Still Learning...

[Rita]

Sage, at BD 1, my H angrily went through a list of the men he thought I flirted with as justification for reaching out to old gfs on FB (which he had just joined after 5 years of making fun of it). The list included a 25 year old customer from our business who was a famous movie actor and a couple of priests I seemed "close to." I had never cheated and never would, and I was barely able to find time to put on my shoes, let alone find someone to watch the baby and run a business and conduct an affair or even have one encounter. I was so devoted to my vows that I stayed faithful for seven years after BD and for the many years before that that he pulled away. (Honestly looking back I am not sure he was ever interested in me physically, but that's another story.) Anyway, at that point, when he basically accused me of pursuing relationships with those other men as he set off to a new life while married to me, I didn't know what MLC was then and APOLOGIZED IF I HAD DONE SOMETHING THAT SEEMED INAPPROPRIATE!

And I thought, well, one thing about H is that he would never ever cheat. So I never have to worry about that. Slowly I realized he "might," and then I just prayed for him to get it over with and out of his system so that we could restore our M. I said nothing and did the Love Dare many times over and slowly came to faith because of that. So that's how God used it.

Later I remembered that just after our son was born, he asked me if I had cheated on him because he had some medical issue that could have come from an STD. I had a newborn and a business to run and I LOVED him so I was totally astonished. And the saddest part was that I was happy that he cared if I cheated on him! I had felt like he didn't even know I was alive as a woman. That was in 2005, 8 years before BD.

When I finally did know about the affair -- and I don't know if you know my story, but I found out for sure the day I came home from a mastectomy and saw a text on his phone that said, "To My Secret Other Wife"), I used the word adultery once, some months after that when he started it up with her again. (He stopped right after the surgery, I think.) I never spoke to him about it but once when he tried to talk about it and did not admit that it was wrong to cheat, I told him not to speak to me about his adultery, that was between him and God. He sent me a long reply in which I described all the ways I had been adulterous by being a bad wife. It was an extremely vicious note, as if I had been the one to destroy him and destroy our marriage. I had been standing for a couple of years by then, very faithfully, very kindly, even through cancer and the death of my mother, while he had pretty much disappeared from our family and business.

I tell you that to remind you, BELIEVE NONE OF WHAT THEY SAY AND MAYBE 10% OF WHAT THEY DO.

If you are Christian, the best advice I could give on this is Philipians 4:8. You could also do this as a Buddhist practice. Just to let go of these thoughts and to focus on what is good and true and beautiful, even if it's just the true definition of marriage, no matter who is or isn't following it. Or a beautiful sky. Or the love of a dear friend.