I was working to accept the life I thought was real, wasn’t real.
Desperately trying to make sense out of my husband’s betrayal, I needed to understand how it was possible that he actually loved me AND could do this to us.
The women I considered friends that had also deceived and betrayed me haunted me.
How could I accept my new reality? I was married to a self proclaimed sex addict and his recovery program would now be a part of our life.
Conflicting emotions hijacked my thoughts and ran in a loop. I couldn’t get them to stop.
Lamentation: the passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weeping.
In college, I was in a stage production of Euripides Greek tragedy, The Trojan Women. I was one of the four women in the play who lamented over the corpse of Hector throughout the entire play. All I actually remember from rehearsing and the production is that I softly sobbed, wailed, or whimpered for two hours straight and that lamenting was completely exhausting. This was the first time I experienced how rehearsing a theatrical production could affect your real life. The emotional toll of even pretending to lament took on my soul was very real. I became depressed and couldn’t wait for the show to wrap.
Over the next couple of years, it would take me over sporadically- at home in bed, in the shower, during my neighborhood walks or while I was driving down the street. Lamenting forced me to express my grief. It was the kind of weeping that when you let all the air out, your face stays frozen in a tortuous way, trying its best to let out more sound, but it can’t, because you are completely out of air. Automatically you’re forced to gasp in more air only to let it out again in the same desperate sob.
A Prescription for Sorrow
STRONG BODY, STRONG MINDMy healthy habits around diet and exercise weren’t a complete match for grief. But, I’m confident it helped to cope with the stress and helped me stay more resilient as I walked through trying to figure it all out. I was addicted to the 20 minute post-workout, very real feeling of “I’m going to be okay/it’s all going to be okay” even though I knew that the feeling would too quickly fade. I did struggle with losing my appetite and lost weight I didn’t have to lose. I was very aware of it, and became intentional about nourishing my body with healthy foods the best I felt I could. My Yoga Teacher Training I was still immersed in was truly a blessing of timing. The patient, thoughtful practice I was learning kept my mind in a more rational and present place MOST of the time.
Thank Jesus for wine. Not exactly the healthiest way to cope, I took the Proverbs advice to give “wine unto those that be of heavy heart” quite seriously and drank way too much of it most weeks. (Prov. 31:6)
THERAPY During the first few months of therapy I mostly listened to the therapist and my husband dig down to discover “the why”. Learning why he sought affirmation from women and used sex to cope, I hoped, would bring a level of understanding. I hoped creating the simple awareness around “the why” alongside his new transparency would convince me he was now on a new path and we could move forward. As we uncovered and discovered, I was truly heartbroken for my husband and the stories he shared that seemed to be responsible for his own human brokenness. But then there were also therapy sessions where I held back screaming at him, “A lot of people have dealt with a lot more shit in their past than this and turn out to be decent human beings that don’t hurt other people!”
What I shared with the therapist in our remaining minutes was how stuck I continued to feel. I asked for tools I could use to get past the triggers I’d experience through the week that were holding me hostage.
“Triggered”. God. Who was I!? I now said things like “triggered”, and asked my husband questions like, “How was your SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous) meeting?” and celebrated with him how many days sober he claimed.
We stopped going to church because I was triggered. One of the “other women” sang in the choir there. When we heard she left the church and tried going back, it was all I could do to sit through a service without sobbing through it. After attending a wedding together, I refused to attend another until I knew I was ready. The vows were too painful for me to witness. I was triggered anytime we were around another young girl in a crop top or if anything slightly sexual was in a movie or on tv.
The trouble of knowing the women your husband had sexual encounters with, is that your brain can paint a VERY clear picture of what probably happened. I couldn’t stop the stories my brain insisted on creating or from putting the pieces of the puzzle together. I had nightmares constantly over the next year and a half. Many included the other women just being present in the dream as I begged them to leave. In more disturbing dreams, I became violent with them. I’d twist their arm and just keep twisting it as hard as I could or I’d pull the hair out of their head, but they would just laugh and carry on like we were best of friends. I tried to commit suicide in one dream. Cutting myself deeper and deeper with a knife, I was frustrated that I could see the blood and feel the pain, but I was still here. So deeply disturbed by this, I shared this dream with the therapist hoping he’d tell me that this was totally normal and that it didn’t mean I REALLY wanted to die.
