Sorry for being MIA

I haven't blogged in FOREVER.  I'm really sorry, I am still thinking and praying for all of you who have communicated with me this past year.

Things are really hectic and busy, I think I posted that Husband and I got pregnant and baby number three will likely come exactly 2 years after the discovery and our recovery.  1 year after our vow renewal and baptism.  12 years after being married and 2 years after falling in love.  :) This one is a girl and I can't wait to meet her.  My official date is Oct 1 but because I am having a repeat C Section it will be a week or two earlier-I'm hoping it will happen on the date of our renewal but I'm nervous it will be schedule for the same date of the discovery.  In a sense it would take that day back...but I'd rather it be a different day.

We also moved from our shoebox into a new house. Its beautiful and in a great neighborhood but has some things that need to be fixed before baby comes, so its been hectic.  Add to that the fact I blew up my computer- and I'm serious, there was smoke and everything and the fact that my job is so hectic and crazy... we'll blogging time has been very limited.

Anyway, one thing I discovered while packing everything up was that all those yuck emotions and memories of the other and what happened came back to me.  This move was the last thing for me to get away from the old memories and worries.  The other knew where I lived and I lived with the constant fear in the back of my mind that I would come home one day and find him there waiting.  Moving would free me from this, but it also made me aware of it which led to thinking about it which led to feelings of yuck.

I am now unlisted, my address is different and those are the last two things I've been waiting for to stop being fearful.  I still have some little worries, the Other threatened to do something drastic in my hometown...soon... so I know as fall approaches I will be thinking of this and will breath a sigh of relief when it doesn't happen.  Because I have faith it won't, I have faith God will step in and stop it.  I actually pray that the Other has found love and happiness and not just so I don't worry but because I think he could use it as well. 

Well, I was kind of all over the place here, sorry.  I just wanted to explain my silence.

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"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?"

Grace Tells Another Story

When we think we can't forgive ourselves and heal...

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

The biggest mistake that I think us victims make is to personalize the betrayal.

"Its my fault! Why did I let this happen? If only... If I would have just..."

Even though by nature (and in large part my chosen profession) I am a problem solver, I quickly became a victim and all the junk that came with it. For months after the affair I had all those thoughts plus some I won't share over and over again, playing like the only country music station in the entire radio dial. "If you don't like this country song, my mind would say, here's another 10 stations all playing the same song just for you."

This lie behind all these thoughts are that your significant other betrayed you because of who you are or something you did. It is a lie. Those are all bold faced lies meant to keep you in a place of anger, hurt, and pain.

The truth is that affairs happen in the entire spectrum of marriage with no regard for money, social status, communication, sex, or a level of "happiness"

With that said you may have played a small part in the betrayal but it still was not your fault. I know that I did.

The analogy I like to use is that my wife got into a car accident. It hurt alot of people and was mostly her and the others fault but I was a contributing factor. I didn't keep the tires on her car properly inflated. I let her drive on really worn brakes. There were also warning signs that she was a wreckless driver that I ignored and a cry for help as well.
But she still chose to get into the car and was at fault for the accident.

Afterwords, I spent WAY too much time blaming myself. Way too much time was wasted trying to accept and place blame. I soon reverted back to my teenage year of being a victim with no control of my life.

That turned out to be the furthest thing from the truth. As the victim, my wife turned to me for guidance along the journey. Our counselor told us that I was the barometer of the relationship. As I healed, Scarlet found it ok to move on the the next phase as well.

If you are stuck in this phase, know that it is just a phase of the aftermath of the affair. But please don't focus on it. When these thoughts come into your head just say 'that's a lie and all lies come from the devil'
Say a prayer "In Jesus Christ's name I command you and this lie to leave. Jesus I invite you to come into my heart where the lie once was and heal me in that place.

Believe me when I say that I did this one a regular basis for a good part of a year and it does work. It is something I still do when I catch the lies sneaking back into my thoughts. The more I ask Jesus to come and truly invite him into my heart the closer I feel to him and the more peace I feel in my life.

Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you."

Matthew 11:29 "... learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls ..."

Which wolf will you feed today?

Here is an Cherokee tale of two wolves:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Its true. See we all have free will. We all get to do whatever we want, think about whatever we want, and make our own little world inside our minds. Sometimes our minds become little prisons that we feel we can't escape.

I'd say for the first 3-4 months after I found about my wife's affair, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I feed myself a plate of misery, hurt, pain, and anger on a daily basis. But then I realized that I had a choice to make.

I was able to picture myself 10 years from now and I saw two Ean's. The first one put on a mask for work, friends, and others, but inside was a wreck. He would turn to other things for any kind of escape. Work, sports, alcohol, movies, books, and probably greed in order to try and drown out the pain from being betrayed.

Or I could not. I could, in fact, choose joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. And that's what I did.

I forgave my wife. And I mean really forgave her. I choose first to forgive. I didn't "feel" like I had forgiven her and I felt, at times, that I shouldn't. There were even times were I had wished I hadn't. But I did. I choose to forgive her and THEN the feeling of forgiveness came to me. I feed the right wolf and keep feeding it and it grew more and the other wolf died.

