You are NOT Sh!t

I just want to write something for all the wonderful warrior wives out there who read this blog. Please share this with anyone who needs to hear it. All those wives drowning in the bottomless abyss of infidelity, whether it's just days after d-day, months or years. Those wives whose lives have been horrifically and irreversibly changed by the actions of someone else, so shockingly and disrespectfully without their consent. Thrown blindfolded into a raging sea of torment, by someone they loved, and told to sink or swim. There are so many of us out there and there may be some needing a hand to hold them up (read on to see what I mean by that), so pay it forward.

YOU ARE NOT SHIT!!

You are not shit for drowning in agonising sorrow. You are not shit for collapsing under the weight of this hurt. You are not shit for crying one minute and raging the next. You are not shit for having another breakdown about it. You are not shit for feeling exhausted and beaten and wanting to give up. You are not shit for not being able to make a decision. You are not shit for still not being over it. You are not shit for this still consuming your life and every minute of every single fucking day. And you are not shit for still loving someone through this shit. I could go on and on and list a million of these.

THIS SHIT IS HARD. REALLY, REALLY HARD.

So hard, if you could bottle it, it could build defenses that nothing would ever penetrate. So hard, a nuclear explosion would not even leave a scratch. This is the hardest mother fucking hard there ever was. Everything infidelity involves makes you feel like shit. Every little bit of it. I have never experienced such an overwhelming plethora of indescribable emotions, battering at me relentlessly for days and months on end. I have never had to fight so hard in my life, just to keep my face above water. Head back, water lapping at my chin, legs exhausted, only just still kicking to stay up, as I feel them being sucked so hard from underneath me by the deep darkness so intent on dragging me under. I have never had to fight so hard against compulsions and rages so fierce I felt I could literally kill someone and really, and let's be honest here, really enjoy doing it. Rip their heads off, tear out their heart with my teeth and walk away dumping the head, spitting the heart to the side while wiping the blood from my face in satisfaction. I have never felt such excruciating and immeasurable pain, shock and bewilderment before. So bad my physical body shut down to protect me, as my mind glitched, twitched and short-circuited trying to comprehend why anyone would want to inflict that on me so much. Trying to figure out what it was I had done that deserved such disregard and disrespect from fellow humans. I have never experienced the sensation of being smashed by an articulated lorry veering out of its lane, without a care in the world for who was in the way. Crushing and pummelling me off the road, simply because it could. I have also never been so frightened of people before. Of the absolute worst in others and what they are capable of for their own gain. I have never had to scrap about finding the smashed pieces of my life, put them back together while dragging myself along in the mud by my fingernails.

THIS SHIT IS HARD but you are NOT shit. This is not your doing and you are not to blame. There is no rule book, no timeline, no rights or wrongs.

You are also NOT a weak idiot if you still love him. I love my husband deeply and have done all the way through this nightmare. I am deeply and painfully hurt, saddened and disappointed by him, and to be honest, I don't think that will ever go away. We are both learning to live with that, but I do really, really love him. In fact, it has shown me how much I really do love him and I have, at times, really struggled with that. I felt weak, pathetic and guilty for continuing to love him. I "should" have left because that's what you do when someone does this. Like people would be looking at me wondering why the hell I was still here. Whispering about what else I "should" be doing or what they would have done if someone treated them so badly. I felt the weight of the future of my family balancing on my ability to get over this, yet my whole entire being was devastated. Cut, bruised and bleeding, buckling under the pain my love for him was causing. Stuck between having to get over it, or get over him and feeling powerless to do either. Just last weekend I broke down and told him I was never, ever going to get over it and I just had to admit that and stop pretending to everyone.

We are women and we love, we love hard. We are humans and we bleed. But you know what? We are also part of the most inspiring and amazing species on the planet, capable of the most unbelievable things. We can withstand huge amounts of pressure and pain and survive. Normal every day humans have been thrown into wars, disasters, freak events and suddenly done super-human amazing things, they never thought they could or would ever have to do. We can get through this. Our bodies were designed to take pain and survive. I know I can say that because I am 2 1/2 years in and I'm not in the midst of the pain, but this is exactly why I can say it because I was there and I am there. I woke up every single fucking day hoping I wouldn't wake up because being unconscious was the only respite I got (when the nightmares weren't raging.) My heart sank every single morning, within a split second of opening my eyes when I realised this nightmare was real and actually happening and my husband had done what he actually did. I dragged myself around with a betrayal anchor around my neck and ankles, weighing me down for months on end. I have cried, screamed, wretched, and at times, even prayed and begged my way through the last 30 months, wondering when the hell normality was ever going to return. My body, mind and soul have taken such a battering, I felt they would never recover, but they are. Slowly and painstakingly, but they are. And you will too.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, this is the hardest fight of your life and no one can pull you out except yourself, but find an arm or a hand to hold. They will be there, to keep your face just above the water so you can rest. It may take a few years, which seems like eternity, but you WILL get there.

This is shit, but YOU ARE NOT.

(Share with anyone who needs to hear that.)