Our Dark Teachers

I call these experiences our dark teachers. The lessons that hurt, scare, scar, wound, and almost destroy us are very often the things that make us who we are because they require us to muster what we thought we could not muster—courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart. The times we feel lost are the times that require us to find our way. The deepest losses often lead us to our most profound gains. 

–Cheryl Strayed, from: It’s From Darkness That Everything Grows, Dear Sugar Letter #2. Originally published on December 31, 2020

I don't blame you if you want to reach into your computer screen and punch me in the nose. It can be infuriating to hear that old chestnut "what doesn't kill you makes you strong" when you don't want to be strong or nearly dead or half alive. When you just want your life back before you learned that the person you trusted most with your heart had shattered it. 

But bear with me. Because whether or not you're ready to hear this, I want you to store it somewhere in your exhausted brain to pull out on those days when you don't think you can stand another second of this pain. I want you to know that, as Cheryl Strayed puts it, "it's from darkness that everything grows." 

Well, maybe not everything. But many, many good things. Like courage and compassion and kindness and forgiveness. Love, strength, ferocity of heart. 

Here I am, just weeks past my 28th wedding anniversary, 18 years past my D-Day. I have the long view. And whether or not you stay with your partner or leave, whether or not you rebuild your relationship with him or stick to rebuilding your relationship with yourself, you will — as long as you work through the pain and don't let it fester and rot your soul — come to the day when you, too, have the long view and can see the beauty of what you built in the ashes. 

My kids are adults now. They have friends who've been cheated on, friends who've done the cheating. And they are utterly certain that they will never stay with someone who cheats. That they will never cheat. 

I was that certain, once. 

I have a hunch we all were.

But now we know. 

That life isn't always so clear. That there are circumstances that keep us in place even if every part of our being wants to flee. Or circumstances that cause us to flee when every part of our being wants to stay. 

I hope my children never do have to experience infidelity in any way, though I know that statistically, one or more of them likely will. 

And if not infidelity, I know that life will bring them to their knees one way or the other. A sick child, a job loss, a terrible diagnosis. None of us emerges without our scars.

But let's note again just what is forged in that darkness if we let it: courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness. Love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart.

May that be yours.

Maybe not today. But soon. 

The Safe Harbour of Your Own Heart

I noticed this one year ago, when one of our secret sisters posted these words on Valentine's Day: 

"Being in the time after he cheated makes me feel unsafe with my heart."

I felt those words in my own heart. I felt them when I read her words because I felt them then. I remember well feeling "unsafe." And of course I felt unsafe — I was unsafe. My husband had made clear to me that my heart wasn't safe with him, it hadn't been safe with him. The person I'd trusted most to keep my heart safe had betrayed that trust.

But ... maybe that's the problem. The person I'd trusted most. Those were the words I just wrote. The person I trusted most to keep my heart safe.

Why wasn't I the person I trusted most to keep my heart safe? Why had I outsourced the single most important job any of us have. To safeguard our own hearts. To keep them safe. And safe from what? Not from hurt. Hurt is simply part of the tangle of emotions we will all experience. 

No, our job is to not betray ourselves. To remember who we are. To never let someone else convince us to abandon our principles, what we know to be right, what we know to be true.

Betrayal catapults so many of us into confusion. Reality itself seems arbitrary. So I know what I'm suggesting isn't easy. I lost myself in the maelstrom after D-Day. But our goal must be to find our way back, to reorient ourselves.

We do that with support. As best you can, surround yourself with those who can help you reorient. A therapist, if you can afford one. A clergy person, if you have access to one that doesn't prioritize the institution of marriage over the people in it, that doesn't value men over women. A wise and trusted friend or sibling or parent. 

We sometimes find that support within the pages of a book — whether fiction or self-help. I took deep comfort (and a roadmap) from many books when I felt so lost. Indeed, I wrote a book to guide others to a healthy place beyond betrayal. 

It was the hardest work I've ever done — reorienting myself, finding that safety within my own heart. In part, the challenge came from having never completed that work before he cheated on me. Those of us who've struggled with trauma, dysfunctional families, betrayal by others have even more work to do because we have further to go toward healing. But it's worth it. I promise you, it's worth it. On the other side of all of this pain and work of healing is a heart — your own — that offers safety. 

Betrayed and Want to Participate in a Focus Group with An Amazing Therapist?

