For those who have attempted and/or succeeded in repairing a marriage after infidelity, you comprehend the delicate nature, the emerging, yet old, and, yet, again, oddity that is a once familiar relationship…

You know all too well just how long the effects ripple, how in love–in life–there are subtle changes, nuances in behavior that occasionally cause a featherlike, “That’s odd,” or “That’s different.”

Sometimes a fleeting mental acknowledgement… sometimes a sixth-sense, emotional whisper… Most of us dismiss the recognition, pass it off, receive it into our being, really, as a natural part of life’s undulation…

For those of us who have experienced infidelity in the flesh, most will say, afterward, “Looking back, there were signs…” Subtle shifts that are as common to human behavior as breathing. And, yet, exhalations that can also be bright, neon warning signs on the marital highway: Danger Ahead!

For those who are witness to the wreckage that is wrought in adultery, questions sometimes swirl in their own lives as they take stock and ponder… Could it happen to anyone? To me?

Therein lies a simple truth: None of us are exempt from strife. And we can never know what we will do in a situation until we come face to face with it.

How many of those who have strayed have thought they would never find themselves in that situation?

How many people have said, “I can’t believe he or she would do soemthing like that.”

When attempting to mend the marriage, we must work toward forgiveness and to reestablishing trust. We must aim to understand the complex nature of its origins, culling out culpability from blame, even when the two blur.

We must nurture the five facets of our existence, even when the elements wrestle with each other and seemingly conspire to keep us in a holding pattern. We must weed out thought from emotion, reaction from reality, and power through each glitch big or small, even when we feel we have nothing left…

The day before this blog went live was a day of reckonciling (yes, a word I made up.) Here is the definition:

Reckonciling: In healing from loss, the inevitable point at which one experiences integration within the self’s five facets–the academic, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual.

For those who have been my solace, my confidants, inspirers and greatest supporters, thank you… I love you. And to all, those people who are as comfortable in my life as an old pair of shoes, and new acquaintances entering my life through this blog:

Best as you journey into tomorrow….

Soon…