The Power of Betrayed Wives Club

"We can never protect people from anything but we can give them a safe place to heal. We can build joy in the middle of madness."
~Eve Ensler, playwright, performer, activist and founder of City of Joy

Joy in the middle of madness.
If there is anything I wish for every single woman who finds herself here, it is that: joy in the middle of madness.
Maybe that joy comes from recognition. From reading so many stories that sound like your own. From recognizing the pain that, no matter how different the circumstances of our betrayal, feels like our own. There's so much power in that recognition. In that "me too" response. We are not alone. Not at all. And if these other women can go through this pain and heal, then so we can every single one of us.
It has been a long time since I felt that sense of defeat, that conviction that nobody had ever felt so stupid, so humiliated, so powerless to stop the hurt. But I know now that the community here is more powerful than the fear that we will never ever be okay again. The community here reminds us that we will heal. We will be okay again. We will be better than okay. We will feel joy. And this community, hopefully, even gives a little taste of that joy. In the middle of madness.
Maybe the joy comes from hope. From reading others' stories in which they share that they aren't where they were any more. That they don't cry so often. That the numbness has given way to a different pain, one that they can endure because feeling something is better than feeling nothing. That they laughed the other day at something their child said. That they met with a divorce lawyer and realized they were going to be okay. That the worst was the fear, not the reality.
Maybe the joy comes from time. From realizing that, contrary to all expectations, we're surviving this. Day after day. That we're healing incrementally.
Maybe the joy comes from the liberation of finally dealing with the truth instead of so many lies. That even if it has hurt like hell to know the truth, it's still better than that am-I-crazy feeling of living with deceit.
Maybe the joy comes from a partner who is able to support us through this pain. From being able to pull closer to each other and see each other's wounds and tend to our own in a way that's gentle and compassionate.
Maybe the joy comes from finally seeing that it's time to leave and that within that painful decision, there is an opening for so much more hope and joy down the road.
Maybe the joy comes helping others. From knowing that within our own healing is a blueprint for others. That we can share what we've learned and leave it to others to take from our story what works for them and leave what doesn't.
I know not all of you can see the joy on this site, especially when you first arrive, shattered and frightened.
But I promise you it's there. I see it every day. I see it in the compassionate voices that chime in to acknowledge each others' pain. I see it in the way we hold each others' stories as sacred. I see it in the way we can laugh at Stupid S#*t Cheaters Say. In the way we cheer each other on, whether their choice in responding to betrayal is like ours or not. In the ingenious ways we help others like us, such as the woman who purchased a gift card for running shoes for her therapist to give to a betrayed client who needed help finding her feet.
We all learn through this that we cannot protect people from what happens to them. We learn we couldn't even protect ourselves. But we can give others and ourselves a safe place to heal. And we can find joy there.

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.

He is I, and I am He

Okay, so my title is a bit oblique.
But bear with me as I explain.
I'm writing this post in response to something I've noticed among many commenters, indeed in many betrayed wives (including this one).
It's the practice of "othering". By "othering", I'm referring to the very human (but not always humane) tendency to distance ourselves from those whose behaviour we judge as bad. We "other" drug addicts. We "other" homeless people. We even "other" rape victims ("did you see what she was wearing?") and obese people and mothers who breastfeed their kids until kindergarten. And, oh yes, we "other" the Other Woman.
But, in the wake of betrayal, we also "other" our spouses. We describe our husbands' betrayals as "selfish". We insist that we could never be so "cruel".
Our husbands are bastards who have ruined us. Their selfish acts jeopardized our physical health, our families, our emotional stability.
They're weak. They're self-centred. They're self-absorbed with the discipline of a toddler.
They're, let's be honest, not as good as us.
Because we would never do such a thing. We would never cheat.
Or would we?
What if we had lived our husband's lives? What if we had walked their path? What if our brains were wired differently? What if we had a Y chromosome? What if?
My point isn't that men are more likely to cheat (though there is some evidence that's true) or that certain life experiences lead inevitably to cheating.
And – please – I am not being an apologist for cheating. It's wrong. It's dishonest. And it's so excruciatingly painful for the betrayed.
But I've noticed something within my own healing and from listening to so many stories from betrayed wives: Seeing our husbands (or exes) as the "other" stands in the way. Looking at their actions as utterly abhorrent prevents us from seeing ourselves in them.
Which brings me to my title. It's only when we can see ourselves in others and them in us that we can truly begin to heal. I'll go even further. It's only when we can see ourselves in others and them in us that we can truly begin to live a life with compassion. And isn't that the whole point?
I didn't make the same choices as my husband but I haven't lived his life.
Nor has he lived mine.
My healing truly began the day I finally understood that while I might not have been the one who cheated, I could understand why he did.
None of this is to say you should stay with someone who cheated. Or who won't acknowledge the pain they've caused. You get to decide where you go from here.
But whether you stay or go, you're going to need to walk through some pretty dark places. Places that expose so many of our own wounds, around our worthiness, our ability to trust, our sense of who we are. By refusing to look deeply into those wounds – and into what behaviour we might engage in to avoid seeing them – we close ourselves off from compassion. For him, but also for ourselves.
Compassion isn't about saying it's okay that he hurt you. It isn't about saying you're going to stick around to see if he wages war with his demons. It's understanding that his choices were based on HIS life experience. That his betrayal wasn't about you. Not at all.
Compassion does the exact opposite of "othering". It opens our hearts instead of nailing them shut.

