Even though it has been over 3 decades sense D-day and I consider our marriage has been restored to even better than pre disclosure, needling questions still linger.
For many years all enquiries I held concerning the "how’s, "when’s" and "why’s, whether voiced or internalized, were extraordinary painful. Those were dreary, dark days where I was prone to spiraling downward questioning my value. Back then, pre home computers and internet, I had nowhere to turn for people like here to advise me that I was looking at this all ass-backwards.
I was disoriented, a rudderless craft desperately trying to stay afloat amidst a tempest, where her explanations struck like lightning, repeatedly electrifying the mast, shredding the sails that once guided me. There were no clear skies or solid land with safe harbor. I felt like I was left with nothing but jagged reefs looming below to blindly navigate.
Eventually, after many years adrift, I did find dock and began to right the ship and do the repairs needed to safely head back out to sea. However, I was not trained or naturally skilled for this kind of effort, but I persisted, mistakes and all. Interestingly, reading posts and wise comments here at SI really point out just how unskilled I was. That lack of experience drug out the repairs for far too long.
The good news is, anymore, questions are more like a puzzlement with only a slight, but still painful sting. I find myself saying without a word spoken, "I just don’t get it!" I’ve listened to my wife intensely over the years trying to be open and fair to her explanations. I did so because, despite her terrible decision to cheat, I believed then, and I maintain now, she deserved both my anger and my compassion. I concede that empathy for the betrayer should never be at the expense of the betrayed’s wellbeing. However, I could see my wife was suffering from deep shame for betraying not only me but herself as well. I believe that she was more in shock to realize that she was capable of betrayal than I was, and I was stunned to the core. We were adrift in a briny sea of endless pain.
Not that I have any great wisdom to offer, just lots of water bailed, but I wish to convey for those who are early in the process of reconciliation that no matter the outcome, stay or go, happy or sad, successful or failing, stalemated or moving forward, you may find that many questions are unanswerable leaving betrays, like me, in a state of "I don’t get it!" and the fact that I will never understand is what I find most difficult to reconcile.
