When Ron came in to see me, his disheveled appearance made it obvious that he was distraught. His face looked haggard and he lacked the joy I was accustomed to seeing in him.
We had been addressing his marital issues. Even admitting that his marriage had issues was a personal struggle for him.
After talking about his struggles, he paused for a moment, turned to me and asked “What is this mental sickness for women to have to cheat on their spouse?”
At that moment Ron was hurting and looking for answers. It pained him that this could happen to him. It was easier to believe that there was some mental sickness behind what his wife did.
At this point he was also painting with a broad brush. He lashed out at all women. It wasn’t that he hated women, he was just hurting so badly that it was easier to blame all women than to face the hard reality that his wife cheated on him.
He didn’t want to believe that could happen to his marriage. In his struggle of dealing with this, he went through the stage of blaming all women. It was easier to see things as big flaw in their gender rather than admit his own wife did what she did.
It was too painful to consider that she cheated on him, that what she did was reject him. There are times when the pain is so bad all you can do is deal in generalities. It’s too painful to plainly say that your spouse cheated on you. That’s a natural part of recovering from the affair.
Ron has since moved on and is now happily married. He managed working through the pain of his wife’s betrayal. Recovery often required him to consider facts that he’d rather not look at, though he knew it was necessary for his healing.
You may find yourself going through times of lashing out at all men or all women for what your spouse did. That’s part of the recovery process and your journey toward healing.
If you’re needing help in moving forward in your recovery from the affair, I encourage you to download your copy of the Affair Recovery Workshop. It contains the material that helped Ronnie and many others recover from their spouse’s affair.
Rather than lashing out at the world and blaming all men and all women, you can instead move ahead in recovering from the setback that happened to you.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
