Meet Me at The Lighthouse on Beehiiv

Hello my secret sisters (and the occasional brother)! 

It has taken me far longer than I'd intended (something about the 'best-laid plans blah blah blah' seems appropriate here), I am delighted to announce that I have moved to a newsletter platform called Beehiiv and given my site a new name. Betrayed Wives Club has been reimagined as The Lighthouse. 

I chose The Lighthouse for a number of reasons. For one thing, I can well remember my fear around someone (my kids? Friends? Some boogieman?) discovering any of the books, web sites, or other online support I was seeking that had any reference to betrayal or infidelity or cheating. So ... if that's you, having The Lighthouse land in your inbox or search history likely seems a lot more innocuous than Betrayed Wives Club. Maybe you've taken up maritime history, right? 

For another, over the years of writing about betrayal, I realized that so much of what we learn in the wake of a partner's infidelity is really just lessons that help us navigate any of the stuff life throws our way. A lighthouse draws all of us in, whether you're trying to survive infidelity, or addiction, or mental health crises or, like me, all of the above.

I hope you'll join me over there. It's very much a work in progress. For now, it's free for everyone and I will always ensure that some content remains free. But I will, with time, be adding various subscriber tiers — my aim includes online meet-ups, Zoom meetings, expert support — all to help us form a community.

Please check it out. If you're comfortable, share with your networks. See you there.

On Accountability and Transformation

I screenshot this comment many months ago because I was so struck by how this question was framed:

 "How we do hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?"

It's the question that's a part of the heart of this site. (I saw a part because I think the larger part of the heart of this site is to provide a safe space for betrayed wives to heal and chart out their next steps.) 

There are other sites, of course, that traffic in vitriol, in revenge. There are sites that peddle forgiveness. I like to think that this site does neither — I have tried to create a space in which we acknowledge the deep deep wound of betrayal while at the same time recognizing that a cheater isn't necessarily a monster. But neither is a cheater automatically deserving of our forgiveness. I've tried to find a path somewhere between the two where we can keep our focus on our own pain, our own healing, while — if we choose to — remaining in touch with the humanity of the person who's caused the deep wound. 

Because I remain convinced that, as upside-down as it seems (and I acknowledge that there are exceptions), most cheaters are trying to fix something broken inside of themselves. And whether or not you're interested in rebuilding a marriage with the same person, it can accelerate your own healing if you're able to remain in touch with the humanity of the person who caused your pain.

The reason is simple: In order for us to be able to extend true compassion to someone else, we need to know it ourselves. I had long been a harsh judge of others. I had no time for liars, for scoundrels, for cheats. But when I discovered I was married to someone who was all three, and that I lacked both the energy and the bandwidth to leave right away, I had to try something else.

I wrote about it in 2015: 

"Transformation, I've discovered, isn't a bolt of lightning from the sky. It wasn't magic.
For me, transformation was showing up each day, slowly opening my heart to the possibility that I could handle this. That I was worth fighting for. Not someone else fighting for me but ME fighting for me. That I was enough, just as I was. That I had always been.
And within that transformation, there were many many gifts. Much suffering too. But that, it seems, is where transformation takes root."

By truly coming to believe that I had value, I accepted that my husband had value too. And — it shocks me still to know this — I came to believe that she had value too. That she cheated with a man she knew was married because she had no self-worth. Where had she learned to live on crumbs? 

None of this is to argue that you need to stay married. That you need to forgive him. That you need to forgive her.

It is, however, to say that if we can learn to thread that needle — to hold him accountable for wrongdoing and yet remain in touch with his humanity — we learn healthy boundaries. We learn our own worth and that of others. 

When we believe in others' capacity to be transformed, even in light of wrongdoing, we create the conditions for our own transformation. 

After Betrayal: Putting Ourselves Back Together

It sometimes feels like we are all forever putting ourselves back together, but I have only ever felt stronger for doing it. It seems to me our griefs are the very things that keep us within the world as active participants in its story, making us more effective and ultimately more joyful, despite, or perhaps because of, our breaking down.

~Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files

It has been a very long since I was where so many of you are. Reeling from the discovery of a partner's affair, or lying awake wondering if he's still cheating, or gaming out what life will look like if you stay or if you go. 

And yet, the pain can still surprise me — a sudden pang when my husband doesn't answer his cell phone, or an ache that settles in my chest watching a TV show in which a wife is betrayed, or a quickening heart when one of the young people in my life confide that they don't understand why their partner broke up with them. And I think but don't say, "I do. I know. I heard the way she talked about her new lab mate." 

"It sometimes feels like we are all forever putting ourselves back together," writes the always wise Nick Cave. And I know we all imagine a time when we are whole again, when the pain is entirely behind us.

Cave is writing to a reader about grief following the death of someone loved but grief is grief. And there is absolutely no question in my mind that betrayal leaves us grieving. Betrayal is loss. Whether or not the person remains in your life. We lose the person we thought we were married to. We lose the blissful ignorance of our wedding vows (or, if you're unmarried, of the belief that you both were similarly committed to monogamy). We lose the smugness that, somehow, our marriage would beat the odds — that it would remain unmarked by infidelity. 

If we're not careful, we lose ourselves. At least, until we find ourselves again.

