To My Betrayed Soul-Warriors

I know how exhausted you are. I know how your mind races from panic to fury to confusion. I know how you wish you could just go back to bed only to find that, when it's time to go to bed, you dread the silence and the darkness and loneliness. How, you wonder, am I going to make it til morning? And then, in the morning, how am I going to make it til bedtime?
I know because that was my life too.  
In one horrible phone call, my suspicions were confirmed. And nothing was ever going to be the same.
I had three young children. I had work deadlines. I had volunteer commitments. I had a life. A life shattered by the discovery that my husband, the guy I thought would always have my back, had been cheating behind it. Had been endangering my physical health. Had been damaging my emotional and psychological health. Had threatened the stability of our entire family.
What the hell are we supposed to do with that information, right? 
I could have kicked him out, which is what every made-for-TV drama would have told me to do. I could have looked the other way, convinced myself of something along the lines of "men will be men". What I did was fall apart, at least some of the time. I managed to pull it together for my children and their friends and teachers. I managed to put on a mask for trips to the grocery store and the occasional get-together with friends. For months, I was publicly fine while privately a mess.
My husband was the same. Though he had a messy work situation to deal with, thanks to his idiotic choice to cheat with his assistant, for the most part the mess was dealt with privately. And he had clients and meetings and something of an escape from me for eight hours a day.
I had enough work to distract me briefly but not so much that I didn't have time to simply sob or stare blankly at a computer, wondering what the hell I was going to do. 
My mother, literally, saved me. Each day, we would talk and she would remind me, as often as I needed it, that I was strong enough, brave enough. I was enough. This was his failure, not mine. 
I believed her enough. 
And then, six months after D-Day #1 when I learned of the affair came D-Day #2 when I learned of all the others. And, three weeks after that, my mother, who guarded my heart, died suddenly.
I don't know how I made it through, only that I did. I held on to every word of wisdom and strength my mother had armed me with. I surrounded myself with the very few friends who knew what I was dealing with and who were fierce in their love for me.
I smiled for the camera and the interviewers and the crowds as I promoted my latest book. I tucked a bottle of anti-anxiety pills my doctor had prescribed for me into my bag, as I was increasingly panicked at the idea of showing up and pretending to be together and successful. I rarely took them. Having them was enough. 
And I followed so many of the rules I espouse here. I was gentle with myself. I took care of myself. I learned to set boundaries to keep myself safe. I gave myself all the time I needed to figure out my next right step. When I fell apart – and I did – I picked myself up and forgave myself. I didn't know these rules on D-Day #1. I figured them out as I navigated my pain. 
And you will too, my betrayed soul-warriors. If you believe in this truth: You are enough. Have always been. This is his failure, not yours. 
And each morning that you awake to face the same demons that challenged you the night before, know this: I see how brave you are. 

Wednesday Word Hug: Enough

Is Intuition Your SuperPower?

