Learning to Trust Myself

Posted on by stilllearning2b
New Orleans. Mardi Gras. And Super Bowl!
New Orleans. Mardi Gras. And Super Bowl!

 

The hardest part of learning to trust after betrayal has been learning to trust myself.

My fiance and his cousin, both huge Ravens fans, were lucky enough to score tickets to the Super Bowl. In New Orleans. During Mardi Gras. Talk about the ultimate boy’s weekend!

Brock came back into town Monday night but due to his exhaustion on Monday and our crazy schedules on Tuesday, we really didn’t have a chance to connect until last night.

We went to one of our favorite eating spots, ordered our food and he set up his iPad to show me the pictures from the weekend. It was a bit of a deja vu experience for me.

Almost four years ago, I sat in a similar restaurant with my husband, a MacBook Pro open in front of us as he showed me pictures of his recent 10 day trip to Brazil. On the surface, much was the same between those two days. Underneath? Nothing in common at all.

Just weeks before leaving the marriage, my husband returned from what I thought was a business trip in Brazil. I was told that he was there to work with a frequent client of his and the specified show he was supposed to be working was in Sao Paulo That was true. The rest was not. The details he told me about the build and his frustrations with the Brazilian labor were complete lies. The names of people he was working with were utter fabrications. Instead of a work trip, it was actually a pre honeymoon with his soon-to-be second wife.

I didn’t know any of this until later.

I completely trusted my husband. It never would have entered my mind that he culled pictures to make a file that was “Lisa” safe, removing all evidence of his fiancee. I never thought to carefully examine the “work” pictures in the mix, looking for signs that they were pulled from the internet or from earlier shows.

My brain trusted my husband completely. Yet, my gut was unsettled during that entire trip. I was anxious, restless, filled with concern for his safety. It knew something.

Last weekend could not have been more different. My fiance was at the ultimate party and I was completely calm. I had no anxiety. No unease.  I looked at his pictures with complete calm, enjoying his enjoyment.

It’s crazy to think that I used to trust my husband more than I trusted myself. I believed him more that I believed my own instincts. I have learned how to trust myself. I have tuned in to my instincts and I am less inclined to rationalize any twinges that I feel. There is no guarantee that I will never be betrayed again, but at least I know that I won’t be the one to do it.

Classification of Infidelity

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infidelity

betrayed

In a recent piece on The Huffington Post, Dr. Mark Banschick describes four outcomes after a cheater is caught or decides to come clean:1) the cheater can make amends and the marriage continues, 2)the cheater can make amends and the marriage ends, 3)the cheated upon can choose to end the marriage or 4)the cheater can blame the other spouse for their actions and then leave the marriage. It seems like common sense, but reading this was a lightbulb moment for me. Part of my pain was in the fact that my husband was a type four – he blamed me and left. Not only were there no amends, but he didn’t even acknowledge his actions. In a way, I was lucky. I had no choice but to accept the fact that he was a type four. After all, leaving the state, refusing contact and committing bigamy made it pretty unlikely that I would get an apology. I had no choice but to move on.

Others are not so lucky. They have a type four spouse but they are holding out for him or her to turn into a type one or two and accept responsibility for their actions. Their hope and their reality do not match and the disconnect adds another layer of pain and anger.

Dr. Banschick classified the end of an affair – the choices left once the betrayal is uncovered. Affairs are different even before the end, with other factors complicating the situation and the healing process. I think it can be helpful to classify your affair as a way of finding acceptance and understanding of your particular situation and the factors that it contains.

Simple Infidelity

Simple does mean easy. This is a straightforward case of infidelity with no complicating factors.

 

Compound Infidelity

Compound infidelity is where there are secondary or tertiary betrayals.

Known Affair Partner: If the partner is a friend or confident of yours, you will feel betrayed by your spouse and your friend. Both relationships were violated.

Multiple Partners: These are the serial cheaters. The betrayed has to face the knowledge that their partner has made the choice to cheat multiple times with many people. This may have gone on for years before it is discovered.

Children: If there are children in the marriage, there is a sense that the cheater betrayed the family, not just the spouse. If and when the kids learn of the betrayal, they may internalize it and blame themselves for their parent’s infidelity.

Financial Betrayal: This is where the cheater extends the lying to finances. Marital funds may have been used to fund the affair(s). It is another major breach of trust in the marriage.

