Hello. I am Candace. Should you stay, or should you go post D-Day? I'll tell you who tends to have the instant answer to that question- everyone who has never been sucker punched by infidelity firsthand. Whether you are the betrayed or the wayward partner, we know that decision is not as easy as people make it out to be.

There are so many things to consider. I want to begin this post by acknowledging that there are a significant number of betrayed spouses out there who are never given a chance to answer that question because that choice was made for them by their partner. If that happened to you, please know you are not alone. For those of us who find ourselves looking for the “sign” to stay or go, this post is for you, regardless of which side of the infidelity you are on.

When the infidelity grenade went off in my life, my twin daughters had just turned 17 years old earlier that month. They were in their first week of senior year of high school. All their classes were still remote, thanks to Covid. College applications were due and the SATs were canceled here in California.

Plus, eight college admissions essays that were not going to write themselves. We'll get back to my twin daughters momentarily. I'm a very practical person. So, within just a few weeks of D-Day, I thought I'd cover all my bases by meeting with a lawyer, a priest, and an accountant. I'll save their opinionated and, interestingly, fairly unanimous responses for another vlog on another day.

I share the fact with you that I met with these three professionals in today's blog simply to give you an idea of how I decided to stay or go. Before D-Day, I would have been one of those very well-meaning friends who would have told you exactly what I would do if that were me.

When that grenade went off, all those answers were blown to shreds. Answers that were once so clear became a chasm of gray space. So there I was, surveying anyone and everyone I thought could help me make the most significant decision I had ever faced. Did anyone else literally Google reasons to stay married? Did anyone else look to God or the universe for a sign to stay or a sign to go?

Was anyone else confused or unable to hear the answer? Was the impatient way my partner responded to my 87th question in a row last night my sign to go? Or, was it my sign to stay this morning when he told me how much he's learning in his Hope for Healing group. There tends to be so much volatility early on, and it's brutal for both sides.

Our poor, sleep-deprived brains are working overtime, analyzing every spike of hope and every plummet of despair. This is why Affair Recovery strongly encourages you to assess progress month over month, or better yet, season over season to get a more accurate picture of what the direction in which things are trending. Fortunately, we found Affair Recovery and enrolled in EMS Online within weeks of D-Day.

When I first heard the strong suggestion not to decide right away, I had a few choice words about that recommendation. I thought, are they out of their damn minds telling me that I should pick a random date on a calendar six months, maybe even 12 months down the road. I can't even picture myself looking across the dinner table at this man one week from now, let alone into next year.

Spoiler alert: I did wait, but it wasn't because I was willing to admit that expert advice was brilliant. I waited because, despite being shell-shocked, I decided within minutes of D-Day that I wasn't willing to let my daughters know that anything was wrong yet. I was hell-bent on them flying out of state to take the SATs, which coincidentally, we ended up flying to Austin, the home of Affair Recovery. I micromanaged them, rated their college admission essays, and made sure those applications got submitted on time.

I remember thinking, probably even yelling, this man has blown up my life, but I'll be damned if his infidelity is going to destroy theirs too. I wasn't willing to risk turning their lives upside down with the truth, at least not yet.

I remember a close friend saying, “He has to get out of your house.” To which I replied, “It’s Covid. Everything is closed. There's no business travel happening. Where would I tell my girls he went?”

She said she didn’t know but to simply say he had to go on a special mission or something. I pointed out that while I may have typical self-absorbed teenagers, I'm fairly sure they know their dad is not an astronaut, and I didn’t think they would buy an extraordinary mission story.

So he got to stay. As it turns out, I not only did my kids a favor, I did myself one, too. It took me a while to see it, but the best time to make what might be the biggest decision of your life is not when you are in complete and total crisis mode. The answer to whether you should stay or go will less likely be about what happened, and much more about what happens next.

Marriages can end over one isolated incident of acting out or be reconciled and rebuilt after decades of infidelity.

Early into recovery, I didn't see it that way. I had previously believed that maybe people should consider staying if it was only “this”, but they should bail if it were “that”. I was wrong.

Please, for your own sake, as long as you're not in any danger, I respectfully ask that you please consider that you might not have all the information yet to make a truly informed decision to stay or go.

Lastly, about ten months into recovery, I remember calling my dad, who lives on the other side of the country, and giving him a very general overview of the train wreck my life had turned into. I want to tell you about this conversation for two reasons. The first being out of everyone I eventually told, he had an honest and compassionate response.

He said that he had no idea what to say, but he would listen if I wanted to talk. The second and main reason I'm telling you about this conversation is because of the words that came out of my mouth after I told him. I hadn't practiced what I was going to say, nor phrased it quite this well to anyone else. I explained that I didn’t know if I was going to file for divorce, and it had been ten months of hell. I was sorting through the rubble. I went from changing my mind every day, 20 times a day, to now leaning in one direction or the other, for almost one day at a time. Finally, I said that in time, I was able to calm down a bit and do some solid recovery work, and felt I needed to feel one way or the other for at least some consistent amount of time before deciding.

I don't recall defining how much then, or have the exact answer now. I just knew that I wanted to have peace in my soul when I made that decision.

As I leave you today, I'd like to share one of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis, which has always brought me hope. He said, “You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”