I got the girls home and started to pack. After a nine-hour drive we arrived at my grandmother’s home. We were there for a week and from the mess I packed you could tell I was out of my mind. It was cold and we were in flip flops, no one had underwear, toothbrushes, diapers, jackets. The worst part was I was nursing my baby. She would cry and cry, she was hungry. I would nurse her, but just wasn’t making enough milk all of a sudden. I was too stressed to care for her basic needs, food. If this doesn’t piss a mama bear off, I don’t know what does. All I could do that week was sob, hysterically sob and compulsively take showers. I felt so dirty, and so much shame I didn’t think I would survive. I just needed to be clean. I scrubbed myself raw, ten, twelve showers a day. I couldn’t get myself clean. I couldn’t answer ‘why?’
We returned home and as the weeks went by I found out it wasn’t an affair with one person, it was so many people he couldn’t even put a number on it. I felt like I was being held under a waterfall, I was being pounded to death by violent waters, beat against rocks, occasionally I would make it to the surface for just enough air to keep me alive and then the current would pull me back down. I isolated myself completely, many of my friends were involved, I couldn’t trust anyone. I was so alone. In my darkest moments I would open the medicine cabinet and think, ‘if I took all of those pills, maybe I would go to sleep and never wake up.’ I was paralyzed with fear, panic attacks, flashbacks and anxiety, and never could shake that, ‘why?’ Yes, he would give excuses or try and explain himself, but there was a deeper ‘why’ a sorta purpose driven ‘why.’
Our marriage didn’t survive, I fought hard to save our family but ultimately I could only control myself and had to let go. Days turned into years and the anxiety and fear slowly started to leave. But that ‘why’ didn’t leave. Nope. I would pray and beg God to show me why this happened, there had to be a bigger reason, I couldn’t understand it. I felt such a pull to something significant, something I did not understand yet. Then it happened.
Several of my friends were sadly going through the same thing I faced and I was able to be there for them, to listen and cry on the phone during kidless holidays. This was it, this was my beauty from the ashes! I got an idea and started planning and saving for years. I was going to make a way for everyone struggling with their partner’s infidelity to have access to help. You see I had a long list of excuses for not reaching out and getting help. I was too depressed to make a phone call, I was a single mom and broke, I was too busy, I was afraid someone would see me going to a therapist… Since I didn’t get help, I just stayed and sat in my misery for much longer than necessary. This is a fate I would never wish on anyone.
After years of sleepless nights and long weekends of non-stop working, I finally launched a support site called After the Affair. You see, I wanted to create a straight to the point, no-nonsense, private, and affordable way for people to get help. Not help for their relationship, (there are plenty of people doing that) help for them, help for the healing of their own heart. I created a solution I longed for six years ago. When I think back over those years of sobbing in my closet, or spending hours getting ready to leave because I wanted to look perfect so no one knew I was dying on the inside, I see a little girl who just needed someone to tell her what to do next. I want to, scratch that, I NEED to do that for others. It’s my freakin why! After the Affair was custom designed to do just that. Bring help to everyone, right where they are, no matter their circumstances. For each subscription, we give a free subscription to someone in need. Everyone can get help, no one is turned down.