This came to me via Dr. Caroline Madden, who I know (online) and who I think is smart and really gets betrayal. If you're interested, please reach out to Dr. Madden:

Focus Group Description: Online Course for Betrayed Wives Are you a strong and resilient woman who has experienced the pain of betrayal within your marriage? Are you looking to regain your sense of self, find clarity, and make decisions that are best for you and your family? Author and marriage therapist, Dr. Caroline Madden is seeking ideal participants for a transformative online course designed specifically for betrayed wives like yourself. Ideal Participant: Gender: Female Age: 35 to 55 years old Marital Status: Married for at least 10 years Parenting: Has at least one child D-Day Timeframe: Has experienced the pain of betrayal within the past, and we'd like to know how long ago D-Day occurred. Requirements: Commitment: Participants should be committed to actively engage in the course, providing valuable input, and sharing their experiences openly to create a supportive environment for others. Confidentiality: To ensure a safe space for all participants, both the participant and her husband (if involved) will be required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). This will ensure that all discussions within the course remain private and secure. Husband's Involvement (Optional): Participants have the option to involve their husbands in the course, as we intend to provide tips for spouses to avoid triggering behaviors. However, if the participant prefers not to include their husband, that choice will be fully respected. Input and Feedback: Participants will have a significant opportunity to influence the course content. There will be a short phone chat in mid-August to discuss their needs, concerns, and preferences. They will then receive an outline of the course and related materials, such as handouts and journal prompts, to provide further feedback in late August. Course Access: Once the course is developed, participants will receive free access to the entire program. This is a unique opportunity to benefit from the course content and contribute to its refinement and effectiveness. Course Focus: The focus of this online course is not centered on whether to stay or go after betrayal but rather on empowering betrayed wives to reclaim their identities, heal from the pain, and make decisions that align with their personal growth and the well-being of their families. If you fit the description above and are ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery, healing, and growth, we invite you to join our focus group. By sharing your experiences and insights, you will help shape a course that has the potential to empower countless women facing similar challenges. Important Note: As this is a focus group to validate the course idea, participation is limited. If you are interested, please express your interest at the earliest opportunity, as we will be finalizing the group soon. Thank you for your consideration.

When the war is happening inside

Most people haven’t even noticed their strength. They’re so focussed on their pain.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen, author Kitchen Table Wisdom

Our household has recently welcomed a family of Ukrainians, fleeing the war. It's a mother and two daughters – the husband and 18-year-old son remain in their country to defend it. 

I just returned from walking the youngest to the school bus, where she climbed on with a dozen other kids for the ride to her new elementary school. It's been just nine days since she got off a plane from Poland. 

This family is weaving itself into our day-to-day lives. Their dog plays with our dogs and cats. We all sit down to dinner together. We grocery shop together. We jokingly call ourselves "one big happy family." But I notice how often they check their phones and then exchange glances with each other. The other day, they shared with us a photo of a magnificent church in a village near to their own, the turret engulfed in flames. 

"I don't know how to talk to you about this," my husband said to them, his voice deep with sadness. "But I am so sorry for what you're going through." 

They smiled. Those words, for the moment, were enough. Someone saw their pain. Someone recognized their loss. Someone acknowledged that none of this fair.

I'm awed by their courage. To pack up everything into two large suitcases and a couple of backpacks. To leave their family business, their home, their friends, their husband and father and brother. But they've heard the stories of what's happening to those who stay. They know the stories. And so they roll the dice on a family they'd never heard of before, who lives across the world in a country they'd never been to. They took the chance that they would be welcomed. That they would be safe. That what they didn't know in another country was better than what they knew in their own.

Any time our lives are turned upside down thanks to the actions of a madman, we are thrown into a fight for our survival. Infidelity might not be war but it can sure feel like it. Our bodies don't discern between threats, they only know that the bright alarm is flashing red. And so they fight. Or flee. Or freeze.

But though it might not feel like it, we have choices beyond fight, flee, or freeze. And though you might not recognize it as you're living through it, you have a deep well of strength that you're drawing on even as you're curled up weeping on the floor. It's a strength that will serve you. It's the strength that gets you to work more days than not. It's the strength that parents your children, that comforts them. It's greater than your pain. 

Rachel Naomi Remen, the provider of the quote at the top of this post, was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in her early teens. She spent a decade, she says, "angry". And of course, she was. It wasn't fair that she had a disease that, she was told, would cut her life short, would cause pain and discomfort. It's not fair that Ukrainians are fleeing their homes because of an ego-driven authoritarian. It's not fair that our own lives have been turned upside down because of a partner's betrayal. We can choose anger, which is reasonable. And maybe we have to spend some time there. But we can also recognize that, greater than the pain, is a strength that will help us straighten our spines and walk into a future that might not be the one we'd have designed but that we can make beautiful too. 

