I Am the Phoenix

            When you find out he cheated, your first instinct is to fight back. To reclaim your territory and re-establish the life you’ve built. Even though you’ve imagined leaving for years, and told yourself that if he cheated, that would be the one thing that would drive you away. But, when you find out that he’s betrayed you, your first reaction is to think, “I can get him to come back to me and this family won’t be broken.”

            In my case, fortunately, that feeling didn’t last long. I let him go with no further fight and never looked back. I am worth more than what he was willing to give me. I deserve to be with a person who thinks I am amazing and is not threatened by what I have to offer. I deserve to be with a man who loves how much I adore my child and thinks it’s something to be celebrated. I deserve to be with a person who wants to see me improve and remake my life into something I’ve always felt like it should be. I deserve to be put on a pedestal.

            I was a broken person. I was beaten down. I had poured every last ounce of my being into my marriage. I kept giving and giving and giving, it was still not enough. He wanted more. He wanted me to be his strength, but he didn’t give me any in return. I chose to abandon ship. I was on the sinking Titanic, and chose to find a lifeboat instead of go down with the ship. I knew that the best chance of survival was as far away from his wreckage as I could possibly get, so I ran away and took my baby with me.

            Leaving saved my life. Leaving saved my boy. It is not the answer for everyone, but it was my answer. Leaving gave me strength. Leaving gave me hope. Leaving gave me a purpose. Leaving gave me the ability to become the person I forgot that I was. Leaving helped me to remember the woman that I was raised to be. Leaving was a beginning.

            I would not wish being cheated on to any person, friend or foe. It is destabilizing, being told you’re not good enough in not so many words, and can shake you to your core. It can make you doubt yourself and everything you stand for. It can gut you in the most visceral way. I couldn’t have imagined what it would do to me before it happened and I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through it. I recognize this didn’t happen in a vacuum. I recognize that I take some of the responsibility for the devolution of my marriage. I don’t hate him for his choice.  But, I do recognize the cowardly road he took to remove himself from the situation. I recognize the weakness that drove him into her arms. I recognize that healthy relationships take hard work and we both stopped putting that work into our marriage. I will, however, argue, that I was putting that work in long after he stopped contributing.

            You want to scream when the ultimate betrayal is uncovered. You want to shout, and punch someone, protest, and rebel. For me, it shook me from the complacency that I had created for myself. I knew that our life was not the one that we had aspired to when we were young and idealistic, but I thought we would be OK. What a gift it was to not be OK.

            Discovering that I had to start over was the best thing that could happen to me. Realizing that I had to grow and adapt was a blessing I didn’t count on. Getting away from the toxic situation I lived in day in and day out bestowed a perspective that I hadn’t realized that I needed. Meeting someone who respects and encourages me, and accepts me for who and what I am has been life-changing. Remembering the girl I used to be and the woman I aspired to be has been invaluable. It has not been easy, it has not been natural, but it has woken me from the coma that I inhabited for so many years. I have rediscovered my fire and tapped into my purpose. Recalling what it means to stand on my own and strive for a better future has given me the strength to pursue dreams that I forgot existed. After years of being someone else, I have rediscovered myself and, for that, I am eternally grateful. I have fought back against my situation, and found that I can prevail. I am the Phoenix, rising from the ashes of the life I thought I deserved, and ascending into the life that I can create. I have been victim to the deepest betrayal a person can experience, and I have prevailed. No, not simply prevailed, but I have conquered. My road stretches into the wood, but I am no longer afraid to take that overgrown path. It is time. I thank that betrayal, and the fight it reignited in my soul. My eyes glow with the fire that had smoldered into embers, the flames now leap from my soul. I sit in my lifeboat, and continue to paddle it to shore. The closer I get, the more distant a memory is the wreckage I leave behind me. I can read the map that guides me, and I follow it to the golden shore of my dreams.