But though it might seem to be bad news that "we are forever putting ourselves back together again", I am here — 15 years after my own D-Day — to tell you that pain is pain is pain. And if you can accept that, if you can acknowledge that we all go through pain in this life, it might both make you feel less lonely and more empathetic, to both your own and others' suffering. And pay attention too to the rest of what Cave says: "I have only ever felt stronger for doing it." None of us would ever choose this. And I'm not someone who embraces suffering because I think it's 'good for me'. (Insert eyeroll.) But this pain is yours right now and though I'm not sure it's making you stronger, I do believe it is revealing to you the strength that was always yours. 

And I believe this too: When the pain is mostly behind you, when you are only occasionally surprised by it, you will know also joy that tastes all the sweeter. If you have healed well — with self-respect and time and a soft heart — you will savour any morsels of joy all the more for having felt such deep pain. 

It has been a long time since I've posted here. But know this, too, my secret sisters: I think of you often. It remains an incredible privilege to have been trusted with so many of your hearts. And if this site does just one thing, I hope it is this: To remind you every single day that you are not alone and that you will get through this. 

All the lessons I continue to learn

Our good friend to Betrayed Wives Club (and who created this kickass design and logo) StillStanding gave me some advice recently. I had told her how conflicted I am about this site. I lack the time to give it the attention it (and you! All of you!!) deserve. But I lack the heart to shut it down. And I lack the creative energy at this point to reimagine it — to figure out a new incarnation that continues to give the support and community that it has provided for so long to so many (more than 4 million over about a decade!).

She told me, in that wide, thoughtful way she has, that it's okay to sort of park it, to perhaps disable comments while still keeping all the posts up, and all the old comments. That it can act as something of an archive for those new to the pain of infidelity — like reading an old book of wisdom that continues to hold value. (Though please know, those of you who don't yet know, that I write something of a guide book, an Encyclopedia, to help you navigate to a place of healing.) 

And I got thinking about how valuable "permission" is — how one of the most important aspects of this site is exactly that: We gave each other permission to just feel that deep deep pain. To sit in the not knowing what to do next. To rage and cry and grow silent and scared. Because we knew, even if we didn't yet know, that all of that was important to healing. Our own and each other's. 

So that's what I will continue to do for now. I'm not yet ready to decide and that's okay. I'm not ready to move away from all of you, and that's okay too. There are far too many times that I'll be thinking about something that has NOTHING to do with infidelity — navigating adult relationships with my children, dealing with my new job, absorbing climate grief from the work I do — and I will hit upon an insight and my first thought continues to be, I need to share this with the secret sisters. Because while so much of relationships with others isn't about infidelity at all, the lessons I've learned healing from betrayal, the support and community we created here, has everything to do with how I negotiate and experience my relationships. Boundaries. Gratitude. Courage. Radical honesty. Waiting. Self-compassion. 

I hope you'll continue to share your pain and your wisdom and your kindness to each other. I will try to be better at moderating and posting comments.

I miss those of you who have been so pivotal to my healing. And though I may never even know many of your real names, you are so very real to me. 

When do we *know* our partner's cheating?

In hindsight, I knew my husband was cheating and I knew with whom before he admitted it to me. I knew before I knew. Of course, there was lots I didn't know. The years of sexual acting out with strangers, for instance. But though I didn't know the details, I felt the disconnection. I knew...something.

But because I didn't want to know the truth, I told myself stories to soothe. We were busy with the kids, I told myself. We had growing careers. If he would just deal with his family, things would be better, I told myself (and him). He's a good man, I told myself. He loves me, I told myself. 

We lived like that for a long time. Years. A decade. 

And then...the truth. 

The truth was that my husband was living a secret life. It took place beyond my view, outside of the lines I drew around our family. It existed with strangers. People whose names and faces I wouldn't know if I bumped into them on the street. 

The truth was a thousand-volt shock to my life. The truth was a million stings to my soul. The truth was a red-hot branding iron to my brain. 

The truth changed everything.

"When one person has said the truth, both people in the relationship are emancipated," poet David Whyte recently said to On Being's Krista Tippet. "Even if you look away, when you look back the truth will still be there. And then you can move into the next stage of your relationship."

Emancipation. It's not the first word that come to mind when we discover a partner's affair, is it? For me, I felt the opposite. Not liberated but imprisoned. Trapped in a marriage, with three young children and a man who felt like a stranger to me. Everywhere I looked, I saw a cage. None of my choices looked like freedom.

And yet.

"When one person has said the truth, both people in the relationship are emancipated," says David Whyte.

It has taken many years for me to see the truth of that. There was freedom in the truth for me. Freedom from the fables I was telling myself. Freedom from the self-blame, the confusion. Freedom to make a choice that was the right one for me, even if the right one was far from perfect. Freedom from perfect.

It took years to recognize that. I wish that wasn't the truth but it is. But with practice, with learning to acknowledge the truth of things – uncomfortable things, things I wish weren't true – the span between knowing and knowing is getting smaller. I'm better at recognizing that what I wish was true doesn't make it true. 

It's hard. And it's sad. But it is, yes, also liberating. Emancipation.

