SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

a couple weeks ago, i hosted a cookie exchange, inviting a few friends/family and their kids. A very dear friend of ours lost her husband 1.5 years ago. We were talking about her husband, people passing too soon, various different things, and she said to us "people have been telling me everything happens for a reason, but no one can tell me what that reason is"

i have been thinking about her statement for weeks now. DDay was just over a year ago. For a year i have been struggling to figure out the reason, why me, why did this happen to me, to us, to our family?

I suppose everything does happen for a reason. Maybe that reason is to prepare us for what is yet to come. Every experience we have, good or bad, changes us in some way. It is an experience we learn from, and it prepares us to handle whats ahead.

I look back on who i was last year...even the year before. I see how differently i handle things now, how i deal with problems, how i deal with my kids, how i advise them when they have problems. I like who i am now, far better than who i was before. I certainly don't like the experience i have had to go thru to get there...and i still have a long road ahead of me. But maybe this happened to me so i would see that the path i was on, the path my marriage was on was not the right path for me. Maybe this happened to me to show me that i needed to value myself more than i was...that i needed to honor my needs, and by doing that, i can more easily value everyone around me.

It is still a daily struggle, and i am no where near healed. But i wonder, how have some of you come to terms with the reason this happened to you? despite the tragedy, how have you grown in a positive way, and how have you made it thru R onto the other side??

Yes I believe everything happens for a reason even though I may never know why. I also believe that the reason is usually much bigger than me. I am just a piece in a larger puzzle. My experiences shape who I am and what I can offer to the world.

There is no light without the darkness. In my generous moments, the A was a huge wake up call to me and my H that we were off track, and more importantly, that he was significantly off track in his life, and in his relationship with me.

His growth through this has been amazing - mine, too. But, we were both taken down in our own way. I don't think that this is something he did "to" me, but something that he did to himself that had serious repercussions for me. The pain of the affair aside, I am more self-confident, and feel far stronger than I did before dday. It is crazy. I also think, like most crises, that this has made me a more compassionate person. So, those are the good things that have come out it. (Oh, and a great sex life! )

I will go against the grain and say that I don't believe everything happens for a reason. Our lives are filled with random happenings...and some not so random. There are reasons that infidelity happens, but that doesn't mean it was meant to happen. I believe the strength in humanity comes out in adversity. I also believe it is only through that adversity that we experience growth.