Infidelity Grief: The Death of the Life You Thought Was Yours

Grief feels bigger than sadness, more all-encompassing, threatening to retrieve every shard of loss and sorrow from the past. It can feel like a weight on the chest, leaden limbs, dulled thinking. It veils the eyes and shutters out the light. It's physical; it yawns open its maw like a Grand Canyon slash in the earth. There is no crossing from one rim to respite on the other rim without going down into the wound.
~Kathy Karn, photographer/retired psychotherapist

One of the things we least expect to feel in the wake of betrayal is grief. Which is why so many of us don't recognize it even as we're experiencing it. Grief is about death, right? It seemed unfortunate on D-Day that my husband was very much alive. Being a widow struck me as far preferable to being a betrayed wife. But there he was, alive and appallingly well. So...why would I feel grief? 
Murderous rage? That made more sense. Sadness? Sure. But though I didn't recognize it for a very long time, I was grieving. And I didn't recognize it in part because our culture doesn't associate grief with infidelity. 
It should. Betrayal ushers in a death. Of the marriage we thought we had. The life we thought we knew. The man we thought we could trust. There's so much loss in betrayal. So much, yes, death. Hence...grief.
Dammit, huh? Cause grief doesn't take the short road. Grief meanders, never in a rush. It lingers. Which is bad news for those of us who just want this to be over. To get back to "normal". To move past this ache.
Psychotherapist Kathy Karn notes that grief feels all-encompassing, "like a Grand Canyon slash in the earth". We can imaging falling in but can scarcely believe we'll emerge. But the thing with grief, if we give ourselves the chance to trust the process, is that we'll not only emerge, we'll emerge carrying the seeds of transformation within us. 
It's a bittersweet thought. I remember hearing all of that "suffering makes us grow" stuff and even while I hoped it was true, I resented it. I didn't want to grow. I wanted to not be in so much pain. The idea of grief was more than could bear. It meant that this wasn't something I was going to "get over" quickly. Grief requires time and patience and I was out of both. 
The thing with grief, however, is that there's no fighting it. It casts its shadow over us whether we try to move into the sunlight or night. The best approach, we learn, is to stop resisting it. Stop pretending that this pain has a quick-fix, stop pretending that something didn't die. Stop pretending and give in to the reality that grief is going to be our companion for a long while.
And when we stop resisting grief, we can begin, well, grieving. We can remember to be more gentle with ourselves. We can try and judge ourselves less harshly. And when we allow ourselves to grieve – to feel the pain and the loss – our hearts become a wee bit less restricted. Like the hand squeezing them loosens its grip just slightly. And then slightly more. 
Because though grief doesn't gallop, it isn't immobile either. There is respite on the other side, as Karn reminds us, but not without going into the wound.
And so we descend. Into grief. Moving through it like wet cement. 
The day will come when we climb out. Not all at once, perhaps, but finger by finger, limb by limb. Moment by moment.
And when we have emerged, we will see that grief was never the enemy, but the guide.
It's crucial that we keep our hearts soft or grief will have done nothing but knock against a hardened heart.