Stuck Between "Now" and "Not Yet"

I had never heard of Jen Hatmaker and remain somewhat mystified how she came to my attention but I think it was around the time her marriage was falling apart. I didn't recognize the name but I recognized the story. A couple everyone seemed to love – a public couple – was announcing divorce, shocking those who knew of them. Hatmaker herself issued a statement along the lines of being blindsided, not wanting this, pleading for privacy, and so on.

Ah, I thought to myself. He cheated. 

And though Hatmaker's language remains somewhat cagey, you, my dear readers, know as well as I do how to read between the lines. He cheated. Of course, he did.

But though I still don't know a lot about Jen Hatmaker and am not part of her cool Christian girl club (no disparagement – just not my scene), I've become quite fond of her as a public figure. For one thing, she's funny. She's honest about who she is. She's eloquent. And recently, she was on Glennon Doyle's We Can Do Hard Things podcast at which point she made reference to that stage – one we're all familiar with – of being caught between "now" and "not yet". 

"Now" is what's happening. It's the gut punch of D-Day. It's the sleeplessness, the churning anxiety of "what if he's still cheating? How will I know?", it's the mask we wear to work. It's the "how long will I feel like this?". 

"Not yet" is that water hole up ahead, the one that promises to quench our thirst, the one that keeps being just a few steps (a thousand steps!) beyond where we are right now. 

You'll reach "not yet", I promise you will. And I know how agonizing it is to feel stuck somewhere in between. Maybe the pain isn't quite so acute. Maybe you've decided to stay and it seems to be working. Maybe you've decided to leave and you're settling into this new reality. Maybe you're still figuring out your next right step. But you don't feel there yet. You don't feel like this is in the rear-view mirror. You haven't made it to "not yet". Not yet, anyway. 

Be patient with yourself. Be patient with your shattered heart. Stop periodically and check in with yourself. Am I where I want to be? Or, if that's impossible, am I where I can find a way to be my best self? Sometimes we can make the choice and sometimes that choice is forced onto us. But we can still honor ourselves. Jen Hatmaker makes that clear too. That we can make healing our focus and that, no matter how much we may have not chosen our new reality, we can center ourselves and keep our hearts soft and find joy in the world. 

Let those of us further ahead beckon you forward. Let us be the light that helps you see your way through. Though I'm not as active on this site as I was (when we get to "Not yet", infidelity becomes something that happened long ago), I do still read your comments. And I do hope this site remains a safe space for all of you to find community and the reassurance that though you might feel stuck right now, "not yet" is possible, indeed a promise, for all of us.

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Don't Build the Same House

If a house is levelled, don't build the same house.

~Dr. Debi Silber, PBT Institute

If there is one fundamental misunderstanding by those who don't see the inside of our marriage (but who think they do, and yes, I'm talking about the other woman), it's that our marriage post-infidelity is pretty much the same as our marriage pre-infidelity. I've heard the wails: "He gets to go back to his wife and his marriage and I'm alone." As if we welcome them back with open arms. As if we aren't shattered by betrayal. As if...

But it's a mistake that, sometimes, gets made by those of us inside the marriage. We're so desperate to get past this, to have our marriage back, that we build the same house, as Dr. Debi Silber puts it. We recreate the same marriage with the same dynamics with the same guy and then expect everything to be different. Or at least one thing to be different: That he doesn't cheat again.

It's lunacy, isn't it? Even if we thought our marriage was great – even if he's telling us that our marriage was great, that his cheating had nothing to do with us, that he never stopped loving us – even with that, we still need to build a new house. Cause the old house is gone. The trauma of betrayal blew that baby to bits.

But the thing with trauma is that it can help us lay down an entirely new foundation. This is, in no way the same as saying that trauma is "good" because it helps us grow. (In some cases, it does exactly the opposite as Lisa Arends so beautifully described in a recent blog post on her site.) But trauma, when it hits us as adults, is lay bare all the cracks. In my case, the trauma of my husband's betrayal forced me to look at all the ways in which I'd been abandoning myself. I brought childhood trauma into my marriage. I was the capable one, the responsible one, the "fixer". Which left my husband the role of errant teenager, which fed into his family dynamic that, without an adult telling him what to do, he was likely to get it wrong. And so I seethed with resentment that I had to do everything. And my husband seethed with resentment that he was treated like a child. 

