“How are you?” This is a question I get asked frequently nowadays. Every time I’m asked, the answer is always the same. “I’m getting by, day by day.” I’m not sure if people really want to hear the truth or if they are just asking to be polite, but I think people want to know how I’m doing for various reasons. Maybe they simply care and are worried about me. Maybe they literally want to know how I feel because they can’t relate to my situation at all, and they want to know how someone would deal with it. Or, maybe they can relate. Maybe they have been in my shoes and they want to know if my feelings are similar to their own.

When all this first started, I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, or how long this devastation would last. I’ve quickly come to understand that there is no normal. Everybody handles things differently. We process things at our own individual pace. So, today I’m going to tell you how it felt for me. I am going to give you the truth, the good, the bad, and the ugly crying truth, behind how I have felt over the past few months. I am going to tell you for three reasons. First, I appreciate the genuine concern I have felt from so many people, and I want these people to know that I am getting through this. Second, unfortunately, what I am going through is a pretty common occurrence, and I hope that reading this can deter a spouse from making the same pain triggering decisions as my husband. My third reason is that I want anyone who is going through a similar situation to know that they are not alone. As cliché as it sounds, I want them to know that it’s normal to not feel normal.

So, how am I? It depends on the day, the hour, the minute. I go from sad, to numb, to angry, to sad, to numb, to angry. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The complex depth of each feeling, the multiple levels of sadness, the different degrees of anger, and the length that each emotion lingers has been the hardest part to deal with. It is like being on a raft in the middle of the ocean and having no control over the weather or current. I am merely holding on for dear life, and praying God will get me through this with as little permanent damage as possible. Sometimes each feeling lasts days, sometimes only minutes. They come and they go.

Let’s start with the sadness. I mean, come on…of course I’m sad, but I never knew that sadness had so many different faces. I think devastation was the first form of sadness to come to me. It was a crippling, gut wrenching, couldn’t breathe, heart dropping pain. There are days of inconsolable crying and days where the heartache is subtle yet incessant. These days have proven to be challenging. I try to push through my day to day routine, all while doing my best to ignore the constant pain in my chest. It is like water torture. Dull enough that it doesn’t shatter me, but persistent enough to leave me incapacitated and begging for the next wave of emotion to hit me so that I can catch my breath.

And then there is the sadness I feel when I miss him. This is probably the most embarrassing form of sadness to admit to, but I feel that it is important to share. We literally dedicate our lives to our spouses, so if they leave, it is only natural to miss them, to miss what you had. Most people who have not experienced infidelity have a hard time grasping how I can miss someone who treated me this way. I miss the way we were. The way he was before he chose this. I have to allow myself to miss him. No matter how appalling his choices have been.

After sadness comes the numbness. The numbness is, at times, my saving grace. It is the limbo of my emotions, and I am grateful for the mental break it can provide. But, during these times, I can probably relate more to the existence of a ghost than a person. I feel like I am on the outside looking in on everyone else moving through their daily lives. I feel separated from everyone and everything. I am in my own lonely world. My own mental prison.

Angry is angry, right? No, anger can manifest itself in a variety of ways. Anger is mad, annoyed, bitter, enraged, furious, resentful, etc. etc. I don’t think that I need to go into too much description here. I’ve been angry for the better part of three months. I do not think that this will come as a shock to anyone.

I’m sure you have all heard the phrase, “It takes more energy to hate, then to forgive.” This is just not true in my case. I think it would be much easier to hate my husband at this point. I spend countless hours and an infinite amount of energy trying to keep myself from giving in to my natural instincts to hate my husband. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the things he has done and lies he has told, but I don’t hate him. I make a daily decision that it is not in my or my son’s best interest to hate him. How can I tell my child that his father loves him, with a heart full of hate? I agree that hating someone takes a lot of energy, but the struggle of mentally battling against the hostility of hate is even more exhausting. I guess it’s a good thing I am one of the most stubborn people I know, and that I have the grace of God in my corner. While I have the right to be mad (and to probably hate), my anger does not have the right to consume me or to take over my life.

Lately, a new feeling has entered my unfamiliar life…peace. I could only catch it in small doses at first, but as the weeks pass I have been able to grasp it for longer and longer. I almost had a full day of it. I remember my first moment of peacefulness. It was so minor, so fleeting that it wasn’t until it was gone that I realized it had even happened. One morning I woke up, turned off my alarm, sat up, stretched my arms and got out of bed. About halfway through my Keurig pouring my all too necessary cup of coffee, it dawned on me that I hadn’t thought about him yet. This may not sound like an event worth celebrating to you, but to me, it was the first-time my thoughts were not fully dominated by him. In that glorious moment, I knew that I was officially on my way to mending. I have a long way to go still, but I know I will get there.

So, I appreciate all of the genuine concern. The answer to your question is that I struggle, I stumble, and I feel so many different emotions, but I’m okay. I’m getting there, day by day. If you have been or are going through a similar situation, please know that whatever you are feeling is exactly what you should be feeling. There is no right or wrong emotional reaction. Just keep your head on your shoulders, and keep your eyes and prayers focused upward. If you are on the other end of the spectrum; if you are finding yourself paying more attention to someone who is not your spouse, please think about how your choices will affect the person you swore to love. Do you really want them to feel like this; to feel like I do? Will it really be worth all of the pain it will cause? I doubt it, but then again, I may be a bit biased.

2 Corinthians 13:11 – Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, and live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.