The storm is only temporary

The disastrous, beautiful aftermath of infidelity

Story by Neisha Gaskins

Published March 7, 2026

Photo credit: Engin Akyurt from Pexels

He was, in fact, not great. I knew that, and I should’ve seen it coming.

All the signs were there, right in front of my face. The storm was loud, gnashing through lightning and thunder. Instead I turned the other way, waiting and wishing the sun would shine through.

How was I supposed to move through what was supposed to be a happy ending? Where was the love and future I was promised? It was ripped from me, and I felt like a body without a soul. The flesh was there, with the bones and wrinkles and organs, but I lost the foundation necessary to trust anybody, including myself. 

CHLO

Chlo Ordello was with their boyfriend for nine months when they learned he was seeing other people. From the get-go, their relationship was less than ideal, but he was a man with hobbies, a musician with charm and depth. He captivated them.

“For me, part of why I thought he was so cool and interesting was because he was unlike any guy I had ever personally dated before,” Ordello said. “He was a musician. He was more alternative and indie and had an actual personality to him.”

Despite his flaws, Ordello described him as a “pretty package.” They were willing to endure what he put them through, having a hard time grasping just how corrupt the relationship truly was. “It was very codependent from the start. He was very abusive, so there was a lot of emotional and mental manipulation,” Ordello said. “From the time that we got together, he was cheating on me.”

His phone in one hand, the other on the steering wheel, Ordello’s world shattered in seconds. As the winds changed, the storm blew in, and all previous signs began to make sense — the warnings of not knowing he was at band practice, his friends blocking Ordello on social media — the alarms were ringing and the pieces were falling into place.

“I was supposed to bring his phone to him at work ‘cause we were living together,” Ordello said. “I saw something in his notifications that gave me a prompt to go further … I found way more than I ever thought I would.”

Their anger, hot and ready to boil over, came out as they yelled at him in the middle of the road on Railroad Avenue. In the following days, grief consumed Ordello as they began to mourn a relationship they weren’t ready to let go of. 

Despite his deplorable actions, ones that made Ordello question their self-worth, they went back to him. He promised he’d do better, and they decided to try again.

“The next couple of days after that, it was truly like numbness paired with disgust,” Ordello said. Choosing to stay, Ordello said, was completely out of character. Being so strong-willed, they were shocked at their inability to walk away.

Ordello wouldn’t let their boyfriend touch them. They wouldn’t look him in the eye. They were back together, yes, but the pain of the betrayal had joined them.

“I feel like it was that grieving period, but also like I shoved myself into not fully being able to grieve,” they said. “It was just being numb ‘cause I couldn’t be angry. I would have doubts, and I’d be like, ‘I feel like you’re cheating on me again.’”

Ordello sank deeper, experiencing a health crisis, leaving them disabled. Their boyfriend caring for them only strengthened the codependency in the relationship. By the time they were broken up, Ordello was using a wheelchair. 

The night before Ordello and their boyfriend were supposed to move in together, he snuck in as Ordello slept. He took two things: his birth certificate and his most expensive guitar, then left. 

“He blocked me on every social media, he blocked my number. I didn’t hear from him for two weeks, and we’d been together for almost two years,” Ordello said. “It got so bad that I would have never gotten better when I was with him, and where I was when I was with him, I was never gonna be strong enough to leave.”

With disability assistance, Ordello was able to move into their own place, get a job and begin therapy. As a result, they managed to see a light shine through.

“I started doing a lot of physical and occupational therapy when I was in a wheelchair and regaining my motor function,” they said. “I was meeting people through art and connecting with the people I was meeting (through occupational therapy).”

To Ordello, healing starts when you grant yourself the space to reflect and forgive.

“In order to create and tell your story and really understand your own individual experience, you have to have forgiveness,” they said. “It’s really forgiveness for yourself.”

M

It was a fight that set them apart, one that made him distant and question their compatibility entirely. “There were a lot of pieces to that disagreement. She kind of flipped it on me,” M said, so he began to distance himself from his relationship. 

July 19 was the day of M’s brother’s birthday party. M got caught up with one of his brother’s friends, a girl, flirting and finding a connection elsewhere. 

July 20, M and the girl met up. On July 21, the storm blew in.

While visiting his girlfriend, ready to explain to her what had happened the night prior, a text beat him to it. The other woman involved reached out, and in a moment, one text sent M on a downward spiral. 