SELF, LESSWith my job as a personal trainer, coach, and studio manager, I get to pour into others each and every day. The more intentional I am about this, the happier I am. My business and the work involved gave me a place to forget the pain and the struggle for periods throughout the day. I cannot even begin to express how important this aspect of my life was for getting through the grief.
In the two months after my husband's confession, I had put a pause on finding a new building that would help me expand the fitness studio and allow for more growth. But as some of the shock of his revelation started to settle and we were deep into repair mode, I chose to press on. It gave me purpose byond trying to figure out how to repair myself and my marriage. I signed a lease on a new building and over the next year, while my personal life felt like it was falling apart, Body By Hannah grew by 100%, exactly. I found joy in pouring into my clients. I found joy in watching my trainer’s grow. I found joy in witnessing the impact our little fitness studio had in the community. The most powerful prescription for treating grief was “self, less; others, more”.
The Magic of Ibiza
Just over a year and a half into our battle, I left for the tiny Spanish island, Ibiza, where I was instructing at a fitness retreat. I arrived a week earlier than the retreat I would instruct to attend another retreat on the island. I was eager to have some time by myself and hopefully figure out a way to move forward. I was still feeling completely, embarrassingly stuck. My therapist encouraged me week after week to “get off the fence, and jump in” and I swore that’s what I was doing!
One of the visualization activities on my retreat was to write a letter to our future self. These letters were to be mailed to us a year from the date we wrote them. In my letter I painted a picture with words of a happy restored married. Our marriage was better than ever.
In another activity, we were guided through a session of intense breathwork. Breathwork techniques are used to reduce stress, calm your mind, energize your body, bring clarity and inspiration, and allow you to go deeper into yourself. This particular session was very intense. Individual experience with breathwork is unique and varies. You may be moved to emotional tears, laughter, or you may just leave feeling energized.
Halfway through my own practice, I felt my fingers curl like I was clutching something tightly in my hands. As much as I tried, I couldn’t release my fingers. It was uncomfortable and frustrated me as I tried to extend my fingers out to stretch. My throat began to tighten up so intensely that I got scared. I quit the practice early and laid there with tears streaming down the side of my temples.
As a group we reflected on our unique experiences. When I shared mine, the instructor asked me if there was something I was having a hard time letting go of and said that it was interesting that my throat chakra seemed to seize up. She asked if there was maybe something I was having a hard time expressing or wasn’t saying that I needed to say?
My week at the camp was emotional and intense. But exploring that tiny magical island was the best therapy I could have asked for. I completely fell in love with Ibiza like I have no other place I’ve ever been.
When I got back, I explained to our therapist in a one on one session that being away for those two weeks was the happiest and most care free I’ve felt in the past year and a half. He just shrugged and said, “Well that’s because you haven’t had your problem staring you in the face every day.” As our session went on and I explained for the zillionth time that I still felt very stuck with how to move forward in my marriage, he encouraged me to “try something different”. He was aware that up until this point I wouldn’t even let my mind consider the possibility of divorce because I thought it would make healing harder. He wanted me to picture myself in a life without my husband and in our next session we’d reflect. I hesitantly agreed to do this. On the drive home, for the first time in 18 months, I allowed myself to picture what my life would look like without my marriage. Immediately, an overwhelming sense of peace filled my every cell and I was giddy. I had the clarity I had been desperately seeking and it was crystal clear. That night, I told my husband our marriage was over.
I didn’t know what lay ahead, but I knew what it was time to leave behind. Subconsciously I had kept tabs of the instinctual deception I sensed over the years. I responded by building up a concrete fortress around my heart to protect it and this fortress wasn’t cracking. The damage done was too great. I couldn’t find it in me to trust again the person who vowed to keep me the safest. I still didn’t trust his great self development, the new transparency, or that his recovery journey was genuine. It was time to let go of my fear of losing my person and our family. I needed to let go of my fear of being seen as a failure and the fear of being judged by others. It was time to walk away with peace that God is always faithful- knowing that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)