Wanting what's best...

The Redbook article that I cited here continues to weigh on my mind. Though I've known about AshleyMadison.com and have written about it here and here and here, and though I've gained considerable insight into the psyche of cheaters, I nonetheless consoled myself with the belief that these guys were the exception, not the rule.
Now...I'm not so sure.

I've spent a lot of time trying to find the best in myself. When you're raised in a dysfunctional home (alcoholism was the dysfunction of choice in my family....but it, of course, spawns all sorts of others: neglect, abandonment, intimacy issues, for starters), you often feel "bad". As a child you believe that if you were good, then you would be treated well. There's such shame around dysfunction that you grow up convinced that you, too, are shameful.
I tried to get better. I spent years in therapy, struggling to understand what it was about me that made me put up with all manner of neglect, abuse, betrayal.
And then I met my husband. And, for the first time, I felt safe.
And we all know how that turned out for me.

The thing is, we all deserve to feel – indeed to be – safe. When we choose to commit to someone else in this life – whether that commitment looks like marriage or parenthood or friendship – we owe it to that person to provide a basis for their happiness. Not that it's our job to make them happy. But it is our job to want their happiness. And to not stand in the way of that.

Which is why the Redbook story has me feeling so sad. The men featured are themselves sad. And by that I don't mean pathetic, though they're a bit that, too. They feel cheated by life. Their wives aren't who they ultimately feel connected to (though, perhaps, that's because they're trolling sites to hook up with other women rather than actually listening to their wives thoughts and dreams). Their lives haven't measured up to their dreams. So they dip a toe into this fantasy world, where they're sexy and desirable and life is good and exciting.

But where they're so lost is not that they're putting their own happiness before their wives. Indeed, I think we owe it to ourselves to strive for our own happiness. But where they're lost is that they're actively standing in the way of their wives' happiness. How? By not giving their wives the truth about themselves.

We all deserve that truth. We deserve to know who it is we're married to because we deserve to make the choice about whether or not we want to be married to that person. I don't dispute another's right to have sex with whomever will have sex with them. What I object to is the lying and betrayal. If my husband loves me but feels he can't connect intellectually with me and therefore would like to forge a relationship with another woman, fair enough. But let me decide if that's okay with me.

A truly enlightened relationship operates on that level of honesty. I'm not sure I would consider "open marriages" in this category...but perhaps at least some of them are.

As for me, I want a relationship in which my husband wants the best for me. And respects me enough to be honest – which allows me to decide what that "best" is.

Creating the door to your future

Women will draw doors where there are none, and open them and pass through into new ways and new lives.(Clarissa Pinkola Estes)


I've been coming across a lot of quotes lately from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Most of them resonate with my situation – not just that of betrayal, but reaching middle age, having a career crisis and dealing with kids whose hormones are raging at least as much as my own. Her quotes reveal a quiet wisdom, an understanding that my life must be about finding contentment and wholeness within myself if I'm ever to completely heal from betrayal...and cope with everything else that comes my way.
I love the above quote because it reminds us that sometimes, when we feel that there is no way out of our pain or our situation, we need to draw doors "where there are none." We need to use our creativity to imagine a way out.
It can seem to require more than, especially at this point, we are capable.
But it's often when we feel least equipped that we find a hidden reservoir of strength.
When I look back on what I coped with -- learning of my husband's betrayal with one week before a book deadline and two chapters left to write, my mother dying suddenly three weeks after D-Day, the day-to-day mothering required by three young children – I'm astounded. At the time, I was unaware of my strength. I could barely drag myself out of bed to brush my teeth...and yet I can look back now and see that somehow I found it within myself to "draw a door where there was none."
To find support. To seek out hope. To create a new life. Not the one I thought I was moving toward, but one that -- though it remains a work in progress – shows promise of things I couldn't have imagined for myself.
What can you imagine for your self? What will your new life look like? And where is your door? 

