Part 2 of Online Article

It doesn't matter who leaves the marriage, the wife or the husband, the person left behind to deal with the betrayal experiences a hellish nightmare


Being demonized will produce feelings of shock and dismay. They will question their own sanity and replay their marriage in their mind trying to find some hint of all the unhappiness they are told of. They will question how their spouse, someone they have loved and trusted could betray them in such a way. First to have an affair and then to rewrite the history of their marriage in such a way as to try and lay blame at their feet.

They will wonder how their spouse could not only blame them for having to have an affair but also how they could defame their character after many years of being given love, respect and trust. They will wonder how their spouse cannot see how their words and blaming does damage to the children by depicting their mother in a bad light.

Someone needs to give him this article.

The faithful spouse will question her own memories of what they thought were years and years of a happy marriage. He/She will wonder if the marriage was never anything but a sham and a figment of their imagination. They will wonder why the unfaithful spouse never complained if they were really that unhappy or why they never made a request for changes in the relationship. Being punished for your spouse's misery is a mind-boggling state to find yourself in.

It's absolute hell!!!!

 

If all this isn't bad enough the unfaithful spouse now demands that their partner accept this other man or other woman and rejoice in their well-deserved happiness. They also expect their spouse to encourage the children to embrace and love this new person and welcome her into the fold…so to speak.

Just reading such a scenario is painful, imagine actually living it? If you are reading this article you may be living it yourself at this moment. It is a crazy making time isn't it? Such severe distortions of what the marriage was actually like can cause the left behind spouse to question their sanity and every action they take. Recovery from such a profound emotional trauma is slow.

What can a left behind spouse do under circumstances like these?

Most importantly they can realize that all the distortions have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the leaving spouse and their need to justify their actions.

Understand that these distortions and negative behaviors are your partner's way of dealing with their guilt. It's his/her perceptions that are wrong and not yours.

Surround yourself with a support group that can affirm your view of what your marriage was and that the distortions you are being fed are for your partner's self-exoneration. Surround yourself daily with people who love and care for you.

Remember that every parent earns his or her separate relationship with the children of the marriage. Children will ultimately process these events appropriately and make their own choices and come to their own conclusions based on their memories and moral beliefs.

This nightmare will end!! With time, healing does come and you will laugh again and love again and the sun will shine again; All you have to do to survive is trust your memories and never forget that, this insanity is not of your making.