I am sorry for your loss. it's never easy when we find ourselves in these kinds of painful situations. Hopefully, the following few words will make some sense to you, but even if they don't help you right away, I trust that in the days and months ahead you will receive the help they are intended to bring.

So first: your pain is not to be denied, but rather used by you. Instead of allowing it to use you up with useless self-condemnation, or raging regret and resentment, learn to use it. How is that done? Start by realizing that your sense of loss is as great as it is because you wrongly believed that you could find the wholeness your heart longs for in the eyes, heart, and mind of another human being. Yes...a good relationship can bring us happiness, joy, and a sense of love; these are good things and part of the simple pleasure of being a human being. But the real reason for our relationships with others is for something altogether different, something of a higher order that can be stated like this: relationships, whatever their nature, are there for us to learn the truth about ourselves through them. And remember, what is true never judges or condemns what it reveals. So, don't fall into that trap. Your husbands actions are not a reflection of your character unless you insist on seeing yourself that way.

Don't let bitterness lead you into the belief, as it wants to do, that real Love doesn't exist. It does...but the lesson is we must learn to look for it in the right place. Whenever we discover (as we always do, eventually) that everything -- even the best of things -- is temporary, then we are on the right road to finding what is everlasting that already lives within us.

The mind, as it is presently constituted, thrives on conflict . . . having problems to solve and positions to protect. To see this -- as a fact in oneself -- is the beginning of the end of our consent to allow it to drive us mad. If you have decided to go ahead with the relationship, then see this constant resurfacing of the pain not as an issue with him, but rather one of your own present inability to keep your own heart and mind present, in spite of the temptation to revisit the past (what I call the "scene of the crime"). Make the best choice you know to make at this time, and get on with your life . . . with or without him, but -- most importantly -- without this part of you that can't wait to create worry and resentment over what is no longer in question.

The "immoral woman" in Proverbs 5:3-6 is first and foremost the creation of desire itself, and not a person, although individuals can and do reflect and express the qualities that follow that passage, and, by the way, this passage in the Old Testament is not too dissimilar from the New Testament passage about serving two masters: one you love, the other you despise. The key here to understand is that you became a captive of a relationship that had to "die" the painful death it did because it began in a kind of death. There is no such thing as resolving the pain you have through pursuing her to "make things right." That's just the same weakness that wrecked you in the first place, trying to drag you deeper into its maze of mistaken ideas about happiness and love. Let this go... hard as it is to do so. Just drop, over and over again, the longing to regain what you imagine you had. If you will see the truth of what I tell you here, you will succeed in freeing yourself of this person and the pain produced each time your false self longs for her.

Would you like to hear a timeless truth that most of us have either forgotten we already know or that is sadly discounted today because of the prevailing sick socioeconomic conditions? Honesty is its own reward. We receive, moment to moment, the "reward" of our own nature. Let the liars lie. You be true. That is all you have to know and do. Don't be concerned with the liar's fate; it is sealed with every lie told.

Our present mind knows of only two possible ways to turn when faced with a personal crisis. But neither of the directions it knows to look in ever resolve anything. Whenever painful events happen, they tend to fall on only one of two sides of a person. The first side is the denial side. When turning this way, refusal rules. Regret, self-pity and endless explanations generally follow. Or, the life blow falls on the angry side where the turning is to burning. Resentment rages. Hatred and feelings of betrayal mushroom into self-righteous plans for avenging the wrong. But what both these sad sides have in common is that they keep the person between them a victim -- turning in vain from one side to the other -- only to find nothing changes except for the kind of pain found there.

But there exists a third way to turn, a superior choice that leads to a higher life level where neither confusion, conflict, nor crisis is found. I call this higher direction "Turning To Learning." Turning to learning begins with the honest recognition that our present approach to solving personal problems just doesn't work. This may come as a surprise: Learning to live without recurring problems begins with losing faith in our habitual responses that tell us how to be free of them.

Losing confidence in your own heated, or heavy-hearted, reactions does not mean that you have to see yourself in a disparaging light, any more than stepping out of the way of a runaway truck would make you think of yourself as a coward. The superior way for us to deal with personal crisis situations is to let the runaway truck pass us by because we know it's only a mindless machine. We realize it can't recognize the danger its own undirected nature represents. This means that we must learn to let our own habitual reactions roll by us because, just like the wild truck, these reactions of ours are mechanical in nature. And since we know that machines can't learn, this means neither will we learn what is really needed to free ourselves as long we allow our reactions to lead the way.

Reactions never reveal. They conceal. Remaining under the rule of any reaction limits your choices in life to only the direction that reaction gives you to take. But the key point is this: no reaction-supplied direction can ever lead anywhere higher than the level of the reaction. If these mechanical responses actually knew as much as they pretend to, we wouldn't be repeating the patterns that always lead us back to the same kind of personal problems. It should be clear. Our mechanical reactions are at the root of our persistent problems, and not the way out of them.

Don't be concerned that what is required of you in some moment of crisis is more than you know how to handle -- that if you let your usual reactions go by, you might find yourself unable to learn what you must do. You will learn!

The whole process of self-liberation through higher learning is under definite spiritual laws. The very act of turning away from mechanical reactions is the same as facing in the direction of a free mind. You'll find that who you really are is an endless learning ground, a limitless possibility for higher and higher self-discovery.

All of us have wronged others. Truth be known, until we wake up, we are all in one form or another in wrong relationships. That's why the key to correcting what we consider to be a faulty past is to work to be awake in the present. The wrong parts of us want to keep themselves alive by continually dragging before our mind's eye all that we have been wrong in doing. Then we react to these images and in one form or another resist them, which secretly continues both their lives and our wrong behavior. Drop all of your concerns for what is no longer, and be intent on being conscious of what is before you. This changes things. There are times when the greatest strength (and kindness) one can possess is to allow another his weakness without pointing it out or otherwise punishing him for it.