Afraid to Heal

(her story)

It's been almost eight months.  Eight months since my world fundamentally changed for better and for worse.  We have been through so much in eight months....an excommunication, the loss of blessings, the gaining of other blessings that we hadn't anticipated, hours and hours of painful conversation, a re-routing of our life's path, a few separations (vacations apart due to work), happy reunions, tears and laughter.  I knew going into this year that it was going to be an up and down one and I was right.   I wake up each morning and wonder what I will be feeling.

I feel like I am at a decision point right now in my life.  I CANNOT go back and change what has been done.  I can't erase the lies.  I can't erase the affairs.  I can't somehow magically erase my husband's mind of the intimate encounters that were not with me.  I wish I could erase my mind of those self created images but I seem to be unable to.  I can't go back and do those 17 years over again without the secret addiction.  Though I wish I could, I can't.  So, where do I go from here?

I am tired folks!  I am tired of waking up with images and thoughts that hurt me to the very core.  I am tired of crying out to my Heavenly Father to just "take me Home."  I am tired of hurting my husband with the same questions, hoping that somehow, this time, his answers will make me feel better.  I am tired of wondering how, if he really did love me, he could do this to me.  I am tired.  I gave a talk yesterday in church and I used something that Job said.  He said, "My soul is weary of my life."  I feel that way.  Though my body is healthy and strong, my spirit is tired and wounded.  It is weary.  Sometimes I feel like if I see one more raunchy billboard or hear one more vile swear word or see one more sex scene on TV, that my soul will shrivel up and die.

But, I can't leave.  I can't go "home."  I have a husband that is really working hard to make things up to our family and restore what's been lost.  I have innocent children that didn't ask for any of this and deserve a happy, two parent home.  In my good moments, I feel like I have a mission to perform still on this earth.  Though returning to my heavenly home sounds so wonderful, I can't.

So, knowing that I have many, many more years here on this earth, can I really allow myself to feel this miserable for the rest of them?  Why can't I just allow myself to heal and let go?  I plead every day with the Lord to just remove the hurt.  That is the only thing that I can change about the situation.  I can't remove the acts and the memories but I can change how I feel about them.  That is hard to do and quite frankly, I think I'm afraid to do it.

What if he betrays me again?  What if he comes to me someday and tells me that he has never rid himself of this addiction but has just hid it from me better? What if, what if...what if?  If the wound is still opened and bleeding, then another wound won't hurt so bad right?  If my wounds are all healed and just scar tissue remains, to reopen those wounds with further betrayal will destroy me.  So, why not leave the wounds open, just in case?

The problem with that way of thinking is that it makes me continuously miserable.  It makes my children miserable because mom's not happy.  It makes my husband miserable because he hurts when I hurt.  None of us can truly heal unless I can.  So I NEED to.  I need to stop allowing my thoughts to run wild.  I need to stop deliberately creating visions of my husband with his affair partners.  I need to stop reliving the past and start looking to the future.  I need to stop feeling inadequate when my husband and I are intimate.  I need to stop trying to make myself something that I am not to try and "compete" with his affair partner.  I need to continue to ask the Lord to help the pain lesson.  I need to trust that even if this all happens again (which it probably won't), that the Lord will take care of me.  I need to remember that the Lord wants my family to be eternal again just as much as I do.  I need to trust that He is watching over us and is helping.  There is so much I need to let go of.

I know....all of that is easier said than done.  When you are sorting through a trauma that is the magnitude of the one that I have been given, it is hard.  I find myself wanting to feel the pain of each and every act.  I want the details of each and every act.  I want his thoughts about each and every act.  Though that may be normal, I am finding that it is not helpful.  It just prolongs my pain.  If I can't go back in time and change it, why obsess about it?  I need to allow myself to feel better.  I am tired of hurting.  I am tired of the ache.  So, here I sit...at eight months post DDay...finally deciding that it is time to heal.  I know it is going to take time.  I know that healing will not be automatic or painless but I need to start.  I need to let those gaping wounds finally close.  I need to stop the bleeding.  I'll always have scars.  I know that.  But, thankfully, scars don't usually continue to hurt.  I can live with scars.

If any of you women that are further along in this process than I am have any advice as to how to finally allow yourself to heal, please comment.  I am not sure how to go about it, I just know that I need to!  Thanks for reading.