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.

Can "I'm Sorry" Save Your Marriage After Infidelity?

"For every woman still waiting for an apology," are among the first words you'll read when you open Eve Ensler's book The Apology. Ensler suffered abuse from her father for most of her childhood and youth. Her father died without ever uttering anything resembling an "I'm sorry". Ensler felt caged by the lack of apology and so she found the key to free herself. 
A whole lot of us find ourselves in a similar situation, with a spouse or an ex-spouse who either can't or won't take the necessary steps to apologize to us. I'm not talking about an apology spat out, or one that's really a plea for forgiveness. But a true apology, one that offers a full accounting of the harm done and a genuine reckoning. One that leaves the apologizer unwilling to ever do that to another person again because they cannot, they will not be that person. 
I'm often asked why I stayed with my husband after the harm he caused. Year after year of cheating, lie after lie. And when I look back at those early weeks and months after D-Day, there are a few moments that stand out. Including the day that he told me, whether I stayed with him or left, he was committed to getting emotionally healthy. He could not, he would not remain the same person who could betray someone he loved. 
A genuine apology is a rare thing. In part, as Ensler says, we are not taught to apologize when we are children. I cringe when I hear a parent admonish a child to "say you're sorry", followed by a sullen "I'm sorry" that carries not one iota of self-reflection or genuine remorse. 
And to apologize for breaking someone's trust, their heart? Where to even begin? And so the harm is minimized. It's part cowardice, part survival strategy. As one of our Twitter tribe, whose wife cheated on him, noted after his wife read this post, she felt like a "monster". But then, he added, the next day she wanted to read it again.
Because within that admission, that willingness to confess the monster's sins as your own, lies liberation. If we don't exorcise whatever is driving us to behave in ways that cause harm to those we love, then we will continue to be controlled by it. There are three stages through a genuine apology, Ensler tells us. The first is a willingness to look at what drove the behaviour, to "self-interrogate," she says. Not excuses but understanding. "What made you a person capable of [inflicting such harm]." The second is a "detailed accounting" of the harm. "Liberation only comes through the details," says Ensler. 
Though Ensler is speaking primarily to sexual assault survivors, her words hold true for those of us abused via betrayal. "Survivors," she says, "are often haunted by the why." What we need is not justification but explanation. I often urge women on this site to let go of the why, in part because the cheater so often is baffled himself. He doesn't know why he risked everything that mattered for someone who, ultimately didn't. His job, of course, is to find out. But know this: The 'why' is rarely what our culture tells us. It is rooted in the cheater's own dysfunction, his own wound. Hurt people hurt people.
And the third – a stage few reach – is liberation. An unshackling of the apologizer. A release for the apologized to. 
That's what I got in those moments that I can remember so clearly after D-Day. Those were the moments when my husband made clear that he was committed to becoming a man who could not, would not do that again. When he said to me that he never wanted to see such pain in my eyes again and know that he had created it. When he showed up at his 12-step groups, when he worked with therapists. It wasn't so much an "I'm sorry" in words (though there was that, as well) as an apology in action. I saw his "I'm sorry" more than heard it. 

But what if he won't apologize? 

What are you seeing? Are you seeing someone interrogate themselves (ideally with the help of a trained therapist)? Are you seeing someone willing to go through the shame and discomfort of examining why they hurt someone they claim to value?

If not, can I ask you gently why you're continuing to live on crumbs? If not, why do you have any expectation that things in the future will be different than the past?

If so, can you be satisfied with an "I'm sorry" in actions not words? If so, are you confident that the future will be different from the past because the future him will be different than the past him?
And if you find yourself left, without an apology, without a marriage, then what? Then you unshackle yourself. You can do what Ensler did and put yourself in your ex'es shoes and determine what made him incapable of healthy, generous love. You learn to pity him. Or you accept that you might never know and instead focus your energy on self-care, self-compassion, self-love. 

An apology can create space for compassion. Without it, you will have to create that space for yourself. You can learn to forgive yourself for not knowing, for not having seen it, for having trusted someone unworthy of your trust. And then, you can move forward, liberated. 

Five Ways Betrayed Wives are Silenced

Few of us were prepared for the onslaught of emotions brought on by the discovery of our husband's cheating. Most of us expected we'd be angry. Most of us knew we'd be hurt. But far fewer of us anticipated the brought-to-our-knees agony we've experienced, the I-can-barely-breathe collapse of our world.

Over and over, I've read stories from women who never predicted how devastated they'd be. Who couldn't have imagined how emotionally crippled they'd feel for weeks, months, even years.

A big part of the problem is that we rarely see the impact of infidelity on the betrayed wife. Pop culture shows us angry women (cue "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood). It gives us the vapid fluff of The Other Woman. But rarely do we see the empty-eyes, the rapid weight loss, the isolation of the betrayed wife.

