Wednesday Word Hug

Note to the Newly Betrayed

This comment appeared below the All-you-need-to-know post-infidelity guide to quashing hyper-vigilance but it really applies to anyone who find themselves here with that perennial question: How will I survive this? While she speaks from the perspective of a wife whose husband responded by making sure he deserved the second chance he was offered. But much of what she says is about learning to take care of you.

Ok here goes...

I am 2.5 years from D-Day 1, almost 2 years from the final D-Day.  

It does get better. I promise.

When I first found out, and I read that it would take years to get over this, I honestly thought "screw it." I was sorely tempted to chuck my tattered marriage away but something stopped me. That something initially was my kids, because I didn't want to put them through the trauma of a complicated divorce.  

Then I started to see small changes in him. He made the effort to keep me in the loop, involved me in his work, talked about everything and anything, trusted me with his harrowing childhood stories. I slowly, slowly realised that his infidelity was his (terrible) way of escaping, of pushing boundaries, of holding on to something deep within himself that he was scared to live without, because he had never felt good enough, loved enough, safe enough to let go. He messed up and I hated him. I really hated him. I probably hated him for a year solid. He saw me become horribly thin both physically and mentally. I became a ghost person. I wasn't inhabiting my own skin. Instead my heart and mind were locked in another place, piecing together the fragments of truth and hiding from the pain. But you know what? He was there, he rode the wild donkey alongside me, he took my shit but wasn't afraid to call me out when I needed it.

Now, after a lot of work on both our parts, things are different. I hesitate to say better, although they are a vast improvement on the months following dday. We cannot go back, no matter how much living in a bubble can seem appealling. We live in the here and now in all its dirty, messy, beautiful glory. And, shocking as it may sound, I wouldn't have it any other way.

As a result of trauma, of having my world turned upside down, I have been forced to face myself and my own demons. I know myself and I love who I am. Sure, I wish I had behaved with a bit more dignity at time (yeah...the OW heard a few unpleasant truths from me). 

To the newly betrayed....you really have got this. It isn't about you but it is an opportunity to make it about you, to put yourself first and realise that you can deal with this shit and come out of it a stronger woman, deserving of love, kindness and honesty.

Hazel

How to release suffering

Oh, how we suffer. In the hours and days and weeks and months following the discovery or disclosure of our partner's affair, we exist in an excruciating state of suspension. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to wake up. It hurts when he walks out the door and it hurts when he stays.
Everything hurts.
But, as I've noted before, sometimes it's what we do to ourselves in the wake of betrayal that hurts us even more.
The fantasies we conjure, for instance. You know the ones. Where we replay how we imagine their interaction went. Where she's witty and beautiful and sexy. Where he's besotted and generous. The truth often resembles nothing like this. But it's almost like we refuse to believe it. Why would anyone risk their marriage, their family for someone who wasn't dazzling and irresistible? It defies logic. And so we cling to this fantasy. Even when it's wrong. Even when it hurts us more.
Or we spend our days longing for things to be different. If only...we tell ourselves. If only he hadn't taken the job where he met her. If only we had insisted he stay home that night. If only we had seen what was happening sooner. Suffering, says Sylvia Boorstein, is our attachment to the idea that now could be otherwise. Spending our days wishing things were different only keeps us tethered to our suffering. It's not like suffering magically vanishes once we say to ourselves, "well, this is my reality so I might has well deal with it". But it does move in the direction of less suffering. It gives us back our power when we accept our situation. When we're so busy wringing our hands, we can't use them. When we let go of our attachment to the idea that things could be different (of course, they could. No matter what our reality is any day of our lives, things could be different...), we free ourselves of the Gordian knot that keeps us stuck.
How?
Well, you practice. If your self-esteem is a bit shaky (and whose isn't after our husbands cheat on us?), then you begin by shoring it up. You check the foundation and patch any cracks. You remind yourself that his cheating has nothing to do with your value. Rather it devalues him, not you. You're as great a catch as ever. You ensure that only those people who think you're awesome, a workshop leader I know calls them "super-fans", the people in your life who support every thing you do, are allowed into your life.
You switch up your affair fantasies. It's more likely true that the fairy tale you're imagining was a bit of a nightmare. I mostly hear stories of kinda crappy sex, miserable and/or unhinged Other Women, shame and self-disgust, feelings of being trapped. It's just as easy to change the channel in your brain to this less idealized (and more accurate) depiction. Imagine an Other Woman with room-clearing flatulence. Or an embarrassing laugh. Or whatever else makes her human and less threatening.
Try and catch yourself when you begin wandering down the "if only...." road. I went right back to the night my husband and I met. If only I had stayed home that night. If only I had said 'no' when he asked me out. Our life is not sliding doors. We're shaped by our choices and those of others. That's life. If, in hindsight, we want to review some of our choices with the clear eyes that come with time and perspective, then by all means, do it. We can all learn to pay more attention to our gut or our intuition or our inner wisdom or our self-respect. We can recognize when we're doing things we don't want to do.
But, mostly, we can release the idea that we had any real control over a decision that our partner made. We didn't make that choice, he did. And he did it for reasons of his own that he, if he wants us to consider giving him a second chance, needs to discern for himself.
Leave that with him.
Focus on you.
Wonderful, devastated you.