In hindsight, I see that I knew that something wasn't right. I had asked a friend if I should be concerned about the amount of time my husband was spending with his work assistant (with whom I later learned he was having an affair). I was uncomfortable with the dinners they had when they worked late. But, I reasoned, he told me about this stuff so he didn't seem to be hiding anything. Innocent then, right?
Hardly.
But the whole truth of what was going on came out six months later, on a second "D-day". And I can honestly say that I never ever had a clue that the cheating had been going on, well, since Day 1. For our entire relationship.
So, my "intuition"? Not so reliable.
But maybe my expectations for what "intuition" would tell me were unrealistic. After all, I think that any decent intuition should have told me that there were other women in his life. However, looking back, my intuition was telling me plenty – just not that. But I just wasn't listening. Or rather, I was talking myself out of trusting my intuition because it meant rocking the boat. And I was a longtime calmer of waters. Boat rocking was something I avoided.
A lot of us feel stupid in the wake of betrayal because we should have "known". What kind of idiot doesn't know her husband is cheating, right? Our culture implies that women who don't "stop" it are somehow agreeing to it, as if, rather than actually being ignorant of what's really going on, we're feigning ignorance. It's a longtime defence of plenty of Other Women, who believe that the wife is somehow complicit in the cheating. That she's okay with it as long as he doesn't leave because she doesn't want to "lose her lifestyle". Yep, OW have actually written to me to tell this drivel.
And so a lot of us wonder if our intuition is broken. How come we didn't know? What's wrong with us?
Nothing. Nothing is wrong with us and, likely, nothing is wrong with our intuition. Intuition isn't an inner psychic. It's more a warning system that something just isn't right. Problem is, so many of us have been over-riding this warning system that we barely notice when it goes off. A friend cancels on us for the billionth time? Oh well, she's busy. We might feel a twinge of resentment but we swallow it. We'll just reschedule. A family member volunteers us for something we don't want to do? Oh well, it's no biggie. We can manage. Our husband seems detached? He's just stressed about work.
It takes practice to notice that early warning system. And the warning isn't necessarily that we're being cheated on – at least not in the sense of a sexual betrayal. The warning is more that we're being cheated out of something. Cheated out of our agency. Cheated out of clear boundaries. Cheated out of respect.
Often, we're cheating ourselves out of our voice. We stay silent, swallowing our fury, our disappointment, our resentment. That niggling sense that something isn't quite right? We're just over-reacting, being silly. Those around us are often too happy to confirm this for us because, god forbid, we should begin to act in our own best interests instead of everyone else's. And so they tell us that others mean well, that we're being too sensitive.
And our intuition becomes harder to notice.
But it's not too late to start paying attention. The other night I was in the kitchen facing a sink full of dishes. The inner monologue began: Nobody ever helps me. They're watching TV while I'm in here doing all the work. Blah blah I'm a long-suffering martyr blah. It's a familiar script for me. I can recite it by heart.
This night, however, I tried to pay attention. Maybe not intuition so much as my still small voice. And it was telling me to respect myself, to notice my boundaries, to pay attention to this resentment because it was telling me something important about my relationships – that they didn't feel fair.
And in that time that I stopped and noticed, I also realized that nobody was forcing me into the kitchen. I was welcome to sit on the sofa and watch TV. The dishes wouldn't get done, at least not by me, but they didn't care.
And so I found my voice.
"I'm going to read," I said. "Would someone do these dishes before bed?"
My husband and daughter agreed easily. Sure they would.
And with that, I left the kitchen.
Intuition isn't much more than that. Paying attention to our bodies, our minds, our hearts. Noticing when something just doesn't sit right with us. And we might need lots of practice to really sit with that discomfort and figure out where it's coming from. Our intuition isn't some private investigator, able to present evidence of wrongdoing, necessarily. But, when I think back, the night came when I did somehow just "know" that my husband was cheating on me. That the dinners and the late nights and the "work" was more than a new team dedicated to building a business.
I've let myself off the hook for not "knowing" sooner. I'm not sure what difference it really would have made. But I have tried to learn from the way in which I dismissed my own concerns, the way I bought his excuses that never did quite sound convincing. The way I chose to believe what I wanted to rather than notice that the knot in my stomach never quite went away.
I notice now more than I did. I'm still working on it. Intuition might not quite be my superpower, but it is powerful. And I'm revealing its power more all the time.

Wednesday Word Hug: What's Yours to Carry

Crawling towards the light

"The hardest times are when no one is watching and it doesn't really matter whether you're strong or not. The times when you think life is circling the drain, and the bedrock aloneness of it trumps everything else. That's when animal instinct kicks in and most of us start to crawl toward the light.... We like to call it courage, but the body doesn't recognize it as such. You just put your head down and keep moving."
~ Gail Caldwell, from the memoir New Life, No Instructions