“I felt so disassociated. Nothing felt real those three days … I never thought I could do anything like that,” M said. “Genuinely, I hated myself … I thought everyone hated me.”

His girlfriend made him leave her house, and in the days following, M faced thoughts of suicide and nonstop judgment from those around him. Reconnecting with his faith and talking things through with a therapist was M’s way of seeing the sun again.

“I did go through a healing journey, but it took a while,” M said. “There were some unhealthy solutions at the beginning, but I found my faith back in my Bible and giving time to therapy.”

By looking within, coming face to face with the storm, M managed to find forgiveness for himself and reflect. 

“I taught myself again that I too deserve love, even though of my flaws and faults,” M said. “I learned I can’t judge anyone about their past. You are not your mistakes.”

J

J and her boyfriend dated for about a year before she saw dark clouds brewing on the horizon. Their relationship started out warm and sunny. Things were good until she graduated from university.

“We were kind of at that weird medium distance,” J said. “I was working a bunch, he was still in school, so there just wasn’t a lot of time to see each other.”

J began to notice a change during her birthday trip. While playing a game of pool, bar bustling with celebration, he was tuned in to his phone. “It was kind of this indescribable gut feeling,” she said. “It’s like you have that feeling that something is off, but you can’t quite place it.”

Without any physical proof that her boyfriend was being unfaithful, J tried to push the overwhelming ache aside. “I was scared to assume anything because I certainly had the rose-colored glasses on, but at the same time, the intuition was like, ‘Hey, you should really pay attention to this and maybe even do something about it,’” J said.

It started with a Tinder profile. J’s friend found his photos on the app, but he claimed he was only using it to find friends. Chills erupted all over J’s body when she found out, jittering with nerves. “I was trying to make sense of something and the only person I could get answers from was the person who inflicted this pain on me,” J said. “How can I actually believe what you’re saying, because you have the power to hurt somebody that clearly loves you.”

It wasn’t until her boyfriend came to J himself to confess his infidelity that she would decide to leave him. 

Sitting at the dining table with her family, J had just taken a bite of her food. She looked down at her phone and read a text from her boyfriend that read, “We need to talk. I’ve been seeing someone.” Over the phone, he detailed his newfound relationship with a girl he met at a bar a week before J’s birthday trip. 

“He was hanging out with her and told me, ‘Oh, we’ve hung out a couple times, and we’ve cuddled and we’ve kissed, but that’s not cheating,’” J said. 

Holding onto hope, J sifted through the rubble to find a possible solution. “I’m fighting for someone that literally hurt me and clearly does not have my best interest in mind,” J said. When the pain of the situation began to reflect externally, with J losing weight and drinking to cope, she realized that she was no longer herself.

“There’s literally no better way to describe it than just being a shell of a human, and everyone around me could see it,” J said. “Even if I tried to put on a happy facade, there were so many cracks in that facade … It literally felt like I was just on autopilot.”

Refusing to avoid the storm, J walked into it headfirst. Despite having plans to move in with her ex, plans changed and she shifted her focus.

“I’ve just been a lot more mindful about who I’m giving my time and my space and my energy to when it comes to meeting new people,” J said. An interaction with a customer while at work provided J with a new life mantra: “I’m awake and I’m alive, and that’s plenty of reason to have a good day.”

Filling her time with family and friends while prioritizing time with herself was how J began to move toward healing.

“I found my strength again and my resilience is just remembering I am capable of whatever I wanna do,” J said. “I just have to let myself do things… Acknowledge what happened, but don’t let it scare me into continuing to live my life the way I want.”

ME

The flesh of my body was still there, paired with the realization that the foundation I lost had been the trust in myself, not him. Through the distant roll of thunder, the wind shifting its path, a flash of lightning introduced a downpour of rain.

My gut, a sounding alarm that I should’ve listened to from the start, was what was truly betrayed. I exchanged clarity of my instincts for the comfort of denial, which left me adrift.

Healing, for me, was not about trying to conquer or tame the storm in front of me, but rebuilding the internal compass that had led me astray. I could not control the clouds he’d placed over my life, but I could control how I navigated beneath them, rain beating against my skin, pooling beneath my feet.

When the clouds gathered, I let myself listen to the quiet, constant voice that told me what I already knew. I reminded myself that my safety was never found in the promise of another person, but in the unwavering commitment to my own judgment. 

I told myself to never silence the storm. In due time, the clouds began to part on their own, and beneath a hazy drizzle was a stronger, more soulful version of me, gazing at a pale blue sky.