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Dear Marital Affair Survivor,
How
do you create a happy life after an affair? That is exactly
what I have been able to do and I believe it is possible for everyone,
whether they stay in the marriage or not, but it will definitely
take some time and some hard work. I like to equate surviving an
affair to natural childbirth. To describe that feeling I am including
a brief excerpt from the book My
Husband’s Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me!
“You can make it through this”,
Lori told me, “but it will take time. Give yourself time. And give
yourself permission to mourn. Something has been stolen from you.
You can never get it back. Something has been lost forever. You
will never again be able to know that since your marriage you are
the only one your husband has ever been with. The most important
promise, a vow, has been broken. Life will
never be the same again. And it’s OK to cry about that.”
I didn’t feel like I could live through this, but it reminded me
of childbirth. I wanted out really bad. But like a friend of mine
who had actually jumped off the delivery table in the midst of childbirth
and assertively announced to the doctors that she quit, sometimes
in life try as you may you can’t quit. You are in it, so you have
to make it through. She encouraged me to go to God for comfort and
strength. Sometimes in life it feels as though things are so bad,
that even God can’t do anything or say anything to help. Those are
the very times, when if we do go to him, miracles take place and
indeed he does carry us, when we cannot carry ourselves.
I was
so devastated, unsuspecting and shocked when I discovered
my husband’s affair (we had been married for 18 years) that I was
unable to eat for 25 days. My husband actually left me for the other
woman for two weeks, after which he came home wanting to work things
out. I went from what I thought was an exceptionally good marriage
to no marriage at all literally overnight. For
three months I remained numb and in shock, behaving something
like an obsessive mad woman running around doing every crazy thing
I could think of to win my husband’s affections back. (As if it
was all up to me!) Together with my teenage daughter we even devised
a plan of revenge towards the other woman that wouldn’t get us in
trouble. We were going to accidentally “drop” chewed gum in her
hair making sure we got it in her bangs and the top of her head. If our husband and father were going to leave
us for another woman, let him have a bald woman, we reasoned! I’m happy to announce that we did not actually do this.
From 4 – 6 months after the
affair, my husband and I began to deal with the issues which meant we fought unbelievably for 3 months straight.
One night I even got so mad that I phoned 9-1-1! After 6 months
we were on our way to healing but there was still a lot of pain.
At 2 years I recommitted myself to the marriage. Before that I was
only giving it an honest effort, unsure whether I really could get
over this and trust him ever again. 2 1/2
years after I distinctly remember feeling the feeling of happiness
and joy for the first time since discovering the affair. In our case we have been able to heal our marriage because my husband,
as well as I, was willing to do the work.
I have become a much stronger,
happier and more fulfilled individual. It has taken courage to face
myself, heal the past (and for me that included discovering how
some baggage from my childhood was having an adverse affect on my
life which I hadn’t really identified before). Before the affair
I was living in a fairytale (and that was a problem). I like to
describe the experience like this “I was Cinderella,
but the clock struck twelve and it was time for me to wake up and
face the reality of who I really was, and who my husband really
was as well.”
I have created a happier life
on the other side by taking advantage of counseling, books and the
many other resources that are available (like the Beyond Affairs
Network) and by working on discovering who I really am as a person
and what I was created to do. What is my God given destiny? Each
and every individual has a unique set of gifts and talents different
from everyone else. Nobody else can do your job quite the way you
do. When you discover your gift and find a way to add value to the
lives of other people by using your gift, you will experience joy.
And when you can even make a career of helping others by doing what
you naturally do well, you will experience a high level of individual
fulfillment. The greatest happiness in life
comes from understanding and fulfilling your purpose, living
a purpose driven life. When you have a “why” for your life, it gives
direction to all of the “how's”. There are many books and seminars
available on topics like this. Understanding who you really are
(what’s right with you) helps to build your self-esteem.
