CAKE-EATING

[butterflymom]

Back to the original intent of this thread – cake eating.

My H was probably one of the worst offenders by most people’s standards and I was the biggest doormat in the history of doormats. I never saw it that way. I actually lost good friends because they didn’t want me to be nice to my H. Actually had a huge argument with someone I thought was a good friend about how he didn’t think what H was doing was good for the kids and that he wanted me to be mean to him. Unbelievable. I asked him if he thought being mean was going to be beneficial to my kids. His answer – you can fake niceness when they are around, but you don’t have to be nice to him around other people.

So then I asked, don’t you think D10 is smart enough to tell the difference between genuine niceness and fake niceness? What would I gain by being mean to him? I agreed that what he was doing was not beneficial to the kids and that was why I had to do all I could do make up for it and I felt that treating him with kindness and respect as the father of our children was a big way of accomplishing this.

He still didn’t get it and that was the last time I talked to him until after H came home. He and his wife are slowly coming around to the idea that maybe I wasn’t so crazy after all.

H and I had sex pretty much the entire time that he was living with someone else. He maintains that it was the one bond that kept us from totally falling apart. That me allowing him into my life and the kids lives unfettered and without difficulty made it difficult for him to let me go completely. That me praying for him and OW (and telling him that I was doing so) was incredible to him and that the grace I showed to him while he was being an a$$ was unbelievable.

I prayed everyday that God show me the way. I prayed that God help me to love my H like He loves us, unconditionally. If we can love our spouses unconditionally after all the horrible things they have done to us then how much easier will that be to translate that love into others in our lives that aren’t so hard to love?

Did I do these things to manipulate H into coming home? No. Sure, I had hopes that he would and God kept telling me that divorce was not in my future, but I did them because it was the right thing to do. I did them knowing that even if he didn’t come back that I would be OK and a lot stronger and better person for having treated him in a loving way while he was being most unlovable. My H didn’t deserve unconditional love. He didn’t deserve me being nice to him. He knows (knew) that, and I knew it too, however, none of us deserve to go to heaven either, but Christ loved us enough to pay that debt for us and loved us unconditionally. He expects us to do the same.

I think cake eating is all about an attitude. If you feel used, if you feel abused then it’s cake eating. If you approach your situation as a person that wants to be more Christ-like and treat others as God would have treated them then it’s not cake eating, it’s unconditional love. I guess you have to decide where you stand on that continuum.

BFM