In Praise of Confusion

I recently met a woman about whom I was writing a profile for a magazine. Her life was rich and interesting, full of political intrigue and forging into new territory. After a few hours, she lamented the fact that she was single. She had, she admitted, recently ended a relationship with a man whom she discovered was cheating. She loved him madly, she said. Why did you end it, I responded. She was shocked. She had to end it, she said. How else could she regain her dignity?

I understand her mindset. She wasn't married to this man. There were no children whose psyches needed to be considered. And, from what she told me, I'm not sure this was a guy who deserved second chances.

Nonetheless, I always feel slightly sad for people whose behaviour is dictated by some set of social or cultural rules. If she still lived in her Middle Eastern place of birth, she wouldn't have the luxury of leaving a cheating husband. But she absorbed her culture's rules around cheating -- by women -- no second chances. Rather death by stoning.

I'm not an apologist for giving cheaters a second chance. What I am suggesting is that you make up your own minds about whether to stay together or not. I wonder how many of us default to our position because of preconceived notions of what we "should" do. And also, I believe, because living even temporarily in a state of confusion is excruciating to humans.

Yet the state of confusion is usually where we find ourselves after D-Day. Our brains and hearts hate confusion. Sitting with it is terrifying. So we cling to our "rules". I love him...but cheating is a deal-breaker. I hate him but must stay because of the kids. I would forgive him if it was just a one-night-stand. We cling to the rules as a way to find solid footing in quicksand. And yet it can  be within the confusion that we find a lasting clarity.

I lived with confusion for more than a year (or longer!). My feelings about my marriage shifted daily, sometimes even a dozen times within the same day. Not knowing what to do was supremely uncomfortable, especially for someone like me who likes to feel in control. I clung to my conviction that I shouldn't make any sudden moves until I was sure. With three young children, I used them as my shield against storming out the door. I knew my greater responsibility was to their sense of safety and stability. And so I waited for the confusion to lift.

It did. In its own sweet time. And when it did, I was able to recognize that within all that confusion a clear desire was taking shape. I didn't want to leave but the gnawing feeling that I should want to leave left me paralyzed. So by waiting until the anger had subsided and the pain felt less raw, it became more clear what my actual wants were. Not what I thought I should do...but what I actually should do.

Try not to fear that place of confusion. You don't want to live there forever but sometimes it's an important place to stop.

More Words on Forgiveness

"Forgiveness does not equal forgetting. It is about healing the memory of the harm, not erasing it."     ~Ken Hart

My High School Reunion: Facing a Friend Who Betrayed Me

I recently attended my 30th high school reunion. I was nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I had decided not to go. High school wasn't a laugh-riot for me though I wasn't bullied. My marks were good. I had friends. 
Sadly though, one of those friends betrayed me. After two years of being with the first boy I'd said I loved, the first boy I had sex with, we broke up when I went to school in another city. Days after we broke up and just days before I left, I went to a party. There, on a couch sitting on my now-ex's lap, was my friend.
You could say that what she did was fine -- after all, he and I had broken up. We weren't technically going out. That's essentially what she said.
But I know better.
Friends don't do that to other friends. There are enough guys in the world that, unless you're convinced this one is your soulmate and you're willing to sacrifice your friendship for that, you can obey the law of the sisterhood. She and he broke up a month or two later when she started dating another guy. 
It took me years to get over my anger. Her name made my blood boil. The thought of her having any measure of happiness in life seemed like a bad karmic joke. Eventually I got past it, though I've nursed a simmering resentment for the decades since.
So when she was one of the first to RSVP to the reunion, I decided to just stay home.
At the last minute, however, I changed my mind. 
I'd had a mind-shift. I remembered back to what I knew of her before she dated my ex. She craved attention from men. She was self-absorbed. Almost childish at times. With what I know now, it's easy for me to recognize that she desperately needed validation from others (men!) that she was worthy. She's now on husband #3 so apparently she's still looking.
But I was able to recognize that her dating my ex wasn't about trying to hurt me. It wasn't about me at all. Surely she knew that my still-aching heart would be a casualty of her choice. But obviously I didn't matter more than her need to have someone pick her.
I decided that I would attend the reunion and that I would let go of 30 years of bitterness. That I would note the fact that all of us had undoubtedly changed in three decades, including me. 
So I did. 

