everywhere. In isolation, we will be presented with our essence — of what we are personally and what we are as a society. We will be asked to decide what we want to preserve about our world and ourselves, and what we want to discard. ~Nick Cave, musician and creator of Red Hand Files

"We will be asked to decide what we want to preserve about our world and ourselves, and what we want to discard," says Bad Seeds lead singer Nick Cave, who also happens to be a voice of sanity and kindness on the internet.
He's speaking of the pandemic that's sweeping our world right now. He's speaking of the wholesale inventory that so many of us are undertaking as we huddle in our homes, anxious and isolated from so much of what gives shape to our lives.
He's not speaking about the impact of infidelity but he might as well be.
Because that's exactly what happens to so many of us in the wake of the tsunami of betrayal. We look around and what seemed familiar just hours before is no longer. Our partner is a stranger. Our home feels too small, too suffocating. Our minds can't be trusted. Our hearts are shattered. 
A "ghost ship" is what Cave's friend called our world right now. A ghost ship, still afloat but emblematic of death and loss. Direction-less. 
It has been years since my own D-Day. And I have many many days when I hardly think about it. Yes, I continue to post on this site and yes, I moderate comments. But it has become something that happened so long ago. A part of my history the way that certain furniture in my current home was part of my childhood. The way I recognize an old song. It no longer stings.
Except for the occasional time when someone posts something and it resonates so deeply in my heart's memory that, under my breath, I emit a "yes". Or the occasional time when I stumble on a phrase and I recognize it as a secret message for me.
Ghost ship.
Yes.
That was what betrayal felt like for me. A ghost ship. Afloat but barely. Alone. Lost.
Yes.
I drifted that way for a year. Two.
But somewhere in there, I did what Nick Cave says we all must do. Somewhere in there, I paid attention to my essence, to who I was personally and who I wanted to be. I recognized my own agency, my own ability to create the marriage I wanted (or leave), to be the person I wanted to be, and to insist that, if he wanted to remain married to me, he become the best version of himself. 
I determined what I wanted to preserve and what I wanted to discard.
There's so much power in that. 
It's power we all have, even when we don't yet recognize it. So many letters from all of you come from a place of powerlessness. You don't – I didn't – recognize the power that we have.
To decide what we want to preserve and what we want to discard.
I get it. In those early days, it's a challenge to wash our face, to get out the door, to stumble through our days. 
There are days, weeks, months when the best we can do is rest. Shore up our strength. Prepare for the reckoning.
But when that reckoning comes, when we have outgrown the cocoon, please know that you are strong enough for that moment. That you have the power necessarily to make those choices. You may have to put some things in place: Save some money. Meet with a lawyer. Work outside the home. Create an Exit Plan. Insist on therapy. 
But you decide: What to preserve and what to discard.
Yes.