Cycling Through the Pain

The thing about being deeply wounded is that, just when you think you've healed, that it's safe to remove the band-aids you've relied on to keep the wound from getting infected, something occurs, or a memory is triggered...and suddenly you're right back where you were. Struggling for air and drowning in despair.
I should know.
It has been more than three years. In that time, I've gone from living minute-to-minute, to day-to-day, to week-to-week.
And yet, one thoughtless comment from my husband (husband for the time being. I'm thinking of putting a divorce lawyer on speed dial...) and I'm right back at D-Day. Feeling blind-sided. And wondering whether I'm going to survive the blow.
Admittedly, some days I'm more fragile than others. I'm missing my mom a lot lately, who died shortly after D-Day and who had always been my greatest supporter.
I'm feeling somewhat adrift in my career. I'm coping with kids who are growing increasingly independent...and hormonal.
So even without the backdrop of a marriage marked by betrayal, I might be feeling somewhat vulnerable.
But it doesn't take much to re-open the gaping wound. A thoughtless comment. A movie in which infidelity is romanticized. Song lyrics. My husband's eyes lingering a bit too long on another woman. A friend's shiny new boyfriend...which only makes my fixer-upper seem all the less appealing.
I try and remind myself that life is like this. That healing (nor life) is not a straight trajectory to bliss. That we go round and round, sometimes up, sometimes down. Mostly somewhere in between.

Letter to a Cheating Husband

I was listening to Dr. Joy Brown on AM radio as I shuttled kids to day camp. A guy called in with his "problem." He's been unhappy in his marriage. So has a woman he knows at work. They've become friends (you know where this is going, don't you!). They began an affair. And now, he doesn't know what to do.
Forget the fact that maybe he should have given some thought to what to do BEFORE he did it – ya know, kinda like we teach our kids from the time they can toddle over to the electrical outlet. Think BEFORE you act. However, he at least is willing to give his next actions some consideration.
And I find myself incredulous. Yep, even after everything I've gone through, I'm still amazed (and not in a good way) at how just-plain-dumb some people can be.
Should he try and work things out with his wife? Should he confess, anticipating that she'll kick him out, effectively forcing his hand? Should he leave and move in with the other woman, who would also have to leave her husband? Oh, the poor fellow just doesn't know what to do!
While I managed to refrain from yelling at my radio (my kids think I'm crazy enough, thank-you), I did mutter a bit under my breath. Something along the lines of, "you stupid ass..."
But since he asked (though, he technically asked Dr. Joy, whose advice re. cheating generally sucks), I'll give him my opinion:

Dear Stupid Ass Who Called Dr. Joy:
What should you do? Ask yourself a simple question, one everyone even considering an affair should ask himself:
Is my marriage worth saving? 
If so, do everything you can to save it. You'll save yourself grief, heartbreak and a whole heap of lawyer's fees if you can.
For you, however, the question becomes a wee bit more complicated because you've now allowed a third person into your marriage. Even if you think she's completely apart from your relationship with your wife, you're deluding yourself.
So, forgetting for a brief moment that you're a liar and cheat yourself, ask yourself why you want to be with a woman who would lie to and cheat on someone she promised she would NOT do that to (her husband, dumbass!). Then when you've considered that, ask yourself whether any marriage, including yours, has much chance of survival after one of the partners starts sharing intimacy (and I don't mean just sex!) with someone outside of the marriage.
Your marriage is shaky? Of course it is. You're sleeping with someone else...and in order to justify what is dishonest and hurtful behaviour, you've likely cast your wife as a total shrew. Step back and determine whether she's truly as bad as you've convinced yourself (and probably your affair partner) or whether she's still the person you fell in love with...just with a few years on her treads and perhaps a lot of resentment built up because you're either a) wining and dining the OW instead of her or b) emotionally absent or c) nasty to her because you really hate yourself right now.
If you decide your marriage is worth trying to save, you've got a LOT of work ahead of you.
First, you need to come clean. Forget what Dr. Joy said to you about keeping it to yourself. As long as you have a secret of this magnitude in your marriage, you'll never be able to completely relax and give your best self to your wife. And, of course, she deserves total honesty from you in order to determine if she wants to spend the rest of her life with someone capable of such deceit. That's her call, not yours.
If she decides to work through this with you, you'll need to be completely honest and transparent. She'll have a helluva road ahead of her and you can make it smoother by always being where you say you are, with whom you say you're with and not hiding anything from her. Her healing depends on your ability to support her while she rages and sobs. And your marriage's survival depends on your ability to earn back her trust – slowly and steadily.
I ache for your wife. You've betrayed her in the worst possible way. I even feel sorry for you – you've created a real mess that I doubt even you intended to do.
What should you do? Well...you should've done it a long time ago. Figure out whether your marriage was a good one, worth working for...or not. Not after you've detonated the betrayal bomb...but before.
But it's a little late for that bit of wisdom.

