Lord knows that my wife and I made many amateur mistakes while navigating our new, decades-long journey down the prickly road of infidelity. We made many missteps and even now, 43 years later, we find ourselves still stumbling and bumbling our way along this dimly lit corridor.
Though many of us might describe it differently I believe most of us will attest that infidelity places something like an asterisk, with a footnote, on almost every aspect of the teetering relationship. Things that prior to the collapse seemed natural and flowed easily were now strained and forced.
For instance, before my wife’s discloser I never hesitated to wrap my arms around her slender frame, pull her in close and give her a long passionate kiss. However, for over a decade after D-day, drawing her up next to me so I might touch her lips to mine was a mixture of connectiveness and revulsion. I found myself completely conflicted and the immense pain of that new, internal quarrel was immeasurable. Even now, hugs and kisses are sometimes followed by that stubborn asterisk.
I didn’t want it to be like that but there it was, that damn (*) hanging over every intimate moment like a blunt guillotine in wait of its final drop.
One of the few things that I did do early on that proved to be very important to my ongoing recovery, and I believe our success thus far at reconciliation, was to ask myself a simple question every time and in every situation, when I felt the pain was finally subsiding.
Am I healing or am I hardening?
What I came to understand is that healing and hardening can feel similar, maybe even interchangeable, and both are very effective at reducing pain but with vastly different price tags and outcomes.
I’m not stating any of this as a "truth". I am only sharing that for me I found I could successfully reduce my pain either by healing my heart or hardening my heart.
Looking back, I am stunned at how many times I was, without realizing it, leaning towards hardening my heart for it was simpler, faster, and most importantly, it felt safer.
Asterisk
