When Someone Cheats

By Kat Aducci

I stare at my reflection while brushing my teeth. I notice the circles under my eyes are a little darker. My eyes have lost touch of their light. A blank look rests on my face. The shirt I used to comfortably wear out in public drapes over my collarbones and hangs loosely down my torso. I spit and look back at my reflection, could always be worse kiddo. I let out a chuckle and then it hits. The flood gates from my eyes releases as another wave of emotions sets in.

 

It’s been 8 days since I found him cheating. 192 hours since the lies all surfaced. 11,520 minutes since my perspective on so much was shaken.

 

Why did he cheat? Why didn’t he fight for us? Why didn’t he fight for me? Why wasn’t I enough? Why?

 

The question haunts me.

 

I look back up at myself in a mirror and begin looking for the answer. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually. Head to toe. Conversation to conversation. Prayer to prayer.

 

I can hear the echo of his voice in my head, it wasn’t you it was me. I was the scumbag and you were the sweetheart.

 

I believe he meant it, but it’s still wasn’t enough. Something happened and he felt the need to look elsewhere. Somewhere, something went wrong and I needed the answers.

 

I hear my phone buzz in the next room and I snap back to reality. Looking in the mirror again, I take a deep breath, grip the cross on the chain around my neck, and tell myself to grab ahold of the one in front of me.

 

It’s not the only option in front of me. My mind has thought thought of all different options that I can take to get over it. I could spray paint cheater on his front door or his car in hot pink, write the nastiest texts possible, leave voicemails of anger, call up my friends at the radio station and let them prank him, think the ugliest thoughts about him to make myself and others hate him, and I can go looking for intimacy in others who I don’t truly care for.

 

None of it will truly help though. This wound has been made and the pain demands to be felt in order to heal. I now have the choice to heal it with love or hatred. While the world has given me multiple options as listed above, God has given me the option of carrying this cross. He has given me the chance to use this suffering as an offering for the souls in purgatory and for my future husband. He has given me the chance to draw closer to the foot of the cross and feel a tiny fraction of what Jesus felt when we hung Him.

 

There is the option in every situation to act as Christ would call us to or to act at the world would call us to. While others may choose actions of hatred or harm towards us, we have the opportunity to act in love towards them. And while I know the man who cheated didn’t fully understand the damage it would cause my heart, by the grace of God I still have the strength to show him love. It makes it a little easier when you know that it’s all for the glory of God and His kingdom. No matter what you’re going through, you have the option to show God and others the glory of Heaven simply by choosing to love.

 

P.S. You are enough.