A Crossroads 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.
