Forgiving the Betrayal of an Affair

The world vilifies unfaithful partners.

I understand why. We cause immense pain with our betrayal. We strike at the hearts of our partners, destroying their trust.

Leaving them feeling used, broken, and confused.

I am not a bad person.

Betrayed partners will recoil at that declaration. People like me wronged you. Unfaithful, like me, are not worthy of compassion.

Only contempt and shame — from ourselves and others.

But I am not evil.

I have deep remorse and guilt. My pain now and before is intense. I am hurting now. During the affair, I oscillated between excitement and shame. My happiness was unfair during my partner’s years of abandonment.

Joy is difficult to reconcile during the bitter remorse following discovery and disclosure.

All evidence to the contrary, I love my partner.

Even when I was causing pain that hasn’t ended, being the most hurtful person in his life. During dark times of deceit and abuse, I loved him.

That makes me shudder in shame. I hate myself for the hurt. The lies. The hiding. Loving someone else. Sharing myself in deep ways — body and mind.

How I harmed him. How I fucked up.

And yet, I was doing my best.

Sometimes in my marriage, my needs weren’t being met — in my perception. My perception has since proved faulty, via mental illness and misunderstanding, and life being life.

It was one hundred percent my responsibility to ask for my needs to be met. Instead, I gave up on my marriage, thinking he didn’t care (faulty beliefs) and I allowed someone else to fill the void.

My actions were wrong.

And my feelings are valid for what I knew. Looking back, I didn’t understand everything. I learned more about my spouse in the last month, then in 20 years of marriage.

I hurt too. I had reasons I thought were valid. You might disagree. I sometimes do. My partner does vehemently. But I had hurts and unattended needs.

It’s hard to reconcile.

I caused more hurt than I experienced.

I recognize the pain I caused and why.

I need to know why I was vulnerable, so we don’t repeat it. Some days old hurts come up and I want to withdraw. It takes a lot of energy to fight old habits and take “opposite action.” If you want change, you can’t do the same old. I have to be vulnerable and open with my partner.

It’s difficult amid his hurt.

Moving to understanding

To understand the unfaithful, you must have compassion.

When trying to understand the person who hurt you, compassion is impossible.

You must see the fallible, hurting person who made mistakes. Many mistakes. Mistakes that destroyed their lives.

Like I destroyed my husband.

We are rebuilding, but him understanding and accepting my reasons, my explanations are not something we have achieved.

I think because the pain blocks his empathy. Without empathy, there is no way to understand another.

Condemnation of evil actions is easy, but too often we also condemn the person acting.

I have done evil, but I am not an evil person. I still judge others for the same actions I have taken. Human nature to judge, perhaps?

Reconciliation

I beat myself up for my mistakes.

My husband has a hypothesis: you can’t hate yourself (I disagree), so you turn that energy on someone close to you. So when I hate myself, I lash out at him (I lash out). While trying to help me with this problem, he told me I had to forgive myself.

This began my semi regular self-compassion practice, which has helped.

And it helped me understand the reasons behind the affair (and to forgive those too). Every article on healing affairs says you must know WHY.

My spouse has asked why.

So I explained I was lonely, afraid, empty, abandoned, and hurting. He doesn’t receive these explanations well. Poor reasons, unjustified excuses, my way of shirking my responsibilities, and blaming him.

Reasons can be excuses, but they don’t have to be.

I am mindful not to use them as excuses or blame him. If I was lonely, I had the choice to talk to my partner again about solving the problem. Instead, I turned away from my spouse.

They can be knowledge so you don’t repeat mistakes.

But it is, oh so hard, for my partner to understand.

For now, I must be patient, empathetic, and gentle. Every day there are missteps and daily we work at being better and understanding each other more.

I have betrayed my partner, but I am not beyond redemption.

I can learn, grow, and change through this. I can be better.

Not evil, but a human who will always make mistakes.