Guest post: Time – and you – can do amazing things

by StillStanding1

Time can do amazing things. A deep wound scabs over, and the scab becomes a scar, and then one day you look for the scar and it’s barely visible. ~Neil Gaiman

I’ve been noticing a theme in some of the comments lately, where many of the warriors here are feeling like they should be able to let go and forgive or their partners are pushing them to “get over it” and they feel badly for a) not being over “it” yet, or b) bringing “it” up all the time, or c) not feeling ready to forgive, or d) for still being triggered unexpectedly.

As if there is a timeline for healing. As if there is a set path that we all must follow to get “better” (i.e. healed). As if we are not allowed to feel our feelings. As if we are not allowed to grieve.

So many of us, in the wake of betrayal, rush to forgive. We want the pain to go away. We want this to never have happened. We think, “If I can just put this behind me, if I can just forgive, everything will go back to the way it was. Everything will be better.” But what does putting it behind you really look like? What does that even mean? And what is forgiveness?

I think there are some mistaken assumptions out there about what those things are. That once you get there everything will get and stay fixed. Destination. End. No more worries or pain. We get fed the same ideas around happiness. It’s just not how those things work. Happiness and forgiveness are not destinations. They are choices and places you pass through again and again. The past? This stuff we need to put behind us? Well, it already is in the past, but we will carry it with us until we deal with whatever unfinished business we have back there.

Before we get to forgiveness, there are some other stops we need to make first.

Grief. 

I mean goddamnit, we just had the rug pulled out, our lives were turned upside down, the person we most trusted completely and utterly failed us, broke our trust. When, exactly, should we magically be over that? It’s one of the most traumatic things that can happen to you. So much so that the trauma response gets its own acronym (PISD – Post Infidelity Stress Disorder). When someone gets a cancer diagnosis, we don’t walk around saying they should be over it already. So why should you be over “it” before you’ve processed your grief. You’ve experienced a loss. You get to grieve.

Anger. 

F#@k this sh!t. Amiright? What has happened in our lives, the hurt, the shame, the disappointment, the fear, the loss of safety, the health risks, all that garbage and our partners’ crappy choices are a big steaming pile. Be. Mad. About it. You are allowed. Sit with your anger. Let it rise and pass. You need to have it and then get it out of your body.

Acceptance. 

(Wait. What?) One of the most important tools that came my way early post d-day was the practice of radical acceptance. Because when you stop fighting reality, you suffer less. For me it took the form of accepting the conflicting feelings I was having and stopping the war inside myself. Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing, minimizing or letting our partners off the hook. It means moving from “this isn’t fair”, “this should not be happening” to "this is what happened". It is the first step in healing. In the early days I had to say things to myself like “I accept that I don’t want him to continue contact with the OW AND I accept that I have no control over whether he does or not.” “I accept that I don’t want to deal with this AND I accept that I am doing my best to deal with this.” “I accept that I love him AND I accept that I hate him.” “I accept that I am afraid AND I accept that I don’t want to be afraid.” I did this over and over until the list was exhausted. And I found that after I engaged in this practice, I felt less stressed, less pain.

Radical acceptance takes practice. You can start with little things AND you can begin to target your conflicts and ruminations around betrayal. Little things: sitting in traffic. Late for a doc appointment. You can rage against the cars, the people in the cars, the red light, but none of that changes your situation, doesn’t get you to the appointment any faster. All it does is increase your stress and pain. But if you tell yourself “I accept that I really don’t want to be late AND I accept that I have no control over this traffic that is making me late,” you’ll arrive less stressed. (This also ties in to the practice of compassion for self. You are doing the best that you can to get to the doc on time.) Around betrayal it could be: You are having an epic internal battle. “I will never trust him again… but I want to trust him.”  “He has hurt me so much… but I want him to make me feel better.” “I always thought I would leave if he cheated and now he has I don’t know what to do.” The next step is to accept your inner reality, that all these things are true.  “I should leave him AND I don’t want to leave him.” The reality is that it is OK to be feeling ambivalent.

