If anyone had a reason to feel sorry for himself, or to feel great anger, one could say I did. In fact, all my friends said I did. That I had justifiable (legal) cause for anger, legal right to fight hard for retribution for my suffering.
I was living in Saudi at the time, far out in the desert, abandoned with four dogs, a pile of excruciating memories, “betrayal”, and an enormous hole where I used to be.
At night I would float on my back in the unkempt pool, staring at the stars, building up the nerve to take a deep breathe, a series of deep breaths, and go under. Night after night I floated between darknesses, water at my chin, centimeters away from the end. Chipped paint. Broken and missing tiles.
But other then the initial shock, it never occurred to me to be angry at my wife, though I did feel great sadness.
That my sweet, wonderful partner of fifteen years had experienced love with another man, intimacy, true connection, and a realization that would lead to our parting years later, I would eventually feel grateful for.
If I had any potential for sustained anger, it would be at myself for having been unable to give her what she found so beautiful somewhere else. For having failed to be compassionate when she described the emotional suffering she went through during her affair. For having failed to give her the love she needed, when she needed it most.
For all the missed hugs. Distracted moments. Selfishness.
When I lay on the water, hearing only the pounding of my own heart, the ringing of my own ears, it was at myself the possibility for anger appeared, at myself the possibility for hatred.
To prevent the anger from consuming me, to endure the nightmares that would follow her departure for another kind of love and life, and to become an even better person from the experience, I needed a new and very effective belief system, a new and powerful way to see the universe…
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