More About Healing from a Partner's Multiple Affairs

 D-Day 1 let me in on my husband's secret affair. D-Day 2 filled in the questions unanswered after D-Day 1. It wasn't one affair but dozens. It wasn't one woman but many. It hadn't started a few years ago, it spanned our entire relationship.

You, more than most, can imagine my shock. 

Like those of you who responded to the post on multiple affairs, I thought I was married to a monster. Who could do such a thing? Who could build their entire marriage on a lie? What the hell had I got myself into and how was I going to get myself out? 

Nights were the worst. I had no names or faces to attach to these new affair partners and so I was left with some shadowy imaginings. Of course, they were all sexy, young, vibrant. (The truth, according to my husband, is that they were all sad, middle-aged and desperate.)

As I've explained before on this site, I stayed mostly because I lacked the energy to leave. I had three young children and if the marriage was over, I wanted to be sure it was TRULY over. I didn't want to disrupt their lives until I was sure. And I wasn't sure about much in those early days post D-Day. 

But what I want to say to those of you reeling from your own discovery of multiple partners is this: Though what your husband did seems monstrous, it helps you in absolutely no way to see him as a monster. In fact, if you're even considering trying to rebuild a marriage, it will help you much more to recognize that his monstrous behaviour is the outward expression of his own pain.

Yes, I know. Nobody wants to hear that. Our infidelity culture is built on the idea that only assholes cheat. That a good guy would never do such a thing. And I have taken many slings and arrows from the chump tribe who will not entertain the notion that, sometimes, good people do horrible things. 

And though I wanted to believe that, I knew it wasn't true. I had seen good people do bad things for much of my life. I had a mother with multiple addictions. I watched her get sober. And make amends for so much of the pain she'd caused. Did I owe her that second chance? No. I don't think any of us here on this site owe anyone a second chance. Second chances are gifts. Second chances are mercy. Writer Anne Lamott puts it this way: "...the beauty of living from your merciful heart instead of your ticker-tape brain — judgmental brain — is the way home. It’s the way to peace, the way to feeling safe and connected. It’s all the things we long for.”

The way home. The way to peace. The way to feeling safe and connected. Isn't that we're going for? It requires a radical change in how we see infidelity and those who cheat. It requires us to challenge the idea that this person who betrayed us so profoundly is a "monster". That he is beyond redemption.

Mercy – a second chance – is hard. And yet, I think we're hard-wired for it. Until we become brittle from bracing for hurt. 

Our challenge, and it is a formidable one, is to remain soft in the wake of the betrayal. To not just consider mercy for those who betray us but to absolutely ensure we give it to ourselves. That we forgive ourselves for not knowing. That we remind ourselves that we are and have always been enough. That we didn't deserve this. 

One commenter asks: "How do such monsters exist and in what world can I ever have the powers to get over such a betrayal?"

To which I reply: I see his actions as monstrous, his pain as monstrous but not him as monstrous. I suspect he too see his actions and pain as monstrous. I suspect he's as baffled as you about how he was able to betray you so deeply. And it is his job to determine how he did that and to ensure he learns tools that will prevent him from ever doing it again. The power to get over such a betrayal is within mercy. It was only when I could acknowledge my husband's pain that I could begin to view him with compassion instead of contempt. It was when I could view him with compassion that I could see myself with compassion. That I could forgive myself for not knowing better, for not choosing differently.

Mercy, as Lamott says, is the way home. 

Lessons from La La Land

I spent Saturday tucked inside the darkness of a movie theatre watching La La Land with my two daughters. I'm a sucker for a musical and I've been humming ever since.

My youngest daughter, however, was annoyed at the movie. (If you haven't yet seen the movie and don't want the ending spoiled, stop reading now.)

My daughter's annoyance stemmed from her belief in happily-ever-after endings. Neat and tidy and where everything turns out the way it's supposed to. 

She's 13 and still thinks this is a perfectly reasonable expectation. I'm 52 and I don't disagree. 

While I shared some of her disappointment (even after everything I know about life and love and marriage, those happily-ever-after fantasies die hard), I realized something.

We can all have more than one happy ending.

And I got thinking about so many women who come to this site with the same sense of loss that I felt after D-Day: This wasn't the way my life was supposed to go. This wasn't my happily ever after.
And when everything feels ruined, when our dreams lie in splinters, we can lose sight of another possibility. As the saying goes, we can stare so hard at the closed door in front of us that we miss the window beside it. 

That conviction, that our life was supposed to turn out a certain way, holds us back. It limits our imagination. We can climb through that window if we only notice it and give up the idea that the damn door is supposed to be open. 

We come to our expectations honestly, of course. We stand in front of family and friends and exchange vows, promising each other fidelity and friendship. And our future stretches out before us, a bit hazy in some ways but crystal clear in others. We will grow old together. We will weather storms but not storms of our own making. We will live happily ever after.

D-Day smashes that fantasy to bits. Even if we survive, which we highly doubt, our happily ever after is over. We can't imagine smiling or laughing. We can't fathom how we'll ever believe in love again.

But the heart is resilient. Even a broken heart has the capacity to love. Perhaps especially a broken heart. 

But it's different.

Gone is the certainty that everything will turn out fine. We know too well that love can be messy. That people we trust can betray us. That the marriage we thought was solid had cracks.

But here's the thing. Happily ever after didn't die with the betrayal, it was always a fantasy. We stake our hearts on a storybook fiction. Nobody lives happily ever after because it's not possible. Everyone will have pain. Every marriage will have cracks.

Knowing that doesn't strip marriage of its power, it gives marriage its power. Because it forces us to realize that a promise isn't a guarantee. It's an intention and it's up to us to live up to that intention. To make choices that are true to that intention in ways big and small. 

Our husbands failed to do that. And we get to decide whether we're willing to let them try again. 

But no matter what we choose – to rebuild our lives with him or without him – happiness is still within our power to achieve.

There will be more pain, in some form or another. There will be joy, in some form or another. There will be no happily ever after.

That was never your ending. It's no-one's ending. But that doesn't mean, when you reflect back on your life, you won't smile. Indeed, if you follow the path that feels the most right for you, if you live your own life with intention and integrity, the sum of your life will always skew toward happy. Not a whitewashed happily ever after but another ending all the richer for the many many colors it holds.