How to Stay Without Shame

~tweeted by Dr. Caroline Madden @cmaddenmft

It irks me still that I have been called an affair apologist by those who think there is only one response to infidelity and it is the one that involves divorce lawyers. To them, staying is pathetic. To them, there are no cheaters worthy of a second chance. There are no reasons worth trying again. There is only wishful thinking, pain delayed. Cheaters, as far as they're concerned, don't learn from the consequences of their horrible choice, they only wait until the coast is clear so they can cheat again.

This blog is, clearly, not for them.

Which is not to say that some cheaters don't deserve a second chance. Anyone unwilling to acknowledge the pain they've caused and commit to doing whatever it takes to rebuild their marriage is a risky bet, at best.

And it's not to say that, for some of us, a divorce lawyer isn't the best path. I don't know what's best for anyone who comes to this site. My goal is to offer comfort and some guidance towards healing ourselves, no matter what happens with our marriages. To urge every person who comes here to take care of themselves, to recognize that betrayal is traumatizing, and that each of us has to prioritize our own healing above everything else. 

But...

I still, much more rarely than when I created this site, get told I'm an apologist for infidelity simply because I don't think that the only, or the smartest response is to kick him out. 

But staying has its own challenges, it's own pain, it's own...shame. That's the kicker, isn't it? Shame. Even if we determine that staying is what we want to do, no matter how remorseful he is, no matter how much sense it makes -- emotionally, financially, family-wise -- there's often a voice that tells us we're schmucks. Pathetic. Weak.

And though I, and so many others, have nothing but admiration for you, though we all know how much courage it takes to stay, that voice persists. As Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it, shame slaps its label on you and makes you wear it. Hello, my name is Betrayed Wife and I am a schmuck.

So let's figure out how to rip that label off, shall we? Let's figure out how to stay without shame.

Where did your shame first put down roots?

For a whole lot of us, this latest dance with shame isn't our first. Shame was a longtime companion of mine, thanks to growing up in a home with addicts. Shame had long ago slapped a nametag on me: Hello, I am a child of alcoholics and if you knew what really went on in my house you would want nothing to do with me. I had battled it and thought myself victorious. But when my husband cheated on me, it was like shame sidled up to me with the words, hello, old friend. Remember me? 

So it's important when we feel that sting of shame for being cheated on at all but, moreso, for choosing to stay, to consider whether this is our old childhood shame rearing its very ugly head again and whispering those same old messages: You are not loveable. You are not worthy of loyalty. You are not enough. And, if that's the case, then it's time to rally your resources and fight back. Because the one thing we know about shame is that it doesn't speak a word of truth. 

Your marriage is not the betrayal

What so many don't understand about those of us who choose to stay in a marriage with someone who cheated on us is that our marriage is made up of a zillion moments, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with the affair. But what our culture does with regards to infidelity is it takes that event and makes it emblematic of an entire marriage. So the question becomes: How can anyone stay with a cheater? 

And framed like that, pretty much all of us would say...we can't. We shouldn't. But we can stay with someone who cheated but is doing the work to become a better man. We can stay with someone who's grappling with a horrible choice and trying to make amends. In other words, it's a whole lot easier to forgive someone, or be willing to give them a second chance, when we don't see them as nothing more than the biggest mistake they've ever made. And so our shame, instead of coming from our own ideas around infidelity and second chances, is dictated to us by an unforgiving culture.

Don't hand your choice over to those who don't have to live with the consequences

"Don't take criticism from those you wouldn't ask for advice" goes the adage. I had three young children when I discovered my husband's infidelity. Choosing to stay included what I thought was best for them. Choosing to stay included the option to change my mind if I discovered more infidelity, or if he stopped working at our marriage, or if I simply felt I wanted to leave. I was the one who had to live with this choice. To make it based on what others thought I should do seemed ridiculous. 

But people have strong feelings about infidelity. Especially those who either haven't experienced it, or haven't learned from it. They're the first to tell you that there is one and only one way to respond to it and that is "don't get mad, get even". The same people who claim they've never felt more empowered by leaving their unfaithful exes are often the angriest people you'll ever meet. And though I support anyone's choice of how to respond to infidelity, I get sad at those who remain so pissed off, years, sometimes decades, later. Because that's not healing, it's fomenting. That's not growing, it's growling. Yes, infidelity is excruciating. And sometimes we don't get to choose whether our marriage survives. But we do get to choose how WE survive. 

And finally,

Shame might have something important to tell us

It's possible that shame is pointing out something that requires your attention. It's possible that you feel shame not because you've chosen to stay with someone who cheated on you but because you aren't holding him accountable for what he did. Maybe it isn't his betrayal that's shame inducing, it's your betrayal of yourself.

As Dr. Madden said in her tweet, it's possible to feel compassion for someone's suffering while still holding them accountable. In other words, you can feel badly that your husband screwed things up so badly while nonetheless insisting that he make things right. That's not punishing him. It's treating him like an adult. It's respecting boundaries. It's respecting yourself. By doing that, you're also going a long way toward reducing your own shame for staying. Because there's little that takes more courage than facing the person who hurt you and giving them the chance to show you they can be better than that. 

