On New Years Eve I watched my picture perfect marriage fall apart. Every spouse's worst nightmare became my reality-- my husband was having an affair. Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you? Felt your heart stop in its tracks? Been so stricken with pain and sadness that you don't even remember to breathe? I have.
I drug him and his name through the mud. I cursed him up and down on social media to anyone that would listen to me. I smashed the wedding pictures that hung on the walls of our home. I messaged his parents and his boss. I don't think I've ever been so angry in my entire life, but the truth is, happy marriages don't end and happy spouses don't cheat.
To the world, my marriage appeared relatively seamless. We were high school sweethearts, young parents that had overcome so much in our young lives. We have two beautiful children, successful jobs, and even had those sappy social media posts that portrayed our life together as strong and happy. However, behind closed doors, we were struggling.
I have always struggled with being seen as a failure for having children young. In an effort to prove everyone wrong, I dove into a thousand projects and my husband was left playing catch up. I started college, brought work home, spent my evenings at the gym, and even began writing articles online. When I wasn't working on these projects, I was spending time with my kids. I more or less eliminated my husband from my personal life and every night I crawled into bed with a man that was slowly becoming a stranger to me.
During this time of success and productivity in my own life, my husband was fighting a thousand battles and was left to fight them alone.
Depression and anxiety have a tremendous hold on an individual, and for my husband, they consumed his life. His depression destroyed his motivation and his anxiety left him feeling worthless and on edge because he wasn't doing enough. I wanted to spend my weekends at the beach and at the park, surrounded by friends and family, but he didn't have the motivation to do these things, and I was too consumed in my personal life that I didn't recognize the signs of a broken man. I couldn't see the pressure he felt in his chest on a regular basis or the dark clouds that took over in his head. Instead, I fought with him constantly and deemed him lazy, mean, and uncaring.
Our marriage was truly falling apart, but I was in denial. And looking back, I was a pretty terrible wife. And that's why I have chosen to forgive him for seeking companionship in someone else. The man that had an affair is not the man that I married. He was broken, lost, and although he went about it in just about the worst way possible, he was simply trying to find happiness. I will never make excuses for his actions, all I care to say is that I understand why it happened and I am willing to forgive him for all of it.
Fast forward to today and our marriage feels like the perfect marriage that I spent the last few years wishing it was. We are involved with each other, we communicate, we spend real quality time together again, and enjoy every minute of it. We hold hands again, we cuddle, we take our kids on picnics and we spend our evenings working out together. Our arguments are resolved by talking things out, they don't end in all out brawls and someone leaving the house.
We value every day we spend together, and most importantly, we no longer take each other for granted.
My husband is taking steps to help him with his depression and anxiety and I have decided that although my career and personal success is important to me, family is my number one priority. We have both made sacrifices for our life together because those are the vows we took when we got married. Truly, this is my second marriage to my first spouse and although I hate the circumstances, I couldn't be more thankful to have had the opportunity to bring our relationship back to life.
Don't give up on people, especially people that care about you. Marriage is about loving your spouse unconditionally, putting their needs before your own, and spending the rest of your lives together as a unit. And what I decided throughout all of this is that I refuse to let one bad year stand in the way of spending my life with the man I love, the father of my children, and my best friend.