Because only when we see people for who they really are, only when we see our situation for what it really is, can we respond honestly. It is then, once the truth has been spoken that both parties can move onto the next stage of the relationship. That stage might, like my own, mean rebuilding a marriage. For others, it might mean separation. Or divorce. 

And I get it. The truth of your marriage, when it's not what you wanted to hear, stings. It wounds. It brings us to our knees. But once we're standing again, that truth informs what's next. Our next right step is rooted in what we know and know. And from that knowing, we can truly choose what's right for us. 

Just Enough

We've all heard the analogy of the frog and the boiling water, right? How a frog put into a pot of water that's slowly heated until it's boiling won't jump out because he's only barely aware that the water is getting hotter. It's happening so incrementally. Yet, if a frog is dropped into a pot of boiling water, he'll leap out with a "yikes, no way" (assuming frogs can talk). 

How many of our marriages are slowly boiling water? How many of us are oblivious frogs?

How many of us stay because it's Just Enough for us? 

How many of us, when our husbands stop showing up for us, turn to girlfriends, to sisters, to work, to hobbies? Maybe to less healthy relationships, like food, over-exercising, booze or drugs?

Just Enough.

A lot of us are queens of Just Enough. 

Just Enough keeps us confused but stationary.

Just Enough might have us occasionally wondering what's wrong but all too quickly blaming ourselves.

Just Enough is believing him when he says he's working late, that he's stressed, that he doesn't know what we're talking about, that we're just acting jealous, or crazy. 

We hang our entire lives on Just Enough.

What if, instead, we imagine ourselves, a decade ago, being dropped into the water in which we're in right now? Would we stay? Or would we jump the hell out? Would we scream no way!? 

Would we second-guess ourselves? Or would we know we already know, deep down? Something's wrong. I don't like this. I can't live in this situation. It is harmful to me.

Would we demand the truth, even after he insists he's giving it to us? Would we insist on seeking outside help, even if he says we're being ridiculous? Would we pack our bags because if no matter what he says, this isn't okay for us, this isn't healthy for us? 

What changes when we conclude that Just Enough is a death sentence? Either for us or our marriage?

Just Enough is our warning that we're in dangerous waters. That something has to change in order for us to thrive, to be our best, to parent well, to live well. 

The change can be us, it can be him, it can be our marriage. Ideally, it's all of those things. Because Just Enough is actually Not Enough At All. 

My Overly Defended Heart

I wrote the title of this blog post on my phone and then emailed it to myself. That's how I keep track of interesting phrases, or quotes, of tidbits of info I want to Google later when I have time and when I don't have to strain my aging eyes reading things on my phone.

I don't know where I saw the phrase "my overly defended heart". Maybe Brené Brown's new Atlas of the Human Heart, which my son gave me for Christmas. (If you're not watching her TV series based on the book, please do! It's wonderful.) I do know that when I saw it, when I still see it, it feels true. It is true. My heart. It is overly defended.

I wonder if yours is too. It would be reasonable, of course, when our heart has been shattered, to build a wall around it. To defend it. To guard it from any threat.

And yet, I believe – with my whole heart – that what Nick Cave says is true when he tells a young reader, fearful of heartbreak,

"to resist love and inoculate yourself against heartbreak is to reject life itself, for to love is your primary human function. It is your duty to love in whatever way you can, and to move boldly into that love — deeply, dangerously and recklessly — and restore the world with your awe and wonder. This world is in urgent need — desperate, crucial need — and is crying out for love, your love. It cannot survive without it."

Heady stuff, huh? To imagine that the world wants, indeed needs our love! Nobody could blame us if we say 'no' to that. If we decide to stay small, to refuse to expose our hearts to more pain, more injury.

My therapist once told me how resilient I was. She pointed to the all the ways in which people had harmed me, from when I was young. Look at you, she said to me, urging me to see myself as strong. I pushed back. Surviving isn't strength, I insisted. I was tired of being resilient. Sick to death of forcing myself back onto my feet when what I wanted – what I thought I'd earned – was rest, solitude, to be left the fuck alone. Never again, I vowed. I would stay married because I couldn't imagine telling my children that their parents were divorcing. That wasn't strength, as far as I was concerned. That was exhaustion. I would build fences – walls! – around my heart.

It hasn't exactly turned out that way. For one thing, my default setting is a soft heart. It didn't seem to matter whether there was barbed wire around it, my heart wouldn't harden enough to make me invulnerable to pain.

My guess is yours won't either. But the good news is, you don't want it to.

Because an overly defended heart isn't one that doesn't feel pain, it's one that can't feel love. I know, I know. The two feel inextricably linked right now. Lovepainlovepain, all wrapped up in a ball of confusion.

But, as best you can, let yourself heal from this in a way that keeps your heart unguarded enough to enjoy the good stuff, too. As my therapist also explained to me once, by refusing to feel the bad stuff, you also numb yourself to the good stuff. Your heart can't be selective. It's either all felt, or none of its felt. 

Besides, Cave makes a compelling case. "To love the world is a participatory and reciprocal action — for what you give to the world, the world returns to you, many fold, and you will live days of love that will make your head spin, that you will treasure for all time." Love, he tells us, means we're alive. He concedes that heartbreak often comes with love, something he hardly needs to tell any of us, right? 