We don't anticipate the shock of finding out we've been deceived. According to a recent Psychology Today story, "Those who have been lied to 'castigate themselves about why they didn’t suspect what was going on... The emotions they feel, while seemingly more benign than those of the perpetrator, may in the long run be more corrosive: humiliation, embarrassment, a sense of having been naïve or blind, alienation from those who knew the truth all along and, worst of all, bitterness.”

As the Psychology Today story puts it, "Friends often unconsciously blame the victim, asking whether the betrayed person really ‘knew at some level’ what was going on and had just been ‘in denial’ about it.”  

One psychotherapist in the article who works with those who've been duped points out that our situation makes other people uncomfortable. We should have seen the signs. We were, in a sense, asking for it.

We're just as hard on ourselves. How could we be so stupid? How did we not see the signs? Ironically it's often those who are convinced that they would absolutely know if their husband was cheating (I thought my husband was incapable of lying to me) who are most susceptible. If there are signs, we are adept at ignoring them because they don't fit our narrative about ourselves and our spouses.

Also, what's happened to us makes people uncomfortable. Nobody wants to acknowledge their own vulnerability. Nobody can imagine that, if it did happen to them, they would be so devastated. Pull yourself together, they seem to think. 

All of which contributes to silencing us. Whether we're silencing ourselves, being silenced by the perceived judgement of our social circle, or by our culture at large, the end result is that we're left to deal with our pain in a vacuum. 

Consider some of these messages:

"Anyone who stays with a cheater is pretty much asking for more of the same": Ah yes, the ol' "once a cheater, always a cheater" cliché. It puts so many of us in a bind. If we stay, we're pretty much shamed for doing so because only a doormat would put up with that, right? And yet, studies show that plenty women choose to stay, more than half. Why then this pervasive myth that the only smart way to respond to infidelity is to kick him to the curb?

Our culture supports this narrative. Revenge is so much more satisfying than working it out. So much cleaner. Wipe your hands of the jerk and move into a blissful future.

At least that's the fantasy. The reality is that sometimes it takes a horrible mistake to move us to a place where we recognize what needs to change. Sometimes we want to give second chances. Sometimes those second chances lead to happiness. Unfortunately those are the stories relegated to the shadows. And even if we know of them, we rarely know the details of just how a couple was able to recover. And so, when we choose to stay (or choose to wait and figure out what we want before reacting), we remain silent.

"I suppose you're perfect, right? Never make a mistake, right? Must be nice to be so perfect." Anger is a really effective way to silence someone. It's called a countermove and if we don't recognize it, we quickly find ourselves assuring our spouse that, no, we don't think we're perfect and falling all over ourselves to not seem all judgey and morally superior. Thing is, he cheated. And while it's a shame that discussing it reminds him that he's a cheater, it doesn't change the fact that he cheated. And we didn't. And we're devastated by it. We need to talk about that if we're going to actually rebuild a marriage based on honesty and transparency.

Talking about what he did is a cheating spouse's least favorite thing to do in the world. Far better he thinks, would be to just chalk it up to something he's sorry for and move on. Except that we know that doesn't work. It leaves us resentful and silenced and unable to fully heal. And it leaves him without any genuine insight into why he cheated and therefore likely to make the same mistake, even when he swears he won't.

No, we're not perfect. But we didn't cheat. And that's what we're talking about here. Not perfection. But cheating. And why it happened. So stop changing the subject.

"Listen to you. You're hysterical. I can't take it anymore." Ooooh boy. How many of us have been called "hysterical"? Or "crazy". Or "out of control". I was called those things, which wasn't surprising because I was all those things. The truly crazy thing is that our spouses didn't expect that. They didn't expect hysterical or crazy or out of control. They might have expected anger. They undoubtedly expected they'd be tossed out (which is why they went to such great lengths to hide what they were doing or to minimize it or to mete out the details so that they could pretend it wouldn't be as bad). But they likely didn't expect the full-on craziness that is life post D-Day. Well...neither did we.

And since calling a woman "crazy" is such a stereotypical way of shutting a woman up, men tend to use it. They are frightened by our level of insanity post D-Day. So are we. But calling us crazy or hysterical is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Instead, what would be so much more helpful and conducive to actually having a productive discussion around this is for our cheating spouse to acknowledge that hysteria is actually a pretty valid way to respond to emotional devastation. That of course we feel crazy. That of course the world feels terrifying. Don't silence our craziness, call it into the room to explain itself.

