2:24 a.m. - 2005-05-07
Humpty Dumpty Sat on the Wall
A few nights ago hubby asked me if I "felt like talking?". This kind of verbage is highly unlike hubby and warning signals immediately began to go off in my mind.
He began with "Let me give you a word picture.." (Oh BOY, I was in deep shit, I thought, although the word picture really impressed me as a way to convey his feelings) and then he proceeded;
"There was a man who saw a box in front of him. The box was ticking. Written on the box was "Open me". Fearful of the contents, the man built a wall around himself to keep the box outside. A short time later he looked at the top of the wall, and there it was again...So he built the wall even higher to keep it out.
Finally, he found one day that the box was sitting right at his feet and he finally could no longer resist it. So he opened it. What was in the box?"
I had a pretty good idea of what was in the box but I still prayed and replied: "I don't know?" "Please stop this game-playing and tell me?"
He had found a "stealth" email address (being the computer geek he is and me being the careless keeper of records that I am) I had been using to correspond with a friend of the male gender. And some of the things that were written there were a little upsetting to him.
What can I say? I was going through a really insecure period and was basically using this site as an ego booster for a brief time. Since then, the writing had settled into a much more innocent exchange, as I have become more and more confident in myself and my relationship with the world around me. I never intended to follow through on anything, I was just playing a game to make myself feel a little more important. Still, dangerous territory, I admit......
Unfortunately, with the track record of my first two marriages known all too intimately by hubby, it was hard to convince him of this. (why did I ever feel that early in our relationship I had to spill my guts about absolutely EVERYTHING to this man???) I have never even thought of an impropriety (sp?) with ANYONE else during the 15 years WE'VE been together. But a garden untended sometimes becomes full of weeds.
OH, the pain I could see in his eyes,.... the uncertainty. I felt like someone had pierced my OWN heart. Such a wonderful man, and me, causing this pain so unnecessarily.....
We talked for what seemed like days, really only an hour or so...and I was very straightforward with him. He had always told me that my past was my past...and until he ever had a reason to doubt me, he would never hold it against me, or use it in an angry battle as a weapon. He had been able to keep his promise until now! (a feat that I will readily admit I could probably not have managed!) Not once had he ever doubted my wherabouts, intentions, etc. Until now.
I think by the time we finished talking, I had truly made him understand how I'd stumbled into this little game and how sorry I was that I had caused him this pain he was experiencing. Midlife had recently hit me like a train and I felt like a stranger in my own skin. (Hell, I never felt that comfortable in it anyway!) We had become somewhat negligent lately in tending our relationship. Pretty typical stuff. I was just very grateful that this game never resulted in anything more than words on a page and the occasional flirtation at the work counter. If I had been forced to see that pain in hubby's eyes, AND had known that I had crossed that line in the sand....I would have been very, very sorry. There, quite possibly, may have been no turning back for me.
A day or so later, and out of the clear blue, hubby comes up to me, hugs me and says "I forgive you" I knew he was sincere about it and that is part of the reason his soul "sucked me in" so quickly during that first early period of acquaintance. That is part of why I could leave my marriage and children for him, facing monster judgement and scorn from all those around me who could not grasp how a mother could do such a thing, and jump into totally unknown waters after just two weeks of knowing him....married him after three months, and loved him intensely for 15 years.
Things have been pretty much back to normal since that evening. We are listening to the cd's together and we're both on the same emotional page with the ideas we're hearing. I'm very excited about how much deeper we can love, putting the teachings into practice together, sharing one mind on such matters.....God knows the brainwashing we've received for years in the church didn't free us from our demons. Maybe the truth will, if not free us....give us the weapons to at least hold them at bay....