I feel that I have no guarantees
about my future (although I have come to understand and I do trust
my husband again). At least I do not have a guarantee that my husband
will NEVER have an affair again. He says he never will. I hope not,
but I have learned to be truthful and realistic. I cannot be guaranteed
what all of his future choices will be. But I can be guaranteed
that I will always have lots of love in my life, because I have
discovered that I am a lovable person and worthy of the love that
I receive from my friends, family and others. It doesn’t matter
to me whether I am married or not. My fulfillment doesn’t come from
my marriage. It comes from knowing who I am and understanding my
purpose. I am fulfilled in myself. I am very happy in my marriage,
but I no longer NEED my marriage, which
has enhanced my marriage tremendously. We are having unbelievable
fun together.
I love my husband now more
than before. I’ve been able to understand, and I understand that
it wasn’t about that he didn’t love me. I have grown so much as
a person and so has he. Our marriage is so much better, and we are
so much happier, having so much more fun. I wish we could have gotten
here some other way, but I would not want
to go back to what I call my pre affair marriage for anything.
At this stage, I can honestly say that I’m glad it happened.
We all have to cope at times
with change. There are 2 types of change that take place in our
lives. There are times when WE decide to change something and that’s
usually positive, because we WANTED the change, but there are other
times in our lives when someone else makes a decision, we have absolutely
nothing to do with it and suddenly our lives
get turned upside down and that
does not feel very good. (Such as in the case of a spouse who decides
to betray their marriage partner).
When this kind of a negative
change takes place we human beings go through normal stages, as
we learn to cope with the new reality. First,
we go into shock. We can’t believe it is happening to us.
This looks different for different people. Some people might go
into depression. Some people laugh all the time. Some people become
despondent and start neglecting their responsibilities. Whatever
it looks like for the individual, it is shock. Second stage, and again this is human nature, we all tend to do this. I
call it the bargaining stage. We try to get
our lives back to what they were before, fix it so to speak. But once a major change has taken place
in our life, we can NEVER go back to
what it was before. An example: Let’s say someone is working in
a job and they are wrongfully dismissed from their position, so
they take the company to court, win the court case and are reinstated
back in their position….like it’s going to be the same as before.
Most likely it will be worse, but let’s be optimistic…perhaps it
is better…perhaps restoration has taken place, issues have been
resolved and positive resolutions have been found for the differences…then
it would be better. What we know with certainty is that it is not
the same. (And this is definitely true of marriages and affairs.)
So we eventually come to the third stage. I call it the
‘choice’ stage. We can either carry around a chip on our
shoulder for the rest of our lives, and say ‘poor me’. If it wasn’t
for what this jerk or that person did, I wouldn’t be here today,
and we can blame others for where we are in our lives…OR…we
can CHOOSE to find the opportunities that ALWAYS present themselves
in the midst of change. If you choose to find these opportunities
one day you will find yourself saying “I can’t believe I’m saying
this. I never thought I would ever be able to say this. As awful
as that situation was back then…I am SO glad that happened to me,
because if that hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t be in this great
place today.
After discovering my husband’s
affair, I would think about my marriage in turmoil, all that I had
lost and I would wonder if I still believed this truth…Well I can
tell you today, that now I own those words about the affair…as awful
and painful as it was…I am so glad that happened
to me, because if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be in this great
place today. I would still be bumping along in my pre affair life,
all about responsibility, not having fun or really enjoying life,
still so much pain from my past, haunting me in my subconscious
and affecting the way I related to others, preventing me from experiencing
true freedom and joy in my life.
There are opportunities for
you in this miserable, painful, difficult journey you are being
FORCED (the childbirth analogy) to walk through right now. You
too can have a better life as a result of this awful unfair situation. You can and will make it through this. The
choice is yours…bitter or better.
I am cheering for you (like
you are a marathon runner in a long race). You can make it. You
can win.
Anne
For information about confidential coaching with Brian or Anne Bercht click here
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