 

Complex Infidelity

Complex infidelity is where there are complicating factors that can interfere with the betrayed’s ability to heal.

Abandonment: In many cases of spousal abandonment, the disappearing spouse has another partner at the ready. The betrayed has to face  the discovery of infidelity while alone and abandoned. Part of the pain in this case is the feeling of having your voice stolen as there is no spouse to talk to or even scream at.

Gaslighting: This is the type 4 cheater before he/she is caught. The unfaithful partner blames the spouse and make him or her feel crazy for noticing inconsistencies or signs of wrongdoing. This pattern slowly wears away at the confidence of the betrayed, causing them to question what is real and what is fabrication.

Illegitimate Child(ren): When the unfaithful partner has a child as a result of infidelity, it negates any chances of a clean break from the affair partner. In the case of n unfaithful wife, a man may discover that he has been raising another man’s child as his own. Regardless of the circumstances, there is now an innocent who is caught in the web of deceit.

Addiction: Addiction and infidelity are not uncommon partners. They both thrive on secrecy and lies. If there is addiction present, it makes it even more difficult to reestablish trust.

Compound-Complex Infidelity

This is the combination of two or more of the situations above.

 

Regardless of the nature of the infidelity, betrayal is one of the worst pains someone can experience. Unless you have felt its cutting edge, you cannot fathom the devastation of being stabbed by the one you embrace. It is possible to heal from betrayal and that healing has to start with acceptance. Recognize the complicating factors in your situation. Be aware of where you have control and where you do not. Distinguish between when you need to fight and when to let go.

Learning to trust after betrayal is not easy. Not only is there the struggle with trusting a new partner, but there is also the challenge of learning to trust your own instincts and perceptions, especially if you were unaware of the affair. The body and subconscious mind respond as though there is a threat even when the rational mind knows there is not. It takes patience and time and a willingness to face the discomfort. It’s not easy, but it is also not impossible.

 

Perchance to Dream

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I woke up at 2:30 this morning with pulse racing and limbs twisted under the covers. I had been having a dream where I was trapped in a house with some unknown person that I felt protective of and my former neighbor and her baby (as they were in 2002 or so). Outside the house was a postapocalyptic scene, and I think there may have even been zombies (that’s what happens when you binge on Walking Dead:) ). I remember panicked dashes across the house to get to safer areas and shooting the zombies outside.

English: A zombie

None of that was the scary part. At some point just before I awoke, my ex made an appearance. I don’t even know if he was a zombie or a ‘good guy’ trapped in the house. His arrival was enough to pull me out of my dream and leave me unsettled.

Dreams are such strange things. As a kid, I used to have very vivid and memorable dreams. Some were repetitive and told overarching stories of strange characters (I remember a walking, talking frog with a shirt and no pants, in particular. don’t ask.) where as others would come and go in a single night. I had many dreams that seemed to be premonitions or interpretations. I used to listen to these. I remember waking from some of those meaningful dreams and heading out to my monkey swing in the backyard (kind of my ‘go for a run’ substitute as a kid) where I would swing and spin as I pulled apart the dream, searching for clues. My early nightmares were of the typical monster variety and would send me to a pallet next to my parent’s bed for comfort as I worked my way back into slumber.

Monkey swing:) I used to read and eat popsicles on mine simultaneously. Yup, that’s talent!

As I got older, the intensity of my dreams decreased but the frequency remained the same. I would wake shaking the remnants of a vision from my head several times a week.What’s interesting to me now in retrospect is the theme of the dreams. Not long after my ex and I were together, I started having very vivid dreams every couple of months or so where he cheated on me. I would wake up filled with rage, the sight of his slumbering form next to me making me want to lash out. Perhaps it was due to the lack of a monkey swing to properly analyze these dreams (or more likely my mind’s inability to face the content head-on), but I never did put any merit in those visions. Nonetheless, those were tough days that followed those dreams. I would alert him to my nightmare and he would respond by being especially gentle and affectionate. Even still, it would usually take hours for the residual anger and anxiety to leave my body. It’s strange. Those dreams are the only time I felt anger towards my ex while I was with him. I was just too bone-headed to listen.

