Hello beautiful people,

Having taken that all mighty leap of faith into the public arena I guess you’re wondering how it went and possibly how I feel about it.

That’s two good questions you’ve asked!  Today, being a couple of days after the event as I have taken some time to integrate and reflect, I believe that overall the show went well and seeing and hearing myself on TV wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be!  The one thing I am already aware of is that it has created a lot of wonderful open and honest discussions from all points of view.  Hooray!  People are at least talking about Infidelity and what is and is not acceptable to them within the boundaries of their relationships.  I have also had people telling me that they are talking about things now with their partners that they have never talked about before watching the show.  Again Hooray!

Some too have told me how they have had their minds expanded as to what other kinds of relationships are out there that they had no idea existed.  Once more, Hooray!

Being a part of the online chat after the show was much more challenging than I had anticipated.  For one we were on speaker phone and being asked questions and having someone else type our answers in for us, overall I must say a great job was done by our typist and hats off to him, although would loved to have done that part ourselves.  I believe Andrew and I also made the mistake of following along online as there was a lag in what we were seeing compared to what we were being asked and with everyone’s questions all being dumped in the same place was really quite confusing. In hindsight (thank goodness for him, as next time we will know to do it differently) not being online ourselves and only focusing on the questions that were being asked over the phone would have been a much better idea.  Oh and having to give very short responses and so quickly I must admit did do my head in a little bit!

I have read over all the comments so far on the Insight webpage and have read over the online chat too (which reads somewhat differently to the way I remember it in real life although it all happened so fast) and realized that I was very open, honest and comfortable with what I was saying on the show.  And in doing so I had forgotten that it had taken me seventeen years to get over the shock, hurt and fear of Andrew’s infidelity and sexuality that I didn’t even stop to consider that that is how some viewers could feel watching it.  I was so in awe of the man sitting beside me and how far we have travelled together to reach the place that we are today that I didn’t think about the fact that not everyone has travelled along with us and seen all the ups and downs of our journey.  Add to that the euphoria of following what I believe is my true purpose in life and I was utterly blissed out!

I don’t think that anything I said was wrong or do I regret it in any way, although had Andrew and I been the only guests on the show I believe that it would have been delivered with more context and allowed the viewers to see more of the unconditional love, respect and commitment that Andrew and I have for each other. In feeling this way I have composed a letter that will be posted under ‘extra’s’ on the Infidelity front page on Insight addressing my feedback to discussions happening on their comments page and will also post it here in another blog for you to read.

I guess you’re also wondering what it’s been like interacting in my local community since being on national TV talking about such a controversial subject as infidelity let alone revealing to the whole of Australia how Andrew and I choose to live our lives.  At first that was a little bizarre as I found myself wondering as I went passed someone did they see me and what did they think.  Then I allowed myself to slip into a little fear and had thoughts about people yelling obscenities across the street to me or coming up and slapping me in the face.  Fortunately before I allowed those thoughts to really grab hold of me I replaced them with visions of people approaching me and saying thank you and asking if they could give me a hug.  Although thankfully too before those thoughts got the better of me I allowed myself to just to accept everything exactly as it is and not read anything into it good or bad!  What a relief.

To the people who know us thank you for all your wonderful feedback, support and unconditional love then, now and always.  To those of you who don’t know us and got something out of Andrew and I sharing our story with you via Insight thanks for being so open and willing to receive and to those of you who let us know of your gratitude we thank you for sharing that with us.

Love & hugs,

Lyndal

‘practice what you passion’®