Getting to the other end of betrayal: a decision? 11 months past DDay
There is no easy path out of the chaos created by infidelity. Once you discover the person who you built your life with lied to you and violated the sanctity of your most intimate places and moments, you enter a new dimension you never thought your chosen one was going to take you to.
As you travel into the unknown, hoping that one day the pain will diminish, you probably wonder how would it feel being in the alternative path. If you gave up on recovery work, you might wonder if you rushed to make the final decision. If you are still working on recovery, you might wonder if you are doing what's best for you, maybe you're missing out on better life opportunities by insisting on staying with the person who betrayed you.
Uncertainty is a killer if you give in to it. We have to learn to live life on a daily basis. Infidelity changes us as humans and it certainly changes our perception of our spouse/partner. I personally cannot feel enthusiastic about any professional achievements that my husband might come up with, as he is still working in the same place where his affair took place. I was his number one fan and cheerleader and now that attitude is dead.
I want to devote my time to empowering other women who feel put down and unappreciated because they devoted themselves to their families.
Esther Perel states that the survival of the family today depends on the happiness of the couple. This is something so F-ed up, excuse my French, that no wonder we feel so lost when "the one" we chose for a life partner and parent of our children lets us down. She suggests we plunge into a new relationship with our spouse if we decide to give them a second chance. This was something that resonated with me and influenced my decision to give my husband a second chance.
Ancient wisdom, as stated by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her treaty-book "Women who run with the wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Women Archetype" determined that a first-time mother would receive support from a network of other women in the community. Today, she is supposed to be supported enthusiastically by her spouse. In a heterosexual couple, we have a father who has not been trained, until recently, to perform as a hands-on baby/child caretaker.
For 5000 years, since men discovered their sperm was necessary for the woman to bear a child, they have been doing everything they can to make women forget they once were worshipped as goddesses for precisely giving life to baby humans. We, as a female collective, have been so dominated by the traditionally man-managed institutions that control Estate, Religion, Education and everything else, that today we are trained to be equal to men since we are born and then we are expected to behave like women with the support of the masculine face of the family who lives in confusion as to what role is expected of him too. Is he supposed to be strong and tender, bring an income and succeed professionally and at the same time be present for the baby bath ritual and the bedtime storytelling routine?
How can so much be expected of us today? In my own experience, I still cannot reconcile the idea that I have to be a career woman and a house manager, a mother to my children and an enthusiastic almost everything to my husband? That's why I took the opportunity to quit my career as a teacher and become a full-time house manager and hands-on mother.
John Gray (of Men are from Mars...) explains beautifully why women are so frustrated when they come home at the end of a testosterone-producing day at work to find a messy home where their male partner just wants to put his feet up because he is satisfied from his testosterone-producing job, while the woman needs her nesting, oxytocin-producing, fulfilling activities that require some degree of energy left.
But she must miraculously administer the energy left in her amongst her brood and her husband, who will be happily unwinding while zapping between tv channels. She will have no time to enjoy cutting flowers from the garden and placing them in a vase. She either works a testosterone-producing job to pay someone to have the pleasure of cutting her garden flowers for her, or she remains secretly wishing, and sometimes not knowing why she feels so frustrated, as she is unable to exert her right to find pleasure in the small things that were once so appreciated for their healing and balancing effect on the female soul.
We are left with men and women who feel enormous pressure to perform well in all levels of life and satisfy "the one" in many features of their existence.
The question it poses, in my mind, is "How can a betrayed spouse interpret the role they are playing in recovering the marriage without giving in to pride?" Spiritual leaders suggest this is the real essence of love, but we are not all spiritually mature enough to embrace this ability to love without expectations.
In reality, we expect to be loved and respected by the one we chose. Even if we see it as a second marriage with the same person, the tattoo on their head that reminds us this is the same person who lied to us will never go away. I suppose we can choose to ignore it most days and see the other features in our partner, the features that made us fall in love with them in the first place, and that made us consider giving them a second chance.
I suppose it is ok to feel like we are stupid for letting the ex-unfaithful "get away" with having an affair. We can secretly visualise them weeping over losing us. It is only a vision unless we kick them out of our life. In doing that, our family will be transformed, the pain of the betrayal will still be there and our hearts will still be shattered. So, what's next?
Choose to live every single day as it comes, with new challenges and new blessings. I choose to keep my family together, to write about my pain and to share my story anonymously in the hope that it will help others sail beyond the pain of infidelity.
Eleven months after DDay I am a stronger person. My perception of my husband is more one of a flawed human being with a very primitive ability to get in touch and express his own feelings. I wonder what he is feeling after I accused him of violating the sanctity of what we had. Well, he actually stated clearly that he "feels awful". He hurt me during a few years by disconnecting, gaslighting and cheating on me. It is not easy for me to exercise the elevated concept of forgiveness and unconditional love. I am only human.
I must find my ancient female archetype of the wise giver of life and rise above the selfish feelings of revenge that my dominated woman stereotype recurs to when suffering the consequences of a male-imposed right to stray. I know that if I would have strayed, we wouldn't be working on recovery. But I wouldn't stray. Do I rise or do I succumb? Time will tell.
