I hate puzzles, but my family loves them. For some strange reason they find pleasure in what I consider to be a tortuous activity designed to move me toward insanity. This year, for instance, they are working a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle called “Will the Real Santa..." It’s made up of over 32 Santas who all look basically the same. Each has a white beard, red costume. For hours my family sits around a table taking each of the thousand pieces comparing them to the picture on the lid trying to distinguish slight differences in hope of getting just one more piece to fit. They claim it’s relaxing and rewarding, but to me it’s enough to make me want to sharpen my pencil and fall on it.

But what if there were no picture on the box and all you had were a thousand pieces, how difficult would that be? I’m sure my family could still work it, but I bet it would slow them down a bit and you can be assured there is no way I would even participate. I value my sanity too much. What about those new puzzles where they give you extra pieces and then take away the picture of the puzzle - would that make it a little more difficult? And if you really wanted to make it hard, you could always turn out the lights. Even for my experienced family members, I’m not sure it would be possible to work a 1000 jigsaw puzzle in the dark. Where would you begin? Would you try to find all the outside edge pieces, by feel and then begin to see if you could fit them together? What about the corners, would you be able to identify those pieces simply by feel? And if you did get it together, do you think you’d be able to get all the pieces in their right places?.

Personally, I’d never even think of trying, but I know countless numbers who have tried just that. If a spouse learns of a betrayal, but is given no details, it can seem very much like trying to work a puzzle in the dark. Do you think anyone would ever be able to get it right? If a husband(or wife) suspects an affair and his (or her) mate refuses to address the issue, what is he (or she) to do? Spouses in this position may try to work the puzzle, to get the picture, but frequently they are in the dark and due to the unlimited human imagination, they can be working with extra pieces. They can create possibilities in their minds that probably never happened. How do they work the puzzle in the dark? If my family were to come across a puzzle too difficult to complete, we would simply put it back in the box, maybe even throw it away, but for the hurt spouse, it’s not that easy.

Experience has shown that for most people, it’s impossible to move forward from a betrayal until the hurt spouse knows what has happened. Admittedly, there are those individuals who don’t want to know and are more comfortable living in denial, but for every one of these, there are many others who feel they can’t go on until they know what has occurred. In fact, the level of detail seems to be driven by the hurt spouse’s personality. Some may be content to not work the puzzle; others must work it, understand it, and bring it all into focus in order to heal.

Some work 500 piece puzzles. They don’t need a lot of detail, but they do need to know. Others need to work the puzzle at the 1000 piece level and still others at the 2,500 or 5,000 piece level. It’s important to check with your mate about the level of detail they would like, but for the sake of helping him or her heal, it’s important to give the proper amount of information. No one wants to work a puzzle in the dark or with extra pieces.

Some unfaithful spouses may feel no obligation to give information for the sake of their mates healing, but if one’s actions seriously wound another person, then it is one’s responsibility to give the hurt individual the information necessary to heal. The overwhelming majority of hurt spouses have to understand what has happened and get that puzzle worked, before they can begin to forgive and move on.

For example, if I were to hit a parked car in the parking lot there are several actions I could take. I could avoid responsibility and drive on as if nothing had happened thinking that if they didn’t catch me that is their problem. I could recognize that even if I had no evil intent, I still have done someone else harm and should accept the responsibility for my actions and write a note with my contact information on it. Failure to take responsibility by helping the wounded spouse heal is nothing more than driving away from an accident.

In my mind, love will always act in the best interest of another person. As we enter this New Year, I pray that we will allow a genuine concern and love for others to be our goal.

Happy New Year,
Rick

January 2007