Why I Stayed: Life After Infidelity

 

I didn’t stop instantly loving him like I wanted to. Like I thought I could.

 

The years we’d been together, the memories created, the love shared, and the vows spoken didn’t just *poof* and go away like I expected it to. I was angry, hurt, pissed, and disappointed, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t still love the man.

 

If I have to be honest, and well that’s what I’m here for, I had some pretty gruesome murderous thoughts. I wanted him to be just as distressed as I was. Things weren’t as clear cut as I wanted them to be…. needed them to be. It was more than just the kids, the bills, and the life we had carved out.  It was the simple lettered word but robust with complications; love. I loved so much about him and unfortunately maybe not enough of me. I loved the man he had grew to be. The father that he was to our kids. But then I hated that I loved him. I constantly flipped back and forth from love to resentment and back again.

 

But the choice was mine and mine alone, and boy was it a lonely road to the choice I made. I had to silence those in my head, those of my family and friends that I knew meant me well. In my solitude I prayed for clarity. I prayed for the heart of peace and forgiveness. And it was in the moments that I had no more tears to cry, no more curse words to spew, and no more room to hurt that I decided to stay.

 

I was no one of perfection to condemn my husband to what I thought he deserved. That was never my place. What was my designated place, was to be his wife, to honor that particular stanza in our vows; for better or for worse. This was not the better part of that spectrum but I prayed for the strength to be the wife that I vowed to him I would be.

 

Life afterwards has not been the easiest but it’s made me realize that marriage is not always rainbows and sweet smelling roses. Sometimes it’s thunderstorms and foul shit. It’s way more than the wedding and the smiling faces posted on social media.  I fight the impulse to constantly question and wonder. There are days and nights when insecurity kicks in, and my mind listlessly ambles off into the past but, I’ve fallen short of his expectations of me as well and we’ve both come to the conclusion that this marriage, our marriage is worth the battles that we fight.

 

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let n one separate.” Matthew 19:6

-Cierra