Honoring an anniversary after infidelity

If trying to find a way when you don't even know you can get there isn't a small miracle; then I don't know what is.  ~Rachel Joyce, author

Today is my husband's and my anniversary. Twenty-four years ago we stood in front of family and friends and promised to be each other's one and only. We promised kindness and respect. To stick with each other through "good times and bad." 

There was a lot of bad.

I didn't know just how bad it was but it was bad. 

And when I discovered how bad it was, I reeled. I cried. I curled up in a ball on my bathroom floor many many nights and sobbed into my dog's neck. I could see nothing but the bad. I couldn't conceive of my marriage ever being anything but bad ever again.

And yet I stayed. I stayed because I was afraid to leave. Afraid to disrupt my young children's lives. Afraid of what my husband might do if I left. Besides, I was exhausted. I could barely get through a day let alone find the energy to kick him out, or leave myself. And so I waited. I waited until I felt strong enough to leave. I made my expectations clear – no cheating, no lying, full disclosure. If he stepped outside the line, even the slightest bit, I was gone. He knew that. He went to therapy. He attended 12-step meetings.

And I waited.

For strength. For a sign from the universe. For my kids to get older. For myself to get clearer.

It was never so much about if I'd leave but when, though I held out faint hope that my feelings for him might return. That I might love him again as I had that day twenty-four years ago. 

And here we are. 

It has not been easy. It has, in fact, been extremely hard. (I was going to write the "hardest thing I've ever done" but that would be untrue. Since that horrible time, I have had to commit my daughter to a psychiatric ward and that, my friends, is the hardest thing I've ever done. I have had to bury my mother, which was another very hard thing.)

But the thing with infidelity is that the pain eclipses every other thing. It blocks out the light. It leaves us squinting in the dark with no expectation of light ever again. This, we are certain, is our life. Not just for today but tomorrow. And forever.

That is a lie.

The pain is excruciating. I know. But it passes. Not today. Not even soon. But eventually. And though I wish I could tell you differently, the truth is that it takes a long time to pass. And that there are no shortcuts. I don't think it hurts less to leave. I don't think it hurts less to find someone else. I don't think it hurts less in a short marriage than a long one. It just hurts. And it hurts so so much.

And then, one day, I realized it hurt a little less. And then less still. And so on until I'm celebrating my 24th wedding anniversary and I realize it hasn't hurt at all for a long time. And that we are exactly where we want to be and with exactly who we want to be with. He has changed over the years and not just grayer hair and a wider waist. I have changed a lot too. WE know each other much more deeply than we did that day 24 years ago. I have seen him at his absolute worst. I have decided that he is more than that. We have been with each other to bury our mothers. We have been with each other to get our daughter the help she needed. We have grown together and through.

And here we are. Okay. More than okay. Beyond all expectations. Happy.

Guest Post: "Should" is what's between you and your joy

by StillStanding1

I’ve been thinking an awful lot about the word “should” lately. I’ve done a lot of rumbling with it in the nearly two years since d-day.  Early on I came to the realization that it was a “bad" word best removed from my vocabulary. Should is a whole lot of judgement disguised as motivation. Should is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It pretends to be interested in bettering ourselves, but really, it is a bold underlining of all the places we believe we lack; all the places where we don’t measure up; all the times someone told us we weren’t enough and we bought it. Should is the leather belt in the hands of our inner parent “motivating” us to do better. Should is our inner critic’s open-handed slap to our face when we believe we’ve missed the mark, when we should have seen the signs, when we should have been thinner/younger/sexier/cooked more dinners/fill in the blank. Should is a bunch of bullshit.

Should is about fitting in, not rocking the boat, not making people uncomfortable and not being true to ourselves. It’s about keeping silent. It’s about shame. It’s a single track, downhill ride to pain and loneliness. It took me a long time to realize this. I had been a poster child for the dangers and self-destruction of perfectionism since my teens. It’s what happens when you grow up with an alcoholic (or in any other dysfunctional family system for that matter). My inner critic was brutal. Nothing I did was good enough. Ever. I was apologetic for my existence, for taking up space. And when I tried and didn’t get the response I expected, I was devastated. Imagine, struggling with depression at 16 and your own father asks you what they did wrong. The clear implication was that something was wrong with me. I was inherently wrong. My inner critic has a mean left.

