04: Tilting at Windmills

Infidelity is an unskillful coping mechanism. Any other story is built on the lie of wounded egos.

02: Auditing My Life

Regardless of how you experience the intention and impact of infidelity, we all are manipulated by the stories, expectations, promises, ideals, traumas, and fears we bring to the experience. We are the fictional Everyman seeking to protect the imagined safety of the stories, even as the stories eat up our lives.

71: Now What?

I did what I did. Beatrix did what she did. Painter did what she did. Pretty monkeys are gonna fly. We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are ― Anaïs Nin There isn’t much to add at this point. We each have our own reasons, stories, and imaginings about the […]

66: Stories of Stories

I say this knowing just as Painter or Beatrice are not responsible for my betrayal, lies, and secrets, I am not responsible for theirs. At the end of the day how each of us reacts or responds to others is about our relationship to our emotional selves. Essentially, the ways in which we rigidly grasp our stories, imaginings, and entitlements define how we react or respond to the world around us. It defines everything from our suffering to our joys.

Lessons From a Black Friday: Year Four

Four years and time marches on.

57: Stories of Reconciliation

When I say, “through this grief and loss, I gained far more than I lost,” I recognize what I am saying. I may romanticize and idealize Painter and our relationship, but I also realize how much that relationship cost me and how much I gained now that it is over.

40: Coping with the Stories

It would be great if I could simply not do it again. If the wounds, trauma, pain, and anxiety hiding behind infidelity would simply go away. Disappear as if they never existed or as if they belonged to someone else.

14: A Love Letter to the Betrayers – Intent vs Impact

By deferring to my intentions I am essentially saying, “Yes I hear you hurt, but you shouldn’t hurt because that wasn’t my intention.” It carries the same intentions when someone say, “If you really cared you wouldn’t have cheated.”

14: A Love Letter to the Betrayers – Intent vs Impact

11: A Love Letter to the Betrayers: The Monsters

Sure there are monsters, but in truth, most of what we are calling monster behavior is simply someone doing something stupid for stupid and innocent reasons. It’s just poor judgment, not pathological.

There are actually very few monsters.