Paradox of Healing

But if you decide to work on your relationship post-affair, you must accept a hard truth: Another affair can happen. This is the paradox of healing, Seidel said. ~  Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.

How can another hurt heal an owie?
Sure, sometimes a hangnail hurts
until you smash a toe and forget the nail!
But it still hurts, the new one didn't change it —
just refocused the mind.
But that's enough, isn't it?
A baby falls, protests loudly
then a bouncing ball banishes all pain.
Sometimes, though, pain lingers through coddling,
through self-pity, through grudge-building.
Sometimes we deal with the pain
by planning vengeance, by trying to change another.
Sometimes we hurt for taking on life-living
for someone else, doing none of our business.
And when we stop
hurts heal.