"You're making me feel horrible. I've said I'm sorry. Do I have to pay for it the rest of my life?" Like anger, self-pity tends to silence us as well. Its aim is to evoke our sympathy. To make us wonder if we're making too big a deal about it. He said he was sorry, after all. Shouldn't that be enough? Puh-leeze. There aren't enough "sorry"s in the world to make up for cheating. In fact, nothing will really "make up" for it. But many of us are willing to give cheaters a chance to respond with integrity, to become better men. We (eventually) accept that we'll likely never feel as though we're "even" but that becomes less important than simply rebuilding a solid, wonderful marriage based on respect and love and commitment. We come to a place where we're able to look forward instead of keeping an accounting of who's done whom more wrong. But we get to that place a whole lot faster (and a whole lot more likely to have our spouse by our side) when he's able to put aside his self-pity and listen to us. To stop making this about him and his feelings and instead focus on us and our feelings. He chose this. We didn't.

"I'd cheat if I was married to her too": Consider the kneejerk response to news of any public person's infidelity. One of the first things anyone wants to know is what the betrayed wife looked like or how old she was. If she was middle aged (or older) and looked it, well then, of course he cheated. If she was gorgeous, we figure she must have been a nag or frigid. We might acknowledge that the guy was a scumbag but even then it's typical to look for some indication that she kinda had it coming, even if it's simply that she should have known he was a cheat and left him long ago.

It's up to us to recognize the ways in which we're silenced – or silence ourselves – and challenge that. It doesn't mean we have to shout our pain from the rooftops. But it does mean we have to recognize that our pain is valid. That's it's normal. That it deserves to be seen and heard, at least by those closest to us. We have to know that there might be pushback. There are many people who are threatened by or at the very least uncomfortable with our pain. 

But this is our story. Nobody else's. And so we get to tell it.

Letting Go of Heavy: Sometimes healing means putting down the pain

You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.  ~ C. JoyBell C.

At first, when we realize the pain has dulled, that pleasure, even slivers of it, have returned to our days, we rejoice. This, we figure, is what all those people were talking about. A new marriage. A better one. A partner whose awareness that he almost lost it all has invigorated his dedication, his determination to deserve the second chance we're offering.
But then we settle into a new normal. No longer the high highs or the devastating lows, life has regained its equilibrium. Our husband has shown himself worthy again of trust. We're often grateful for things that, perhaps, we weren't before.
The longer we go, however, without the drama and the intensity of D-Day and its aftermath, the more space there is for doubt to creep in.
He's 20 minutes late coming home for picking up pizza. Where was he really? He quickly puts down his phone when we enter the room. He shuts his laptop. The waitress at a restaurant seems to give him a look.
Or maybe he gets annoyed at us for moving some papers of his that he now can't find. Or frustrated that we forgot to fill the car up with gas.
Wait a minute, we think. He cheated on us! How dare he make me feel bad for, well, anything. He owes me bliss!!
And, frankly, yes, yes he does. But you ain't gonna get it. None of us is. The universe doesn't operate that way. Bliss comes in moments, not lifetimes.
The problem is that many of us think that, if we do the incredibly hard work of rebuilding our marriage, of giving him a second chance, of facing down our friends and family who think we're crazy for sticking it out, that we'll be rewarded with a better-than-ever marriage. Many betrayed wives have sites that essentially promise that an affair has actually made their marriage better. And while I'm on board with the possibility that rebuilding a marriage is just as viable an option post-infidelity as leaving the marriage, we have to be careful that we don't gloss over just how difficult marriage – any marriage! – is. To expect that marriage, post-betrayal, is going to be sunshine and roses is to set all of us up for disappointment.
And disappointment can feel crushing after all we've been through. Disappointment can feel like a dagger after so many indignities.
Preparing for it, though, can help us through its inevitable appearance.
I don't mean disappointment because he lied. Or disappointment because he went out with his buddies on your birthday. Or disappointment that he can't keep his temper in check. There are valid reasons to call  him out for being disrespectful and dishonest and giving you reason to reconsider your choice to stay.
No, I'm referring to the routine disappointments of life. He forgets to ask how your day was. He doesn't bother to compliment you on your haircut or the great meal you cooked. He makes it clear that he'd rather stick needles in his eyes than go to your mothers for dinner.
Routine disappointments that deserve to be noted and your hurt shared...but are hardly deal-breakers.
Disappointments that all of us are guilty of because we get tired. We get grumpy. We take those we love for granted now and again.
Disappointments that we need to let go because they're part of the ebb and flow of life. Because we're human.
A big part of healing from betrayal is learning what we need to let go, what weight we need to put down. It can be tricky. And it can be helpful to have friends, either in real life or virtual, that you can trust to help you with this. Should I have lambasted him when he was 10 minutes late because of a train? Or am I over-reacting? Is it reasonable for him to have dinner with his new female work colleague because they're on a project together or should he have said 'no'?
There are going to be bumps and missteps. You're going to over-react to some things and, sometimes,  under-react to legitimate red flags. You're going to have to figure some of this out as you go along.
But the more you can begin to let go, the more you can put down some of the weight you've been carrying, the more quickly you can move into a future that will have its share of downs, but also plenty of ups. Ups that you'll be better able to appreciate because you'll be present for them.