Not too long ago, Samantha and I were having an incredibly difficult time. If you're on this site, and have gone through this nightmare which necessitates recovery, when I say an incredibly difficult time,' I know you know what I mean. I felt like I just couldn't win and couldn't gain any ground. To say I was frustrated is a severe understatement.
Looking back, what I truly was feeling was hopelessness. Walking out your recovery from infidelity (or your spouse's infidelity) can seem impossible. It can also seem as though nothing you do works, no action taken produces any fruit, and no matter what road you take it just never goes the way you want it to go. It's a toxic combination of anger, bitterness and frustration and it can lead you to a place of "Why even try???"
I had hit a crossroads. I'll never forget sitting at the stoplight by our home at a major intersection. I had no desire to go home at all. Sure my three kids were home and I love them to death. But somehow in my mind, at this juncture, they were not going to be better off by me going home. Somehow I had come to the place of sheer and utter hopelessness that things were ever going to get better and I was ready to take matters into my own hands. I was in the outside traffic lane, with no music on, and only the sound of my blinker and what seemed like my life ticking away with no meaning, purpose or substance.
I wanted to peel off, and go to a bar and a hotel with no call to Samantha at all. I wanted her to feel the pain and inconvenience, and the message my absence was going to send to her. I wanted to teach Samantha a lesson and leave and say to her, "You drove me away and it's never enough with you!"
I'll never forget that moment. It was a defining moment for me in my recovery. I would have felt justified and I would have seemed right in many people's eyes but I'm terrified to think of what would have happened next, should I have went a different way. It's been said, love isn't love until we have the opportunity to do the alternative, and choose not to.
I went home that night. It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't glorious. But it was home. It was the right thing to do, and it was love, even when I didn't want to do it and had zero feelings to support the decision to go home. I had to face the music of my own doing, regardless of how happy I was with Samantha's efforts to reciprocate or not reciprocate.
You too may be at a crossroads, and although I am not the least bit the standard of what to do or not to do, I hope you'll at least pause before you make your next choice. I hope you'll hear the blinker of options that are probably louder than you'd like them to be right now and before you make a choice, think about the consequences of your actions. Think about how things will play out after the choice you make. What is the loving response you need to make, even if you feel nothing? Before you change lanes my friend, remember where that road will take you.
I'm happy to say, by the grace of God, I've been going home ever since.
Comments
Crossroads....
This entry is right on with what I am facing with my husband. I am the betrayed spouse who is now living and trying to heal on my own because my husband recently “changed lanes”.
We are 15 months from D-day and in the beginning, I was the one who truly felt hopeless that recovery from this was ever possible. It was my husband that kept saying “we can make it” that kept me going day to day for the first year. However, around the one year mark, the tables turned and my husband started to change. His hope was quickly replaced with enormous feelings of shame and guilt. When I read this blog, I could only imagine the moment my husband was sitting at the intersection, listening to the blinker ticking his life away with no meaning or purpose, with no desire to come home. Unfortunately, he made the choice to take the opposite road and moved out a couple of months ago.
He repeatedly told me how we are “better off without him” and how I would be “so much happier with someone else that hadn’t been unfaithful to me”. His is lost in his life and full of shame for his affair and for his recent relapses into behaviors that allowed him to have an affair in the first place. Admittedly, I haven’t been perfect in my recovery and when the pain surfaced, I would sometimes throw the affair in his face, yelled, screamed, and cried. I’m sure that just added to his guilt and shame and was a part in his decision to leave. Even though it wasn’t said out loud, I can hear him saying what you wrote: “You drove me away and it’s never enough with you!”
His decision to take a different road on his own has rocked me once again - but I’m stronger than I was a year ago and now I am the one that has hope. I’m the one saying “we can make it” if we just keep trying. I hold on to hope that he remembers the road back home.
Congratulations to Samuel for
It isn't hatred, it is pain.
SO TRUE!!!!
Praying for you
Not Hatred
I don't believe what you are reading is hatred. There is raw emotions on this site of people who are hurting. My husband was unfaithful. I don't hate him, I'm trying to understand, trying to find answers, anything that will help us heal from this devistating time in our lives. If hatred were the platform for this site no one would be served. No, I think that what you see is how you are feeling. I am glad you found this site. Please take the time to read through all the posts. The information presented here is the best I have found.
Hatred?
I don't believe what you are reading is hatred. There is raw emotions on this site of people who are hurting. My husband was unfaithful. I don't hate him, I'm trying to understand, trying to find answers, anything that will help us heal from this devistating time in our lives. If hatred were the platform for this site no one would be served. No, I think that what you see is how you are feeling. I am glad you found this site. Please take the time to read through all the posts. The is the information presented here is the best I have found.