We are not given guarantees. Surely we know that by now. And yet, we act as if we can stop pain. We act as if we can insulate ourselves from bad things.

What we must do, the only option really available to us, is accept all that life brings our way. This is not the same as saying it's okay to treat us badly. It is never okay. We get to choose who gains entry to our day-to-day lives. But it is to refuse to let pain, our wounds, harden us against life's joys, because joy exists too. It is an act of self-preservation to stop and notice. Joy might be easily overlooked right now but it's there. The first spring flower. A brilliant blue sky. A puppy. A child climbing into your lap. A really good cup of coffee.

It's all there for our hearts to take in. But only if we haven't defended our hearts so thoroughly that we miss it all. 

Nothing, of course, happens fast enough

Nothing, of course, happens fast enough and we just want to be returned to that uncomplicated life we once had – we want stability restored – but it is not to be. Now we have a new life; unchartered, uncertain, beyond our control, and that we are on some level undertaking alone, even within the company of the ones we love. Our worlds are still raw and new. They hum with suffering, but there is immense power there too.

~Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files

Nothing, of course, happens fast enough...

On the one hand, our days blur into nights blur into days and it feels as the world should have stopped entirely and yet it's not, it is turning turning turning.

On the other hand, time crawls. It is 4 a.m. and we wonder how we are going to survive the remaining darkness until morning gives us some reason to at least try and stand, to find some way to make ourselves useful, to try, at least, to feel part of the world.

We just want to be returned to the uncomplicated life we once had. Nick Cave is, for those familiar with him and his work, talking about the death of his son. And I know it's so tempting for us to gasp and hold ourselves back from relating because, after all, we didn't lose a child, nobody has died. How dare we think our grief compares?

But Cave himself, and anyone who has truly felt their grief and the way in which it connects them to all suffering, everywhere, doesn't monitor the door the grief club – letting in only some and not others. Rather, they – we – learn that grief is grief is grief. That it is, as Cave says, tidal. Washing over us, threatening to pull us out where we can't possibly survive and then depositing us again and again, a bit stronger each time, back on the shore. 

It has been many many years since I felt that grief as it related to my marriage, to my husband's betrayal. It has been months since I've written here. I have used the years to heal myself and my marriage, to rebuild a relationship with the man who has spent his time earning back my trust. I consider myself lucky to be with him still. He remains my best friend, one of the kindest people.

I have more recently spent months working on a new project, a magazine focused on climate solutions. And that is where I am becoming reacquainted with grief. I had taken a break from much of my writing on environmental and social justice issues because it sometimes felt as if I was bashing my heart against a rock. 

But the focus this time is different and, bear with me, not unlike my approach to healing from betrayal. This time, I am focused on solutions. I am no longer interested in trying to convince the unconvinceable about the climate crisis. (Just as I long ago abandoned the idea that I had to defend my choice to stay in my marriage.) Instead, I write about the incredible ways people are addressing climate, the ways in which they are using their bruised hearts to heal the earth, to connect with others.

But still...Ukraine. Trans youth. Book bans. The list, of course, goes on.

And with it, grief.

Know this, all of you whose grief around betrayal eclipses all: You are down but you are not beaten. You are stronger than you know. Grief is a normal human response to pain, to injustice, to inhumanity. It is a normal response to betrayal. Let yourself feel it. Trust that it will not strand you. You will find yourself, as I do now, years down the road, having survived. Having rebuilt a life that may or may not look like the one that feels annihilated right now. There is suffering indeed, says Cave. But there is immense power there too. 

I'm alive and fine! And missing you!!

I have many many half-written posts that I plan to complete "when I have time". And I so appreciate everyone's well wishes and concern but I am fine! Far too busy but fine. I have taken on an actual job where they expect me to be at my (at-home) desk for a certain number of hours every week after more than two decades of freelancing and pretty much having control over my days and it's been...a lot, ya know? Good and exciting and interesting but...a lot.

So I'm trying to figure out what to do with this site, that has given me so much over the years. And that, so many of you tell me, has given you two much comfort and community.

Until I figure it out, please know I'm here and I'm fine and I'm just too f#%king busy and I really need to figure out what this life balance thing is that people keep talking about. 

I'm also something of a empty nester. All three kids are doing great and doing their thing and finding their ways in the world, which is so great as so many of you know there have been mental health struggles. But they are absolutely killing it and I am so proud.

I know there are still many of you struggling with the pain of betrayal – finding out, wondering what to do, feeling frightening and alone and confused. You will continue to find a lot of wisdom and compassion on this site. Read the comments! The women here are so smart and so incredible. And they are proof that you will survive this and move on yourselves. It doesn't matter if a post and comments are ten yours old or ten months old. The feelings are the same.

So...welcome to those of you who are new here. And thank-you to you long-haulers who've been with me over the months and years. I'm still figuring out what this next stage of Betrayed Wives Club will look like (maybe it will look just the same!) but you will all be the first to know. 

Love,  Elle 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Thursday's Thought

 

Your Quiet Courage

You've got to tell the world how to treat you [because] if the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.