Post d-day, lots of lessons started coming my way around judgement. One was that the inner critic was an asshole who had sucked the joy from my life for too long and I should dump her. Another was that I could be a lot nicer to myself about successes and also not successes. One of the biggest was that I drop the word “should” and replace it with “could”. Should is a requirement that comes packed with judgement and topped with a set-up for failure. Could is a free choice with no expectations and no losers. There are big shoulds and little insidious shoulds that crop up in our lives. Learning to notice them is the first step to becoming a recovering should-aholic.

The other day I got a message from my daughter, away at college. “Mom, can I tell you something awesome that happened to me?” Yes, of course. She had left her laundry in the laundry room in her dorm for a full day. Had completely forgotten about it. She went to retrieve it, expecting to see it scattered, gone or dumped on the floor. Instead, she found it folded neatly on top of the dryer. Even the socks had been matched up. How lovely! She felt so grateful. The first words out of my mouth were, “Oh that’s so great! You should write a thank-you note.” Well…there was a group chat for the floor but she wasn’t sure she wanted to say anything since it might embarrass the person. I pushed the idea of a note again. It’s less public so they’d still get it but it wouldn’t be out on social media. I felt my daughter’s anxiety rising. And…I realized I was laying a big, fat, old “should” on her. And I said, “Hold on a sec.” And I thought about it. I was creating that anxiety. There was no reason she had to write that thank-you note. It was me taking a wonderful experience and turning it into a situation where she had to do or be more. Ouch. So I backtracked and said, “You know what? You don’t need to write a thank-you note. The only thing you need to do is enjoy feeling grateful.” That’s it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing a thank-you note. But there was no need or requirement for it either. I was stunned at how slick my own “should” was at sliding itself in there. And how easy it is to pass on the “do more, be more” message.

 A “should” is all the things we’ve ever heard or been taught about how we don’t measure up. It’s the world’s sneaky, gigantic countermove trying to keep us from who we are. When you move away from should, you move toward yourself. When you start to let go of all the shoulds (I should be a better mom, wife, daughter, friend, artist, writer, manager, leader. I should be smarter. I should be thinner, prettier, sexier, stronger, faster. I should be better with money. I should be able to remember names. I should have known. I should have done this differently. Whatever your personal list of “shoulds” are) you make room for a whole lot of love and acceptance. Then you have two hands free to hang on to yourself.

Guest post: Awesome advice from a betrayed wife

"Steam" often comments to this site, offering up her experience as a guide to others, and supporting those who aren't as far along the path as she. 
She wrote this awhile back and it's so succinct and compassionate, that I requested her permission to re-post it so that more can read it.
I love that this site has become a hub for so many who feel isolated and confused. I love how respectful we all are of each other's experiences, always recognizing that we each need to walk our own paths.
Thanks, Steam, for helping make this such a great space.
~Elle


I was immediatly diagnoised with PTSD in our 1st MC session. Our counselor made it very clear to my husband that my reaction to his selfish and fucked up action was completely NORMAL, not that that makes you feel instantly better, but it was good to have a name for it. Reliving it over and over again is hard to avoid when you cannot stop thinking about it. I am 10 months out this week and I have done my best to "reclaim" the places and things that gave me joy, that he stole, that I thought he had stolen forever. Since most of his affair was online with only three in-person meetings – when they met (in another country) and two months later when they had sex twice (in another country) –  there is not much to reclaim. All I have asked is that he NOT take me to the place they had their one dinner. He said it was bad anyway and he would never go again, good I dont need to go there, it was never mine to begin with. I am starting to feel safe again, and although I cannot ever trust him again like I did when I was blind, I do trust him a lot more. I no longer hit every e-mail address and social media page of his every day or even every week, I no longer search for her online. But I watch the cell phone bill like a madwoman. Something I never ever checked which had all I ever needed to know.
I feel a lot more like a better me, and our relationship has changed so drastically it's almost a miracle. And the hardest part to admit? It was not just him who had to change. I had to do my part too.  

If you are brand new to this, don't think YOU need to do that immediately. You need to heal and he needs to help. It's only then that you can find a better version of yourself...she is in there, I promise. 

