"How do you stop feeling so stupid?" was the question asked by one of our club members below this post.
It's a question that made my heart ache. Because I know that question. I lived that question. I flogged myself with that question.
I replied to the commenter. But I also promised to offer up an expanded response in the form of a post. Because if we can respond to that question, we can begin to heal. But as long as we're still asking that question, healing with elude us.
Cause here's the nut of it: Asking that question is taking the finger that should be pointed directly at the cheater and turning it around until it's pointing at us. How do we stop feeling so stupid? is a question that holds ourselves to blame. Maybe not for his cheating but for not knowing about his cheating. Maybe not for the cheating but for the staying. Maybe not for the cheating but for our pain around his cheating.
And that, my secret sisters, is part of our toxic culture of infidelity. That anyone who doesn't toss him out, that anyone who didn't know is a chump, an idiot, stupid. It runs so deeply in our culture that it doesn't even matter if other people are actually saying it to us, we're saying it to ourselves. We've internalized this idea that only stupid people get cheated on, that only stupid people stay, that only stupid people continue to love someone who's been unfaithful and it not only compounds the pain of being betrayed, it's a betrayal of ourselves. It's self-harm.
And it's everywhere. We're loathe to accept that bad things can happen to blameless people and so we look for reasons – for everything from why someone got cancer ("was she a smoker?") to why someone got cheated on ("I heard she was a nag"). Never seems to dawn on people that IF she was a nag, maybe it was because her husband was never fucking home to help with the kids because he was cheating on her. Ahem. Sorry. I have strong feelings.
So my dear betrayeds, let us reframe that question. Let us transform "How do you stop feeling so stupid?" into the more appropriate question, "How do I accept that I was not emotionally safe?"
I was doing the best I could when D-Day hit. Probably you were too. Even when our best, in hindsight, kinda looks like it sucks. We are a product of everything that's happened to us. In my case, having grown up in a dysfunctional home with addiction and a mother who attempted suicide many times, I had absorbed the lesson that I wasn't worth sticking around for. And yeah, I'd had lots of therapy and had intellectually understood that my mother's pain wasn't about my worth but her belief in her own (or lack of), none of that mattered when I learned of my husband's cheating. That old belief woke up from wherever it had been sleeping and said, "Oh, yes! He cheated because you are not worth sticking around for." And so I fell to my knees and struggled for months and months before I rediscovered my self-worth and made my own healing a priority.
But stupid? Nah. I'm not stupid. Neither are you. Loving is not stupid, it's courageous. Trusting is not stupid, it's the bedrock of any committed relationship. Our job is not to always get it right but to work to get it right. When we know better, we do better.
We must remind ourselves, over and over until we don't have a single doubt in it's truth that we are worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of belonging in this world. Someone else's bad behaviour is always their responsibility.
But yeah, I missed some signs. Yeah, I ignored a little voice in my head that was sending out an alarm. Yeah, I believed friends who, when I asked if THEY thought I should worry absolutely scoffed. "With her?" they laughed. "No way."
Well...we were all wrong. But anyone who would mock me for that, for trusting my husband, for believing that he was better than he was, is an ass. Anyone who would laugh at someone's trust, who would take delight in contributing to another's pain isn't even worth the effort it takes to hate them.
I refuse to see myself as stupid as much as I forgive myself for not knowing better at the time. Seeing yourself as stupid is a choice. Consider yourself conned, duped, lied to. But stupid? Nope. Not me. I am loyal, I am loving, I am forgiving, I am trusting. One thing I absolutely am not is stupid. Neither are you.
Push back against that cultural narrative that holds women responsible for men's bad behaviour. The only stupid thing is making life choices based on what others think of you rather than on what you want for yourself.