You’ll pass through grief, anger (and depression, sadness, exhaustion, FTS) and acceptance more than once and not in that order. It’s different for each of us and such a personal process. Don’t worry whether you are doing it right. If you are breathing, you are doing it right.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~Lewis B. Smedes

A word on forgiveness. There’s a lot to it. It is complex and deserves its own post. What I will say here is that you have a lot of places to pass through before you even need to think about forgiveness. Forgiveness may happen, may eventually be something you do for yourself, but there’s a mess to sort and some healing to do first. Whether or not your partners can see that, support that or understand that. They do not get to decide what is best for you or where you should be emotionally at any given point. (Perhaps they, too, need to practice some radical acceptance. “I wish I didn’t have to see how much my choices have hurt my partner AND I need to support her healing, so I will have to witness how much I’ve hurt my partner.”) You are allowed to focus on you, what you need and your own healing process and not be beholden to their expectations or wish to avoid dealing with the harm they have done. Be kind to yourself. Accept not only that you are where you are but that you are exactly where you need to be.

Time. 

It can be a four letter word, especially when it comes to grief. But it can also do amazing things. Time on its own will not heal you. It’s what you do in that time and for yourself that heals you. But I promise, if you take care of you, in time you won’t feel like this. In time, you will have a day where betrayal is not the first thing you think of when you wake. In time, you will feel joy. In time, you will feel ready to let it go, to forgive. Just don’t rush to those things before their time.

"The wisdom, the roadmap, the hope"

A while back, Snowbird shared her story on the Feeling Stuck Part 14 forum (so many incredible women on this site). And she also shared this:

To those dealing with repeat offenders, I told H this: If you can't control your behavior, we might be friends but we won't be married. Therapy, medication and meetings were game-changers for him. 16 months and counting.
Hang in there, warriors. Before this site, I thought it was kick him to the curb or be a doormat. You’ve taught me that I can stay if the conditions are right. Thank you for the wisdom, the roadmap, the hope. 

When I read about healing on this site, there's often one common thread. Those who've managed to rebuild their marriages haven't done it through wishful thinking. They've drawn clear lines, they've made demands, they've insisted upon accountability. They've understood that giving someone a second chance is a gift. And that they get to decide whether their partners deserve that second chance. They've looked with critical eyes at what, exactly, their partner is doing to create the conditions for reconciliation. 

It looks almost easy from the outside, doesn't it? It looks like some people simply know the rules better than the rest of us. That they have access to a post-betrayal roadmap that the rest of us don't have. 

And maybe they do. Maybe that post-betrayal roadmap is something they've had all along. I suspect it is. Not something they can hold onto but something they just know: That they are worthy of respect and dignity and honesty. And it's from that place of knowingness, that place of valuing themselves that they are able to respond to their partner's betrayal. 

They may have moments of doubt. They might wonder fleetingly what's wrong with them that their partner cheated. They may slip into self-blame. But they manage to pull themselves away from that and remember: They are worthy. They are and have always been enough and if their partners can't remember that too then there's the door.

Try and imagine yourself responding from that place. Pretend you're that person. How would you respond differently? Would you be able to calmly make demands? Would you be able to make it clear that you have rules for reconciliation that he can either follow or leave? Would you be able to better feel the pain and the fear without losing yourself in it?

What I'm suggesting is so incredibly difficult for so many of us. But that difficulty comes from who we believe ourselves to be in the world. It comes from valuing the love of someone else over the love of ourselves...and that will always create a power imbalance in a marriage. It comes from fear that, if we don't make it "easy" to love us, then we won't be loved.

Snowbird refers to "repeat" offenders but I think her advice holds for all offenders. If you are asking me for a second chance, then here's the deal... And then lay it out. It's not about punishment. The idea isn't to create all sorts of conditions to punish him. It's to create a safe space in which you can rebuild trust, rebuild a marriage based on honesty. It's about loving yourself at least as much as you love the other person. 

It's about healing yourself through dignity and self-respect. No matter the outcome of your marriage, you will be loved if you're able to love yourself. 