It's not your fault, it was never your fault, you are not the one who cheated. You are not the one who risked everytihng, so just take it minute by minute – don't rush it – go through it, not around or over or under it, and if you have a new relationship with your partner (we could never have found one without counseling, relish it. 
BTW, I had EMDR about 20 years ago and it was quite astonishing. If I was still living in the land of PTSD I would not hesitate, but first I wanted to beat my H up in counseling for a while. 
lol  
Look at that, I just laughed. You will too...you will get through this unless your husband is an absolute a-hole and you are with a bad man, not a good man with issues and mistakes. Hang in there if he is worth staying with – and he will show you if he is – and thrive.  

All I have wanted to do other than save my own relationship was to be able to help others who have been through this. The spark came while I was googling within hours of finding out on that horrible d-day. I was of the school "once a cheater, always a cheater" and "if anyone ever did that to ME, he would be gone SO fast".  

Arent we all?

But when he DID do that to me, I gave him an immediate (and I add, loud and hysterical) choice he had to make – her or me. When I saw the absolute devestation in HIS eyes, seeing what he had done to ME, seeing his tears, hearing his words, feeling his absolute remorse, sadness, and looking into an opening into his soul I had never ever ever seen before. When I locked myself in the bedroom and he sat outside talking to me through the window, I surprised mySELF when I realized that even though I could not touch him or look at him right NOW, I wanted him to stay.
I wanted to know if we could survive this.  
I wanted to know I would be ok (because how could I EVER be ok again??) 
I wanted HOPE. 
and this was the only place I found it.  

I hated the name "club" – lol. I thought it would be just another husband bashing site, but it was not. [Elle's] words, as someone who had been through this, gave me HOPE – her essays and her links and her answers to others – so much wisdom and compassion, smart funny and sarcastic, but not bitter – it gave me what I needed. I wanted to get "there" where [she is], and I am on my way.  

No one could have told me that I would ever get through this, but honestly, somewhere on this blog that very first day – [Elle] actually did.

~Steam

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.

Fool Me Once...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Or so goes the old adage.
We were fooled once. We were fooled and lied to and deceived. It brought us to our knees. It damn near killed us. And there is no way in hell we're going to be fooled again.
So we put up our guard. We're on constant alert. Did he look me in the eye when he came home last night? Is he checking his phone more than usual? Is that a new cologne he's wearing?? Was he really working late?
We might check his computer, even if we haven't in years. We might sneak a look at his phone.
Even if we've let our guard down, even when we think we can finally relax into a marriage that has been rebuilt, made stronger by the storm it weathered, the slightest something-not-quite-right can send us spiralling back into our conviction that we must NEVER be fooled again.
I've been there. And, in fact, am there.
My husband thinks he's ready to kick his therapy. Over the past six years since D-Day, he's seen a sexual addiction specialist, done EMDR, attended work-benefit-supplied emergency counselling and, finally, a Jungian psychoanalyst. So yes, a lotta therapy. (Though, frankly, he was a lotta messy.)
In that same time, I've watched a man who frequently swung between childlike fear and superhero-like faux invincibility become balanced. I've heard him tell clients that he simply can't meet them in the evenings because that's his family time. I've seen him, finally, stand up to his mother. He pauses to take a breath before he responds to our child's requests. He find humor in what might have infuriated him. He's found space in his heart to learn to love himself with all his mistakes, which, of course, has allowed him to truly love me and our kids. He has wrestled his shame to the ground and though it sometimes resurfaces, he can recognize it and subdue it. In other words, he's a very different man than the one who confessed to me not only an affair but many.
Still...my own fear is awakening. Without that constant check-in with a therapist, I wonder if he'll lose his way. Without being guided along the path, I worry that he'll lose his way. In short, I worry that I'll be fooled again.
And that's the danger. Not that I will be fooled, necessarily, but that the possibility is always lurking in a shadow.
And the reason it's a danger is because it keeps us hostage to the fear. It doesn't, of course, alter the outcome. If we're gonna be fooled again, well it's not because we didn't check his e-mail often enough, or weren't vigilant enough. It's because the person who was broken enough to fool us the first time, is still broken. (And, perhaps, because we didn't set clear enough boundaries around our hearts the first time by insisting that he seek help in whatever form you felt he needed -- by kicking drugs, entering a 12-step program, seeking therapy, finding a new job...)
There are, I'm sad to say, no guarantees. No way to be certain that we'll never feel that heartbreak again – whether from the man who first fooled us, or from a new man. There is only our hard-won knowledge that IF we are to feel our hearts break again, we can trust our own strength to put them back together.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and you're really only fooling yourself.

