Levels

If I had to guess, I would say in 2017 my husband and I both felt that our marriage was “healed”. Well, if you asked him, he would have said much sooner. In his mind it was over and done with and he had moved on. But, for me, it was around then. In theory, the affair ended at the end of January 2013. In reality it ended much later. Obviously true healing can’t begin until the affair is truly over. For us the healing began the day I received all of the evidence from the other wife and shared it with him, which was March of 2014. Having nude pictures, texts, emails, with pertinent information that couldn’t be disputed pretty much opened his eyes. Healing began.

One thing I’ve learned is that even though our marriage was healed, individually we still had a ways to go, but keep in mind we are all healing from things completely unrelated to an affair. And as far as emotional trauma goes, there are different levels of that too. I would say, based on my experience, an extramarital affair tops the list of emotional trauma. And for my husband and me, I almost felt like we were in a loop, he’s healing from her, I’m healing from him, he’s healing from his actions, repeat.

In the beginning I can’t even say what I was. The first level is supposed to be denial. I was in shock that he had an affair, knowing who he is, but there was no denial. I pretty much approached Bobbie immediately to discuss, which she did, but only because he asked her to do so. She was pretty defensive, but that’s just the act she had to put on. I don’t mean defensive like she denied it, defensive as in combative with every question. There was no denial on my part. I was 100% tuned in.

The second level is supposed to be anger. For some reason, even unknown to me, I wasn’t angry. Even I can’t explain this. Anger never showed up for me until the affair was over. And even then it was minimal. If I had to guess I would say it’s because I found the whole thing frustrating and the circumstances unfair to everyone. Being angry didn’t fit. Being sad fit.

The third level is bargaining. I’m not sure this applies to me. My husband immediately let me know he had no intention of leaving. I guess you could say I was attempting to bargain for information from him, but that did not work. Information would not be forthcoming for a long time regardless of my bargaining skills. Although he was bargaining with me to trust him that everything would be fine. So, yeah, if anyone was bargaining it was him…irony.

The fourth level, right in the middle, is depression. I, personally, didn’t have time to be depressed, but did feel depression. It was just depression that I couldn’t act on because I had a family to raise. But I remember forcing myself to do everything, to just function. He was going through the same thing. Again, neither of us had the time to actually focus on this because of our big family who were all going in so many different directions at that time. If there’s ever anger it’s that I feel like I missed out on some important parts of my life with my children because everything seemed cloudy back then. It still seems cloudy to both of us. A cloudburst of pain is my memory from those earliest days.

Number 5 is acceptance. I found this one the easiest, to be honest. There was an affair, and to not just accept that seemed counterproductive. The biggest part I had to accept was that no matter what Bobbie was part of our story, part of our past, part of who we would always be….forever. If our life was a number line she was on it. And that she was just as much part of my past as his. She was on my number line too, not just his. And neither of us could remove her no. matter. what. Even if we both admonished her and hated her she would still be there. She had infiltrated both of our lives. And this had to be accepted for my own sanity, because it was the truth, it was the reality. And to be honest here, at some point she was, without a doubt, the only thing that I knew for sure wasn’t a lie.

Number 6 is emerging light. I would say number 6 occurred out of order because as soon as he found out that she had essentially “cheated” (is that the right word?) on him a switch was flipped. No, we weren’t back to normal, but certainly got a head start on healing. The light started emerging right then and there, and it was blinding, especially for my husband, who was completely blindsided by the knowledge unfolding in front of him that he wasn’t that special after all, that he wasn’t the one she would change her lifestyle for. But, I admit that at that moment seeing the look on his face was in no way something that brought me pleasure. I still think about that look on his face sometimes, and even though I shouldn’t, and feel really bad for him.

7 is creating a new life. This one is important. I can’t stress enough that you cannot go back to whatever your old life was. Your life will be different, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better. I think the reason that my own life and marriage is better is because through the healing process we learned to heal other parts of us that maybe we wouldn’t have before. We were able to discuss the weaknesses that existed in our relationship. The affair forced us into conversations we wouldn’t have otherwise been having that prompted other conversations.

Last night I was thinking about the many facets of healing and how we navigate them through traumas like affairs. Affairs are tricky trauma because they always involve more than two people. And relationships automatically become complicated when more than two people are involved. Even in a family, after children start coming, the relationship between the parents changes and becomes more challenging. And when you have trauma involving three people in a romantic relationship the implications are extreme. There are so many facets of emotions involved there. In our case, because we all previously knew each other before there were multiple relationships going on. His/hers, me/him, me/her, me/him/her. Plus add in his and her work relationship. Our relationships were many, many layers deep. Therefore our healing also had to be many layers deep and very involved.