Needless to say I was devastated after I found out about my husband's affair. All my dreams for our future disintegrated. The pain was at times so intense that I literally couldn't breath. I learnt to function on auto pilot.
My children, 8 and 3years old, were at a bad place too, especially my son. He missed his father terribly and it killed me to know that even though my ex had the affair, I also had a part in the pain my kids were experiencing. It didn't help that my ex regularly use to visit us. In a way I started feeling like his "skelmpie", always having to wait for when he could get away without her knowing. The fact that he told me he still loved me killed me, because I couldn't understand why he wasn't prepared to then work on our relationship. Surely you don't just give up 20years of marriage, especial when you have two beautiful kids that became the unwilling victims.
Then there were all the questions. I needed to know in detail everything about the affair. Later I read that, that was a completely normal reaction. Unfortunately due to my ex's evasive actions and answers I never quite was able to put that behind me. It took me a very long time before I didn't care about the answers anymore.
After he moved out he left me with the furniture and a pile of debts. For two month I had to try and survive with the little bit of maintenance he graciously gave me. Till today I have to hear that he didn't need to give it to me. Thankfully at that stage we had a take-away and although it was a major financial burden on me, it did provide us with food. It wasn't healthy food, but it was food non the less. Thanx to my family and a very kind landlord, I managed to keep the roof over our heads and by the end of May I started my own business, again thanx to two unbelievably wonderful people. Two complete strangers looked after me in a way my ex never did and I will forever be thankful to them. In June I had to give up my car and me and the kids had to walk for two weeks to school/work in the middle of the winter, while my ex's car was standing at home. His excuse for not letting me use the car was, that since his lover was paying his car's monthly payments she would not like it if he gave me the car to use. My sister, bless her soul, decided it was "time" to buy a second car and gave me her car to use.
At that stage my emotions were in chaos. It felt like I was on a roller coaster. Anger, frustration, resentment, hatred, a deep sense of loss, despair, fear, depression, loneliness, extreme sadness and hope became part of my daily life. There were times when I literally sat the whole night, trying to explain to my kids that mommy was ok, while going through a whole role of toilet paper wiping the tears that just didn't want to stop. Other times I felt "the hell with him, I don't need him". It was physically and emotionally the most tired I have ever felt in my life. Till today I don't know how I made it through each day. I eventually had to admit that I needed help.
There's a saying that God gives you the people you need and not the ones you want and boy did I find out how true that is. A college that was going through the same thing I was, became my life line. She suggested I go see someone at her church and so my journey began. I met 2 wonderful women who basically saved my life. Together they started the road to recovery with me and still today I know I can phone them anytime and they will be there for me. I always considered myself a christian, but thanx to these two women I learnt the difference between having a religion and having a relationship with God. All my life I went to church and found I didn't like it, my bible was lying somewhere gathering dust, because I never read it. I just didn't understand it. I got nothing from it. One of these woman started having regular meetings with me and she taught me all about God and His Word. I learnt about the foundations of the Bible. All of a sudden I couldn't wait to go to church, because it was THAT exciting. I started reading my bible and a whole new world opened up. I couldn't get enough, because for the first time ever I GOT the Bible. She taught me about the spiritual realm, what it is and how it works.
Learning to apply what I was taught wasn't always easy. You see starting a relationship with God is a process, it doesn't happen over night. I had to die for myself and having a strong personality made that very difficult at times. Thankfully my circle of friends grew and I was surrounded by people who helped keep me on track. I admit it was very confusing at times, trying to bring what the Bible says in line with what I felt. I tried to tell my ex about the things I learnt. I wanted him to experience the excitement of having a true relationship with God. I realised that if both of us were willing to sit around the table, God would fix our broken marriage and turn it into something really beautiful. Unfortunately he wasn't willing. My friend said to me one day to stop giving the pearls (knowledge) God is giving to me, to him, because he cannot appreciate it. I realised the power that the angel of light had over him. I saw how the devil can deceive and blind a person to the extent that that person really didn't see what he was doing to himself and others. I came to understand in time that it wasn't my ex doing these horrible things to me, but the devil using him. The devil new that my ex was the one area, where I was vulnerable and he used it every time I saw my ex and in the beginning I constantly lost the battle. I had to learn to give it to God and walk in the spirit, not easy when I never considered myself a spiritual person. Still today I have difficulty with that, but I have learnt how to deal with it quickly. In the past satan would steal my peace using my ex, leaving me in a pit of depression for days. I soon learnt to seek God when I felt like that. I soon learnt that losing my inner peace was a sign that I was allowing myself to drift away from God. You see having a relationship with God means giving of your time. God want you to spend time with Him and time is the one thing we don't want to give up. That fortunately is the only way you are going to get to know God and silence is the one time when God speaks the loudest to you. Having a relationship with God is a choice and you and you alone can make that choice and choose to commit to that choice.
I can thank God today for the trials that came over my path. Having marital problems was God's way of calling my ex and me. To let us know that we weren't in right standing with him. I believe if we new how to listen to God we would have still been married today, but we didn't know and we missed the opportunity to hear God. The devil used my ex's insecurities to tempt him and unfortunately he loss the battle. However my ex could have chosen to turn away from the darkness in his life and turn towards God and I believe that God would have restored our marriage , because God hates divorce. The choice was between God and restoring our marriage or believing the lies satan told him. He chose the lies and the complete breakdown of the relationship between me and him was the result. 20 Years of loving each other down the drain.
In a way I was lucky because Christianity was part of my background, so it was easier for me to turn to God. At first I just couldn't understand how something good can come from the breakdown of my marriage, but now I understand that having eternal life is always better than anything I can choose in the physical life. It's not about what we have now, but about what we will have after we die. Whether you want to believe it or not, God is alive and one day each one of us will stand in front of Him and we will witness His tears if we have chosen the wrong path in our physical life. I believe realising to late that we have rejected God's love and mercy will almost be worst than knowing that we are destined for eternal death.
Make sure that you have a relationship with God and not just a religion. Stop focussing on the now and realise that your life on earth is but a fraction of your whole life. Make sure that you choose eternal life, even if your life on earth feels like hell.
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