"It's a Deal-Breaker"...and Other Things We Don't Always Mean

My friend, who doesn't know about my husband's affairs, dropped by the other day in search of a cup of warm tea and consolation. She had married her high-school sweetheart...and four of her closest friends had married theirs. Of the other four, all marriages were crumbling because of cheating, the wives in two cases, the husbands in the other two.
Her world was rocked. She was aghast at how rampant infidelity seemed to be. Why? she kept asking me. Why would these people risk their families for affairs. And, the mother of three added wryly, where the hell do they find the time?
I offered up platitudes, and women's-magazine wisdom. I mumbled about feeling broken and seeking wholeness outside. I suggested short-sightedness. I think I even said something about Facebook and predatory ex-girl/boyfriends.
"I told my husband it's a deal-breaker," she said emphatically. "I told him that if he ever cheats on me to not bother to come home. I said I'd cut off his penis, feed it to him and then take everything he's got."
I smiled. My friend is, despite her fighting words, one of the most compassionate people I know. I've no doubt she'd respond with anger should such infidelity occur – many of us express fear and hurt through anger.
But I think her husband's penis would be safe.
The thing, though, with ultimatums is that it often creates exactly the type of scenario we're trying to avoid: one in which one partner decides that lying to the other is preferable to potentially hurtful honesty.
I understand my friend's thinking...because it was my thinking, too. I was sure that if my husband believed that I would be out the door at the first whiff of infidelity, he'd never dream of it.
Thing is, anyone who engages in affairs generally isn't thinking too clearly and they're certainly not thinking they'll get caught. So consequences aren't really part of the equation. At least not at first. And then, if they do experience a crisis of conscience or someone else stumbles onto their secret, rather than come clean, they have thoughts of "But she'll KILL me!" and instead go to often ridiculous lengths to conceal it further.
All quite amusing in a slapstick kinda way...unless it's happening to you.
I confess I can't really offer up a solution except to note that it's frequently the marriages in which one partner thinks the marriage is invincible to an affair that are often the most vulnerable. Thinking that you've "affair-proofed" your marriage because your spouse is too afraid of your wrath to risk an affair is naive at best. The truth is, good marriages fall prey to infidelity. And good people do bad things.
The best way to affair-proof your marriage is to acknowledge that it's possible, statistically even likely, that your marriage will experience infidelity. Then work hard to create an atmosphere of honesty so that potential dangers can be discussed openly and thwarted before they cause problems. It's hard for one partner to feel warmly toward someone whom both partners in the marriage acknowledge as a threat to the union. It keeps you both on the same team, which is critical to a healthy marriage.

Resurrecting Ourselves: Telling Our Story

Forgive the Easter allusion, though rebuilding ourselves after betrayal can sometimes feel as insurmountable and potentially miraculous as a resurrection. It can seem too incredible that we'll actually heal from this...and go on to a better life. Yet it can happen. Not without plumbing the depths of our souls...but it can happen.
Part of it, I believe, comes from telling our story. As any trauma specialist with tell you, most people who've experienced trauma feel the need to go over the details again and again and again. It seems counterintuitive. That reliving it would cause more pain. Yet in fact, it's the opposite. By telling our story, it loses its power over us. It becomes part of our history, simply another part, like the story of our first day of school, or getting our driver's licence. Well, maybe not exactly like that. Of course, the story of our betrayal tends to be a bit...ummm...emotionally loaded.
I was reminded of the healing power of telling our story recently. My husband, who has his own therapist to work on finding better ways of dealing with negative feelings than having sex with people who aren't his wife, was discussing this blog with said therapist. He told me she suggested that it might be unhealthy for me to continually be talking about the betrayal, thinking about it, writing about it, yada yada yada. I was stunned. How, I wondered, could he not see the change in me since I started this blog?
Sure, I still have dark days...but they're fewer and further between. I've gone off anti-depressants. I'm feeling stronger, more focussed, just...better.
I credit much of this to being able to tell my story. I felt fraudulent before. Like I was pretending to be someone I wasn't: A happily married wife to a man who would never cheat. This blog offered up a place to be the me who had survived betrayal. Who could speak (write?) candidly. Share stories. Commiserate with others. Have a giggle or two about stupid lines cheating men offer their beleaguered wives. To allow other betrayed wives the chance to blog about their own experiences. It felt wonderful. Liberating. Healing. Dare I say, I felt resurrected.
It's a familiar refrain from men who've cheated who, frankly, don't want to be reminded of what they did and would love nothing more than to sweep the whole affair (pun intended) under the rug. You're dwelling on it, they say. You need to move on, they urge. It's not good for us; we need to focus on the future.
Well, the past has a way of biting us in the ass if we don't process it firmly enough. So tell your story. Share with anyone you can trust. Tell it over and over and over until it loses its power over you and you can add the ending. And then she lived happily ever after. Or more accurately, she lived wisely ever after.