And let me tell you that other wolf did not go down without a fight. I would have visions of telling my wife off. Telling her all of the things that I wanted to really say. All of the things that were inside my head of how she really hurt me. And when I started those visions, it really seemed like a wolf inside of me growing and taking over. That anger would come and the pain would come and so would the tears.

Don't feed that wolf. When that wolf comes 'round, tell it to go away. The devil will use whatever tricks he can to get you to live a life of anger and hate and focus on the betrayal. But we do have free will. As much as your hurting and full of just 'junk' inside you (believe me I know), you still get to choose which wolf to feed.

I promise you that if you feed the wolf of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith that your life will get better. I have chosen the path that God laid out for me and have not looked back. That wolf still comes around once in a while and entices me with his old tricks, but he knows that he has no power over me. That 'junk' that once filled every second of every day is still there once in a blue moon but it is like a anthill compared to the rocky mountains that it once was.

Matthew 6:21-23 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."

How He Forgave Me After the Affair

My husband made the decision to forgive me before he felt it. He knew that was what he had to do so he made the decision to just do it. So he really had to fight to forgive. And he did it successfully. He has yet to ever throw it in my face what I did, although I often throw it at myself (in my head)-or used to. I've gotten better at not self flagellating.

My husband was so kind and really took care of me, which is so strange and odd. But taking care of me gave him something to do after the discovery, he started to protect me in a way he had never done before, even though he was protecting me from myself and from what I had done. Odd-but I think that purpose helped him.

Just a little thought to throw out there.

How did you forgive? How were you forgiven?

Missing the Other: Life After the Discovery

One of my readers wrote me to ask me if I ever missed my Other and if so, what did I do. Below is my answer to her, but I'd really appreciate responses here from anyone who might have more applicable advice. Because, unfortunately, I don't know how far my answer to her question will take her.

Hello,

I can answer this but I don't know if I'm the best person to. The answer is, magically and inexplicably, no-I never missed my Other. I was afraid the missing would come, terrified really, but it never did. And this is not because I'm anyone special or have magnificent control over my mind, but because everything I could have missed at all about him was easily taken care of and represented in my husband.

I don't know how much of my blog you read, but if you read this post you'll see what I mean. In there I do my best to describe the moment when suddenly everything changed.

I was musing with husband about this the other day. We have always both believed we were meant to be together, but when we met we were both sort of broken in different ways. The people who met weren't the people who were ultimately meant to be together. I was supposed to be a girl who loved him desperately and stood with him as a strong partner tied together with a common passion and purpose. He was to be a man who was strong and unbreakable yet loving and kind. Neither of us were this. I think we both craved the thing we thought we were meant to have.

So in the therapists office, I think there was a huge inner change in my husband and I think the real me felt the real him in that moment. I don't know any other way to explain how I would be looking at him and suddenly feel like a veil had been lifted off my eyes and fall in love with him right then. And he was able to look at me and see that suddenly I did love him for real-and see it in my eyes in a way he never saw there before.

So no, I never had a moment of missing the Other. But that is only because my husband and I became what the other needed. If we had not, if we hadn't gone to counseling and powered through just on will alone without changing the things about us that were broken-our 11 years of bad habits and quarrels, I think it would have been very different.

And that is what I think the key is. What ever you might miss about the Other is something you really might be missing from your spouse. Dissect that and see what you can come up with and then work with your husband so both of you can become what you were meant to be to each other.

Maybe that was more than what you were looking for. I certainly don't think you're alone in missing him-so don't feel alone in this. I think my case is fairly unique and I thank god every day for this blessing.

This House is Not For Sale

This is a song that I found after the Discovery/Recovery. I really liked it and I likened the lyrics to my husband saying his life was not for sale. Just the fight, and that no one could take away our home without us fighting for it. And of course all the times he told me to " Calm DOOOOOOOOWN!"

But the more I listen to this song, the more I'm certain that it is really about the movie Beetlejuice. Seriously, check out the lyrics. I've just been wanting to share this, I know this is totally off topic, but about 99% of this blog is dedicated to dissecting adultery, I can have a little off topic moments, can't I?

This House is Not For Sale (Lyrics-Ryan Adams)

Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
We're still livin' here, how come nobody can tell
They're takin' all the furniture, movin' our things (The Step-mom and Otto walking around talking about all the stuff their going to do to change the house)
Come on little honey, put your head on my knee
Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
And calm down, calm down, calm down
Calm down, calm down, calm down

Do you remember when we even bought this thing?
I danced you across the wooden floor and you signed the lease
What happened in the car that night? (Total reference to the accident on the bridge)
What happened in the car that night?
Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
And calm down, calm down, calm down
Calm down, calm down, calm down
Calm down

Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
We could grab a couple sheets, yeah, give 'em quite a scare (their first attempt was wearing sheets with eye holes cut out)
I remember lyin' on the bedroom floor
You were holding me, little honey, kissin' my soul
Tell 'em that the house is not for sale
And calm down, calm down, calm down
Calm down, calm down, calm down
Calm down
Calm down
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So, am I crazy or what? Anyone else agree?
Now for your enjoyment, Ryan Adams :) -This House is Not For Sale