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.

Infidelity Grief: The Death of the Life You Thought Was Yours

Grief feels bigger than sadness, more all-encompassing, threatening to retrieve every shard of loss and sorrow from the past. It can feel like a weight on the chest, leaden limbs, dulled thinking. It veils the eyes and shutters out the light. It's physical; it yawns open its maw like a Grand Canyon slash in the earth. There is no crossing from one rim to respite on the other rim without going down into the wound.
~Kathy Karn, photographer/retired psychotherapist

One of the things we least expect to feel in the wake of betrayal is grief. Which is why so many of us don't recognize it even as we're experiencing it. Grief is about death, right? It seemed unfortunate on D-Day that my husband was very much alive. Being a widow struck me as far preferable to being a betrayed wife. But there he was, alive and appallingly well. So...why would I feel grief? 
Murderous rage? That made more sense. Sadness? Sure. But though I didn't recognize it for a very long time, I was grieving. And I didn't recognize it in part because our culture doesn't associate grief with infidelity. 
It should. Betrayal ushers in a death. Of the marriage we thought we had. The life we thought we knew. The man we thought we could trust. There's so much loss in betrayal. So much, yes, death. Hence...grief.
Dammit, huh? Cause grief doesn't take the short road. Grief meanders, never in a rush. It lingers. Which is bad news for those of us who just want this to be over. To get back to "normal". To move past this ache.
Psychotherapist Kathy Karn notes that grief feels all-encompassing, "like a Grand Canyon slash in the earth". We can imaging falling in but can scarcely believe we'll emerge. But the thing with grief, if we give ourselves the chance to trust the process, is that we'll not only emerge, we'll emerge carrying the seeds of transformation within us. 
It's a bittersweet thought. I remember hearing all of that "suffering makes us grow" stuff and even while I hoped it was true, I resented it. I didn't want to grow. I wanted to not be in so much pain. The idea of grief was more than could bear. It meant that this wasn't something I was going to "get over" quickly. Grief requires time and patience and I was out of both. 
The thing with grief, however, is that there's no fighting it. It casts its shadow over us whether we try to move into the sunlight or night. The best approach, we learn, is to stop resisting it. Stop pretending that this pain has a quick-fix, stop pretending that something didn't die. Stop pretending and give in to the reality that grief is going to be our companion for a long while.
And when we stop resisting grief, we can begin, well, grieving. We can remember to be more gentle with ourselves. We can try and judge ourselves less harshly. And when we allow ourselves to grieve – to feel the pain and the loss – our hearts become a wee bit less restricted. Like the hand squeezing them loosens its grip just slightly. And then slightly more. 
Because though grief doesn't gallop, it isn't immobile either. There is respite on the other side, as Karn reminds us, but not without going into the wound.
And so we descend. Into grief. Moving through it like wet cement. 
The day will come when we climb out. Not all at once, perhaps, but finger by finger, limb by limb. Moment by moment.
And when we have emerged, we will see that grief was never the enemy, but the guide.
It's crucial that we keep our hearts soft or grief will have done nothing but knock against a hardened heart.