TG posted this on another thread. It spoke to me, parts anyway and I copied it to my journal. Perhaps there is some thing for you here too. FWIW
This tragedy and the choices of your spouse against you is probably the toughest thing you will ever have happen to you in your life. It is certainly a traumatic event to say the least because it is the destruction of your life and what you thought you could trust and believe in about love and sharing your life with someone.
When that belief and trust is shattered you have to feel and deal with its loss.
You can go in any number of directions:
-run away -blame and get angry -you can beg or plead -you can try to coerce, control and punish
In the end you have to find your own answer and THAT Only comes from making your own choice.
Not because of what someone else did BUT in spite of it.
Choose to love in the face of all the anger, agony and pain.
In spite of what you feel you are a victim of. In spite of how others may perceive you. In spite of your own self doubt.
Choose for YOU and you will find what it means to love another.
You will find what it means to love yourself.
You will only get this awareness after standing through much pain. Constantly questioning yourself and your beliefs. Testing your fortitude.
Then you will emerge with the truth. The truth forged in a fire. Your own truth.
The you will know the freedom and peace that comes from knowing that NO ONE can ever take that away from you.
[Some of the tactics and boundaries we might employ, while they certainly are an expression of what you do not want in your life, they can also cause us to make choices BECAUSE OF SOMOENE ELSE.
It causes us to lay our self respect on the foundation of demanding someone else confirm us by either doing or not doing something. It makes it all too easy to lay the blame on the person choosing not to conform to our demands. You run the risk of not making your own choice for your own reasons. It relieves you of that responsibility. And you will not know your own truth because it has been written by someone else. It was written Because of someone else.
When you STAND up for what you believe, in the face of this, it becomes clear that you are truly free from the consequences of the choices of other people. Then you don’t need boundaries.]
In the end love endures and does not fail. Finding that out though, is a hard way to go.
I can only say it is worth it
Your spouse has the journey to take as well. They are trying to find the answers to the same questions. They think it lies in another person or relationship. And they will find it or they won’t. Until they do their life, love and relationships will be broken. They as we will repeat the same mistakes until they learn this. Until they do the M is broken.
And you have no power over it. Your power and your salvation rest within yourself. So this is an opportunity to ask yourself:
Who am I?
What does love mean to me? Is it defined by its expression by another? Or how I choose to express it?
So do what you will and feel what you feel. The consequences and the failures only bring you closer to the truth IF you have the courage to keep stepping toward it.
Many obstacles will be put in your path to overcome:
