Infidelity is something that you don’t think about when you are married to man/woman who is the most genuine, honest, unselfish, moral man/woman of character.
Infidelity was something you never worried about.
Your husband/wife was someone you thought loved you unconditionally, would protect you and hold your heart gently in his/her hand.
You trusted him/her and thought he/she was the one person in the world who would never hurt you.
When infidelity comes into your life, you are traumatized by an experience you never expected to happen to you. It’s a rollercoaster ride, emotionally and physically.
Denial:
You refuse to accept that your husband/wife is having an affair. Your mind is in turmoil, you walk around dazed, numb. You can’t understand it, can’t accept it.
You make excuses for them; you loathe the man/woman they have become and mourn the man/woman they once were. You walk around in a haze numb with grief.
You blame yourself. Don’t make yourself a victim by blaming yourself
You did nothing wrong.
He/she had many, many options but an affair was not one of them. Nothing justifies an affair. You are justified in how you are feeling. You are not overreacting.
No marriage is perfect, and all are probably a disappointment in one way or another. You are not responsible for his/her decision to have an affair.
How do you cope when you are being traumatized by an experience you never expected to happen to you:
Let a family member or a friend know what is happening. You need support now and people want to help. Infidelity is not something you can go through alone. Get all the help you can.
It is very important that you take care of yourself. When you are kind to yourself, you can’t go wrong.
The images of them both together:
The images are so vivid. Your imagination runs away with you. You drive yourself crazy imagining all sorts of things. You start to believe that what you see playing in your mind is a reflection of reality.
You have to tell yourself these pictures and images are not real. These are images and thoughts that you put in your mind.
You have to keep telling yourself that these images in your mind are just a figment of your own creative imagination. These images cause serious psychological distress.
The mind is very powerful, and it is very important to separate fact from fiction.
How do I move on:
Moving on from infidelity is a process.
You go through the same stages as death, except with death, you can grieve the person. Your loved one did not deliberately leave you; they did not have a choice. Given a choice, they would have stayed with you.
In their death, you are happy in the knowledge that they died loving you, happy that you were on their mind when they died and even in death you would always be together.
Moving on from infidelity takes courage and strength.
Just getting out of the bed in the morning is a huge achievement in itself as depression can take over your life, without you even realizing it. You are so consumed with the pain; you are unaware that life is passing you by, days go into weeks, into months, into years.
Three years down the road people are still telling you to “get over it”. It may be three years, but to you, it only happened yesterday, and the pain is still raw.
It is very important that you take care of yourself.
Do not put a time limit on your healing. Take one day at a time or one hour at a time if needed.
Find the help you need, don’t be afraid to ask. Don’t look back in years to come and regret not taking care of yourself the way you ought to. You are the observer of your thoughts.
You are in control. Don’t let your thoughts control you.
Accepting your marriage is over is the first step to healing.
Acceptance is the only path towards positive change. If you decide to work on the marriage, work on your future together, not the past. There is no future in the past.
Letting Go:
The hardest part is letting go, but once you release yourself from all that pain and accept there was nothing you could do to save your marriage your healing begins.
This takes you on a wonderful peaceful road, away from all the pain and sorrow. The healing occurs slowly and over time, you realized that, in fact, you are healing.
Be an example of strength to your children, by showing them that nothing in life is perfect, there will be hardships along the way but there is always hope and light at the end of the tunnel.
Believe in yourself and you can overcome anything that stands in your way. Never give up, never quit. Finding yourself again is very empowering.
There is hope.
Reach out to your family and friends and try and rise above everything that is holding you back from fulling your destiny.
You have the choice and the courage to let go. When you are kind to yourself, you can’t go wrong.
You can find I’m the Boss of Me here…