How Much More Can ANY of Us Take? The Infidelity Epidemic...

Bonnie Fuller, who has carved a career out of dumbing down magazines and saturating the newsstands with gossip, is calling on Sandra Bullock to "stop hiding" and "get sweet revenge." While I appreciate the sentiment ("you go, girl! We've got your back now!"), I object to the relentless "advice" publicly betrayed wives must endure. The recent People mag, featuring a beleaguered but determined looking Elizabeth Edwards, and with a cover line that reads "How much more can she take?" strikes me as far more supportive than calls to "get even" or "show him what he's missing," however well-intentioned these comments are.
Unless you've experienced betrayal, getting dolled up and smiling for the cameras can seem like an awesome idea. Flirt with some good-looking guy. Get photographed getting cosy and looking hot... Great plan. Except...it's not.
Putting on lipstick can seem like a Herculean task in the days following betrayal. Those who've been there know how bewildering the world seems. "You want me to get out of bed? And eat breakfast? And who are these kids and why are they calling me 'mom'?" You live in a world of sand and fog where nothing seems solid or safe, nor ever will be again. You hesitate before answering the phone. Or opening an e-mail, for fear of another disclosure.
So, please, give the girl a break. Give them all a break. And ourselves a break, while we're at it. Let Sandra and all the members of the Betrayed Wives' Club do whatever necessary to just get through the day. We'll get our groove back in our own sweet time.

I Know Why Buddha's Laughing: Lessons I've Learned Through Betrayal

"It's not what you call me...but what I answer to."~African Proverb

It's amazing the wisdom that comes out of Africa. Perhaps because it is an old country...with many generations of lessons. Or perhaps it's from having to endure such hardship over the centuries. As Buddha said, "Out of suffering comes great lessons."
Sometimes, though, I'd like to give Buddha a kick in his serene ass. We no doubt wish we could attain wisdom in ways a little less painful. Cause betrayal hurts like hell. The challenge, though, is in not letting it kill your soul.
It almost killed mine.
Though I'd gone through, I thought, my share of life's hurdles, all the wisdom I'd gained seemed to vanish in the face of betrayal. I can now see that I viewed my husband as more than he could be. Because I so desperately wanted to believe I was safe, that marriage would protect me from so much of the hurt I'd experienced in life, I had given up my own strength. Or at the very least neglected it.
Then came the day when it crashed. And I, always so calm in a crisis, was calm. And remained that way for about a week. Then the shock wore off.
And the lessons were forgotten: the ones about looking within for wholeness, about allowing others to be who they are without taking responsibility for it, about compassion for self. Poof. Gone. In its place were recriminations. I was either blaming him for letting me down...or myself for believing in him. Neither stance was very productive.
It was, though, necessary.
Our learning doesn't come to use in clear, easy-to-follow lessons. I learned that I was more disappointed in myself for not listening to my instincts than I was in my husband for his betrayal. Betrayal of self is the least forgivable.
But it is forgivable.
And now that I've pulled myself out of the shadows of betrayal, the lessons are clear.
Trust myself. Wishing people were different doesn't make them so. And that it's my choice whether to be my friend...or betray myself. I choose friend.

