Tonight, it will have been one year since D-day. One year since he told me, you will probably hate me for this, but I've been seeing someone else. One year since I felt such relief that the sudden storm that had come upon our marriage was not actually all my fault, and I was really not going crazy. One year since I naively thought he would end it at any moment, since he had been honest enough to tell me.

We are 7 1/2 months into recovery, and it is beginning to seem like it was all a nightmare, and at some point I woke up. The occasional sighting or mail delivery attempt adds a jarring note of reality.

There are definitely more good days than bad days. I still have many bad thoughts, and flashes of remembrance. Even just yesterday it popped into my mind again that they probably took showers together, the thought of which has bothered me for a long time. And every time I see a Holiday Inn Express sign it is a trigger, too. The big difference is that they are blips on my otherwise happy, busy day, instead of being a big dark cloud hanging over every moment of what I do and say. So that is progress.

He is still being so wonderful. Everything he does is meant to show me that he loves me, and that he is being open and honest with me. We are still struggling a bit in the communication area (me more than him), but even that is improving as we continue to make the effort to change.

I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but my stages of grief have been really weird. Eventually I did start to feel major anger and resentment, occasionally finding some kind of acceptance only to be returned in a moment to the hurt and the hate by some little reminder of what happened. Now I am mostly caught between acceptance and disbelief.

A part of me may never in my whole life be able to accept or understand that my dear husband, my other half, my best friend, could betray me in the most personal, deep way possible, and cause the worst screaming agony I have felt in my whole life, that just went on and on and on for months. On purpose, without regard for my well-being, my feelings, or my pain. It is mind-boggling to me.

The accepting part of me feels that, although these terrible things happened, and I don't understand them, that life has gone on, that our marriage and love are better than ever before, and we stand before God united in a way we have not experienced till now. And that if our life is so wonderful now, that the most important thing is embracing that, rather than spinning my mental wheels trying to understand something that cannot be understood.

In the wee hours this morning, after we had spent some quality time with each other, he pulled me close and I snuggled in, wearing the silky pink pajamas he had just bought me for Valentine's Day (note I said 'silky' and not 'silk' - silk would never survive the Dervish, so it's fortunate that I think a cotton/poly blend is sexy and even more fortunate that HE thinks the same thing), it didn't even bother me as much as I expected to be in the first few hours of this dark anniversary.

So I have been not depressed, not angry, but just contemplative and grateful for what God has done in our lives.

Next year will be even better.