You may be familiar with the life analogy of the contrast between the way cows and buffaloes face an impending storm. As a storm approaches, cows sense it coming and move in the opposite direction, away from the storm. Unfortunately for the cows, they aren't very fast and as a result of this decision, they actually remain in the storm longer as they run alongside it, prolonging the unpleasantness.

Buffaloes, on the other hand, will turn toward the coming storm and charge directly into it. By doing this, the buffaloes pass through it quickly, reducing the amount of time and discomfort they experience from that storm.

I remember hearing this analogy somewhere along my recovery journey and confirming that I must be a cow. I wanted nothing to do with any of this, and would definitely run in the other direction if avoidance was really an option. But it's not. So I might as well be a buffalo and get through this. From my current vantage point, I can look back and see ways in which I prolonged the storm by trying to avoid it, even unknowingly. One of those ways was through minimization.

On the surface, minimization might sound like a good idea. In the moment it feels healthy and helpful, like downplaying and making all of it less significant might help get me through it faster. Looking back, I realize I greatly minimized the affair after disclosure.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, there was a 10 year gap between the affair and my husband's eventual confession. I had always been uneasy and suspicious, and could never feel settled about it. My direct questions and accusations during (and after) the affair were always met with blatant lies. I knew they had something between them, but for years I tried to convince myself my husband would never have done such a thing, and that I was just being paranoid. I minimized it, trying to believe it was "just" a flirtation or a crush, as though even that would have been ok. My instincts and fear persisted to tell me they were having an affair, which conjured graphic sexual images of them in my head, but my inner denial was equally strong, and this internal war raged on in my mind and heart for years. I could only settle the extreme anxiety by repeatedly telling myself, trying to convince myself, that he would never do that, that it hadn't gone that far, and that he was telling me the truth. I minimized what I knew to be true in order to survive.

Then disclosure happened. It basically blew all those years of denial out of the water in one fell swoop. He told me the "worst" of it first: the part he knew would matter to me the most. He got it out of the way rather than leave me wondering as he went on to tell the whole story. It was devastating. Still is. Always will be.

Anyway, looking back now, I see that after that point I took every opportunity to minimize the affair, rather than face it head on. I really thought I was facing it, but in reality I was trying to convince myself it wasn't that bad. I repeatedly tried to package it as "a long time ago" - as though it shouldn't completely rock my world, since so much time had passed. Or that it just wasn't relevant to my present life. Early on, before either of us really had much of an understanding of the full impact, my husband also echoed this a few times, "It was a long time ago," he would say, and for him it was. But for me it felt like it was happening now. So this statement just reinforced my attempts to minimize it, as I tried to believe it shouldn't matter that much now, and I didn't understand why I couldn't just get over it, concluding that I was at fault for allowing it to continue to hurt me, since it ended a long time ago. For context, my husband's affair was fully sexual, spanned well over a year, and included many occasions that intentionally placed me together with my husband and his affair partner. This included a variety of settings, including spending several holidays together at her home. It was not insignificant and there were many layers to his betrayal.

I often found myself repeating minimizing phrases to myself, as though if I said them enough it would make it hurt less. I said things like: they "only" did (this or that) ___ times, or "at least" he wasn't planning to leave me. "At least" the affair "only" lasted ____, and he "just" felt ____ toward her. And so on. All the "only" "just" and "at least" statements served to soothe my heart in the moment, but kept me from facing the reality of the situation. I spent so much energy trying to convince myself it wasn't really that bad, I was just running away from the storm like the cows.

Unconsciously, I put a lot of effort into these minimizations. In my Harboring Hope group I consistently felt and said out loud that my situation was "not as bad" as the others, since their husbands had cheated for more years than mine did, or had more affair partners than my husband did, or both. These kinds of minimizations made me believe I wasn't justified to feel the pain I did, since my situation was so much "better" than theirs.

But here is the truth. Pain is pain. It's not a competition and there is an unlimited supply. Someone else's tragic situation does not mean there is less pain available for mine. By trying to talk myself out of being justified to feel the pain, I am avoiding the pain and all that is necessary to get through the pain. Skirting the edges by creating explanations and justifications as to why I shouldn't be feeling this way offers no benefit and just prolongs the storm, like the cows do.