Enter the trauma of betrayal. I had the choice to either build the same damn house or build a new one. And though I still slip into that old house – my default as fixer shows up every single time I'm stressed – I nonetheless built a new one. One that required my husband to be a partner to me. One that required my husband to work through his own childhood stuff while I addressed mine. 

As Dr. Silber tells us, the problem isn't trauma, it's staying there. When you heal from it, you learn that even though it was done to you, it wasn't about you.

I had to learn that. And I don't know how else I would have learned that if I hadn't had my metaphorical house blown up. We betrayed wives tend to spend a lot of time playing "what if". What if he'd never cheated, would I be happier? What if he'd never cheated, would I feel more secure? 

It's a fool's game. He did cheat. And we are left to rebuild a new house with the same husband (or rather a husband who'd damn well better not stay the same), or to rebuild a life without him as our husband. Either choice is a perfectly reasonable one. But if you choose to stay, you cannot move back into that old house, no matter what the other woman thinks. That house is gone. 

Thursday's Thought

 

Why Shame is the Wrong Tool to Deal with Infidelity

Here are some of the things I said to my husband after D-Day:
You're a liar.
You disgust me.
You are nothing but a cheater and a liar.
Why would I ever believe you because you are incapable of telling the truth.
The list goes on but my memory has grown fuzzy.
Pretty horrible, huh?
I'm not saying he didn't deserve my wrath. He did. He most definitely did.
What I am saying is that that those words not only did nothing to create the possibility for healing, they also weren't true (well, except for the disgust bit. I was pretty disgusted at that point).
But they hurt him. And that was really my intention. I wasn't capable of thinking more long-term than the next five-minutes. I was in the midst of survival mode – fight, flight or freeze. And I was fighting like hell. I wanted to hurt him like he'd hurt me. I wanted him to know that I would never forgive him for what he'd done. Which also, as fate would have it, turned out to be untrue.
But more to the point, if I'd been able to stop and think, to determine what my goal was, I might have realized that what I was doing – shaming my husband – wasn't going to help me achieve it.
Which is the great misunderstanding of shame.

We think shame makes people change their behaviour. But famed shame researcher Brené Brown gives us the bad news. It doesn’t. If anything, shame makes people double down on their bad behaviour (we’re seeing this shame-and-name culture online right now and it’s ugly).

What happens, Brown explains, is that shame hijacks our limbic system – we go into survival mode. That’s our primitive brain, our reptile brain. Shame, she says, “corrodes that part of us that believes we can ever be different.”

Sadly, a lot of us grew up being shamed. More than likely, our partners did too. It’s a frequently used tool by those in authority. But shame drives a lot of bad behaviour. Shame doesn’t urge us be better, it tells us we never will be.

You’re never going to be anything but a loser, we might have heard.

Why can’t you do anything right?

Or, my husband’s father’s favorite: You’re nothing but a quitter.

And here I was, post D-Day, shaming my husband, albeit unintentionally. I was doing to him exactly what had been done to him as a child. And what he’d done to himself ever since.

Shame drives bad behaviour, Brown reminds us again.

So much of my husband’s acting out was rooted in his childhood shame. Shame kills intimacy. Shame kills empathy. Brown puts it this way: “It’s much more likely to be the cause of harmful and destructive behaviours than the cure.”

I’ve been thinking about this in the context of infidelity lately. I’ve long thought that our culture, while it loves a redemption story, loves a consistent narrative more. While we hold the possibility that people can change, we’re suspicious of it. That “once a cheater, always a cheater” mentality leaves no room for redemption, for reinvention.

Why do we make it so hard for people to redeem themselves? Why do we insist on labelling people rather than labelling their behaviour? It might seem like semantics but it’s rooted in shaming. That’s not, of course, to say that bad behaviour shouldn’t be called out. It absolutely should, especially cheating, which causes so much damage and pain to partners and kids. But there is a world of difference between expecting someone who cheated to figure out why he did and how to ensure he never does it again, and labelling them a cheater. The first allows for change. The second…does not.

I’ve long believed that my willingness to give my husband the chance to change stemmed from having grown up with an alcoholic who got sober. I had seen someone, who everyone else had given up on, choose a better path. And I had watched her not only get sober but get wise about it. I knew people could change because I’d seen it. Might my perspective have been different if she’d never stopped drinking? Probably.

