SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Everyone on SI has passed through a lot of Hell to get here. Those of us in this forum have the sad distinction of being the ones who caused it. Some of us manage to do better and learn to set good examples on the way out of these bad places in our lives. I want to share an example that is worth looking at from the Olympics.

My BW and I have been watching a lot; the Winter Olympics is something that we have always enjoyed greatly. There is a story in the women's Skeleton competition that triggered us both because the husband of one of the athletes did the things that all of us as Waywards didn't.

The American, Noelle Pikus-Pace has been doing skeleton for a long time. I won't go into all of the details of her story for fear of not doing it justice, but she has had a rough time of it. Big injuries when a bobsled jumped the track and broke both her leg and her skeleton sled, raising a family while being an Olympic caliber athlete, having a miscarriage after retiring. Her husband saw her through all of this. He helped her heal, used his company to fabricate a new sled for her, pulled all the weight that needed to be pulled while she trained. He encouraged her to get back into her sport after her miscarriage as a way of healing. That man was there for her every step of the way through all of the amazingly hard times.

He was there for her in the stands with their children when she did the truly amazing and won silver after long years of heartache and hard work.

Folks, we didn't do that. We moved our support someplace else for all of our various reasons and tripped our spouses instead of raising them up. We did what we did and have to atone for that. It won't be easy for any of us and it's a job of work. On top of that, though, we need to figure out what we are going to do in the future. Are we going to raise them up or are we going to trip them? Don't misunderstand, there isn't much glory in this, it's just what you do. Child care, paying the bills, supporting when it's hard, fixing the broken things, even when you didn't break them. Remaining true, especially when it's not about you.

I'm not crazy about some of the intrusion into the athletes' lives that goes on during this coverage but I admit that seeing, by proxy anyway, the support that Mr. Pace gave his wife is a potent reminder of what I should have done all along and what I am for damned sure going to do in the future.

I don't know anything about those folks and their past, so its important to specifically point out that the following is just me thinking out loud...

What if, just what if, at some point, perhaps just over five years ago, these folks WERE impacted by infidelity. What if they did the work, became stronger together and moved on as a team. That's not likely to be part of the televised story along with all of the touching things you mentioned. It would be part of their past, and they're working on their future.

Be that for each other now, and from now on. Someday, there will be folks who hear your story who never know that infidelity is part of it and maybe they will look up to you.

NoGood: This story is very touching. It really is. It's awesome that those two support each other through thick and thin. But it also reminds me of what I did not do. I did not support my BS in his dark times. I did not think about the improvements he was making on his own. I thought about myself and my own satisfaction. Reading your post reminds me of all the things I took for granted and now I can't even have those things anymore. It reminds me of what a horrible person I was to not communicate with my BS before all this happened and the fact that it could have been avoided. But with that reminding me everyday will keep me on the right track so I do not stray again. Even though I do not want to stray in the future and I don't plan on it, it is good to have reminders around you.

longroad: You are very right. We do not know anything about these two except for what the news has provided. For all we know, they may have been in our situation at one time and now they have moved on to a better life together. Either way, it still gives us hope that things can get better and you can have a stronger relationship together and have the best marriage you can have. I am hoping for that to happen in the future with my BS and I.