What did I do to deserve this? Being the victim is never fair. The victim is left to deal with the consequences of someone else’s actions, while the person responsible is free to either take ownership of what they’ve done or move on.

I remember thinking over and over again about how my husband got to enjoy the freedom of pretending to be single again, and dating someone other than his own wife. He could be with her and pretend nothing else existed, including me.  Then after all is said and done, he still comes out the winner with me on his arm, and another child in tow.  How is this fair?  If things happen for a reason, what could possibly be the reason behind this?

One of the things we learned through counselling is that there is a formula for infidelity.

Vulnerability +Opportunity= Affair

We had been together for awhile and married for a few years more. We had gotten into the comfort zone most couples get into after awhile. Then some outside family issues happened, we moved, we renovated and after awhile the stress of it all took its toll on my husband. He became vulnerable and shortly after that opportunity presented itself and she set her sights on him. She said and did all the right things, a little flirting and there you have it, an affair is born.

The affair was 100% my husbands choice and fault. What he should have done was ignore any advances of the other woman and come to me to sort out any issues that were occurring within our marriage. He knows this and takes full responsibility for it. He’s done absolutely everything I’ve asked him to do and more to prove his regret. The problems in our marriage were not what caused the affair, everyone has issues in their marriage, no one is perfect. What caused the affair was my husband’s decision to ignore our issues and instead have an affair where there were no issues….yet.

So now I’m faced with the aftermath of the affair and an ‘other child.’  Its been almost 4 years and I still ask myself every now and then why did this happen to me.  I’m still not really sure what the answer is though. But I do know that aside from making me a much stronger person than I was pre-affair, it has made the relationship between my husband and I much better than it was before. Life has its ups and downs, and I could choose to live in the past and be angry and bitter or I could move forward and turn lemons into lemonade and so I chose the later.