by Lili Bee and Cassie Kingan
The best part, the closest-to-our-heart part of having a website and blog like PoSARC is the abundance of personal e-mails we receive from partners who find us online or on Facebook and want to share news about what's going on in their relationships and how it's affecting their lives. While some are primarily looking for quick direction or help, many write in, needing a safe place to share their stories of heartbreak, confusion and also their eventual victories. They know we understand because we've been through betrayal trauma, too.
Along with the many profoundly intimate, personal stories that are shared with us from those new to learning about their mate's sexual deceptions, often as the months and years pass by we also receive detailed updates from our readers, allowing us to witness how their stories evolve over time. It constantly amazes us just how many connections we have with women we've never even met (yet!), all over the world.
We're always particularly thrilled when readers personalize their updates to us with photos of themselves and often, their children. Or sharing before/after pictures of the home they renovated or moved into for the next chapter of their lives, or sending photos of an adorable new pet that's helping their ability to love once again. One reader even sends us seasonal pictures of her sacred "healing garden", beautifully expanding over the course of many years so we've been able to follow along as she rebuilds her life through the self-care she experiences while gardening. Another partner sends in professionally-recorded songs she's written that track her remarkable phoenix-like rising up from the ashes her now-ex-husband left her in. And you can expect a few new personal-narrative books to be published shortly that we've been privy to preview as partners take to the computer keyboard to tell their stories.
As each woman boldly commits to prioritizing her own/her children's safety and well-being over staying stuck in an injurious relationship, we observe her as she slowly starts to stir again. Over months and years, we notice how she comes back to life, protecting her fragile new self from any further abuse by the man she once trusted. The strongest life rebuilds happen when a partner protects herself while simultaneously reinvesting in what now holds meaning for her: her spiritual life, her children, her garden, her career, traveling, her academic and intellectual interests. This compelling blog post articulating the courage this reawakening and recommitting to one's own life entails, was beautifully written last week by our colleague Diane Strickland.
We know that many of us who write for and about the partner experience feel tremendously privileged whenever we're able to be in touch with (and be a touchstone for) those who have reached out to us and who continue to share their evolving stories with us.
One of these true blessings was getting to meet a woman named Sandy recently. We're elated to share Sandy's moving, personal story about finally getting her life back after barely surviving devastating betrayal trauma. Sandy has always been an avid PoSARC follower (though not a client); in her desire to create something personally meaningful to share with other partners who might also be struggling like she was, she donated a heart-rending poem to our website a few years ago. That poem has since gone on to be one of our most-read posts. Thank you, Sandy.
On a parallel track, for the past few years together with a group of colleagues, we at PoSARC have discussed the value of sharing the partners survival stories that we hear about, stories shared with us by women eager to report they've re-entered the land of the living, post-relationship with a cheater, and how they thought they'd never get there.
We see the immense value in sharing these stories that reflect back to women that they DO have choices after their lives get blown up by men some call "sex addicts". When their grief is given the crucially important time, validation and is "held" with the respect it deserves by those the partner has chosen as her supporters, the partner can let go and actually survive. They do move forward.
None of this is easy, of course, nor would we disrespectfully dare to gloss over the challenges of finally choosing oneself and making a new life away from the harms of staying with a sexual deceptive.
But overwhelmingly, the reports we hear back from our readers and clients who freed themselves from ongoing hell (or limbo) is that life got better. Much better.
Yes, sometimes it takes a little while before it feels that way, but they do get there. Their tenacity and courage are rewarded.
We know it's possible because we got there, too, yet very few women who are at the end of their proverbial ropes can imagine that they'll come through these storms intact. This week we'll inspire you to believe otherwise.
A few weeks ago, I (Lili) received an e-mail from the woman, Sandy, who sent the aforementioned poem to us years ago. She told me she was flying into New York City for an upcoming cultural event in a few days. She wanted to finally meet me and talk about how her life is turning out in the years since the excruciating time when she first donated her poem to us for publication. I had no idea what to expect, as I hadn't heard any updates from her in a couple of years.
Within minutes of us meeting in person for the first time, I knew she was sharing a truly inspiring Survivor Story. I quickly set us up right then and there for an impromptu conversational interview, so I could capture her strength, courage and her resiliency as she conveyed her remarkable story for our readers.
Unscripted and unrehearsed, you'll get to see and hear Sandy candidly talk about how the crushing heartbreak she endured for so long finally catapulted her into….?
Well, you'll just have to watch and see it for yourself. If you're half as inspired as we were hearing her uplifting story, we'll have done our job well.
Don't forget to share with our other readers what surprised or inspired you, or what your story is! We'd love to hear...in our Comments section, below:
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"Trust your gut….I used nanny cams because I felt crazy. The porn was just a layer to it all. I highly suggest these ebooks. Of all the material I have read and books, these were spot on and so honest. Not like a counselor asking me how I attracted the porn, or a therapist telling me to get into bed and do my job. It is not our fault even though that is the assumption that so many make.”
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