Anne's Infidelity Story
I had been married for eighteen years when my unwanted infidelity experience began. One day, my husband came home and told me that he'd been seeing another woman.
I was shocked. There had been no warning signs.
I thought affairs happened to bad people in bad marriages, or to people who didn't pay attention to their marriages like we did! But, Brian and I had a good marriage.
How could this happen to us? I loved and adored my husband.
Words cannot begin to describe the intense pain I felt when I heard Brian say the words, “Anne, I've been seeing someone else.” There was physical pain, not just emotional pain.
Two days later I was putting pressure on Brian, “Who is it going to be: her or me?”
“Her!” he screamed at me, totally frustrated. He wasn't going to let go of his affair partner.
So that was it. Our marriage had ended, without problems and without warning.
Brian was my best friend, my lover, the one I had shared countless memories and holidays with. Now my marriage was over with no hope at all. Or so I thought.
I began making plans to move with my children back to Europe where I'm from...
Then I received some very good advice from my friends, advice that played a significant role in saving my marriage.
“Anne, you can leave this marriage if you want. You have every right to do so and nobody would blame you. But we've seen you and Brian together. We know Brian loves you. We don't understand what's going on right now, but we really encourage you: don't make any major decisions while you're in the emotion of the moment. Just wait three months before you decide anything.”
Two weeks later Brian came home and wanted to work on our marriage. No flowers, no getting on his knees begging my forgiveness; none of the things one would expect. “I guess I'm home,” he said, sounding anything but enthusiastic.
Chaos ensued. Wrong reactions make a bad situation worse.
From that broken place we rebuilt our marriage. Our well-meaning friends, family and pastor went all-out to help us. But, because of the “code of secrecy” regarding affairs, people often didn't know how to really support us through this devastating journey.
While I was surviving my own personal nightmare, I was sure I was going through the worst thing a person possibly could. I knew my story was the worst possible one. This wasn't supposed to happen to me!
It took us two-and-a-half years to rebuild our marriage. Today we're both stronger and more in love than ever. I remember the affair, but I no longer have pain attached to the memory.
Once I survived my own personal nightmare and came out on the other side healed, I wondered: “Why is no one talking about this epidemic in our culture?”
That's when I decided to write my book entitled, My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me. I wrote the book I wished I had while going through the trauma of Brian's affair. The personal growth that resulted from the pain of the affair spurred me to pursue life with passion; to dare to be me instead of living my life to please others.
One day while reading the newspaper I stumbled upon the story of a famous woman named Peggy Vaughan. She had written her own story of her husband's affair and had gone on to achieve amazing things in here life.
Through her website, DearPeggy.com, I saw that she had founded a network of support groups for betrayed spouses. I also saw there was no support anywhere in Canada west of the province of Ontario. So, I signed up as a Beyond Affairs Network (BAN) coordinator. The next thing I knew people were sending me their broken heart stories from all over Western Canada.
Being a BAN coordinator has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and Peggy Vaughan became my personal mentor.
Eventually Peggy asked me to become her successor and take over the leadership of BAN. The moment she asked, I knew my answer was yes. In my heart I knew that I had been prepared for such a time as this.
In my “pre-affair” life, I worked for a consultant running business leadership seminars. However, my true passion has always been marriage, family and relationships. Now I have been able to take the same skills I developed over years as a business trainer and coach, applying them to help marriages and families instead.
NOTE: This is a very brief personal summary of Anne's Infidelity Story. To read about the full infidelity experience from devastation to full recovery, purchase her bestselling book, My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me. It captures all of the emotions and explains how to recover from affairs and how to prevent them.