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Discovering the infidelity of your mate delivers a gigantic blow to your belief systems, your values and your perceptions of what is right and wrong. Everything you've ever held dear or has ever been important to you is now shaken to its very foundations. It feels as though you are being punished for being good and for remaining faithful. It seems as though black is white and white is black. You wonder, why was trusting my husband/wife a mistake? And you wonder if it is even sane to ever trust anyone again.

Trusting Yourself

At Beyond Affairs this week, we agreed that the biggest issue was actually the issue of trusting ourselves again. Most of those present were no longer in their marriages and felt that they first of all had made the mistake of marrying the wrong person. Now they don't trust themselves in making decisions regarding choosing a mate. Many of us also recognized that we had made many wrong decisions along the way in our relationships, allowing abusive, codependent and inappropriate behavior in an effort to keep peace. The problem was at the time we did not even recognize that these behaviors were abusive and/or codependent. We were unconsciously incompetent - that is doing the wrong things and not even aware of it.

We wished that we could have identified the problems in our relationships in some easier way, counseling or taking a class, but unfortunately for many of us we were doomed to the devastating 9/11 personal wake-up call, when our spouse had an affair.

How can we trust ourselves again to make good choices for ourselves? To not allow ourselves to be abused again? We must grow as individuals. We must acknowledge the fact that we have grown already. We have now become consciously incompetent! We are still doing the wrong things, but at least we are conscious of our own need to change! And we are taking responsibility for our own lives, rather than seeing ourselves as victims. We are seeing our part in the relationship break down and we are changing. We do this by increasing our own awareness (educating ourselves), through reading books, going for counseling, getting perspective from others who are doing well in their relationships, support groups like the Beyond Affairs Network and perhaps other self growth groups and resources as well. The point is we have to be proactive and take responsibility for ourselves. The other thing we have to do is give ourselves a break and not expect perfection. It is okay to make mistakes along the way. This is how we all learn and grow. We just need to make sure we keep growing.