Let's crowdsource some common questions about healing from infidelity

A few weeks ago, one of our betrayed wife-warriors posted a typical question. I've had a Frequently Asked Questions post in my "drafts" folder for, oh, about a year or more. But here's an idea. You wildly wonderful wife-warriors have such wisdom to share so I'm going to ask for your help. Let's make a list of those typical questions/concerns/fears and then let's respond to them. I'll compile them and we'll create a section where anyone can go and get the "Betrayal 101".

I'll start with some suggestions:
When will I get over this?
How do I get him to understand how painful this is?
How do I get him to talk to me about this?
Should I tell the OW's husband?
What should I tell our children?
I can barely function. How do I survive this pain?
What's the single best thing you've done to heal?
How do I find a good therapist?
How do I get my husband to go to counselling with me?
What do I do when I discover he's lied to me again?
How do I turn off the mind movies?
How can I ever trust him again?

Okay...that's a start. If you have some advice to offer, please do and let us know what question you're answering. I'll compile them as best I can and reproduce them on their own page.

Thanks...and let's help heal everyone who finds this site.

Love,







xo

Your all-you-need-to-know post-infidelity guide to quashing hyper-vigilance

by StillStanding1

We used to be able to trust our eyes and ears. Our brains were reliable tools that operated (so we thought) with objectivity and logic. We could trust our guts, our womanly intuition. And then, suddenly, horrifically we learn that our senses have not been telling us the truth, have been faulty or offline.  Our intuition has been fooling us (or maybe we fooled ourselves into not listening to it). Our brains have turned into out-of-control locomotives, racing down the tracks of some dark, unfamiliar land and we are helpless to stop it. We feel crazy. We can’t stop thinking about a thousand “what ifs” and “I should have seen this” and mind movies and “oh my God!!! Make it stop.” And we can’t stop crying. Randomly. In the grocery. Driving to pick up the kids at school. Hearing a song on the radio. We’re afraid to watch the TV in case something triggers us. We are standing in the tall grass and we know the lions are coming for us. Suddenly, the whole world is a danger zone.

Post-infidelity we become hyper-vigilant and hyper-sensitive. Bright lights, loud noises, crowded spaces, everything makes us jump out of our skin or fall to our knees. It is a natural response to such a massive threat to safety. We have been traumatized and old reptilian parts of the brain kick in, trying to keep us safe from future harm. We overthink everything. As more details come to light, in a process quaintly dubbed “trickle truth,” we attempt to create a narrative that makes sense. When I was with our daughter at the nephrologist, trying to determine why a 16-year-old would have kidney stones, you were on a “business trip.” When you were in the basement playing that song, it wasn’t for me.

We start looking for clues everywhere. We turn into sleuths, searching online, on their phones, asking questions, checking in, examining credit card and phone bills, installing questionable tracking apps. We start analyzing every word, every facial expression. Did he blink and look left? Was what he just said true? What did he leave out? What is he hiding? Why didn’t he check in when he said he would? What doesn’t add up? We scour books and articles for any clues that might tell us what the hell is happening and how to make it stop. And we think and think and worry and think and worry and brace for impact. We don’t want to be fooled again. We are constantly on watch.

It’s exhausting. There’s no one to spell us when our watch is over, so we are constantly alert to the possibility of more lies and deception. We don’t sleep. We don’t eat. It’s not sustainable. All these activities, all the sleuthing wears us out and they get in the way of taking care of ourselves. Our instinct is fight or flight. But if we are constantly scanning the horizon for new threats, we can’t slow down and listen to what our bodies, our gut, is telling us about right now.

Tuning in to ourselves is the first step toward stopping the crazy train of hyper-vigilance. How do you do this?  Be still and take slow, deep breaths. Pause, note what is happening (my heart is pounding, I’m sweating, I’m panicking), label it.  When I say label it, I mean acknowledge the feeling or emotion or fear. When you give the thing a name, you have power over it (and not the other way around). Search for objective evidence before reacting (and if you can’t, if you’ve been triggered, be kind and gentle with yourself about it). Be mindful. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. But to do this, you need to slow down and listen. The final step to working with and through hyper-vigilance is to set boundaries with the person (or people – I’m looking at you in-laws of the world) who trigger you.