Five "Friends" to Avoid After the Affair

Buh-bye old "friend". I bearly remember your name.

My apocalypse came in December 2006. My closest friend and I had a serious falling out over a project we were working on together, followed days later by the discovery of my husband's affair, followed two short weeks later by my mother falling into a coma and our family being advised to think about end-of-life measures. Oh yeah...and my publisher needed the final chapter of the book I was writing. I was racked with pain and fear. I have no idea how I finished the book, how I sat beside my mother's bedside (whispering in her ear that she couldn't die right now because I really really needed her), how I got up each day to feed and care for three kids under 10.

I told very few friends about my husband's affair because I could barely process it. One friend I did confide in, largely because her own marriage had been marked by infidelity and I thought she'd understand, was dismissive, which only compounded my sense of aloneness and pain. Another friend, not then a close one but someone who worked with my husband and his assistant (with whom my husband was having an affair), kept probing me. She could sense something wasn't right. I finally caved and told her what I'd found out. She was stunned. She'd never expected that. She was also so compassionate and became a pillar of support for me. (Unfortunately, she discovered for herself two years ago just how devastating betrayal is). 
It's when we're on our knees that we discover just who in our lives will kneel their with us. It can add to our pain, to learn that someone we counted us simply can't or won't be there for us. The friend who dismissed my pain was eventually – years later – able to acknowledge that she had let me down. She was able to see that she was still so blinded by her own pain and her choice to leave her marriage that she wasn't able to accept my choice to not leave. 
Not all friends get to that point. Not all friends are, well, friends. 
However, it's one of the unforeseen benefits of infidelity that we often become much more discerning about who we allow into our lives and our hearts. Once we begin to heal, we can often recognize those around us who are true friends and those who are...not.
For instance...
•There's the "friend" who uses your husband's behaviour as an excuse to cut you off. "I just can't be around you right now. I think what he did was terrible." Suddenly YOUR pain is about HER discomfort.
•There's the "friend" who compounds your loneliness because infidelity terrifies her. "I just can't imagine my husband doing such a thing." She's right. She can't imagine. And won't let herself because it might mean facing some uncomfortable truths, such as, even good marriages can be affected by infidelity.
•There's the "friend" who knows better than you do what your right path is. "Once a cheater, always a cheater. You need to get rid of him." Her cynicism and bitterness and, perhaps, her fear that you'll get hurt again and she can't protect you, leads her to encourage you to do what she wants you to do, instead of allowing you to find your own path.
•There's the "friend" who minimizes what your husband has done because she's cheated on her spouse. "All marriages come up against this. You need to let it go. He picked you, didn't he?" Seeing the devastation of infidelity up close brings up a lot of guilt.
•There's the friend who encourages you to leave your husband because that's what she did. "I don't know why anyone would stay. I certainly didn't." Accepting that it's possible for a marriage to heal from betrayal can make those who chose to leave – and aren't 100% sure of their choice – wonder if they made the wrong choice. My friend ultimately copped to this, admitting that she left her ex because she thought that was her only choice. She had no examples of anyone who'd stayed and made it work because nobody ever talked about that choice. Our cultural narrative rarely supports the healing/rebuilding option. And admittedly, it's tough. Really really tough. 
It can help to have true friend who's willing to hold you up while you figure out which way to go. Someone who's there to hold your hand through the bad days and celebrate the good ones. Someone who is in your life because he or she deserves to be there. Even friends who don't know what you're going through can offer much support in the form of distraction or small kindnesses. Their presence is enough. 
I often think of my post-betrayal life as one that has been curated by me. It's less random than before. I'm more discerning about how I spend my time (I've added the word "no" to my vocabulary as in, "thanks so much for asking but 'no', I won't be available to bake 350 cookies for your bake sale on Thursday." Or simply "no". As my therapist used to remind me, "No" is a complete sentence.). I'm much more discerning about those who are in my life. Gone are the "friends" who made passive-aggressive comments. Gone are those who were suddenly absent when my life fell apart. Gone are the gossips. Gone are the fair-weather friends. And you know what? I don't miss them.

Not in the least.