Here's the difference between acceptance and tolerance

So you've decided to stay. At least for now.
Not much has changed. Maybe he doesn't believe in therapy, at least not for him. Maybe he's grumbling about violation of his privacy when you ask to see his text messages. Maybe things seem a bit better. He's home on time. He doesn't go out with his friends. He's drinking less.
And so you tell yourself that this is good. You're willing to let him stay. At least as long as he's not seeing her anymore.
Your kids don't know. Your co-workers know something was up but they've moved on to other gossip.
And you feel proud of yourself for accepting this new reality.
But have you? Really?
Or are you simply tolerating it?
What's the difference? you ask
Your heart knows the difference.
Accepting feels light, like a weight has lifted. Accepting might still hold sadness and grief. But it has let go of anger, it has let go of revenge fantasies. It has released you from blame. Acceptance knows that this is on him, not you. That it was his choice to cheat and nothing you might have done or not done isn't to blame for his decision.
Acceptance is rooted in self-love, in self-care, in self-respect.
Tolerating? Well, tolerating feels like a clenched fist and gritted teeth. It feels like resignation. And fear.
Tolerating is about counting the weeks, the days, the seconds. 
Tolerating is low-level despair.
Tolerating is the where we experience the plain of lethal flatness. Exhaustion. Numbness.
Tolerating can have its role. It can keep us from fleeing when we're not entirely sure we want to flee. It can keep us upright and functional when we're suddenly single parents, especially when that's something we never wanted to be.
It can be a step.
But it's not a way to live.
And it can keep us dangerously in place when we should be fleeing. 
Fleeing words like land like gut punches. About your looks, your age, your intelligence, your family, your parenting. Fleeing fists and feet. Fleeing control – emotional, financial, physical. 
Tolerating any of that is the opposite of self-love. It's tacit agreement that you don't deserve more.
And that is an absolute lie.
You deserve love. 
You deserve kindness.
You deserve respect.
And especially after betrayal, when you haven't kicked his cheating ass out, you deserve deep deep gratitude and support. 
We know it doesn't always play out that way, at least at first. 
Sometimes there's a period where he hasn't yet figured out just how idiotic he's being, when he's deep in the fog of his delusional choice and he's convinced he can somehow emerge perhaps not a hero but at least not a villain, when he thinks he can push this away and simply insert himself back into his marriage with barely a ripple...well, that's a period of time when we might just be gritting our teeth and clenching our fists and...tolerating his lunacy.
But for only a very short period. Like days or weeks, not months and certainly not years.
Because if he comes to believe that you will tolerate any level of betrayal or abuse or lack of respect or kindness or love, then he hasn't fully accepted the cost of his affair.
Let him know. 

(If you are in an abusive relationship – any kind of abuse, whether emotional, verbal, physical, financial – please reach out for help. There are people out there who understand your situation and can guide you through: The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.)

I Cannot Walk Your Path

"The maps and travelogues left behind by others are great blessings, full of useful information and inspiration, but they cannot take the journey for us."~Author unknown

Many of us knew exactly what we would do if our husbands cheated on us. And then it happened. Suddenly we not only weren't doing what we always said we'd do (almost without fail, throw him out), we were behaving in ways that were confusing to us. That made us wonder if we'd lost our minds. And within that confusion lay such judgement of ourselves. So many of us were ashamed of ourselves for not sticking with what we said we'd do.
Thing is, none of us really knows what we'll do until we're in the situation. And once we're in that situation, the best we can do is treat ourselves with compassion for the challenge we're facing.
And, of course, none of us knows what another woman should do because we're not in her situation.
I bring this up because a BWC member commented a while back that she had taken my "advice" and stuck with her husband only to find out that his affair had never really ended. There she was, another year or so invested in her marriage, and only deeper in pain.
She was leaving him then and only wished I had encouraged her to do so earlier.
I told her I was very sorry for her pain. Sorrier still that her husband wasn't able to accept the deep gift of her desire to rebuild their marriage.
But, I pointed out, I never told her to stay or leave and I felt badly that she had interpreted my response to her as such. I, frankly, haven't a clue whether any of you should stay or leave. Actually that's not true. If there's abuse of any kind, get out. Now. (Though even with that, I know that some women simply can't leave for any number of reasons that I might not understand.)
But beyond that, there's isn't a right way to respond to this. 
Life is messy. Marriages that look hopeless somehow get stitched together to everyone's benefit. Others just don't make it despite valiant attempts. Some survive betrayal only to fall apart down the road for other reasons. 
I wish I had a crystal ball and could therefore predict which marriages were worth fighting for and which should be hastily exited. Of course, I don't. I don't pretend to.
What I do offer here is hard-won wisdom from walking my own path. Though each of us is unique we face similar challenges. Our husbands behave in bizarrely similar ways. We can benefit from each other's experience as long as we recognize that we don't all walk the same path to healing. As long as we understand that what worked for her mightn't work for me and vice versa. 
There are times when I will use such words as "here's what you should do" and then outline the steps a BW can take to, for example, get back on her feet, get some sleep, or regain her self-respect. But I don't have all the answers. I haven't even faced all the questions. I have my own experience and an understanding of what so many of you have faced as you've trusted me with your stories. That's all.
Each of our stories is our own. Each of us walks her own path to healing. I cannot walk yours and you cannot walk mine. But we can hold each other up along the way.

