Breathe

                 
It sounds so simple, RIGHT? Yet when you feel like the wind has been knocked out of you, breathing can seem like the hardest thing in the world to do.
After him leaving and realizing or trying to understand this was my new reality, I would do this funny thing.
I would write, and it wasn’t the first time. In  2011 I did the same thing, and I wrote this in 2013 when I knew I had healed from the wounds of infidelity. It had taken two years, but these were my words after fighting back to a new normal.
I was happy with that new normal and content with life...
I am learning that while we can all work to improve our relationships with others, nothing we are doing or not doing excuses an affair and the lies associated with it. However, I wanted to save my marriage; I took a long hard look at myself and saw where I could be better in our marriage.
I learned how to listen. I learned how to be a little more compassionate and understanding when he’s going through a difficult time. I learned that dreaded word patience. I now know what it means to love unconditionally.

Reading this made my heart hurt; there are something’s that are hard to relive.

Fast forward 2018 anytime a text or a phone call or a comment loud enough for me to hear was said I would write in my notes on my phone. I will not let them take my power I did this for months but the truth. I did let him take my power over and over with every lie.
I stopped eating, I stopped sleeping, when all I wanted to do was sleep, but I was tormented by thoughts and now an empty bed. I would write and cry until I had nothing left to say or drift off to sleep.
Did you know your mind can create a whole story when it feels so lost?
I went from the beginning of not talking to anyone for weeks to needing people, so my mind would stop going crazy.
I went from exercising daily to only being able to breathe.

You will experience a repeating cycle of emotions that you never thought were possible. I just talked with a friend about one step forward and ten steps back. How can you possibly love and dislike someone so much at the same time? How can you go from laughing to crying in a matter of seconds?

It was all too easy for me to blame myself. It was my fault that he no longer loved me. I am learning that this never had anything to do with me, thanks to therapy. I did not make these choices for him. I did not do anything to cause him to make these choices. He didn’t ask me ahead of time. He didn’t even tell me that he was unhappy. Not once just chose to alter our lives because he thought he would never be caught. These were choices that he made entirely on his own.

Give it time. I hated this advice in the beginning because I wanted to feel better right then. But time has helped me realize that I don’t like that word time, and I try never to use it.
I have a whole post on time. Right now, all I can do is breathe. Fight to find the blessings in this mess. The best way I can describe it is this. Covid-19 came along, and the world stopped as we all know it. But this is what it felt like for me two years ago when all this started. My world had stopped when everyone else just kept turning. I don't wish this pain on anybody, but I know that the world has stopped for so many when they are left with the trauma of healing from something. This is what it felt like when I started to discover the piece of my life I knew nothing about when someone I loved made a choice to lie, cheat, and the decision to hurt me the same way he had once before. He wasn’t stupid; he knew what it had done to me, and he had just willingly chosen to do it again. Shocking to the world this new virus, but for some, we have already felt this distance from the one’s we love, we have felt the shock of the new normal, the isolation, the fear of the unknown. The truth that we will have a new Normal when all this is done when we can breathe again! The lord is showing us what’s most important in the darkness, and it isn’t all the outside material things of the world but the light! Love, eternity, and family.

CHOICES MATTER

Therapy is no joke rough. If I had my way, I would throw in the towel, walk away, give up. I had a friend say this to me this week in a conversation about surviving all the first.  "You are officially a Badass!!!" I, for the last two years, would not use those words for myself, but she just had.  When I told my therapist, it was the smile, and the words you are surprised how others view you different from the name shattered?
The topic of discussion this session was choices. Something I struggle with making them, I said I am sick to death of choices do mine even matter? Decisions I felt I didn't want to make or that I was forced to make. Two years of choices I felt were taken from me. Choices at this stage in life should have been more comfortable or made together, and I had to make them alone.
I then had to make a list of all the choices I felt were taken from me and how I felt about choices. Lucky for you, it took place on the notes of my phone, so I can now tell you all about it.
Do the choices we make matter?
Do they affect others?
Sometimes we are used as instruments in the Lord's hand, and I have to believe this is the reason for my writing. This writing is a choice, but I also know its a gift, a calling.
Think about the part that you play in other's lives.
Why do the choices we make matter?
There is a fantastic power in being able to make choices in life. That choice to find that person we are supposed to be.
I sometimes think I am the product of someone else's choices. The choices that are made every day that affects the lives of others.
I have known this for a long time that choices have consequences, and we always have the choice, but we don't get to chooses the consequence of the choice.

Cheating is a choice I felt I didn't get a say in, but I had to live the consequences.
Yes, cheating is a choice, just like love is. I chose to love for time and all eternity, and I had no intention of that not being mine forever.
The choice to live the promise and covenants the ones we had made. That choice to be open and honest no matter how difficult and for 25 years I did that. I wasn't looking for other options as I knew what I wanted, and this was it. Moral agency is the key to Heavenly Father's great plan of happiness.
I read this the other day, and I added it to my notes.
"Character is what you are in the dark."
I felt my options and expectations were just tossed aside for that choice to lie and cheat. The enticement of the affair, the sneaking, and breaking all the boundaries we had in place, justifying for the bad choices being made.
My choice on the consequences of that choice to cheat I wouldn't have chosen any of them.
I was then told that infidelity and or cheating aren't that common, and it's not normal. That it is an issue in that person that chooses to cheat, it may fix the problem short term, but its just a shallow, short term fix. I said, can I write this down so I can remind myself of this every time I start asking why wasn't I enough.
I was told to remember that if cheating was normal or oaky, that there would be no need for all the secrets of any lying. It's the secrecy that makes the affair so sexually attractive. Secrecy has no place in a loving long term committed relationship. That cheating and lying mean that the person has little to no respect for you—so very little that they are, in fact, okay with lying to your face when confronted.
How he treated you is a reflection on him.  That you don't treat others the ones, you proclaim to love in one breath and lie to in another. It is disrespectful and degrading. It says all you need to know about the character.
I was then asked to say what I felt. I said one day, I hope that the sexual release was worth his integrity, honor, reputation. That I wish that I had a choice in that decision to cheat. Because our choices so affect others and the consequences of that choice have changed how I view myself, others, and love. I can't find that Badass my friend talked about, I can't find her or force her back. The pain the hurt and trying to sugar coat thing so that people won't view me as nuts. I am left with the choice to heal from the consequences of that choice to be unfaithful. The effects I would do anything not to feel the pain of it. Instead, I choose to feel every emotion as they come. I choose to live in the truth. Its choices I make every day the small little one the one I also know that will affect others. I have to share this that was sent to me this morning.

John: 14:27
Peace I leave with you,
 Peace I give unto you:
not as the world giveth,
give I unto you.
 Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.