~James Baldwin

There is one question that hangs over so many of us in the days following discovery of our partner's infidelity: Will my marriage survive? Of course, it's a question that only dogs those of us who think we want our marriage to survive. Plenty of others cut and run, convinced that infidelity sounds the death knell of any marriage. I used to envy them their certainty. 

But those of us who stay tend to agonize over it: Will my marriage survive?

Mine has. I'm coming up on the 15th anti-versary of D-Day and here I am. Ring still on finger (engagement ring, anyway. Wedding band remains tucked away in a drawer), husband beside me.

But it is with the hindsight of 15 years that I recommend a far more important question to those of you in the early days of discovering betrayal. Who will I become?

We all become something after earth-shattering events like betrayal. There is simply no going back. Our world has changed. And, like it or not, we are changing with it.

But those who emerge from betrayal with a strong sense of their self and their worth are those who refuse to be defined by it. Or, as a good friend put it, they don't ask "why did this happen to me?" but rather "why did this happen?" The betrayal, they realize, isn't really about them at all. They are collateral damage. Or, as we often put it on this site, he didn't cheat because there's something wrong with you, he cheated because there's something wrong with him.

Chinook, who wrote the quintessential blog post on how to survive betrayal, urges us all to recognize that who we are is worth revering:

As a society, by and large, we only value loud courage: the action hero kind of courage. Punching. Shouting. Kicking him out. Calling a lawyer. Going it alone. (We don’t appreciate the phenomenal difficulty that single mothers face every single day, but we do applaud the woman who kicks the bum out.) We don’t value (or even recognize) the silent kinds of courage. The courage to find compassion for yourself and others. The courage to really feel the pain. The courage to stay with someone who has hurt you but is trying like crazy to make amends. The courage to shield our children. The courage of grace. We appreciate things that look physically courageous. We mostly don’t know how to even recognize emotional and spiritual courage. Does it take courage to leave? Yes. Does it take courage to stay? Yes.

However you choose to respond to what's happening to you, know this: You get to decide who you are. You get to decide what your marriage becomes. "My heartbreak, my rules," right? You get to decide, as Chinook put it, if the person you are becoming wants to build a marriage with the person he is becoming. Because if we let anyone tell us how they're going to treat us, then we are in trouble. 

Thursday's Thought

 

Grief and growth and my promise to you

I sometimes wonder what I have to contribute to this conversation around infidelity when I am so far past it. Sure, I still remember those awful days when I felt both pinned beneath my pain but simultaneously cut loose from the physical world. I would drift between wishing I could just go to sleep and not wake up and wishing I didn't have to go to bed because there would be nothing, at 3 a.m., to distract me from my terror.

But while I remember those days, I no longer feel them. In some ways, it's like it happened to someone else. And I suppose it did. Me but a different me. 

Still, I will come across a comment or a story or an image (like the one above) and think, yes, yes, that's what it was like. That's what happened to me, too.

I'm occasionally asked how I got over (through, I tell them, through, not over) my husband's infidelity. And I have my answer: therapy, my mother (until she died six months post D-Day), running, crying, my pets, a couple of good friends. But there is also this answer: time. It is not magic but it can feel like alchemy. Time alone will not disappear pain but time + therapy + feeling your feelings = healing.

I'm posting this image (credit for this, too) because it so perfectly depicts what really happens. My pain, my grief around what I lost when I learned of my husband's betrayals, didn't shrink. Not at all. But my life grew. My world expanded. I was able to keep space for my grief but not let it eclipse everything else. At first, that seemed impossible. I was certain that I would never ever feel joy again. My pain, my grief, consumed me and cast a shadow over everything else. Even when I felt a tinge of happiness, it was quickly swallowed by sadness. And so I resigned myself to a half-life. One lived without joy.

But I had a moment when I could see that something was shifting. It might not have been the first moment but it was the first that I really took notice. I was walking my dog. It was winter and it had snowed. The sun was out and the snow sparkled, as if sprinkled with fairy dust. It felt like magic and I smiled to myself. I could see the beauty. I could feel that something different was possible. And that's where change happens right? When we can imagine it. When we can open ourselves to believing that what we feel right now isn't the end of the story.

It can feel complicated to talk about grief in regards to infidelity. After all, our husband didn't die. We haven't lost a child. Rather, infidelity grief is complicated grief. But it is, nonetheless, grief.

And so I can tell you this: Your life will grow around it. Your grief will not disappear though you will, as I did, come to place where it isn't raw like a fresh wound but rather leathery, like a scar. 

And I can also make this promise: You are bigger than this pain. Your life is bigger than this pain. You, too, will get through this. Not over but through. And though your grief won't necessarily shrink, your life will grow around it until your grief is not a boulder but a pebble that reminds you of your strength and your courage and your refusal to give up on yourself. 

Here's What Will Happen When She Finds Out You Cheated

I am away so I'm reposting some of my most popular posts. This originally appeared in March 2020:

If you've thought at all about how your cheating is affecting her, you likely 
imagine just how angry she'll be.