Past Imperfect

I recently spotted a contest in a magazine. All I had to do was tell the story of when I knew my husband loved me...and I could win a trip to the Cayman Islands. It's January. In Canada. Cold. Grey. I could really use a trip to the Cayman Islands.
Problem is...I can't quite come up with a story of when I knew my husband loved me. I always thought he did...but in the cold light of betrayal, it's really, really hard to believe it. Harder still to expect others to believe it.
Reconciling our past, with our present and future is tricky after betrayal. While it may have been a one-night-stand or a long protracted affair complete with I-Love-Yous, we can never quite recall our history the same way.
For someone like me – who always saw the world in black and white – the tendency to rewrite my past, with my husband as villain and me as unsuspecting martyr, was strong. But did little to propel me forward toward healing.
The truth was always somewhere in the middle. Though my husband did love me, he was also resentful of me – and responded in pretty crappy ways. Which – no surprise! – is why I'm here.
For awhile, I couldn't even look at any photos taken before D-Day. They represented a fiction. Driving past the church where we were married was unthinkable. It only reminded me of pain, not promise.
And you won't find me looking through my wedding album. As far as I'm concerned, those photos belong to someone else. My wedding ring remains in a drawer and won't grace my ring finger again.
But I accept that was my past, as imperfect as it turned out to be. And I try hard to ensure it doesn't color my present. Today I'm building a future with my husband based on honesty. Today I'm mom to my three awesome kids who wouldn't exist if not for my imperfect past. Today I'm still not sure enough about "the moment" I knew my husband loved me enough to win a contest. What I am sure is that love is made up of many, many moments...
And that I won't be vacationing in the Cayman Islands anytime soon.

Surviving to Thriving: How to Get from Here...to There

"Survival," my wise and wonderful friend Merri said, "is a good skill. But it's not a good life skill."
So often, she explained, we behave in ways that serve us well in a crisis...but do us a disservice once the crisis dies down. For example, surviving in the early days of discovering a spouse's betrayal can enable you to function in your job and ensure that your kids don't go hungry or get abandoned. It can prevent you from seeking continually seeking solace at the bottom of a wine bottle or bag of Oreos. But it's no way to live the rest of your life.
Betrayal, however, can be so devastating that it triggers a crisis response that doesn't go away with time – especially if a spouse continues with his gaslighting ("you're crazy", "you're just being jealous", "you're trying to control who I'm friends with" blah blah blah) or openly continues the affair.
When it goes on too long, our survival coping strategies – minimizing, denial, compartmentalization – start to feel normal to us. We stop noticing the knot in our stomach when our spouse comes home late without explanation. We ignore our feelings of powerlessness in favor of keeping the peace.
And it's not a bad thing...during a crisis. Sometimes it's all we can do to keep ourselves functioning until we can figure out a plan. Perhaps we need to go back to school to ensure we're employable if we decide to separate or divorce. Maybe we need to upgrade our skills. Put aside some money. Find somewhere else to live. See a lawyer and learn our rights. Get therapy for ourselves and insist that your spouse does too.
The key is recognizing that our crisis response only works in the short-term. Our goal in life shouldn't be to survive...but to thrive. And if you aren't thriving in your marriage then it's time to come up with a plan.
And that, wives of betrayal, is why an affair can sometimes be a good thing. It can force us to face the fact that, on some level, our marriages aren't working. Likely not just for one partner, but both.
Yes, an affair is an immature and wildly selfish response on our husband's part. Yes, it's brutally painful.
But if it means we take a hard look at our lives and spurs us to action, then perhaps it's a painful lesson. Survival is for reality show contestants. Thriving is for real life.

He wants to save the marriage? Show him the new rule book

So he's admitted his affair. And is assuring you it's over. And that, he's telling you, is all you need to know. Doesn't matter that you're asking for more information. Doesn't matter that he's clearly lied to you in the past. That's all behind him now. And it's for your own good, he insists. It'll hurt you to know more, he says.
Problem is, the rules have changed. And he needs to know that. He's no longer the one determining what will hurt you, or what you need to know. I clearly recall my then-5-year-old daughter telling her little brother, "I'm the one in charge here." And guess what! You're now the one in charge here.

You decide what affair details you need
Not to suggest you be dictatorial...well, actually, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. We trusted our spouses and they let us down. Blind trust is gone, never to be seen again in these parts. Mature trust – trust that is earned through your spouse repeatedly doing and saying what he honestly did and said – can bloom. But not until you get the answers you need and he starts giving them to you.
The thing is, cheaters feel lousy. Unless they're psychopaths, they know what they did was hurtful and selfish. And by giving you the details of that, they're forced to acknowledge that not only to you (who kinda already knows) but to themselves. It's a lot easier to stay mum, and pretend it's because they don't want to hurt you. They already have! But to face that hurt in your eyes again and again feels crappy.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any couples who have successfully put their marriage back together without this brutally painful step. As one wise soul said, during her husband's affair, the door was shut to her. She didn't know about it, couldn't ask about it. Now's the time, she said, to open the windows to her and shut the door to the affair partner.

