This blog is, as ever, to give people hope: you can survive infidelity, and you can get stronger than you ever thought. Here are my thoughts on how we have used what we have learned to cope with what is a difficult situation for us right now.

At this difficult time in the world in the grip of Covid-19 Danny and I are apart:

I took a job that involves working two weeks on and two weeks off on an island close to France, with the aim of earning enough money to fund the next part of our Adventure and get us moved to Ireland. But then Covid-19 reared it’s ugly head and all the ferries home were cancelled. Add to that the fact that I help care for people and I have a responsibility to stay at this difficult time. I have now been here nearly five weeks with another three and a half to go. It’s been tough.

The reason I am sharing this on this blog is because this also coincides with the time of year that Danny left me for three weeks and set up home with ‘her’.

So here I am thirteen years later, apart from Danny again for the first time in those thirteen years, at a time that could trigger so many memories, and make what is already tough totally unbearable. But I don’t dwell on that. Why would I? What would I achieve? Those are two questions I learned to ask myself all those years ago.

I-still use them today.

I know that so many people struggle with the anniversary of Dday, with all the memories of that time, and trust me I struggled too. But by the time that year three had come around I found myself writing in my journal about how I was not prepared to let that dominate my life any more.

I consciously stopped myself doing that whenever I found myself dwelling on what had happened.

Yes, it would fleetingly come into my mind: I used to say that April was ‘not a good month for me’ because my mum had died in April, and my life had been irretrievably changed when ‘The War’ took place.

But part of finding myself was also about understanding that only I had control of my life. Danny was in my life, I loved him, and yes I was broken-hearted; but despite all that I was in control of how I moved forward. All those things were just factors, but I was the one that would make the decision about MY life. I made the decision not to dwell on that particular time of year. Now I don’t even think about it, I am in a new place, why stay in the old one? It wasn’t what I thought it was anyway.

I also knew that dwelling on something so painful was only causing me more pain, and in fact the only person that was causing that pain, at that time, was me! I was the one allowing myself to dwell.

So I made myself stop. I shouted at myself at times, I exercised and I also took up reading psychology and philosophy books that helped me immensely and made me the person that is able to share my experiences with you today, without feeling any pain.

Over the years, Danny and I realised that despite the huge crack in our love story we still loved each other; in fact nearly losing each other made us not only realise but also respect that.

But more than anything fighting so fucking hard to stay together to overcome the voices in our heads, to overcome the fear that makes you feel sick at times, learning that what ‘other people think’ just doesn’t matter, is what brought us here to where we are today.

Different people, but just the same.

So, no, I have not dwelled on what happened, during this time. Instead I have relished and been thankful for the fact that I have a man who loves me so, and how I love him too. I have stopped dwelling on how much time I have to endure before I see him, and focused instead on the wonderful reunion we will have, and how thankful I am that we fought for what we have. I would not change anything, because it made us the strong people that we are today, and is enabling us to get through this.

So at this difficult time, for all those people who are struggling, whose minds are playing games, who ask me ‘how’? How did we do it? This is one of the things I learned: Don’t dwell, and if you find yourself doing so ask yourself these two questions:

Why am I doing this?

What am I-going to achieve?

Stay strong, you have you, and that’s all you need.

Rosie

Making This Better the book is now available including the journal entries for the first 5 years of our recovery & the whole 21 days of ‘The War’. Available internationally in paperback and ebook  at Amazon and Barnes & Noble also available at Xlibris and Apple Books for iPad and Waterstones Bookstores for click & collect