When Trust is Broken

How can I ever trust you again? And without trust how can our marriage ever survive? An affair is the ultimate betrayal...you are fully aware of the suffering the affair will inflict on me...yet you are daring enough to do it anyway. You claim to love me, perhaps now you love seeing tears imprint my face. You say you respect me but you don't want me to walk this place with my head held high. It reflects a total disregard for my feelings, someone whom you promised to cherish, love and protect for life.

And then there are the lies. Looking right onto my face and denying it all, getting angry that I would even think such a thing, shocked that I had the audacity to invade your privacy...and I caught you creeping. How dare I accuse you? How dare I be mad? When you still came home every night? All the things everyone used to tell me about but I vehemently denied, oh what a fool I am. She must be quite a woman that you give so much power to that she dares to call you to tell you good morning when you have not even left our bed. The same bed you leave cold to assure her sweet nothings so she can sleep well.

This is the man that you have become. Reckless, thoughtless, uncaring of anyone else except your own damned needs. The children looking at your expectantly to be help are left with cold stares and how busy you are. They come crying to me not understanding why daddy doesn't love them anymore. This man I cannot fight for. I will not fight to be lied to, to be taken for granted, fighting to be dissappointed, and fighting to be hurt again so slowly I starting for acceptance and to let go.

How can I ever trust you again? After everything how can we ever heal?

How can you be the unfaithful one and yet demand that I should trust you now. That now you claim to know that without trust our marriage cannot thrive. You say without doing much to rebuild the broken pieces that you left me with but rather to avoid to have to change and do things to regain my trust. You keep claiming that you have changed...you don't want to say what you are doing in secret, yet you insist that its nothing to harm me...or our marriage. I see you, demanding trust is simply a tactic to get away with further thoughtlessness and dishonesty.

I love how you had the audacity to throw everything in my face. Keep it all there. Perhaps she was that amazing that I somehow cannot compare or understand. The childishness of fighting her for you is beneath me, you never understood our endless fights, dishes smashed, and all hell break loose yet I wouldn't confront her even though I knew her name and number. Oh I did feel insecure at some point asking myself over and over what am I lacking? What do I need to improve. And you had the balls to tell me. As if it was me who looked for someone else to fill the gaps in our relationship.

Trust is not something I am required to do for you just because we are married. I know I have to trust you but its not a requirement for marriage, its a reaction to experience. It grows a each spouse shows that they are trustworthy. For trust to ever exist in our marriage again, we should begin with a commitment to be thoughtful and honest. Without that commitment its foolish to trust you again. And you should follow through with thoughtful and honest behaviour. Yet continuing to require that from you seems to be utter foolishness. So now I move forward with acceptance. Accepting that I may not be what you need anymore. Accepting that in this threesome I want out. Accepting that people change and grow and I hate the person you have become. Accept my part in this, I was too occupied to make sure that the house was well cared for, the kids not to lack anything, and instead of you reminding of how you also need me, look at all I do and lend a helping hand so that I may feeling I may have something more to give to you, but you looked for it else where.

The future is always uncertain. Can I forgive you? Yes. Will you not have another affair? I have no idea and frankly you are pushing to dangerously freeing ledge of I don't give a shit.  How can I ever trust you again? It will take a looong time. Can you be honest about all the details of your life? Not quite, you still have much to say and do...still creeping. Will you take my feelings into consideration with every decision you make? Only time will tell. I sit here patiently watching your every move, pretending I see nothing, my heart is now cold. The broken pieces are now jaded, unfitting to a whole again. 

How to do you let go...

As I listen to my friend tell me the lows in her relationship that she is even afraid to admit to herself, my brain runs in a million different directions on what I should say, how to comfort her, to empathise. I tell her I understand what she is telling me, but in reality I can only imagine. I have no idea what is going on or the circumstances that led her to this position in her life. 

How does one feel when you are eight months pregnant, and 2 year old toddler driving her crazy with a husband that decides that he no longer loves you and wants you to leave, after you gave up everything for him and the faith in your love? Me, like you had no idea what to say to possibly make this any easier for her or help her make sense of it. So all I do is tell her I love her so much and I am here for her, for whatever she needs. 

Typically of me I start imagining this situation and what I would do if it were me. I found it easy to tell her that if the man wanted you to leave, just go. Go back home to your loved ones who always have no choice but to take you back. But how is that possible? If you fought the whole family who didn't think he was good for you but you decided you knew him better, decided your parents, cousins and everyone were just jealous and didn't want to see you happy. How do you then face them again to tell them they were right and you were sorry? Not easy but its the only way. It reminds me of the Indian movie Yaadein, when the father tells his orphaned daughters that they can marry whomever they please, but they will afford the part in choosing the family they marry into. Why? They ask? He replies that when you get married, wife is not the only title you get, you become the daughter in law, aunt, sister in law et al. All these relationships will at one point or another affect your life. 

My question becomes, how do you get to this place? It cannot be just one thing. It has to be a million little things. The little digs. The unsaid things. The thoughts you secretly keep. The others outside showing that you can do better. It is the marriage. It is the kids. It is money. Responsibility. It's all the things you say and don't say to each other. Is it fair to say that he has changed, that the money he is making is going to his head yet you held him down when he had nothing? What is her play in this? She assures me that she is not to blame and that she has remained the same person she has always been, the woman he fell in love with. Yet I try to make her see her part in this mess something she cannot see at all. We are always blinded by what we do and unaware how our actions affect others. How do you let someone go at the time in your life when you need them the most, someone that you would give your soul to keep?

A Broken Strong Woman

Just because I come off strong doesn't mean that I didn't fall asleep crying,
and maybe when I act like nothing is wrong, maybe I have become really good at lying.
It starts off small like saying "I'm fine" when inside I am crumbling, It's hard to answer "what's wrong?" when nothing is right. So much that I sometimes think that if I died no one will notice that I'm gone.

You know the worst type of crying?When your lips start to shake and the tears build up quickly and fall fast. You are bent over or crouched trying to suck it in and to not make a sound but it hurts too much to just let it in. Maybe I keep it all in but am constantly caught up in moments where tears are so close to the surface every time I try to speak, that's why I remain silent. That is why I cannot confide in you. That is why I cannot look into your eyes because my eyes cannot hide the depth of pain welled up inside.

That's why I love the peace, the security and the privacy offered by my bathroom. In the bathroom I can give in to my emotions with no fear of anyone trying to stop me, trying to understand me, trying to judge or trying to remind me that I am supposed to be a strong woman. Only in the bathroom can I really be who I am right now - a broken strong woman. On the floor quietly howling my broken heart out, tears mingling with water, guilt mixed with confusion, restraint kept at bay by abandon, then and only then can I go through the healing ritual of giving in to my breaking point.

Why do I have to feel ashamed that I cry? I am crying now but I will smile again. Isn't it true that we fall down so we can learn to pick ourselves again?  I am broken now but I shall rise again. Like a phoenix reborn from the ashes when it burst into flame, so will I find my smile again. I will live again. I will laugh again. I will forget again. I will hurt again and I will heal again.