I would say the majority of blogs I read regarding infidelity spend a lot of time bashing the offender and the OW. There is a reason I do not do that as the norm. First of all, if your husband cheats on you I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re upset with him and the OW. Putting it down in words is not going to change that, but it will likely exacerbate the situation. I think it is perfectly fine to lay out the facts and say exactly how you feel, but bashing should not be the bandaid you’re looking for. Even if you get some temporary relief letting that all out, your own words will keep you up at night. Of course, in the beginning you will bash them both, but do it and get it over with and move on. Because if you don’t move on, you will never move on. The time to start healing is as soon as possible. And you cannot heal if you are still filled with rage. Now, don’t get me wrong here, we are all human and human emotions tend to creep up on us at odd times, when we least expect it. The key here is to control these feelings, not let them go. Even here at 8 years out I have worked through everything and I feel good 99.9% of the time. .1 percent of the time I feel something else, raw and unkempt rage or sadness or both. But, my husband’s affair was a long time ago and it serves nobody for me to act upon those feelings at this time. Even this time of the year, which I find notably more difficult, and has the tendency to bring forth feelings of anger are no match for me any longer. I do find that it helps to write about this time of the year, to sort out how far I’ve come in my healing process, but not to blame my husband, or her for that matter, for any of those feelings. Once the affair is over and done with and you have chosen to forgive him, her, or both, everything forward is on you. Your husband and the OW can no longer be factored into the tapestry of your emotions or your healing. This is the hard part, because it’s you and you alone.
At one time, back in the beginning when getting information from my husband was downright hard, I blamed him for my lack of healing and moving on. I told him, “if you would just talk to me we could move on”. I have since learned that whether or not my husband talks to me about the affair or doesn’t talk to me about the affair is irrelevant to my healing. Healing is 100% me. It honestly has nothing to do with him. At one time I thought if I could just engage in a conversation with the OW I could move on and heal. Again, my healing has nothing to do with her either. Whether or not I heal is in no way dependent on what either of them, or anyone else for that matter, does. If I want to heal then I have to take the steps necessary. Somebody else cannot heal your broken emotions, spirit, or heart. It’s a journey that you must take alone. And you pretty much have to be deliberate about the whole thing. You have to ask yourself hard questions. You have to decide hard things. But, most of all you have to decide that moving on means forgiveness, wholly, and this is whether your stay with your spouse or not. You have to work through forgiving them. And, here’s the hard part, you have to be willing to forgive them whether they have talked to you willingly or told you to get lost and they are never talking to you. Because forgiveness has nothing to do with the person you are forgiving. It’s a common misnomer that we only forgive people who are sorry. Even if they aren’t sorry, even if they are indignant about the whole thing, work on forgiving them. Make it your first priority. And make it stick. This is the hardest part. I won’t lie. Because, in my experience, and from reading other people’s experiences, in the beginning a lot of men do “come off” as being indignant and closed off. But, it is also my experience, that the majority just don’t know how to deal with the onslaught of emotions that come with infidelity. Acting indignant and closed off is a simple defense mechanism. It doesn’t mean they truly are indignant or closed off. It might just mean they are feeling as lost as you are, and just don’t know how to manage all of those feelings. Forgive.
Once you have forgiven someone, you can’t keep bringing up their transgressions. The point of forgiveness is to let that stuff go. That doesn’t mean you can never discuss it again, but it does mean you can’t use it as a weapon or constantly try to get answers to you questions. In our case, and it was the best thing we ever did, we basically called a truce. We decided together that we would stay together. With that out of the way, we made it a point to stay on track. We planned discussions that were pertaining to the affair. Any other time we proceeded as normal. We didn’t discuss the affair, or hint of the affair in our day-to-day life. But in my head I was working on all of it, forgiveness, and moving past what seemed insurmountable. But, calling the truce kept things calm on the surface, which eventually worked to keep things calm beneath the surface too. Calm is an amazing commodity that leads to uninhibited conversations and deep healing. When two people aren’t yelling at each other they can hear each other. Listening is what you both want from each other. It’s always been about listening.
When we first find out that we have been caught up in a love triangle the first thing we want to do is get out of that mess, and we want out right now. We want our lives back, the way we were, the normalcy. We want it back with undeniable impatience. And we want it back so badly we try to rush through all of the stages of grief to get to the part where we are back to normal in days. In reality, this takes years. People tell us this information, we read about it, but we don’t want to listen, we just want to be like we were. So, I will tell you first thing, whoever you were before, whatever your relationship was, it will never be that again. You can never go back to the couple you were, no matter how hard you try. And maybe knowing that bit of information will help you realize that your goal should not be what was, but what will be. And maybe it’s a gift to come out of an affair. You get to reevaluate who you are and what you want and you get an opportunity to reconnect with someone you love. But give yourself time.
I won’t go so far as to say that I’m glad my husband had an affair, but I will say that the affair changed us, but it was for the better. Because even though who we were as a couple before was great, today we are greater. And I feel like we learned a lot about our relationship and our feelings toward each other that we wouldn’t have otherwise learned. We also learned that people make mistakes, they screw up. I also think we both learned how to deal with who we are individually better, which maybe is the most important part. I know I learned a lot about who I am and what I want and how to manage my emotions regardless of anyone else.
I learned how to be me.
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