She sought me out. Not to apologize – I doubt that even dawned on her – but simply to catch up. In the course of our conversation she made note of another event, when she'd suddenly quit a job that I'd got for her. A good job. I had thought it was because I'd been promoted and she was jealous. Turns out she quit because when she asked for an upcoming night off to attend a school dance the supervisor said she could have it off...if she gave him a blow job.

I was stunned. I'd had no idea.

I realized how often we make assumptions about others' actions based on a piece of information, not the whole story. I asked why she'd never told me what happened. "Because I thought I'd done something wrong," she said. Instead, without the maturity or perspective that comes with age and confidence, she quit.

What my friend did to me still sucks. It's still something that I hope my daughter never does to a friend. But the bitterness has, for the most part, evaporated. I feel sorry for her. For her unquenchable need to be adored. For her own inability to admit her shortcomings. For her continued quest to fill from the outside what can only be filled from within.

She recently had a health scare and she told me that when her third husband came into the hospital where she'd been taken that the look on his face – total panic – made her finally realize how much she mattered to him. In that instant, she said, she realized that this was truly the man for her. Her marriage, she said, changed. It became a priority. 

I was glad to hear. Finally. 

Fool Me Once...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Or so goes the old adage.
We were fooled once. We were fooled and lied to and deceived. It brought us to our knees. It damn near killed us. And there is no way in hell we're going to be fooled again.
So we put up our guard. We're on constant alert. Did he look me in the eye when he came home last night? Is he checking his phone more than usual? Is that a new cologne he's wearing?? Was he really working late?
We might check his computer, even if we haven't in years. We might sneak a look at his phone.
Even if we've let our guard down, even when we think we can finally relax into a marriage that has been rebuilt, made stronger by the storm it weathered, the slightest something-not-quite-right can send us spiralling back into our conviction that we must NEVER be fooled again.
I've been there. And, in fact, am there.
My husband thinks he's ready to kick his therapy. Over the past six years since D-Day, he's seen a sexual addiction specialist, done EMDR, attended work-benefit-supplied emergency counselling and, finally, a Jungian psychoanalyst. So yes, a lotta therapy. (Though, frankly, he was a lotta messy.)
In that same time, I've watched a man who frequently swung between childlike fear and superhero-like faux invincibility become balanced. I've heard him tell clients that he simply can't meet them in the evenings because that's his family time. I've seen him, finally, stand up to his mother. He pauses to take a breath before he responds to our child's requests. He find humor in what might have infuriated him. He's found space in his heart to learn to love himself with all his mistakes, which, of course, has allowed him to truly love me and our kids. He has wrestled his shame to the ground and though it sometimes resurfaces, he can recognize it and subdue it. In other words, he's a very different man than the one who confessed to me not only an affair but many.
Still...my own fear is awakening. Without that constant check-in with a therapist, I wonder if he'll lose his way. Without being guided along the path, I worry that he'll lose his way. In short, I worry that I'll be fooled again.
And that's the danger. Not that I will be fooled, necessarily, but that the possibility is always lurking in a shadow.
And the reason it's a danger is because it keeps us hostage to the fear. It doesn't, of course, alter the outcome. If we're gonna be fooled again, well it's not because we didn't check his e-mail often enough, or weren't vigilant enough. It's because the person who was broken enough to fool us the first time, is still broken. (And, perhaps, because we didn't set clear enough boundaries around our hearts the first time by insisting that he seek help in whatever form you felt he needed -- by kicking drugs, entering a 12-step program, seeking therapy, finding a new job...)
There are, I'm sad to say, no guarantees. No way to be certain that we'll never feel that heartbreak again – whether from the man who first fooled us, or from a new man. There is only our hard-won knowledge that IF we are to feel our hearts break again, we can trust our own strength to put them back together.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and you're really only fooling yourself.