Boundaries are about what you will and will not tolerate. It’s a way to hold ourselves and others accountable for acting with integrity and treating us with respect.  Boundaries work best when you are clear on the consequences if certain lines are crossed. Boundaries take the place of hyper-vigilance because they do the same job. They keep an eye on things but with boundaries, you can eat, or take a nap, or run, or visit friends, or meditate because boundaries will be on duty, so you don’t have to be.

Recently, I had another little rumble with over-thinking and hyper-vigilance. I got more information (ref. trickle truth above). It was really disappointing, more deception uncovered, and it made me wonder: Was I over thinking? Did he mean what I think he meant or did I misunderstand? Is he really that manipulative? Is it on purpose? Is my bias now leading me to see everything as evidence for the conclusions I have already drawn? And I see this over-thinking playing out in a cycle of depression and losing the threads of my self-care regimen. I’m tired so I make less time for running, so I eat poorly, so I feel tired, so I make less time for the gym, so I start to feel less worthy and stress about my weight, so I eat poorly so I feel too tired or sad to work out. It’s a self-perpetuating doom loop.

Once I notice, I can pause, note that I am over-thinking and try to bring myself back to the present. Right now, I am OK. Right now, I am breathing. Right now, I have a roof over my head and enough to eat. Right now, there are people who love me. Right now, I can choose to go for a walk. Right now, I can soak in the tub, take a multi-vitamin, eat an apple, call a friend. I can make a choice that puts my care and feeding first. And can you too.

Because ultimately, all the FBI level, hyper-vigilance in the world isn’t going to stop a person from cheating, if they choose to do so. It isn’t going to stop us from being hurt in the future (because good news! if you are alive and human, life is going to be both amazing and painful, sometimes at the same time). It isn’t going to change the past, no matter how much we wish it would. We can only, in the end, control ourselves. When we stop trying to control those who have hurt us, we release ourselves from so much suffering.

It’s hard. You’ll stumble. You might have a good day and then suddenly notice on a walk that you are 15 minutes into rehearsing a rant at the OW. It’s OK. Here’s your opportunity. Pause. Breathe. Notice. Breathe. Label. Breathe. Let it go. Breathe.

Wednesday Word Hug

Carry On, Warriors

Some things cannot be fixed but they can be carried. 

I was at a funeral last week. My friend's mother passed away and I listened to stories of how this woman and her husband met, the "love at first sight", the courage and strength with which she lived her life. 
It sounded idyllic. A fairytale marriage, a perfect family.
But I know that wasn't true.
I also know it was.
Her life was wonderful. Full of good friends and interesting work. Her husband adored her, though not always. She suffered from depression, which reared its ugly head often. Her daughter was estranged for a number of years for reasons that nobody seems to understand.
And so she had pain in her life. And it was also wonderful. She struggled. And, occasionally, she triumphed.
She lived.
Our lives, which include our marriages, are never just one thing. There is no "perfect" marriage. No fairytale union. 
And yet...how many of us cling to that idea? How many of us imagine that our husband's betrayal of his vows, of his family, of us, lays ruin to our marriage? That the other marriages, the ones we're not in and therefore don't really see, are better? That other families are more loving.
Now I'm certainly not saying that infidelity doesn't devastate a marriage. Of course it does. What I'm saying is that lives contain both struggle and triumph. People disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves. It's all part of the journey.
And, of course, I'm not saying that anybody is required to stay in a marriage marked by infidelity, or, frankly, a marriage that isn't. But I wonder if our language around infidelity, a language that's almost apocalyptic in tenor, makes the idea of healing seem so much less likely. I wonder if it contributes to the lack of nuance in our conversation about infidelity. If it, almost by definition, makes infidelity a deal-breaker, a one-response-fits-all.
In a culture that fetishizes happiness, who wants to make emotional space for such sadness? And yet, sadness is part of the package. If not infidelity, then illness. If not illness, then accident. If not...well, you get the idea.
And without sadness would we value the happiness when it comes our way? Would our compassion evolve? Would we grow?
I can imagine many of you yelling at your computer screen – I would have been, those years ago when I had just discovered my husband's infidelity. I would have been screaming that I can grow without some idiot lying to me. That I can develop compassion by volunteering at the soup kitchen, I don't need my husband getting blow jobs in parking lots. 
And it's all true.
But this is what life handed me. And you.
And we can rail against the unfairness of it. We can spend our days longing for it to be fixed. 
Or we can pick up the burden and carry it for now, off loading some of the pain as we go through, by sharing our story and therapy and radical self-care, until the day comes when we realize the pack we're carrying is maybe not empty but a whole lot lighter.
And, at the end of our lives, when we're being eulogized, those who love us will describe our lives as wonderful. Because they were.