Even now, I find myself sometimes thinking of those around me who know nothing of the struggle I fought after D-Day, "if you only knew..." Because while it's great that I survived and, to most, appear to be a healthy, stable, happy middle-aged woman, sometimes I want credit for what I had to do to get here. Sometimes I want people to know what a badass I am. How heroic I am. How many dragons I had to slay to arrive at healthy, stable and happy.
You all know. Because you've either slain your own dragons or are slaying them as I write this. 
You know the courage it sometimes takes to get out of bed and show up at work so you don't get fired. You know the particular brand of heroism required to nurture your children and keep their hearts safe even as your own feels shattered and abandoned. You know the white-knuckled self-discipline required to not smother your husband in his sleep, or resist firing off that brutal e-mail to the OW, or bite your tongue hard when your mother-in-law, who hasn't a clue about her son's, um, extracurriculars, comments on what a "good boy" he's always been. 
Those who've been decimated by heartbreak, by the particular brand of grief known to those of us who discovered we were, literally, sleeping with the enemy, know what Gail Caldwell means when she talks about crawling toward the light. Though there are many days when we're not really sure there is light. So many days when we just can't convince ourselves that there will ever be light again.
But that's where the others come in. That's where those of us who've gone before wave our lanterns from farther along the path, to beckon you toward us. To give you the light as a compass. To remind you, as often as you need reminding, that the light is in fact up ahead. Just a little bit farther. To assure you that, no, we didn't believe it either. We didn't believe we would ever laugh again, feel happiness again, trust again. But here we are. Mostly healthy, stable and happy.
Keep crawling, warriors. If you can't see the light, then follow the sound of our voices. 
You may not call it courage. You may barely be able to admit it's survival. But whether or not you consider it heroic, let me tell you that it is. It's heroic to reach out for help. It's heroic to tend to your wound. It's heroic to insist that you deserve respect and kindness and honesty. When the "bedrock aloneness" threatens to convince you that nobody can possible understand your pain, it's heroic to find your voice and share your story.
Crawl toward the light, my exhausted warriors. We're up ahead, waiting. 

The Lie of the Sisterhood

"If we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it – to our partner, our spouse, our children, our friends, our coworkers, our "enemies." Usually we project it outward and blame someone else for causing our pain."

~ Fr. Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation

Some call it the "law of the sisterhood". Others refer to it as "girl code". What it stipulates is that we don't go after each other's husbands or boyfriends. What it stipulates is essentially a sort of moral high ground, in which we respect each other's relationships, no matter how cute we think their significant other is, or how much he flirts with us.
But sometimes this sisterhood feels like we're the only ones in it. I sometimes think it's the lie of the sisterhood.
My 19-year-old discovered that this week when she learned that a close friend had hooked up with an ex-boyfriend. Now the rules get a bit fuzzy with exes, at least for some people. And I've gently reminded my daughter that she was well and truly done with this guy. That, she tells me, is not the point. What hurts her more than the two of them hooking up, she insists, is that her friend did it behind her back.
And so, my dejected daughter insists, she's wiping her hands of this friend.
And I'm (mostly) keeping my mouth shut.
But here's the thing: While I don't condone her friend's behaviour (if we're being sneaky about something, that's generally our first clue that we know it's hurtful to someone and we don't want to deal with the consequences), I can empathize. This girl has had a miserable childhood with a truly appalling mother and her series of equally appalling boyfriends. This girl gets into relationships with guys who treat her badly. She craves attention, no matter where it comes from. And so, with this ex of my daughter's, she was willing to gamble her friendship for the short-term thrill of his attention.
Does that make it okay? No. And she's lost (at least for the time being) my daughter's friendship. As my heavy-hearted child noted, once someone has broken your trust, you never quite look at the them the same way again.
Tell me about it, I want to say. But I bite my tongue.
Hurt people hurt people, we often say on this site.
Father Richard Rohr says that if we don't transform our pain, we will transmit it. Those of us here were the collateral damage of that transmission.
But when we can recognize that, it helps us shake off any responsibility we might feel for how people treat us. It helps us realize that their pain is for them to deal with, that we cannot and should not be blamed, including by ourselves.
My daughter's black-and-white view of the world might soften as she ages – my own certainly did (though I remain an adherent to the law of the sisterhood). But she has reminded me what it looks like when we hold hurt people accountable for the pain they transmit. It looks like self-respect.

Wednesday Word Hug: How Far You've Come