We need to see that change is possible to believe it. What’s more, if we’re going to give our partners the opportunity to change, we need to see that they are willing to do the hard work that change requires. We need to see them doing the work, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them. Without that, we’re just clinging to hopes and dreams.

It must be a careful dance, between wanting to believe our partners can change and being realistic about whether they will. Change is not a straight trajectory. It zigs and it zags but someone truly intent on becoming better will self-correct.

As Brown reminds us, when you see someone making amends, apologizing, doing better, that’s about guilt not shame.

But if they do not make amends, if it becomes clear that their words are not backed up by actions – if they refuse counselling, if they resist giving you passwords, if they push back against boundaries you’ve set in order to feel emotionally safe with someone capable of cheating, then that’s important information. And all the shaming in the world isn’t going to create that change if it isn’t coming from a reckoning within.

From the Vault: That In-Between Place

As we all self-isolate and quarantine and do our best to NOT hoard toilet paper and hand sanitizer (please!!), I'm conscious of just how uncomfortable this state is, this state of in-between-ness. It's like we're all holding our breath, waiting to see what comes next. We have no blueprint for this, nothing we can compare it to, though we try. It's like 9/11, except it's not. It's like wartime. Except it's not.
And so we all...wait. We wait for news, we wait for leadership, we wait for something that makes the ground beneath us feel solid again, instead of this constant shifting. 
Waiting can be an important stage. Growing somewhat comfortable with discomfort is an important skill to learn. But it's not an easy one.
And so, as we all wait in this in-between place, I'm reposting this in the hope that it reminds us all that to feel uncertain is human. But so is it human to need to feel part of a community. We remain here, your invisible sisterhood (with a few brothers too!):

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking forward to when this is over. "This" refers to my father's recent fall, subsequent hospitalization, and return home with the support of what seems like a staff of 20. My world has been upended and my days are spent dealing with catheters, organizing nurses, planning meals and fretting – constant fretting – about the future. At 88, my dad isn't likely to bounce back. If we're lucky, where he is now – able to walk with a walker, decent long-term memory but shaky short-term – will hold. If we're lucky, he'll be able to continue to live in his home on the lake, his piece of paradise.
If we're lucky, "this" will be over soon and we'll settle back into normal.
This is that horrible in-between place. When the future is shadowy. When the present isn't quite a crisis but it isn't our normal.
The thing will living in that in-between place is that we're loathe to accept it. Not surprisingly, intolerance of uncertainty is linked to anxiety and depression. I squirm with discomfort. This is unacceptable. I want to know what's next. This in-between place is full of uncertainty. And I, like most humans, will take certain misery over uncertainty any day of the week.
It's this loathing of the in-between place that drives so many of us to make decisions before we're ready, to force our partners into decisions before they're ready. Just go, we demand, in the face their reticence to commit. I'm outta here, we declare, in the face of our own pain.
Thing is, we're taking that pain along with us. It doesn't vanish – poof! – just because we walk away from the discomfort.
I'm reminded of the time I told my now-husband that I was ready to get married. I was so convinced that he adored me, that he was just holding his breath for me to declare my readiness, that I was stunned when his response was lukewarm. So hurt was I that I announced that, clearly, this relationship wasn't what I thought it was and I was calling it quits. I went from "I'm ready to marry you" to "I'm breaking up with you" in about five minutes flat.
He asked me to give him time. He asked me to spend some time in that in-between place while he decided what he wanted. "You've clearly been thinking about this," he said. "I haven't. I love you and I love being with you but I haven't been thinking about getting married. Please let me have that time now."
I agreed, mostly because of his dog, who I couldn't imagine breaking up with.
And then, because I know myself, I decided to run a marathon. I knew that sitting in that in-between place, where I had no control over how things were going to play out, where I had to just live with uncertainty, would feel excruciating. And so I ran. Each day, I ran. Hours. And hours.
I got stronger physically. And I got stronger mentally. As I ran, I thought. About what I could control and what I couldn't control. (Incidentally, there's research that shows reading novels helps us get uncomfortable with uncertainty because we don't know how they'll end. I could have saved myself a whole lot of blisters and chafing if I'd just held a reading marathon instead.)
When I crossed that finish line, four gruelling hours and six excruciating minutes after starting, my then-boyfriend and his dog were there. I was thrilled to see them. But I realized that I didn't need his answer. Not right then. I'd become okay in that in-between place. It hadn't been as scary as I thought because I could control me. I was going to be okay no matter what he decided.
We spend a lot of time in that in-between place after betrayal. And, of course, it's complicated by the pain. But leaning into that in-between place – and yes, perhaps alleviating some of the discomfort with an activity that reminds us of our strength and our determination – can change everything. It can prevent us from making compulsive choices. It can shift our focus to what really matters.
As I cope daily with this in-between place – listening carefully each morning when I call my dad to signs of pain, or of confusion – I'm increasingly aware that in-between is where we spend much of our lives. And if all we're doing is holding our breath until it's over, we're missing out on the lessons it holds. To trust ourselves. To take care of ourselves. To be patient with ourselves and others.
My dad is also in that in-between place. But if I'm so focussed on my own discomfort, I can't see his fear. And so I try to make space for each of us and our enormous feelings. The in-between place is big enough for all of it.