Cheers to the process of recovery, the cha-cha-cha dance.
Thanks for reading,
Helen
As you travel into the unknown, hoping that one day the pain will diminish, you probably wonder how would it feel being in the alternative path. If you gave up on recovery work, you might wonder if you rushed to make the final decision. If you are still working on recovery, you might wonder if you are doing what's best for you, maybe you're missing out on better life opportunities by insisting on staying with the person who betrayed you.
Uncertainty is a killer if you give in to it. We have to learn to live life on a daily basis. Infidelity changes us as humans and it certainly changes our perception of our spouse/partner. I personally cannot feel enthusiastic about any professional achievements that my husband might come up with, as he is still working in the same place where his affair took place. I was his number one fan and cheerleader and now that attitude is dead.
I want to devote my time to empowering other women who feel put down and unappreciated because they devoted themselves to their families.
Esther Perel states that the survival of the family today depends on the happiness of the couple. This is something so F-ed up, excuse my French, that no wonder we feel so lost when "the one" we chose for a life partner and parent of our children lets us down. She suggests we plunge into a new relationship with our spouse if we decide to give them a second chance. This was something that resonated with me and influenced my decision to give my husband a second chance.
Ancient wisdom, as stated by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her treaty-book "Women who run with the wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Women Archetype" determined that a first-time mother would receive support from a network of other women in the community. Today, she is supposed to be supported enthusiastically by her spouse. In a heterosexual couple, we have a father who has not been trained, until recently, to perform as a hands-on baby/child caretaker.
For 5000 years, since men discovered their sperm was necessary for the woman to bear a child, they have been doing everything they can to make women forget they once were worshipped as goddesses for precisely giving life to baby humans. We, as a female collective, have been so dominated by the traditionally man-managed institutions that control Estate, Religion, Education and everything else, that today we are trained to be equal to men since we are born and then we are expected to behave like women with the support of the masculine face of the family who lives in confusion as to what role is expected of him too. Is he supposed to be strong and tender, bring an income and succeed professionally and at the same time be present for the baby bath ritual and the bedtime storytelling routine?
How can so much be expected of us today? In my own experience, I still cannot reconcile the idea that I have to be a career woman and a house manager, a mother to my children and an enthusiastic almost everything to my husband? That's why I took the opportunity to quit my career as a teacher and become a full-time house manager and hands-on mother.
John Gray (of Men are from Mars...) explains beautifully why women are so frustrated when they come home at the end of a testosterone-producing day at work to find a messy home where their male partner just wants to put his feet up because he is satisfied from his testosterone-producing job, while the woman needs her nesting, oxytocin-producing, fulfilling activities that require some degree of energy left.
But she must miraculously administer the energy left in her amongst her brood and her husband, who will be happily unwinding while zapping between tv channels. She will have no time to enjoy cutting flowers from the garden and placing them in a vase. She either works a testosterone-producing job to pay someone to have the pleasure of cutting her garden flowers for her, or she remains secretly wishing, and sometimes not knowing why she feels so frustrated, as she is unable to exert her right to find pleasure in the small things that were once so appreciated for their healing and balancing effect on the female soul.
We are left with men and women who feel enormous pressure to perform well in all levels of life and satisfy "the one" in many features of their existence.
The question it poses, in my mind, is "How can a betrayed spouse interpret the role they are playing in recovering the marriage without giving in to pride?" Spiritual leaders suggest this is the real essence of love, but we are not all spiritually mature enough to embrace this ability to love without expectations.
In reality, we expect to be loved and respected by the one we chose. Even if we see it as a second marriage with the same person, the tattoo on their head that reminds us this is the same person who lied to us will never go away. I suppose we can choose to ignore it most days and see the other features in our partner, the features that made us fall in love with them in the first place, and that made us consider giving them a second chance.
I suppose it is ok to feel like we are stupid for letting the ex-unfaithful "get away" with having an affair. We can secretly visualise them weeping over losing us. It is only a vision unless we kick them out of our life. In doing that, our family will be transformed, the pain of the betrayal will still be there and our hearts will still be shattered. So, what's next?
Choose to live every single day as it comes, with new challenges and new blessings. I choose to keep my family together, to write about my pain and to share my story anonymously in the hope that it will help others sail beyond the pain of infidelity.
Eleven months after DDay I am a stronger person. My perception of my husband is more one of a flawed human being with a very primitive ability to get in touch and express his own feelings. I wonder what he is feeling after I accused him of violating the sanctity of what we had. Well, he actually stated clearly that he "feels awful". He hurt me during a few years by disconnecting, gaslighting and cheating on me. It is not easy for me to exercise the elevated concept of forgiveness and unconditional love. I am only human.
I must find my ancient female archetype of the wise giver of life and rise above the selfish feelings of revenge that my dominated woman stereotype recurs to when suffering the consequences of a male-imposed right to stray. I know that if I would have strayed, we wouldn't be working on recovery. But I wouldn't stray. Do I rise or do I succumb? Time will tell.
Cheers to the process of recovery, the cha-cha-cha dance.
Thanks for reading,
Helen
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