Don't go "pain shopping"
I'll add in a caveat, however. There is such a thing as too much information. Some call it "pain shopping" and it's a compulsive need for more and more detail. I was certainly guilty of it in the early days following disclosure.
The danger is you can't "un-know" something, no matter how painful. After a while (I'm a slow learner!), I came up with my 24-hour rule. If I wanted to ask my husband something about his infidelity, I made myself wait 24 hours (give or take...). If I STILL wanted to know a day later, or could even remember what the question was, I proceeded and he answered honestly.
Most times, the question had faded from my mind...indicating to me that it wasn't something I needed to know but rather "pain shopping."
To my husband's credit (I do give him some, now and again :) ), he recognized that I deserved to decide what information I wanted.

The new rules?
You decide what information you want.
You demand total transparency going forward. (More to come on this in an upcoming post.)
His job is to support you as much as possible in your healing. And, believe me, it's not a job for the faint of heart.

Why do men cheat? The media tells us why...

Of course, it's not just the media who blames wives: for getting fat, for getting old, for nagging at their husbands to pick up their dirty underwear, for any number of reasons that others tell themselves (and the world) in order to delude themselves into thinking this particular hell couldn't possibly happen to them.

Problem is, they're almost always wrong. Even if the husbands themselves believe they're cheating because their wife isn't as sexy as she used to be, or as fun as she used to be, or as (fill in blank here) as she used to be, the reality is that he's cheating because something is missing in him. Something he thinks he'll find in another relationship or in a distraction.

But whatever he thinks he's doing -- or why -- don't fall into the trap of taking responsibility. If you want to make changes to feel better about yourself, that's great. But far too many of us change out of some misguided belief that if we were smarter/prettier/skinnier/fill in adjective here, then he wouldn't have cheated.

Me? I started dressing like a geriatric Britney Spears in a misguided attempt to feel sexy. Some even go so far as to undergo plastic surgery -- neither cheap nor painless. But when the scars healed, they were still themselves (albeit not quite so tired looking) and they still had to heal their hearts.

My advice: Focus on getting strong. Being kind to yourself. And treating yourself with respect.

It might be harder than surgery. But the effects will last a lifetime.

And baby makes...an explosive secret!

It's rare for me to read an advice column in which adultery is discussed and actually agree with the columnist. More often, the advice seems to come from a 1950s "How to be a Housewife" manual, in which women are chastised for not looking pretty enough when their husband comes home from a tough day at the office to keep his eye from straying to his perky secretary.

Dear Prudence is an exception, particularly in dealing with an especially messy situation: when the affair produces a child.

The advice-seeker relays a situation in which her father had an affair, which produced a son. The family stayed together, mother knew of the other child but never acknowledged him, and the children were never told a thing.

Bet you can see where this is going...

Years later, the children are adults, the father has developed a relationship with his son, the mother is angry and dad finally 'fesses up to his kids that he "broke his marriage vows." (Interesting how clinical adulterers get when describing what they did!)

The advice-seeker was justifiably confused and questioning whether her whole childhood was a lie.

And therein lies the power of secrets.

I get that some things need to be secret -- such as my PIN number for my bank card. But trying to keep the lid on other secrets inevitably blows up, leaving nothing but pain and destruction in its wake. Just ask John Edwards.

The damage wrought by an affair creates enough to overcome; and dealing with a child -- a constant reminder of the betrayal -- compounds that pain, at least initially. However, there are times -- and this is one -- where we're called upon to be Bigger People. Where the life of an innocent child trumps anyone else's agony.

It sucks.

But, as my grandfather often said, the right thing is rarely the easy thing.

I know of a situation in which the betrayed wife sought custody of the twins her husband had with his affair partner, a drug addict. I have nothing but respect -- and awe -- for such a choice, yet the wife would be the first to tell you her life has been enriched enormously by the children. We can't all be Mother Theresa, but we can be honest with our own children (at an age when it's appropriate) and our families in order to ensure that an innocent child has the best possible chance in life. After all, surely by now, we've figured out that secrets slowly poison the soul.