I can go ahead and admit it was a mistake to stumble down the blackhole of comments left on an article about a man who very publicly betrayed his wife. Turns out everybody on the planet knows exactly what they would do if their husband did that to them. Except that they don’t.

I have gotten pretty tired of the phrase “If my husband ever. . .” This goes equally (or maybe double) for the phrase “If my child ever.” Do you know who says that stuff? People who have never actually experienced facing that situation. So you know how much their opinion should count? Not much.

Here’s the thing– I am the type of person who would typically say such a phrase. I have thought through a thousand worst case scenarios. I have read all the articles and a couple books about what to do and not to do in situation XYZ. Such situations could never possibly happen to me because I know all the right things to do, so I’m happy to tell you exactly how I would handle it if the worst thing happened. And it’s so EASY for me to tell you because I am 100% confident that thing will never happen to me because of how awesomely I will prevent it. (can you sense my sarcasm?)

But here’s the thing– in spite of all the books I’ve read, the prayers I prayed, and my personal awesomeness (again with the sarcasm), I have experienced some pretty dark times. I have had to look full in the face my own ideas about what I would do if a terrible thing happened. And you know what? I didn’t do what I thought I might.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

My first experience with this was our infertility diagnosis. I had wanted to be a mother my entire life (and while I always had a heart for foster care and adoption, I also had a STRONG desire to experience pregnancy). I watched my older sister walk through infertility and I remember thinking “If I can’t get pregnant I will just die.” But you know what, when you’re sitting there in the doctor’s office and he reads off the results of your expensive testing, he doesn’t then say, “So, would you like to proceed with infertility treatments, would you like to pursue adoption, or would you like to just die?” The reality is that my “I will just die” philosophy about how to handle infertility kept me from actually having to have compassion for someone dealing with infertility. I would just die, but YOU have to handle it because you are some other kind of person than me– the kind of person who wouldn’t just die. That way of thinking eliminates any empathy response.

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