It’s proven, once again … I can’t even help my own children before helping myself!

As I always said and believed, you can’t help others without helping yourself, and this time is for your own children. If you yourself can’t handle the situation well, if you yourself is so miserable how are you going to deal with your children’s emotion and how are you going to build a loving relationship and keeping the bonding with your children?

I deeply experienced how my emotion was affected my children during my recovery process. I was so miserable myself until the point that I totally ignored their need and worse, I unleashed my emotion to them just to make myself feel better, yet it only made me feel even worst after my emotional outburst. Only then I realized I need to set my feet firm and grow from my mistake, to save myself from drowning, only then I’ll be able to taking good care to my two young children.

As I told Julia recently, keeping the marriage after an affair is almost as difficult as recovery from a divorce, one will need at least two to three years time to be healed and recovered, and to be able to climb up from the hole, but if you are able to gone through and survived from this stage, you will eventually be rewarded and enjoy a whole new, better relationship. And again, your mind set and attitude, as well as how you deal with it will lead you to a totally different direction and outcome.

Julia was stuck with the idea of the “two years” reconstruction period, she told me what if after two years he is still with the woman? or worse if their relationship grow stronger within this two years? why would I wasting my two years time for an uncertain future with him?

These are what most people think and react in such a situation, pointing and examining to the other person, but forgetting the most important person in the whole scene, ourselves. As always said, we can’t change or control others, the only one we can change and control, is ourselves. Even then, we have the ability to influence.

The essential message I’m trying to explain to Julia was, the “two years” is never for him, or for the other woman, but for her. Yes, the “two years” is for us, for us who is willing to improve and grow, for us who understand the situation and willing to take the effort to better prepared ourselves, to become a better person, to build a stronger ground, so to deal with the unforeseen future with faith and confidence, so to demonstrating a good manner, so to reflecting your every positive effort, and eventually be able to lead out a positive influence to your marriage.

Although we will never know what’s the outcome will be after two years, but compare to what we gained from the whole learning process, it will never be wasted. No matter where’s the relationship state will be, with the stability in you, you will be able to deal with it more firmly, you will be able to walk your path with dignity, and putting least impact to your children.

Looking back, we’ll sure be grateful for what we have learn and done, and smile our way to enter to another stage of our life.