 

I came to Live Out Loud, Yes, Even During a Pandemic

I have a quote pinned to the bulletin board in my office.
If you ask me what I came into this world to do,
I will tell you;
I came to live out loud.
I chose this quote for the cover of the program at my mom's funeral. If ever there was a woman who lived out loud, it was her.
But me? I tended toward quiet. I tended toward meek. I feared attention because attention invited judgement. And I couldn't bear another's judgement.
Which makes it doubly ironic just how judgemental I've become lately. 
I judge people who don't wear masks. I judge people who don't give me six feet of space in the grocery store. I judge people on Twitter, caught in viral videos screaming at store clerks. I judge people who post #AllLivesMatter.
I judge.
And fear being judged.
What I've forgotten though is that judgement – always needing to be right – is the thief of joy. And I am not feeling much joy lately.
Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it this way: 
Yet joy can so often be the thing I give up when being right seems more important. When the grief of what I have lost feels bigger than the hope of what might come.
Of course, my judgement has something to do with living through a pandemic. It has a whole lot to do with suddenly being subject to a lot of rules about where I can go and when, who I can see and how, what I can wear and why.
The world is undergoing a collective trauma, I keep telling myself. We are all scared out of our wits, even those of us who pretend they're not (which, some days, is me). 
But I can remind myself, I've been through this before. Not a pandemic, per se, but a trauma. A total transformation of what I thought I could trust. A massive shift in my world. This is just on a larger scale. This involves all of you, too. But yes, I've been here before, where, as Bolz-Weber says, "the grief of what I have lost feels greater than the hope of what might come."
Finding our way back to that hope is where we'll find joy. Yes, even in the midst of a pandemic. Even in the midst of betrayal. 
We will not find it in judging others, not even that bastard who broke our hearts. Let him judge himself. And we most certainly will not find that joy, not even a sliver of it, in judging ourselves. Not in "how could I have been so stupid". Not in "what does she have that I don't." Not in "I will never trust anybody again." "Not in "I should have known he would do this". Not in any of that.
We will find it in hope. Not blind hope that he'll change. Not ignorant hope that magical forgiveness will make this a bad memory. We will find it in hope that requires us to roll up our sleeves and shape it. In hope that reminds us how strong we are. Hope that's rooted in self-respect and dignity and refuses entry to anyone who won't treat us with either. Hope that's greater than the grief we feel for what we've lost.
We have all lost so much through this. Jobs. The ability to hug our aging parents. Faith in those entrusted with our public safety. Lives. We have lost so very many lives.
But let's remember that joy is found not when we judge each other or ourselves but in compassion. In a recognition that this is hard work, that this is traumatic. I speak of both pandemics and infidelity. 
Let us remind ourselves that we have navigated grief before. Hope can be our guide through grief. They are not mutually exclusive but rather companions. Let us hold each by the hand. 

Transforming pain? Or transmitting it?

I have elevated "do as I say, not as I do" to an art form. I preach Dalai Lama but I practice Taylor Swift. Which is all a way of saying that although I want to float above the fray, to go high when others go low, sometimes I find myself in the mud, slinging away with the others.
"Those who don't transform their pain transmit it," says Father Richard Rohr, a Jesuit priest, speaking words that transcend any religious doctrine.
And when I'm in pain is, of course, when I go low.
When I'm scared is when I go low.
When I'm angry is when I go low.
For instance, I recently read about a well-known misogynist who's suffering health issues. My first thought, "wow. He's in real trouble." My second? I'm ashamed to say it was to mentally give karma a high-five.
I catch myself. I don't want to be a horrible person. I want to be serene and generous of spirit and empathetic, even to awful people who make life harder for other people. And I often succeed. Or, at least I succeed when I can connect with that awful person's vulnerability. When I can see that awful person's pain.
I was finally able to release myself from the festering hatred of the OW when I could recognize her pain. The second I was able to extend even the tiniest bit of empathy toward her, a miracle occurred. She no longer occupied my thoughts. She no longer poisoned my soul.
But what about those times when I just can't? When their pain isn't visible, when I can't conjure up empathy? When their cruelty seems so gleeful, when they seem to be benefiting from it? Well, then, I generally offer up a hearty "fuck you". Maybe not overtly. But my heart has a helluva middle finger.
The math goes like this:

My pain + the ability to see another's pain = compassion/transformation.
My pain + inability to see another person's pain = transmission

The problem with transmitting our pain is that it isn't like something I can pass to someone else, leaving me pain-free. Rather, it's like a virus. I still have my pain but I've also infected another through cruelty or just a lack of compassion.
Anne Lamott puts it this way: "Some days the only thing that can cheer me up is something bad happening to someone I hate."
Yep. Exactly.
Except the times in my life when I've spewed that bile, when I've wished horrible things on horrible people, when I've celebrated another's misfortune, I've been the one who feels horrible. My pain, transmitted, re-infects me.
When what I want is transformation.
What I want is mercy. We all do. Or, as Lamott says, "I am starving to death for it, and my world is, too.
I've been on the receiving end of mercy and it's transformative. I've been given the benefit of the doubt when I probably didn't deserve it. I've been given a second chance when I messed up the first one.
Which is why I want so badly to extend that mercy in a way that transforms. To rid myself of the desire to see others hurt, even if they really really deserve it.
Cause that's another tricky thing about mercy. Most of us don't deserve it.
Our husbands don't deserve it.
They messed up their first chance and probably their second.
Feeling empathy for them isn't exonerating them. It doesn't mean that what they did to us was okay. It isn't about giving them permission to do it again.
Rather, it's about refusing to infect another with our pain and refusing to allow them to infect us with theirs.
Not easy. Especially when we're festering in our hatred. When our pain feels radioactive.
But the alternative to mercy – to instead keep transmitting our pain – does little for our own healing.
Only when we can take responsibility for the only thing that truly IS our responsibility – our own actions – can we begin to feel free of our pain. And of theirs.
As Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it: "Option 1 feels like poison. And Option 2 feels like freedom."
And doesn't freedom sound lovely?