Infidelity in the Time of Cholera: Your Survival Guide to Betrayal During a Pandemic

The first friend I confided in, I did so over a glass of wine in a restaurant. It was just past Christmas and her face reflected the gentle glow of white twinkle lights. I hadn't planned on telling her. But she, who worked with my husband, was peppering me with questions about my husband and his assistant. Why they fought so much. How demanding she was. How weird their work relationship was. And so I finally told her. They had been having an affair. 
I watched the shock in her face be quickly replaced by a shattering. She looked as devastated as I felt. She reached across the table and took my hand as tears quietly rolled down her cheeks. I am so sorry, she said. Please. Tell me what I can do to help. 
Her response, her compassion, was balm for my aching soul. And it felt good to finally tell someone. Well, as good as I was capable of feeling at the time. 
Fast-forward 13 years and anyone discovering or dealing with infidelity is also dealing with a global pandemic that has many of us self-isolating in our homes to avoid spreading the virus. Loneliness is lousy at any time but it felt lethal when I was dealing with infidelity. Of course, it wasn't just an absence of people that was the problem, it was a sense of isolation in my pain. I felt. So. Alone.
What does this mean for those of you dealing with infidelity while also dealing with a global pandemic that has so many of us on edge?
It means what it's always meant. "My heartbreak, my rules", right?
It means laying down clear rules if he even wants you to consider reconciling:
•Absolutely no contact with the Other Woman. None. Nada. No "I need to tell her in person." No "I have to return something to her". No "she just wants to see me one last time." Nope. Absolutely not.
•Total transparency from him. Access for you to any and all phones, computers, devices. Passcodes. Secret e-mails. However they communicated now includes you. This isn't foolproof, of course. People can buy burner phones or they can create new e-mails. But an unwillingness to offer total transparency is an acknowledgement that he doesn't quite get it. He doesn't quite realize just what he's done to you and he doesn't quite get that everything has now changed, thanks to him. If he's unwilling to make himself uncomfortable in order to make you more comfortable, then he's revealing himself to be a bad bet for a second chance. 
•Support for you. If you don't already have a therapist, please find one. Right now, with so much up in the air re. public contact, it might be worth finding someone who will do online sessions or by phone. 
•More support for you. Do you have a trusted friend you can call when you need to talk? Do you have practices in place that help you feel sane – meditation, yoga, exercise, journalling, dog walking, hiking. Anything that gives you a little space to breathe, to remind yourself that you will get through this, that you're in the midst of a storm but the sun always ALWAYS comes out again.
•Patience for yourself. If your kids are out of school right now, like mine are, this can be a particularly stressful time, even without infidelity. As best you can, confine arguments/crying to times/places where your kids can't hear. That can be near impossible, of course, but do your best to at least reduce the conflict they're part of. Go for a solitary drive, if necessary, and scream into the void. With the glee of missing school, we can misunderstand just how anxiety-provoking this is for kids, especially special needs kids who often require habits and routine. Do your best. And forgive yourself when your best falls short. These are desperate times. 
•Do not hurt yourself. Physically or emotionally. If you are prone to self-harm, this is the time to ramp up your self-care and rely more heavily on support. But we can often engage in pain shopping behaviours, like stalking her social media, driving past her house, or behaviours that exacerbate chaos, like drinking too much, over-shopping, etc. None of that will make you feel better. It might distract you briefly but then you'll have the additional pain of an overdrawn bank account or a brutal hangover (and remember, alcohol is a depressant). 
•Rest. You do not need to make any decisions right now. In fact, I would discourage you from that unless your health is at risk (speaking of which, if there's any hysterical bonding, always ALWAYS use protection until both of you have tested negative for STIs). 
We are in a challenging time. Never in my lifetime, and probably yours, have we dealt with a global crisis of this magnitude. It will change many of the things we've held to be unchangeable but there can be a silver lining in that. Like a marriage that had invisible cracks, like a partner who held secrets, the crisis is now out in the open where it can be dealt with, where healing can take root, where treatment can be offered.
Wherever you are right now, your life matters. Take care of yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself and others. You are not alone. Not in the pain of betrayal or in your anxiety around this health crisis. We will get through this because we are stronger than we yet know. 

