Elle
[...]
[O]ur feelings, which so many of us spend considerable time and effort trying to avoid, are simply guides. They are our "personal prophets" pointing the way toward the next right thing. [...] Not THE right thing. But the NEXT right thing. Big difference.
Let me explain.
Many of us, post D-Day [...] spend the next weeks and months mentally spinning in terror because we're faced with a HUGE decision. Do we stay and rebuild our marriage? Or leave and rebuild a life without him? I spent about two years in that suspended state of fear. Stay or go? My hand constantly on the door handle. My bags metaphorically packed. "One wrong move, buddy..." could have been my motto.
Of course, underscoring that BIG QUESTION is the deeper fear: Will my heart be broken again?
[...]
I wish I could guarantee that every guy who cheats works tirelessly to
become a man who deserves that second (or sometimes third) chance.
Some guys do exactly that, of course, and their marriages become stronger and richer as a result. But we all also know that many do not. That many squander that second (or third) chance and break their wives' hearts all over again.
In the absence of a crystal ball, you need to pay attention to those feelings, those "personal prophets".
They can't predict THE right thing to do, but they can guide toward the NEXT right thing.
[P]erhaps the NEXT right thing is to pour yourself a cup of tea and watch
your baby sleep instead of asking your spouse, for a zillionth time, why
he cheated.
Perhaps the NEXT right thing is to make an appointment to see a lawyer
and figure out your financial situation in case you decide you can't
stay in the marriage. Perhaps the NEXT right thing is to change the
locks. Or maybe it's to have coffee with a friend who you can trust with
your pain.
Living this way eliminates [...] eliminates the paralysis that comes with trying to make decisions that you're simply not ready to make. Whether or not to end the marriage? Maybe that's your NEXT right thing...but maybe you just need to separate. Or sleep in separate bedrooms. Or take a weekend holiday together.
Pay attention to those personal prophets and let them guide you to your NEXT right thing.
***
Reprinted with permission. Many thanks, Elle! Read the whole post here.
One particularly devastating side effect of discovering betrayal is losing trust in yourself. You picked this person to trust, to be vulnerable with, and they abused that trust - what's wrong with your picker? That lie that, examined objectively, doesn't make any sense - what's wrong with you that you believed it? That red flag that seems so obvious now, in retrospect - what's wrong with you that you ignored it?
It is so easy - it is so tempting - to criticize and castigate oneself for having been deceived. It goes along with our desire to believe in a moral universe - if something terrible happens to us, there must be some reason why we deserved it.
I can imagine situations where a person does have a broken picker, refuses to see nonsensical lies, is so deep in denial that he or she ignores obvious red flags. But when I am honest with myself, that's not what I did. I loved and trusted someone who, for a long time and in many ways was deserving of that love and trust - and whose subtle demons grew over time until he no longer was. The fact that I didn't see that happening doesn't mean there was something wrong with my picker. The lies I believed were generally reasonable ones. The red flags that seem so obvious are obvious only in hindsight.
Yes, I had misgivings, and in retrospect of course I wish I paid more attention to them. In February of last year, shortly after becoming pregnant, I sat Drew down for a talk. I said I knew guys could react weirdly to pregnancy, and I told him that if he had any desire to go outside the marriage to please just talk about it with me first. I brought up the fact that, during my last pregnancy, he had tried to cheat on me while traveling - he came home and told me about it, because it freaked him out, and I appreciated his openness, but it was a devastating thing to learn six months pregnant, and I didn't want to go through anything like that again. He assured me he had no such interest. And that same month he began his most significant physical affair with a woman he met through Ashley Madison.
I did what I could. I made a good faith effort to raise my misgivings with Drew, and I trusted his response. In this case, the fault for my deception lies with him, not with me.
(There's some question of how much of an idiot I'll feel like should I trust him again and be betrayed again - "Fool me once" and all that - but that's a subject for another post.)
But even if it's not your fault, how do you rebuild trust in yourself after discovering that you were so easily deceived?
