I’ve shared before the impact John Piper had on me when he spoke about the impact infidelity has, how despicable it is and the miracles needed…even that are required for reconciliation. There are some of you that would not even consider reconciliation after an affair, multiple affairs or even emotional affairs and I don’t blame you. In fact, I completely understand because I’ve been there. I often wondered whether or not I even wanted reconciliation after what he did to me. For me, it was one affair but a layer of multiple lies. He tried desperately to keep it hidden and by doing so he eroded absolutely all of the trust I had. I went from full and total and complete trust to zero. If it had come out earlier, if he admitted it to me instead of me discovering it and confronting him I believe things would’ve been a lot different. But… God orchestrated everything perfectly according to His desires for both of us and our family. That said, I totally understand the agony and destruction and would not blame you if you did not seek out reconciliation. See, forgiveness is really hard as it is but working to forgive and rebuild in the midst of the pain and constant reminders is excrutiating. I think in some ways I could have offered forgiveness a little more freely or consistently if I had called it quits. To be separated from the constant reminder of the betrayal looking you in the face daily.. I longed for that some days. I’m just being honest here. It was agony. It was something I’ve never had to endure before. So many times I had my bags packed and I was ready to go whether figuratively or not. I wanted to check out of this hell I was enduring. It was hell to look at my husband and instead of seeing the man I once loved, seeing a man who had taken another woman instead of me, a man who lied to me, who betrayed me on an intimate and dark level I never comprehended existed. I had never imagined that kind of betrayal before and it stared me in the face every day.
So yeah, trust me when I say that I know and understand that forgiveness is hard.
Maybe you’ve already decided that you can’t ever forgive or that in order to forgive you have to cut it all off. That there is no way you can forgive and reconcile. I am so sorry and my heart breaks for you. I think every person has to make that decision for themselves and I would never tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I believe once your spouse has committed an act of ultimate betrayal like that that there is no easy answer. Divorce, or not? I don’t know. I believe that is your decision but I will add the caveat and you’ve probably already considered this… that either way is hard. Either way affects you, either way affects the family. And it’s not fair because in the midst of the hurt and the struggle you still have to consider others. Just know that forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. Those are two separate concepts. While divorce provides the opportunity (in a way) for a different and quicker healing it does not require forgiveness necessarily. I will maintain though that forgiveness is essential in every area of our lives and you still need to be able to forgive or it will eat at you and destroy you. Unforgiveness only destroys and brings you back down. Forgiveness is an essential part of healing because it allows you to grow past the bitterness and resentment, to put it behind you for good.
In my experience, forgiving while living with the betrayer is excrutiatingly hard. It was not easy and it was not a one and done type of forgiveness. I had to do it multiple times, repeatedly. I still do it…almost 2 years later. But I kept coming back to it. When things got dark, when things were at their worst I had to remind myself that I forgive him. When I got mad at him for putting us in this position I had to remind myself that I forgive him. When I had to deal with so many body and comparison issues I had to remind myself that I forgive him. When I was so angry with him and all I wanted to do was make him suffer a tenth of what I had and was suffering… I had to remind myself that I forgive him. It was really really…really hard.
But… I am here before you now to say it was worth it. So worth it. I look at the person I am now because of all I was confronted with..it never ceases to amaze me the fact that one trauma can bring out so much in your life. I had no idea all that I had buried and just never dealt with. So many body dismorphia issues, so many comparison issues, so many issues. But that is just a fraction of why it was worth it. I look at our family and who we are now. I look at us as a couple and I can say we have never been this close before. It was like a veil was lifted from over our lives and painfully exposed everything. We were forced to deal with issues we never had to before and we did it together. Everything we do now is together, we are an absolutely incredible and unstoppable team. Everything we are now was birthed in pain and I am so grateful for it now. I would never ever want to relive that kind of pain and betrayal again but I also never ever want to go back to who we were prior to this.
So, in the hopes that I can offer someone else hope in the despair I decided to give you my why in a series of forgiveness and healing posts. I know in the midst of the chaos it’s hard to see, it’s hard to navigate. So hopefully my story can help shed light on some of that for you. I will share with you my why of why I stayed and how I got to that point. I will share with you what I looked for in my husband, the good and bad because unfortunately all I was prepared to see was the bad. I will share with you what my healing looked like in the midst. It was rough, and it had some highs but man it had some lows I never thought I’d get out of. My journey was rough, our journey was rough.. but I can say it was so worth it.