Thursday Thought

What (Single) Affair Partners Don't Get About Marriage

I just finished reading Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends, a book about a 21-year-old navigating friendships and an affair with a 33-year-old man married to an acquaintance. I'm long past the days of feeling triggered by reading about affairs and firmly in the days of shaking my head at just how poorly our culture, generally speaking, depicts infidelity. Conversations with Friends is an exception in that the protagonist, Frances, comes to (sorta kinda) realize that her partner's marriage is a whole lot more than she thought. After seeing a video of the couple on Facebook goofing around, Frances says:

Anyone could see from the video how much they loved each other. If I had seen them like this before, I thought, maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe I would have known.

What Frances might have "known" was that marriage holds multitudes, to steal from Walt Whitman. Those cheating with married men often think that marriage is about sex. If the sex is good, the man doesn't cheat. If it's not good, well, surely that's why he's in another's bed.
And so, they figure, if I offer good sex, he'll leave his wife. If I'm available to him, he'll leave his wife. 
And then, so so often, he doesn't leave his wife and they're utterly perplexed. Like Frances was until she had something of an epiphany. Until she came to understand that marriage, from the outside, is baffling to those not in it. That marriage is about so much more than sex. 
I was guilty of that simplification too, before I was married. I hadn't yet come to understand the day-in/day-out of marriage. That a marriage one year in will bear little resemblance to a marriage ten years in. Then twenty. The person I was when I said "I do" can sometimes feel like an entirely different person than I am now. My husband bears little resemblance to the guy he was then (thank god!). 
We are shaped by so many experiences that don't happen between the sheets. Together, my husband and I have buried two parents, we have lost friends to illness and geography, we have sat up late with sick children, we have worried together.
We have celebrated the large and the small. We have championed each other's dreams and comforted each other in disappointment.
And yes, we have navigated infidelity. We have found our way back to each other.
But even if we hadn't, even if we had opted to separate and divorce, that marriage we'd had, even with its undisclosed secrets, contained multitudes. 
My husband's fear at an alarming prenatal test was real, even though he was cheating on me at the time. 
My husband's happiness for me when my first book was published was real, even though he was cheating on me at the time.
And that's the thing that affair partners miss. They think a person remains whole during an affair. They imagine they are taking that whole person leaving what exactly?
When the truth is that the cheater becomes fractured. Which is why he can be at dinner, laughing with his children over something that happened that day. He can be present at a holiday, an event, in bed.
And then be present with his affair partner.
I once asked my husband what he thought about me when he was with her. "I didn't," he said. He didn't think about me. Thinking about me got in the way of what he was doing.
I was able, even then, to appreciate his honesty. It helped me understand that the affair was never about me. 
It sounds cold, doesn't it? And yet...it comforted me. It taught me something that I didn't understand before I was married. Something that Frances figured out. Marriages contain multitudes that those not in them can scarcely understand. It's why marriages can survive infidelity (with a whole lot of work). It's why people can love their spouse and still cheat. It's why our culture continues to poorly depict affairs because they assume that they're entirely about sex, when the sex is frequently a stand-in for escape, for something that felt lost, for an idea about ourselves that we seek. 
Which is also why relationships that begin as affairs have such a high failure rate. We can't outrun ourselves. We can't reinvent ourselves because, eventually, we have to decide who's going to clean the grout in the shower, who didn't pick up milk on the way home, who should be getting up with the baby. The escape becomes the mundane. And unless you've got a whole lot more than sex going for you, you've just given misery a new address. 