For me, that began with following Elle's advice - paying attention to my emotions and relying on them to figure out the next right thing. Some times that meant skipping work on my dissertation and reading infidelity blogs all days. Some times that meant turning off the internet and working on my dissertation. Some times that meant making time for Pilates. Some times that meant skipping Pilates to sleep in. Some times that meant having sex with Drew without judging myself for wanting it. Some times that meant not having sex. Some times that meant putting aside my pain and playing with my girls. Some times that meant setting my girls up with a movie so I could go in the bathroom and cry.
Some times I wouldn't choose the right thing - I would do something that I felt the need to do but that actually made me feel worse. Researching the other women. Reviewing old phone records to figure out how many times a month they had talked. But even that, as my therapist has pointed out, was productive - I learned that those things didn't help me in any way, and so the next time I felt the urge to do something similar, I could recognize it wasn't healthy for me and not do that.
Over the past few months, I've gotten better and better at learning what is the next right thing for me. I'm learning to listen to myself, to trust myself again. Which, in turn, gives me faith that when it finally comes time to make that larger decision - whether or not to stay with Drew - I will make the right one.
It is so easy - it is so tempting - to criticize and castigate oneself for having been deceived. It goes along with our desire to believe in a moral universe - if something terrible happens to us, there must be some reason why we deserved it.
I can imagine situations where a person does have a broken picker, refuses to see nonsensical lies, is so deep in denial that he or she ignores obvious red flags. But when I am honest with myself, that's not what I did. I loved and trusted someone who, for a long time and in many ways was deserving of that love and trust - and whose subtle demons grew over time until he no longer was. The fact that I didn't see that happening doesn't mean there was something wrong with my picker. The lies I believed were generally reasonable ones. The red flags that seem so obvious are obvious only in hindsight.
Yes, I had misgivings, and in retrospect of course I wish I paid more attention to them. In February of last year, shortly after becoming pregnant, I sat Drew down for a talk. I said I knew guys could react weirdly to pregnancy, and I told him that if he had any desire to go outside the marriage to please just talk about it with me first. I brought up the fact that, during my last pregnancy, he had tried to cheat on me while traveling - he came home and told me about it, because it freaked him out, and I appreciated his openness, but it was a devastating thing to learn six months pregnant, and I didn't want to go through anything like that again. He assured me he had no such interest. And that same month he began his most significant physical affair with a woman he met through Ashley Madison.
I did what I could. I made a good faith effort to raise my misgivings with Drew, and I trusted his response. In this case, the fault for my deception lies with him, not with me.
(There's some question of how much of an idiot I'll feel like should I trust him again and be betrayed again - "Fool me once" and all that - but that's a subject for another post.)
But even if it's not your fault, how do you rebuild trust in yourself after discovering that you were so easily deceived?
For me, that began with following Elle's advice - paying attention to my emotions and relying on them to figure out the next right thing. Some times that meant skipping work on my dissertation and reading infidelity blogs all days. Some times that meant turning off the internet and working on my dissertation. Some times that meant making time for Pilates. Some times that meant skipping Pilates to sleep in. Some times that meant having sex with Drew without judging myself for wanting it. Some times that meant not having sex. Some times that meant putting aside my pain and playing with my girls. Some times that meant setting my girls up with a movie so I could go in the bathroom and cry.
Some times I wouldn't choose the right thing - I would do something that I felt the need to do but that actually made me feel worse. Researching the other women. Reviewing old phone records to figure out how many times a month they had talked. But even that, as my therapist has pointed out, was productive - I learned that those things didn't help me in any way, and so the next time I felt the urge to do something similar, I could recognize it wasn't healthy for me and not do that.
Over the past few months, I've gotten better and better at learning what is the next right thing for me. I'm learning to listen to myself, to trust myself again. Which, in turn, gives me faith that when it finally comes time to make that larger decision - whether or not to stay with Drew - I will make the right one.
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