Information is a double edged sword.

When my husband was deeply involved in his online affairs I thought I had hit the jackpot when I came up with his twitter password and had started an undercover affair with him.  I was rolling in information.  I knew that I would never again have the "you're the crazy suspicious wife" conversation,  I win! Right?  I never had that converstaion again, as a matter of fact there wasn't a lot of conversation at all.  With every sex chat and exchanged picture and email right in front of him there wasn't much to say.  What I was left with was the details of every sex chat, email and the visual of every picture.  I had the details of how unhappy he was, how I contributed to that, why and how much he didn't like me or our marriage.  That is more information than I want now.  Did he say all of those things to gain sympathy from these women or did he really mean it?  I'll never know.  Be prepared, very prepared with self esteem protected before you start the digging process.

How is it NOT about me?

I have this question running through my head and I'm going to try to articulate this but it may be tough. Everything I read during and after my husbands online affairs kept saying that this was the cheating spouses issue not mine. He was looking for something to avoid issues of his own and this was not caused by me nor could I have prevented it. I see an ad this week for a program that will affair proof your marriage. When I started looking into this I found that this is a pretty popular trend. I found 3 books, 2 programs and a DVD on affair proofing your marriage.  So this tells me It's not my fault nor did I do anything to cause him to stray BUT there are things that I can do to keep him from cheating so I must have not done those things which would put this on me right? See where I'm going? because now I'm dizzy.  I resent the idea that had I been doing something different or right he would have made better character choices.  How about this, You failed to check your backyard gate daily like you should and your dog was in the street for the 3rd time this week so I just chose to run over him.   It was the wrong thing to do but had you done something differently I wouldn't have been forced to make a bad decision.  Am I wrong or is this more of "it's someone else's fault"?   My husband went through a bout with depression, I panicked and working in robot mode I wore myself out doing everything in my power to keep things level, stress free at home, calm and whatever I could do to keep him from worry.   I shut out everyone and everything and focused on that.  I stayed mentally and physically exhausted,we didn't communicate and rarely touched but I was determined that he would not be stressed.  He felt shut out and I was bitter and he turned to other people.  Did I make a bad choice?  Yes, Did he make a bad choice, Yes.  Could he have chosen to respond differently, Yes.  Should I have just let him feel pain like an adult?  Yes. Can I read a book, make some changes and keep someone else from making bad choices? NO.   Don't put that off on me.  I know I could have done things differently but it doesn't justify his choice.   If you have some knowledge of the affair proof plan and could correct me on my view I would welcome the input.  The pain of being betrayed is hard enough, it cuts through your self esteem and makes you question things you never imagined.  I truly believe that he made a choice and if that's what he truly wanted to do he would have found an excuse even if I had made the perfect choices all along.

Jumping off the cliff

Remember the Seinfeld episode where George decided to do the opposite of his norm in every situation because all of his decisions had just been wrong? That. That is where I am. I am sitting on the edge of the life cliff and I'm very scared that I will die here on the edge of the cliff while I analyze why I'm doing nothing. I have to jump off and crash or fly. Dying from the jump has to be better than dying here thinking about it. No I'm not suicidal, if I ever decide to really physically jump off a cliff I have a mental list of people that I'm taking with me! Haha! Seriously, strong is hard and I have to get there fast. Wish me luck

Forgiveness is a process

Growing up in a southern Christian home I was taught that you are to forgive and forget.  As I got older  I became very concerned because I wasn't able to do that at the drop of a hat. It took me years to understand that forgiveness could take a lifetime for some.  I have come to the conclusion that I can not always instantly forgive and without the assistance of a brain surgeon or blunt force trauma I can't forget.    When my husband and I finally sat down and talked about his online affairs the thought of leaving him had not even crossed my mind.  By today's standards an affair is the ultimate justification for divorce, it's the breaking of the marriage vows.  What kept running through my head was, this is some of the "worse", as in for better or for worse.  Our better outweighs our worse by tons and I wasn't ready to give that up or put my children through years of worse over his bad choices.  If we were going to survive this and get back to the better I had to forgive him and he had to forgive himself.    I chose to forgive him and that meant working every day to get better and grow farther away from that bad period.  The hardest times are when we get upset with each other or he pushes my buttons.  I choose (sometimes white knuckle choose) to not throw his affairs in his face or bring them up, part of forgiving is letting go of it and not using it as ammo.  Forgetting is impossible and I'm not sure that it would be beneficial.  I want to remember the things he said to the "others" about how he was hurting and what I had done, even unknowingly, to make him feel unloved.  I don't want to forget the subtle signs that I missed early on that there was a problem.  I don't want to forget that it doesn't take that much effort to stay connected to your lover everyday.   I understand that not everyone will recover from an affair and not every marriage can survive it because our experiences and situations are all unique. Even if your marriage doesn't survivee, the forgiveness process is still important, healing and so empowering.