thinking about NYE...

New Year's Eve 2007 was hard for me. My husband's affair started six months before, and I'd reached my breaking point. His denial, lies, and painful guilt trips drove me deep into depression. And nobody had a clue what was going on.

This much I know is true: Suffering in silence amplifies pain.

That December 31st, my heart was exhausted. I stared into the midnight sky and begged God for things to be different in the new year. Something's gotta give! And I wanted so badly to believe it would.

I tried desperately to cling to the hope that things would change for the better.

But they only got worse on the slippery slope of '08.

New Year's Eve 2008 was even harder than the one before. I'd finally pulled the cord and exposed my husband's affair, and the bottom fell out of my world.

That December 31st, my heart was aching. I cried myself to sleep, begging God for wholeness, restoration in my marriage, and strength to keep going. Something's gotta give!

Hope was harder to come by, but I still believed things would get better. They had to. They couldn't get any worse.

Or so I thought.

Less than three months later, my husband told me he wanted a divorce.

Sigh...

This December 31st, my heart will still be aching. But not as much as it was. I'll still be in a place of hardship and hurting. But the nights aren't as dark as they used to be.

My heart still pleads, Something's gotta give! But if I quiet my soul and listen closely, I can hear the creaks and cracks of the levee starting to break.

2010's gonna be the best year I've had in a long time.

more painful than adultery

My husband's affair devastated me. But not as much as his deception did. For a year and a half, he lied every single day. Not only to me, but also to our team of staff and interns. When I think of the sheer magnitude of dishonesty he used to cover up his unfaithfulness, I can barely breathe.

I wish I could say that the lies stopped when he was caught.

But I can't.

I think the web of deception grew so thick that he could no longer tell truth from lies. He deceived others so much that he became deceived himself.

It wrecks my heart that he was never forthcoming with the truth. It had to be coerced out of him. Literally.

The day after Thanksgiving, when confronted with undeniable proof, my husband confessed to what he called "an emotional affair". I knew that wasn't all it was, so I continued to ask questions and challenge his justifications. Even after I left South Africa for counseling here in the States. And even though he told me my distrust was making it impossible to move forward.

Late one night, while I was here and he was there, I questioned him yet again as we chatted online. And he finally admitted that it was a full-blown affair.

That was a year ago today.

The blatant, ongoing deception hurts far more than the adultery. And it remains the most painful and difficult part of my own journey of healing.

It's why trust is so shaky.

And why doubt comes so easily.

It's also why I'll never stop asking the Lord to help me live a life marked by unshakable integrity.

my deepest fear

I'm deeply afraid of being a burden. Yet sadly, I've lived most of my life feeling as though I am one. And I hate it. The fear is so deep, so strong, that it's shaped who I am.

Putting my own wants and needs before someone else's, makes me feel like an imposition. And even though I know it isn't true, part of me still clings to the thought that I can avoid being a burden to others if I put them first.

My fear is the reason for my indecisiveness. It explains my aversion to voice an opinion. It's why I'm hesitant to assert myself. All of those things are (futile) attempts to keep from feeling like a burden.

It's a tiring way to live.

The moment I feel burdensome, I start freaking out inside. I hate feeling as though I've become work. So I start scrambling. I apologize; I try to fix things; I'll do just about anything to make things right.

All in an attempt to lighten the load of me.

Because ultimately, my deepest fear is abandonment.

When I start feeling that I've become work for someone, my brain (or is it my heart?) tells me they are going to walk away because I'm simply not worth the effort. After all, that's what my husband did.

Sigh.

I'm tired of living in the chains of my fears. I want to live free. To stop believing lies. To change this lifelong habit of response. To carry myself as though I'm enough.

I am enough because I AM is enough.

And I want my life to reflect that truth instead of the lie I've been reflecting for so long.

one year later

I flew into Columbus, Ohio from South Africa last December, just ten days after my husband admitted his affair. And as I drove into Columbus last night, almost an exact year later, I was overwhelmed by all that's happened in the last 365 days. Things turned out so unbelievably different than I ever would have imagined.

A year ago, I came to Columbus with my heart set on restoration. Instead, everything unraveled out from underneath me.

I'm back here now visiting my friend Kitty, but I'm also facing old ghosts.

And I realized my heart is still set on restoration.

It just looks different than I thought it would.

...and it scares the crap out of me

If you've been around the Grit for any length of time, you know that trust has always been a struggle for me. A struggle I've continued to wrestle with, though, because I know it's worth the fight. Now throw my husband's unfaithfulness into the mix and give it a good shake. Trust is really hard for me right now, at a very core and basic level.

I'm finding it harder than ever to trust others and even God. But the uncertainty runs deeper than that.

I no longer trust myself.

For a year and a half, I was told that my gut instinct was wrong.  It was said over and over and over again that what I knew to be true, wasn't.

Eventually truth was exposed. And even though I had been right all along, any final remnants of confidence had already been evicted from my heart and self-doubt had set up camp.

And now I'm left doubting my intuition. I distrust my ability to perceive what's going on beneath the surface.

The line between discernment and paranoia is blurry. When I sense something is wrong or just "off", I make myself sick wondering if what I'm feeling is valid or if I'm just being hypersensitive.

And I'm not quite sure what to do with that.

I need to learn to trust myself again.

But I don't know how.