And yes, she probably will be angry. She might throw you out of the house. She might empty your closets and toss your clothes on the front yard. She might call up your mother and let her know just what a scumbag she raised. That's probably what you're picturing, right? If you're picturing anything at all. If you've considered that you might get caught.
But you know what's also possible? What's likely? 
That her face will register utter bewilderment that the person she trusted with her heart has broken it. You might not be there to see it. She might discover your betrayal by stumbling over a message or a photo on your phone. Or she might get a phone call from someone who starts the conversation with "I don't know how to tell you this but there's something you should know..."
But then she'll ask you. Is this true? And if you man up and tell her the truth, you'll see it: bewilderment. Shock. And then a shattering. 
But that's just the beginning. This isn't a storm cloud that blocks the sun for a day, or two, or three. This is an entire climate shift, a new reality, that will change everything for weeks and months and, yes, even years. 
In the days following her discovery of your betrayal, she will cry a million tears. Just when you – and she – think there couldn't possibly be any more tears, they will fall.
They will fall when you try and hug her. They will fall if you refuse to hug her. She will fight them when she's tucking your kids into bed but they will come later. When she's still awake at 3 a.m., they will roll down the sides of her face and soak into the pillow. She will be wondering how she could have missed this, how you could have lied to her face. She will be rethinking every choice she made related to you, starting at the very first meeting. She will wish she'd never met you, never said 'yes', never said 'I do.'
She will be imagining what you did with the Other Woman. It won't matter that it wasn't like that at all. You've told her that. It was nothing, you've told her. It didn't mean anything. But she will still picture you two, like porn stars, doing things she can barely imagine. She will imagine you two laughing at her, taking delight in her cluelessness. She won't yet understand that you didn't think about her at all. And if you did, it was only to imagine how angry she'd be. To consider how you'd better be careful so she didn't find out. 
The tears will eventually stop, replaced by...what exactly? This isn't your wife. Your wife is warm and loving. This new wife, this zombie, will frighten you. Is she thinking about leaving you? Why doesn't she want to be touched? Why is she so...volatile? Or numb?
Her pain is there buried beneath a numbness that allows her to function without feeling. It's survival. Nobody can sustain that level of pain. We need a break from it. Our bodies and minds numb us. You didn't expect that, did you? If you thought about it at all.
But you didn't, did you? You didn't think about it. Except to justify it to yourself. To tell yourself that "nobody" was getting hurt. That "nobody" is barely recognizable to you now, isn't she? She's not the woman she was. She's distant and moody. She's thin.
Yes, she's very thin. 
She hardly eats because food tastes like the ashes of her burned-down life. You lit the match for that. She knows that. 
Which is why it's so confusing to recognize that she still loves you. That she wants to believe you when you tell her that it's over, that it was nothing. That she is who you love.
She wants to believe but how can she? You're a liar. Yes, I know you balk at that word. Just like you spark with anger when she calls you cheater. But you are those things, aren't you? A liar and a cheater. You hadn't thought about it those stark terms, had you? If you'd thought about it at all.
But you didn't. Think about it, that is. You really didn't think about it.
And even now you don't want to think about it. Which is why you're so damn tired of her wanting to talk about it. Of her wanting to know more. Always more. Where did you go with her? she asks. What did you talk about? Did you tell her you loved her?
How to make her understand that none of that mattered? That it meant nothing, even if you told the OW you loved her. You didn't mean it. It was a way to keep the fish on the line, so to speak. To keep the supply coming. You hadn't thought you were hurting anyone. You hadn't thought.
That's the truth, isn't it?
You hadn't thought about it at all.

The Quintessential Guide to Healing from His Affair

...posted by Chinook

#1 ANGER.

Girl. When the shock wore off (which took about 12 hours), I didn’t just have anger, I had violent rage. Violent. Rage. A spirit animal — a bird of fire — came and inhabited my body for three straight days. I packed a bag and walked out, leaving my husband with our two little children and with no indication of when or if I’d be back. My anger was so furious that separation was the safest thing for both of us. That’s when my husband realized just how catastrophic his choices were. That was his rock bottom.

#2 PAIN.
The pain was more intense than any pain I have ever felt. I gave birth without an epidural or any kind of pain control, and I swear, this was the same level of pain, but sustained for weeks.

#3 WHAT HURT(S) THE MOST.
The gaslighting. And the fact that he wanted to share special things with her; not with me and our children. Unlike so many women I’ve heard from, I knew — knew in my gut — that something was wrong as he was starting the affair. Our marriage was in bad shape despite the years of effort I’d been making but even at that, I felt something shift. I forced us into marriage counselling and it turns out that my instincts were bang on. He booked their first date, thus starting the affair, the same day as our first marriage counseling session. I even asked him point blank one night if he was having an affair. (That sense of just knowing that Elle describes? Girl. I had that too.) He denied it all of course and used our therapy sessions to make me think I was imagining things. But I never gaslit myself. I knew something was wrong. His affair “only” lasted two months and the physical component was “only” a week long and, so he claims, never quite made it to being sexual (and yes, I’m defining that terms in the broadest possible sense). But it wasn’t the fact that he made out with her multiple times or even that he came close to sleeping with her once. It’s the fact that he made diner reservations for her, not me. That he sent joking emails to her, not me. That he invited her to go hiking with him, not me. And all the while I was staying home with the two kids, unwittingly facilitating his affair. Girl, that is a punch in the gut, even now.

