alien invasion II

[hoosiermama]

Here's the history, which may clarify things for you--not the same dynamic, exactly.

Back in '86, XH was in the seminary to be a Catholic priest. Well before I knew him. He was doing a summer chaplaincy rotation in a hospital, met Wicca Woman, fell in love, and left seminary--kinda in the middle of the night. A couple of months later, she dumped him. I don't believe he's ever been dumped, before or since. Because of that, and because he was basically left without any job or resources, it was a fairly traumatic course of events for him, so he talked about it quite a bit in the early days of our relationship, so I was familiar with the relationship. And he had nothing positive to say about her, or their relationship.

Fast forward to March '08. XH takes a job in a different hospital system; during his tours of nursing units, he runs into wicca woman, who is a NICU nurse at the children's hospital. He tells me all about it, with just a tiny bit too much energy; I ask, half-joking, if I should be worried. He laughs it off. Apparently he visited NICU occasionally, watching for an opportunity. A year ago this week it came--chaplains were blessing the hands of nurses (a Nurse's Week thing); he went in during the evening because it was convenient for her, and used some Druid prayers because he knew she wasn't Christian (see, isn't he just the most sensitive guy?!) Then he moved himself into NICU as the chaplain, and a week later--when she admitted feelings for him--he jumps out of the marriage, they literally decide to spend the rest of their lives together on the same day they discussed a mutual attraction; two days later he picked a fight with me and our marriage was over. Never looked back. During the few days he was not yet completely abducted, he told me he had always been in love with her, we should never have gotten married, he deserved happiness and wasn't finding it with me.

I did contact her, about a week into it. I thought I should try everything I could to save my family, and that was part of it, in my mind. I wrote a very courteous and succinct email, respectfully asking her to stop pursuing a relationship with my husband so that we could heal the marriage, and framing it as one mother to another. I got back the biggest bunch of new-age jargon about how they have a deep bond based upon common ways of seeing life, that she was there to support him and that necessarily meant she was supporting me and D13 too, that to withdraw from that relationship would be not true to the healing path she was on, and the type of person she was trying to be, and that she was praying about how "best to serve in this space." I was appalled--Lordy, she was as delusional as he was. I wrote back an even briefer note, saying that H and I also have a deep bond--we called it matrimony and parenthood, and that the way she could "best serve in this space" was to vacate it. That's the last I heard from her!!

So the circumstances are just a bit different; that's how I handled it, which wasn't very effective. I contacted her before I knew anything about DB'ing, and altho it was quite ineffective in restoring our marriage, at least I said something honest and honorable and she demonstrated just how crazy she is.

It would have been difficult no matter who it was (and I subsequently discovered a different brief but consummated emotional affair H had within the previous year).

My biggest concern with all this now is that D13 will probably very shortly have to deal with this wacko woman on a fairly regular basis--unless she dumps XH. And I have a theory that she may be the type of woman who needs to see how much a lover will sacrifice for her; she dumped him after he gave up priesthood, she may well dump him after he has sacrificed his family.

They're going out of town together this weekend to celebrate their first anniversary. Isn't that sweet?