Six Years: Pornography & Cheating, Separation, and Finding Inner Strength by Anonymous

I feel raw writing this, because it is unfolding very literally as I type the words.

It is a story that one day I hope to share freely. But because I am parallel processing alongside this writing, I thought best to keep it anonymous for now.

I have a marriage probably quite a bit like yours. And although I don’t need to tell you this, I will: I love my husband. I adore him. He has given me the world’s most beautiful children, and he has supported me in my dreams.

He is kind and good to his core; he is generous, selfless, and willing to change. I have a marriage probably quite a bit like yours.

Three months ago, I found pornography on my husband’s phone. Shortly after, there were confessions of cheating, stealing, and lying that came in waves. The security that I thought I had–the entire universe I lived in–shattered around me, and I experienced pain like I have never felt before.

The night that I found out, I called a suicide hotline just to have someone to tell. I felt more desperately afraid than I ever have. The emotions, the grief, has often felt too big for me to contain.

I thought that my body was the only body that my husband had ever seen, because that is what I had been told for years. The cheating was the ultimate betrayal and rejection, the ultimate exploitation of my vulnerability, and it hurt like nothing else could hurt.

I thought that I was sufficient, that I was safe, and that I was desired. I thought that the emotional dismissal I had experienced my entire marriage was a reflection of my own brokenness.

I took responsibility throughout the years for so many things that did not belong to me, trying to maintain any bit of connection with the person I loved most. I abandoned myself again, and again, and again.

But now, I saw that I had been living for six years under a carefully-constructed umbrella of lies held up by gaslighting and his over-compensation of generosity to me.

After the discovery of so many secrets, I began to do the work of healing, which for me, meant surviving first and feeling the absolute depths of my grief next. I journaled my rage and my hurt. I set firm boundaries for every person in my life because of my lack of emotional capacity for others. I took care of myself and protected myself fiercely.

Most importantly, I did not bury any of the hurt.

I have asked myself throughout the last few months: Who am I? Is this really me? Is this really my life? I have watched myself do things I never thought I would do.

We separated, and I took on the work of single parenting. I started swearing, screaming, at him. I slapped him after a particularly devastating confession. (Me. I did this.)

I threw all of my Christmas presents in his face. I shut down for days and weeks. I sent texts to people that I don’t remember sending, and I cried every single day.

I stopped eating. I cried more. I hated myself, and then him. My brain tried to find a way to make it fair, but it came up empty. It was unfair. This was done to me. Nothing would ever undo the betrayal inflicted on me by the father of my children.

I asked for help.

I allowed myself all of the feelings that came, because I know that it is only through feeling our grief that we are able to eventually integrate loss into our lives. I embraced the anger that I had never before had reason to feel.

I felt it come and I let it, because it was real. I chose not to numb, because I love myself enough to honor my truth. I stopped abandoning myself.

Around that time, I wrote this poem, which has become my anthem:

“I do it for the hundreds-thousands-of women before me and beside me who couldn’t,

the ones whose mouths were sewn shut

by needing to feed their kids,

the ones who showed up at Sunday school with a dress past their knees and book group with a casserole,

the ones paralyzed by fear of what leaving might mean.

I do it for the ones who were told by their mothers that sometimes men can’t quite control where they find sex,

who learned to expect it,

who look the other way to earn an ounce of love.

I do it for my great-grandma, who was molested by her step-dad

and who has never spoken of it since,

for my friends, who were raped and never spoke out because they

should’ve could’ve

done more,

by the millions of women made to feel small

by the pornographic pictures objectifying women’s bodies

as pieces of airbrushed perfection,

and for the women like you and me

who feel afraid when up next to a tall blonde

because we were taught that we earn

that coveted ‘worthiness’

by being the most mysterious,

flawless, beautiful woman in the room.

I do it for the blonde we are taught to hate.

I do it for my aunt,

the victim of a home break-in rape,

and for every woman who has walked to her car with her keys between her fingers,

for every woman who traded her body

to feel loved,

for every woman who stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed

because she did not know she deserved better.

I do it for a different narrative,

a better one,

for my daughters,

so that they know that our tolerance for objectification is none.

Zero.

We know we deserve better.

And in the face of evidence piling in front of me and behind me and on all sides,

trapping me in to where so many are,

taunting me that my womanhood is lost

because I do not look like the flawless blonde,

and that I have to stay

because God said so,

I say the bravest thing I know how to say and I do it for all the women who couldn’t:

My body is not the fucking problem.

I was born with a vagina and two breasts,

and they aren’t perfect,

and the sway in my hips is a little less sexy than men may like and my personality may be a bit too big and my hair is frizzy, I see that, and I don’t wear make-up and I may be a bit too

—human—

and my imperfect body is a miracle.

I am not insufficient.

Your treatment of me is.

And so I will leave, until he grows into the man he promised me,

and I will stand firmly in the truth

that I am worth loving perfectly and wholly and uniquely.

I say this for the women who blame themselves,

who hide in their corners feeling small

and ashamed

and bullied

into silence.

Our bodies are not the fucking problem.”

Last night, he pulled out a piece of paper with new, devastating information for me to digest.

The familiar feelings returned. The panic. The nausea, the needing to vomit. The piercing hurt. The blinding anger. The bitterness. The disbelief. The hate. And still, the compassion–the turning to him in his pain and turning to myself in mine.

Instead of spiraling into the messaging that my mind was dangling–that I was never sexy enough, that I wasn’t his type, that I needed to change myself–I held onto myself tightly. I cried, a lot.

I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror and decided that today, I was enough. I did not need to change anything. I did not need to control anything. I did not need to wear the make-up or do the hair or wear anything that I did not want to.

I only needed to be me.