I came across a note I sent to my Harboring Hope Group Leader after our first or second meeting. This was 6 months post D-day, and reading it again now really illuminated my frame of mind at the time. These are actual quotes taken from my message:

But now I see none of that is valid. My pain is my pain and his affair hurt me deeply, regardless of how much "worse" it could have been, or how it compared to other people's experiences. I wasted so much time trying to talk myself out of validating my experience, that I lost the opportunity to face it head on and deal with it. Even with all the gut wrenching work I did with my first few therapists (and on my own), most of my effort was spent trying to figure out how to override my feelings through the perspective of minimization, rather than accept and deal with my feelings and the reality of the situation. I focused on the aspects of my husband's affair that "could have been worse" and tried to dismiss my feelings about what actually did happen, including the lies, deception, and manipulation, not just during the affair, but for years afterward. I tried to ignore all of this but still felt all the pain, so instead of minimization helping my perspective, it just made me feel as though I was a complete failure, a loser who couldn't even get over this correctly. I wouldn't even acknowledge the buzzwords - recovery, safety, trauma, self care, and so on. I felt it was all far too dramatic for me, and I didn't feel I was in a situation that warranted all that. I had not been on the battlefield and I hadn't been physically assaulted. My heart was just broken. I don't think I really felt permission to see this as legitimate trauma until I started working with my current counselor (therapist #4). I had dismissed all of it - the clear emotional trauma and the subconscious physical impact of years and years of continued deception and repressed emotions. I'm not looking for a trauma trophy or anything, but I do think it is important to accept and validate that a break in the marital relationship in such a deceptive and damaging way is in fact traumatic. I continually beat myself up for failing to recover from something I wasn't even willing to fully acknowledge, adding much more pain and frustration to an already painful situation. We can't heal what we aren't willing to name or face.

Paraphrased from @Nate_Postlethwait: After experiencing trauma we often are apologetic for how we show up - needy, sad, unable to "shake" the depression or "live in the present" etc. These are often responses from our nervous system as we grapple to heal from and overcome the trauma, but it's ironic that we often apologize or feel "less than" for the experiences we have in trying to heal from a trauma, despite the fact that no one asked permission before harming us to create the trauma in the first place. Infidelity is huge, with many losses that we don't fully appreciate or understand until later on in this journey. There is nothing minimal about these losses or that pain that they generate.

I don't want to confuse minimization with perspective. There are actual things about my husband's affair that probably could have been "worse" and while it's important to try to have perspective of the whole picture, comparison to others, or how much worse it could have been, is not going to somehow make the pain go away. As someone recently said on the Affair Recovery forum, when language like that is used about someone destroying your marriage, it just feels impossible to take in. The poster went on to say, "It's like saying, 'I only stabbed my victim in the heart with a knife one time.' Once, twice, a dozen times, the fatal blow is the same."

Rick Reynolds shared an article about grieving that illustrates the importance of facing, and embracing, the grief. In the article, Rick says, "Those who go into "GRIEVING" mode may spend months sorting through their grief with tears, pain, and true sorrow, but at the end of their journey they feel refreshed and renewed." He continues, "I have never known of a single person who has thoroughly grieved and had any regrets or felt a need to blame anyone. They are free and at peace. When people fail to move forward after the affair, it's often due to the inability to grieve the loss. Instead of healing from the pain, they try to control and manage the pain which only results in further damage and isolation... A major determining factor between those who go forward with new life and those who remain stuck after an affair is their willingness to grieve the loss."

In another article Rick says, "We mistakenly believe that hiding the reality of our situation will somehow save us from the pain, yet it only serves to enslave us to that very same pain. Hidden pain is then transformed into shame. Our shame then negatively impacts all those we love and serves as the fuel to perpetuate our cycle."

The point of all of those thoughts is that the buffaloes have the right idea. Running into the storm, into the grief, into the loss is what is necessary, yet so contrary to every instinct we have to escape pain. Mona Shriver very accurately stated, "Recognizing the depth of the pain gives us permission to seek healthy ways to mourn instead of wasting so much of our energy trying not to feel the way we do."

Healthy perspective is important, and along the way this will come. In the beginning I thought I was developing perspective, but I really was just trying to talk myself out of my feelings. Looking back I can see how unproductive and harmful that was, and how it just prolonged the pain. Now, I don't minimize anything, but I have developed a better perspective over time and with a lot of conversation and reflection. Facing this stuff is hard, and not for the faint of heart, but I never want to be a cow again. Let's be buffaloes and face the storm - together.