It's Not Enough to Profess Love...It Must Be Practised

Brené Brown, a shame researcher, expert and author of The Gifts of Imperfection, has this to about infidelity:

I don't know if you can love someone and betray them or be cruel to them, but I do know that when you betray someone...you are not practicing love.

I once worked with a woman whose husband seemed like a dream mate. Her desk was constantly crowded with fresh flowers that he had delivered with notes professing his love. She told us stories of arriving home from work, tired and cranky, only to have him pour her a warm bath and massage her feet. I, unmarried at the time, thought her marriage sounded like heaven.
Turns out it was hell.
I found out years later, after she'd left this seeming wunderhusband, that he beat her. The flowers were apologies...and from the blooms on her desk, he clearly had a LOT of apologizing to do.
He told her constantly that he loved her.
But, reeling from his latest blow, what the hell difference did that make?
I'm still pondering Rabbi Gorman's recent post about betrayal as abuse.
It might not leave bruises on our cheek but who among us can say it didn't bruise our souls?
And yet, betrayal so often occurs in "loving" marriages.
My  husband often told me he loved me. He still insists that he did, even when he was lining up his next encounter.
And what I can't seem to get him to understand is that professing love isn't enough. Even feeling it makes absolutely no difference. Practicing it, however, now that's something that counts.
Brené Brown is right. You can't practice love for a partner while you're with someone else. It simply doesn't compute – emotionally or intellectually. If loving someone includes a promise to be sexually and emotionally monogamous – to share intimacy only with that partner – then becoming intimate with another is a denial, or at the very least a neglect, of that love.
So while it's possible to love another and engage in extramarital affairs, it isn't possible to act loving within that context.
And I've spent far too many years accepting professions of love instead of insisting on practice.
How about you?

Guest blog: Betrayal comes in many forms

Discovering blondes are more fun

I vividly remember the first time I felt somewhat like an artifact in my own marriage – an object, a fragment, perhaps a spurious result.

Years ago, on the first cold day in October, I pulled my packed-away winter coat out of the storage closet in an attempt to walk the kids to school and not turn blue.

As I yanked, a bottle escaped out of one sleeve and bonked me on the shin. I stood for a moment watching the tiny amount of amber liquid slosh from side to side. You see I rarely drink and when I do, I’m pretty confident it’s not Scotch (yuck). It slowly hit me. He’s cheating on me – the love of his life is this blonde in the bottle.

For years, my husband battled demons from a tumultuous childhood, always with a trusted therapist at his side. I learned late that physical abuse, especially with boys, can have an effect as devastating as childhood sexual abuse. With abuse comes trauma and with trauma comes anxiety. Alcohol is the readily-available, socially-accepted, self-medication cure-all for anxiety – until addiction sets in.  Adding anti-depressants into the mix can cause disastrous results. Honestly, he hadn’t had a drink in front of me for years.

The secrecy, the hours spent in the basement, the never coming to bed and falling asleep in front of the TV instead was just now making sense. I knew he wasn’t being honest with me – I just didn’t know how or why.

Apparently betrayal comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. To this day, I still shiver when ice hits the sides of a glass.