Worth considering...

"Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness but because you deserve peace."

A Place to Share Your Story

I'm a firm believer in the power of sharing our stories as a path toward healing. As long as that sharing takes place in an environment of mutual compassion. No matter our circumstances. No matter our choices.
So...I believe that environment exists on this site. I'm enormously proud of the community we've created and it fills me with a mother's joy when you comment on each other's posts and offer up empathy and, often, humor. There's HUGE power in that connection. Suddenly we're not alone in our pain. Suddenly there's someone who knows exactly how we feel. A virtual hand to hold. A virtual hug.
I've long wanted to find a way that each of you can connect with each other. I'm not quite there, mostly because my ability to navigate technology is more of a dis-ability. And partly because blogger, the platform I've used for this site, doesn't offer up much of an option. However, I've created a second page, which you can find by looking at the top of the Home page. There you'll see a tab marked "Join the Club...and Share Your Story." It's you invitation to do exactly that.
I hope you will. It'll take a while for people to find your story so don't take the initial lack of response personally. You've put it out there. And someone, somewhere is grateful to you for that. Including me.

The Importance of Understanding Infidelity as Trauma

The traumatic nature of disclosure of infidelity intensifies when the threat continues, through the continuation of the marital affair or lack of proof of its discontinuation...

This can't be overstated. The insanity we feel when we suspect an affair increases exponentially when we confront the cheater, expect that he'll end the affair only to be left without any proof that it really is over.
And though the research paper focuses exclusively on wives of sex addicts, this holds true for all wives who've discovered their husband's secret life.
It's the reason that any husband remotely interested in saving his marriage must immediately establish no contact with his affair partner. It's the reason that there needs to be total transparency – with you having access to his computer passwords, cell phone, all records and whatever else makes you feel that he some measure of accountability. It's the reason that he must always be available to take your calls any time you need to check on him. It's the reason that he must always be where he says he is, with whom he says he's with and for how long.
It's not about you becoming police and watchdog, it's about you being able to slowly feel safe again. Post-trauma can even follow you into a new relationship, or impact friendships. We become suspicious. We don't trust our own judgement.
Trauma following betrayal isn't the exception, it's the rule. Sure there are some women who recover more quickly but the rest of us are generally shell-shocked and paralyzed for a year, or two, or three. Post-trauma leaves us frightened and anxious, feeling isolated and unable to determine our next step. It's not something we can force ourselves to move past or will ourselves into stopping. Self-help books can't make it go away, though they can help us recognize that we're experiencing it.
I spent the first half year wondering why I wasn't feeling any better and was, in fact, feeling worse. More hopeless. Though my husband was in counselling for sex addiction and attending a 12-step group, though he was doing what he could to support me, I felt fearful and anxious. I also found myself highly mistrustful of just about everyone. I questioned their motives, wondered who they "really" were. I felt constantly off-balance. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When a friend, who worked at a support centre for sexual abuse survivors, suggested that what I was experiencing was post-trauma, I dismissed it. As I've written here before, I thought post-trauma was what rape victims or veterans dealt with. I thought what I'd experienced didn't "qualify" me for post-trauma. It seemed too dramatic a label for something so, sadly, common.
But what my friend had said at least made me open my mind to the possibility. Now it seems I'm reading everywhere that being cheated on leads to post-traumatic response.
It's not just semantics. Be recognizing the depth of your trauma, you can better heal from it. By truly acknowledging that what happened isn't just about your husband being an ass, you can recognize that your responses/reactions to a wide variety of things – from a friend cancelling a lunch date to the death of your pet – are through the lens of post-trauma.
Betrayal is traumatic. But continued betrayal or inability to determine if betrayal is continuing is worse still.