Why The Breadcrumb Journey?
I’m here to celebrate how far I’ve come, to share with you my journey so far and also to create a space where I can document my journey as it evolves to whats next.
Back in 2019, my world shattered when my husband of 16 years had an affair. The affair lasted just shy of a year, but it ended and restarted many times throughout those months. I wanted to stay. I wanted to believe it was the other woman’s fault. I handed out second, third, and fourth chances like candy bars on Halloween. I worked so hard to heal, and just when I thought a scab was forming and healing was close, I’d catch them again. New wounds opened on top of scars that hadn’t yet healed. It was relentless.
That was the year I was shattered. I became a shell of myself. A once-confident woman and happy mother spent the entire year - and some of the ones after - crying, ruminating, obsessing.
I tried therapy. No matter how many different therapists I talked to, my body never stopped feeling like there was an elephant sitting on my chest, like my world was about to come crashing down at any moment. I never felt safe, no matter how many therapy session I did or how many times my husband tried to reassure me that the affair had ended.
One of the hardest parts? The woman he had the affair with had once been a friend. We live in a small town, and I was forced to interact with her constantly - our kids were friends. It was torture every single time I had to see her.
At one of my therapy sessions, I said, “This just isn’t fair. Why do they keep doing this?”
What my therapist said next sparked my breadcrumb journey: “Let them be your teacher. Every time you’re around them, listen to your body. Let them guide you to what your healing journey needs to be.”
And that’s what I did.
That’s when I realized: there is no single path to healing. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Healing happens one breadcrumb at a time.
I couldn’t see the entire road ahead - and I didn’t need to. I just needed to follow the next breadcrumb. Maybe that breadcrumb was breathwork. Then EMDR. Then a book on codependency. Each one led me somewhere new, somewhere I didn’t expect. The path kept changing direction based on what my body and mind needed next. And that was okay.
I didn’t have to eat the whole loaf at once. I just had to pick up the next crumb and trust it would lead me forward.
So every time I was around them - around her - I listened to the messages my body was giving me. I started learning about my nervous system. I did breathwork and EMDR. I educated myself on how trauma is stored in the body and the impact is has on our brain and decision making. I discovered that I’m the only one who has control over my nervous system and how to regulate it.
I started doing the work to recognize that how other people show up in the world is not my responsibility.
I read everything I could get my hands on: books on healing from infidelity, dealing with narcissistic abuse, removing vices like alcohol so I could truly understand what was happening in my body. As I tackled each new lesson, I became a student of my own healing. I worked with educators and therapists specific to the topic at hand and I continued to read…..a lot! I obsorbed anything that felt authentic to where I was on my journey at that time.
One of the most pivotal lessons in my journey came from reading Codependent No More by Melanie Beattie. That’s when I realized it wasn’t my job to fix my marriage. There were two people who lived in the container of our marriage. If two people didn’t want to save it, I couldn’t do it alone. It wasn’t my job to do his work and his work wasn’t my responsibility.
Since 2019, I’ve left my marriage. I filed for divorce in 2023 after 20 years of marriage and have navigated a two-and-a-half-year battle with an extremely high-conflict, angry man since then. And I couldn’t be more proud of how I’ve handled it.
Throughout much of my divorce, my future looked like the edge of a cliff. I couldn’t see a path forward so I just focused on my healing. I focused on doing what I needed to do to survive the gaslighting, the manipulation tactics, everything that comes with divorcing someone with narcissistic tendencies.
No mater what the divorce threw at me, I just kept showing up for myself and my kids.
My divorce is a few weeks away from being finalized and now that I’m at the end of that journey, I can finally see a road ahead. And it feels amazing.
The next step on my journey is coming back to myself - refocusing on my health from the inside out. I’m starting with a functional medicine practitioner. I need to heal my nervous system, my body and my mind. The dream is to eventually complete the certification to become a Trauma-informed Life Coach and also a Divorce Coach to help other’s find their next breadcrumb to healing.
I want to continue focusing on the journey of what’s next for me - not as a way to survive, but as a way to thrive. I am so excited for whatever is next for me, even though I still don’t know what that is. I have goals and dreams but I need to heal first. That’s what brought me here. To share and celebrate the thing that I thought would kill me, but actually made me love myself and my life so much more.
If you’re reading this and you’re in the middle of your own storm - whether it’s infidelity, divorce, or just trying to find yourself again - I see you. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m documenting what I’m learning along the way. This is my breadcrumb trail. Maybe some of these crumbs will help light your path too.
I’m here to remind you that you don’t need to see the whole path. You don’t need to know how this ends. You only need the next breadcrumb. If this space helps you find it, even once, then it’s doing its job.