Changed Perception

“Momma, if you could change one minute, one decision of your life, what would it be?”  Pretty big question coming from a ten year old boy who wouldn’t anticipate where my mind immediately went with that question.  He was only six and too young to understand what was happening behind the scenes at the time his daddy left.  Too young to understand double betrayal. 

From the moment my gut suspected my ex-husband’s affair and the specific woman involved, I wondered if I had made a mistake bringing her into our lives years prior… I met her at a ladies Bible study I was leading soon after we moved to the area.  She and her husband and young child had recently moved here also.  She didn’t have family in state and had not yet met a lot of people.  I set out to be a friend and mentor to her.

Shortly after that Bible study, she and her husband and child started attending our church and got close to my family over the next few years – gradually reaching the point where we went to lunch together after church every Sunday, vacationed together, fellowshipped often.  I kept her older child while she delivered the younger one, hosted that child’s first birthday party at my pool… So many things.  So many memories.  I loved her.  So much so that when my gut told me she was the object of my husband’s affection, I was ashamed at even entertaining the thought.  Friends didn’t accuse friends of things like that.  It hurt my heart to have such suspicions about her.  I tried desperately to deny it but just could. not. shake. it.  I recognized things that I could have done differently or better in my marriage, and I changed my own behavior, trying anything I could to win my husband and prove myself wrong about him and her.  

My efforts were futile though as he pulled farther and farther away from me, deepening my suspicion instead of alleviating it.  While he grew distant and his behavior changed as the affair progressed, hers didn’t waver.  So when all of my concerns were validated and every gut feeling proved true, I found it harder to forgive her than my husband because how could a friend betray you in the deepest possible way and have no change in behavior, no evidence of guilt or shame or remorse?  

It seemed to me the simplest conclusion was that they were never a friend at all.  So it was easier to blame her betrayal of friendship than to accept my husband’s betrayal of our marriage vows, my trust, our intimacy, our future, his ministry.  Putting much of the fault on her helped me deny the things he was telling and showing me about himself, his feelings (or lack thereof), and our marriage that were too painful to accept at the time.  

But somewhere along this path of healing – mostly in the past year, my perception has changed about various aspects of my divorce, the choices that led to it, and the marriage that preceded it.  When my son recently asked the question that opened this blog and my thought immediately went to the default answer, it just didn’t feel right anymore.  Maybe in some aspects, it’s still true.  I regret the pain and loss my kids suffer because I befriended someone who did not prove true to me.  I hate that so many of our friends and church family were hurt – some with remaining trust issues.  I don’t excuse the wrong.  I just see now that its roots went deeper than I could accept at the time.  Putting the majority of fault on her ignores whatever internal factors led to the behavior and does not hold my ex-husband accountable for his choices.  Because infidelity is not happenstance.  It’s a choice. Or a series of choices that lead to devastation.  And it’s only with great effort and God’s help that anyone heals from that degree of pain and grief.

Maybe there should be a sixth stage of grief after acceptance called “changed perception” that would be a fluid state, shifting as you heal.  Or maybe changed perception is just acceptance from a broader scope – one that is able, after some time has passed, to look beyond the loss to what you actually had to begin with.   

Maybe the denial stage of grief works as a self-protective agent that holds you together until you can survive what you’ll recognize when you finally see more clearly.  When you reach “changed perception.”  By the time you reach this stage, you will have healed enough to be thankful things didn’t go the way you wanted, to see your own value and no longer grieve people who failed to honor that, to have a different answer – or maybe none at all – when someone asks what you’d change if you could.