What Strength Has Been Unleashed in You?

Lilacs in September

Shocked to the root
like the lilac bush
in the vacant lot
by the hurricane–

whose black branch split
by wind or rain
has broken out
unseasonably

into these scant ash-
colored blossoms
lifted high
as if to say

to passersby
What will unleash
itself in you
when your storm comes?

-Katha Pollitt


It's been just over six years since I lost my mother, who died less than a month after D-Day #2, when I got the whole story of my husband's infidelities. All I could do during that emotional maelstrom was curl into myself and ride out the storm. I felt small and lonely. I felt abandoned.
But with my mother gone, without that person who fought for me, I had to learn to fight for myself. In many ways, without her voice outside of me, I carry it inside. I stand up for myself when before I would have backed down. I've learned to respectfully disagree instead of swallowing my words. I've finally understood what she meant when she urged me to "just show up." It took a time when showing up was all I could do. In the days following her death, just showing up felt Herculean. But it was enough. I was enough. All those years of thinking I had to perform or achieve to earn people's love or admiration or respect...when all I had to do was just show up.
It's a lesson I try and teach my own kids. That they're enough simply because they are. And I hope when the storms come their way, they'll wonder what strength and beauty will be unleashed in them. 

How Secrets Silence Us: How to Find Your Voice After Betrayal

“The worst part…is imagining how alone he was. This is the most poisonous thing that secrets do to us – they isolate us from everyone around us and make us feel even lonelier than we are already are.” –Tim Kreider, from his collection of essays We Learn Nothing

"We're only as liberated as our secrets." —Oprah

Affairs thrive in the shadows of secrecy. The secrecy fuels the feelings of urgency, of excitement, of longing. But while that secrecy withers in the cold light of recrimination and obligation, that's not the secrecy I'm talking about.
What I'm referring to is the secrecy that we feed after we find out. The secrecy that forces us to smile at our kids' teacher when our hearts are broken. That prompts us to offer a halting, "I'm just not feeling too well," when a curious friend asks what's wrong. The secrecy we wrap ourselves in that leaves us feeling alone. That isolates us from those two words of comfort: "Me too."
Not all of us opts for secrecy, of course. Some of us scream their pain from the rooftops. They unleash cries of rage. They broadcast their husband's transgressions to anyone who will listen...and even some who'd prefer not to.
I envy those women. I envy them their weightlessness by refusing that heavy load of silence. I envy them the commiseration from others. I envy them the authenticity with which they can move forward, no masks, no pretence.
That, however, is not me.
I opted for secrecy for a number of reasons.
•Shame. I was, frankly, embarrassed to find myself married to someone who would do this. But deeper than that, I didn't completely believe that his behaviour wasn't a reflection on me. As the child of alcoholics, I had a long history of carrying others' actions as my own shame. So, at least at first, I defaulted to "don't let others know what's really happening."
•Co-dependence: I also had a long history of protecting others from the consequences of their actions. While my husband had to face a boss and a lawyer in order to remove the OW from his employ, I didn't put him in a position where he had to face his clients, his own family or our friends. To a degree, I protected him. But I was also protecting...
•Financial stability: My husband's job depends on the trust of his clients. And though he'd been deceitful with me, there was no indication (indeed he insisted) that he'd ever been deceitful with his clients. Without any evidence that he'd actually done anything wrong where his clients were concerned, doing anything that might negatively impact his income seemed like cutting off MY nose to spite HIS face. It would serve nothing, except a desire for revenge.
•My children: More than any other reason, I opted for silence out of protection for my children. They love their father, which is as it should be. Yes, I could argue persuasively that he hadn't acted very loving toward them by jeopardizing their mother's emotional and physical health. But, honestly, did they need to know this? What would be served by informing young children of their father's idiocy? The pain it would cause them, the confusion it would engender...and for what? So I kept my mouth shut, though I did explain my tears and general sadness by saying that Mommy and Daddy were having "problems" but that we were working on them.
Most of the time, I'm glad for the path I chose. I'm glad that the world doesn't know exactly what my marriage looks like on the inside. I'm glad I don't have to reassure people that I'm fine. That we're better.
Still, there are times when silence weighs heavy. When, as Oprah points out, I don't feel as "liberated" as I'd like to feel.
It took me many years (decades!) to speak openly about my parents' alcoholism. Now, those who know me well and those to whom I'm a new acquaintance are just as likely to know my history. An offhand comment about my childhood, or a reference to my mother's years in AA make it clear that I have no secrets where that's concerned.
And I suspect the day will come when I'm (almost) as candid about my husband's infidelity. Even now, the circle of people who know is growing. My children are still unaware, but I wonder if even that day will come. I won't lie about it...so if ever my kids ask me if infidelity affected their parents, I'll come clean.
What silence have you chosen? It's an important question. Who are you protecting? What are you hiding from? The answers can give you insight and help you move forward in healing.

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."