#4 WHO TO TELL.
I didn’t make it a secret that I was going through the experience of discovering I had been cheated on. That said, I didn’t advertise it either. The reason I didn’t make it a secret is because I knew I’d need people supporting me, and those people needed to know the truth. Also, this is apparently something that happens quite a lot in our society, and I really think that if we just TALKED about it more, a lot of the stigma would be reduced and also people who are tempted to think that cheating is something they can just do on the sly without hurting anyone would disabuse themselves of that bullshit. In the very very beginning, I reached out to two women I barely knew that I knew had been cheated on, seeking their advice. I wouldn’t have had those people to turn to if I didn’t know they had been cheated on. Now, maybe I can be that for someone else who is as desperate as I was.

#5. HOW MY COMMUNITY REACTED
My friends were and continue to be awesome, which really speaks to how amazing my chosen community is. I have surrounded myself with a network of women who are smart and strong, who understand and embrace the sticky messiness if life, and who will respect and support me whether I stay or go. Along with those women come the men and women who love them and are their life partners: people who value self-knowledge and are compassionate and kind. The big disappointment for me was my parents. When things fell apart, I literally couldn’t function. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, and could not take care of my children. I was in crisis. I really, really, really needed someone to listen without judgement and to physically come in and take care of me and my kids for a while. My parents, who could have done it, chose not to. They wanted to preserve the comfort of their perception of reality and of their routine. So who did step up to take care of me when I was incapacitated? Here's where it gets weird. It was my husband, the man whose selfishness put me in that state. And looking back, that was what first made me consider the possibility of staying.

#6. WHY DID HE DO IT?

I’m lucky because right from the word go (because of work done by feminists and relationship experts like Elle and like Esther Perel), I knew this was 100% because of him and his issues and 0% because of anything that had to do with me. I’m an awesome catch in every way. But it took a while and lots of therapy with a very very good therapist before my husband finally figured out for himself why he essentially blew up his whole life (and mine and that of our kids). In our case, my husband had an affair because he wanted to escape the problems in our marriage, which existed because of a whole lot of crap from his horrible childhood that he had never had the courage to deal with in a healthy way. But instead of being brave and facing the crap and accepting that HE was the problem in our marriage, he instead chose to create a double-life in which he presented himself as a single dad to the (very) young woman who asked him out one day, taking the opportunity when it arose. I had been working diligently and patiently for years to try and make our marriage better but it turns out that the more effort I put in, the less he felt like he needed to try, and the more he felt entitled to take take take. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth? When I discovered his affair, my boundaries came roaring back into place and my healthy sense of entitlement came roaring back. I could literally hear the roaring in my ears as they came back from wherever I had shoved them down to over the years of self-sacrifice. They are all still firmly in place and will never budge again.

#7. WHY HER?

Again, I am soooo lucky that I had very strong resilience going into this. (Which reminds me: read “Resilient” by Rick Hanson. Amazing.) I knew from the beginning that my husband’s affair wasn’t because I lacked something. In fact, when I started to learn about the other woman, it became clear to me that she was inferior to me in every way (except age, if you adhere to our society’s view that youth is superior, and fitness level, where I’m still pretty fit but not compared to someone 13 years younger with no kids who can go to the gym whenever she likes without having to arrange child care). And that was the whole point for my husband. He WANTED someone inferior to me — less confident, less powerful, less accomplished, less educated, less worldly, less well travelled, with lower earning power — because he liked how it made him feel better about himself. Was I making him feel bad about himself in our marriage? Hell, no. I thought he was awesome and sexy and a fantastic dad and told him so all the time. The voice that made him feel inferior wasn’t coming from me, it was coming from inside himself; but he didn’t want to admit that to himself. So what did she, the other woman, have? As Elle wisely says: nothing I want. She is damaged and lacking in confidence and willing to not ask too many questions about why the guy she’s dating kinda still seems to be living with his wife and kids despite his claims that they were separating. Do I want to be like her? Hell, no. The other thing that made him choose her is convenience. She flirted with him. She was available. And would I ever want a man to choose me primarily because I’m available? Duh. No.

#8. PITYING VS. HATING THE OTHER WOMAN.

Some people say you shouldn’t hate the other woman but rather pity her. I say do both! She was instrumental in nearly effing up my children’s lives by wrecking their family. Of course I hate that bitch. That pathetic, pitiable bitch.

#9. DOESN’T SHE CARE THAT SHE RUINED MY FAMILY?

Nope. Because if she did care, she wouldn’t have done it. You’ll never be able to understand how she can live with herself so don’t even try. The answer is that she is completely messed up. Take solace in the fact that you aren’t. You are in pain, but you are not messed up.

#10. STAYING FOR THE KIDS.

I'm not sure if your kids factor into this at all, but they did for me. I’m actually pretty surprised at how rarely I read that kids factor into people’s decisions to give a cheating spouse a second chance or not. Personally, if I didn’t have kids, I would have dumped him immediately. Our marriage was in a terrible state before and I was the one doing all the work to make it stronger. The fact that we had two very young children is the ONLY reason I even contemplated not divorcing him; I was very happy, independent and accomplished before we met and, without kids, and would immediately have gone back to that life. When I discovered his affair I was willing to fight for our family but not for our marriage; he had to fight for that.