Mozart Dancing

After he left, I didn’t sleep. The anxiety gripped my body and caused it to shake, its own tarantula dance, as though I was trying to rid myself of his poison. I spent weeks sitting on the edge of the bed, my eyes fixated on a point on the wall, my mind inhabiting the nightmare that had become my reality. Eventually, I agreed to medication – dosages that would cause a horse to enter a permanent coma barely eased me into slumber. I had only a single dream that entire fall. In it, I was near some benches at a whale watching facility in the Pacific Northwest (where I planned to move at the end of the school year). A male was sitting on a bench, facing away from me. I approach him and place my hand gently on his shoulder. He turns, and I discover it’s him.

Those nightmares stunned me enough I wished for my childhood pallet next to my parent’s bed. He had become the monster, yet he looked like the man I had loved. Variations on the that dream persisted for the first six months. Until finally, they began to fade.

A depressed man sitting on a bench

I remember my excitement when I awoke one morning and realized that I had dreamed of another man – a guy I had been dating. I was thrilled. It was like calling in the Ghostbusters, his appearance sweeping my ex into the vacuum canister.

I weaned myself off the medications that first spring. I left the primary sleep aide until last, fearful that the demons of the night would reappear. For the most part, they haven’t. In fact, my dreams are now few are far between and most are quite innocuous. My ex rarely makes an appearance, but when he does, I still react with panic.

Most importantly, I never have dreams where Brock is unfaithful. I don’t have dreams that cause anger or anxiety that lingers. But if I ever do, you better believe that I’ll listen. And maybe install a monkey swing:)

 

Betrayal

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betrayed

What is a Tsunami Divorce?

Posted on by stilllearning2b

English: Tsunami hazard sign

What is a Tsunami Divorce?

A tsunami divorce is one that completely blindsides a spouse, flattening him or her with a wave that was never spotted.  A tsunami divorce is characterized by a normal marriage and a normal life up until the moment of total and utter destruction.  The spouse that embodies the wave may simply disappear, abandoning their significant other with little to no communication or explanation.  Infidelity, substance abuse, and mental illness can all play a role in a tsunami divorce.  The causes of a tsunami divorce are rooted in the past and far away from the marriage.  These contributing factors lay buried beneath the placid sea of the marriage until they burst forth in a great wall of destruction.

What Are the Effects of a Tsunami Divorce?

A tsunami divorce catches the other spouse completely off guard; it is a shock and awe campaign that leaves the survivor stunned and disoriented. One of the more damaging effects of a tsunami divorce is the survivor’s tendency to question him or herself about why no signs were spotted.  Others in their lives may echo this sentiment.  It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that the signs may have been minimal or only visible in the rearview mirror.  The survivor is left devastated by the end of the marriage, confused as to why it occurred, feeling foolish for being “taken,” and angry at the tsunami spouse.

English: Tsunami Evacuation Route signage sout...

How Does a Tsunami Divorce Differ From Other Divorces?

Most divorces have a long, slow decline or a visible, yet rapidly building disintegration.  This leads to a protracted period where one or both partners are wondering if they should stay or go.  There are nights spent feeling alone while one remains in the marital home.  There are difficult discussions and perhaps heated arguments.  One or both partners may be holding on to hope that things will get better or that he/she will change his/her mind.  This is a painful process that can slow or even stall healing.  On the other hand, it also allows time for pre-grieving of the marriage and it gives both partners a voice in the divorce.

In contrast, a tsunami divorce is sudden.  The marriage is often good up until the point it simply doesn’t exist anymore.  There are no painful discussions.  In fact, there are no discussions at all, which can leave the survivor feeling as though his/her voice has been stolen.  There is no chance to pre-grieve, but the healing process can be easier as the abrupt amputation leaves no room for false hopes and no hesitation in the correct path to follow.

What Are Some of the Lessons That Can be Learned by the Survivors of a Tsunami Divorce?

1) Understand that the causes of the tsunami are found in the past and far away. Don’t spend too much time there.

2) Examine your own tsunami warning system.  Did your fears and anxieties cause you to look away from some signs of the impending disaster?

3) Realize that, although your devastation was complete, the flattened earth is a clean slate.

4) Don’t be afraid to rebuild.  Statistically speaking, tsunamis are pretty rare.

You can read the entire story of my tsunami divorce in my book Lessons From the End of a Marriage, available on Amazon.

Tsunami Divorce in the Huffington Post

How to Surf a Tsunami: A How-To Guide to Healing