I’ve seen lots of comments about eating better, exercising more, and becoming financially stable. All of this seems reasonable as it is the start of a new year. As I look back on the past couple of years, 2015 was my year of acknowledging the craziness of the prior year, 2016 was the year of Z- where I chose not to accept any new obligations, I withdrew from existing obligations, and I embraced what my pastor’s wife taught me, “No thank you is a complete sentence.”

I own the mistakes I’ve made and that I make. Realizing that brings me back to August 2014 after M told me what he did.  At the encouragement of a friend, I started talking to a counselor specializing in affair recovery. What I remember now is that in the conversation, part of the counselor’s advice was that I was too passive and that I needed to take more of a stronger stance. That doing so would show M that I wasn’t a pushover and that M would find that attractive and see that he didn’t want to leave me after all.  I did my best to do what the counselor told me to do, but if I were having that conversation today I would tell him “Bullsh*t – why is it my fault?”

I was labeled and blamed for a lot of things that year, some I assumed on my own…some given by M, and some by others who didn’t know better.  I know what it’s like to feel like you have no place you belong. I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t know who you are anymore. I know what it’s like to feel like somehow it’s all your fault and I know what it’s like to be told that it is.

My goal for 2017 is to figure out how to take my experiences and help others. I’m not sure what that will look like, but I’m willing to see it through. Some days I still feel broken but I know I’m mended, and now I want to help mend others. I’m grateful that during the craziness of infidelity/divorce/suicide that I had friends who saw “me” not just the circumstances that were mine at that time. I’d like to be able to do that for someone who doesn’t have the support system in place like I did/do.  I’d like to show them that there is peace on the other side, that it’s not their fault, and that there are people that can see them for more than the circumstances that surround them. I see you, friend, I see you.