#11. MAKING THE HARD HEALTHY CHOICES.

It sounds like you're already doing this, Anonymous. After the first few weeks of shock and body-shaking sobbing and furious anger, I decided that I would have to actively rewire my brain so that the unhealthy stuff didn’t have a chance to create entrenched neural pathways. I knew the anger would poison me. I knew that trolling the OW’s social media would make me hurt more. I knew that drinking a bottle of wine every night was just making things worse. So, I forced myself to make them. And Girl: it sucked. But I did it. When the angry thoughts came in, I actively stopped them and forced my brain to think of my awesome children. When self-pity squeezed me, I forced myself to feel gratitude. When I wanted to check the OW’s Instagram, I forced myself to read a gripping fiction novel instead. Forced myself. Forced. It was an act of will. And Girl, as I did it, it felt like it wasn’t helping at all. I was still so angry. I was still so consumed by the injustice of it all. I still obsessed over her. But I kept on doing it. And thank god I did, because within about 2-3 months, all that stuff just got much, much quieter.

#12. SURVIVING MINUTE TO MINUTE.

You mentioned being in the eye of the storm and struggling badly. To paraphrase Mira Kirshenbaum from her book “I love you but I don’t trust you” (which I found good but inadequate — it’s better for “smaller” betrayals), if you’re asking yourself “how do I survive this pain?” the answer is that you already are surviving it. You are doing it. My advice, if you find a wave of grief crashing down on you, is to enter the texture of the moment, and breathe. Notice the smell of the room. The texture of what you’re sitting on. The saturation of the colours. The many sounds. Stay in the moment. Breathe. The pain will eventually release you. Then, at the end of every day, make a point of being grateful. In your mind, actively relive all the things you experienced during the day that you are grateful for.

#13. WHAT COURAGE LOOKS LIKE.

Make no mistake about it, You are being brave. As a society, by and large, we only value loud courage: the action hero kind of courage. Punching. Shouting. Kicking him out. Calling a lawyer. Going it alone. (We don’t appreciate the phenomenal difficulty that single mothers face every single day, but we do applaud the woman who kicks the bum out.) We don’t value (or even recognize) the silent kinds of courage. The courage to find compassion for yourself and others. The courage to really feel the pain. The courage to stay with someone who has hurt you but is trying like crazy to make amends. The courage to shield our children. The courage of grace. We appreciate things that look physically courageous. We mostly don’t know how to even recognize emotional and spiritual courage. Does it take courage to leave? Yes. Does it take courage to stay? Yes.

#14. YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE WORDS.

As a writer, words are extremely important to me. The words “taking him back” make me feel really uncomfortable. They just don’t reflect my experience. Because “him” – the man who cheated on me – is more or less gone at this point. Instead, over the past year of rocket-fuel-pain-powered growth, my husband has become someone amazingly different. That’s why I prefer these words instead: I’m seeing if I the person I have become might want to have a new marriage with the person he has become. Wordier, yes. But accurate.

Honoring an Anniversary After Infidelity

I am away from my desk so I'm republishing some of my most popular posts. This originally ran in August 2020

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.

All we have is what we are and what we give

We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.

Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

You may have noticed that my blog posts have been less frequent. The past months have been busy. I'm working with a new startup and it is absorbing not just my time but my energy so that even when I find myself with an hour or two, I must try to refuel. Which usually means a hike in the woods. 

I have, however, been trying at least to keep up with the comments, which can often take an hour or two to read, moderate, and respond to. I don't respond to every comment but I try so hard not to miss anyone who is seeking a response, who is clearly in need of someone to say, if nothing more, I see your pain and I know it too. It will pass.

Which is why I'm so grateful when I return here, time-pressed and tired, to see that someone else has stepped in for me. To read someone else's words of comfort to a fellow traveler to these rocky shores. To see the compassion and wisdom extended. In short, you all – my secret sisters – amaze me.

I remain convinced that, while betrayal is excruciating, it is made worse by the loneliness so many of us feel as we suffer it. As one woman put it on this site last week, her shame has kept her silent. And her silence has kept her lonely.

I was lonely. And yes, there was definitely shame that kept me silent though I have since come to understand that the shame was never mine, that betrayal doesn't mean there's something wrong with me but rather that there's something wrong with him. Still...silence. And silence isolated me. Desperate for those who might also know my pain and eager to create a space where we could gather, I created this blog, which has long outgrown the rudimentary technology it was built on. I have become frustrated at my inability to create the opportunity to connect you to each other in a way that doesn't involve me moderating comments – to create a safe way for you to come together in whatever way works for you. To meet in person, or via text, or Messenger, or WhatsApp. I have tried to think through options but none of them make me comfortable as the liaison. 

If there are techies among you who have a potential solution, please share it. I continue to mull over how best to grow this community, to expand my reach, to share what I think this site does so well: Remind others going through the agony of betrayal that they are not alone, that others know and see their pain, that no matter what path they choose, they will be okay. Betrayal isn't the final line of the story. 

And until I am not so busy, please know how grateful I am to those of you who step in to offer comfort, to offer welcome. To those who arrive here with only a broken heart and a story, you are among friends.