D-Day. Round 2.

Six months into our therapeutic separation I started having daily headaches.  The moment I would open my eyes in the morning to the time I went to bed, the tension would sit just above and beside my eyes.  We had both been working with individual CSATs during our separation, and my then husband was preparing for full disclosure.  And something wasn’t right.

 I had received a few notifications on my Linked In account that the same woman had visited my page.  I didn’t know her.  I didn’t know her place of employment.  Her profession, however, was in the same realm as my then husband’s.  After the third notification, I messaged her.  I simply asked if she knew me or my then husband.  No reply.

 I received a call from this woman on my office phone two months later.  When I saw her name pop up on the caller ID log, I knew.  When I asked my then husband about this woman, he said he had never heard of her. 

 A few weeks later, he asked if I wanted to meet for dinner.  We had just started working with our couples CSAT, the one that came highly regarded and we waited six months for an appointment.  We had dinner at one of our favorite dive bars on the water.  I wore my hair the way he liked it and had just come from a facial.  I was glowing from the extractions and oils, the hot summer sun, and even more so when he invited me on a trip that summer and told me he would take care of all the arrangements.  He took a picture of us, as he usually did. He sent the photo to our close friends. I left dinner in a blissfully assured state that our separation and therapy were working.  A state that would be trauma-bombed 45 minutes later when I arrived home. 

 I opened my inbox to an email from the woman.  She did know my then husband.  She did want to speak with me. 

I wish I could say I paused.  I prayed.  I called someone from my trusted inner circle before I made that call, but I didn’t.  I called her immediately and without hesitation.  Her little ones were still awake in the background, as she reminded them it was bedtime.  My heart sank, as I was anticipating this to be the I didn’t know he was married phone call.  But when she began to speak of the year and half that she had been dating my then husband, it was readily apparent she knew.  She knew about me, and she knew he was married.  She filled in the gaps of the uncertainty I had been carrying those first six months of our separation.  The feeling that something is not quite right.  My then husband started doing life with her and her children, on and off, shortly after his first disclosure one year prior.  He moved in with her when our therapeutic separation began. Although I ran into this conversation, still entirely in denial this could be happening to me again, which was quickly being replaced with shear anger and terror this was happening to me again, my response to this woman was straight from God. 

 I shared my faith with this woman.  I told her that God was protecting me right then, and he would continue to protect and heal me.  I asked her if she believed in God, and what happened in her own life, to have her believe this was all she deserved.

 Dear partner, I bring this part of my story into the light for a few invaluable takeaways:

·        First. Trust your body if it’s telling you something is not right.  Discuss this with your therapist and trusted inner circle.  Acknowledge that your body’s intuition is real. 

·        Second. This is not recovery. This is not a relapse.  D-Day Round 2 was a pivotal time for me.  How could someone commit to therapy twice a week, attend group calls, read all the self-help books, and articulate they are in recovery, and not be in recovery?

·        Third. Take the pause. This is a reminder that what we expose our brain to has the power to gravely impact our recovery.  I did not need all the details this woman shared with me.  I did not need the four months of ruminating thoughts and horrendous visuals she left me with after a 15-minute conversation.  I went into the conversation emotionally charged (rightfully so), and perhaps had I taken the pause, the five minutes to clearly state the purpose of the call, define my boundaries on what details I did and did not want to hear, and the point I would end the call, maybe, just maybe, I would have been spared in some capacity the continued and unnecessary impacts of my then husband’s choices.

 D-Day Round 2 was another layer into the reality of what I was up against.  What followed in the months after I will share in later posts.  For now, I will rest in the version of me that chose to lean into faith, and the tools I had received thus far on my healing journey.  I will celebrate a God that carried me, and helped me survive.