My wife, or partner, and I had an argument recently over one word. Capable.
She told me she isn't capable of cheating anymore. The person who did those things isn't who she is now. She has changed, she understands what she did and she would never do it again.
I told her I don't agree, capability is provable and......
That didn't go over particularly well, and I understand why. When I say she is still capable of cheating, I think what she hears is, "You haven't changed. I don't believe you. I think you're going to cheat again."
That's not what I'm saying, or at least not really.
I absolutely believe people can change. If I didn't, there wouldn't be much point in even talking about reconciliation. People can become more honest, less selfish, more self-aware, learn better boundaries and finally start recognizing all those small shitty decisions that eventually lead somewhere they never should have gone. Someone who cheated can change enough that they never cheat again.
I just don't think that suddenly makes them incapable of it. Without starting the argument of everyone is capable or not, I am NOT capable of this type of betrayal.
Before D-Day I believed my wife was incapable of doing what she did. Not that she probably wouldn't do it. I actually believed she couldn't. There were lines I thought she simply would never cross because of who she was, who I thought we were, our marriage, our kids, our life together.
I was painfully fucking wrong. She crossed those lines. More than once. For years.
So now I know something I didn't know before. She is capable of it. That's not me insulting her or saying she will do it again. It's something that has already been proven. I don't know how I am supposed to take something I know happened and somehow convince myself she is now incapable of doing it because she says that version of herself doesn't exist anymore. Capable and will are not the same definition.
She may never cheat again. I genuinely hope she doesn't whether we stay together or not. But choosing never to do something again and being incapable of doing it aren't the same thing.
The more I thought about the argument, the more I started thinking that maybe "I could never do that again" isn't actually the safest thing for someone who has cheated to believe.
I think I'd feel safer hearing, "I know now that I am capable of doing something I once thought I would never do, and I never want to become that person again."
There's something about "I'm not capable of that anymore" that bothers me because I've already lived through that kind of certainty once. Before D-Day I would have confidently told anyone who asked that my wife wasn't capable of cheating on me. Turns out I didn't know shit.
Certainty didn't make me right then, so I'm not sure why I'm supposed to put much faith in that same certainty now.
I think there is probably more safety in actually owning it. I did this. I was capable of this. Through selfishness, secrecy, resentment, wanting validation, shitty boundaries and a long series of bad choices, I became somebody who could do this. Now I need to understand how the hell I got there so I never go there again.
That makes sense to me.
I'm capable of losing my temper. I'm capable of being selfish. I'm capable of hurting people I love. Knowing that doesn't mean I want to do those things or that I'm planning to. It means I know those things exist in me and I have to pay attention to them. Pretending I'm somehow above them wouldn't make me safer. It would probably do the opposite, complacency is a slow driver of failure.
I don't see why cheating should be completely different.
Real change, at least to me, isn't reaching some point where you suddenly become physically or morally incapable of ever betraying someone again. It is knowing what you were capable of, understanding how you allowed yourself to get there, and making different choices from then on. Over and over again.
There is also a shitty reality in this for the betrayed spouse.
I don't think I can ever go back to the kind of trust I had before, where I believed my wife simply wasn't capable of betraying me. I had that trust already. It was wrong. There is evidence now that I can't unknow.
That doesn't mean I can never trust her again. I just think trust after betrayal has to be something different.
Before, trust was I know you would never do this to me.
Now maybe the best it can ever become is, I know you could do this to me because you already have. But I see who you are now, I see the choices you make every day, and I believe you won't.
That's nowhere near as romantic. But it might actually be more real and to be fair adult.
I don't want my wife walking around for the rest of her life thinking she is permanently branded as a cheater or some fundamentally defective person. I don't think that's healthy or useful. People should be allowed to grow beyond the worst things they've done, hell I am not a sum of my worst deeds.
But growing beyond something isn't the same as pretending somebody else did it. That woman existed. She made those choices. She was my wife too.
I actually think accepting that is probably part of becoming safer.
Not I would never.
Not that wasn't really me.
Not I'm incapable of doing that now.
Just, I know I'm capable of it because I did it. I know where those choices took me. I know what it cost. And I never want to be that person again.
I trust that a hell of a lot more, and holds at least a little bit of accountability.