Your Rights in the Wake of His Wrongs

I have the right to ask for what I want and then choose how I will respond if you can’t or won’t give it to me.
~ Iyanla Vanzant

My baby girl is nursing a broken heart. Like a whole lot of 16-year-olds dealing with her first heartbreak, she's trying to figure out what went wrong. And what she's figured is this: By setting boundaries and by asking for what she wanted (she asked for more regular contact when she and her beloved were apart instead of the 48-hour silences), she was accused of being "emotionally manipulative."
"Am I, Mom?" she asked. 
No. She's not. 
She's wiser than her years and though this was her first romantic relationship, she's always had a strong sense of herself and her boundaries. (I've learned a lot from her, incidentally, about setting and keeping boundaries.)
But we know this about boundaries, don't we? That when we ask for what we want/need, others, who don't want to give us what we want/need, will try and convince us that what we're in the wrong. That we're asking for too much. That we're too sensitive. That we're manipulative. In other words, they will respond with counter-moves in order to get us to back down, to make ourselves small, to keep the peace.
To which I say, hell no.
And to which I said to my sobbing daughter, hell no. Your job is not to make yourself small to make others happy, to prioritize others' comfort over your own.
That said, her ex was completely within her rights to say 'no' to more contact. She's allowed to have her own needs/wants. But what was unkind and wrong was the accusation of emotional manipulation. 
And far too many of us accept fault when all we're doing is stating our needs.
As Iyanla puts it, clearly and succinctly, "I have the right to ask for what I want and then choose how I will respond if you can't or won't give it to me."
Which means,  you get to ask him to stop going out for a beer with his friends if it makes you uncomfortable in the wake of cheating.
He gets to say 'yes' or 'no' but his choice makes his values clear and you get to decide what to do with that information.
You get to ask him to move jobs if his affair partner works with him. You get to ask him to seek help for his addiction(s). You get to ask him to give you any/all passwords to any/all electronics.
See the pattern?
You get to ask him.
He gets to respond.
And then you get to choose what to do with that information.
Here's what you don't want to do:
Ask him for what you want/need.
He refuses.
You ask him again. You beg. You plead. You explain.
You sulk. 
Nope.
You are a grown-ass woman who is entitled to ask for what she needs. And then determine what to do with his response.
It's when we expect him to read our minds that things go off the rails. It's when we're afraid to set boundaries that we get into trouble. It's when we don't prioritize our own wants/needs that resentment takes root.
It's not easy, especially if you've spent a lifetime staying small to keep others comfortable.
But this is the time to say 'no more.' 
I have the right to ask for what I want and then choose how I will respond if you can't or won't give it to me.
It's that simple. And that hard.
And that necessary.

Guest Post: The Social Media Lie

by Chinook

Is there is a single woman out there who hasn’t Internet-stalked the Other Woman in the aftermath of discovering her partner’s betrayal?

What we find when we look her up can be gut-wrenching. 

A glorious beach vacation.

A perfect gym-toned body.

An expensive and immaculately decorated home. 

Accolades for her latest professional accomplishment.

A smile that glows with a happiness we will never know.

Eyes that glisten with a smug security we will never have.

It’s enough to make us feel inadequate about every single part of our lives. 

But Warriors, we all know social media is bullshit.

I know this not from the Other Woman but from my own friends.

I have one friend whose social media feed shows off her incredibly svelte body, her handsome husband and her adorable kids. All of these things are a true part of her life. But the whole truth? Her daughter has been in and out of hospital since birth. She and her husband are struggling. Her svelte body is because of a bout of very serious illness. 

I have an acquaintance who is phenomenally, insanely good-looking—like, magazine cover, walking-the-runway, not-quite-of-this-world gorgeous. Her feed is full of sunsets and inspirational quotes and photos of herself at various professional events in which her looks are dazzling. What doesn’t show up in her feed? She is a survivor of sexual abuse. 

I also know someone who looks kind of awful in her social media feed. She looks older than her age. None of the photos she posts of the places she visits make them look particularly envy-inspiring. Is that her life? Nope. She’s just a crummy photographer. In person, she is sexy and beautiful. She has a magnetic energy that makes everyone want her attention and approval. She is in a relationship with a gorgeous man who is besotted with her. Her children are thriving. She is one of the happiest people I know.

Because I know of all this (in other words, because my friends are honest with me and I’m honest with them about what’s really happening off-line), I wasn’t thrown off-balance with pain or envy when I Internet-stalked the other woman. The photos of her looking beautiful, confident, fit and happy were suspiciously out-of-step with what little I knew about her family life, her professional situation, and her relationship history—and what any of us can infer about the kind of woman who wants to participate in an affair. 

I’m grateful I knew these things about her, and about the false natural of social media, because once I saw that her feed was just a big lie, it became much, much easier to ignore it. 

The truth is that we all have sadness and pain and insecurity in us, whether we choose to let it show online or not. 

And honestly? If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that affair partners have way more pain and insecurity than most.