When the Magic Mirror is Shattered
Everybody lies sometimes. It’s a fact. We lie to each other and we lie to ourselves. Oftentimes, those lies are the little white variety – “no, you don’t look fat!” or “the dog ate my homework.” But sometimes the lies are the earth-shattering kind. When someone you trust with your heart deceives you, everything in your world shifts. It doesn’t matter if that person is your significant other, a family member, or a friend. Afterward, nothing is what you thought it was and you begin to question everything.
When I caught my ex-husband cheating on me, my entire life was suddenly laced with doubt. Everything I ever thought to be true was now a potential lie. We had been together for over 20 years, since our early teens, and had been married for a decade at that point. Suddenly, my entire adult life came into question. Had he ever loved me? Had he been cheating the whole time? Did I mean anything at all to him? As far as I could tell, my whole life was a farce, and he’d likely been making a fool of me from the beginning. Whether or not that was really how things were, I’ll never know. He could have been absolutely faithful until then. He could have been jumping in the sack with a different woman every week. No way for me to tell, and no way for me to believe him. For months after, I felt like I was skating very close to the edge of insanity – what I thought was up was actually down, and what I thought was true was suddenly false. I kept asking myself and my then-husband why. Why would he do that to me? Why wasn’t I enough for him? Why couldn’t he be the man I thought he was? Why did he rip my heart to shreds and throw it in my face? The pain that I felt went way beyond heartbreak. My whole body physically hurt from it. I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack truck – I ached all over and that pain never seemed to stop.
It’s very hard to move out of such a hurtful, angry, devestated place. But eventually you do. You don’t really notice at first. First you begin to feel numb. Then slowly, the business of daily life begins to creep back in and the lie is not the ONLY thought you can focus on. When the hurt and anger finally start to fade, your first instict is to squeeze tight to that pain and rejuvenate that anger. After all, you were wronged and dammit, someone has to pay for that! It’s human nature to want revenge and to expect answers.
This is a very crucial time in the healing process, and it is here that a lot of people get stuck. You basically have two choices: you can cling to the hurt and nurse it back to life, or you can let it go. Both options come with their own share of difficulties, but in the long run, letting go is the only answer if you really want to be happy again. Holding on to what was will eventually turn that red-hot anger into a smoldering bitterness that will seep into every moment of every day. I’ve known some bitter people in my life, and that bitterness touches everything. It eats you from the inside out, and taints even the happiest days. Letting go is terribly difficult, but necessary if you want to get on with your life. I struggled with that choice myself for a while, but the bottom line for me was that I wanted to be happy, for me and for my kids. I wanted to find love again, and show my boys that it was possible to be with someone in a healthy, joyful relationship. I didn’t want them to grow up thinking that marriage was a horrible disaster waiting to happen, and I didn’t want them growing up with a mother who thought all men were scum because of what one did. Can you imagine how confusing that would have been for them, since they will BE men one day? So I took the leap and let go of my anger. I let go of my pain. It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly it got easier, until eventually I was able to forgive my ex-husband and even become friends with him again.
As it turns out, the end of my first marriage was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. I am happier now than I’ve been in a decade or more, and my kids are thriving. My ex-husband and I work together very well as parents now that we no longer have to deal with each other as spouses and this has been a huge benefit to our children. I have a man in my life who is my partner in every possible way and who means the world to me. The point is none of this would have been possible if I’d chosen to cling to the lie and everything that came with it. I came to a crossroad, and I chose the path that led to my salvation. Which path will you choose?
Good post.