Tee-hee Tuesday: Don't They ALL Have Bulging D--ks

I just came across this little gem of a giggle-inducer and simply couldn't wait until Funny Friday to share it with you. Thus...Tee-hee Tuesday. Here goes...

Whoops! Though Tiger Woods ostensibly withdrew from his recent tournament due to a potential "bulging disk", a CNN reporter, perhaps a betrayed wife herself – who knows? – let slip a reference to the greater problem we know ALL cheating husbands have. Unfortunately, their IQ doesn't bulge at the same time...or we wouldn't be here.
Check it out here.

Friday Funny

I promised you in December that each Friday I'd offer up something to, hopefully, give you a giggle. Unfortunately, "each" Friday seems to actually mean "Fridays when I remember..." 

So...here goes:

Stupid lines uttered by Cheating Husbands...really:

"You would really like her."

"If you would just meet her I think maybe you guys could be friends."

"You should understand that I feel torn!"

"I need to be selfish right now."

"She reminds me of you. Well... how you used to be when we first met."

"I think I just love you like a friend and not a husband."

"It's not what you think." (spoken by a cheating husband IN BED NAKED with another woman)

Any you'd like to share??

Myth of the Ugly Wife: Why even gorgeous women get cheated on

Stereotypes often exist for a reason. Such as, because they're an accurate assessment of what most (or at least many) believe.

Consider this: There's a good-looking guy who works in your office. He's friendly but not lecherous; intelligent; funny. Then -- thanks to that always-reliable office gossip, you find out he's cheating on his wife, whom you have never met.

What do you imagine? Well, if you're like a large number of people, you assume she's let her looks go. She's bitchy. Or a pathetic doormat. Or too focused on the kids. And you might be right.

But more likely, you're wrong.

That's the thrust of a Globe & Mail article that ran today, in which columnist Sarah Hampson takes society to task for the persistent assumption that if a man cheats, it's because his wife somehow drove him to it.

Yet there's little scientific evidence to back this up.

And certainly little anecdotal evidence. Yet that conviction can lead even further to the shame and pain that betrayed wives feel.

I picked obsessively over what she had that I didn't. In the end, the only conclusion I could reach was that the "slutty" look appealed to my spouse and I took to dressing like some cross between rehab-era Amy Winehouse and breakdown-era Britney Spears. Not exactly my best look.

In the end, I realized that my husband's cheating has nothing to do with me and everything to do with his own insecurities, anxieties and lack of boundaries. Which is what he had been saying to me all along.

But when the world implies that cheating men are upgrading, it's hard to fight the stereotype.

I took some solace in the fact that Elizabeth Hurley was cheated on. Halle Berry was cheated on. Princess Diana was cheated on. Women, arguably, who are gorgeous, accomplished and smart. They did nothing wrong but love men who betrayed them. Hardly reason to be vilified.

Hiking the Appalachian Trail: The best/worst excuse your cheating spouse ever offered

History is replete with men caught with their pants down. While some manage to come forth with an excuse that's at least possible if not probable (eg. "hiking the Appalachian Trail"), others produce such whoppers that the only appropriate response is unbridled laughter – after pitching a stiletto at their head, of course.

This is your chance to submit the best/worst excuses you've ever heard. Hold nothing back. Bring

'em on...